When your Internet cable leaves your living room, where does it go? Almost everything about our day-to-day lives--and the broader scheme of human culture--can be found on the Internet. But what is it physically? And where is it really? Our mental map of the network is as blank as the map of the ocean that Columbus carried on his first Atlantic voyage. The Internet, its material nuts and bolts, is an unexplored territory. Until now. In Tubes, journalist...

New Year's Eve in the city of Terminus. Chaos is this year's resolution. Imagine every cell phone, radio, and television suddenly broadcasting the same mysterious signal over and over. Now imagine these transmissions evoking violent, uncontrollable, psychotic chaos from everyone who comes in contact with them. The signal begins to invade the minds of everyday citizens. Suddenly struck by the power of the insidious transmissions, they are compelled...