Zane swore as a child to someday protect all of the odd people in the world. He studied chameleons and muscle groups as he taught himself to alter his own appearance, and it turned out that skills for blending were very helpful to a young boy too smart and too different to fit in well.   But as an adult, things have changed. Zane finds that he now just wants to be himself. He gets a degree in neuroscience to understand abilities that even he recognizes as astonishing. Worst of all, he is fast discovering that everyone is odd. He hadn't counted on that.   He lands in the sales department of Penthes Pharmaceuticals, only to discover that not everyone at Penthes likes him, or wants him to know the mysteries that the company has worked so hard to keep hidden.   Sent on a sales boondoggle to the South Pacific, he finds others with talents as surprising as his own and with problems far worse. Can he help them all? Can he even help himself? Fantasy, reality and a bit of speculative science come together as Zane uses all the unique abilities he has to resist turning from a murder suspect into a murder victim. Then he has to sort out just how to keep that childhood promise.