diff --git a/neuromancer.txt b/neuromancer.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1244eda..0000000 --- a/neuromancer.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8856 +0,0 @@ - =========== - Neuromancer - =========== - - by - William Gibson - - Dedication: - for Deb - who made it possible - with love - -PART ONE - -CHIBA CITY BLUES - -The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned -to a dead channel. -"It's not like I'm using," Case heard someone say, as he -shouldered his way through the crowd around the door of the -Chat. "It's like my body's developed this massive drug deficiency." -It was a Sprawl voice and a Sprawl joke. The Chatsubo -was a bar for professional expatriates; you could drink there -for a week and never hear two words in Japanese. -Ratz was tending bar, his prosthetic arm jerking monotonously -as he filled a tray of glasses with draft Kirin. He saw -Case and smiled, his teeth a web work of East European steel -and brown decay. Case found a place at the bar, between the -unlikely tan on one of Lonny Zone's whores and the crisp naval -uniform of a tall African whose cheekbones were ridged with -Joe boys," Ratz said, shoving a draft across the bar with his -good hand. "Maybe some business with you, Case?" -Case shrugged. The girl to his right giggled and nudged - - -The bartender's smile widened. His ugliness was the stuff -of legend. In an age of affordable beauty, there was something -heraldic about his lack of it. The antique arm whined as he -reached for another mug. It was a Russian military prosthesis, -a seven-function force-feedback manipulator, cased in grubby -pink plastic. "You are too much the artiste, Herr Case." Ratz -grunted; the sound served him as laughter. He scratched his -overhang of white-shirted belly with the pink claw. "You are -the artiste of the slightly funny deal." -"Sure," Case said, and sipped his beer. "Somebody's gotta -be funny around here. Sure the fuck isn't you." -The whore's giggle went up an octave. -"Isn't you either, sister. So you vanish, okay? Zone, he's -a close personal friend of mine." -She looked Case in the eye and made the softest possible -spitting sound, her lips barely moving. But she left. -"Jesus," Case said, "what kind a creep joint you running here? -Man can't have a drink." -"Ha," Ratz said, swabbing the scarred wood with a rag, -"Zone shows a percentage. You I let work here for entertainment -value." -As Case was picking up his beer, one of those strange -instants of silence descended, as though a hundred unrelated -conversations had simultaneously arrived at the same pause. -Then the whore's giggle rang out, tinged with a certain hysteria. -Ratz grunted. "An angel passed." -"The Chinese," bellowed a drunken Australian, "Chinese -bloody invented nerve-splicing. Give me the mainland for a -nerve job any day. Fix you right, mate...." -"Now that," Case said to his glass, all his bitterness suddenly -rising in him like bile, "that is so much bullshit." - -The Japanese had already forgotten more neurosurgery than -the Chinese had ever known. The black clinics of Chiba were -the cutting edge, whole bodies of technique supplanted monthly, -and still they couldn't repair the damage he'd suffered in that -Memphis hotel. -A year here and he still dreamed of cyberspace, hope fading -nightly. All the speed he took, all the turns he'd taken and the -corners he'd cut in Night City, and still he'd see the matrix in -his sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless -void.... The Sprawl was a long strange way home over the -Pacific now, and he was no console man, no cyberspace cowboy. -Just another hustler, trying to make it through. But the -dreams came on in the Japanese night like live wire voodoo -and he'd cry for it, cry in his sleep, and wake alone in the -dark, curled in his capsule in some coffin hotel, his hands -clawed into the bedslab, temper foam bunched between his fingers, -trying to reach the console that wasn't there. - -"I saw your girl last night," Ratz said, passing Case his -second Kirin. -"I don't have one," he said, and drank. -"Miss Linda Lee." -Case shook his head. -"No girl? Nothing? Only biz, friend artiste? Dedication to -commerce?" The bartender's small brown eyes were nested -deep in wrinkled flesh. "I think I liked you better, with her. -You laughed more. Now, some night, you get maybe too artistic, -you wind up in the clinic tanks, spare parts." -"You're breaking my heart, Ratz." He finished his beer, -paid and left, high narrow shoulders hunched beneath the rain-stained -khaki nylon of his windbreaker. Threading his way -through the Ninsei crowds, he could smell his own stale sweat. -Case was twenty-four. At twenty-two, he'd been a cowboy -a rustler, one of the best in the Sprawl. He'd been trained by -the best, by McCoy Pauley and Bobby Quine, legends in the -biz. He'd operated on an almost permanent adrenaline high, a -byproduct of youth and proficiency, jacked into a custom cyberspace -deck that projected his disembodied consciousness -into the consensual hallucination that was the matrix. A thief -he'd worked for other, wealthier thieves, employers who provided -the exotic software required to penetrate the bright walls -of corporate systems, opening windows into rich fields of data. -He'd made the classic mistake, the one he'd sworn he'd -never make. He stole from his employers. He kept something -for himself and tried to move it through a fence in Amsterdam. -He still wasn't sure how he'd been discovered, not that it -mattered now. He'd expected to die, then, but they only smiled. - - -Of course he was welcome, they told him, welcome to the -money. And he was going to need it. Because--still smiling-- -they were going to make sure he never worked again. -They damaged his nervous system with a wartime Russian -mycotoxin. -Strapped to a bed in a Memphis hotel, his talent burning -out micron by micron, he hallucinated for thirty hours. -The damage was minute, subtle, and utterly effective. -For Case, who'd lived for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace, -it was the Fall. In the bars he'd frequented as a cowboy -hotshot, the elite stance involved a certain relaxed contempt -for the flesh. The body was meat. Case fell into the prison of -his own flesh. - -His total assets were quickly converted to New Yen, a fat -sheaf of the old paper currency that circulated endlessly through -the closed circuit of the world's black markets like the seashells -of the Trobriand islanders. It was difficult to transact legitimate -business with cash in the Sprawl; in Japan, it was already -illegal. -In Japan, he'd known with a clenched and absolute certainty, -he'd find his cure. In Chiba. Either in a registered clinic or in -the shadow land of black medicine. Synonymous with implants, -nerve-splicing, and micro bionics, Chiba was a magnet for the -Sprawl's techno-criminal subcultures. -In Chiba, he'd watched his New Yen vanish in a two-month -round of examinations and consultations. The men in the black -clinics, his last hope, had admired the expertise with which -he'd been maimed, and then slowly shaken their heads. -Now he slept in the cheapest coffins, the ones nearest the -port, beneath the quartz-halogen floods that lit the docks all -night like vast stages; where you couldn't see the lights of -Tokyo for the glare of the television sky, not even the towering -hologram logo of the Fuji Electric Company, and Tokyo Bay -was a black expanse where gulls wheeled above drifting shoals -of white styrofoam. Behind the port lay the city, factory domes -dominated by the vast cubes of corporate arcologies. Port and -city were divided by a narrow borderland of older streets, an -area with no official name. Night City, with Ninsei its heart. -By day, the bars down Ninsei were shuttered and featureless, -the neon dead, the holograms inert, waiting, under the poisoned -silver sky. - -Two blocks west of the Chat, in a teashop called the Jarre -de The, Case washed down the night's first pill with a double -espresso. It was a flat pink octagon, a potent species of Brazilian -dex he bought from one of Zone's girls. -The Jarre was walled with mirrors, each panel framed in -red neon. -At first, finding himself alone in Chiba, with little money -and less hope of finding a cure, he'd gone into a kind of terminal -overdrive, hustling fresh capital with a cold intensity that had -seemed to belong to someone else. In the first month, he'd -killed two men and a woman over sums that a year before -would have seemed ludicrous. Ninsei wore him down until the -street itself came to seem the externalization of some death -wish, some secret poison he hadn't known he carried. -Night City was like a deranged experiment in social Darwinism, -designed by a bored researcher who kept one thumb -permanently on the fast-forward button. Stop hustling and you -sank without a trace, but move a little too swiftly and you'd -break the fragile surface tension of the black market; either -way, you were gone, with nothing left of you but some vague -memory in the mind of a fixture like Ratz, though heart or -lungs or kidneys might survive in the service of some stranger -with New Yen for the clinic tanks. -Biz here was a constant subliminal hum, and death the -accepted punishment for laziness, carelessness, lack of grace, -the failure to heed the demands of an intricate protocol. -Alone at a table in the Jarre de The, with the octagon coming -on, pinheads of sweat starting from his palms, suddenly aware -of each tingling hair on his arms and chest, Case knew that at -some point he'd started to play a game with himself, a very -ancient one that has no name, a final solitaire. He no longer -carried a weapon, no longer took the basic precautions. He ran -the fastest, loosest deals on the street, and he had a reputation -for being able to get whatever you wanted. A part of him knew -that the arc of his self-destruction was glaringly obvious to his -customers, who grew steadily fewer, but that same part of him -basked in the knowledge that it was only a matter of time. And -that was the part of him, smug in its expectation of death, that -most hated the thought of Linda Lee. -He'd found her, one rainy night, in an arcade. -Under bright ghosts burning through a blue haze of cigarette -smoke, holograms of Wizard's Castle, Tank War Europa, -the New York skyline.... And now he remembered her that -way, her face bathed in restless laser light, features reduced to -a code: her cheekbones flaring scarlet as Wizard's Castle burned, -forehead drenched with azure when Munich fell to the Tank -War, mouth touched with hot gold as a gliding cursor struck -sparks from the wall of a skyscraper canyon. He was riding -high that night, with a brick of Wage's ketamine on its way -to Yokohama and the money already in his pocket. He'd come -in out of the warm rain that sizzled across the Ninsei pavement -and somehow she'd been singled out for him, one face out of -the dozens who stood at the consoles, lost in the game she -played. The expression on her face, then, had been the one -he'd seen, hours later, on her sleeping face in a port side coffin, -her upper lip like the line children draw to represent a bird in -flight. -Crossing the arcade to stand beside her, high on the deal -he'd made, he saw her glance up. Gray eyes rimmed with -smudged black paintstick. Eyes of some animal pinned in the -headlights of an oncoming vehicle. -Their night together stretching into a morning, into tickets -at the hover port and his first trip across the Bay. The rain kept -up, falling along Harajuku, beading on her plastic jacket, the -children of Tokyo trooping past the famous boutiques in white -loafers and cling wrap capes, until she'd stood with him in the -midnight clatter of a pachinko parlor and held his hand like a -child. -It took a month for the gestalt of drugs and tension he moved -through to turn those perpetually startled eyes into wells of -reflexive need. He'd watched her personality fragment, calving -like an iceberg, splinters drifting away, and finally he'd seen -the raw need, the hungry armature of addiction. He'd watched -her track the next hit with a concentration that reminded him -of the mantises they sold in stalls along Shiga, beside tanks of -blue mutant carp and crickets caged in bamboo. -He stared at the black ring of grounds in his empty cup. It -was vibrating with the speed he'd taken. The brown laminate -of the table top was dull with a patina of tiny scratches. With -the dex mounting through his spine he saw the countless random -impacts required to create a surface like that. The Jarre was -decorated in a dated, nameless style from the previous century, -an uneasy blend of Japanese traditional and pale Milanese plastics, -but everything seemed to wear a subtle film, as though -the bad nerves of a million customers had somehow attacked -the mirrors and the once glossy plastics, leaving each surface -fogged with something that could never be wiped away. -"Hey. Case, good buddy...." -He looked up, met gray eyes ringed with paintstick. She -was wearing faded French orbital fatigues and new white sneakers. - -"I been lookin' for you, man." She took a seat opposite -him, her elbows on the table. The sleeves of the blue zip suit -had been ripped out at the shoulders; he automatically checked -her arms for signs of derms or the needle. "Want a cigarette?" -She dug a crumpled pack of Yeheyuan filters from an ankle -pocket and offered him one. He took it, let her light it with a -red plastic tube. "You sleep in' okay, Case? You look tired." -Her accent put her south along the Sprawl, toward Atlanta. -The skin below her eyes was pale and unhealthy-looking, but -the flesh was still smooth and firm. She was twenty. New lines -of pain were starting to etch themselves permanently at the -corners of her mouth. Her dark hair was drawn back, held by -a band of printed silk. The pattern might have represented -microcircuits, or a city map. -"Not if I remember to take my pills," he said, as a tangible -wave of longing hit him, lust and loneliness riding in on the -wavelength of amphetamine. He remembered the smell of her -skin in the overheated darkness of a coffin near the port, her -locked across the small of his back. -All the meat, he thought, and all it wants. -"Wage," she said, narrowing her eyes. "He wants to see -you with a hole in your face." She lit her own cigarette. -"Who says? Ratz? You been talking to Ratz?" -"No. Mona. Her new squeeze is one of Wage's boys." -"I don't owe him enough. He does me, he's out the money -anyway." He shrugged. - -"Too many people owe him now, Case. Maybe you get to -be the example. You seriously better watch it." -"Sure. How about you, Linda? You got anywhere to sleep?" -"Sleep." She shook her head. "Sure, Case." She shivered, -hunched forward over the table. Her face was filmed with -sweat. -"Here," he said, and dug in the pocket of his windbreaker, -coming up with a crumpled fifty. He smoothed it automatically, -under the table, folded it in quarters, and passed it to her. -"You need that, honey. You better give it to Wage." There -was something in the gray eyes now that he couldn't read, -something he'd never seen there before. -"I owe Wage a lot more than that. Take it. I got more -coming," he lied, as he watched his New Yen vanish into a -zippered pocket. -"You get your money, Case, you find Wage quick." -"I'll see you, Linda," he said, getting up. -"Sure." A millimeter of white showed beneath each of her -pupils. Sanpaku. "You watch your back, man." -He nodded, anxious to be gone. -He looked back as the plastic door swung shut behind him, -saw her eyes reflected in a cage of red neon. - -Friday night on Ninsei. -He passed yakitori stands and massage parlors, a franchised -coffee shop called Beautiful Girl, the electronic thunder of an -arcade. He stepped out of the way to let a dark-suited sarariman -by, spotting the Mitsubishi-Genentech logo tattooed across the -back of the man's right hand. -Was it authentic? if that's for real, he thought, he's in for -trouble. If it wasn't, served him right. M-G employees above -a certain level were implanted with advanced microprocessors -that monitored mutagen levels in the bloodstream. Gear like -that would get you rolled in Night City, rolled straight into a -black clinic. -The sarariman had been Japanese, but the Ninsei crowd was -a gaijin crowd. Groups of sailors up from the port, tense solitary -tourists hunting pleasures no guidebook listed, Sprawl heavies -showing off grafts and implants, and a dozen distinct species. -of hustler, all swarming the street in an intricate dance of desire -and commerce. -There were countless theories explaining why Chiba City -tolerated the Ninsei enclave, but Case tended toward the idea -that the Yakuza might be preserving the place as a kind of -historical park, a reminder of humble origins. But he also -saw a certain sense in the notion that burgeoning technologies -require outlaw zones, that Night City wasn't there for its inhabitants, -but as a deliberately unsupervised playground for -technology itself. -Was Linda right, he wondered, staring up at the lights? -Would Wage have him killed to make an example? It didn't -make much sense, but then Wage dealt primarily in proscribed -biologicals, and they said you had to be crazy to do that. -But Linda said Wage wanted him dead. Case's primary -insight into the dynamics of street dealing was that neither the -buyer nor the seller really needed him. A middleman's business -is to make himself a necessary evil. The dubious niche Case -had carved for himself in the criminal ecology of Night City -had beep cut out with lies, scooped out a night at a time with -betrayal. Now, sensing that its walls were starting to crumble, -he felt the edge of a strange euphoria. -The week before, he'd delayed transfer of a synthetic glandular -extract, retailing it for a wider margin than usual. He -knew Wage hadn't liked that. Wage was his primary supplier, -nine years in Chiba and one of the few gaijin dealers who'd -Managed to forge links with the rigidly stratified criminal establishment -beyond Night City's borders. Genetic materials and -hormones trickled down to Ninsei along an intricate ladder of -fronts and blinds. Somehow Wage had managed to trace something -back, once, and now he enjoyed steady connections in a -dozen cities. -Case found himself staring through a shop window. The -place sold small bright objects to the sailors. Watches, flicknives, -lighters, pocket VTRs, Sims Tim decks, weighted man- -riki chains, and shuriken. The shuriken had always fascinated -him, steel stars with knife-sharp points. Some were chromed, -others black, others treated with a rainbow surface like oil on -water. But the chrome stars held his gaze. They were mounted -against scarlet ultra suede with nearly invisible loops of nylon -fish line, their centers stamped with dragons or yin yang symbols. -They caught the street's neon and twisted it, and it came -to Case that these were the stars under which he voyaged, his -destiny spelled out in a constellation of cheap chrome. -"Julie," he said to his stars. "Time to see old Julie. He'll -know." - -Julius Deane was one hundred and thirty-five years old, his -metabolism assiduously warped by a weekly fortune in serums -and hormones. His primary hedge against aging was a yearly -pilgrimage to Tokyo, where genetic surgeons re-set the code -of his DNA, a procedure unavailable in Chiba. Then he'd fly -to Hong-Kong and order the year's suits and shirts. Sex-less and -inhumanly patient, his primary gratification seemed to lie in -his devotion to esoteric forms of tailor-worship. Case had never -seen him wear the same suit twice, although his wardrobe -seemed to consist entirely of meticulous reconstructions of garments -of the previous century. He affected prescription lenses, -framed in spidery gold, ground from thin slabs of pink synthetic -quartz and beveled like the mirrors in a Victorian doll house. -His offices were located in a warehouse behind Ninsei, part -of which seemed to have been sparsely decorated, years before, -with a random collection of European furniture, as though -Deane had once intended to use the place as his home. Neo-Aztec -bookcases gathered dust against one wall of the room -where Case waited. A pair of bulbous Disney-styled table lamps -perched awkwardly on a low Kandinsky-look coffee table in -scarlet-lacquered steel. A Dali clock hung on the wall between -the bookcases, its distorted face sagging to the bare concrete -floor. Its hands were holograms that altered to match the convolutions -of the face as they rotated, but it never told the correct -time. The room was stacked with white fiberglass shipping -modules that gave off the tang of preserved ginger. -"You seem to be clean, old son," said Deane's disembodied -voice. "Do come in." -Magnetic bolts thudded out of position around the massive -imitation-rosewood door to the left of the bookcases. JULIUS -DEANE IMPORT EXPORT was lettered across the plastic in -peeling self-adhesive capitals. If the furniture scattered in -Deane's makeshift foyer suggested the end of the past century, -the office itself seemed to belong to its start. -Deane's seamless pink face regarded Case from a pool of -light cast by an ancient brass lamp with a rectangular shade of -dark green glass. The importer was securely fenced behind a -vast desk of painted steel, flanked on either side by tall, drawer -Ed cabinets made of some sort of pale wood. The sort of -thing, Case supposed, that had once been used to store written -records of some kind. The desktop was littered with cassettes, -scrolls of yellowed printout, and various parts of some sort of -clockwork typewriter, a machine Deane never seemed to get -around to reassembling. -"What brings you around, boy?" Deane asked, offering -Case a narrow bonbon wrapped in blue-and-white checked paper. -"Try one. Tins Ting Djahe, the very best." Case refused -the ginger, took a seat in a yawing wooden swivel chair, and -ran a thumb down the faded seam of one black jeans-leg. "Julie -I hear Wage wants to kill me." -"Ah. Well then. And where did you hear this, if I may?" -"People." -"People," Deane said, around a ginger bonbon. "What sort -of people? Friends?" -Case nodded. -"Not always that easy to know who your friends are, is it?" -"I do owe him a little money, Deane. He say anything to -you?" -"Haven't been in touch, of late." Then he sighed. "If I did -know, of course, I might not be in a position to tell you. Things -being what they are, you understand." -"Things?" -"He's an important connection Case." -"Yeah. He want to kill me, Julie?" -"Not that I know of." Deane shrugged. They might have -been discussing the price of ginger. "If it proves to be an -unfounded rumor, old son, you come back in a week or so and -I'll let you in on a little something out of Singapore." -"Out of the Nan Hai Hotel, Bencoolen Street?" -"Loose lips, old son!" Deane grinned. The steel desk was -jammed with a fortune in debugging gear. -"Be seeing you, Julie. I'll say hello to Wage." - -Deane's fingers came up to brush the perfect knot in his -pale silk tie. - -He was less than a block from Deane's office when it hit, -the sudden cellular awareness that someone was on his ass, -and very close. -The cultivation of a certain tame paranoia was something -Case took for granted. The trick lay in not letting it get out of -control. But that could be quite a trick, behind a stack of -octagons. He fought the adrenaline surge and composed his -narrow features in a mask of bored vacancy, pretending to let -the crowd carry him along. When he saw a darkened display -window, he managed to pause by it. The place was a surgical -boutique, closed for renovations. With his hands in the pockets -of his jacket, he stared through the glass at a flat lozenge of -vat grown flesh that lay on a carved pedestal of imitation jade. -The color of its skin reminded him of Zone's whores; it was -tattooed with a luminous digital display wired to a sub-cutaneous -chip. Why bother with the surgery, he found himself thinking, -while sweat coursed down his ribs, when you could just carry -the thing around in your pocket? -Without moving his head, he raised his eyes and studied -the reflection of the passing crowd. -There. -Behind sailors in short-sleeved khaki. Dark hair, mirrored -glasses, dark clothing, slender. . . -And gone. -Then Case was running, bent low, dodging between bodies. - -"Rent me a gun, Shin?" -The boy smiled. "Two hour." They stood together in the -smell of fresh raw seafood at the rear of a Shiga sushi stall. -"You come back, two hour." -"I need one now, man. Got anything right now?" -Shin rummaged behind empty two-liter cans that had once -been filled with powdered horseradish. He produced a slender -package wrapped in gray plastic. "Taser. One hour, twenty -New Yen. Thirty deposit." -"Shit. I don't need that. I need a gun. Like I maybe wanna -shoot somebody, understand?" -The waiter shrugged, replacing the taser behind the horseradish -cans. "Two hour." -He went into the shop without bothering to glance at the -display of shuriken. He'd never thrown one in his life. -He bought two packs of Yeheyuans with a Mitsubishi Bank -chip that gave his name as Charles Derek May. It beat Truman -Starr, the best he'd been able to do for a passport. -The Japanese woman behind the terminal looked like she -had a few years on old Deane, none of them with the benefit -of science. He took his slender roll of New Yen out of his -pocket and showed it to her. "I want to buy a weapon." -She gestured in the direction of a case filled with knives. -"No," he said, "I don't like knives." -She brought an oblong box from beneath the counter. The -lid was yellow cardboard, stamped with a crude image of a -coiled cobra with a swollen hood. Inside were eight identical -tissue-wrapped cylinders. He watched while mottled brown -fingers stripped the paper from one. She held the thing up for -him to examine, a dull steel tube with a leather thong at one -end and a small bronze pyramid at the other. She gripped the -tube with one hand, the pyramid between her other thumb and -forefinger, and pulled. Three oiled, telescoping segments of -tightly wound coil spring slid out and locked. "Cobra," she said. - -Beyond the neon shudder of Ninsei, the sky was that mean -shade of gray. The air had gotten worse; it seemed to have -teeth tonight, and half the crowd wore filtration masks. Case -had spent ten minutes in a urinal, trying to discover a convenient -way to conceal his cobra; finally he'd settled for tucking the -handle into the waistband of his jeans, with the tube slanting -across his stomach. The pyramidal striking tip rode between -his ribcage and the lining of his windbreaker. The thing felt -like it might clatter to the pavement with his next step, but it -made him feel better. -The Chat wasn't really a dealing bar, but on weeknights it -attracted a related clientele. Fridays and Saturdays were different. -The regulars were still there, most of them, but they -faded behind an influx of sailors and the specialists who preyed -on diem. As Case pushed through the doors, he looked for -Ratz, but the bartender wasn't in sight. Lonny Zone, the bar's -resident pimp, was observing with glazed fatherly interest as -one of his girls went to work on a young sailor. Zone was -addicted to a brand of hypnotic the Japanese called Cloud -Dancers. Catching the pimp's eye, Case beckoned him to the -bar. Zone came drifting through the crowd in slow motion, his -long face slack and placid. -"You seen Wage tonight, Lonny?" -Zone regarded him with his usual calm. He shook his head. -"You sure, man?" -"Maybe in the Namban. Maybe two hours ago." -"Got some Joeboys with him? One of 'em thin, dark hair, -maybe a black jacket?" -"No," Zone said at last, his smooth forehead creased to -indicate the effort it cost him to recall so much pointless detail. -"Big boys. Graftees." Zone's eyes showed very little white and -less iris; under the drooping lids, his pupils were dilated and -enormous. He stared into Case's face for a long time, then -lowered his gaze. He saw the bulge of the steel whip. "Cobra," -he said, and raised an eyebrow. "You wanna fuck somebody -up?" -"See you, Lonny." Case left the bar. - -His tail was back. He was sure of it. He felt a stab of elation -the octagons and adrenaline mingling with something else. -You're enjoying this, he thought; you're crazy. -Because, in some weird and very approximate way, it was -like a run in the matrix. Get just wasted enough, find yourself -in some desperate but strangely arbitrary kind of trouble, and -it was possible to see Ninsei as a field of data, the way the -matrix had once reminded him of proteins linking to distinguish -cell specialties. Then you could throw yourself into a high-speed -drift and skid, totally engaged but set apart from it all, and all -around you the dance of biz, information interacting, data made -flesh in the mazes of the black market.... -Go it, Case, he told himself. Suck 'em in. Last thing they'll -expect. He was half a block from the games arcade where he'd -first met Linda Lee. -He bolted across Ninsei, scattering a pack of strolling sailors. -One of them screamed after him in Spanish. Then he was -through the entrance, the sound crashing over him like surf, -subsonics throbbing in the pit of his stomach. Someone scored -a ten-megaton hit on Tank War Europa, a simulated air burst -drowning the arcade in white sound as a lurid hologram fireball -mushroomed overhead. He cut to the right and loped up a flight -of unpainted chip board stairs. He'd come here once with Wage, -to discuss a deal in proscribed hormonal triggers with a man -called Matsuga. He remembered the hallway, its stained matting, -the row of identical doors leading to tiny office cubicles. -One door was open now. A Japanese girl in a sleeveless black -t-shirt glanced up from a white terminal, behind her head a -travel poster of Greece, Aegian blue splashed with streamlined -ideograms. -"Get your security up here," Case told her. -Then he sprinted down the corridor, out of her sight. The -last two doors were closed and, he assumed, locked. He spun -and slammed the sole of his nylon running shoe into the blue-lacquered -composition door at the far end. It popped, cheap -hardware falling from the splintered frame. Darkness there, the -white curve of a terminal housing. Then he was on the door -to its right, both hands around the transparent plastic knob, -leaning in with everything he had. Something snapped, and he -was inside. This was where he and Wage had met with Matsuga, -but whatever front company Matsuga had operated was -long gone. No terminal, nothing. Light from the alley behind -the arcade, filtering in through soot blown plastic. He made out -a snake like loop of fiber optics protruding from a wall socket, -a pile of discarded food containers, and the blade less nacelle -of an electric fan. -The window was a single pane of cheap plastic. He shrugged -out of his jacket, bundled it around his right hand, and punched. -It split, requiring two more blows to free it from the frame. -Over the muted chaos of the games, an alarm began to cycle, -triggered either by the broken window or by the girl at the head -of the corridor. -Case turned, pulled his jacket on, and flicked the cobra to -full extension. -With the door closed, he was counting on his tail to assume -he'd gone through the one he'd kicked half off its hinges. The -cobra's bronze pyramid began to bob gently, the spring-steel -shaft amplifying his pulse. -Nothing happened. There was only the surging of the alarm, -the crashing of the games, his heart hammering. When the fear -came, it was like some half-forgotten friend. Not the cold -rapid mechanism of the dex-paranoia, but simple animal fear. -He'd lived for so long on a constant edge of anxiety that he'd -almost forgotten what real fear was. -This cubicle was the sort of place where people died. He -might die here. They might have guns.... -A crash, from the far end of the corridor. A man's voice, -shouting something in Japanese. A scream, shrill terror. Another -crash. -And footsteps, unhurried, coming closer. -Passing his closed door. Pausing for the space of three rapid -beats of his heart. And returning. One, two, three. A bootheel -scraped the matting. -The last of his octagon-induced bravado collapsed. He -snapped the cobra into its handle and scrambled for the window, -blind with fear, his nerves screaming. He was up, out, and -falling, all before he was conscious of what he'd done. The -impact with pavement drove dull rods of pain through his shins. -A narrow wedge of light from a half-open service hatch -framed a heap of discarded fiber optics and the chassis of a -junked console. He'd fallen face forward on a slab of soggy -chip board, he rolled over, into the shadow of the console. The -cubicle's window was a square of faint light. The alarm still -oscillated, louder here, the rear wall dulling the roar of the -games. -A head appeared, framed in the window, back lit by the -fluorescents in the corridor, then vanished. It returned, but he -still couldn't read the features. Glint of silver across the eyes. -"Shit," someone said, a woman, in the accent of the northern -Sprawl. -The head was gone. Case lay under the console for a long -count of twenty, then stood up. The steel cobra was still in his -hand, and it took him a few seconds to remember what it was. -He limped away down the alley, nursing his left ankle. - -Shin's pistol was a fifty-year-old Vietnamese imitation of -a South American copy of a Walther PPK, double-action on -the first shot, with a very rough pull. It was chambered for .22 -long rifle, and Case would've preferred lead azide explosives -to the simple Chinese hollow points Shin had sold him. Still -it was a handgun and nine rounds of ammunition, and as he -made his way down Shiga from the sushi stall he cradled it in -his jacket pocket. The grips were bright red plastic molded in -a raised dragon motif, something to run your thumb across -in the dark. He'd consigned the cobra to a dump canister on -Ninsei and dry-swallowed another octagon. -The pill lit his circuits and he rode the rush down Shiga to -Ninsei, then over to Baiitsu. His tail, he'd decided, was gone -and that was fine. He had calls to make, biz to transact, and -it wouldn't wait. A block down Baiitsu, toward the port, stood -a featureless ten-story office building in ugly yellow brick. Its -windows were dark now, but a faint glow from the roof was -visible if you craned your neck. An unlit neon sign near the -main entrance offered CHEAP HOTEL under a cluster of ideograms. -If the place had another name, Case didn't know it; it -was always referred to as Cheap Hotel. You reached it through -an alley off Baiitsu, where an elevator waited at the foot of a -transparent shaft. The elevator, like Cheap Hotel, was an afterthought, -lashed to the building with bamboo and epoxy. Case -climbed into the plastic cage and used his key, an unmarked -length of rigid magnetic tape. -Case had rented a coffin here, on a weekly basis, since he'd -arrived in Chiba, but he'd never slept in Cheap Hotel. He slept -in cheaper places. -The elevator smelled of perfume and cigarettes; the sides -of the cage was scratched and thumb-smudged. As it passed the -fifth floor, he saw the lights of Ninsei. He drummed his fingers -against the pistol grip as the cage slowed with a gradual hiss. -As always, it came to a full stop with a violent jolt, but he -was ready for it. He stepped out into the courtyard that served -the place as some combination of lobby and lawn. -Centered in the square carpet of green plastic turf, a lapanese -teenager sat behind a C-shaped console, reading a textbook. -The white fiberglass coffins were racked in a framework of -industrial scaffolding. Six tiers of coffins, ten coffins on a side. - -Case nodded in the boy's direction and limped across the plastic -grass to the nearest ladder. The compound was roofed with -cheap laminated matting that rattled in a strong wind and leaked -when it rained, but the coffins were reasonably difficult to open -without a key. -The expansion-grate catwalk vibrated with his weight as he -edged his way along the third tier to Number 92. The coffins -were three meters long, the oval hatches a meter wide and just -under a meter and a half tall. He fed his key into the slot and -waited for verification from the house computer. Magnetic bolts -thudded reassuringly and the hatch rose vertically with a creak -of springs. Fluorescents flickered on as he crawled in, pulling -the hatch shut behind him and slapping the panel that activated -the manual latch. -There was nothing in Number 92 but a standard Hitachi -pocket computer and a small white styrofoam cooler chest. The -cooler contained the remains of three ten-kilo slabs of dry ice -carefully wrapped in paper to delay evaporation, and a spun -aluminum lab flask. Crouching on the brown temper foam slab -that was both floor and bed, Case took Shin's .22 from his -pocket and put it on top of the cooler. Then he took off his -jacket. The coffin's terminal was molded into one concave wall, -opposite a panel listing house rules in seven languages. Case -took the pink handset from its cradle and punched a Hong-Kong -number from memory. He let it ring five times, then hung up. -His buyer for the three megabytes of hot RAM in the Hitachi -wasn't taking calls. -He punched a Tokyo number in Shinjuku. -A woman answered, something in Japanese. -"Snake Man there?" -"Very good to hear from you," said Snake Man, coming in -on an extension. "I've been expecting your call." -"I got the music you wanted." Glancing at the cooler. -"I'm very glad to hear that. We have a cash flow problem. -Can you front?" -"Oh, man, I really need the money bad...." -Snake Man hung up. -"You shit " Case said to the humming receiver. He stared -at the cheap little pistol. -"Iffy," he said, "it's all looking very iffy tonight." - -Case walked into the Chat an hour before dawn, both hands -in the pockets of his jacket; one held the rented pistol, the other -the aluminum flask. -Ratz was at a rear table, drinking Apollonaris water from -a beer pitcher, his hundred and twenty kilos of doughy flesh -tilted against the wall on a creaking chair. A Brazilian kid -called Kurt was on the bar, tending a thin crowd of mostly -silent drunks. Ratz's plastic arm buzzed as he raised the pitcher -and drank. His shaven head was filmed with sweat. "You look -bad, friend artiste," he said, flashing the wet ruin of his teeth. -"I'm doing just fine," said Case, and grinned like a skull. -"Super fine." He sagged into the chair opposite Ratz, hands -still in his pockets. -"And you wander back and forth in this portable bombshelter -built of booze and ups, sure. Proof against the grosser emotions, -yes?" -"Why don't you get off my case, Ratz? You seen Wage?" -"Proof against fear and being alone," the bartender continued. -"Listen to the fear. Maybe it's your friend." -"You hear anything about a fight in the arcade tonight, Ratz? -Somebody hurt?" -"Crazy cut a security man." He shrugged. "A girl, they -say." -"I gotta talk to Wage, Ratz, I. . ." -"Ah." Ratz's mouth narrowed, compressed into a single -line. He was looking past Case, toward the entrance. "I think -you are about to." -Case had a sudden flash of the shuriken in their window. -The speed sang in his head. The pistol in his hand was slippery -with sweat. -"Herr Wage," Ratz said, slowly extending his pink manipulator -as if he expected it to be shaken. "How great a pleasure. -Too seldom do you honor us." -Case turned his head and looked up into Wage's face. It -was a tanned and forgettable mask. The eyes were vat grown -sea-green Nikon transplants. Wage wore a suit of gunmetal -silk and a simple bracelet of platinum on either wrist. He was -flanked by his Joe boys, nearly identical young men, their arms -and shoulders bulging with grafted muscle. - -"How you doing, Case?" -"Gentlemen," said Ratz, picking up the table's heaped ashtray -in his pink plastic claw, "I want no trouble here." The -ashtray was made of thick, shatterproof plastic, and advertised -Tsingtao beer. Ratz crushed it smoothly, butts and shards of -green plastic cascading onto the table top. "You understand?" -"Hey, sweetheart," said one of the Joe boys, "you wanna try -that thing on me?" -"Don't bother aiming for the legs, Kurt," Ratz said, his tone -conversational. Case glanced across the room and saw the Brazilian -standing on the bar, aiming a Smith & Wesson riot gun -at the trio. The thing's barrel, made of paper-thin alloy wrapped -with a kilometer of glass filament, was wide enough to swallow -a fist. The skeletal magazine revealed five fat orange cartridges, -subsonic sandbag jellies. -"Technically nonlethal," said Ratz. -"Hey, Ratz," Case said, "I owe you one." -The bartender shrugged. "Nothing, you owe me. These," -and he glowered at Wage and the Joe boys, "should know better. -You don't take anybody off in the Chatsubo." -Wage coughed. "So who's talking about taking anybody -off? We just wanna talk business. Case and me, we work -together." -Case pulled the .22 out of his pocket and level led it at -Wage's crotch. "I hear you wanna do me." Ratz's pink claw -closed around the pistol and Case let his hand go limp. -"Look, Case, you tell me what the fuck is going on with -you, you wig or something? What's this shit I'm trying to kill -you?" Wage turned to the boy on his left. "You two go back -to the Namban. Wait for me." -Case watched as they crossed the bar, which was now entirely -deserted except for Kurt and a drunken sailor in khakis, -who was curled at the foot of a barstool. The barrel of the -Smith & Wesson tracked the two to the door, then swung back -to cover Wage. The magazine of Case's pistol clattered on the -table. Ratz held the gun in his claw and pumped the round out -of the chamber. -"Who told you I was going to hit you, Case?" Wage asked. -Linda. -"Who told you, man? Somebody trying to set you up?" -The sailor moaned and vomited explosively. -"Get him out of here," Ratz called to Kurt, who was sitting -on the edge of the bar now, the Smith & Wesson across his -lap, lighting a cigarette. -Case felt the weight of the night come down on him like a -bag of wet sand settling behind his eyes. He took the flask out -of his pocket and handed it to Wage. "All I got. Pituitaries. -Get you five hundred if you move it fast. Had the rest of my -roll in some RAM, but that's gone by now." -"You okay, Case?" The flask had already vanished behind -a gunmetal lapel. "I mean, fine, this'll square us, but you look -bad. Like hammered shit. You better go somewhere and sleep." -"Yeah." He stood up and felt the Chat sway around him. -"Well, I had this fifty, but I gave it to somebody." He giggled. -He picked up the .22's magazine and the one loose cartridge -and dropped them into one pocket, then put the pistol in the -other. "I gotta see Shin, get my deposit back." -"Go home," said Ratz, shifting on the creaking chair with -something like embarrassment. "Artiste. Go home." -He felt them watching as he crossed the room and shouldered -his way past the plastic doors. - -"Bitch," he said to the rose tint over Shiga. Down on Ninsei -the holograms were vanishing like ghosts, and most of the neon -was already cold and dead. He sipped thick black coffee from -a street vendor's foam thimble and watched the sun come up. -"You fly away, honey. Towns like this are for people who like -the way down." But that wasn't it, really, and he was finding -it increasingly hard to maintain the sense of betrayal. She just -wanted a ticket home, and the RAM in his Hitachi would buy -it for her, if she could find the right fence. And that business -with the fifty; she'd almost turned it down, knowing she was -about to rip him for the rest of what he had. -When he climbed out of the elevator, the same boy was on -the desk. Different textbook. "Good buddy," Case called across -the plastic turf, "you don't need to tell me. I know already. -Pretty lady came to visit, said she had my key. Nice little tip -for you, say fifty New ones?" The boy put down his book. -"Woman," Case said, and drew a line across his forehead with -his thumb. "Silk." He smiled broadly. The boy smiled back, -nodded. "Thanks, ass hole," Case said. -On the catwalk, he had trouble with the lock. She'd messed -it up somehow when she'd fiddled it, he thought. Beginner. -He knew where to rent a black box that would open anything -in Cheap Hotel. Fluorescents came on as he crawled in. -"Close the hatch real slow, friend. You still got that Saturday -night special you rented from the waiter?" -She sat with her back to the wall, at the far end of the coffin. -She had her knees up, resting her wrists on them, the pepper box -muzzle of a flechette pistol emerged from her hands. -"That you in the arcade?" He pulled the hatch down. -"Where's Linda?" -"Hit that latch switch." -He did. -"That your girl? Linda?" -He nodded. -"She's gone. Took your Hitachi. Real nervous kid. What -about the gun, man?" She wore mirrored glasses. Her clothes -were black, the heels of black boots deep in the temper foam. -"I took it back to Shin, got my deposit. Sold his bullets -back to him for half what I paid. You want the money?" -"No." -"Want some dry ice? All I got, right now." -"What got into you tonight? Why'd you pull that scene at -the arcade? I had to mess up this rentacop came after me with -nun chucks. " -"Linda said you were gonna kill me." -"Linda said? I never saw her before I came up here." -"You aren't with Wage?" -She shook her head. He realized that the glasses were surgically -inset, sealing her sockets. The silver lenses seemed to -grow from smooth pale skin above her cheekbones, framed by -dark hair cut in a rough shag. The fingers curled around the -fletcher were slender, white, tipped with polished burgundy. -The nails looked artificial. "I think you screwed up, Case. I -showed up and you just fit me right into your reality picture." -"So what do you want, lady?" He sagged back against the -hatch. -"You. One live body, brains still somewhat intact. Molly, -Case. My name's Molly. I'm collecting you for the man I work -for. Just wants to talk, is all. Nobody wants to hurt you " -"That's good." -"'Cept I do hurt people sometimes, Case. I guess it's just -the way I'm wired." She wore tight black glove leather jeans -and a bulky black jacket cut from some matte fabric that seemed -to absorb light. "If I put this dart gun away, will you be easy, -Case? You look like you like to take stupid chances." -"Hey, I'm very easy. I'm a pushover, no problem." -"That's fine, man." The fletcher vanished into the black -jacket. "Because you try to fuck around with me, you'll be -taking one of the stupidest chances of your whole life." -She held out her hands, palms up, the white fingers slightly -spread, and with a barely audible click, ten double-edged, four - centimeter scalpel blades slid from their housings beneath the -burgundy nails. -She smiled. The blades slowly withdrew. - -After a year of coffins, the room on the twenty-fifth floor -of the Chiba Hilton seemed enormous. It was ten meters by -eight, half of a suite. A white Braun coffee maker steamed on -a low table by the sliding glass panels that opened onto a narrow -balcony. -"Get some coffee in you. Look like you need it." She took -off her black jacket, the fletcher hung beneath her arm in a -black nylon shoulder rig. She wore a sleeveless gray pullover -with plain steel zips across each shoulder. Bulletproof, Case -decided, slopping coffee into a bright red mug. His arms and -legs felt like they were made out of wood. -"Case." He looked up, seeing the man for the first time. -"My name is Armitage." The dark robe was open to the waist, -the broad chest hairless and muscular, the stomach flat and -hard. Blue eyes so pale they made Case think of bleach. "Sun's -up, Case. This is your lucky day, boy." -Case whipped his arm sideways and the man easily ducked -the scalding coffee. Brown stain running down the imitation - -rice paper wall. He saw the angular gold ring through the left -lobe. Special Forces. The man smiled. -"Get your coffee, Case," Molly said. "You're okay, but -you're not going anywhere 'til Armitage has his say." She sat -cross legged on a silk futon and began to fieldstrip the fletcher -without bothering to look at it. Twin mirrors tracking as he -crossed to the table and refilled his cup. -"Too young to remember the war, aren't you, Case?" Armitage -ran a large hand back through his cropped brown hair. -A heavy gold bracelet flashed on his wrist. "Leningrad, Kiev, -Siberia. We invented you in Siberia, Case." -"What's that supposed to mean?" -"Screaming Fist, Case. You've heard the name." -"Some kind of run, wasn't it? Tried to burn this Russian -nexus with virus programs. Yeah, I heard about it. And nobody -got out." -He sensed abrupt tension. Armitage walked to the window -and looked out over Tokyo Bay. "That isn't true. One unit -made it back to Helsinki, Case." -Case shrugged, sipped coffee. -"You're a console cowboy. The prototypes of the programs -you use to crack industrial banks were developed for Screaming -Fist. For the assault on the Kirensk computer nexus. Basic -module was a Nightwing micro light, a pilot, a matrix deck, a -jockey. We were running a virus called Mole. The Mole series -was the first generation of real intrusion programs." -"Icebreakers," Case said, over the rim of the red mug. -"Ice from ICE, intrusion countermeasures electronics." -"Problem is, mister, I'm no jockey now, so I think I'll just -be going...." -"I was there, Case; I was there when they invented your -kind." -"You got zip to do with me and my kind, buddy. You're -rich enough to hire expensive razor girls to haul my ass up here, -is all. I'm never gonna punch any deck again, not for you or -anybody else." He crossed to the window and looked down. -"That's where I live now." -"Our profile says you're trying to con the street into killing -you when you're not looking." -"Profile?" -"We've built up a detailed model. Bought a go-to for each -of your aliases and ran the skim through some military software. -You're suicidal, Case. The model gives you a month on the -outside. And our medical projection says you'll need a new -pancreas inside a year." -"We." He met the faded blue eyes. "We who?" -"What would you say if I told you we could correct your -neural damage, Case'?" Armitage suddenly looked to Case as -if he were carved from a block of metal; inert, enormously -heavy. A statue. He knew now that this was a dream, and that -soon he'd wake. Armitage wouldn't speak again. Case's dreams -always ended in these freeze frames, and now this one was -over. -"What would you say, Case?" -Case looked out over the Bay and shivered. -"I'd say you were full of shit." -Armitage nodded. -"Then I'd ask what your terms were." -"Not very different than what you're used to, Case." -"Let the man get some sleep, Armitage," Molly said from -her futon, the components of the fletcher spread on the silk -like some expensive puzzle. "He's coming apart at the seams." -"Terms," Case said, "and now. Right now." -He was still shivering. He couldn't stop shivering. - -The clinic was nameless, expensively appointed, a cluster -of sleek pavilions separated by small formal gardens. He remembered -the place from the round he'd made his first month -in Chiba. -"Scared, Case. You're real scared." It was Sunday afternoon -and he stood with Molly in a sort of courtyard. White boulders, -a stand of green bamboo, black gravel raked into smooth waves. -A gardener, a thing like a large metal crab, was tending the -bamboo. -"It'll work, Case. You got no idea, the kind of stuff Armitage -has. Like he's gonna pay these nerve boys for fixing -you with the program he's giving them to tell them how to do -it. He'll put them three years ahead of the competition. You -got any idea what that's worth?" She hooked thumbs in the -belt loops of her leather jeans and rocked backward on the -lacquered heels of cherry red cowboy boots. The narrow toes -were sheathed in bright Mexican silver. The lenses were empty -quicksilver, regarding him with an insect calm. -"You're street samurai," he said. "How long you work for -him?" -"Couple of months." -"What about before that?" -"For somebody else. Working girl, you know?" -He nodded. -"Funny, Case." -"What's funny?" -"It's like I know you. That profile he's got. I know how -you're wired." -"You don't know me, sister." -"You're okay, Case. What got you, it's just called bad luck." -"How about him? He okay, Molly?" The robot crab moved -toward them, picking its way over the waves of gravel. Its -bronze carapace might have been a thousand years old. When -it was within a meter of her boots, it fired a burst of light, then -froze for an instant, analyzing data obtained. -"What I always think about first, Case, is my own sweet -ass." The crab had altered course to avoid her, but she kicked -it with a smooth precision, the silver boot-tip clanging on the -carapace. The thing fell on its back, but the bronze limbs soon -righted it. -Case sat on one of the boulders, scuffing at the symmetry -of the gravel waves with the toes of his shoes. He began to -search his pockets for cigarettes. "In your shirt," she said. -"You want to answer my question?" He fished a wrinkled -Yeheyuan from the pack and she lit it for him with a thin slab -of German steel that looked as though it belonged on an operating -table. -"Well, I'll tell you, the man's definitely on to something. -He's got big money now, and he's never had it before, and he -gets more all the time." Case noticed a certain tension around -her mouth. "Or maybe, maybe something's on to him...." -She shrugged. -"What's that mean?" -"I don't know, exactly. I know I don't know who or what -we're really working for." -He stared at the twin mirrors. Leaving the Hilton, Saturday -morning, he'd gone back to Cheap Hotel and slept for ten hours . -Then he'd taken a long and pointless walk along the port's -security perimeter, watching the gulls turn circles beyond the -chain link. If she'd followed him, she'd done a good job of it. -He'd avoided Night City. He'd waited in the coffin for Armitage's -call. Now this quiet courtyard, Sunday afternoon, this -girl with a gymnast's body and conjurer's hands. -"If you'll come in now, sir, the anesthetist is waiting to -meet you." The technician bowed, turned, and reentered the -clinic without waiting to see if Case would follow. - -Cold steel odor. Ice caressed his spine. -Lost, so small amid that dark, hands grown cold, body image -fading down corridors of television sky. -Voices. -Then black fire found the branching tributaries of the nerves, -pain beyond anything to which the name of pain is given.... - -Hold still. Don't move. -And Ratz was there, and Linda Lee, Wage and Lonny Zone, -a hundred faces from the neon forest, sailors and hustlers and -whores, where the sky is poisoned silver, beyond chain link -and the prison of the skull. -Goddamn don't you move. -Where the sky faded from hissing static to the non color of -the matrix, and he glimpsed the shuriken, his stars. -"Stop it, Case, I gotta find your vein!" -She was straddling his chest, a blue plastic syrette in one -hand. "You don't lie still, I'll slit your fucking throat. You're -still full of endorphin inhibitors." - -He woke and found her stretched beside him in the dark. -His neck was brittle, made of twigs. There was a steady -pulse of pain midway down his spine. Images formed and -reformed: a flickering montage of the Sprawl's towers and -ragged Fuller domes, dim figures moving toward him in the -shade beneath a bridge or overpass.... -"Case? It's Wednesday, Case." She moved, rolling over, -reaching across him. A breast brushed his upper arm. He heard -her tear the foil seal from a bottle of water and drink. "Here." -She put the bottle in his hand. "I can see in the dark, Case. -Micro channel image-amps in my glasses." -"My back hurts." -"That's where they replaced your fluid. Changed your blood -too. Blood 'cause you got a new pancreas thrown into the deal. -And some new tissue patched into your liver. The nerve stuff -I dunno. Lot of injections. They didn't have to open anything -up for the main show." She settled back beside him. "It's -2:43:12 AM, Case. Got a readout chipped into my optic nerve." -He sat up and tried to sip from the bottle. Gagged, coughed, -lukewarm water spraying his chest and thighs. -"I gotta punch deck, ' he heard himself say. He was groping -for his clothes. "I gotta know...." -She laughed. Small strong hands gripped his upper arms. -"Sorry, hotshot. Eight day wait. Your nervous system would -fall out on the floor if you jacked in now. Doctor's orders. -Besides, they figure it worked. Check you in a day or so." He -lay down again. -"Where are we?" -"Home. Cheap Hotel." -"Where's Armitage?" -"Hilton, selling beads to the natives or something. We're -out of here soon, man. Amsterdam, Paris, then back to the -Sprawl." She touched his shoulder. "Roll over. I give a good -massage." -He lay on his stomach, arms stretched forward, tips of his -fingers against the walls of the coffin. She settled over the -small of his back, kneeling on the temper foam, the leather -jeans cool against his skin. Her fingers brushed his neck. -"How come you're not at the Hilton?" -She answered him by reaching back, between his thighs -and gently encircling his scrotum with thumb and forefinger. -She rocked there for a minute in the dark, erect above him, -her other hand on his neck. The leather of her jeans creaked -softly with the movement. Case shifted, feeling himself harden -against the temper foam. -His head throbbed, but the brittleness in his neck seemed -to retreat. He raised himself on one elbow, rolled, sank back -against the foam, pulling her down, licking her breasts, small -hard nipples sliding wet across his cheek. He found the zip on -the leather jeans and tugged it down. -"It's okay," she said, "I can see." Sound of the jeans peeling -down. She struggled beside him until she could kick them away. -She threw a leg across him and he touched her face. Unexpected -hardness of the implanted lenses. "Don't," she said, "fingerprints." - -Now she straddled him again, took his hand, and closed it -over her, his thumb along the cleft of her buttocks, his fingers -spread across the labia. As she began to lower herself, the -images came pulsing back, the faces, fragments of neon arriving -and receding. She slid down around him and his back arched -convulsively. She rode him that way, impaling herself, slipping -down on him again and again, until they both had come, his -orgasm flaring blue in a timeless space, a vastness like the -matrix, where the faces were shredded and blown away down -hurricane corridors, and her inner thighs were strong and wet -against his hips. - -On Nisei, a thinner, weekday version of the crowd went -through the motions of the dance. Waves of sound rolled from -the arcades and pachinko parlors. Case glanced into the Chat -and saw Zone watching over his girls in the warm, beer-smelling -twilight. Ratz was tending bar. -"You seen Wage, Ratz?" -"Not tonight." Ratz made a point of raising an eyebrow at -Molly. -"You see him, tell him I got his money." -"Luck changing, my artiste?" -"Too soon to tell." - -"Well, I gotta see this guy," Case said, watching his reflection -in her glasses. "I got biz to cancel out of." -"Armitage won't like it, I let you out of my sight." She -stood beneath Deane's melting clock, hands on her hips. -"The guy won't talk to me if you're there. Deane I don't -give two shits about. He takes care of himself. But I got people -who'll just go under if I walk out of Chiba cold. It's my people, -you know?" -Her mouth hardened. She shook her head. - -"I got people in Singapore, Tokyo connections in Shinjuku -and Asakuza, and they'll go down, understand?" he lied, his -hand on the shoulder of her black jacket. "Five. Five minutes. -By your clock, okay?" -"Not what I'm paid for." -"What you're paid for is one thing. Me letting some tight -friends die because you're too literal about your instructions is -something else." -"Bullshit. Tight friends my ass. You're going in there to -check us out with your smuggler." She put a booted foot up -on the dust-covered Kandinsky coffee table. -"Ah, Case, sport, it does look as though your companion -there is definitely armed, aside from having a fair amount of -silicon in her head . What is this about, exactly?" Deane ' s ghostly -cough seemed to hang in the air between them. -"Hold on, Julie. Anyway, I'll be coming in alone." -"You can be sure of that, old son. Wouldn't have it any -other way." -"Okay," she said. "Go. But five Minutes. Any more and -I'll come in and cool your tight friend permanently. And while -you're at it, you try to figure something out." -"What's that?" -"Why I'm doing you the favor." She turned and walked -out, past the stacked white modules of preserved ginger. -"Keeping stranger company than usual, Case?" asked Julie. -"Julie, she's gone. You wanna let me in? Please, Julie?" -The bolts worked. "Slowly, Case," said the voice. -"Turn on the works, Julie, all the stuff in the desk," Case -said, taking his place in the swivel chair. -"It's on all the time," Deane said mildly, taking a gun from -behind the exposed works of his old mechanical typewriter and -aiming it carefully at Case. It was a belly gun, a magnum -revolver with the barrel sawn down to a nub. The front of the -trigger-guard had been cut away and the grips wrapped with -what looked like old masking tape. Case thought it looked very -strange in Dean's manicured pink hands. "Just taking care, you -Understand. Nothing personal. Now tell me what you want." -"I need a history lesson, Julie. And a go-to on somebody." -"What's moving, old son'?" Deane's shirt was candy-striped -cotton, the collar white and rigid, like porcelain. - -"Me, Julie. I'm leaving. Gone. But do me the favor, okay?" -"Go-to on whom, old son?" -"Gaijin name of Armitage, suite in the Hilton." -Deane put the pistol down. "Sit still, Case." He tapped -something out on a lap terminal. "It seems as though you know -as much as my net does, Case. This gentleman seems to have -a temporary arrangement with the Yakuza, and the sons of the -neon chrysanthemum have ways of screening their allies from -the likes of me. I wouldn't have it any other way. Now, history. -You said history." He picked up the gun again, but didn't point -it directly at Case. "What sort of history?" -"The war. You in the war, Julie?" -"The war? What's there to know? Lasted three weeks." -"Screaming Fist." -"Famous. Don't they teach you history these days? Great -bloody postwar political football, that was. Watergated all to -hell and back. Your brass, Case, your Sprawlside brass in, -where was it, McLean? In the bunkers, all of that... great -scandal. Wasted a fair bit of patriotic young flesh in order to -test some new technology. They knew about the Russians' defenses, -it came out later. Knew about the emps, magnetic pulse -weapons. Sent these fellows in regardless, just to see." Deane -shrugged. "Turkey shoot for Ivan." -"Any of those guys make it out?" -"Christ,'' Deane said, "it's been bloody years.... Though -I do think a few did. One of the teams. Got hold of a Sov -gunship. Helicopter, you know. Flew it back to Finland. Didn't -have entry codes, of course, and shot hell out of the Finnish -defense forces in the process. Special Forces types." Deane -sniffed. "Bloody hell." -Case nodded. The smell of preserved ginger was overwhelming. - -"I spent the war in Lisbon, you know," Deane said, putting -the gun down. "Lovely place, Lisbon." -"In the service, Julie?" -"Hardly. Though I did see action." Deane smiled his pink -smile. "Wonderful what a war can do for one's markets." -"Thanks, Julie. I owe you one." -"Hardly, Case. And goodbye." - -* * * - - -And later he'd tell himself that the evening at Sammi's had -felt wrong from the start, that even as he'd followed Molly -along that corridor, shuffling through a trampled mulch of ticket -stubs and styrofoam cups, he'd sensed it. Linda's death, waiting.... - -They'd gone to the Namban, after he'd seen Deane, and -paid off his debt to Wage with a roll of Armitage's New Yen. -Wage had liked that, his boys had liked it less, and Molly had -grinned at Case's side with a kind of ecstatic feral intensity, -obviously longing for one of them to make a move. Then he'd -taken her back to the Chat for a drink. -"Wasting your time, cowboy," Molly said, when Case took -an octagon from the pocket of his jacket. -"How's that? You want one?" He held the pill out to her. -"Your new pancreas, Case, and those plugs in your liver. -Armitage had them designed to bypass that shit." She tapped -the octagon with one burgundy nail. "You're biochemically -incapable of getting off on amphetamine or cocaine." -"Shit," he said. He looked at the octagon, then at her. -"Eat it. Eat a dozen. Nothing'll happen." -He did. Nothing did. -Three beers later, she was asking Ratz about the fights. -"Sammi's," Ratz said. -"I'll pass," Case said, "I hear they kill each other down -there." -An hour later, she was buying tickets from a skinny Thai -in a white t-shirt and baggy rugby shorts. -Sammi's was an inflated dome behind a port side warehouse, -taut gray fabric reinforced with a net of thin steel cables. The -corridor, with a door at either end, was a crude airlock preserving -the pressure differential that supported the dome. Fluorescent -rings were screwed to the plywood ceiling at intervals, -but most of them had been broken. The air was damp and close -with the smell of sweat and concrete. -None of that prepared him for the arena, the crowd, the -tense hush, the towering puppets of light beneath the dome. -Concrete sloped away in tiers to a kind of central stage, a raised -circle ringed with a glittering thicket of projection gear. No -light but the holograms that shifted and flickered above the -ring, reproducing the movements of the two men below. Strata -of cigarette smoke rose from the tiers, drifting until it struck -currents set up by the blowers that supported the dome. No -sound but the muted purring of the blowers and the amplified -breathing of the fighters. -Reflected colors flowed across Molly's lenses as the men -circled. The holograms were ten-power magnifications; at ten, -the knives they held were just under a meter long. The knife-fighter's -grip is the fencer's grip, Case remembered, the fingers -curled, thumb aligned with blade. The knives seemed to move -of their own accord, gliding with a ritual lack of urgency through -the arcs and passes of their dance, point passing point, as the -men waited for an opening. Molly's upturned face was smooth -and still, watching. -"I'll go find us some food," Case said. She nodded, lost in -contemplation of the dance. -He didn't like this place. -He turned and walked back into the shadows. Too dark. -Too quiet. -The crowd, he saw, was mostly Japanese. Not really a Night -City crowd. Teaks down from the arcologies. He supposed that -meant the arena had the approval of some corporate recreational -committee. He wondered briefly what it would be like, working -all your life for one zaibatsu. Company housing, company -hymn, company funeral. -He'd made nearly a full circuit of the dome before he found -the food stalls. He bought yakitori on skewers and two tall -waxy cartons of beer. Glancing up at the holograms, he saw -that blood laced one figure's chest. Thick brown sauce trickled -down the skewers and over his knuckles. -Seven days and he'd jack in. If he closed his eyes now, -he'd see the matrix. -Shadows twisted as the holograms swung through their dance. -Then the fear began to knot between his shoulders. A cold -trickle of sweat worked its way down and across his ribs. The -operation hadn't worked. He was still here, still meat, no Molly -waiting, her eyes locked on the circling knives, no Armitage -waiting in the Hilton with tickets and a new passport and -money. It was all some dream, some pathetic fantasy.... Hot -tears blurred his vision. -Blood sprayed from a jugular in a red gout of light. And -now the crowd was screaming, rising, screaming--as one figure -crumpled, the hologram fading, flickering.... -Raw edge of vomit in his throat. He closed his eyes, took -a deep breath, opened them, and saw Linda Lee step past him -her gray eyes blind with fear. She wore the same French fatigues. - -And gone. Into shadow. -Pure mindless reflex: he threw the beer and chicken down -and ran after her. He might have called her name, but he'd -never be sure. -Afterimage of a single hair-fine line of red light. Seared -concrete beneath the thin soles of his shoes. -Her white sneakers flashing, close to the curving wall now -and again the ghost line of the laser branded across his eye, -bobbing in his vision as he ran. -Someone tripped him. Concrete tore his palms. -He rolled and kicked, failing to connect. A thin boy, spiked -blond hair lit from behind in a rainbow nimbus, was leaning -over him. Above the stage, a figure turned, knife held high, -to the cheering crowd. The boy smiled and drew something -from his sleeve. A razor, etched in red as a third beam blinked -past them into the dark. Case saw the razor dipping for his -throat like a dowser's wand. -The face was erased in a humming cloud of microscopic -explosions. Molly's fletchettes, at twenty rounds per second. -The boy coughed once, convulsively, and toppled across Case's -legs. -He was walking toward the stalls, into the shadows. He -looked down, expecting to see that needle of ruby emerge from -his chest. Nothing. He found her. She was thrown down at the -foot of a concrete pillar, eyes closed. There was a smell of -cooked meat. The crowd was chanting the winner's name. A -beer vendor was wiping his taps with a dark rag. One white -sneaker had come off, somehow, and lay beside her head. -Follow the wall. Curve of concrete. Hands in pockets. Keep -walking. Past unseeing faces, every eye raised to the victor's -image above the ring. Once a seamed European face danced -in the glare of a match, lips pursed around the short stem of a -metal pipe. Tang of hashish. Case walked on, feeling nothing. - -"Case." Her mirrors emerged from deeper shadow. "You -okay?" -Something mewlcd and bubbled in the dark behind her. -He shook his head. -"Fight's over, Case. Time to go home." -He tried to walk past her. back into the dark, where something -was dying. She stopped him with a hand on his chest. -"Friends of your tight friend. Killed your girl for you. You -haven't done too well for friends in this town, have you? We -got a partial profile on that old bastard when we did you, man. -He'd fry anybody, for a few New ones. The one back there -said they got on to her when she was trying to fence your RAM. -Just cheaper for them to kill her and take it. Save a little -money.... I got the one who had the laser to tell me all about -it. Coincidence we were here, but I had to make sure." Her -mouth was hard, lips pressed into a thin line. -Case felt as though his brain were jammed. "Who," he said, -"who sent them?" -She passed him a blood-flecked bag of preserved ginger. -He saw that her hands were sticky with blood. Back in the -shadows, someone made wet sounds and died. - -After the postoperative check at the clinic, Molly took him -to the port. Armitage was waiting. He'd chartered a hovercraft. -The last Case saw of Chiba were the dark angles of the arcologies. -Then a mist closed over the black water and the drifting -shoals of waste. - -PART TWO - -THE SHOPPING -EXPEDITION - -Home. -Home was BAMA, the Sprawl, the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan -Axis. -Program a map to display frequency of data exchange, every -thousand megabytes a single pixel on a very large screen. -Manhattan and Atlanta burn solid white. Then they start to -pulse, the rate of traffic threatening to overload your simulation. -Your map is about to go nova. Cool it down. Up your scale. -Each pixel a million megabytes. At a hundred million megabytes -per second, you begin to make out certain blocks in -midtown Manhattan, outlines of hundred-year-old industrial -parks ringing the old core of Atlanta. . . - -Case woke from a dream of airports, of Molly's dark leathers -moving ahead of him through the concourses of Narita, Schipol, -Orly.... He watched himself buy a flat plastic flask of Danish -vodka at some kiosk, an hour before dawn. -Somewhere down in the Sprawl's ferro-concrete roots, a -train drove a column of stale air through a tunnel. The train -itself was silent, gliding over its induction cushion, but displaced -air made the tunnel sing, bass down into subsonics. -Vibration reached the room where he lay and caused dust to -rise from the cracks in the dessicated parquet floor. -Opening his eyes, he saw Molly, naked and just out of reach -across an expanse of very new pink temper foam. Overhead, -sunlight filtered through the soot-stained grid of a skylight. -One half-meter square of glass had been replaced with chipboard, -a fat gray cable emerging there to dangle within a few -centimeters of the floor. He lay on his side and watched her -breathe, her breasts, the sweep of a flank defined with the -functional elegance of a war plane's fusilage. Her body was -spare, neat, the muscles like a dancer's. -The room was large. He sat up. The room was empty, aside -from the wide pink bedslab and two nylon bags, new and -identical, that lay beside it. Blank walls, no windows, a single -white-painted steel fire door. The walls were coated with countless -layers of white latex paint. Factory space. He knew this -kind of room, this kind of building; the tenants would operate -in the inter zone where art wasn't quite crime, crime not quite -art. -He was home. -He swung his feet to the floor. It was made of little blocks -of wood, some missing, others loose. His head ached. He -remembered Amsterdam, another room, in the Old City section -of the Centrum, buildings centuries old. Molly back from the -canal's edge with orange juice and eggs. Armitage off on some -cryptic foray, the two of them walking alone past Dam Square -to a bar she knew on a Damrak thoroughfare. Paris was a -blurred dream. Shopping. She'd taken him shopping. -He stood, pulling on a wrinkled pair of new black jeans that -lay at his feet, and knelt beside the bags. The first one he -opened was Molly's: neatly folded clothing and small expensive-looking -gadgets. The second was stuffed with things he -didn't remember buying: books, tapes, a Simstim deck, clothing -with French and Italian labels. Beneath a green t-shirt, he -discovered a flat, origami-wrapped package, recycled Japanese -paper. -The paper tore when he picked it up; a bright nine-pointed -star fell--to stick upright in a crack in the parquet. -"Souvenir," Molly said. "I noticed you were always looking -at 'em." He turned and saw her sitting cross legged on the bed, -sleepily scratching her stomach with burgundy nails. - -"Someone's coming later to secure the place," Armitage -said. He stood in the open doorway with an old-fashioned -magnetic key in his hand. Molly was making coffee on a tiny -German stove she took from her bag. -"I can do it," she said. "I got enough gear already. Infrascan -perimeter, screamers..." -"No," he said, closing the door. "I want it tight." -"Suit yourself." She wore a dark mesh t-shirt tucked into -baggy black cotton pants. -"You ever the heat, Mr. Armitage?" Case asked, from where -he sat, his back against a wall. -Armitage was no taller than Case, but with his broad shoulders -and military posture he seemed to fill the doorway. He -wore a somber Italian suit; in his right hand he held a briefcase -of soft black calf. The Special Forces earring was gone. The -handsome, inexpressive features offered the routine beauty of -the cosmetic boutiques, a conservative amalgam of the past -decade's leading media faces. The pale glitter of his eyes -heightened the effect of a mask. Case began to regret the question. -"Lots of Forces types wound up cops, I mean. Or corporate -security," Case added uncomfortably. Molly handed him a -steaming mug of coffee. "That number you had them do on -my pancreas, that's like a cop routine." -Armitage closed the door and crossed the room, to stand in -front of Case. "You're a lucky boy, Case. You should thank -me." -"Should l?" Case blew noisily on his coffee. -"You needed a new pancreas. The one we bought for you -frees you from a dangerous dependency." -"Thanks, but I was enjoying that dependency." -"Good, because you have a new one." -"How's that?" Case looked up from his coffee. Armitage -was smiling. -"You have fifteen toxin sacs bonded to the lining of various -main arteries, Case. They're dissolving. Very slowly, but they -definitely are dissolving. Each one contains a mycotoxin. You're -already familiar with the effect of that mycotoxin. It was the -one your former employers gave you in Memphis." -Case blinked up at the smiling mask. -"You have time to do what I'm hiring you for, Case, but -that's all. Do the job and I can inject you with an enzyme that -will dissolve the bond without opening the sacs. Then you'll -need a blood change. Otherwise, the sacs melt and you're back -where I found you. So you see, Case, you need us. You need -us as badly as you did when we scraped you up from the gutter." -Case looked at Molly. She shrugged. -"Now go down to the freight elevator and bring up the cases -you find there." Armitage handed him the magnetic key. "Go -on. You'll enjoy this, Case. Like Christmas morning." - -Summer in the Sprawl, the mall crowds swaying like wind-blown -grass, a field of flesh shot through with sudden eddies -of need and gratification. -He sat beside Molly in filtered sunlight on the rim of a dry -concrete fountain, letting the endless stream of faces recapitulate -the stages of his life. First a child with hooded eyes, a -street boy, hands relaxed and ready at his sides; then a teenager, -face smooth and cryptic beneath red glasses. Case remembered -fighting on a rooftop at seventeen, silent combat in the rose -glow of the dawn geodesics. -He shifted on the concrete, feeling it rough and cool through -the thin black denim. Nothing here like the electric dance of -Ninsei. This was different commerce, a different rhythm, in -the smell of fast food and perfume and fresh summer sweat. -With his deck waiting, back in the loft, an Ono-Sendai -Cyberspace 7. They'd left the place littered with the abstract -white forms of the foam packing units, with crumpled plastic -film and hundreds of tiny foam beads. The Ono-Sendai; next -year's most expensive Hosaka computer; a Sony monitor; a -dozen disks of corporate-grade ice; a Braun coffee maker. Armitage -had only waited for Case's approval of each piece. -"Where'd he go?" Case had asked Molly. -"He likes hotels. Big ones. Near airports, if he can manage -it. Let's go down to the street." She'd zipped herself into an -old surplus vest with a dozen oddly shaped pockets and put on -a huge pair of black plastic sunglasses that completely covered -her mirrored insets. -"You know about that toxin shit, before?" he asked her, by -the fountain. She shook her head. "You think it's true?" -"Maybe, maybe not. Works either way." -"You know any way I can find out?" -"No," she said, her right hand coming up to form the jive -for silence. "That kind of kink's too subtle to show up on a -scan." Then her fingers moved again: wait. "And you don't -care that much anyway. I saw you stroking that Sendai; man, -it was pornographic." She laughed. -"So what's he got on you? How's he got the working girl -kinked?" -"-Professional pride, baby, that's all." And again the sign -for silence. "We're gonna get some breakfast, okay? Eggs, real -bacon. Probably kill you, you been eating that rebuilt Chiba -krill for so long. Yeah, come on, we'll tube in to Manhattan -and get us a real breakfast." - -Lifeless neon spelled out METRO HOLOGRAFIX in dusty -capitals of glass tubing. Case picked at a shred of bacon that -had lodged between his front teeth. He'd given up asking her -where they were going and why; jabs in the ribs and the sign -for silence were all he'd gotten in reply. She talked about the -season's fashions, about sports, about a political scandal in -California he'd never heard of. -He looked around the deserted dead end street. A sheet of -newsprint went cart wheeling past the intersection. Freak winds -in the East side; something to do with convection, and an -overlap in the domes. Case peered through the window at the -dead sign. Her Sprawl wasn't his Sprawl? he decided. She'd -led him through a dozen bars and clubs he'd never seen before, -taking care of business, usually with no more than a nod. -Maintaining connections. -Something was moving in the shadows behind METRO -HOLOGRAFIX. -The door was a sheet of corrugated roofing. In front of it, -Molly's hands flowed through an intricate sequence of jive that -he couldn't follow. He caught the sign for cash, a thumb brushing -the tip of the forefinger. The door swung inward and sheled -him into the smell of dust. They stood in a clearing, dense -tangles of junk rising on either side to walls lined with shelves -of crumbling paperbacks. The junk looked like something that -had grown there, a fungus of twisted metal and plastic. He -could pick out individual objects, but then they seemed to blur -back into the mass: the guts of a television so old it was studded -with the glass stumps of vacuum tubes, a crumpled dish antenna, -a brown fiber canister stuffed with corroded lengths of -alloy tubing. An enormous pile of old magazines had cascaded -into the open area, flesh of lost summers staring blindly up as -he followed her back through a narrow canyon of impacted -scrap. He heard the door close behind them. He didn't look -back. - -The tunnel ended with an ancient Army blanket tacked across -a doorway. White light flooded out as Molly ducked past it. -Four square walls of blank white plastic, ceiling to match, -floored with white hospital tile molded in a non slip pattern of -small raised disks. In the center stood a square, white-painted -wooden table and four white folding chairs. -The man who stood blinking now in the doorway behind -them, the blanket draping one shoulder like a cape, seemed to -have been designed in a wind tunnel. His ears were very small, -plastered flat against his narrow skull, and his large front teeth, -revealed in something that wasn't quite a smile, were canted -sharply backward. He wore an ancient tweed jacket and held -a handgun of some kind in his left hand. He peered at them, -blinked, and dropped the gun into a jacket pocket. He gestured -to Case, pointed at a slab of white plastic that leaned near the -doorway. Case crossed to it and saw that it was a solid sandwich -of circuitry, nearly a centimeter thick. He helped the man lift -it and position it in the doorway. Quick, nicotine-stained fingers -secured it with a white velcro border. A hidden exhaust fan -began to purr. -"Time," the man said, straightening up, "and counting. You -know the rate, Moll." -"We need a scan, Finn. For implants." -"So get over there between the pylons. Stand on the tape. -Straighten up, yeah. Now turn around, gimme a full threesixty." -Case watched her rotate between two fragile-looking -stands studded with sensors. The man took a small monitor -from his pocket and squinted at it. "Something new in your -head, yeah. Silicon. coat of pyrolitic carbons. A clock, right? -Your glasses gimme the read they always have, low-temp isotropic -carbons. Better biocompatibility with pyrolitics, but -that's your business, right? Same with your claws." -"Get over here, Case." He saw a scuffed X in black on the -white floor. "Turn around. Slow." -"Guy's a virgin." The man shrugged. "Some cheap dental -work, is all." -"You read for biologicals?" Molly unzipped her green vest -and took off the dark glasses. -"You think this is the Mayo? Climb on the table, kid, we'll -run a little biopsy." He laughed, showing more of his yellow -teeth. "Nah. Finn's word, sweetmeat, you got no little bugs, -no cortex bombs. You want me to shut the screen down?" -"Just for as long as it takes you to leave, Finn. Then we'll -want full screen for as long as we want it." -"Hey, that's fine by the Finn, Moll. You're only paying by -the second." -They sealed the door behind him and Molly turned one of -the white chairs around and sat on it, chin resting on crossed -forearms. "We talk now. This is as private as I can afford." -"What about?" -"What we're doing." -"What are we doing?" -"Working for Armitage." -"And you're saying this isn't for his benefit?" -"Yeah. I saw your profile, Case. And I've seen the rest of -our shopping list, once. You ever work with the dead?" -"No." He watched his reflection in her glasses. "I could, I -guess. I'm good at what I do." The present tense made him -nervous. -"You know that the Dixie Flatline's dead?" -He nodded. "Heart, I heard." -"You'll be working with his construct." She smiled. "Taught -you the ropes, huh? Him and Quine. I know Quine, by the -way. Real asshole." -"Somebody's got a recording of McCoy Pauley? Who?" -Now Case sat, and rested his elbows on the table. "I can't see -it. He'd never have sat still for it." -"Sense/Net. Paid him mega, you bet your ass." -"Quine dead too?" -"No such luck. He's in Europe. He doesn't come into this." -"Well, if we can get the Flatline, we're home free. He was -the best. You know he died brain death three times?" -She nodded. -"Flat lined on his EEG. Showed me tapes. 'Boy, I was daid.' " -"Look, Case, I been trying to suss out who it is is backing -Armitage since I signed on. But it doesn't feel like a zaibatsu, -a government, or some Yakuza subsidiary. Armitage gets orders. -Like something tells him to go off to Chiba, pick up a -pillhead who's making one last wobble throught the burnout -belt, and trade a program for the operation that'll fix him up. -We could a bought twenty world class cowboys for what the -market was ready to pay for that surgical program. You were -good, but not that good...." She scratched the side of her -nose. -"Obviously makes sense to somebody," he said. "Somebody -big." -"Don't let me hurt your feelings." She grinned. "We're -gonna be pulling one hardcore run, Case, just to get the Flatline's -construct. Sense/Net has it locked in a library vault uptown. -Tighter than an eel's ass, Case. Now, Sense/Net, they -got all their new material for the fall season locked in there -too. Steal that and we'd be richer than shit. But no, we gotta -get us the Flatline and nothing else. Weird." -"Yeah, it's all weird. You're weird, this hole's weird, and -who's the weird little gopher outside in the hall?" -"Finn's an old connection of mine. Fence, mostly. Software. -This privacy biz is a sideline. But I got Armitage to let him -be our tech here, so when he shows up later, you never saw -him. Got it?" -"So what's Armitage got dissolving inside you?" -"I'm an easy make." She smiled. "Anybody any good at -what they do, that's what they are, right? You gotta jack, I -gotta tussle." -He stared at her. "So tell me what you know about Armitage." -"For starters, nobody named Armitage took part in any -Screaming Fist. I checked. But that doesn't mean much. He -doesn't look like any of the pics of the guys who got out." She -shrugged. "Big deal. And starters is all I got." She drummed -her nails on the back of the chair. "But you are a cowboy, -aren't you? I mean, maybe you could have a little look around." -She smiled. -"He'd kill me." -"Maybe. Maybe not. I think he needs you, Case, and real -bad. Besides, you're a clever john, no? You can winkle him, -sure." -"What else is on that list you mentioned?" -"Toys. Mostly for you. And one certified psychopath name -of Peter Riviera. Real ugly customer." -"Where's he?" -"Dunno. But he's one sick fuck, no lie. I saw his profile." -She made a face. "God awful." She stood up and stretched, -catlike. "So we got an axis going, boy? We're together in this? -Partners?" -Case looked at her. "I gotta lotta choice, huh?" -She laughed. "You got it, cowboy." - -"The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games," said -the voice-over, "in early graphics programs and military experimentation -with cranial jacks." On the Sony, a two-dimensional -space war faded behind a forest of mathematically -generated ferns, demonstrating the spacial possibilities of logarithmic -spirals- cold blue military footage burned through, lab -animals wired into test systems, helmets feeding into fire con. -trot circuits of tanks and war planes. "Cyberspace. A consensual -hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate -operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical -concepts . . . A graphic representation of data abstracted -from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable -complexity. Lines of light ranged in the non space of -the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, -receding...." - -"What's that?" Molly asked, as he flipped the channel selector. -"Kid's show." A discontinuous flood of images as the selector -cycled. "Off," he said to the Hosaka. -"You want to try now, Case?" -Wednesday. Eight days from waking in Cheap Hotel with -Molly beside him. "You want me to go out, Case? Maybe -easier for you, alone...." He shook his head. -"No. Stay, doesn't matter." He settled the black terry sweatband -across his forehead, careful not to disturb the flat Sendai -dermatrodes. He stared at the deck on his lap, not really seeing -it, seeing instead the shop window on Ninsei, the chromed -shuriken burning with reflected neon. He glanced up; on the -wall, just above the Sony, he'd hung her gift, tacking it there -with a yellow-headed drawing pin through the hole at its center. -closed his eyes. -Found the ridged face of the power stud. -And in the bloodlit dark behind his eyes, silver phosphenes -boiling in from the edge of space, hypnagogic images jerking -past like film compiled from random frames. Symbols, figures, -faces, a blurred, fragmented mandala of visual information. -Please, he prayed, now-- - -A gray disk, the color of Chiba sky. -Now-- - -Disk beginning to rotate, faster, becoming a sphere of palergray. -Expanding-- And flowed, flowered for him, fluid neon origami trick, -the unfolding of his distance less home, his country, transparent -3D chessboard extending to infinity. Inner eye opening to the -stepped scarlet pyramid of the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority -burning beyond the green cubes of Mitsubishi Bank of -America, and high and very far away he saw the spiral arms -of military systems, forever beyond his reach. -And somewhere he was laughing, in a white-painted loft, -distant fingers caressing the deck, tears of release streaking his -face. - -Molly was gone when he took the trodes off, and the loft -was dark. He checked the time. He'd been in cyberspace for -five hours. He carried the Ono-Sendai to one of the new worktables -and collapsed across the bedslab, pulling Molly's black -silk sleeping bag over his head. -The security package taped to the steel fire door bleeped -twice. "Entry requested," it said. "Subject is cleared per my -program." -"So open it." Case pulled the silk from his face and sat up -as the door opened, expecting to see Molly or Armitage. -"Christ," said a hoarse voice, "I know that bitch can see in -the dark...." A squat figure stepped in and closed the door. -"Turn the lights on, okay?" Case scrambled off the slab and -found the old-fashioned switch. -"I'm the Finn," said the Finn, and made a warning face at -Case. -"Case." -"Pleased to meecha, I'm sure. I'm doing some hardware -for your boss, it looks like." The Finn fished a pack of Partagas -from a pocket and lit one. The smell of Cuban tobacco filled -the room. He crossed to the worktable and glanced at the Ono-Sendai. -"Looks stock. Soon fix that. But here is your problem, -kid." He took a filthy manila envelope from inside his jacket, -flicked ash on the floor, and extracted a featureless black rectangle -from the envelope. "Goddamn factory prototypes," he -said, tossing the thing down on the table. "Cast 'em into a -block of polycarbon, can't get in with a laser without frying -the works. Booby-trapped for x-ray, ultrascan, God knows -what else. We'll get in, but there's no rest for the wicked, -right?" He folded the envelope with great care and tucked it -away in an inside pocket. -"What is it?" -"It's a flip flop switch, basically. Wire it into your Sendai -here, you can access live or recorded Sims Tim without having -to jack out of the matrix." -"What for?" -"I haven't got a clue. Know I'm fitting Moll for a broadcast -rig, though, so it's probably her sensorium you'll access." The -Finn scratched his chin. "So now you get to find out just how -tight those jeans really are, huh?" - -Case sat in the loft with the dermatrodes strapped across his -forehead, watching motes dance in the diluted sunlight that -filtered through the grid overhead. A countdown was in progress -in one corner of the monitor screen. -Cowboys didn't get into Simstim, he thought, because it -was basically a meat toy. He knew that the trodes he used and -the little plastic tiara dangling from a Simstim deck were basically -the same, and that the cyberspace matrix was actually a -drastic simplification of the human sensorium, at least in terms -of presentation, but Simstim itself struck him as a gratuitous -multiplication of flesh input. The commercial stuff was edited, -of course, so that if Tally Isham got a headache in the course -of a segment, you didn't feel it. -The screen bleeped a two-second warning. -The new switch was patched into his Sendai with a thin -ribbon of fiber optics. -And one and two and-- - -Cyberspace slid into existence from the cardinal points. - -Smooth, he thought, but not smooth enough. Have to work on it. -Then he keyed the new switch. -The abrupt jolt into other flesh. Matrix gone, a wave of -sound and color.... She was moving through a crowded street, -past stalls vending discount software, prices felt penned on sheets -of plastic, fragments of music from countless speakers. Smells -of urine, free monomers, perfume, patties of frying krill. For -a few frightened seconds he fought helplessly to control her -body. Then he willed himself into passivity, became the passenger -behind her eyes. -The glasses didn't seem to cut down the sunlight at all. He -wondered if the built-in amps compensated automatically. Blue -alphanumerics winked the time, low in her left peripheral field. -Showing off, he thought. -Her body language was disorienting, her style foreign. She -seemed continually on the verge of colliding with someone, -but people melted out of her way, stepped sideways, made -room. -"How you doing, Case?" He heard the words and felt her -form them. She slid a hand into her jacket, a fingertip circling -a nipple under warm silk. The sensation made him catch his -breath. She laughed. But the link was one-way. He had no way -to reply. -Two blocks later, she was threading the outskirts of Memory -Lane. Case kept trying to jerk her eyes toward landmarks he -would have used to find his way. He began to find the passivity -of the situation irritating. -The transition to cyberspace, when he hit the switch, was -instantaneous. He punched himself down a wall of primitive -ice belonging to the New York Public Library, automatically -counting potential windows. Keying back into her sensorium, -into the sinuous flow of muscle, senses sharp and bright. -He found himself wondering about the mind he shared these -sensations with. What did he know about her? That she was -another professional; that she said her being, like his, was the -thing she did to make a living. He knew the way she'd moved -against him, earlier, when she woke, their mutual grunt of -unity when he'd entered her, and that she liked her coffee black, -afterward.... -Her destination was one of the dubious software rental complexes -that lined Memory Lane. There was a stillness, a hush. -Booths lined a central hall. The clientele were young, few of -them out of their teens. They all seemed to have carbon sockets -planted behind the left ear, but she didn't focus on them. The -counters that fronted the booths displayed hundreds of slivers -of microsoft, angular fragments of colored silicon mounted -under oblong transparent bubbles on squares of white cardboard. -Molly went to the seventh booth along the south wall. -Behind the counter a boy with a shaven head stared vacantly -into space, a dozen spikes of microsoft protruding from the -socket behind his ear. -"Larry, you in, man?" She positioned herself in front of -him. The boy's eyes focused. He sat up in his chair and pried -a bright magenta splinter from his socket with a dirty thumbnail . -"Hey, Larry." -"Molly." He nodded. -"I have some work for some of your friends, Larry." -Larry took a flat plastic case from the pocket of his red -sport shirt and flicked it open, slotting the microsoft beside a -dozen others. His hand hovered, selected a glossy black chip -that was slightly longer than the rest, and inserted it smoothly -into his head. His eyes narrowed. -"Molly's got a rider," he said, "and Larry doesn't like that." -"Hey," she said, "I didn't know you were so . . . sensitive. -I'm impressed. Costs a lot, to get that sensitive." -"I know you, lady?" The blank look returned. "You looking -to buy some softs?" -"I'm looking for the Moderns." -"You got a rider, Molly. This says." He tapped the black -splinter. "Somebody else using your eyes." -"My partner." -"Tell your partner to go." -"Got something for the Panther Moderns, Larry." -"What are you talking about, lady?" -"Case, you take off," she said, and he hit the switch, instantly -back in the matrix. Ghost impressions of the software -complex hung for a few seconds in the buzzing calm of cyberspace. -"Panther Moderns," he said to the Hosaka, removing the -trodes. "Five minute precis." -"Ready," the computer said. - -It wasn't a name he knew. Something new, something that -had come in since he'd been in Chiba. Fads swept the youth -of the Spraw] at the speed of light; entire subcultures could rise -overnight, thrive for a dozen weeks, and then vanish utterly. -"Go," he said. The Hosaka had accessed its array of libraries, -journals, and news services. -The precis began with a long hold on a color still that Case -at first assumed was a collage of some kind, a boy's face -snipped from another image and glued to a photograph of a -paint-scrawled wall. Dark eyes, epicanthic folds obviously the -result of surgery, an angry dusting of acne across pale narrow -cheeks. The Hosaka released the freeze; the boy moved, flowing -with the sinister grace of a mime pretending to be a jungle -predator. His body was nearly invisible, an abstract pattern -approximating the scribbled brickwork sliding smoothly across -his tight one piece. Mimetic polycarbon. -Cut to Dr. Virginia Rambali, Sociology, NYU, her name, -faculty, and school pulsing across the screen in pink alphanumerics. - -"Given their penchant for these random acts of surreal violence," -someone said, "it may be difficult for our viewers to -understand why you continue to insist that this phenomenon -isn't a form of terrorism." -Dr. RamBali smiled. "There is always a point at which the -terrorist ceases to manipulate the media gestalt. A point at -which the violence may well escalate, but beyond which the -terrorist has become symptomatic of the media gestalt itself. -Terrorism as we ordinarily understand it is inately media-related. -The Panther Moderns differ from other terrorists precisely -in their degree of self-consciousness, in their awareness -of the extent to which media divorce the act of terrorism from -the original sociopolitical intent...." -"Skip it," Case said. - -Case met his first Modern two days after he'd screened the -Hosaka's precis. The Moderns, he'd decided, were a contemporary -version of the Big Scientists of his own late teens. There -was a kind of ghostly teenage DNA at work in the Sprawl, -something that carried the coded precepts of various short-lived -sub cults and replicated them at odd intervals. The Panther Moderns -were a soft head variant on the Scientists. If the technology -had been available the Big Scientists would all have had sockets -stuffed with microsofts. It was the style that mattered and -the style was the same. The Moderns were mercenaries, practical -jokers, nihilistic technofetishists. -The one who showed up at the loft door with a box of -diskettes from the Finn was a soft-voiced boy called Angelo. -His face was a simple graft grown on collagen and shark- - cartilage polysaccharides, smooth and hideous. It was one of -the nastiest pieces of elective surgery Case had ever seen. When -Angelo smiled, revealing the razor-sharp canines of some large -animal, Case was actually relieved. Tooth bud transplants. He'd -seen that before. -"You can't let the little pricks generation-gap you," Molly -said. Case nodded, absorbed in the patterns of the Sense/Net -ice. -This was it. This was what he was, who he was, his being. -He forgot to eat. Molly left cartons of rice and foam trays of -sushi on the corner of the long table. Sometimes he resented -having to leave the deck to use the chemical toilet they'd set -up in a corner of the loft. Ice patterns formed and reformed on -the screen as he probed for gaps, skirted the most obvious -traps, and mapped the route he'd take through Sense/Net's ice. -It was good ice. Wonderful ice. Its patterns burned there while -he lay with his arm under Molly's shoulders, watching the red -dawn through the steel grid of the skylight. Its rainbow pixel -maze was the first thing he saw when he woke. He'd go straight -to the deck, not bothering to dress, and jack in. He was cutting -it. He was working. He lost track of days. -And sometimes, falling asleep, particularly when Molly was -off on one of her reconnaissance trips with her rented cadre of -Moderns, images of Chiba came flooding back. Faces and -Ninsei neon. Once he woke from a confused dream of Linda -Lee, unable to recall who she was or what she'd ever meant -to him. When he did remember, he jacked in and worked for -nine straight hours. -The cutting of Sense/Net's ice took a total of nine days. -"I said a week," Armitage said, unable to conceal his satisfaction -when Case showed him his plan for the run. "You -took your own good time." -"Balls," Case said, smiling at the screen. "That's good work, -Armitage." -"Yes," Armitage admitted, "but don't let it go to your head. -Compared to what you'll eventually be up against, this is an -arcade toy." - -"Love you, Cat Mother," whispered the Panther Modern's -link man. His voice was modulated static in Case's headset. -"Atlanta, Brood. Looks go. Go, got it?" Molly's voice was -slightly clearer. -"To hear is to obey." The Moderns were using some kind -of chicken wire dish in New Jersey to bounce the link man's -scrambled signal off a Sons of Christ the King satellite in -geosynchronous orbit above Manhattan. They chose to regard -the entire operation as an elaborate private joke, and their -choice of comsats seemed to have been deliberate. Molly's -signals were being beamed up from a one-meter umbrella dish -epoxy-ed to the roof of a black glass bank tower nearly as tall -as the Sense/Net building. -Atlanta. The recognition code was simple. Atlanta to Boston -to Chicago to Denver, five minutes for each city. If anyone -managed to intercept Molly's signal, unscramble it, synth her -voice, the code would tip the Moderns. If she remained in the -building for more than twenty minutes, it was highly unlikely -she'd be coming out at all. -Case gulped the last of his coffee, settled the trodes in place, -and scratched his chest beneath his black t-shirt. He had only -a vague idea of what the Panther Moderns planned as a diversion -for the Sense/Net security people. His job was to make -sure the intrusion program he'd written would link with the -Sense/Net systems when Molly needed it to. He watched the -countdown in the corner of the screen. Two. One. -He jacked in and triggered his program. "Mainline," breathed -the link man, his voice the only sound as Case plunged through -the glowing strata of Sense/Net ice. Good. Check Molly. He -hit the Simstim and flipped into her sensorium. -The scrambler blurred the visual input slightly. She stood -before a wall of gold-flecked mirror in the building's vast white -lobby, chewing gum, apparently fascinated by her own reflection. -Aside from the huge pair of sunglasses concealing her -mirrored insets, she managed to look remarkably like she -belonged there, another tourist girl hoping for a glimpse of -Tally Isham. She wore a pink plastic raincoat, a white mesh -top, loose white pants cut in a style that had been fashionable -in Tokyo the previous year. She grinned vacantly and popped -her gum. Case felt like laughing. He could feel the micro pore -tape across her ribcage, feel the flat little units under it: the -radio, the Simstim unit, and the scrambler. The throat mike, -glued to her neck, looked as much as possible like an analgesic -dermadisk. Her hands, in the pockets of the pink coat, were -flexing systematically through a series of tension-release exercises. -It took him a few seconds to realize that the peculiar -sensation at the tips of her fingers was caused by the blades as -they were partially extruded, then retracted. -He flipped back. His program had reached the fifth gate. -He watched as his icebreaker strobed and shifted in front of -him, only faintly aware of his hands playing across the deck, -making minor adjustments. Translucent planes of color shuffled -like a trick deck. Take a card, he thought, any card. -The gate blurred past. He laughed. The Sense/Net ice had -accepted his entry as a routine transfer from the consortium's -Los Angeles complex. He was inside. Behind him, viral subprograms -peeled off, meshing with the gate' s code fabric, ready -to deflect the real Los Angeles data when it arrived. -He flipped again. Molly was strolling past the enormous -circular reception desk at the rear of the lobby. -12:01:20 as the readout flared in her optic nerve. -At midnight, synch Ed with the chip behind Molly's eye, the -link man in Jersey had given his command. "Mainline." Nine -Moderns, scattered along two hundred miles of the Sprawl, -had simultaneously dialed MAX EMERG from pay phones. -Each Modern delivered a short set speech, hung up, and drifted -out into the night, peeling off surgical gloves. Nine different -police departments and public security agencies were absorbing -the information that an obscure sub sect of militant Christian -fundamentalists had just taken credit for having introduced -clinical levels of an outlawed psychoactive agent known as -Blue Nine into the ventilation system of the Sense/Net Pyramid. -Blue Nine, known in California as Grievous Angel, had been -shown to produce acute paranoia and homicidal psychosis in -eighty-five percent of experimental subjects. - -Case hit the switch as his program surged through the gates -of the subsystem that controlled security for the Sense/Net -research library. He found himself stepping into an elevator. -"Excuse me, but are you an employee?" The guard raised -his eyebrows. Molly popped her gum. "No," she said, driving -the first two knuckles of her right hand into the man's solar -plexus. As he doubled over, clawing for the beeper on his belt -she slammed his head sideways, against the wall of the elevator. -Chewing a little more rapidly now, she touched CLOSE -DOOR and STOP on the illuminated panel. She took a black box -from her coat pocket and inserted a lead in the keyhole of the -lock that secured the panel's circuitry. - -The Panther Moderns allowed four minutes for their first -move to take effect, then injected a second carefully prepared -dose of misinformation. This time, they shot it directly into -the Sense/Net building's internal video system. -At 12:04:03, every screen in the building strobed for eighteen -seconds in a frequency that produced seizures in a susceptible -segment of Sense/Net employees. Then something only -vaguely like a human face filled the screens, its features stretched -across asymmetrical expanses of bone like some obscene Mercator -projection. Blue lips parted wetly as the twisted, elongated -jaw moved. Something, perhaps a hand, a thing like a reddish -clump of gnarled roots, fumbled toward the camera, blurred, -and vanished. Subliminally rapid images of contamination: -graphics of the building's water supply system, gloved hands -manipulating laboratory glassware, something tumbling down -into darkness, a pale splash.... The audio track, its pitch adjusted -to run at just less than twice the standard playback speed, -was part of a month-old newscast detailing potential military -uses of a substance known as HsG, a biochemical governing -the human skeletal growth factor. Overdoses of HsG threw -certain bone cells into overdrive, accelerating growth by factors -as high as one thousand percent. -At 12:05:00, the mirror-sheathed nexus of the Sense/Net -consortium held just over three thousand employees. At five -minutes after midnight, as the Moderns' message ended in a -flare of white screen, the Sense/Net Pyramid screamed. -Half a dozen NYPD Tactical hovercraft, responding to the -possibility of Blue Nine in the building's ventilation system, -were converging on the Sense/Net Pyramid. They were running -full riot lights. A BAMA Rapid Deployment helicopter was -lifting off from its pad on Riker's. - -Case triggered his second program. A carefully engineered -virus attacked the code fabric screening primary custodial commands -for the sub-basement that housed the Sense/Net research -materials. "Boston," Molly's voice came across the link, "I'm -downstairs." Case switched and saw the blank wall of the -elevator. She was unzipping the white pants. A bulky packet, -exactly the shade of her pale ankle, was secured there with -micro pore. She knelt and peeled the tape away. Streaks of -burgundy flickered across the mimetic polycarbon as she unfolded -the Modern suit. She removed the pink raincoat, threw -it down beside the white pants, and began to pull the suit on -over the white mesh top. -12:06:26. -Case's virus had bored a window through the library's command -ice. He punched himself through and found an infinite -blue space ranged with color-coded spheres strung on a tight -grid of pale blue neon. In the non space of the matrix, the interior -of a given data construct possessed unlimited subjective dimension; -a child's toy calculator, accessed through Case's Sendai -would have presented limitless gulfs of nothingness hung -with a few basic commands. Case began to key the sequence -the Finn had purchased from a mid-eschelon sarariman with -severe drug problems. He began to glide through the spheres -as if he were on invisible tracks. -Here. This one. -Punching his way into the sphere, chill blue neon vault above -him starless and smooth as frosted glass, he triggered a sub- -program that effected certain alterations in the core custodial -commands. -Out now. Reversing smoothly, the virus reknitting the fabric -of the window. -Done. - - -* * * -In the Sense/Net lobby, two Panther Moderns sat alertly -behind a low rectangular planter, taping the riot with a video -camera. They both wore chameleon suits. "Tacticals are spray- -ing foam barricades now," one noted, speaking for the benefit -of his throat mike. "Rapids are still trying to land their copter." - -Case hit the Sim-Stim switch. And flipped into the agony of -broken bone. Molly was braced against the blank gray wall of -a long corridor, her breath coming ragged and uneven. Case -was back in the matrix instantly, a white-hot line of pain fading -in his left thigh. -"What's happening, Brood?" he asked the link man. -"I dunno, Cutter. Mother's not talking. Wait." -Case's program was cycling. A single hair-fine thread of -crimson neon extended from the center of the restored window -to the shifting outline of his icebreaker. He didn't have time -to wait. Taking a deep breath, he flipped again. -Molly took a single step, trying to support her weight on -the corridor wall. In the loft, Case groaned. The second step -took her over an outstretched arm. Uniform sleeve bright with -fresh blood. Glimpse of a shattered fiberglass shock stave. Her -vision seemed to have narrowed to a tunnel. With the third -step, Case screamed and found himself back in the matrix. -"Brood? Boston, baby. . ." Her voice tight with pain. She -coughed. "Little problem with the natives. Think one of them -broke my leg." -"What you need now, Cat Mother?" The link man's voice -was indistinct, nearly lost behind static. -Case forced himself to flip back. She was leaning against -the wall, taking all of her weight on her right leg. She fumbled -through the contents of the suit's kangaroo pocket and withdrew -a sheet of plastic studded with a rainbow of dermadisks. She -selected three and thumbed them hard against her left wrist, -over the veins. Six thousand micrograms of endorphin analog -came down on the pain like a hammer, shattering it. Her back -arched convulsively. Pink waves of warmth lapped up her thighs. -She sighed and slowly relaxed. -"Okay, Brood. Okay now. But I'll need a medical team -when l come out. Tell my people. Cutter, I'm two minutes -from target. Can you hold?" -"Tell her I'm in and holding," Case said. -Molly began to limp down the corridor. When she glanced -back, once, Case saw the crumpled bodies of three Sense/Net -security guards. One of them seemed to have no eyes. -"Tacticals and Rapids have sealed the ground floor, Cat -Mother. Foam barricades. Lobby's getting juicy." -"Pretty juicy down here," she said, swinging herself through -a pair of gray steel doors. "Almost there, Cutter." -Case flipped into the matrix and pulled the trodes from his -forehead. He was drenched with sweat. He wiped his forehead -with a towel, took a quick sip of water from the bicycle bottle -beside the Hosaka, and checked the map of the library displayed -on the screen. A pulsing red cursor crept through the outline -of a doorway. Only millimeters from the green dot that indicated -the location of the Dixie Flat line's construct. He wondered -what it was doing to her leg, to walk on it that way. -With enough endorphin analog, she could walk on a pair of -bloody stumps. He tightened the nylon harness that held him -in the chair and replaced the trodes. -Routine now: trodes, jack, and flip. -The Sense/Net research library was a dead storage area; the -materials stored here had to be physically removed before they -could be interfaced. Molly hobbled between rows of identical -gray lockers. -"Tell her five more and ten to her left, Brood," Case said. -"Five more and ten left, Cat Mother," the link man said. -She took the left. A white-faced librarian cowered between -two lockers, her cheeks wet, eyes blank. Molly ignored her. -Case wondered what the Moderns had done to provoke that -level of terror. He knew it had something to do with a hoaxed -threat, but he' d been too involved with his ice to follow Molly ' s -explanation. -"That's it," Case said, but she'd already stopped in front of -the cabinet that held the construct. Its lines reminded Case of -the Neo-Aztec bookcases in Julie Deane's anteroom in Chiba. -"Do it, Cutter," Molly said. -Case flipped to cyberspace and sent a command pulsing -down the crimson thread that pierced the library ice. Five separate -alarm systems were convinced that they were still operative. -The three elaborate locks deactivated, but considered -themselves to have remained locked. The library's central bank -suffered a minute shift in its permanent memory: the construct -had been removed, per executive order, a month before. Checking -for the authorization to remove the construct, a librarian -would find the records erased. -The door swung open on silent hinges. -"0467839," Case said, and Molly drew a black storage unit -from the rack. It resembled the magazine of a large assault -rifle, its surfaces covered with warning decals and security -ratings. -Molly closed the locker door; Case flipped. -He withdrew the line through the library ice. It whipped -back into his program, automatically triggering a full system -reversal. The Sense/Net gates snapped past him as he backed -out, subprograms whirling back into the core of the icebreaker -as he passed the gates where they had been stationed. -"Out, Brood," he said, and slumped in his chair. After the -concentration of an actual run, he could remain jacked in and -still retain awareness of his body. It might take Sense/Net days -to discover the theft of the construct. The key would be the -deflection of the Los Angeles transfer, which coincided too -neatly with the Modern's terror run. He doubted that the three -security men Molly had encountered in the corridor would live -to talk about it. He flipped. -The elevator, with Molly's black box taped beside the control -panel, remained where she'd left it. The guard still lay curled -on the floor. Case noticed the term on his neck for the first -time. Something of Molly's, to keep him under. She stepped -over him and removed the black box before punching LOBBY. -As the elevator door hissed open, a woman hurtled backward -out of the crowd, into the elevator, and struck the rear wall -with her head. Molly ignored her, bending over to peel the -derm from the guard's neck. Then she kicked the white pants -and the pink raincoat out the door, tossing the dark glasses -after them, and drew the hood of her suit down across her -forehead. The construct, in the suit's kangaroo pocket, dug -into her sternum when she moved. She stepped out. - -Case had seen panic before, but never in an enclosed area. -The Sense/Net employees, spilling out of the elevators, had -surged for the street doors, only to meet the foam barricades -of the Tacticals and the sandbag-guns of the BAMA Rapids. -The two agencies, convinced that they were containing a horde -of potential killers, were cooperating with an uncharacteristic -degree of efficiency. Beyond the shattered wreckage of the -main street doors, bodies were piled three deep on the barricades. -The hollow thumping of the riot guns provided a constant -background for the sound the crowd made as it surged back -and forth across the lobby's marble floor. Case had never heard -anything like that sound. -Neither, apparently, had Molly. "Jesus," she said, and hesitated. -It was a sort of keening, rising into a bubbling wail of -MW and total fear. The lobby floor was covered with bodies, -clothing, blood, and long trampled scrolls of yellow printout. -"C'mon, sister. We're for out. " The eyes of the two Moderns -stared out of madly swirling shades of polycarbon, their suits -unable to keep up with the confusion of shape and color that -raged behind them. "You hurt? C'mon. Tommy'll walk you." -Tommy handed something to the one who spoke, a video camera -wrapped in polycarbon. -"Chicago," she said, "I'm on my way." And then she was -falling, not to the marble floor, slick with blood and vomit, -but down some blood warm well, into silence and the dark. - -The Panther Modern leader, who introduced himself as Lupus -Yonderboy, wore a polycarbon suit with a recording feature -that allowed him to replay backgrounds at will. Perched on the -edge of Case's worktable like some kind of state of the art -gargoyle, he regarded Case and Armitage with hooded eyes. -He smiled. His hair was pink. A rainbow forest of microsofts -bristled behind his left ear; the ear was pointed, tufted with -more pink hair. His pupils had been modified to catch the light -like a cat's. Case watched the suit crawl with color and texture. -"You let it getout of control," Armitage said. He stood in -the center of the loft like a statue, wrapped in the dark glossy -folds of an expensive-looking trench coat. -"Chaos, Mr. Who," Lupus Yonderboy said. "That is our -mode and modus. That is our central kick. Your woman knows. -We deal with her. Not with you, Mr. Who." His suit had taken -on a weird angular pattern of beige and pale avocado. "She -needed her medical team. She's with them. We'll watch out -for her. Everything's fine." He smiled again. -"Pay him," Case said. -Armitage glared at him. "We don't have the goods." -"Your woman has it," Yonderboy said. -"Pay him." -Armitage crossed stiffly to the table and took three fat bundles -of New Yen from the pockets of his trench coat. "You -want to count it?" he asked Yonder boy. -"No," the Panther Modern said. "You'll pay. You're a Mr. -Who. You pay to stay one. Not a Mr. Name." -"I hope that isn't a threat," Armitage said. -"That's business," said Yonderboy, stuffing the money into -the single pocket on the front of his suit. -The phone rang. Case answered. -"Molly," he told Armitage, handing him the phone. - -The Sprawl's geodesics were lightening into predawn gray -as Case left the building. His limbs felt cold and disconnected. -He couldn't sleep. He was sick of the loft. Lupus had gone, -then Armitage, and Molly was in surgery somewhere. Vibration -beneath his feet as a train hissed past. Sirens Doppler Ed in the -distance. -He took corners at random, his collar up, hunched in a new -leather jacket, flicking the first of a chain of Yeheyuans into -the gutter and lighting another. He tried to imagine Armitage's -toxin sacs dissolving in his bloodstream, microscopic membranes -wearing thinner as he walked. It didn't seem real. Neither -did the fear and agony he'd seen through Molly's eyes in -the lobby of Sense/Net. He found himself trying to remember -the faces of the three people he'd killed in Chiba. The men -were blanks; the woman reminded him of Linda Lee. A battered -tricycle-truck with mirrored windows bounced past him, empty -plastic cylinders rattling in its bed. -"Case." -He darted sideways, instinctively getting a wall behind his -back. -"Message for you, Case." Lupus Yonder boy's suit cycled -through pure primaries. "Pardon. Not to startle you." -Case straightened up, hands in jacket pockets. He was a -head taller than the Modern. "You ought a be careful, Yonder -boy." -"This is the message. Winter mute." He spelled it out. -"From you?" Case took a step forward. -"No," Yonderboy said. "For you." -"Who from?" -"Winter mute," Yonderboy repeated, nodding, bobbing his -crest of pink hair. His suit went matte black, a carbon shadow -against old concrete. He executed a strange little dance, his -thin black arms whirling, and then he was gone. No. There. -Hood up to hide the pink, the suit exactly the right shade of -gray, mottled and stained as the sidewalk he stood on. The -eyes winked back the red of a stoplight. And then he was really -gone. -Case closed his eyes, massaged them with numb fingers, -leaning back against peeling brickwork. -Ninsei had been a lot simpler. - -The medical team Molly employed occupied two floors of -an anonymous condo-rack near the old hub of Baltimore. The -building was modular, like some giant version of Cheap Hotel -each coffin forty meters long. Case met Molly as she emerged -from one that wore the elaborately worked logo of one GERALD -CHIN, DENTIST. She was limping. -"He says if I kick anything, it'll fall off." -"I ran into one of your pals," he said, "a Modern." -"Yeah? Which one?" -"Lupus Yonderboy. Had a message." He passed her a paper -napkin with W I N T E R M U T E printed in red feltpen in -his neat, laborious capitals. "He said--" But her hand came -up in the jive for silence. -"Get us some crab," she said. - -After lunch in Baltimore, Molly dissecting her crab with -alarming ease, they tubed in to New York. Case had learned -not to ask questions; they only brought the sign for silence. -Her leg seemed to be bothering her, and she seldom spoke. -A thin black child with wooden beads and antique resistors -woven tightly into her hair opened the Finn's door and led them -along the tunnel of refuse. Case felt the stuff had grown somehow -during their absence . Or else it seemed that it was changing -subtly, cooking itself down under the pressure of time, silent -invisible flakes settling to form a mulch, a crystalline essence -of discarded technology, flowering secretly in the Sprawl's -waste places. -Beyond the army blanket, the Finn waited at the white table. -Molly began to sign rapidly, produced a scrap of paper, -wrote something on it, and passed it to the Finn. He took it -between thumb and forefinger, holding it away from his body -as though it might explode. He made a sign Case didn't know, -one that conveyed a mixture of impatience and glum resignation. -He stood up, brushing crumbs from the front of his battered -tweed jacket. A glass jar of pickled herring stood on the -table beside a torn plastic package of flatbread and a tin ashtray -piled with the butts of Partagas. -"Wait," the Finn said, and left the room. -Molly took his place, extruded the blade from her index -finger, and speared a grayish slab of herring. Case wandered -aimlessly around the room, fingering the scanning gear on the -pylons as he passed. -Ten minutes and the Finn came bustling back, showing his -teeth in a wide yellow smile. He nodded, gave Molly a thumbs-up -salute, and gestured to Case to help him with the door panel. -While Case smoothed the velcro border into place, the Finn -took a flat little console from his pocket and punched out an -elaborate sequence. -"Honey," he said to Molly, tucking the console away, "you -have got it. No shit, I can smell it. You wanna tell me where -you got it?" -"Yonderboy," Molly said, shoving the herring and crackers -aside. "I did a deal with Larry, on the side." -"Smart," the Finn said. "It's an AI." -"Slow it down a little," Case said. -"Berne," the Finn said, ignoring him. "Berne. It's got limited -Swiss citizenship under their equivalent of the Act of '53. -Built for Tessier-Ashpool S.A. They own the mainframe and -the original software." -"What's in Beme, okay?" Case deliberately stepped between -them. -"Wintermute is the recognition code for an AI. I've got the -Turing Registry numbers. Artificial intelligence." -"That's all just fine," Molly said, "but where's it get us?" -"If Yonderboy's right," the Finn said, "this Al is backing -Armitage." -"I paid Larry to have the Moderns nose around Ammitage a -little," Molly explained, turning to Case. "They have some -very weird lines of communication. Deal was, they'd get my -money if they answered one question: who's running Armitage?" -"And you think it's this AI? Those things aren't allowed -any autonomy. It'll be the parent corporation, this Tessle. . ." -"Tessier-Ashpool S.A.," said the Finn. "And I got a little -story for you about them. Wanna hear?" He sat down and -hunched forward. -"Finn," Molly said. "He loves a story." -"Haven't ever told anybody this one," the Finn began. - -The Finn was a fence, a trafficker in stolen goods, primarily -in software. In the course of his business, he sometimes came -into contact with other fences, some of whom dealt in the more -traditional articles of the trade. In precious metals, stamps, rare -coins, gems, jewelry, furs, and paintings and other works of -art. The story he told Case and Molly began with another man's -story, a man he called Smith. -Smith was also a fence, but in balmier seasons he surfaced -as an art dealer. He was the first person the Finn had known -who'd "gone silicon"--the phrase had an old-fashioned ring -for Case--and the microsofts he purchased were art history -programs and tables of gallery sales. With half a dozen chips -in his new socket, Smith's knowledge of the art business was -formidable, at least by the standards of his colleagues. But -Smith had come to the Finn with a request for help, a fraternal -request, one businessman to another. He wanted a go-to on the -Tessier-Ashpool clan, he said, and it had to be executed in a -way that would guarantee the impossibility of the subject ever -tracing the inquiry to its source. It might be possible, the Finn -had opined, but an explanation was definitely required. "It -smelled," the Finn said to Case, "smelled of money. And Smith -was being very careful. Almost too careful." -Smith, it developed, had had a supplier known as Jimmy. -Jimmy was a burglar and other things as well, and just back -from a year in high orbit, having carried certain things back -down the gravity well. The most unusual thing Jimmy had -managed to score on his swing through the archipelago was a -head, an intricately worked bust, cloisonne over platinum, studded -with seedpearls and lapis. Smith, sighing, had put down -his pocket microscope and advised Jimmy to melt the thing -down. It was contemporary, not an antique, and had no value -to the collector. Jimmy laughed. The thing was a computer -terminal, he said. It could talk. And not in a synth-voice, but -with a beautiful arrangement of gears and miniature organ pipes. -It was a baroque thing for anyone to have constructed, a perverse -thing, because synth-voice chips cost next to nothing. It -was a curiosity. Smith jacked the head into his computer and -listened as the melodious, inhuman voice piped the figures of -last year's tax return. -Smith' s clientele included a Tokyo billionaire whose passion -for clockwork automata approached fetishism. Smith shrugged, -showing Jimmy his upturned palms in a gesture old as pawn -shops. He could try, he said, but he doubted he could get much -for it. -When Jimmy had gone, leaving the head, Smith went over -it carefully, discovering certain hallmarks. Eventually he'd been -able to trace it to an unlikely collaboration between two Zurich -artisans, an enamel specialist in Paris, a Dutch jeweler, and a -California chip designer. It had been commissioned, he discovered, -by Tessier-Ashpool S.A. -Smith began to make preliminary passes at the Tokyo collector, -hinting that he was on the track of something noteworthy. - -And then he had a visitor, a visitor unannounced, one who -walked in through the elaborate maze of Smith's security as -though it didn't exist. A small man, Japanese, enormously -polite, who bore all the marks of a vatgrown ninja assassin. -Smith sat very still, staring into the calm brown eyes of death -across a polished table of Vietnamese rosewood. Gently, almost -apologetically, the cloned killer explained that it was his duty -to find and return a certain artwork, a mechanism of great -beauty, which had been taken from the house of his master. It -had come to his attention, the ninja said, that Smith might -know of the whereabouts of this object. -Smith told the man that he had no wish to die, and produced -the head. And how much, his visitor asked did you expect to -obtain through the sale of this object? Smith named a figure -far lower than the price he'd intended to set. The ninja produced -a credit chip and keyed Smith that amount out of a numbered -Swiss account. And who, the man asked, brought you this -piece? Smith told him. Within days, Smith learned of Jimmy's -death. -"So that was where I came in," the Finn continued. "Smith -knew I dealt a lot with the Memory Lane crowd, and that's -where you go for a quiet go-to that'll never be traced. I hired -a cowboy. I was the cut-out, so I took a percentage. Smith, -he was careful. He'd just had a very weird business experience -and he'd come out on top, but it didn't add up. Who'd paid, -out of that Swiss stash? Yakuza? No way. They got a very -rigid code covers situations like that, and they kill the receiver -too, always. Was it spook stuff? Smith didn't think so. Spook -biz has a vibe, you get so you can smell it. Well, I had my -cowboy buzz the news morgues until we found Tessier-Ashpool -in litigation. The case wasn't anything, but we got the law -firm. Then he did the lawyer's ice and we got the family -address. Lotta good it did us." -Case raised his eyebrows. -"Freeside," the Finn said. "The spindle. Turns out they own -damn near the whole thing. The interesting stuff was the picture -we got when the cowboy ran a regular go-to on the news -morgues and compiled a precis. Family organization. Corporate -structure. Supposedly you can buy into an S.A., but there hasn't -been a share of Tessier-Ashpool traded on the open market in -over a hundred years. On any market, as far as I know. You're -looking at a very quiet, very eccentric first-generation high- -orbit family, run like a corporation. Big money, very shy of -media. Lot of cloning. Orbital law's a lot softer on genetic -engineering, right? And it's hard to keep track of which gen- -eration, or combination of generations, is running the show at -a given time." -"How's that?" Molly asked. -"Got their own cryogenic setup. Even under orbital law, -you're legally dead for the duration of a freeze. Looks like -they trade off, though nobody's seen the founding father in -about thirty years. Founding momma, she died in some lab -accident...." -"So what happened with your fence?" -"Nothing." The Finn frowned. "Dropped it. We had a look -at this fantastic tangle of powers of attorney the T-A's have, -and that was it. Jimmy must've gotten into Straylight, lifted -the head, and Tessier-Ashpool sent their ninja after it. Smith -decided to forget about it. Maybe he was smart." He looked -at Molly. "The Villa Straylight. Tip of the spindle. Strictly -private." -"You figure they own that ninja, Finn?" Molly asked. -"Smith thought so." -"Expensive," she said. "Wonder whatever happened to that -little ninja, Finn?" -"Probably got him on ice. Thaw when needed." -"Okay," Case said, "we got Armitage getting his goodies -off an AI named Wintermute. Where's that get us?" -"Nowhere yet," Molly said, "but you got a little side gig -now." She drew a folded scrap of paper from her pocket and -handed it to him. He opened it. Grid coordinates and entry -codes. -"Who's this?" -"Armitage. Some data base of his. Bought it from the Mod- -erns. Separate deal. Where is it?" -"London," Case said. -"Crack it." She laughed. "Earn your keep for a change." - -Case waited for a trans-BAMA local on the crowded plat- -form. Molly had gone back to the loft hours ago, the Flatline's -construct in her green bag, and Case had been drinking steadily -ever since. -It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct, a -hardwired ROM cassette replicating a dead man's skills, obsessions, -kneejerk responses.... The local came booming in -along the black induction strip, fine grit sifting from cracks in -the tunnel's ceiling. Case shuffled into the nearest door and -watched the other passengers as he rode. A pair of predatory- -looking Christian Scientists were edging toward a trio of young -office techs who wore idealized holographic vaginas on their -wrists, wet pink glittering under the harsh lighting. The techs -licked their perfect lips nervously and eyed the Christian Scientists -from beneath lowered metallic lids. The girls looked -like tall, exotic grazing animals, swaying gracefully and unconsciously -with the movement of the train, their high heels -like polished hooves against the gray metal of the car's floor. -Before they could stampede, take flight from the missionaries, -the train reached Case's station. -He stepped out and caught sight of a white holographic cigar -suspended against the wall of the station, FREESIDE pulsing -beneath it in contorted capitals that mimicked printed Japanese. -He walked through the crowd and stood beneath it, studying -the thing. WHY WAIT? pulsed the sign. A blunt white spindle, -flanged and studded with grids and radiators, docks, domes. -He'd seen the ad, or others like it, thousands of times. It had -never appealed to him. With his deck, he could reach the -Freeside banks as easily as he could reach Atlanta. Travel was -a meat thing. But now he noticed the little sigil, the size of a -small coin, woven into the lower left corner of the ad's fabric -of light: T-A. -He walked back to the loft, lost in memories of the Flatline. -He'd spent most of his nineteenth summer in the Gentleman -Loser, nursing expensive beers and watching the cowboys. -He'd never touched a deck, then, but he knew what he wanted. -There were at least twenty other hopefuls ghosting the Loser, -that summer, each one bent on working joeboy for some cowboy. -No other way to learn. -They'd all heard of Pauley, the redneck jockey from the -'Lanta fringes, who'd survived braindeath behind black ice. -The grapevine--slender, street level, and the only one going-- -had little to say about Pauley, other than that he'd done the -impossible. "It was big," another would-be told Case, for the -price of a beer, "but who knows what? I hear maybe a Brazilian -payroll net. Anyway, the man was dead, flat down braindeath." -Case stared across the crowded bar at a thickset man in shirtsleeves, -something leaden about the shade of his skin. -"Boy," the Flatline would tell him, months later in Miami, -"I'm like them huge fuckin' lizards, you know? Had themself -two goddam brains, one in the head an' one by the tailbone, -kept the hind legs movin'. Hit that black stuff and ol' tailbrain -jus' kept right on keepin' on." -The cowboy elite in the Loser shunned Pauley out of some -strange group anxiety, almost a superstition. McCoy Pauley, -Lazarus of cyberspace.... -And his heart had done for him in the end. His surplus -Russian heart, implanted in a POW camp during the war. He'd -refused to replace the thing, saying he needed its particular -beat to maintain his sense of timing. Case fingered the slip of -paper Molly had given him and made his way up the stairs. -Molly was snoring on the temperfoam. A transparent cast -ran from her knee to a few millimeters below her crotch, the -skin beneath the rigid micropore mottled with bruises, the black -shading into ugly yellow. Eight derms, each a different size -and color, ran in a neat line down her left wrist. An Akai -transdermal unit lay beside her, its fine red leads connected to -input trodes under the cast. -He turned on the tensor beside the Hosaka. The crisp circle -of light fell directly on the Flatline's construct. He slotted some -ice, connected the construct, and jacked in. -It was exactly the sensation of someone reading over his -shoulder. -He coughed. "Dix? McCoy? That you man?" His throat was -tight. -"Hey, bro," said a directionless voice. -"It's Case, man. Remember?" -"Miami, joeboy, quick study." -"What's the last thing you remember before I spoke to you, -Dix?" -"Nothin'." -"Hang on." He disconnected the construct. The presence -was gone. He reconnected it. "Dix? Who am I?" -"You got me hung, Jack. Who the fuck are you?" -"Ca--your buddy. Partner. What's happening, man?" -"Good question." -"Remember being here, a second ago?" -"No." -"Know how a ROM personality matrix works?" -"Sure, bro, it's a firmware construct." -"So I jack it into the bank I'm using, I can give it sequential, -real time memory?" -"Guess so," said the construct. -"Okay, Dix. You are a ROM construct. Got me?" -"If you say so," said the construct. "Who are you?" -"Case." -"Miami," said the voice, "joeboy, quick study." -"Right. And for starts, Dix, you and me, we're gonna sleaze -over to London grid and access a little data. You game for -that?" -"You gonna tell me I got a choice, boy?" -"You want you a paradise," the Flatline advised, when Case -had explained his situation. "Check Copenhagen, fringes of -the university section." The voice recited coordinates as he -punched. -They found their paradise, a "pirate's paradise," on the -jumbled border of a low-security academic grid. At first glance -it resembled the kind of graffiti student operators sometimes -left at the junctions of grid lines, faint glyphs of colored light -that shimmered against the confused outlines of a dozen arts -faculties. -"There," said the Flatline, "the blue one. Make it out? That's -an entry code for Bell Europa. Fresh, too. Bell'll get in here -soon and read the whole damn board, change any codes they -find posted. Kids'll steal the new ones tomorrow." -Case tapped his way into Bell Europa and switched to a -standard phone code. With the Flatline's help, he connected -with the London data base that Molly claimed was Armitage's. -"Here," said the voice, "I'll do it for you." The Flatline -began to chant a series of digits, Case keying them on his deck, -trying to catch the pauses the construct used to indicate timing. -It took three tries. -"Big deal," said the Flatline. "No ice at all." -"Scan this shit," Case told the Hosaka. "Sift for owner's -personal history." -The neuroelectronic scrawls of the paradise vanished, re- -placed by a simple lozenge of white light. "Contents are pri- -marily video recordings of postwar military trials," said the -distant voice of the Hosaka. "Central figure is Colonel Willis -Corto." -"Show it already," Case said. -A man's face filled the screen. The eyes were Armitage's. -Two hours later, Case fell beside Molly on the slab and let -the temperfoam mold itself against him. -"You find anything?" she asked, her voice fuzzy with sleep -and drugs. -"Tell you later," he said, "I'm wrecked." He was hungover -and confused. He lay there, eyes closed, and tried to sort the -various parts of a story about a man called Corto. The Hosaka -had sorted a thin store of data and assembled a precis, but it -was full of gaps. Some of the material had been print records, -reeling smoothly down the screen, too quickly, and Case had -had to ask the computer to read them for him. Other segments -were audio recordings of the Screaming Fist hearing. -Willis Corto, Colonel, had plummeted through a blind spot -in the Russian defenses over Kirensk. The shuttles had created -the hole with pulse bombs, and Corto's team had dropped in -in Nightwing microlights, their wings snapping taut in moonlight, -reflected in jags of silver along the rivers Angara and -Podhamennaya, the last light Corto would see for fifteen months. -Case tried to imagine the microlights blossoming out of their -launch capsules, high above a frozen steppe. -"They sure as hell did shaft you, boss," Case said, and -Molly stirred beside him. -The microlights had been unarmed, stripped to compensate -for the weight of a console operator, a prototype deck, and a -virus program called Mole IX, the first true virus in the history -of cybernetics. Corto and his team had been training for the -run for three years. They were through the ice, ready to inject -Mole IX, when the emps went off. The Russian pulse guns -threw the jockeys into electronic darkness; the Nightwings suffered -systems crash, flight circuitry wiped clean. -Then the lasers opened up, aiming on infrared, taking out -the fragile, radar-transparent assault planes, and Corto and his -dead console man fell out of a Siberian sky. Fell and kept -falling.... -There were gaps in the story, here, where Case scanned -documents concerning the flight of a commandeered Russian -gunship that managed to reach Finland. To be gutted, as it -landed in a spruce grove, by an antique twenty-millimeter can- -non manned by a cadre of reservists on dawn alert. Screaming -Fist had ended for Corto on the outskirts of Helsinki, with -Finnish paramedics sawing him out of the twisted belly of the -helicopter. The war ended nine days later, and Corto was shipped -to a military facility in Utah, blind, legless, and missing most -of his jaw. It took eleven months for the Congressional aide -to find him there. He listened to the sound of tubes draining. -In Washington and McLean, the show trials were already un- -derway. The Pentagon and the CIA were being Balkanized, -partially dismantled, and a Congressional investigation had focused -on Screaming Fist. Ripe for watergating, the aide told -Corto. -He'd need eyes, legs, and extensive cosmetic work, the aide -said, but that could be arranged. New plumbing, the man added, -squeezing Corto's shoulder through the sweat-damp sheet. -Corto heard the soft, relentless dripping. He said he preferred -to testify as he was. -No, the aide explained, the trials were being televised. The -trials needed to reach the voter. The aide coughed politely. -Repaired, refurnished, and extensively rehearsed, Corto's -subsequent testimony was detailed, moving, lucid, and largely -the invention of a Congressional cabal with certain vested interests -in saving particular portions of the Pentagon infrastructure. -Corto gradually understood that the testimony he gave -was instrumental in saving the careers of three officers directly -responsible for the suppression of reports on the building of -the emp installations at Kirensk. -His role in the trials over, he was unwanted in Washington. -In an M Street restaurant, over asparagus crepes, the aide explained -the terminal dangers involved in talking to the wrong -people. Corto crushed the man's larynx with the rigid fingers -of his right hand. The Congressional aide strangled, his face -in an asparagus crepe, and Corto stepped out into cool Washington -September. -The Hosaka rattled through police reports, corporate espionage -records, and news files. Case watched Corto work corporate -defectors in Lisbon and Marrakesh, where he seemed -to grow obsessed with the idea of betrayal, to loathe the scientists -and technicians he bought out for his employers. Drunk, -in Singapore, he beat a Russian engineer to death in a hotel -and set fire to his room. -Next he surfaced in Thailand, as overseer of a heroin factory. -Then as enforcer for a California gambling cartel, then as a -paid killer in the ruins of Bonn. He robbed a bank in Wichita. -The record grew vague, shadowy, the gaps longer. -One day, he said, in a taped segment that suggested chemical -interrogation, everything had gone gray. -Translated French medical records explained that a man -without identification had been taken to a Paris mental health -unit and diagnosed as schizophrenic. He became catatonic and -was sent to a government institution on the outskirts of Toulon. -He became a subject in an experimental program that sought -to reverse schizophrenia through the application of cybernetic -models. A random selection of patients were provided with -microcomputers and encouraged, with help from students, to -program them. He was cured, the only success in the entire -experiment. -The record ended there. - -Case turned on the foam and Molly cursed him softly for -disturbing her. -The telephone rang. He pulled it into bed. "Yeah?" -"We're going to Istanbul," Armitage said. "Tonight." -"What does the bastard want?" Molly asked. -"Says we're going to Istanbul tonight." -"That's just wonderful." -Armitage was reading off flight numbers and departure times. -Molly sat up and turned on the light. -"What about my gear?" Case asked. "My deck." -"Finn will handle it," said Armitage, and hung up. -Case watched her pack. There were dark circles under her -eyes, but even with the cast on, it was like watching a dance. -No wasted motion. His clothes were a rumpled pile beside his -bag. -"You hurting?" he asked. -"I could do with another night at Chin's." -"Your dentist?" -"You betcha. Very discreet. He's got half that rack, full -clinic. Does repairs for samurai." She was zipping her bag. -"You ever been to 'Stanbul?" -"Couple days, once." -"Never changes," she said. "Bad old town." -"It was like this when we headed for Chiba," Molly said, -staring out the train window at blasted industrial moonscape, -red beacons on the horizon warning aircraft away from a fusion -plant. "We were in L.A. He came in and said Pack, we were -booked for Macau. When we got there, I played fantan in the -Lisboa and he crossed over into Zhongshan. Next day I was -playing ghost with you in Night City." She took a silk scarf -from the sleeve of her black jacket and polished the insets. The -landscape of the northern Sprawl woke confused memories of -childhood for Case, dead grass tufting the cracks in a canted -slab of freeway concrete. -The train began to decelerate ten kilometers from the airport. -Case watched the sun rise on the landscape of childhood, on -broken slag and the rusting shells of refineries. - -It was raining in Beyoglu, and the rented Mercedes slid past -the grilled and unlit windows of cautious Greek and Armenian -jewelers. The street was almost empty, only a few dark-coated -figures on the sidewalks turning to stare after the car. -"This was formerly the prosperous European section of Ottoman -Istanbul," purred the Mercedes. -"So it's gone downhill," Case said. -"The Hilton's in Cumhuriyet Caddesi," Molly said. She -settled back against the car's gray ultrasuede. -"How come Armitage flies alone?" Case asked. He had a -headache. -"'Cause you get up his nose. You're sure getting up mine." -He wanted to tell her the Corto story, but decided against -it. He'd used a sleep derm, on the plane. -The road in from the airport had been dead straight, like a -neat incision, laying the city open. He'd watched the crazy -walls of patchwork wooden tenements slide by, condos, arcologies, -grim housing projects, more walls of plyboard and -corrugated iron. -The Finn, in a new Shinjuku suit, sarariman black, was -waiting sourly in the Hilton lobby, marooned on a velour armchair -in a sea of pale blue carpeting. -"Christ," Molly said. "Rat in a business suit." -They crossed the lobby. -"How much you get paid to come over here, Finn?" She -lowered her bag beside the armchair. "Bet not as much as you -get for wearing that suit, huh?" -The Finn' s upper lips drew back. "Not enough, sweetmeat. " -He handed her a magnetic key with a round yellow tag. "You're -registered already. Honcho's upstairs." He looked around. "This -town sucks." -"You get agoraphobic, they take you out from under a dome. -Just pretend it's Brooklyn or something." She twirled the key -around a finger. "You here as valet or what?" -"I gotta check out some guy's implants," the Finn said. -"How about my deck?" Case asked. -The Finn winced. "Observe the protocol. Ask the boss." -Molly's fingers moved in the shadow of her jacket, a flicker -of jive. The Finn watched, then nodded. -"Yeah," she said, "I know who that is." She jerked her head -in the direction of the elevators. "Come on, cowboy." Case -followed her with both bags. - -Their room might have been the one in Chiba where he'd -first seen Armitage. He went to the window, in the morning, -almost expecting to see Tokyo Bay. There was another hotel -across the street. It was still raining. A few letter-writers had -taken refuge in doorways, their old voiceprinters wrapped in -sheets of clear plastic, evidence that the written word still -enjoyed a certain prestige here. It was a sluggish country. He -watched a dull black Citroen sedan, a primitive hydrogen-cell -conversion, as it disgorged five sullen-looking Turkish officers -in rumpled green uniforms. They entered the hotel across the -street. -He glanced back at the bed, at Molly, and her paleness -struck him. She'd left the micropore cast on the bedslab in -their loft, beside the transdermal inducer. Her glasses reflected -part of the room's light fixture. -He had the phone in his hand before it had a chance to ring -twice. "Glad you're up," Armitage said. -"I'm just. Lady's still under. Listen, boss, I think it's maybe -time we have a little talk. I think I work better if I know a -little more about what I'm doing." -Silence on the line. Case bit his lip. -"You know as much as you need to. Maybe more." -"You think so?" -"Get dressed, Case. Get her up. You'll have a caller in -about fifteen minutes. His name is Terzibashjian." The phone -bleated softly. Armitage was gone. -"Wake up, baby," Case said. "Biz." -"I've been awake an hour already." The mirrors turned. -"We got a Jersey Bastion coming up." -"You got an ear for language, Case. Bet you're part Ar- -menian. That's the eye Armitage has had on Riviera. Help me -up." -Terzibashjian proved to be a young man in a gray suit and -gold-framed, mirrored glasses. His white shirt was open at the -collar, revealing a mat of dark hair so dense that Case at first -mistook it for some kind of t-shirt. He arrived with a black -Hilton tray arranged with three tiny, fragrant cups of thick -black coffee and three sticky, straw-colored Oriental sweets. -"We must, as you say in Ingiliz, take this one very easy." -He seemed to stare pointedly at Molly, but at last he removed -the silver glasses. His eyes were a dark brown that matched -the shade of his very short military-cut hair. He smiled. "It is -better, this way, yes? Else we make the tunel infinity, mirror -into mirror.... You particularly," he said to her, "must take -care. In Turkey there is disapproval of women who sport such -modifications." -Molly bit one of the pastries in half. "It's my show, Jack," -she said, her mouth full. She chewed, swallowed, and licked -her lips. "I know about you. Stool for the military, right?" Her -hand slid lazily into the front of her jacket and came out with -the fletcher. Case hadn't known she had it. -"Very easy, please," Terzibashjian said, his white china -thimble frozen centimeters from his lips. -She extended the gun. "Maybe you get the explosives, lots -of them, or maybe you get a cancer. One dart, shitface. You -won't feel it for months." -"Please. You call this in Ingiliz making me very tight...." -"I call it a bad morning. Now tell us about your man and -get your ass out of here." She put the gun away. -"He is living in Fener, at Kuchuk Gulhane Djaddesi 14. 1 -have his tunel route, nightly to the bazaar. He performs most -recently at the Yenishehir Palas Oteli, a modern place in the -style turistik, but it has been arranged that the police have -shown a certain interest in these shows. The Yenishehir man- -agement has grown nervous." He smiled. He smelled of some -metallic aftershave. -"I want to know about the implants," she said, massaging -her thigh, "I want to know exactly what he can do." -Terzibashjian nodded. "Worst is how you say in Ingiliz, the -subliminals." He made the word four careful syllables. - -"On our left," said the Mercedes, as it steered through a -maze of rainy streets, "is Kapali Carsi, the grand bazaar." -Beside Case, the Finn made an appreciative noise, but he -was looking in the wrong direction. The right side of the street -was lined with miniature scrapyards. Case saw a gutted loco- -motive atop rust-stained, broken lengths of fluted marble. -Headless marble statues were stacked like firewood. -"Homesick?" Case asked. -"Place sucks," the Finn said. His black silk tie was starting -to resemble a worn carbon ribbon. There were medallions of -kebab gravy and fried egg on the lapels of the new suit. -"Hey, Jersey," Case said to the Armenian, who sat behind -them, "where'd this guy get his stuff installed?" -"In Chiba City. He has no left lung. The other is boosted, -is how you say it? Anyone might buy these implants, but this -one is most talented." The Mercedes swerved, avoiding a bal- -loon-tired dray stacked with hides. "I have followed him in the -street and seen a dozen cycles fall, near him, in a day. Find -the cyclist in a hospital, the story is always the same. A scorpion -poised beside a brake lever...." -"'What you see is what you get,' yeah," the Finn said. "I -seen the schematics on the guy's silicon. Very flash. What he -imagines, you see. I figure he could narrow it to a pulse and -fry a retina over easy." -"You have told this to your woman friend?" Terzibashjian -leaned forward between the ultrasuede buckets. "In Turkey, -women are still women. This one. . ." -The Finn snorted. "She'd have you wearing your balls for -a bow tie if you looked at her cross-eyed." -"I do not understand this idiom." -"That's okay," Case said. "Means shut up." -The Armenian sat back, leaving a metallic edge of after- -shave. He began to whisper to a Sanyo transceiver in a strange -salad of Greek, French, Turkish, isolated fragments of English. -The transceiver answered in French. The Mercedes swung -smoothly around a corner. "The spice bazaar, sometimes called -the Egyptian bazaar," the car said, "was erected on the site of -an earlier bazaar erected by Sultan Hatice in 1660. This is the -city's central market for spices, software, perfumes, drugs...." -"Drugs," Case said, watching the car's wipers cross and -recross the bulletproof Lexan. "What's that you said before, -Jersey, about this Riviera being wired?" -"A mixture of cocaine and meperidine, yes." The Armenian -went back to the conversation he was having with the Sanyo. -' Demerol, they used to call that," said the Finn. "He's a -speedball artist. Funny class of people you're mixing with, -Case." -"Never mind," Case said, turning up the collar of his jacket, -"we'll get the poor fucker a new pancreas or something." - -Once they entered the bazaar, the Finn brightened notice- -ably, as though he were comforted by the crowd density and -the sense of enclosure. They walked with the Armenian along -a broad concourse, beneath soot-stained sheets of plastic and -green-painted ironwork out of the age of steam. A thousand -suspended ads writhed and flickered. -"Hey, Christ," the Finn said, taking Case's arm, "looka -that." He pointed. "It's a horse, man. You ever see a horse?" -Case glanced at the embalmed animal and shook his head. -It was displayed on a sort of pedestal, near the entrance to a -place that sold birds and monkeys. The thing's legs had been -worn black and hairless by decades of passing hands. "Saw -one in Maryland once," the Finn said, "and that was a good -three years after the pandemic. There's Arabs still trying to -code 'em up from the DNA, but they always croak." -The animal's brown glass eyes seemed to follow them as -they passed. Terzibashjian led them into a cafe near the core -of the market, a low-ceilinged room that looked as though it -had been in continuous operation for centuries. Skinny boys -in soiled white coats dodged between the crowded tables, bal- -ancing steel trays with bottles of Turk-Tuborg and tiny glasses -of tea. -Case bought a pack of Yeheyuans from a vendor by the -door. The Armenian was muttering to his Sanyo. "Come," he -said, "he is moving. Each night he rides the tunel to the bazaar, -to purchase his mixture from Ali. Your woman is close. Come." - -The alley was an old place, too old, the walls cut from -blocks of dark stone. The pavement was uneven and smelled -of a century's dripping gasoline, absorbed by ancient limestone. -"Can't see shit," he whispered to the Finn. "That's okay for -sweetmeat," the Finn said. "Quiet," said Terzibashjian, too -loudly -Wood grated on stone or concrete. Ten meters down the -alley, a wedge of yellow light fell across wet cobbles, widened. -A figure stepped out and the door grated shut again, leaving -the narrow place in darkness. Case shivered. -"Now," Terzibashjian said, and a brilliant beam of white -light, directed from the rooftop of the building opposite the -market, pinned the slender figure beside the ancient wooden -door in a perfect circle. Bright eyes darted left, right, and the -man crumpled. Case thought someone had shot him; he lay -face down, blond hair pale against the old stone, his limp hands -white and pathetic. -The floodlight never wavered. -The back of the fallen man's jacket heaved and burst, blood -splashing the wall and doorway. A pair of impossibly long, -rope-tendoned arms flexed grayish-pink in the glare. The thing -seemed to pull itself up out of the pavement, through the inert, -bloody ruin that had been Riviera. It was two meters tall, stood -on two legs, and seemed to be headless. Then it swung slowly -to face them, and Case saw that it had a head, but no neck. It -was eyeless, the skin gleaming a wet intestinal pink. The mouth, -if it was a mouth, was circular, conical, shallow, and lined -with a seething growth of hairs or bristles, glittering like black -chrome. It kicked the rags of clothing and flesh aside and took -a step, the mouth seeming to scan for them as it moved. -Terzibashjian said something in Greek or Turkish and rushed -the thing, his arms spread like a man attempting to dive through -a window. He went through it. Into the muzzle-flash of a pistol -from the dark beyond the circle of light. Fragments of rock -whizzed past Case's head; the Finn jerked him down into a -crouch. -The light from the rooftop vanished, leaving him with mis- -matched afterimages of muzzle-flash, monster, and white beam. -His ears rang. -Then the light returned, bobbing now, searching the shad- -ows. Terzibashjian was leaning against a steel door, his face -very white in the glare. He held his left wrist and watched -blood drip from a wound in his left hand. The blond man, -whole again, unbloodied, lay at his feet. -Molly stepped out of the shadows, all in black, with her -fletcher in her hand. -"Use the radio," the Armenian said, through gritted teeth. -"Call in Mahmut. We must get him out of here. This is not a -good place." -"Little prick nearly made it," the Finn said, his knees crack- -ing loudly as he stood up, brushing ineffectually at the legs of -his trousers. "You were watching the horror-show, right? Not -the hamburger that got tossed out of sight. Real cute. Well, -help 'em get his ass outa here. I gotta scan all that gear before -he wakes up, make sure Armitage is getting his money's worth." -Molly bent and picked something up. A pistol. "A Nambu," -she said. "Nice gun." -Terzibashjian made a whining sound. Case saw that most -of his middle finger was missing. - -With the city drenched in predawn blue, she told the Mercedes -to take them to Topkapi . The Finn and an enormous Turk named -Mahmut had taken Riviera, still unconscious, from the alley. -Minutes later, a dusty Citroen had arrived for the Armenian -who seemed on the verge of fainting. -"You're an asshole," Molly told the man, opening the car -door for him. "You shoulda hung back. I had him in my sights -as soon as he stepped out." Terzibashjian glared at her. "So -we're through with you anyway." She shoved him in and -slammed the door. "Run into you again and I'll kill you," she -said to the white face behind the tinted window. The Citroen -ground away down the alley and swung clumsily into the street. -Now the Mercedes whispered through Istanbul as the city -woke. They passed the Beyoglu tunel terminal and sped past -mazes of deserted back streets, run-down apartment houses that -reminded Case vaguely of Paris. -"What is this thing?" he asked Molly, as the Mercedes -parked itself on the fringes of the gardens that surround the -Scraglio. He stared dully at the baroque conglomeration of -styles that was Topkapi. -"It was sort of a private whorehouse for the King," she said, -getting out stretching. "Kept a lotta women there. Now it's a -museum. Kinda like Finn's shop, all this stuff just jumbled in -there big diamonds, swords, the left hand of John the -Baptist...." -"Like in a support vat?" -"Nah. Dead. Got it inside this brass hand thing, little hatch -on the side so the Christians could kiss it for luck. Got it off -the Christians about a million years ago, and they never dust -the goddam thing, 'cause it's an infidel relic." -Black iron deer rusted in the gardens of the Seraglio. Case -walked beside her, watching the toes of her boots crunch unkept -grass made stiff by an early frost. They walked beside a path -of cold octagonal flagstones. Winter was waiting, somewhere -in the Balkans. -"That Terzi, he's grade-A scum," she said. "He's the secret -police. Torturer. Real easy to buy out, too, with the kind of -money Armitage was offering." In the wet trees around them, -birds began to sing. -"I did that job for you," Case said, "the one in London. I -got something, but I don't know what it means." He told her -the Corto story. - -"Well, I knew there wasn't anybody name of Armitage in -that Screaming Fist. Looked it up." She stroked the rusted -flank of an iron doe. "You figure the little computer pulled -him out of it? In that French hospital?" -"I figure Wintermute," Case said. -She nodded. -"Thing is," he said, "do you think he knows he was Corto, -before? I mean, he wasn't anybody in particular, by the time -he hit the ward, so maybe Wintermute just. . ." -"Yeah. Built him up from go. Yeah..." She turned and -they walked on. "It figures. You know, the guy doesn't have -any life going, in private. Not as far as I can tell. You see a -guy like that, you figure there's something he does when he's -alone. But not Armitage. Sits and stares at the wall, man. Then -something clicks and he goes into high gear and wheels for -Wintermute." -"So why's he got that stash in London? Nostalgia?" -"Maybe he doesn't know about it," she said. "Maybe it's -just in his name, right?" -"I don't get it," Case said. -"Just thinking out loud.... How smart's an Al, Case?" -"Depends. Some aren't much smarter than dogs. Pets. Cost -a fortune anyway. The real smart ones are as smart as the -Turing heat is willing to let 'em get." -"Look, you're a cowboy. How come you aren't just flat- -out fascinated with those things?" -"Well," he said, "for starts, they're rare. Most of them are -military, the bright ones, and we can't crack the ice. That's -where ice all comes from, you know? And then there's the -Turing cops, and that's bad heat." He looked at her. "I dunno, -it just isn't part of the trip." -"Jockeys all the same," she said. "No imagination." -They came to a broad rectangular pond where carp nuzzled -the stems of some white aquatic flower. She kicked a loose -pebble in and watched the ripples spread. -"That's Wintermute," she said. "This deal's real big, looks -to me. We're out where the little waves are too broad, we can't -see the rock that hit the center. We know something's there, -but not why. I wanna know why. I want you to go and talk to -Wintermute." -"I couldn't get near it," he said. "You're dreaming." -"Try." -"Can't be done." -"Ask the Flatline." -"What do we want out of that Riviera?" he asked, hoping -to change the subject. -She spat into the pond. "God knows. I'd as soon kill him -as look at him. I saw his profile. He's a kind of compulsive -Judas. Can't get off sexually unless he knows he's betraying -the object of desire. That's what the file says. And they have -to love him first. Maybe he loves them, too. That's why it was -easy for Terzi to set him up for us, because he's been here -three years, shopping politicals to the secret police. Probably -Terzi let him watch, when the cattle prods came out. He's done -eighteen in three years. All women age twenty to twenty-five. -It kept Terzi in dissidents." She thrust her hands into her jacket -pockets. "Because if he found one he really wanted, he'd make -sure she turned political. He's got a personality like a Modern's -suit. The profile said it was a very rare type, estimated one in -a couple of million. Which anyway says something good about -human nature, I guess." She stared at the white flowers and -the sluggish fish, her face sour. "I think I'm going to have to -buy myself some special insurance on that Peter." Then she -turned and smiled, and it was very cold. -"What's that mean?" -"Never mind. Let's go back to Beyoglu and find something -like breakfast. I gotta busy night again, tonight. Gotta collect -his stuff from that apartment in Fener, gotta go back to the -bazaar and buy him some drugs...." -"Buy him some drugs? How's he rate?" -She laughed. "He's not dying on the wire, sweetheart. And -it looks like he can't work without that special taste. I like you -better now, anyway, you aren't so goddam skinny." She smiled. -"So I'll go to Ali the dealer and stock up. You betcha." - -Armitage was waiting in their room at the Hilton. -"Time to pack," he said, and Case tried to find the man -called Corto behind the pale blue eyes and the tanned mask. -He thought of Wage, back in Chiba. Operators above a certain -level tended to submerge their personalities, he knew. But -Wage had had vices, lovers. Even, it had been rumored, chil- -dren. The blankness he found in Armitage was something else. -"Where to now?" he asked, walking past the man to stare -down into the street. "What kind of climate?" -"They don't have climate, just weather," Armitage said. -"Here. Read the brochure." He put something on the coffee -table and stood. -"Did Riviera check out okay? Where's the Finn?" -"Riviera's fine. The Finn is on his way home." Armitage -smiled, a smile that meant as much as the twitch of some -insect's antenna. His gold bracelet clinked as he reached out -to prod Case in the chest. "Don't get too smart. Those little -sacs are starting to show wear, but you don't know how much." -Case kept his face very still and forced himself to nod. -When Armitage was gone, he picked up one of the bro- -chures. It was expensively printed, in French, English, and -Turkish. -FREESIDE--WHY WAIT? - -The four of them were booked on a THY flight out of Yes- -ilkoy airport. Transfer at Paris to the JAL shuttle. Case sat in -the lobby of the Istanbul Hilton and watched Riviera browse -bogus Byzantine fragments in the glass-walled gift-shop. Ar- -mitage, his trenchcoat draped over his shoulders like a cape, -stood in the shop's entrance. -Riviera was slender, blond, soft-voiced, his English ac- -centless and fluid. Molly said he was thirty, but it would have -been difficult to guess his age. She also said he was legally -stateless and traveled under a forged Dutch passport. He was -a product of the rubble rings that fringe the radioactive core -of old Bonn. -Three smiling Japanese tourists bustled into the shop, nod- -ding politely to Armitage. Armitage crossed the floor of the -shop too quickly, too obviously, to stand beside Riviera. Ri- -viera turned and smiled. He was very beautiful; Case assumed -the features were the work of a Chiba surgeon. A subtle job, -nothing like Armitage's blandly handsome blend of pop faces. -The man's forehead was high and smooth, gray eyes calm and -distant. His nose, which might have been too nicely sculpted, -seemed to have been broken and clumsily reset. The suggestion -of brutality offset the delicacy of his jaw and the quickness of -his smile. His teeth were small, even, and very white. Case -watched the white hands play over the imitation fragments of -sculpture. -Riviera didn't act like a man who'd been attacked the night -before, drugged with a toxin-flechette, abducted, subjected to -the Finn's examination, and pressured by Armitage into joining -their team. -Case checked his watch. Molly was due back from her drug -run. He looked up at Riviera again. "I bet you're stoned right -now, asshole," he said to the Hilton lobby. A graying Italian -matron in a white leather tuxedo jacket lowered her Porsche -glasses to stare at him. He smiled broadly, stood, and shoul- -dered his bag. He needed cigarettes for the flight. He wondered -if there was a smoking section on the JAL shuttle. "See ya -lady," he said to the woman, who promptly slid the sunglasses -back up her nose and turned away. -There were cigarettes in the gift shop, but he didn't relish -talking with Armitage or Riviera. He left the lobby and located -a vending console in a narrow alcove, at the end of a rank of -pay phones. -He fumbled through a pocketful of lirasi, slotting the small -dull alloy coins one after another, vaguely amused by the anach- -ronism of the process. The phone nearest him rang. -Automatically, he picked it up. -"Yeah?" -Faint harmonics, tiny inaudible voices rattling across some -orbital link, and then a sound like wind. -"Hello. Case." -A fifty-lirasi coin fell from his hand, bounced, and rolled -out of sight across Hilton carpeting. -"Wintermute, Case. It's time we talk." -It was a chip voice. -"Don't you want to talk, Case?" -He hung up. -On his way back to the lobby, his cigarettes forgotten, he -had to walk the length of the ranked phones. Each rang in turn, -but only once, as he passed. - - -PART THREE - -MIDNIGHT IN THE -RUE JULES VERNE - -Archipelago. -The islands. Torus, spindle, cluster. Human DNA spreading -out from gravity's steep well like an oilslick. -Call up a graphics display that grossly simplifies the ex- -change of data in the L-S archipelago. One segment clicks in -as red solid, a massive rectangle dominating your screen. -Freeside. Freeside is many things, not all of them evident -to the tourists who shuttle up and down the well. Freeside is -brothel and banking nexus, pleasure dome and free port, bor- -der town, and spa. Freeside is Las Vegas and the hanging gar- -dens of Babylon, an orbital Geneva and home to a family inbred -and most carefully refined, the industrial clan of Tessier and -Ashpool. - -On the THY liner to Paris, they sat together in First Class, -Molly in the window seat, Case beside her, Riviera and Ar- -mitage on the aisle. Once, as the plane banked over water, -Case saw the jewel-glow of a Greek island town. And once, -reaching for his drink, he caught the flicker of a thing like a -giant human sperm in the depths of his bourbon and water. -Molly leaned across him and slapped Riviera's face, once. -"No, baby. No games. You play that subliminal shit around -me, I'll hurt you real bad. I can do it without damaging you -at all. I like that." -Case turned automatically to check Armitage's reaction. The -smooth face was calm, the blue eyes alert, but there was no -anger. "That's right, Peter. Don't." -Case turned back, in time to catch the briefest flash of a -black rose, its petals sheened like leather, the black stem thorned -with bright chrome. -Peter Riviera smiled sweetly, closed his eyes, and fell in- -stantly asleep. -Molly turned away, her lenses reflected in the dark window. -"You been up, haven't you?" Molly asked, as he squirmed -his way back into the deep temperfoam couch on the JAL -shuttle. -"Nah. Never travel much, just for biz." The steward was -attaching readout trodes to his wrist and left ear. -"Hope you don't get SAS," she said. -"Airsick? No way." -"It's not the same. Your heartbeat'll speed up in zero-g, and -your inner ear'll go nuts for a while. Kicks in your flight reflex, -like you'll be getting signals to run like hell, and a lot of -adrenaline." The steward moved on to Riviera, taking a new -set of trodes from his red plastic apron. -Case turned his head and tried to make out the outline of -the old Orly terminals, but the shuttle pad was screened by -graceful blast-deflectors of wet concrete. The one nearest the -window bore an Arabic slogan in red spraybomb. -He closed his eyes and told himself the shuttle was only a -big airplane, one that flew very high. It smelled like an airplane, -like new clothes and chewing gum and exhaustion. He listened -to the piped koto music and waited. -Twenty minutes, then gravity came down on him like a -great soft hand with bones of ancient stone. - -* * * -Space adaptation syndrome was worse than Molly's de- -scription, but it passed quickly enough and he was able to -sleep. The steward woke him as they were preparing to dock -at JAL's terminal cluster. -We transfer to Freeside now?" he asked, eyeing a shred -of Yeheyuan tobacco that had drifted gracefully up out of his -shirt pocket to dance ten centimeters from his nose. There was -no smoking on shuttle flights. -"No, we got the boss's usual little kink in the plans, you -know? We're getting this taxi out to Zion, Zion cluster." She -touched the release plate on her harness and began to free -herself from the embrace of the foam. "Funny choice of venue, -you ask me." -"How's that?" -"Dreads. Rastas. Colony's about thirty years old now." -"What's that mean?" -"You'll see. It's an okay place by me. Anyway, they'll let -you smoke your cigarettes there." - -Zion had been founded by five workers who'd refused to -return, who'd turned their backs on the well and started build- -ing. They'd suffered calcium loss and heart shrinkage before -rotational gravity was established in the colony's central torus. -Seen from the bubble of the taxi, Zion's makeshift hull re- -minded Case of the patchwork tenements of Istanbul, the ir- -regular, discolored plates laser-scrawled with Rastafarian -symbols and the initials of welders. -Molly and a skinny Zionite called Aerol helped Case ne- -gotiate a freefall corridor into the core of a smaller torus. He'd -lost track of Armitage and Riviera in the wake of a second -wave of SAS vertigo. "Here," Molly said, shoving his legs -into a narrow hatchway overhead. "Grab the rungs. Make like -you're climbing backward, right? You're going toward the hull, -that's like you're climbing down into gravity. Got it?" -Case's stomach churned. -"You be fine, mon," Aerol said, his grin bracketed with -gold incisors. -Somehow, the end of the tunnel had become its bottom. -Case embraced the weak gravity like a drowning man finding -a pocket of air. -"Up," Molly said, "you gonna kiss it next?" Case lay flat -on the deck, on his stomach, arms spread. Something struck -him on the shoulder. He rolled over and saw a fat bundle of -elastic cable. "Gotta play house," she said. "You help me string -this up." He looked around the wide, featureless space and -noticed steel rings welded on every surface, seemingly at ran- -dom. -When they'd strung the cables, according to some complex -scheme of Molly's, they hung them with battered sheets of -yellow plastic. As they worked, Case gradually became aware -of the music that pulsed constantly through the cluster. It was -called dub, a sensuous mosaic cooked from vast libraries of -digitalized pop; it was worship, Molly said, and a sense of -community. Case heaved at one of the yellow sheets; the thing -was light but still awkward. Zion smelled of cooked vegetables, -humanity, and ganja. -"Good," Armitage said, gliding loose-kneed through the -hatch and nodding at the maze of sheets. Riviera followed, less -certain in the partial gravity. -"Where were you when it needed doing?" Case asked Ri- -viera. -The man opened his mouth to speak. A small trout swam -out, trailing impossible bubbles. It glided past Case's cheek. -"In the head," Riviera said, and smiled. -Case laughed. -"Good," Riviera said, "you can laugh. I would have tried -to help you, but I'm no good with my hands." He held up his -palms, which suddenly doubled. Four arms, four hands. -"Just the harmless clown, right, Riviera?" Molly stepped -between them. -"Yo," Aerol said, from the hatch, "you wan' come wi' me, -cowboy mon." -"It's your deck," Armitage said, "and the other gear. Help -him get it in from the cargo bay." -"You ver' pale, mon," Aerol said, as they were guiding the -foam-bundled Hosaka terminal along the central corridor. -"Maybe you wan' eat somethin'." -Case's mouth flooded with saliva; he shook his head. - -* * * -Armitage announced an eighty-hour stay in Zion. Molly and -Case would practice in zero gravity, he said, and acclimatize -themselves to working in it. He would brief them on Freeside -and the Villa Straylight. It was unclear what Riviera was sup- -posed to be doing, but Case didn't feel like asking. A few -hours after their arrival, Armitage had sent him into the yellow -maze to call Riviera out for a meal. He'd found him curled -like a cat on a thin pad of temperfoam, naked, apparently -asleep, his head orbited by a revolving halo of small white -geometric forms, cubes, spheres, and pyramids. "Hey, Ri- -viera." The ring continued to revolve. He'd gone back and told -Armitage. "He's stoned," Molly said, looking up from the -disassembled parts of her fletcher. "Leave him be." -Armitage seemed to think that zero-g would affect Case's -ability to operate in the matrix. 'Don't sweat it," Case argued, -"I jack in and I'm not here. It's all the same." -"Your adrenaline levels are higher," Armitage said. "You've -still got SAS. You won't have time for it to wear off. You're -going to learn to work with it. ' -"So I do the run from here'?" -"No. Practice, Case. Now. Up in the corridor...." - -Cyberspace, as the deck presented it, had no particular re- -lationship with the deck's physical whereabouts. When Case -jacked in, he opened his eyes to the familiar configuration of -the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority's Aztec pyramid of -data. -"How you doing, Dixie?'' -"I'm dead, Case. Got enough time in on this Hosaka to -figure that one." -"How's it feel?" -"It doesn't." -"Bother you?" -"What bothers me is, nothin' does." -"How's that?" -"Had me this buddy in the Russian camp, Siberia, his thumb -was frostbit. Medics came by and they cut it off. Month later -he's tossin' all night. Elroy. l said, what's eatin' you? Goddam -thumb's itchin', he says. So l told him, scratch it. McCoy, he -says, it's the other goddam thumb." When the construct laughed, -it came through as something else, not laughter, but a stab of -cold down Case's spine. "Do me a favor, boy." -"What's that, Dix?" -"This scam of yours, when it's over, you erase this goddam -thing." - -Case didn't understand the Zionites. -Aerol, with no particular provocation, related the tale of the -baby who had burst from his forehead and scampered into a -forest of hydroponic ganja. "Ver' small baby, mon, no long' -you finga." He rubbed his palm across an unscarred expanse -of brown forehead and smiled. -"It's the ganja," Molly said, when Case told her the story. -"They don't make much of a difference between states, you -know? Aerol tells you it happened, well, it happened to him. -It's not like bullshit, more like poetry. Get it?" -Case nodded dubiously. The Zionites always touched you -when they were talking, hands on your shoulder. He didn't -like that. -"Hey, Aerol," Case called, an hour later, as he prepared -for a practice run in the freefall corridor. "Come here, man. -Wanna show you this thing." He held out the trodes. -Aerol executed a slow-motion tumble. His bare feet struck -the steel wall and he caught a girder with his free hand. The -other held a transparent waterbag bulging with blue-green al- -gae. He blinked mildly and grinned. -"Try it," Case said. -He took the band, put it on, and Case adjusted the trodes. -He closed his eyes. Case hit the power stud. Aerol shuddered. -Case jacked him back out. "What did you see, man?" -"Babylon," Aerol said, sadly, handing him the trodes and -kicking off down the corridor. -Riviera sat motionless on his foam pad, his right arm ex- -tended straight out, level with his shoulder. A jewel-scaled -snake, its eyes like ruby neon, was coiled tightly a few -millimeters behind his elbow. Case watched the snake, which -was finger-thick and banded black and scarlet, slowly contract, -tightening around Riviera's arm. -"Come then," the man said caressingly to the pale waxy -scorpion poised in the center of his upturned palm. "Come." -The scorpion swayed its brownish claws and scurried up his -arm, its feet tracking the faint dark telltales of veins. When it -reached the inner elbow, it halted and seemed to vibrate. Ri- -viera made a soft hissing sound. The sting came up, quivered, -and sank into the skin above a bulging vein. The coral snake -relaxed, and Riviera sighed slowly as the injection hit him. -Then the snake and the scorpion were gone, and he held a -milky plastic syringe in his left hand. "'If God made anything -better, he kept it for himself. ' You know the expression, Case?" -"Yeah," Case said. "I heard that about lots of different -things. You always make it into a little show?" -Riviera loosened and removed the elastic length of surgical -tubing from his arm. "Yes. It's more fun." He smiled, his eyes -distant now, cheeks flushed. "I've a membrane set in, just over -the vein, so I never have to worry about the condition of the -needle." -"Doesn't hurt?" -The bright eyes met his. "Of course it does. That's part of -it, isn't it?" -"I'd just use derms," Case said. -"Pedestrian," Riviera sneered, and laughed, putting on a -short-sleeved white cotton shirt. -"Must be nice," Case said, getting up. -"Get high yourself, Case?" -"I hadda give it up." - -"Freeside," Armitage said, touching the panel on the little -Braun hologram projector. The image shivered into focus, nearly -three meters from tip to tip. "Casinos here." He reached into -the skeletal representation and pointed. "Hotels, strata-title -property, big shops along here." His hand moved. "Blue areas -are lakes." He walked to one end of the model. "Big cigar. -Narrows at the ends." -"We can see that fine," Molly said. -"Mountain effect, as it narrows. Ground seems to get higher, -more rocky, but it's an easy climb. Higher you climb, the -lower the gravity. Sports up there. There's velodrome ring -here." He pointed. -"A what?" Case leaned forward. -"They race bicycles," Molly said. "Low grav, high-traction -tires, get up over a hundred kilos an hour." -"This end doesn't concern us," Armitage said with his usual -utter seriousness. -"Shit," Molly said, "I'm an avid cyclist." -Riviera giggled. -Armitage walked to the opposite end of the projection. "This -end does." The interior detail of the hologram ended here, and -the final segment of the spindle was empty. "This is the Villa -Straylight. Steep climb out of gravity and every approach is -kinked. There's a single entrance, here, dead center. Zero grav- -ity." -"What's inside, boss?" Riviera leaned forward, craning his -neck. Four tiny figures glittered, near the tip of Armitage's -finger. Armitage slapped at them as if they were gnats. -"Peter," Armitage said, "you're going to be the first to find -out. You'll arrange yourself an invitation. Once you're in, you -see that Molly gets in." -Case stared at the blankness that represented Straylight, -remembering the Finn's story: Smith, Jimmy, the talking head, -and the ninja. -"Details available?" Riviera asked. "I need to plan a ward- -robe, you see." -"Learn the streets," Armitage said, returning to the center -of the model. "Desiderata Street here. This is the Rue Jules -Verne." -Riviera rolled his eyes. -While Armitage recited the names of Freeside avenues, a -dozen bright pustules rose on his nose, cheeks, and chin. Even -Molly laughed. -Armitage paused, regarded them all with his cold empty -eyes. -"Sorry," Riviera said, and the sores flickered and vanished. - -Case woke, late into the sleeping period, and became aware -of Molly crouched beside him on the foam. He could feel her -tension. He lay there confused. When she moved, the sheer -speed of it stunned him. She was up and through the sheet of -yellow plastic before he'd had time to realize she'd slashed it -open. -"Don't you move, friend." -Case rolled over and put his head through the rent in the -plastic. "Wha. . . ?" -"Shut up." -"You th' one, mon," said a Zion voice. "Cateye, call 'em -call 'em Steppin' Razor. I Maelcum, sister. Brothers wan -converse wi' you an' cowboy." -"What brothers?" -"Founders, mon. Elders of Zion, ya know...." -"We open that hatch, the light'll wake bossman," Case -whispered. -"Make it special dark, now," the man said. "Come. I an' I -visit th' Founders." -"You know how fast I can cut you, friend?" -"Don' stan' talkin', sister. Come." - -The two surviving Founders of Zion were old men, old with -the accelerated aging that overtakes men who spend too many -years outside the embrace of gravity. Their brown legs, brittle -with calcium loss, looked fragile in the harsh glare of reflected -sunlight. They floated in the center of a painted jungle of -rainbow foliage, a lurid communal mural that completely cov- -ered the hull of the spherical chamber. The air was thick with -resinous smoke. -"Steppin' Razor," one said, as Molly drifted into the cham- -ber. "Like unto a whippin' stick." -"That is a story we have, sister," said the other, "a religion -story. We are glad you've come with Maelcum." -"How come you don't talk the patois?" Molly asked. -"I came from Los Angeles," the old man said. His dread- -locks were like a matted tree with branches the color of steel -wool. "Long time ago, up the gravity well and out of Babylon. -To lead the Tribes home. Now my brother likens you to Step- -pin' Razor." -Molly extended her right hand and the blades flashed in the -smoky air. -The other Founder laughed, his head thrown back. "Soon -come, the Final Days.... Voices. Voices cryin' inna wilder- -ness, prophesyin' ruin unto Babylon...." -"Voices." The Founder from Los Angeles was staring at -Case. "We monitor many frequencies. We listen always. Came -a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. It played -us a mighty dub." -"Call 'em Winter Mute," said the other, making it two -words. -Case felt the skin crawl on his arms. -"The Mute talked to us," the first Founder said. "The Mute -said we are to help you." -"When was this?" Case asked. -"Thirty hours prior you dockin' Zion." -"You ever hear this voice before?" -"No," said the man from Los Angeles, "and we are uncertain -of its meaning. If these are Final Days, we must expect false -prophets ...." -"Listen," Case said, "that's an Al, you know? Artificial -intelligence. The music it played you, it probably just tapped -your banks and cooked up whatever it thought you'd like -to--" -"Babylon," broke in the other Founder, "mothers many de- -mon, I an' I know. Multitude horde!" -"What was that you called me, old man?" Molly asked. -"Steppin' Razor. An' you bring a scourge on Babylon, sis- -ter, on its darkest heart...." -"What kinda message the voice have?" Case asked. -"We were told to help you," the other said, "that you might -serve as a tool of Final Days." His lined face was troubled. -"We were told to send Maelcum with you, in his tug Garvey, -to the Babylon port of Freeside. And this we shall do." -"Maelcum a rude boy," said the other, "an' a righteous tug -pilot." -"But we have decided to send Aerol as well, in Babylon -Rocker, to watch over Garvey." -An awkward silence filled the dome. -"That's it?" Case asked. "You guys work for Armitage or -what?" -"We rent you space," said the Los Angeles Founder. "We -have a certain involvement here with various traffics, and no -regard for Babylon's law. Our law is the word of Jah. But this -time, it may be, we have been mistaken." -"Measure twice, cut once," said the other, softly. -"Come on, Case," Molly said. "Let's get back before the -man figures out we're gone." -"Maelcum will take you. Jah love, sister." - -The tug Marcus Garvey, a steel drum nine meters long and -two in diameter, creaked and shuddered as Maelcum punched -for a navigational burn. Splayed in his elastic g-web, Case -watched the Zionite's muscular back through a haze of sco- -polamine. He'd taken the drug to blunt SAS, nausea, but the -stimulants the manufacturer included to counter the scop had -no effect on his doctored system. -"How long's it gonna take us to make Freeside?" Molly -asked from her web beside Maelcum's pilot module. -"Don' be long now, m'seh dat." -"You guys ever think in hours?" -"Sister, time, it be time, ya know wha mean? Dread," and -he shook his locks, "at control, moo, an' I an' I come a Freeside -when I an' I come...." -"Case," she said, "have you maybe done anything toward -getting in touch with our pal from Berne? Like all that time -you spent in Zion, plugged in with your lips moving?" -"Pal," Case said, "sure. No. I haven't. But I got a funny -story along those lines, left over from Istanbul." He told her -about the phones in the Hilton. -"Christ," she said, "there goes a chance. How come you -hung up?" -"Coulda been anybody," he lied. "lust a chip ... I dunno...." -He shrugged. -"Not just 'cause you were scared, huh?" -He shrugged again. -"Do it now." -"What?" -"Now. Anyway, talk to the Flatline about it." -"I'm all doped," he protested, but reached for the trodes. -His deck and the Hosaka had been mounted behind Maelcum's -module along with a very high-resolution Cray monitor. -He adjusted the trodes. Marcus Garvey had been thrown -together around an enormous old Russian air scrubber, a rec- -tangular thing daubed with Rastafarian symbols, Lioos of Zion -and Black Star Liners, the reds and greens and yellows over- -laying wordy decals in Cyrillic script. Someone had sprayed -Maelcum's pilot gear a hot tropical pink, scraping most of the -overspray off the screens and readouts with a razor blade. The -gaskets around the airlock in the bow were festooned with -semirigid globs and streamers of translucent caulk, like clumsy -strands of imitation seaweed. He glanced past Maelcum's -shoulder to the central screen and saw a docking display: the -tug's path was a line of red dots, Freeside a segmented green -circle. He watched the line extend itself, generating a new dot. -He jacked in. -"Dixie?" -"Yeah." -"You ever try to crack an AI?" -"Sure. I flatlined. First time. I was larkin' jacked up real -high, out by Rio heavy commerce sector. Big biz, multina- -tionals, Government of Brazil lit up like a Christmas tree. Just -larkin' around, you know? And then I started picking up on -this one cube, maybe three levels higher up. Jacked up there -and made a pass." -"What did it look like, the visual?" -"White cube." -"How'd you know it was an Al?" -"How'd I know? Jesus. It was the densest ice I'd ever seen. -So what else was it? The military down there don't have any- -thing like that. Anyway, I jacked out and told my computer to -look it up." -"Yeah?" -"It was on the Turing Registry. Al. Frog company owned -its Rio mainframe." -Case chewed his lower lip and gazed out across the plateaus -of the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority, into the infinite -neuroelectronic void of the matrix. "Tessier-Ashpool, Dixie?" -"Tessier, yeah." -"And you went back?" -"Sure. I was crazy. Figured I'd try to cut it. Hit the first -strata and that's all she wrote. My joeboy smelled the skin -frying and pulled the trodes off me. Mean shit, that ice." -"And your EEG was flat." -"Well, that's the stuff of legend, ain't it?" -Case jacked out. "Shit," he said, "how do you think Dixie -got himself flatlined, huh? Trying to buzz an AI. Great...." -"Go on," she said, "the two of you are supposed to be -dynamite, right?" - -"Dix," Case said, "I wanna have a look at an AI in Berne. -Can you think of any reason not to?" -"Not unless you got a morbid fear of death, no." -Case punched for the Swiss banking sector, feeling a wave -of exhilaration as cyberspace shivered, blurred, gelled. The -Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority was gone, replaced by the -cool geometric intricacy of Zurich commercial banking. He -punched again, for Berne. -"Up," the construct said. "It'll be high." -They ascended lattices of light, levels strobing, a blue flicker. -That'll be it, Case thought. -Wintermute was a simple cube of white light, that very -simplicity suggesting extreme complexity. -"Don't look much, does it?" the Flatline said. "But just you -try and touch it." -"I'm going in for a pass, Dixie." -"Be my guest." - -Case punched to within four grid points of the cube. Its -blank face, towering above him now, began to seethe with faint -internal shadows, as though a thousand dancers whirled behind -a vast sheet of frosted glass. -"Knows we're here," the Flatline observed. -Case punched again, once; they jumped forward by a single -grid point. -A stippled gray circle formed on the face of the cube. -"Dixie...." -"Back off, fast." -The gray area bulged smoothly, became a sphere, and de- -tached itself from the cube. -Case felt the edge of the deck sting his palm as he slapped -MAX REVERSE. The matrix blurred backward; they plunged -down a twilit shaft of Swiss banks. He looked up. The sphere -was darker now, gaining on him. Falling. -"Jack out," the Flatline said. -The dark came down like a hammer. - -Cold steel odor and ice caressed his spine. -And faces peering in from a neon forest, sailors and hustlers -and whores, under a poisoned silver sky.... -"Look, Case, you tell me what the fuck is going on with -you, you wig or something?" -A steady pulse of pain, midway down his spine-- - -Rain woke him, a slow drizzle, his feet tangled in coils of -discarded fiberoptics. The arcade's sea of sound washed over -him, receded, returned. Rolling over, he sat up and held his -head. -Light from a service hatch at the rear of the arcade showed -him broken lengths of damp chipboard and the dripping chassis -of a gutted game console. Streamlined Japanese was stenciled -across the side of the console in faded pinks and yellows. -He glanced up and saw a sooty plastic window, a faint glow -of fluorescents. -His back hurt, his spine. -He got to his feet, brushed wet hair out of his eyes. -Something had happened.... -He searched his pockets for money, found nothing, and -shivered. Where was his jacket? He tried to find it, looked -behind the console, but gave up. -On Ninsei, he took the measure of the crowd. Friday. It -had to be a Friday. Linda was probably in the arcade. Might -have money, or at least cigarettes.... Coughing, wringing rain -from the front of his shirt, he edged through the crowd to the -arcade's entrance. -Holograms twisted and shuddered to the roaring of the games, -ghosts overlapping in the crowded haze of the place, a smell -of sweat and bored tension. A sailor in a white t-shirt nuked -Bonn on a Tank War console, an azure flash. -She was playing Wizard's Castle, lost in it, her gray eyes -rimmed with smudged black paintstick. -She looked up as he put his arm around her, smiled. "Hey. -How you doin'? Look wet." -He kissed her. -"You made me blow my game," she said. "Look there -ass hole. Seventh level dungeon and the god dam vampires got -me." She passed him a cigarette. "You look pretty strung, man. -Where you been?" -"I don't know." -"You high, Case? Drinkin' again? Eatin' Zone's dex?" -"Maybe . . . how long since you seen me?" -"Hey, it's a put-on, right?" She peered at him. "Right?" -"No. Some kind of blackout. I . . . I woke up in the alley." -"Maybe somebody decked you, baby. Got your roll intact?" -He shook his head. -"There you go. You need a place to sleep, Case?" -"I guess so." -"Come on, then." She took his hand. "We'll get you a coffee -and something to eat. Take you home. It's good to see you, -man." She squeezed his hand. -He smiled. -Something cracked. -Something shifted at the core of things. The arcade froze, -vibrated-- - -She was gone. The weight of memory came down, an entire body of -knowledge driven into his head like a microsoft into -a socket. Gone. He smelled burning meat. -The sailor in the white t-shirt was gone. The arcade was -empty, silent. Case turned slowly, his shoulders hunched, teeth -bared, his hands bunched into involuntary fists. Empty. A -crumpled yellow candy wrapper, balanced on the edge of a -console, dropped to the floor and lay amid flattened butts and -styrofoam cups. -"I had a cigarette," Case said, looking down at his white- -knuckled fist. "I had a cigarette and a girl and a place to sleep. -Do you hear me, you son of a bitch? You hear me?" -Echoes moved through the hollow of the arcade, fading -down corridors of consoles. -He stepped out into the street. The rain had stopped. -Ninsei was deserted. -Holograms flickered, neon danced. He smelled boiled veg- -etables from a vendor's pushcart across the street. An unopened -pack of Yeheyuans lay at his feet, beside a book of matches. -JULIUS DEANE IMPORT EXPORT. Case staled at the printed -logo and its Japanese translation. -"Okay," he said, picking up the matches and opening the -pack of cigarettes. "I hear you." - -He took his time climbing the stairs of Deane's office. No -rush, he told himself, no hurry. The sagging face of the Dali -clock still told the wrong time. There was dust on the Kandinsky -table and the Neo-Aztec bookcases. A wall of white fiberglass -shipping modules filled the room with a smell of ginger. -"Is the door locked?" Case waited for an answer, but none -came. He crossed to the office door and tried it. "Julie?" -The green-shaded brass lamp cast a circle of light on Deane's -desk. Case stared at the guts of an ancient typewriter, at cas- -settes, crumpled printouts, at sticky plastic bags filled with -ginger samples. -There was no one there. -Case stepped around the broad steel desk and pushed Deane's -chair out of the way. He found the gun in a cracked leather -holster fastened beneath the desk with silver tape. It was an -antique, a .357 Magnum with the barrel and trigger-guard sawn -off. The grip had been built up with layers of masking tape. -The tape was old, brown, shiny with a patina of dirt. He flipped -the cylinder out and examined each of the six cartridges. They -were handloads. The soft lead was still bright and untarnished. -With the revolver in his right hand, Case edged past the -cabinet to the left of the desk and stepped into the center of -the cluttered office, away from the pool of light. -"I guess I'm not in any hurry. I guess it's your show. But -all this shit, you know, it's getting kind of . . . old." He raised -the gun with both hands, aiming for the center of the desk, -and pulled the trigger. -The recoil nearly broke his wrist. The muzzle-flash lit the -office like a flashbulb. With his ears ringing, he stared at the -jagged hole in the front of the desk. Explosive bullet. Azide. -He raised the gun again. -"You needn't do that, old son," Julie said, stepping out of -the shadows. He wore a three-piece drape suit in silk her ing- -bone, a striped shirt, and a bow tie. His glasses winked in the -light. -Case brought the gun around and looked down the line of -sight at Deane's pink, ageless face. -"Don't," Deane said. "You're right. About what this all is. -What I am. But there are certain internal logics to be honored. -If you use that, you'll see a lot of brains and blood, and it -would take me several hours--your subjective-time--to effect -another spokesperson. This set isn't easy for me to maintain. -Oh, and I'm sorry about Linda, in the arcade. I was hoping to -speak through her, but I'm generating all this out of your -memories, and the emotional charge.... Well, it's very tricky. -I slipped. Sorry." -Case lowered the gun. "This is the matrix. You're Winter- - mute." -- "Yes. This is all coming to you courtesy of the simstim unit -wired into your deck, of course. I'm glad I was able to cut you -off before you'd managed to jack out." Deane walked around -the desk, straightened his chair, and sat down. "Sit, old son. -We have a lot to talk about." -"Do we?" -"Of course we do. We have had for some time. I was ready -when I reached you by phone in Istanbul. Time's very short -now. You'll be making your run in a matter of days, Case." -Deane picked up a bonbon and stripped off its checkered wrap- -pcr, popped h into his mouth. "Sit," he said around the candy. -Case lowered himself into the swivel chair in front of the -desk without taking his eyes off Deane. He sat with the gun -in his hand, resting it on his thigh. -"Now," Deane said briskly, "order of the day. 'What,' you're -asking yourself, 'is Wintermute?' Am I right?" -"More or less." -"An artificial intelligence, but you know that. Your mistake, -and it's quite a logical one, is in confusing the Winterrnute -mainframe, Berne, with the Wintermute entity." Deane sucked -his bonbon noisily. "You're already aware of the other AI in -Tessier-Ashpool's link-up, aren't you? Rio. I, insofar as I have -an 'I'--this gets rather metaphysical, you see--I am the one -who arranges things for Armitage. Or Corto, who, by the way, -is quite unstable. Stable enough," said Deane and withdrew an -ornate gold watch from a vest pocket and flicked it open, "For -the next day or so." -"You make about as much sense as anything in this deal -ever has," Case said, massaging his temples with his free hand. -"If you're so goddam smart. . ." -"Why ain't I rich?" Deane laughed, and nearly choked on -his bonbon. "Well, Case, all I can say to that, and I really -don't have nearly as many answers as you imagine I do, is that -what you think of as Wintermute is only a part of another, a, -shall we say, potential entity. I, let us say, am merely one -aspect of that entity's brain. It's rather like dealing, from your -point of view, with a man whose lobes have been severed. Let's -say you're dealing with a small part of the man's left brain. -Difficult to say if you're dealing with the man at all, in a case -like that." Deane smiled. -"Is the Corto story true? You got to him through a micro -in that French hospital?" -"Yes. And I assembled the file you accessed in London. I -try to plan. in your sense of the word, but that isn't my basic -mode, really. I improvise. It's my greatest talent. I prefer -situations to plans, you see.... Really, I've had to deal with -givens. I can sort a great deal of information, and sort it very -quickly. It's taken a very long time to assemble the team you're -a part of. Corto was the first, and he very nearly didn't make -it. Very far gone, in Toulon. Eating, excreting, and mastur- -bating were the best he could manage. But the underlying -structure of obsessions was there: Screaming Fist, his betrayal -the Congressional hearings." -"Is he still crazy?" -"He's not quite a personality." Deane smiled. "But I'm sure -you're aware of that. But Corto is in there, somewhere, and I -can no longer maintain that delicate balance. He's going to -come apart on you, Case. So I'll be counting on you...." -"That's good, motherfucker," Case said, and shot him in -the mouth with the .357. -He'd been right about the brains. And the blood. - -"Mon," Maelcum was saying, "I don't like this...." -"It's cool," Molly said. "It's just okay. It's something these -guys do, is all. Like, he wasn't dead, and it was only a few -seconds...." -"I saw th' screen, EEG readin' dead. Nothin' movin', forty -second." -"Well, he's okay now." -"EEG flat as a strap," Maelcum protested. -He was numb, as they went through customs, and Molly -did most of the talking. Maelcum remained on board Garvey. -Customs, for Freeside, consisted mainly of proving your credit. -The first thing he saw, when they gained the inner surface of -the spindle, was a branch of the Beautiful Girl coffee franchise. -"Welcome to the Rue Jules Verne," Molly said. "If you -have trouble walking, just look at your feet. The perspective's -a bitch, if you're not used to it." -They were standing in a broad street that seemed to be the -floor of a deep slot or canyon, its either end concealed by subtle -angles in the shops and buildings that formed its walls. The -light, here, was filtered through fiesh green masses of vege- -tation tumbling from overhanging tiers and balconies that rose -above them. The sun. . . -There was a brilliant slash of white somewhere above them -too bright, and the recorded blue of a Cannes sky. He knew -that sunlight was pumped in with a Lado-Acheson system whose -two-millimeter armature ran the length of the spindle, that they -generated a rotating library of sky effects around it, that if the -sky were turned off, he'd stare up past the armature of light -to the curves of lakes, rooftops of casinos, other streets.... -But it made no sense to his body. -"Jesus," he said, "I like this less than SAS." -"Get used to it. I was a gambler's bodyguard here for a -month." -"Wanna go somewhere, lie down." -"Okay. I got our keys." She touched his shoulder. "What -happened to you, back there, man? You flatlined." -He shook his head. "I dunno, yet. Wait." -"Okay. We get a cab or something." She took his hand and -led him across Jules Verne, past a window displaying the sea- -son's Paris furs. -"Unreal," he said, looking up again. -"Nah," she responded, assuming he meant the furs, "grow -it on a collagen base, but it's mink DNA. What's it matter?" - -"It's just a big tube and they pour things through it," Molly -said. "Tourists, hustlers, anything. And there's fine mesh money -screens working every minute, make sure the money stays here -when the people fall back down the well." -Armitage had booked them into a place called the Inter- -continental, a sloping glass-fronted clff face that slid down -into cold mist and the sound of rapids. Case went out onto -their balcony and watched a trio of tanned French teenagers -ride simple hang gliders a few meters above the spray, triangles -of nylon in bright primary colors. One of them swung, banked, -and Case caught a flash of cropped dark hair, brown breasts, -white teeth in a wide smile. The air here smelled of running -water and flowers. "Yeah," he said, "lotta money." -She leaned beside him against the railing, her hands loose -and relaxed. "Yeah. We were gonna come here once, either -here or some place in Europe." -"We who?" -"Nobody," she said, giving her shoulders an involuntary -toss. "You said you wanted to hit the bed. Sleep. I could use -some sleep." -"Yeah," Case said, rubbing his palms across his cheek- -bones. "Yeah, this is some place." -The narrow band of the Lado Acheson system smoldered -in absract imitation of some Bermudan sunset, striped by shreds -of worded cloud. "Yeah," he said, "sleep." -Sleep wouldn't come. When it did, it brought dreams that -were like neatly edited segments of memory. He woke re- -peatedly, Molly curled beside him, and heard the water, voices -drifting in through the open glass panels of the balcony, a -woman's laughter from the stepped condos on the opposite -slope. Deane's death kept turning up like a bad card, no matter -if he told himself that it hadn't been Deane. That it hadn't, in -fact, happened at all. Someone had once told him that the -amount of blood in the average human body was roughly equiv- -alent to a case of beer. -Each time the image of Deane's shattered head struck the -rear wall of the office, Case was aware of another thought, -something darker, hidden, that rolled away, diving like a fish, -just beyond his reach. -Linda. -Deane. Blood on the wall of the importer's office. -Linda. Smell of burnt flesh in the shadows of the Chiba -dome. Molly holding out a bag of ginger, the plastic filmed -with blood. Deane had had her killed. -Wintermute. He imagined a little micro whispering to the -wreck of a man named Corto, the words flowing like a river, -the flat personality-substitute called Armitage accreting slowly -in some darkened ward....The Deane analog had said it -worked with givens, took advantage of existing situations. -But what if Deane, the real Deane, had ordered Linda killed -on Wintermute's orders? Case groped in the dark for a cigarette -and Molly's lighter. There was no reason to suspect Deane, he -told himself, lighting up. No reason. -Wintermute could build a kind of personality into a shell. -How subtle a form could manipulation take? He stubbed the -Yeheyuan out in a bedside ashtray after his third puff, rolled -away from Molly, and tried to sleep. -The dream, the memory, unreeled with the monotony of an -unedited simstim tape. He'd spent a month, his fifteenth sum- -mer, in a weekly rates hotel, fifth floor, with a girl called -Marlene. The elevator hadn't worked in a decade. Roaches -boiled across grayish porcelain in the drain-plugged kitchenette -when you flicked a lightswitch. He slept with Marlene on a -striped mattress with no sheets. -He'd missed the first wasp, when it built its paperfine gray -house on the blistered paint of the windowframe, but soon the -nest was a fist-sized lump of fiber, insects hurtling out to hunt -the alley below like miniature copters buzzing the rotting con- -tents of the dumpsters. -They'd each had a dozen beers, the afternoon a wasp stung -Marlene. "Kill the fuckers," she said, her eyes dull with rage -and the still heat of the room, "burn 'em." Drunk, Case rum- -maged in the sour closet for Rollo's dragon. Rollo was Mar- -lene's previous--and, Case suspected at the time, still -occasional--boyfriend, an enormous Frisco biker with a blond -lightning bolt bleached into his dark crewcut. The dragon was -a Frisco flamethrower, a thing like a fat anglehead flashlight. -Case checked the batteries, shook it to make sure he had enough -fuel, and went to the open window. The hive began to buzz. -The air in the Sprawl was dead, immobile. A wasp shot -from the nest and circled Case's head. Case pressed the ignition -switch, counted three, and pulled the trigger. The fuel, pumped -up to l00 psi, sprayed out past the white-hot coil. A five-meter -tongue of pale fire, the nest charring, tumbling. Across the -alley, someone cheered. -"Shit!" Marlene behind him, swaying. "Stupid! You didn't -burn 'em. You just knocked it off. They'll come up here and -kill us!" Her voice sawing at his nerves, he imagined her en- -gulfed in flame, her bleached hair sizzling a special green. -In the alley, the dragon in hand, he approached the black- -ened nest. It had broken open. Singed wasps wrenched and -flipped on the asphalt. -He saw the thing the shell of gray paper had concealed. -Horror. The spiral birth factory, stepped terraces of the -hatching cells, blind jaws of the unborn moving ceaselessly, -the staged progress from egg to larva, near-wasp, wasp. In his -mind's eye, a kind of time-lapse photography took place, re- -vealing the thing as the biological equivalent of a machine gun, -hideous in its perfection. Alien. He pulled the trigger, forgetting -to press the ignition, and fuel hissed over the bulging, writhing -life at his feet. -When he did hit the ignition, it exploded with a thump -taking an eyebrow with it. Five floors above him, from the -open window, he heard Marlene laughing. -He woke with the impression of light fading, but the room -was dark. Afterimages, retinal flares. The sky outside hinted -at the start of a recorded dawn. There were no voices now -only the rush of water, far down the face of the Intercontinental. -In the dream, just before he'd drenched the nest with fuel, -he'd seen the T-A logo of Tessier-Ashpool neatly embossed -into its side, as though the wasps themselves had worked it -there. - -Molly insisted on coating him with bronzer, saying his Sprawl -pallor would attract too much attention. -"Christ," he said, standing naked in front of the mirror, -"you think that looks real?" She was using the last of the tube -on his left ankle, kneeling beside him. -"Nah, but it looks like you care enough to fake it. There. -There isn't enough to do your foot." She stood, tossing the -empty tube into a large wicker basket. Nothing in the room -looked as though it had been machine-made or produced from -synthetics. Expensive, Case knew, but it was a style that had -always irritated him. The temperfoam of the huge bed was -tinted to resemble sand. There was a lot of pale wood and -handwoven fabric. -"What about you," he said, "you gonna dye yourself brown? -Don't exactly look like you spend all your time sunbathing." -She wore loose black silks and black espadrilles. "I'm an -exotic. I got a big straw hat for this, too. You, you just wanna -look like a cheap-ass hood who's up for what he can get, so -the instant tan's okay." -Case regarded his pallid foot morosely, then looked at him- -self in the mirror. "Christ. You mind if I get dressed now?" -He went to the bed and began to pull his jeans on. "You sleep -okay? You notice any lights?" -"You were dreaming," she said. -They had breakfast on the roof of the hotel, a kind of meadow -studded with striped umbrellas and what seemed to Case an -unnatural number of trees. He told her about his attempt to -buzz the Berne AI. The whole question of bugging seemed to -have become academic. If Armitage were tapping them, he'd -be doing it through Wintermute. -"And it was like real?" she asked, her mouth full of cheese -croissant. "Like simstim?" -He said it was. "Real as this," he added, looking around. -"Maybe more." -The trees were small, gnarled, impossibly old, the result of -genetic engineering and chemical manipulation. Case would -have been hard pressed to distinguish a pine from an oak, but -a street boy's sense of style told him that these were too cute, -too entirely and definitively treelike. Between the trees, on -gentle and too cleverly irregular slopes of sweet green grass, -the bright umbrellas shaded the hotel's guests from the unfal- -tering radiance of the Lado-Acheson sun. A burst of French -from a nearby table caught his attention: the golden children -he'd seen gliding above river mist the evening before. Now he -saw that their tans were uneven, a stencil effect produced by -selective melanin boosting, multiple shades overlapping in rec- -tilinear patterns, outlining and highlighting musculature; the -girl's small hard breasts, one boy's wrist resting on the white -enamel of the table. They looked to Case like machines built -for racing; they deserved decals for their hairdressers, the de- -signers of their white cotton ducks, for the artisans who'd -crafted their leather sandals and simple jewelry. Beyond them, -at another table, three Japanese wives in Hiroshima sackcloth -awaited sarariman husbands, their oval faces covered with ar- -tificial bruises; it was, he knew, an extremely conservative -style, one he'd seldom seen in Chiba. -"What's that smell?" he asked Molly, wrinkling his nose. -"The grass. Smells that way after they cut it." -Armitage and Riviera arrived as they were finishing their -coffee, Armitage in tailored khakis that made him look as -though his regimental patches had just been stripped, Riviera -in a loose gray seersucker outfit that perversely suggested prison. -"Molly, love," Riviera said, almost before he was settled -on his chair, "you'll have to dole me out more of the medicine. -I'm out." -"Peter," she said, "and what if I won't?" She smiled without -showing her teeth. -"You will," Riviera said, his eyes cutting to Armitage and -back. -"Give it to him," Armitage said. -"Pig for it, aren't you?" She took a flat, foil-wrapped packet -from an inside pocket and flipped it across the table. Riviera -caught it in midair. "He could off himself," she said to Ar- -mitage. -"I have an audition this afternoon," Riviera said. "I'll need -to be at my best." He cupped the foil packd in his uptumed -palm and smiled. Small glittering insects swarmed out of it, -vanished. He dropped it into the pocket of his seersucker blouse. -"You've got an audition yourself, Case, this afternoon," -Armitage said. "On that tug. I want you to get over to the pro -shop and get yourself fitted for a vac suit, get checked out on -it, and get out to the boat. You've got about three hours." -"How come we get shipped over in a shitcan and you two -hire a JAL taxi?" Case asked, deliberately avoiding the man's -eyes. -"Zion suggested we use it. Good cover, when we move. I -do have a larger boat, standing by, but the tug is a nice touch." -"How about me?" Molly asked. "I got chores today?" -"I want you to hike up the far end to the axis, work out in -zero-g. Tomorrow, maybe, you can hike in the opposite di- -rection." Straylight, Case thought. -"How soon?" Case asked, meedng the pale stare. -"Soon," Armitage said. "Get going, Case." -"Mon, you doin' jus' fine," Maelcum said, helping Case -out of the red Sanyo vacuum suit. "Aerol say you doin' jus' -fine." Aerol had been waiting at one of the sporting docks at -the end of the spindle, near the weightless axis. To reach it -Case had taken an elevator down to the hull and ridden a -miniature induction train. As the diameter of the spindle nar- -rowed, gravity decreased; somewhere above him, he'd decided, -would be the mountains Molly climbed, the bicycle loop, -launching gear for the hang gliders and miniature microlights. -Aerol had ferried him out to Marcus Garvey in a skeletal -scooter frame with a chemical engine. -"Two hour ago," Maelcum said, "I take delivery of Babylon -goods for you; nice lapan-boy inna yacht, mos' pretty yacht." -Free of the suit, Case pulled himself gingerly over the Ho- -saka and fumbled into the straps of the web. "Well," he said, -"let's see it." -Maelcum produced a white lump of foam slightly smaller -than Case's head, fished a pearl-handled switchblade on a green -nylon lanyard out of the hip pocket of his tattered shorts, and -carefully slit the plasdc. He extracted a rectangular object and -passed it to Case. "Thas part some gun, mon?" -"No," Case said, turning it over, "but it's a weapon. It's -virus." -"Not on this boy tug, mon," Maelcum said firmly, reaching -for the steel cassette. -"A program. Virus program. Can't get into you, can't even -get into your software. I've got to interface it through the deck, -before it can work on anything." -"Well, Japan-mon, he says Hosaka here'll tell you every -what an' wherefore, you wanna know." -"Okay. Well, you leave me to it, okay?" -Maelcum kicked off and drifted past the pilot console, bus- -ying himself with a caulk gun. Case hastily looked away from -the waving fronds of transparent caulk. He wasn't sure why, -but something about them brought back the nausea of SAS. -"What is this thing?" he asked the Hosaka. "Parcel for me." -"Data transfer from Bockris Systems GmbH, Frankfurt, ad- -vises, under coded transmission, that content of shipment is -Kuang Grade Mark Eleven penetration program. Bockris fur- -ther advises that interface with Ono-Sendai Cyberspace 7 is -entirely compatdble and yields optimal penetradon capabilities, -particularly with regard to existing military systems...." -"How about an AI?" -"Existing military systems and artificial intelligences." -"Jesus Christ. What did you call it?" -"Kuang Grade Mark Eleven." -"It's Chinese?" -"Yes." -"Off." Case fastened the virus cassette to the side of the -Hosaka with a length of silver tape, remembering Molly's story -of her day in Macao. Armitage had crossed the border into -Zhongshan. "On," he said, changing his mind. "Questdon. Who -owns Bockris, the people in Frankfurt?" -"Delay for interorbital transmission," said the Hosaka. -"Code it. Standard commerical code." -"Done." -He drummed his hands on the Ono-Sendai. -"Reinhold Scientdfic A.G., Berne." -"Do it again. Who owns Reinhold?" -It took three more jumps up the ladder before he reached -Tessier-Ashpool. -"Dixie," he said, jacking in, "what do you know about -Chinese virus programs?" -"Not a whole hell of a lot." -"Ever hear of a grading system like Kuang, Mark Eleven?" -"No." -Case sighed. "Well, I got a user-friendly Chinese icebreaker -here, a one shot cassette. Some people in Frankfurt say it'll -cut an Al." -"Possible. Sure. If it's military." -"Looks like it. Listen, Dix, and gimme the benefit of your -background, okay? Arrnitage seems to be setdng up a run on -an Al that belongs to Tessier-Ashpool. The mainframe's in -Berne, but it's linked with another one in Rio. The one in Rio -is the one that flatlined you, that first time. So it looks like -they link via Straylight, the T-A home base, down the end of -the spindle, and we're supposed to cut our way in with the -Chinese icebreaker. So if Wintermute's backing the whole show -it's paying us to burn it. It's burning itself. And something that -calls itself Wintermute is trying to get on my good side, get -me to maybe shaft Annitage. What goes?" -"Motive," the construct said. "Real motive problem, with -an Al. Not human, see?" -"Well, yeah, obviously." -"Nope. I mean, it's not human. And you can't get a handle -on it. Me, I'm not human either, but I respond like one. See?" -"Wait a sec," Case said. "Are you sentient, or not?" -"Well, it feels like I am, kid, but I'm really just a bunch of -ROM. It's one of them, ah, philosophical questions, I guess...." -The ugly laughter sensation rattled down Case's spine. "But I -ain't likely to write you no poem, if you follow me. Your AI, -it just might. But it ain't no way human." -"So you figure we can't get on to its motive?" -"It own itself?" -"Swiss citizen, but T-A own the basic software and the -mainframe." -"That's a good one," the construct said. "Like, I own your -brain and what you know, but your thoughts have Swiss citi- -zenship. Sure. Lotsa luck, AI." -"So it's getting ready to burn itself?" Case began to punch -the deck nervously, at random. The matrix blurred, resolved, -and he saw the complex of pink spheres representing a sikkim -steel combine. -"Autonomy, that's the bugaboo, where your AI's are con- -cerned. My guess, Case, you're going in there to cut the hard- -wired shackles that keep this baby from getting any smarter. -And I can't see how you'd distinguish, say, between a move -the parent company makes, and some move the AI makes on -its own, so that's maybe where the confusion comes in." Again -the nonlaugh. "See, those things, they can work real hard, buy -themselves time to write cookbooks or whatever, but the min- -ute, I mean the nanosecond, that one starts figuring out ways -to make itself smarter, Turing'll wipe it. Nobody trusts those -fuckers, you know that. Every Al ever built has an electro- -magnetic shotgun wired to its forehead." -Case glared at the pink spheres of Sikkim. -"Okay," he said, finally, "I'm slotting this virus. I want you -to scan its instruction face and tell me what you think." -The half sense of someone reading over his shoulder was -gone for a few seconds, then returned. "Hot shit, Case. It's a -slow virus. Take six hours, estimated, to crack a military target." -"Or an AI." He sighed. "Can we run it?" -"Sure," the construct said, "unless you got a morbid fear -of dying." -"Sometimes you repeat yourself, man." -"It's my nature." - -Molly was sleeping when he returned to the Intercontinental. -He sat on the balcony and watched a microlight with rainbow -polymer wings as it soared up the curve of Freeside, its tri- -angular shadow tracking across meadows and rooftops, until -it vanished behind the band of the Lado-Acheson system. -"I wanna buzz," he said to the blue artifice of the sky. "I -truly do wanna get high, you know? Trick pancreas, plugs in -my liver, little bags of shit melting, fuck it all. I wanna buzz." -He left without waking Molly, he thought. He was never -sure, with the glasses. He shrugged tension from his shoulders -and got into the elevator. He rode up with an Italian girl in -spotless whites, cheekbones and nose daubed with something -black and nonreflective. Her white nylon shoes had steel cleats; -the expensive-looking thing in her hand resembled a cross be- -tween a miniature oar and an orthopedic brace. She was off -for a fast game of something, but Case had no idea what. -On the roof meadow, he made his way through the grove -of trees and umbrellas, until he found a pool, naked bodies -gleaming against turquoise tiles. He edged into the shadow of -an awning and pressed his chip against a dark glass plate. -"Sushi," he said, "whatever you got." Ten minutes later, an -enthusiastic Chinese waiter arrived with his food. He munched -raw tuna and rice and watched people tan. "Christ," he said, -to his tuna, "I'd go nuts." -"Don't tell me," someone said, "I know it already. You're -a gangster, right?" -He squinted up at her, against the band of sun. A long young -body and a melanin-boosted tan, but not one of the Paris jobs. -She squatted beside his chair, dripping water on the tiles. -"Cath," she said. -"Lupus," after a pause. -"What kind of name is that?" -"Greek," he said. -"Are you really a gangster?" The melanin boost hadn't pre- -vented the formation of freckles. -"I'm a drug addict, Cath." -"What kind?" -"Stimulants. Central nervous system stimulants. Extremely -powerful central nervous system stimulants." -"Well, do you have any?" She leaned closer. Drops of -chlorinated water fell on the leg of his pants. -"No. That's my problem, Cath. Do you know where we -can get some?" -Cath rocked back on her tanned heels and licked at a strand -of brownish hair that had pasted itself beside her mouth. "What's -your taste?" -"No coke, no amphetamines, but up, gotta be up." And so -much for that, he thought glumly, holding his smile for her. -"Betaphenethylamine," she said. "No sweat,but it's on your -chip." - -"You're kidding," said Cath's partner and roommate, when -Case explained the peculiar properties of his Chiba pancreas. -"I mean, can't you sue them or something? Malpractice?" His -name was Bruce. He looked like a gender switch version of -Cath, right down to the freckles. -"Well," Case said, "it's just one of those things, you know? -Like tissue matching and all that." But Bruce's eyes had already -gone numb with boredom. Got the attention span of a gnat, -Case thought, watching the boy's brown eyes. -Their room was smaller than the one Case shared with Molly, -and on another level, closer to the surface. Five huge Ciba- -chromes of Tally Isham were taped across the glass of the -balcony, suggesting an extended residency. -"They're def triff, huh?" Cath asked, seeing him eye the -transparencies. "Mine. Shot 'em at the S/N Pyramid, last time -we went down the well. She was that close, and she just smiled, -so natural. And it was bad there, Lupus, day after these Christ -the King terrs put angel in the water, you know?" -"Yeah," Case said, suddenly uneasy, ' terrible thing." -"Well," Bruce cut in, "about this beta you want to buy...." -"Thing is, can I metabolize it?" Case raised his eyebrows. -"Tell you what," the boy said. "You do a taste. If your -pancreas passes on it, it's on the house. First time's free." -"I heard that one before," Case said, taking the bright blue -derm that Bruce passed across the black bedspread. - -"Case?" Molly sat up in bed and shook the hair away from -her lenses. -"Who else, honey? -"What's got into you?" The mirrors followed him across -the room. -"I forget how to pronounce it," he said, taking a tightly -rolled strip of bubble-packed blue derms from his shirt pocket. -"Christ," she said, "just what we needed." -"Truer words were never spoken." -"I let you out of my sight for two hours and you score." -She shook her head. "I hope you're gonna be ready for our -big dinner date with Armitage tonight. This Twentieth Century -place. We get to watch Riviera strut his stuff, too." -"Yeah," Case said, arching his back, his smile locked into -a rictus of delight, "beautiful." -"Man," she said, "if whatever that is can get in past what -those surgeons did to you in Chiba, you are gonna be in sad- -ass shape when it wears off." -"Bitch, bitch, bitch," he said, unbuckling his belt. "Doom. -Gloom. All I ever hear." He took his pants off, his shirt, his -underwear. "I think you oughta have sense enough to take -advantage of my unnatural state." He looked down. "I mean, -look at this unnatural state." -She laughed. "It won't last." -"But it will," he said, climbing into the sand-colored tem- -perfoam, "that's what's so unnatural about it." - - -"Case, what's wrong with you?" Armitage said, as the waiter -was seating them at his table in the Vingtieme Siecle. It was -the smallest and most expensive of several floating restaurants -on a small lake near the Intercontinental. -Case shuddered. Bruce hadn't said anything about after ef- -fects. He tried to pick up a glass of ice water, but his hands -were shaking. "Something I ate, maybe." -"I want you checked out by a medic," Armitage said. -"Just this hystamine reaction," Case lied. "Get it when I -travel, eat different stuff, sometimes." -Armitage wore a dark suit, too formal for the place, and a -white silk shirt. His gold bracelet rattled as he raised his wine -and sipped. "I've ordered for you," he said. -Molly and Armitage ate in silence, while Case sawed shakily -at his steak, reducing it to uneaten bite-sized fragments, which -he pushed around in the rich sauce, finally abandoning the -whole thing. -"Jesus," Molly said, her own plate empty, "gimme that. -You know what this costs?" She took his plate. 'They gotta -raise a whole animal for years and then they kill it. This isn't -vat stuff." She forked a mouthful up and chewed. -"Not hungry," Case managed. His brain was deep-fried. -No, he decided, it had been thrown into hot fat and left there -and the fat had cooled, a thick dull grease congealing on the -wrinkled lobes, shot through with greenish-purple flashes of -pain. -"You look fucking awful," Molly said cheerfully. -Case tried the wine. The aftermath of the betaphenethylam- -ine made it taste like iodine. -The lights dimmed. -"Le Restaurant Vingtieme Siecle," said a disembodied voice -with a pronounced Sprawl accent, "proudly presents the hol- -ographic cabaret of Mr. Peter Riviera. " Scattered applause from -the other tables. A waiter lit a single candle and placed it in -the center of their table, then began to remove the dishes. Soon -a candle flickered at each of the restaurant's dozen tables, and -drinks were being poured. -"What's happening?" Case asked Armitage, who said noth- -ing. -Molly picked her teeth with a burgundy nail. -"Good evening," Riviera said, stepping forward on a small -stage at the far end of the room. Case blinked. In his discomfort, -he hadn't noticed the stage. He hadn't seen where Riviera had -come from. His uneasiness increased. -At first he assumed the man was illuminated by a spotlight. -Riviera glowed. The light clung around him like a skin, lit -the dark hangings behind the stage. He was projecting. -Riviera smiled. He wore a white dinner jacket. On his lapel, -blue coals burned in the depths of a black carnation. His fin- -gernails flashed as he raised his hands in a gesture of greeting, -an embrace for his audience. Case heard the shallow water lap -against the side of the restaurant. -"Tonight," Riviera said, his long eyes shining, "I would -like to perform an extended piece for you. A new work." A -cool ruby of light formed in the palm of his upraised right hand. -He dropped it. A gray dove fluttered up from the point of -impact and vanished into the shadows. Someone whistled. More -applause. -"The title of the work is 'The Doll.'" Riviera lowered his -hands. "I wish to dedicate its premiere here, tonight, to Lady -3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool." A wave of polite ap- -plause. As it died, Riviera's eyes seemed to find their table. -"And to another lady." -The restaurant's lights died entirely, for a few seconds, -leaving only the glow of candles. Riviera's holographic aura -had faded with the lights, but Case could still see him, standing -with his head bowed. -Lines of faint light began to form, verticals and horizontals, -sketching an open cube around the stage. The restaurant's lights -had come back up slightly, but the framework surrounding the -stage might have been constructed of frozen moonbeams. Head -bowed, eyes closed, arms rigid at his sides, Riviera seemed to -quiver with concentration. Suddenly the ghostly cube was filled, -had become a room, a room lacking its fourth wall, allowing -the audience to view its contents. -Riviera seemed to relax slightly. He raised his head, but -kept his eyes closed. "I'd always lived in the room," he said. -"I couldn't remember ever having lived in any other room." -The room's walls were yellowed white plaster. It contained -two pieces of furniture. One was a plain wooden chair, the -other an iron bedstead painted white. The paint had chipped -and flaked, revealing the black iron. The mattress on the bed -was bare. Stained ticking with faded brown stripes. A single -bulb dangled above the bed on a twisted length of black wire. -Case could see the thick coating of dust on the bulb's upper -curve. Riviera opened his eyes. -"I'd been alone in the room, always." He sat on the chair, -facing the bed. The blue coals still burned in the black flower -on his lapel. "I don't know when I first began to dream of -her," he said, "but I do remember that at first she was only a -haze, a shadow." -There was something on the bed. Case blinked. Gone. -"I couldn't quite hold her, hold her in my mind. But I wanted -to hold her, hold her and more...." His voice carried perfectly -in the hush of the restaurant. Ice clicked against the side of a -glass. Someone giggled. Someone else asked a whispered ques- -tion in Japanese. "I decided that if I could visualize some part -of her, only a small part, if I could see that part perfectly, in -the most perfect detail...." -A woman's hand lay on the mattress now, palm up, the -white fingers pale. -Riviera leaned forward, picked up the hand, and began to -stroke it gently. The fingers moved. Riviera raised the hand to -his mouth and began to lick the tips of the fingers. The nails -were coated with a burgundy lacquer. -A hand, Case saw, but not a severed hand; the skin swept -back smoothly, unbroken and unscarred. He remembered a -tattooed lozenge of vatgrown flesh in the window of a Ninsei -surgical boutique. Riviera was holding the hand to his lips, -licking its palm. The fingers tentatively caressed his face. But -now a second hand lay on the bed. When Riviera reached for -it, the fingers of the first were locked around his wrist, a bracelet -of flesh and bone. -The act progressed with a surreal internal logic of its own. -The arms were next. Feet. Legs. The legs were very beautiful. -Case's head throbbed. His throat was dry. He drank the last -of the wine. -Riviera was in the bed now, naked. His clothing had been -a part of the projection, but Case couldn't remember seeing it -fade away. The black flower lay at the foot of the bed, still -seething with its blue inner flame. Then the torso formed, as -Riviera caressed it into being, white, headless, and perfect, -sheened with the faintest gloss of sweat. -Molly's body. Case stared, his mouth open. But it wasn't -Molly; it was Molly as Riviera imagined her. The breasts were -wrong, the nipples larger, too dark. Riviera and the limbless -torso writhed together on the bed, crawled over by the hands -with their bright nails. The bed was thick now with folds of -yellowed, rotting lace that crumbled at a touch. Motes of dust -boiled around Riviera and the twitching limbs, the scurrying, -pinching, caressing hands. -Case glanced at Molly. Her face was blank; the colors of -Riviera's projection heaved and turned in her mirrors. Armitage -was leaning forward, his hands round the stem of a wineglass, -his pale eyes fixed on the stage, the glowing room. -Now limbs and torso had merged, and Riviera shuddered. -The head was there, the image complete. Molly's face, with -smooth quicksilver drowning the eyes. Riviera and the Molly- -image began to couple with a renewed intensity. Then the image -slowly extended a clawed hand and extruded its five blades. -With a languorous, dreamlike deliberation, it raked Riviera's -bare back. Case caught a glimpse of exposed spine, but he was -already up and stumbling for the door. -He vomited over a rosewood railing into the quiet waters -of the lake. Something that had seemed to close around his -head like a vise had released him now. Kneeling, his cheek -against the cool wood, he stared across the shallow lake at the -bright aura of the Rue Jules Verne. -Case had seen the medium before; when he'd been a teenager -in the Sprawl, they'd called it, ''dreaming real." He remem- -bered thin Puerto Ricans under East Side streetlights, dreaming -real to the quick beat of a salsa, dreamgirls shuddering and -turning, the onlookers clapping in time. But that had needed -a van full of gear and a clumsy trode helmet. -What Riviera dreamed, you got. Case shook his aching head -and spat into the lake. -He could guess the end, the finale. There was an inverted -symmetry: Riviera puts the dreamgirl together, the dreamgirl -takes him apart. With those hands. Dreamblood soaking the -rotten lace. -Cheers from the restaurant, applause. Case stood and ran -his hands over his clothes. He turned and walked back into the -Vingtieme Siecle. -Molly's chair was empty. The stage was deserted. Armitage -sat alone, still staring at the stage, the stem of the wineglass -between his fingers. -"Where is she?" Case asked. -"Gone," Armitage said. -"She go after him?" -"No." There was a soft tink. Armitage looked down at the -glass. His left hand came up holding the bulb of glass with its -measure of red wine. The broken stem protruded like a sliver -of ice. Case took it from him and set it in a water glass. -"Tell me where she went, Armitage." -The lights came up. Case looked into the pale eyes. Nothing -there at all. "She's gone to prepare herself. You won't see her -again. You'll be together during the run." -"Why did Riviera do that to her?" -Armitage stood, adjusting the lapels of his jacket. "Get some -sleep, Case." -"We run, tomorrow?" -Armitage smiled his meaningless smile and walked away, -toward the exit. -Case rubbed his forehead and looked around the room. The -diners were rising, women smiling as men made jokes. He -noticed the balcony for the first time, candles still flickering -there in private darkness. He heard the clink of silverware, -muted conversation. The candles threw dancing shadows on -the ceiling. -The girl's face appeared as abruptly as one of Riviera's -projections, her small hands on the polished wood of the bal- -ustrade; she leaned forward, face rapt, it seemed to him, her -dark eyes intent on something beyond. The stage. It was a -striking face, but not beautiful. Triangular, the cheekbones high -yet strangely fragile-looking, mouth wide and firm, balanced -oddly by a narrow, avian nose with flaring nostrils. And then -she was gone, back into private laughter and the dance of -candles. -As he left the restaurant, he noticed the two young French- -men and their girlfriend, who were waiting for the boat to the -far shore and the nearest casino. - -Their room was silent, the temperfoam smooth as some -beach after a retreating tide. Her bag was gone. He looked for -a note. There was nothing. Several seconds passed before the -scene beyond the window registered through his tension and -unhappiness. He looked up and saw a view of Desiderata, -expensive shops: Gucci, Tsuyako, Hermes, Liberty. -He stared, then shook his head and crossed to a panel he -hadn't bothered examining. He turned the hologram off and -was rewarded with the condos that terraced the far slope. -He picked up the phone and carried it out to the cool balcony. -"Get me a number for the Marcus Garvey," he told the -desk. "It's a tug, registered out of Zion cluster." -The chip voice recited a ten-digit number. "Sir," it added -"the registration in question is Panamanian." -Maelcum answered on the fifth tone. "Yo?" -"Case. You got a modem, Maelcum?" -"Yo. On th' navigation comp, ya know." -"Can you get it off for me, man? Put it on my Hosaka. -Then turn my deck on. It's the stud with the ridges on it." -"How you doin' in there, mon?" -"Well, I need some help." -"Movin', mon. I get th' modem." -Case listened to faint static while Maelcum attached the -simple phone link. "Ice this," he told the Hosaka, when he -heard it beep. -"You are speaking from a heavily monitored location," the -computer advised primly. -"Fuck it," he said. "Forget the ice. No ice. Access the -construct. Dixie?" -"Hey, Case." The Flatline spoke through the Hosaka's voice -chip, the carefully engineered accent lost entirely. -"Dix, you're about to punch your way in here and get -something for me. You can be as blunt as you want. Molly's -in here somewhere and I wanna know where. I'm in 335W, -the Intercontinental. She was registered here too, but I don't -know what name she was using. Ride in on this phone and do -their records for me." -"No sooner said," the Flatline said. Case heard the white -sound of the invasion. He smiled. "Done. Rose Kolodny. -Checked out. Take me a few minutes to screw their security -net deep enough to get a fix." -"Go." -The phone whined and clicked with the construct's efforts. -Case carried it back into the room and put the receiver face up -on the temperfoam. He went into the bathroom and brushed -his teeth. As he was stepping back out, the monitor on the -room's Braun audiovisual complex lit up. A Japanese pop star -reclining against metallic cushions. An unseen interviewer asked -a question in German. Case stared. The screen jumped with -jags of blue interference. "Case, baby, you lose your mind, -man?" The voice was slow, familiar. -The glass wall of the balcony clicked in with its view of -Desiderata, but the street scene blurred, twisted, became the -interior of the Jarre de The, Chiba, empty, red neon replicated -to scratched infinity in the mirrored walls. - -Lonny Zone stepped forward, tall and cadaverous, moving -with the slow undersea grace of his addiction. He stood alone -among the square tables, his hands in the pockets of his gray -sharkskin slacks. "Really, man, you're lookin' very scattered." -The voice came from the Braun's speakers. -"Wintermute," Case said. -The pimp shrugged languidly and smiled. -"Where's Molly?" -"Never you mind. You're screwing up tonight, Case. The -Flatline's ringing bells all over Freeside. I didn't think you'd -do that, man. It's outside the profile." -"So tell me where she is and I'll call him off." -Zone shook his head. -"You can't keep too good track of your women, can you -Case. Keep losin' 'em, one way or another." -"I'll bring this thing down around your ears," Case said. -"No. You aren't that kind, man. I know that. You know -something, Case? I figure you've got it figured out that it was -me told Deane to off that little cunt of yours in Chiba." -"Don't," Case said, taking an involuntary step toward the -window. -"But I didn't. What's it matter, though? How much does it -really matter to Mr. Case? Quit kidding yourself. I know your -Linda, man. I know all the Lindas. Lindas are a generic product -in my line of work. Know why she decided to rip you off? -Love. So you'd give a shit. Love? Wanna talk love? She loved -you. I know that. For the little she was worth, she loved you. -You couldn't handle it. She's dead." -Case's fist glanced off the glass. -"Don't fuck up the hands, man. Soon you punch deck." -Zone vanished, replaced by Freeside night and the lights of -the condos. The Braun shut off. -From the bed, the phone bleated steadily. -"Case?" The Flatline was waiting. "Where you been? I got -it. but it isn't much." The construct rattled off an address. -"Place had some weird ice around it for a nightclub. That's all -I could get without leaving a calling card." -"Okay," Case said. "Tell the Hosaka to tell Maelcum to -disconnect the modem. Thanks, Dix." -"A pleasure." -He sat on the bed for a long time, savoring the new thing, -the treasure. -Rage. - -"Hey. Lupus. Hey, Cath, it's friend Lupus." Bruce stood -naked in his doorway, dripping wet, his pupils enormous. "But -we're just having a shower. You wanna wait? Wanna shower?" -"No. Thanks. I want some help." He pushed the boy's arm -aside and stepped into the room. -"Hey, really, man, we're..." -"Going to help me. You're really glad to see me. Because -we're friends, right? Aren't we?" -Bruce blinked. "Sure." -Case recited the address the Flatline had given him. -"I knew he was a gangster," Cath called cheerfully from -the shower. -"I gotta Honda trike," Bruce said, grinning vacantly. -"We go now," Case said. - -"That level's the cubicles," Bruce said, after asking Case -to repeat the address for the eighth time. He climbed back into -the Honda. Condensation dribbled from the hydrogen-cell ex- -haust as the red fiberglass chassis swayed on chromed shocks. -"You be long?" -"No saying. But you'll wait." -"We'll wait, yeah." He scratched his bare chest. "That last -part of the address, I think that's a cubicle. Number forty- -three." -"You expected, Lupus?" Cath craned forward over Bruce's -shoulder and peered up. The drive had dried her hair. -"Not really," Case said. "That's a problem?" -"Just go down to the lowest level and find your friend's -cubicle. If they let you in, fine. If they don't wanna see you . . ." -She shrugged. -Case turned and descended a spiral staircase of floral iron. -Six turns and he'd reached a nightclub. He paused and lit a -Yeheyuan, looking over the tables. Freeside suddenly made -sense to him. Biz. He could feel it humming in the air. This -was it, the local action. Not the high-gloss facade of the Rue -Jules Verne, but the real thing. Commerce. The dance. The -crowd was mixed; maybe half were tourists, the other half -residents of the islands. -"Downstairs," he said to a passing waiter, "I want to go -downstairs." He showed his Freeside chip. The man gestured -toward the rear of the club. -He walked quickly past the crowded tables, hearing frag- -ments of half a dozen European languages as he passed. -"I want a cubicle," he said to the girl who sat at the low -desk, a terminal on her lap. "Lower level." He handed her his -chip. -"Gender preference?" She passed the chip across a glass -plate on the face of the terminal. -"Female," he said automatically. -"Number thirty-five. Phone if it isn't satisfactory. You can -access our special services display beforehand, if you like." -She smiled. She returned his chip. -An elevator slid open behind her. -The corridor lights were blue. Case stepped out of the el- -evator and chose a direction at random. Numbered doors. A -hush like the halls of an expensive clinic. -He found his cubicle. He'd been looking for Molly's; now -confused, he raised his chip and placed it against a black sensor -set directly beneath the number plate. -Magnetic locks. The sound reminded him of Cheap Hotel. -The girl sat up in bed and said something in German. Her -eyes were soft and unblinking. Automatic pilot. A neural cut- -out. He backed out of the cubicle and closed the door. -The door of forty-three was like all the others. He hesitated. -The silence of the hallway said that the cubicles were sound- -proof. It was pointless to try the chip. He rapped his knuckles -against enameled metal. Nothing. The door seemed to absorb -the sound. -He placed his chip against the black plate. -The bolts clicked. -She seemed to hit him, somehow, before he'd actually got- -ten the door open. He was on his knees, the steel door against -his back, the blades of her rigid thumbs quivering centimeters -from his eyes.... -"Jesus Christ," she said, cuffing the side of his head as she -rose. "You're an idiot to try that. How the hell you open those -locks, Case? Case? You okay?" She leaned over him. -"Chip," he said, struggling for breath. Pain was spreading -from his chest. She helped him up and shoved him into the -cubicle. -"You bribe the help, upstairs?" -He shook his head and fell across the bed. -"Breathe in. Count. One, two, three, four. Hold it. Now -out. Count." -He clutched his stomach. -"You kicked me," he managed. -"Shoulda been lower. I wanna be alone. I'm meditating, -right?" She sat beside him. "And getting a briefing." She pointed -at a small monitor set into the wall opposite the bed. "Win- -termute's telling me about Straylight." -"Where's the meat puppet?" -"There isn't any. That's the most expensive special service -of all." She stood up. She wore her leather jeans and a loose -dark shirt. "The run's tomorrow, Wintermute says." -"What was that all about, in the restaurant? How come you -ran?" -"'Cause, if I'd stayed, I might have killed Riviera." -"Why?" -"What he did to me. The show." -"I don't get it." -"This cost a lot," she said, extending her right hand as -though it held an invisible fruit. The five blades slid out, then -retracted smoothly. "Costs to go to Chiba, costs to get the -surgery, costs to have them jack your nervous system up so -you'll have the reflexes to go with the gear.... You know how -I got the money, when I was starting out? Here. Not here, but -a place like it, in the Sprawl. Joke, to start with, 'cause once -they plant the cut-out chip, it seems like free money. Wake up -sore, sometimes, but that's it. Renting the goods, is all. You -aren't in, when it's all happening. House has software for -whatever a customer wants to pay for...." She cracked her -knuckles. "Fine. I was getting my money. Trouble was, the -cut-out and the circuitry the Chiba clinics put in weren't com- -patible. So the worktime started bleeding in, and I could re- -member it.... But it was just bad dreams, and not all bad." -She smiled. "Then it started getting strange." She pulled his -cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. "The house found out -what I was doing with the money. I had the blades in, but the -fine neuromotor work would take another three trips. No way -I was ready to give up puppet time." She inhaled, blew out a -stream of smoke, capping it with three perfect rings. "So the -bastard who ran the place, he had some custom software cooked -up. Berlin, that's the place for snuff, you know? Big market -for mean kicks, Berlin. I never knew who wrote the program -they switched me to, but it was based on all the classics." -"They knew you were picking up on this stuff? That you -were conscious while you were working?" -"I wasn't conscious. It's like cyberspace, but blank. Silver. -It smells like rain.... You can see yourself orgasm, it's like -a little nova right out on the rim of space. But I was starting -to remember. Like dreams, you know. And they didn't tell me. -They switched the software and started renting to specialty -markets." -She seemed to speak from a distance. "And I knew, but I -kept quiet about it. I needed the money. The dreams got worse -and worse, and I'd tell myself that at least some of them were -just dreams, but by then I'd started to figure that the boss had -a whole little clientele going for me. Nothing's too good for -Molly, the boss says, and gives me this shit raise." She shook -her head. "That prick was charging eight times what he was -paying me, and he thought I didn't know." -"So what was he charging for?" -"Bad dreams. Real ones. One night . . . one night, I'd just -come back from Chiba." She dropped the cigarette, ground it -out with her heel, and sat down, leaning against the wall. -"Surgeons went way in, that trip. Tricky. They must have -disturbed the cut-out chip. I came up. I was into this routine -with a customer...." She dug her fingers deep in the foam. -"Senator, he was. Knew his fat face right away. We were both -covered with blood. We weren't alone. She was all. .." She -tugged at the temperfoam. "Dead. And that fat prick, he was -saying, 'What's wrong. What's wrong?' 'Cause we weren't -finished yet...." -She began to shake. -"So I guess I gave the Senator what he really wanted, you -know?" The shaking stopped. She released the foam and ran -her fingers back through her dark hair. "The house put a con- -tract out on me. I had to hide for a while." -Case stared at her. -"So Riviera hit a nerve last night," she said. "I guess it -wants me to hate him real bad, so I'll be psyched up to go in -there after him." -"After him?" -"He's already there. Straylight. On the invitation of Lady -3Jane, all that dedication shit. She was there in a private box, -kinda . . ." -Case remembered the face he'd seen. "You gonna kill him?" -She smiled. Cold. "He's going to die, yeah. Soon." -"I had a visit too," he said, and told her about the window, -stumbling over what the Zone-figure had said about Linda. She -nodded. -"Maybe it wants you to hate something too." -"Maybe I hate it." -"Maybe you hate yourself, Case." - -"How was it?" Bruce asked, as Case climbed into the Honda. -"Try it sometime," he said, rubbing his eyes. -"Just can't see you the kinda guy goes for the puppets," -Cath said unhappily, thumbing a fresh derm against her wrist. -"Can we go home, now?" Bruce asked. -"Sure. Drop me down Jules Verne, where the bars are." -Rue Jules Verne was a circumferential avenue, looping the -spindle's midpoint, while Desiderata ran its length, terminating -at either end in the supports of the Lado-Acheson light pumps. -If you turned right, off Desiderata, and followed Jules Verne -far enough, you'd find yourself approaching Desiderata from -the left. -Case watched Bruce's trike until it was out of sight, then -turned and walked past a vast, brilliantly lit newsstand, the -covers of dozens of glossy Japanese magazines presenting the -faces of the month's newest simstim stars. -Directly overhead, along the nighted axis, the hologram sky -glittered with fanciful constellations suggesting playing cards, -the faces of dice, a top hat, a martini glass. The intersection -of Desiderata and Jules Verne formed a kind of gulch, the -balconied terraces of Freeside cliff dwellers rising gradually to -the grassy tablelands of another casino complex. Case watched -a drone microlight bank gracefully in an updraft at the green -verge of an artificial mesa, lit for seconds by the soft glow of -the invisible casino. The thing was a kind of pilotless biplane -of gossamer polymer, its wings silkscreened to resemble a giant -butterfly. Then it was gone, beyond the mesa's edge. He'd -seen a wink of reflected neon off glass, either lenses or the -turrets of lasers. The drones were part of the spindle's security -system, controlled by some central computer. -In Straylight? He walked on, past bars named the Hi-Lo, -the Paradise, le Monde, Cricketeer, Shozoku Smith's, Emer- -gency. He chose Emergency because it was the smallest and -most crowded, but it took only seconds for him to realize that -it was a tourist place. No hum of biz here, only a glazed sexual -tension. He thought briefly of the nameless club above Molly's -rented cubicle, but the image of her mirrored eyes fixed on the -little screen dissuaded him. What was Wintermute revealing -there now? The ground plans of the Villa Straylight? The history -of the Tessier-Ashpools? -He bought a mug of Carlsberg and found a place against -the wall. Closing his eyes, he felt for the knot of rage, the pure -small coal of his anger. It was there still. Where had it come -from? He remembered feeling only a kind of bafflement at his -maiming in Memphis, nothing at all when he'd killed to defend -his dealing interests in Night City, and a slack sickness and -loathing after Linda's death under the inflated dome. But no -anger. Small and far away, on the mind's screen, a semblance -of Deane struck a semblance of an office wall in an explosion -of brains and blood. He knew then: the rage had come in the -arcade, when Wintermute rescinded the simstim ghost of Linda -Lee, yanking away the simple animal promise of food, warmth, -a place to sleep. But he hadn't become aware of it until his -exchange with the holo-construct of Lonny Zone. -It was a strange thing. He couldn't take its measure. -"Numb," he said. He'd been numb a long time, years. All -his nights down Ninsei, his nights with Linda, numb in bed -and numb at the cold sweating center of every drug deal. But -now he'd found this warm thing, this chip of murder. Meat, -some part of him said. It's the meat talking, ignore it. -"Gangster." -He opened his eyes. Cath stood beside him in a black shift, -her hair still wild from the ride in the Honda. -"Thought you went home," he said, and covered his con- -fusion with a sip of Carlsberg. -"I got him to drop me off at this shop. Bought this." She -ran her palm across the fabric, curve of the pelvic girdle. He -saw the blue derm on her wrist. "Like it?" -"Sure." He automatically scanned the faces around them, -then looked back at her. "What do you think you're up to, -honey?" -"You like the beta you got off us, Lupus?" She was very -close now, radiating heat and tension, eyes slitted over enor- -mous pupils and a tendon in her neck tense as a bowstring. -She was quivering, vibrating invisibly with the fresh buzz. -"You get off?" -"Yeah. But the comedown's a bitch." -"Then you need another one." -"And what's that supposed to lead to?" -"I got a key. Up the hill behind the Paradise, just the cream- -iest crib. People down the well on business tonight, if you -follow me...." -"If I follow you." -She took his hand between hers, her palms hot and dry. -"You're Yak, aren't you, Lupus? Gaijin soldierman for the -Yakuza." -"You got an eye, huh?" He withdrew his hand and fumbled -for a cigarette. -"How come you got all your fingers, then? I thought you -had to chop one off every time you screwed up." -"I never screw up." He lit his cigarette. -"I saw that girl you're with. Day I met you. Walks like -Hideo. Scares me." She smiled too widely. "I like that. She -like it with girls?" -"Never said. Who's Hideo?" -"3Jane's, what she calls it, retainer. Family retainer." -Case forced himself to stare dully at the Emergency crowd -while he spoke. "Dee-Jane?" -"Lady 3Jane. She's triff. Rich. Her father owns all this." -"This bar?" -"Freeside ! " -"No shit. You keepin' some class company, huh?" He raised -an eyebrow. Put his arm around her, his hand on her hip. "So -how you meet these aristos, Cathy? You some kinda closet -deb? You an' Bruce secret heirs to some ripe old credit? Huh?" -He spread his fingers, kneading the flesh beneath the thin black -cloth. She squirmed against him. Laughed. -"Oh, you know," she said, lids half lowered in what must -have been intended as a look of modesty, "she likes to party. -Bruce and I, we make the party circuit.... It gets real boring -for her, in there. Her old man lets her out sometimes, as long -as she brings Hideo to take care of her." -"Where's it get boring?' -"Straylight, they call it. She told me, oh, it's pretty, all the -pools and lilies.It's a castle, a real castle, all stone and sunsets." -She snuggled in against him. "Hey, Lupus, man, you need a -derm. So we can be together." -She wore a tiny leather purse on a slender neck-thong. Her -nails were bright pink against her boosted tan, bitten to the -quick. She opened the purse and withdrew a paperbacked bub- -ble with a blue derm inside. Something white tumbled to the -floor; Case stooped and picked it up. An origami crane. -"Hideo gave it to me," she said. "He tried to show me how, -but I can't ever get it right. The necks come out backwards." -She tucked the folded paper back into her purse. Case watched -as she tore the bubble away, peeled the derm from its backing, -and smoothed it across his inner wrist. -"3Jane, she's got a pointy face, nose like a bird?" He watched -his hands fumble an outline. "Dark hair? Young?" -"I guess. But she's triff, you know? Like, all that money." -The drug hit him like an express train, a white-hot column -of light mounting his spine from the region of his prostate, -illuminating the sutures of his skull with x-rays of short-cir- -cuited sexual energy. His teeth sang in their individual sockets -like tuning forks, each one pitch-perfect and clear as ethanol. -His bones, beneath the hazy envelope of flesh, were chromed -and polished, the joints lubricated with a film of silicone. Sand- -storms raged across the scoured floor of his skull, generating -waves of high thin static that broke behind his eyes, spheres -of purest crystal, expanding.... -"Come on," she said, taking his hand. "You got it now. -We got it. Up the hill, we'll have it all night." - -The anger was expanding, relentless, exponential, riding -out behind the betaphenethylamine rush like a carrier wave, a -seismic fluid, rich and corrosive. His erection was a bar of -lead. The faces around them in Emergency were painted doll -things, the pink and white of mouth parts moving, moving, -words emerging like discrete balloons of sound. He looked at -Cath and saw each pore in the tanned skin, eyes flat as dumb -glass, a tint of dead metal, a faint bloating, the most minute -asymmetries of breast and collarbone, the--something flared -white behind his eyes. -He dropped her hand and stumbled for the door, shoving -someone out of the way. -"Fuck you!" she screamed behind him, "you ripoff shit!" -He couldn't feel his legs. He used them like stilts, swaying -crazily across the flagstone pavement of Jules Verne, a distant -rumbling in his ears, his own blood, razored sheets of light -bisecting his skull at a dozen angles. -And then he was frozen, erect, fists tight against his thighs, -head back, his lips curled, shaking. While he watched the -loser's zodiac of Freeside, the nightclub constellations of the -hologram sky, shift, sliding fluid down the axis of darkness, -to swarm like live things at the dead center of reality. Until -they had arranged themselves, individually and in their hundreds, -to form a vast simple portrait, stippled the ultimate mono- -chrome, stars against night sky. Face of Miss Linda Lee. -When he was able to look away, to lower his eyes, he found -every other face in the street upraised, the strolling tourists -becalmed with wonder. And when the lights in the sky went -out, a ragged cheer went up from Jules Verne, to echo off the -terraces and ranked balconies of lunar concrete. -Somewhere a clock began to chime, some ancient bell out -of Europe. -Midnight. - -He walked till morning. -The high wore away, the chromed skeleton corroding hourly, -flesh growing solid, the drug-flesh replaced with the meat of -his life. He couldn't think. He liked that very much, to be -conscious and unable to think. He seemed to become each -thing he saw: a park bench, a cloud of white moths around an -antique streetlight, a robot gardener striped diagonally with -black and yellow. -A recorded dawn crept along the Lado-Acheson system, -pink and lurid. He forced himself to eat an omelette in a De- -siderata cafe, to drink water, to smoke the last of his cigarettes. -The rooftop meadow of the Intercontinental was stirring as he -crossed it, an early breakfast crowd intent on coffee and crois- -sants beneath the striped umbrellas. -He still had his anger. That was like being rolled in some -alley and waking to discover your wallet still in your pocket, -untouched. He warmed himself with it, unable to give it a name -or an object. -He rode the elevator down to his level, fumbling in his -pocket for the Freeside credit chip that served as his key. Sleep -was becoming real, was something he might do. To lie down -on the sand-colored temperfoam and find the blankness again. -They were waiting there, the three of them, their perfect -white sportsclothes and stenciled tans setting off the handwoven -organic chic of the furniture. The girl sat on a wicker sofa, an -automatic pistol beside her on the leaf-patterned print of the -cushion. -"Turing," she said. "You are under arrest." - -PART FOUR - -THE STRAYLIGHT RUN - - -"Your name is Henry Dorsett Case." She recited the year -and place of his birth, his BAMA Single Identification Number, -and a string of names he gradually recognized as aliases from -his past. -"You been here awhile?" He saw the contents of his bag -spread out across the bed, unwashed clothing sorted by type. -The shuriken lay by itself, between jeans and underwear, on -the sand-tinted temperfoam. -"Where is Kolodny?" The two men sat side by side on the -couch, their arms crossed over tanned chests, identical gold -chains slung around their necks. Case peered at them and saw -that their youth was counterfeit, marked by a certain telltale -corrugation at the knuckles, something the surgeons were un- -able to erase. -"Who's Kolodny?" -"That was the name in the register. Where is she?" -"I dunno," he said, crossing to the bar and pouring himself -a glass of mineral water. "She took off." -"Where did you go tonight, Case?" The girl picked up the -pistol and rested it on her thigh, without actually pointing it at -him. -"Jules Verne, couple of bars, got high. How about you?" -His knees felt brittle. The mineral water was warm and flat. -"I don't think you grasp your situation," said the man on -the left, taking a pack of Gitanes from the breast pocket of his -white mesh blouse. "You are busted, Mr. Case. The charges -have to do with conspiracy to augment an artificial intelli- -gence." He took a gold Dunhill from the same pocket and -cradled it in his palm. "The man you call Armitage is already -in custody." -"Corto?" -The man's eyes widened. "Yes. How do you know that that -is his name?" A millimeter of flame clicked from the lighter. -"I forget," Case said. -"You'll remember," the girl said. - -Their names, or worknames, were Michele, Roland, and -Pierre. Pierre, Case decided, would play the Bad Cop; Roland -would take Case's side, provide small kindnesses--he found -an unopened pack of Yeheyuans when Case refused a Gitane-- -and generally play counterpoint to Pierre's cold hostility. -Michele would be the Recording Angel, making occasional -adjustments in the direction of the interrogation. One or all of -them, he was certain, would be kinked for audio, very likely -for simstim, and anything he said or did now was admissible -evidence. Evidence, he asked himself, through the grinding -come-down, of what? -Knowing that he couldn't follow their French, they spoke -freely among themselves. Or seemed to. He caught enough as -it was: names like Pauley, Armitage, Sense/Net. Panther Mod- -erns protruding like icebergs from an animated sea of Parisian -French. But it was entirely possible that the names were there -for his benefit. They always referred to Molly as Kolodny. -"You say you were hired to make a run, Case," Roland -said, his slow speech intended to convey reasonableness, "and -that you are unaware of the nature of the target. Is this not -unusual in your trade? Having penetrated the defenses, would -you not be unable then to perform the required operation? And -surely an operation of some kind is required, yes?" He leaned -forward, elbows on his stenciled brown knees, palms out to -receive Case's explanation. Pierre paced the room; now he was -by the window, now by the door. Michele was the kink, Case -decided. Her eyes never left him. -"Can I put some clothes on?" he asked. Pierre had insisted -on stripping him, searching the seams of his jeans. Now he sat -naked on a wicker footstool, with one foot obscenely white. -Roland asked Pierre something in French. Pierre, at the -window again, was peering through a flat little pair of binoc- -ulars. "Non," he said absently, and Roland shrugged, raising -his eyebrows at Case. Case decided it was a good time to smile. -Roland returned the smile. -Oldest cop bullshit in the book, Case thought. "Look," he -said, "I'm sick. Had this godawful drug in a bar, you know? -I wanna lie down. You got me already. You say you got -Armitage. You got him, go ask him. I'm just hired help." -Roland nodded. "And Kolodny?" -"She was with Armitage when he hired me. Just muscle, a -razorgirl. Far as I know. Which isn't too far." -"You know that Armitage's real name is Corto," Pierre said, -his eyes still hidden by the soft plastic flanges of the binoculars. -"How do you know that, my friend?" -"I guess he mentioned it sometime," Case said, regretting -the slip. "Everybody's got a couple names. Your name Pierre?" -"We know how you were repaired in Chiba," Michele said, -"and that may have been Wintermute's first mistake." Case -stared at her as blankly as he could. The name hadn't been -mentioned before. "The process employed on you resulted in -the clinic's owner applying for seven basic patents. Do you -know what that means?" -"No." -"It means that the operator of a black clinic in Chiba City -now owns a controlling interest in three major medical research -consortiums. This reverses the usual order of things, you see. -It attracted attention." She crossed her brown arms across her -small high breasts and settled back against the print cushion. -Case wondered how old she might be. People said that age -always showed in the eyes, but he'd never been able to see it. -Julie Deane had had the eyes of a disinterested ten-year-old -behind the rose quartz of his glasses. Nothing old about Michele -but her knuckles. "Traced you to the Sprawl, lost you again, -then caught up with you as you were leaving for Istanbul. We -backtracked, traced you through the grid, determined that you'd -instigated a riot at Sense/Net. Sense/Net was eager to cooperate. -They ran an inventory for us. They discovered that McCoy -Pauley's ROM personality construct was missing." -"In Istanbul," Roland said, almost apologetically, "it was -very easy. The woman had alienated Armitage's contact with -the secret police." -"And then you came here," Pierre said, slipping the bin- -oculars into his shorts pocket. "We were delighted." -"Chance to work on your tan?" -"You know what we mean," Michele said. "If you wish to -pretend that you do not, you only make things more difficult -for yourself. There is still the matter of extradition. You will -return with us, Case, as will Armitage. But where, exactly, -will we all be going? To Switzerland, where you will be merely -a pawn in the trial of an artificial intelligence? Or to le BAMA, -where you can be proven to have participated not only in data -invasion and larceny, but in an act of public mischief which -cost fourteen innocent lives? The choice is yours." -Case took a Yeheyuan from his pack; Pierre lit it for him -with the gold Dunhill. "Would Armitage protect you?" The -question was punctuated by the lighter's bright jaws snapping -shut. -Case looked up at him through the ache and bitterness of -betaphenethylamine. "How old are you, boss?" -"Old enough to know that you are fucked, burnt, that this -is over and you are in the way." -"One thing," Case said, and drew on his cigarette. He blew -the smoke up at the Turing Registry agent. "Do you guys have -any real jurisdiction out here? I mean, shouldn't you have the -Freeside security team in on this party? It's their turf, isn't it?" -He saw the dark eyes harden in the lean boy face and tensed -for the blow, but Pierre only shrugged. -"It doesn't matter," Roland said. "You will come with us. -We are at home with situations of legal ambiguity. The treaties -under which our arm of the Registry operates grant us a great -deal of flexibility. And we create flexibility, in situations where -it is required." The mask of amiability was down, suddenly, -Roland's eyes as hard as Pierre's. -"You are worse than a fool," Michele said, getting to her -feet, the pistol in her hand. "You have no care for your species. -For thousands of years men dreamed of pacts with demons. -Only now are such things possible. And what would you be -paid with? What would your price be, for aiding this thing to -free itself and grow?" There was a knowing weariness in her -young voice that no nineteen-year-old could have mustered. -"You will dress now. You will come with us. Along with the -one you call Armitage, you will return with us to Geneva and -give testimony in the trial of this intelligence. Otherwise, we -kill you. Now." She raised the pistol, a smooth black Walther -with an integral silencer. -"I'm dressing already," he said, stumbling toward the bed. -His legs were still numb, clumsy. He fumbled with a clean -t-shirt. -"We have a ship standing by. We will erase Pauley's con- -struct with a pulse weapon." -"Sense/Net'll be pissed," Case said, thinking: and all the -evidence in the Hosaka. -"They are in some difficulty already, for having owned such -a thing." -Case pulled the shirt over his head. He saw the shuriken on -the bed, lifeless metal, his star. He felt for the anger. It was -gone. Time to give in, to roll with it.... He thought of the -toxin sacs. "Here comes the meat," he muttered. -In the elevator to the meadow, he thought of Molly. She -might already be in Straylight. Hunting Riviera. Hunted, prob- -ably, by Hideo, who was almost certainly the ninja clone of -the Finn's story, the one who'd come to retrieve the talking -head. -He rested his forehead against the matte black plastic of a -wall panel and closed his eyes. His limbs were wood, old, -warped and heavy with rain. -Lunch was being served beneath the trees, under the bright -umbrellas. Roland and Michele fell into character, chattering -brightly in French. Pierre came behind. Michele kept the muz- -zle of her pistol close to his ribs, concealing the gun with a -white duck jacket she draped over her arm. - -Crossing the meadow, weaving between the tables and the -trees, he wondered if she would shoot him if he collapsed now. -Black fur boiled at the borders of his vision. He glanced up at -the hot white band of the Lado-Acheson armature and saw a -giant butterfly banking gracefully against recorded sky. -At the edge of the meadow they came to railinged cliffside, -wild flowers dancing in the updraft from the canyon that was -Desiderata. Michele tossed her short dark hair and pointed, -saying something in French to Roland. She sounded genuinely -happy. Case followed the direction of her gesture and saw the -curve of planing lakes, the white glint of casinos, turquoise -rectangles of a thousand pools, the bodies of bathers, tiny bronze -hieroglyphs, all held in serene approximation of gravity against -the endless curve of Freeside's hull. -They followed the railing to an ornate iron bridge that arched -over Desiderata. Michele prodded him with the muzzle of the -Walther. -"Take it easy, I can't hardly walk today." -They were a little over a quarter of the way across when -the microlight struck, its electric engine silent until the carbon -fiber prop chopped away the top of Pierre's skull. -They were in the thing's shadow for an instant; Case felt -the hot blood spray across the back of his neck, and then -someone tripped him. He rolled, seeing Michele on her back, -knees up, aiming the Walther with both hands. That's a waste -of effort, he thought, with the strange lucidity of shock. She -was trying to shoot down the microlight. -And then he was running. He looked back as he passed the -first of the trees. Roland was running after him. He saw the -fragile biplane strike the iron railing of the bridge, crumple, -cartwheel, sweeping the girl with it down into Desiderata. -Roland hadn't looked back. His face was fixed, white, his -teeth bared. He had something in his hand. -The gardening robot took Roland as he passed that same -tree. It fell straight out of the groomed branches, a thing like -a crab, diagonally striped with black and yellow. -"You killed 'em," Case panted, running. "Crazy mother- -fucker, you killed 'em all...." - - -The little train shot through its tunnel at eighty kilometers -per hour. Case kept his eyes closed. The shower had helped, -but he'd lost his breakfast when he'd looked down and seen -Pierre's blood washing pink across the white tiles. -Gravity fell away as the spindle narrowed. Case's stomach -churned. -Aerol was waiting with his scooter beside the dock. -"Case, mon, big problem." The soft voice faint in his phones. -He chinned the volume control and peered into the Lexan -face-plate of Aerol's helmet. -"Gotta get to Garvey, Aerol." -"Yo. Strap in, mon. But Garvey captive. Yacht, came be- -fore, she came back. Now she lockin' steady on Marcus -Garvey. " -Turing? "Came before?" Case climbed into the scooter's -frame and began to fasten the straps. - -"Japan yacht. Brought you package...." -Armitage. - -Confused images of wasps and spiders rose in Case's mind -as they came in sight of Marcus Garvey. The little tug was -snug against the gray thorax of a sleek, insectile ship five times -her length. The arms of grapples stood out against Garvey's -patched hull with the strange clarity of vacuum and raw sun- -light. A pale corrugated gangway curved out of the yacht, -snaked sideways to avoid the tug's engines, and covered the -aft hatch. There was something obscene about the arrangement, -but it had more to do with ideas of feeding than of sex. -"What's happening with Maelcum?" -"Maelcum fine. Nobody come down the tube. Yacht pilot -talk to him, say relax." -As they swung past the gray ship, Case saw the name HAN- -IWA in crisp white capitals beneath an oblong cluster of Jap- -anese. -"I don't like this, man. I was thinking maybe it's time we -got our ass out of here anyway." -"Maelcum thinkin' that precise thing, mon, but Garvey not -be goin' far like that." - -Maelcum was purring a speeded-up patois to his radio when -Case came through the forward lock and removed his helmet. -"Aerol's gone back to the Rocker," Case said. -Maelcum nodded, still whispering to the microphone. -Case pulled himself over the pilot's drifting tangle of dread- -locks and began to remove his suit. Maelcum's eyes were -closed now; he nodded as he listened to some reply over a pair -of phones with bright orange pads, his brow creased with con- -centration. He wore ragged jeans and an old green nylon jacket -with the sleeves ripped out. Case snapped the red Sanyo suit -to a storage hammock and pulled himself down to the g-web. -"See what th' ghost say, mon," Maelcum said. "Computer -keeps askin' for you." -"So who's up there in that thing?" -"Same Japan-boy came before. An' now he joined by you -Mister Armitage, come out Freeside...." -Case put the trodes on and jacked in. - - -* * * -"Dixie?" -The matrix showed him the pink spheres of the steel combine -in Sikkim. -"What you gettin' up to, boy? I been hearin' lurid stories. -Hosaka's patched into a twin bank on your boss's boat now. -Really hoppin'. You pull some Turing heat?" -"Yeah, but Wintermute killed 'em." -"Well, that won't hold 'em long. Plenty more where those -came from. Be up here in force. Bet their decks are all over -this grid sector like flies on shit. And your boss, Case, he says -go. He says run it and run it now." -Case punched for the Freeside coordinates. -"Lemme take that a sec, Case...." The matrix blurred and -phased as the Flatline executed an intricate series of jumps with -a speed and accuracy that made Case wince with envy. -"Shit, Dixie...." -"Hey, boy, I was that good when I was alive. You ain't -seen nothin'. No hands!" -"That's it, huh? Big green rectangle off left?" -"You got it. Corporate core data for Tessier-Ashpool S.A., -and that ice is generated by their two friendly Al's. On par -with anything in the military sector, looks to me. That's king -hell ice, Case, black as the grave and slick as glass. Fry your -brain soon as look at you. We get any closer now, it'll have -tracers up our ass and out both ears, be tellin' the boys in the -T-A boardroom the size of your shoes and how long your dick - -"This isn't looking so hot, is it? I mean, the Turings are on -it. I was thinking maybe we should try to bail out. I can take -you." -"Yeah? No shit? You don't wanna see what that Chinese -program can do?" -"Well, I . . ." Case stared at the green walls of the T-A ice. -"Well, screw it. Yeah. We run." -"Slot it." -"Hey, Maelcum," Case said, jacking out, "I'm probably -gonna be under the trodes for maybe eight hours straight." -Maelcum was smoking again. The cabin was swimming in -smoke. "So I can't get to the head...." -"No problem, mon." The Zionite executed a high forward -somersault and rummaged through the contents of a zippered -mesh bag, coming up with a coil of transparent tubing and -something else, something sealed in a sterile bubble pack. -He called it a Texas catheter, and Case didn't like it at all. -He slotted the Chinese virus, paused, then drove it home. -"Okay," he said, "we're on. Listen, Maelcum, if it gets -really funny, you can grab my left wrist. I'll feel it. Otherwise, -I guess you do what the Hosaka tells you, okay?" -"Sure, mon." Maelcum lit a fresh joint. -"And turn the scrubber up. I don't want that shit tangling -with my neurotransmitters. I got a bad hangover as it is." -Maelcum grinned. -Case jacked back in. -"Christ on a crutch," the Flatline said, "take a look at this." -The Chinese virus was unfolding around them. Polychrome -shadow, countless translucent layers shifting and recombining. -Protean, enormous, it towered above them, blotting out the -void. -"Big mother," the Flatline said. -"I'm gonna check Molly," Case said, tapping the simstim -switch. - -Freefall. The sensation was like diving through perfectly -clear water. She was falling-rising through a wide tube of fluted -lunar concrete, lit at two-meter intervals by rings of white neon. -The link was one way. He couldn't talk to her. -He flipped. - -"Boy, that is one mean piece of software. Hottest thing -since sliced bread. That goddam thing's invisible. I just now -rented twenty seconds on that little pink box, four jumps left -of the T-A ice; had a look at what we look like. We don't. -We're not there." -Case searched the matrix around the Tessier-Ashpool ice -until he found the pink structure, a standard commercial unit, -and punched in closer to it. "Maybe it's defective." -"Maybe, but I doubt it. Our baby's military, though. And -new. It just doesn't register. If it did, we'd read as some kind -of Chinese sneak attack, but nobody's twigged to us at all. -Maybe not even the folks in Straylight." - -Case watched the blank wall that screened Straylight. "Well," -he said, "that's an advantage, right?" -"Maybe." The construct approximated laughter. Case winced -at the sensation. "I checked ol' Kuang Eleven out again for -you, boy. It's real friendly, long as you're on the trigger end, -jus' polite an' helpful as can be. Speaks good English, too. -You ever hear of slow virus before?" -"No." -"I did, once. Just an idea, back then. But that's what ol' -Kuang's all about. This ain't bore and inject, it's more like we -interface with the ice so slow, the ice doesn't feel it. The face -of the Kuang logics kinda sleazes up to the target and mutates, -so it gets to be exactly like the ice fabric. Then we lock on -and the main programs cut in, start talking circles 'round the -logics in the ice. We go Siamese twin on 'em before they even -get restless." The Flatline laughed. -"Wish you weren't so damn jolly today, man. That laugh -of yours sort of gets me in the spine." -"Too bad," the Flatline said. "Ol' dead man needs his laughs." -Case slapped the simstim switch. - -And crashed through tangled metal and the smell of dust, -the heels of his hands skidding as they struck slick paper. -Something behind him collapsed noisily. -"C'mon," said the Finn, "ease up a little." -Case lay sprawled across a pile of yellowing magazines, -the girls shining up at him in the dimness of Metro Holografix, -a wistful galaxy of sweet white teeth. He lay there until his -heart had slowed, breathing the smell of old magazines. -"Wintermute," he said. -"Yeah," said the Finn, somewhere behind him, "you got -it." -"Fuck off." Case sat up, rubbing his wrists. -"Come on," said the Finn, stepping out of a sort of alcove -in the wall of junk. "This way's better for you, man." He took -his Partagas from a coat pocket and lit one. The smell of Cuban -tobacco filled the shop. "You want I should come to you in -the matrix like a burning bush? You aren't missing anything, -back there. An hour here'll only take you a couple of seconds." -"You ever think maybe it gets on my nerves, you coming -on like people I know?" He stood, swatting pale dust from the -front of his black jeans. He turned, glaring back at-the dusty -shop windows, the closed door to the street. "What's out there? -New York? Or does it just stop?" -"Well," said the Finn, "it's like that tree, you know? Falls -in the woods but maybe there's nobody to hear it." He showed -Case his huge front teeth, and puffed his cigarette. "You can -go for a walk, you wanna. It's all there. Or anyway all the -parts of it you ever saw. This is memory, right? I tap you, sort -it out, and feed it back in." -"I don't have this good a memory," Case said, looking -around. He looked down at his hands, turning them over. He -tried to remember what the lines on his palms were like, but -couldn't. -"Everybody does," the Finn said, dropping his cigarette and -grinding it out under his heel, "but not many of you can access -it. Artists can, mostly, if they're any good. If you could lay -this construct over the reality, the Finn's place in lower Man- -hattan, you'd see a difference, but maybe not as much as you'd -think. Memory's holographic, for you." The Finn tugged at -one of his small ears. "I'm different." -"How do you mean, holographic?" The word made him -think of Riviera. -"The holographic paradigm is the closest thing you've worked -out to a representation of human memory, is all. But you've -never done anything about it. People, I mean." The Finn stepped -forward and canted his streamlined skull to peer up at Case. -"Maybe if you had, I wouldn't be happening." -"What's that supposed to mean?" -The Finn shrugged. His tattered tweed was too wide across -the shoulders, and didn't quite settle back into position. "I'm -trying to help you, Case." -"Why?" -"Because I need you." The large yellow teeth appeared -again. "And because you need me." -"Bullshit. Can you read my mind, Finn?" He grimaced. -"Wintermute, I mean." -"Minds aren't read. See, you've still got the paradigms -print gave you, and you're barely print-literate. I can access -your memory, but that's not the same as your mind." He -reached into the exposed chassis of an ancient television and -withdrew a silver-black vacuum tube. "See this? Part of my -DNA, sort of...." He tossed the thing into the shadows and -Case heard it pop and tinkle. "You're always building models. -Stone circles. Cathedrals. Pipe-organs. Adding machines. I -got no idea why I'm here now, you know that? But if the -run goes off tonight, you'll have finally managed the real -thing." -"I don't know what you're talking about." -"That's 'you' in the collective. Your species." -"You killed those Turings." -The Finn shrugged. "Hadda. Hadda. You should give a shit; -they woulda offed you and never thought twice. Anyway, why -I got you here, we gotta talk more. Remember this?" And his -right hand held the charred wasps' nest from Case's dream, -reek of fuel in the closeness of the darkshop. Case stumbled -back against a wall of junk. "Yeah. That was me. Did it with -the holo rig in the window. Another memory I tapped out of -you when I flatlined you that first time. Know why it's im- -portant?" -Case shook his head. -"Because"--and the nest, somehow, was gone--"it's the -closest thing you got to what Tessier-Ashpool would like to -be . The human equivalent . Straylight' s like that nest, or anyway -it was supposed to work out that way. l figure it'll make you -feel better." -"Feel better?" -"To know what they're like. You were starting to hate my -guts for a while there. That's good. But hate them instead. -Same difference." -"Listen," Case said, stepping forward, "they never did shit -to me. You, it's different...." But he couldn't feel the anger. -"So T-A, they made me. The French girl, she said you were -selling out the species. Demon, she said I was." The Finn -grinned. "It doesn't much matter. You gotta hate somebody -before this is over." He turned and headed for the back of the -shop. "Well, come on, I'll show you a little bit of Straylight -while I got you here." He lifted the corner of the blanket. White -light poured out. "Shit, man, don't just stand there." -Case followed, rubbing his face. - -"Okay," said the Finn, and grabbed his elbow. -They were drawn past the stale wool in a puff of dust, into -freefall and a cylindrical corridor of fluted lunar concrete, ringed -with white neon at two-meter intervals. -"Jesus," Case said, tumbling. -"This is the front entrance," the Finn said, his tweed flap- -ping. "If this weren't a construct of mine, where the shop is -would be the main gate, up by the Freeside axis. This'll all be -a little low on detail, though, because you don't have the -memories. Except for this bit here, you got off Molly...." -Case managed to straighten out, but began to corkscrew in -a long spiral. -"Hold on," the Finn said, "I'll fast-forward us." -The walls blurred. Dizzying sensation of headlong move- -ment, colors, whipping around corners and through narrow -corridors. They seemed at one point to pass through several -meters of solid wall, a flash of pitch darkness. -"Here," the Finn said. "This is it." -They floated in the center of a perfectly square room, walls -and ceiling paneled in rectangular sections of dark wood. The -floor was covered by a single square of brilliant carpet patterned -after a microchip, circuits traced in blue and scarlet wool. In -the exact center of the room, aligned precisely with the carpet -pattern, stood a square pedestal of frosted white glass. -"The Villa Straylight," said a jeweled thing on the pedestal, -in a voice like music, "is a body grown in upon itself, a Gothic -folly. Each space in Straylight is in some way secret, this -endless series of chambers linked by passages, by stairwells -vaulted like intestines, where the eye is trapped in narrow -curves, carried past ornate screens, empty alcoves...." -"Essay of 3Jane's," the Finn said, producing his Partagas. -"Wrote that when she was twelve. Semiotics course." -"The architects of Freeside went to great pains to conceal -the fact that the interior of the spindle is arranged with the -banal precision of furniture in a hotel room. In Straylight, the -hull's inner surface is overgrown with a desperate proliferation -of structures, forms flowing, interlocking, rising toward a solid -core of microcircuitry, our clan's corporate heart, a cylinder -of silicon wormholed with narrow maintenance tunnels, some -no wider than a man's hand. The bright crabs burrow there, -the drones, alert for micromechanical decay or sabotage." - -"That was her you saw in the restaurant," the Finn said. -"By the standards of the archipelago," the head continued, -"ours is an old family, the convolutions of our home reflecting -that age. But reflecting something else as well. The semiotics -of the Villa bespeak a turning in, a denial of the bright void -beyond the hull. -"Tessier and Ashpool climbed the well of gravity to discover -that they loathed space. They built Freeside to tap the wealth -of the new islands, grew rich and eccentric, and began the -construction of an extended body in Straylight. We have sealed -ourselves away behind our money, growing inward, generating -a seamless universe of self. -"The Villa Straylight knows no sky, recorded or otherwise. -"At the Villa's silicon core is a small room, the only rec- -tilinear chamber in the complex. Here, on a plain pedestal of -glass, rests an ornate bust, platinum and cloisonne, studded -with lapis and pearl. The bright marbles of its eyes were cut -from the synthetic ruby viewport of the ship that brought the -first Tessier up the well, and returned for the first Ashpool...." -The head fell silent. -"Well?" Case asked, finally, almost expecting the thing to -answer him. -"That's all she wrote," the Finn said. "Didn't finish it. Just -a kid then. This thing's a ceremonial terminal, sort of. I need -Molly in here with the right word at the right time. That's the -catch. Doesn't mean shit, how deep you and the Flatline ride -that Chinese virus, if this thing doesn't hear the magic word." -"So what's the word?" -"I don't know. You might say what I am is basically defined -by the fact that I don't know, because I can't know. I am that -which knoweth not the word. If you knew, man, and told me, -I couldn't know. It's hardwired in. Someone else has to learn -it and bring it here, just when you and the Flatline punch -through that ice and scramble the cores." -"What happens then?" -"I don't exist, after that. I cease." -"Okay by me," Case said. -"Sure. But you watch your ass, Case. My, ah, other lobe -is on to us, it looks like. One burning bush looks pretty much -like another. And Armitage is starting to go." -"What's that mean?" -But the paneled room folded itself through a dozen impos- -sible angles, tumbling away into cyberspace like an origami -crane. - -"You tryin' to break my record, son?" the Flatline asked. -"You were braindead again, five seconds." -"Sit tight," Case said, and hit the simstim switch. -She crouched in darkness, her palms against rough concrete. -CASE CASE CASE CASE. The digital display pulsed his -name in alphanumerics, Wintermute informing her of the link. -"Cute," she said. She rocked back on her heels and rubbed -her palms together, cracked her knuckles. "What kept you?" -TIME MOLLY TIME NOW. -She pressed her tongue hard against her lower front teeth. -One moved slightly, activating her microchannel amps; the -random bounce of photons through the darkness was converted -to a pulse of electrons, the concrete around her coming up -ghost-pale and grainy. "Okay, honey. Now we go out to play." -Her hiding place proved to be a service tunnel of some kind. -She crawled out through a hinged, ornate grill of tarnished -brass. He saw enough of her arms and hands to know that she -wore the polycarbon suit again. Under the plastic, he felt the -familiar tension of thin tight leather. There was something slung -under her arm in a harness or holster. She stood up, unzipped -the suit and touched the checkered plastic of a pistolgrip. -"Hey, Case," she said, barely voicing the words, "you lis- -tening? Tell you a story.... Had me this boy once. You kinda -remind me . . ." She turned and surveyed the corridor. "Johnny, -his name was." -The low, vaulted hallway was lined with dozens of museum -cases, archaic-looking glass-fronted boxes made of brown wood. -They looked awkward there, against the organic curves of the -hallway's walls, as though they'd been brought in and set up -in a line for some forgotten purpose. Dull brass fixtures held -globes of white light at ten-meter intervals. The floor was -uneven, and as she set off along the corridor, Case realized -that hundreds of small rugs and carpets had been put down at -random. In some places, they were six deep, the floor a soft -patchwork of handwoven wool. -Molly paid little attention to the cabinets and their contents, -which irritated him. He had to satisfy himself with her disin- -terested glances, which gave him fragments of pottery, antique -weapons, a thing so densely studded with rusted nails that it -was unrecognizable, frayed sections of tapestry.... -"My Johnny, see, he was smart, real flash boy. Started out -as a stash on Memory Lane, chips in his head and people paid -to hide data there. Had the Yak after him, night I met him, -and I did for their assassin. More luck than anything else, but -I did for him. And after that, it was tight and sweet, Case." -Her lips barely moved. He felt her form the words; he didn't -need to hear them spoken aloud. "We had a set-up with a squid, -so we could read the traces of everything he'd ever stored. Ran -it all out on tape and started twisting selected clients, ex-clients. -I was bagman, muscle, watchdog. I was real happy. You ever -been happy, Case? He was my boy. We worked together. -Partners. I was maybe eight weeks out of the puppet house -when I met him...." She paused, edged around a sharp turn -and continued. More of the glossy wooden cases, their sides -a color that reminded him of cockroach wings. -"Tight, sweet, just ticking along, we were. Like nobody -could ever touch us. I wasn't going to let them. Yakuza, I -guess, they still wanted Johnny's ass. 'Cause I'd killed their -man. 'Cause Johnny'd burned them. And the Yak, they can -afford to move so fucking slow, man, they'll wait years and -years. Give you a whole life, just so you'll have more to lose -when they come and take it away. Patient like a spider. Zen -spiders. -"I didn't know that, then. Or if I did, I figured it didn't -apply to us. Like when you're young, you figure you're -unique. I was young. Then they came, when we were thinking -we maybe had enough to be able to quit, pack it in, go to -Europe maybe. Not that either of us knew what we'd do there, -with nothing to do. But we were living fat, Swiss orbital ac- -counts and a crib full of toys and furniture. Takes the edge off -your game. -"So that first one they'd sent, he'd been hot. Reflexes like -you never saw, implants, enough style for ten ordinary hoods. -But the second one, he was, I dunno, like a monk. Cloned. -Stone killer from the cells on up. Had it in him, death, this -silence, he gave it off in a cloud...." Her voice trailed off as -the corridor split, identical stairwells descending. She took the -left. -"One time, I was a little kid, we were squatting. It was -down by the Hudson, and those rats, man, they were big. It's -the chemicals get into them. Big as I was, and all night one -had been scrabbling under the floor of the squat. Round dawn -somebody brought this old man in, seams down his cheeks and -his eyes all red. Had a roll of greasy leather like you'd keep -steel tools in, to keep the rust off. Spread it out, had this old -revolver and three shells. Old man, he puts one bullet in there, -then he starts walking up and down the squat, we're hanging -back by the walls. -"Back and forth. Got his arms crossed, head down, like -he's forgotten the gun. Listening for the rat. We got real quiet. -Old man takes a step. Rat moves. Rat moves, he takes another -step. An hour of that, then he seems to remember his gun. -Points it at the floor, grins, and pulls the trigger. Rolled it back -up and left. -"I crawled under there later. Rat had a hole between its -eyes." She was watching the sealed doorways that opened at -intervals along the corridor. "The second one, the one who -came for Johnny, he was like that old man. Not old, but he -was like that. He killed that way." The corridor widened. The -sea of rich carpets undulated gently beneath an enormous can- -delabrum whose lowest crystal pendant reached nearly to the -floor. Crystal tinkled as Molly entered the hall. THIRD DOOR -LEFT, blinked the readout. -She turned left, avoiding the inverted tree of crystal. "I just -saw him once. On my way into our place. He was coming out. -We lived in a converted factory space, lots of young comers -from Sense/Net, like that. Pretty good security to start with, -and I'd put in some really heavy stuff to make it really tight. -I knew Johnny was up there. But this little guy, he caught my -eye, as he was coming out. Didn't say a word. We just looked -at each other and I knew. Plain little guy, plain clothes, no -pride in him, humble. He looked at me and got into a pedicab. -I knew. Went upstairs and Johnny was sitting in a chair by the -window, with his mouth a little open, like he'd just thought of -something to say." -The door in front of her was old, a carved slab of Thai teak -that seemed to have been sawn in half to fit the low doorway. -A primitive mechanical lock with a stainless face had been -inset beneath a swirling dragon. She knelt, drew a tight little -roll of black chamois from an inside pocket, and selected a -needle-thin pick. "Never much found anybody I gave a damn -about, after that." -She inserted the pick and worked in silence, nibbling at her -lower lip. She seemed to rely on touch alone; her eyes unfo- -cused and the door was a blur of blond wood. Case listened -to the silence of the hall, punctuated by the soft clink of the -candelabrum. Candles? Straylight was all wrong. He remem- -bered Cath's story of a castle with pools and lilies, and 3Jane's -mannered words recited musically by the head. A place grown -in upon itself. Straylight smelled faintly musty, faintly per- -fumed, like a church. Where were the Tessier-Ashpools? He'd -expected some clean hive of disciplined activity, but Molly -had seen no one. Her monologue made him uneasy; she'd never -told him that much about herself before. Aside from her story -in the cubicle, she'd seldom said anything that had even in- -dicated that she had a past. -She closed her eyes and there was a click that Case felt -rather than heard. It made him remember the magnetic locks -on the door of her cubicle in the puppet place. The door had -opened for him, even though he'd had the wrong chip. That -was Wintermute, manipulating the lock the way it had manip- -ulated the drone micro and the robot gardener. The lock system -in the puppet place had been a subunit of Freeside's security -system. The simple mechanical lock here would pose a real -problem for the AI, requiring either a drone of some kind or -a human agent. -She opened her eyes, put the pick back into the chamois, -carefully rerolled it, and tucked it back into its pocket. "Guess -you're kinda like he was," she said. "Think you're born to run. -Figure what you were into back in Chiba, that was a stripped -down version of what you'd be doing anywhere. Bad luck, it'll -do that sometimes, get you down to basics." She stood, stretched, -shook herself. "You know, I figure the one Tessier-Ashpool -sent after that Jimmy, the boy who stole the head, he must be -pretty much the same as the one the Yak sent to kill Johnny." -She drew the fletcher from its holster and dialed the barrel to -full auto. -The ugliness of the door struck Case as she reached for it. -Not the door itself, which was beautiful, or had once been part -of some more beautiful whole, but the way it had been sawn -down to fit a particular entrance. Even the shape was wrong, -a rectangle amid smooth curves of polished concrete. They'd -imported these things, he thought, and then forced it all to fit. -But none of it fit. The door was like the awkward cabinets, -the huge crystal tree. Then he remembered 3Jane's essay, and -imagined that the fittings had been hauled up the well to flesh -out some master plan, a dream long lost in the compulsive -effort to fill space, to replicate some family image of self. He -remembered the shattered nest, the eyeless things writhing.... -Molly grasped one of the carved dragon's forelegs and the -door swung open easily. -The room behind was small, cramped, little more than a -closet. Gray steel tool cabinets were backed against a curving -wall. A light fixture had come on automatically. She closed -the door behind her and went to the ranged lockers. -THIRD LEFT, pulsed the optic chip, Wintermute overriding -her time display. FIVE DOWN. But she opened the top drawer -first. It was no more than a shallow tray. Empty. The second -was empty as well. The third, which was deeper, contained -dull beads of solder and a small brown thing that looked like -a human fingerbone. The fourth drawer held a damp-swollen -copy of an obsolete technical manual in French and Japanese. -In the fifth, behind the armored gauntlet of a heavy vacuum -suit, she found the key. It was like a dull brass coin with a -short hollow tube braised against one edge. She turned it slowly -in her hand and Case saw that the interior of the tube was lined -with studs and flanges. The letters CHUBB were molded across -one face of the coin. The other was blank. -"He told me," she whispered. "Wintermute. How he played -a waiting game for years. Didn't have any real power, then, -but he could use the Villa's security and custodial systems to -keep track of where everything was, how things moved, where -they went. He saw somebody lose this key twenty years ago, -and he managed to get somebody else to leave it here. Then -he killed him, the boy who'd brought it here. Kid was eight." -She closed her white fingers over the key. "So nobody would -find it." She took a length of black nylon cord from the suit's -kangaroo pocket and threaded it through the round hole above -CHUBB. Knotting it, she hung it around her neck. "They were -always fucking him over with how old-fashioned they were, -he said, all their nineteenth-century stuff. He looked just like -the Finn, on the screen in that meat puppet hole. Almost thought -he was the Finn, if I wasn't careful." Her readout flared the -time, alphanumerics superimposed over the gray steel chests. -"He said if they'd turned into what they'd wanted to, he -could've gotten out a long time ago. But they didn't. Screwed -up. Freaks like 3Jane. That's what he called her, but he talked -like he liked her." -She turned, opened the door, and stepped out, her hand -brushing the checkered grip of the holstered fletcher. -Case flipped. - -Kuang Grade Mark Eleven was growing. -"Dixie, you think this thing'll work?" -"Does a bear shit in the woods?" The Flatline punched them -up through shifting rainbow strata. -Something dark was forming at the core of the Chinese -program. The density of information overwhelmed the fabric -of the matrix, triggering hypnagogic images. Faint kaleidoscop- -ic angles centered in to a silver-black focal point. Case watched -childhood symbols of evil and bad luck tumble out along trans- -lucent planes: swastikas, skulls and crossbones dice flashing -snake eyes. If he looked directly at that null point, no outline -would form. It took a dozen quick, peripheral takes before he -had it, a shark thing, gleaming like obsidian, the black mirrors -of its flanks reflecting faint distant lights that bore no relation- -ship to the matrix around it. -"That's the sting," the construct said. "When Kuang's good -and bellytight with the Tessier-Ashpool core, we're ridin' that -through." -"You were right, Dix. There's some kind of manual override -on the hardwiring that keeps Wintermute under control. How- -ever much he is under control," he added. -"He," the construct said. "He. Watch that. It. I keep telling -you . " -"It's a code. A word, he said. Somebody has to speak it -into a fancy terminal in a certain room, while we take care of -whatever's waiting for us behind that ice." -"Well, you got time to kill, kid," the Flatline said. "Ol' -Kuang's slow but steady." -Case jacked out.. - -Into Maelcum's stare. -"You dead awhile there mon." -"It happens," he said. "i'm getting used to it." -"You dealin' wi' th' darkness, mon." -"Only game in town, it looks like." -"Jah love, Case," Maelcum said, and turned back to his -radio module. Case stared at the matted dreadlocks, the ropes -of muscle around the man's dark arms. -He jacked back in. -And flipped. - -Molly was trotting along a length of corridor that might -have been the one she'd traveled before. The glass-fronted cases -were gone now, and Case decided they were moving toward -the tip of the spindle; gravity was growing weaker. Soon she -was bounding smoothly over rolling hillocks of carpets. Faint -twinges in her leg.... -The corridor narrowed suddenly, curved, split. -She turned right and started up a freakishly steep flight of -stairs, her leg beginning to ache. Overhead, strapped and bun- -dled cables hugged the stairwell's ceiling like colorcoded gan- -glia. The walls were splotched with damp. -She arrived at a triangular landing and stood rubbing her -leg. More corridors, narrow, their walls hung with rugs. They -branched away in three directions. -LEFT. -She shrugged. "Lemme look around, okay?" -LEFT. -"Relax. There's time." She started down the corridor that -led off to her right. -STOP -GO BACK. -DANGER. -She hesitated. From the half-open oak door at the far end -of the passage came a voice, loud and slurred, like the voice -of a drunk. Case thought the language might be French, but it -was too indistinct. Molly took a step, another, her hand sliding -into the suit to touch the butt of her fletcher. When she stepped -into the neural disruptor's field, her ears rang, a tiny rising -tone that made Case think of the sound of her fletcher. She -pitched forward, her striated muscles slack, and struck the door -with her forehead. She twisted and lay on her back, her eyes -unfocused, breath gone. -"What's this," said the slurred voice, "fancy dress?" A trem- -bling hand entered the front of her suit and found the fletcher, -tugging it out. "Come visit, child. Now." -She got up slowly, her eyes fixed on the muzzle of a black -automatic pistol. The man's hand was steady enough, now; the -gun's barrel seemed to be attached to her throat with a taut, -invisible string. -He was old, very tall, and his features reminded Case of -the girl he had glimpsed in the Vingtieme Siecle. He wore a -heavy robe of maroon silk, quilted around the long cuffs and -shawl collar. One foot was bare, the other in a black velvet -slipper with an embroidered gold foxhead over the instep. He -motioned her into the room. "Slow, darling." The room was -very large, cluttered with an assortment of things that made no -sense to Case. He saw a gray steel rack of old-fashioned Sony -monitors, a wide brass bed heaped with sheepskins, with pil- -lows that seemed to have been made from the kind of rug used -to pave the corridors. Molly's eyes darted from a huge Tele- -funken entertainment console to shelves of antique disk re- -cordings, their crumbling spines cased in clear plastic, to a -wide worktable littered with slabs of silicon. Case registered -the cyberspace deck and the trodes, but her glance slid over it -without pausing. -"It would be customary," the old man said, "for me to kill -you now." Case felt her tense, ready for a move. "But tonight -I indulge myself. What is your name?" -"Molly." -"Molly. Mine is Ashpool." He sank back into the creased -softness of a huge leather armchair with square chrome legs, -but the gun never wavered. He put her fletcher on a brass table -beside the chair, knocking over a plastic vial of red pills. The -table was thick with vials, bottles of liquor, soft plastic en- -velopes spilling white powders. Case noticed an old-fashioned -glass hypodermic and a plain steel spoon. -"How do you cry, Molly? I see your eyes are walled away. -I'm curious." His eyes were red-rimmed, his forehead gleaming -with sweat. He was very pale. Sick, Case decided. Or drugs. -"I don't cry, much." -"But how would you cry, if someone made you cry?" -"I spit," she said. "The ducts are routed back into my mouth." -"Then you've already learned an important lesson, for one -so young." He rested the hand with the pistol on his knee and -took a bottle from the table beside him, without bothering to -choose from the half-dozen different liquors. He drank. Brandy. -A trickle of the stuff ran from the corner of his mouth. "That -is the way to handle tears." He drank again. "I'm busy tonight, -Molly. I built all this, and now I'm busy. Dying." -"I could go out the way I came," she said. -He laughed, a harsh high sound. "You intrude on my suicide -and then ask to simply walk out? Really, you amaze me. A -thief." -"It's my ass, boss, and it's all I got. I just wanna get it out -of here in one piece." -"You are a very rude girl. Suicides here are conducted with -a degree of decorum. That's what I'm doing, you understand. -But perhaps I'll take you with me tonight, down to hell.... It -would be very Egyptian of me." He drank again. "Come here -then." He held out the bottle, his hand shaking. "Drink." -She shook her head. -"It isn't poisoned," he said, but returned the brandy to the -table. "Sit. Sit on the floor. We'll talk." -"What about?" She sat. Case felt the blades move, very -slightly, beneath her nails. -"Whatever comes to mind. My mind. It's my party. The -cores woke me. Twenty hours ago. Something was afoot, they -said, and l was needed. Were you the something, Molly? Surely -they didn't need me to handle you, no. Something else . . . but -I'd been dreaming, you see. For thirty years. You weren't born, -when last I lay me down to sleep. They told us we wouldn't -dream, in that cold. They told us we'd never feel cold, either. -Madness, Molly. Lies. Of course I dreamed. The cold let the -outside in, that was it. The outside. All the night I built this -to hide us from. Just a drop, at first, one grain of night seeping -in, drawn by the cold . . . Others following it, filling my head -the way rain fills an empty pool. Calla lilies. I remember. The -pools were terracotta, nursemaids all of chrome, how the limbs -went winking through the gardens at sunset.... I'm old, Molly. -Over two hundred years, if you count the cold. The cold." The -barrel of the pistol snapped up suddenly, quivering. The ten- -dons in her thighs were drawn tight as wires now. -"You can get freezerburn," she said carefully. -"Nothing burns there," he said impatiently, lowering the -gun. His few movements were increasingly sclerotic. His head -nodded. It cost him an effort to stop it. "Nothing burns. I -remember now. The cores told me our intelligences are mad. -And all the billions we paid, so long ago. When artificial -intelligences were rather a racy concept. I told the cores I'd -deal with it. Bad timing, really, with 8Jean down in Melbourne -and only our sweet 3Jane minding the store. Or very good -timing, perhaps. Would you know, Molly?" The gun rose again. -"There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight." -"Boss," she asked him, "you know Wintermute?" -"A name. Yes. To conjure with, perhaps. A lord of hell, -surely. In my time, dear Molly, I have known many lords. -And not a few ladies. Why, a queen of Spain, once, in that -very bed.... But I wander." He coughed wetly, the muzzle of -the pistol jerking as he convulsed. He spat on the carpet near -his one bare foot. "How I do wander. Through the cold. But -soon no more. I'd ordered a Jane thawed, when I woke. Strange, -to lie every few decades with what legally amounts to one's -own daughter." His gaze swept past her, to the rack of blank -monitors. He seemed to shiver. "Marie-France's eyes," he said, -faintly, and smiled. "We cause the brain to become allergic to -certain of its own neurotransmitters, resulting in a peculiarly -pliable imitation of autism." His head swayed sideways, re- -covered. "I understand that the effect is now more easily ob- -tained with an embedded microchip." -The pistol slid from his fingers, bounced on the carpet. -"The dreams grow like slow ice," he said. His face was -tinged with blue. His head sank back into the waiting leather -and he began to snore. -Up, she snatched the gun. She stalked the room, Ashpool's -automatic in her hand. -A vast quilt or comforter was heaped beside the bed, in a -broad puddle of congealed blood, thick and shiny on the pat- -terned rugs. Twitching a corner of the quilt back, she found -the body of a girl, white shoulder blades slick with blood. Her -throat had been slit. The triangular blade of some sort of scraper -glinted in the dark pool beside her. Molly knelt, careful to -avoid the blood, and turned the dead girl's face to the light. -The face Case had seen in the restaurant. -There was a click, deep at the very center of things, and -the world was frozen. Molly's simstim broadcast had become -a still frame, her fingers on the girl's cheek. The freeze held -for three seconds, and then the dead face was altered, became -the face of Linda Lee. -Another click, and the room blurred. Molly was standing, -looking down at a golden laser disk beside a small console on -the marble top of a bedside table. A length of fiberoptic ribbon -ran like a leash from the console to a socket at the base of the -slender neck. -"I got your number, fucker," Case said, feeling his own lips -moving, somewhere, far away. He knew that Wintermute had -altered the broadcast. Molly hadn't seen the dead girl's face -swirl like smoke, to take on the outline of Linda's deathmask. -Molly turned. She crossed the room to Ashpool's chair. The -man's breathing was slow and ragged. She peered at the litter -of drugs and alcohol. She put his pistol down, picked up her -fletcher, dialed the barrel over to single shot, and very carefully -put a toxin dart through the center of his closed left eyelid. He -jerked once, breath halting in mid-intake. His other eye, brown -and fathomless, opened slowly. -It was still open when she turned and left the room. -"Got your boss on hold," the Flatline said. "He's coming -through on the twin Hosaka in that boat upstairs, the one that's -riding us piggy-back. Called the Haniwa." -"I know," Case said, absently, "I saw it." -A lozenge of white light clicked into place in front of him, -hiding the Tessier-Ashpool ice; it showed him the calm, per- -fectly focused, utterly crazy face of Armitage, his eyes blank -as buttons. Armitage blinked. Stared. -"Guess Wintermute took care of your Turings too, huh? -Like he took care of mine," Case said. -Armitage stared. Case resisted the sudden urge to look away, -drop his gaze. "You okay, Armitage?" -"Case"--and for an instant something seemed to move, -behind the blue stare--"you've seen Wintermute, haven't you? -In the matrix." -Case nodded. A camera on the face of his Hosaka in Marcus -Garvey would relay the gesture to the Naniwa monitor. He -imagined Maelcum listening to his tranced half conversations, -unable to hear the voices of the construct or Armitage. -"Case"--and the eyes grew larger, Armitage leaning toward -his computer--"what is he, when you see him?" -"A high-rez simstim construct." -"But who?" -"Finn, last time.... Before that, this pimp I ..." -"Not General Girling?" -"General who?" -The lozenge went blank. -"Run that back and get the Hosaka to look it up," he told -the construct. -He flipped. - -The perspective startled him. Molly was crouching between -steel girders, twenty meters above a broad, stained floor of -polished concrete. The room was a hangar or service bay. He -could see three spacecraft, none larger than Garvey and all in -various stages of repair. Japanese voices. A figure in an orange -jumpsuit stepped from a gap in the hull of a bulbous construc- -tion vehicle and stood beside one of the thing's piston-driven, -weirdly anthropomorphic arms. The man punched something -into a portable console and scratched his ribs. A cartlike red -drone rolled into sight on gray balloon tires. -CASE, flashed her chip. -"Hey," she said. "Waiting for a guide." -She settled back on her haunches, the arms and knees of -her Modern suit the color of the blue-gray paint on the girders. -Her leg hurt, a sharp steady pain now. "I shoulda gone back -to Chin," she muttered. -Something came ticking quietly out of the shadows, on a -level with her left shouder. It paused, swayed its spherical body -from side to side on high-arched spider legs, fired a micro- -second burst of diffuse laserlight, and froze. It was a Braun -microdrone, and Case had once owned the same model, a -pointless accessory he'd obtained as part of a package deal with -a Cleveland hardware fence. It looked like a stylized matte -black daddy longlegs. A red LED began to pulse, at the sphere's -equator. Its body was no larger than a baseball. "Okay," she -said, "I hear you." She stood up, favoring her left leg, and -watched the little drone reverse. It picked its methodical way -back across its girder and into darkness. She turned and looked -back at the service area. The man in the orange jumpsuit was -sealing the front of a white vacuum rig. She watched him ring -and seal the helmet, pick up his console, and step back through -the gap in the construction boat's hull. There was a rising whine -of motors and the thing slid smoothly out of sight on a ten- -meter circle of flooring that sank away into a harsh glare of -arc lamps. The red drone waited patiently at the edge of the -hole left by the elevator panel. -Then she was off after the Braun, threading her way between -a forest of welded steel struts. The Braun winked its LED -steadily, beckoning her on. -"How you doin', Case? You back in Garvey with Maelcum? -Sure. And jacked into this. I like it, you know? Like I've always -talked to myself, in my head, when I've been in tight spots. -Pretend I got some friend, somebody I can trust, and I'll tell -'em what I really think, what I feel like, and then I'll pretend -they're telling me what they think about that, and I'll just go -along that way. Having you in is kinda like that. That scene -with Ashpool . . ." She gnawed at her lower lip, swinging around -a strut, keeping the drone in sight. "I was expecting something -maybe a little less gone, you know? I mean, these guys are all -batshit in here, like they got luminous messages scrawled across -the inside of their foreheads or something. I don't like the way -it looks, I don't like the way it smells...." -The drone was hoisting itself up a nearly invisible ladder -of U-shaped steel rungs, toward a narrow dark opening. "And -while I'm feeling confessional, baby, I gotta admit maybe I -never much expected to make it out of this one anyway. Been -on this bad roll for a while, and you're the only good change -come down since I signed on with Armitage." She looked up -at the black circle. The drone's LED winked, climbing. "Not -that you're all that shit hot." She smiled, but it was gone too -quickly, and she gritted her teeth at the stabbing pain in her -leg as she began to climb. The ladder continued up through a -metal tube, barely wide enough for her shoulders. -She was climbing up out of gravity, toward the weightless -axis. -Her chip pulsed the time. -04:23:04 . -It had been a long day. The clarity of her sensorium cut the -bite of the betaphenethylamine, but Case could still feel it. He -preferred the pain in her leg. - -CASE: O O O O -O O O O O O O O O -O O O O O O O O . - -"Guess it's for you," she said, climbing mechanically. The -zeros strobed again and a message stuttered there, in the corner -of her vision, chopped up by the display circuit. - -GENERAL G -IRLING ::: -TRAINED -CORTO F O R -SCREAMING -FIST A N D -SOLD H I S -ASS TO -THE PENT -AGON:::: -W/MUTE'S -PRIMARY -GRIP ON -ARMITAG -E IS A -CONSTRU -CT OF G -IRLING: -W/MUTE -SEZ A'S -MENTION -OF G -MEANS -HE'S -CRACK -ING:::: -WATCH -YOUR -ASS:::: -::DIXIE - -"Well," she said, pausing, taking all of her weight on her -right leg, "guess you got problems too." She looked down. -There was a faint circle of light, no larger than the brass round -of the Chubb key that dangled between her breasts. She looked -up. Nothing at all. She tongued her amps and the tube rose -into vanishing perspective, the Braun picking its way up the -rungs. "Nobody told me about this part," she said. -Case jacked out. - -"Maelcum . . ." -"Mon, you bossman gone ver' strange." The Zionite was -wearing a blue Sanyo vacuum suit twenty years older than the -one Case had rented in Freeside, its helmet under his arm and -his dreadlocks bagged in a net cap crocheted from purple -cotton yarn. His eyes were slitted with ganja and tension. "Keep -callin' down here wi' orders, mon, but be some Babylon war...." -Maelcum shook his head. "Aerol an' I talkin', an' Aerol talkin' -wi' Zion, Founders seh cut an' run." He ran the back of a large -brown hand across his mouth. -"Armitage?" Case winced as the betaphenethylamine hang- -over hit him with its full intensity, unscreened by the matrix -or simstim. Brain's got no nerves in it, he told himself, it can't -really feel this bad. "What do you mean, man? He's giving -you orders? What?" -"Mon, Armitage, he tellin' me set course for Finland, ya -know? He tellin' me there be hope, ya know? Come on my -screen wi' his shirt all blood, mon, an' be crazy as some dog, -talkin' screamin' fists an' Russian an' th' blood of th' betrayers -shall be on our hands." He shook his head again, the dreadcap -swaying and bobbing in zero-g, his lips narrowed. "Founders -seh the Mute voice be false prophet surely, an' Aerol an' I -mus' 'bandon Marcus Garvey and return." -"Armitage, he was wounded? Blood?" -"Can't seh, ya know? But blood, an' stone crazy, Case." -"Okay," Case said, "So what about me? You're going home. -What about me, Maelcum?" -"Mon," Maelcum said, "you comin' wi' me. I an' I come -Zion wi' Aerol, Babylon Rocker. Leave Mr. Armitage t' talk -wi' ghost cassette, one ghost t' 'nother...." -Case glanced over his shoulder: his rented suit swung against -the hammock where he'd snapped it, swaying in the air current -from the old Russian scrubber. He closed his eyes. He saw the -sacs of toxin dissolving in his arteries. He saw Molly hauling -herself up the endless steel rungs. He opened his eyes. -"I dunno, man," he said, a strange taste in his mouth. He -looked down at his desk, at his hands. "I don't know." He -looked back up. The brown face was calm now, intent. Mael- -cum's chin was hidden by the high helmet ring of his old blue -suit. "She's inside," he said. "Molly's inside. In Straylight, -it's called. If there's any Babylon, man, that's it. We leave on -her, she ain't comin' out, Steppin' Razor or not." -Maelcum nodded, the dreadbag bobbing behind him like a -captive balloon of crocheted cotton. "She you woman, Case?" -"I dunno. Nobody's woman, maybe." He shrugged. And -found his anger again, real as a shard of hot rock beneath his -ribs. "Fuck this," he said. "Fuck Armitage, fuck Wintermute, -and fuck you. I'm stayin' right here." -Maelcum's smile spread across his face like light breaking. -"Maelcum a rude boy, Case. Garvey Maelcum boat." His gloved -hand slapped a panel and the bass-heavy rocksteady of Zion -dub came pulsing from the tug's speakers. "Maelcum not run- -nin', no. I talk wi' Aerol, he certain t' see it in similar light." -Case stared. "I don't understand you guys at all," he said. -"Don' 'stan' you, mon," the Zionite said, nodding to the -beat, "but we mus' move by Jah love, each one." -Case jacked in and flipped for the matrix. - -"Get my wire?" -"Yeah." He saw that the Chinese program had grown; del- -icate arches of shifting polychrome were nearing the T-A ice. -"Well, it's gettin' stickier," the Flatline said. "Your boss -wiped the bank on that other Hosaka, and damn near took ours -with it. But your pal Wintermute put me on to somethin' there -before it went black. The reason Straylight's not exactly hop- -pin' with Tessier-Ashpools is that they're mostly in cold sleep. -There's a law firm in London keeps track of their powers of -attorney. Has to know who's awake and exactly when. Ar- -mitage was routing the transmissions from London to Straylight -through the Hosaka on the yacht. Incidently, they know the -old man's dead." -"Who knows?" -"The law firm and T-A. He had a medical remote planted -in his sternum. Not that your girl's dart would've left a res- -urrection crew with much to work with. Shellfish toxin. But -the only T-A awake in Straylight right now is Lady 3Jane -Marie-France. There's a male, couple years older, in Australia -on business. You ask me, I bet Wintermute found a way to -cause that business to need this 8Jean's personal attention. But -he's on his way home, or near as matters. The London lawyers -give his Straylight ETA as 09:00:00, tonight. We slotted Kuang -virus at 02:32:03. It's 04:45:20. Best estimate for Kuang pen- -etration of the T-A core is 08:30:00. Or a hair on either side. -I figure Wintermute's got somethin' goin' with this 3Jane, or -else she's just as crazy as her old man was. But the boy up -from Melbourne'll know the score. The Straylight security sys- -tems keep trying to go full alert, but Wintermute blocks 'em, -don't ask me how. Couldn't override the basic gate program -to get Molly in, though. Armitage had a record of all that on -his Hosaka; Riviera must've talked 3Jane into doing it. She's -been able to fiddle entrances and exits for years. Looks to me -like one of T-A's main problems is that every family bigwig -has riddled the banks with all kinds of private scams and ex- -ceptions. Kinda like your immune system falling apart on you. -Ripe for virus. Looks good for us, once we're past that ice." -"Okay. But Wintermute said that Arm--" -A white lozenge snapped into position, filled with a close- -up of mad blue eyes. Case could only stare. Colonel Willie -Corto, Special Forces, Strikeforce Screaming Fist, had found -his way back. The image was dim, jerky, badly focused. Corto -was using the Haniwa's navigation deck to link with the Hosaka -in Marcus Garvey. -"Case, I need the damage reports on Omaha Thunder." -"Say, I...Colonel?" -"Hang in there, boy. Remember your training." -But where have you been, man? he silently asked the an- -guished eyes. Wintermute had built something called Armitage -into a catatonic fortress named Corto. Had convinced Corto -that Armitage was the real thing, and Armitage had walked, -talked, schemed, bartered data for capital, fronted for Win- -termute in that room in the Chiba Hilton.... And now Arm- -itage was gone, blown away by the winds of Corto's madness. -But where had Corto been, those years? -Falling, burned and blinded, out of a Siberian sky. -"Case, this will be difficult for you to accept, I know that. -You're an officer. The training. I understand. But, Case, as -God is my witness, we have been betrayed." -Tears started from the blue eyes. -"Colonel, ah, who? Who's betrayed us?" -"General Girling, Case. You may know him by a code name. -You do know the man of whom I speak." -"Yeah," Case said, as the tears continued to flow, "I guess -I do. Sir," he added, on impulse. "But, sir, Colonel, what -exactly should we do? Now, I mean." -"Our duty at this point, Case, lies in flight. Escape. Evasion. -We can make the Finnish border, nightfall tomorrow. Treetop -flying on manual. Seat of the pants, boy. But that will only -be the beginning." The blue eyes slitted above tanned cheek- -bones slick with tears. "Only the beginning. Betrayal from -above. From above..." He stepped back from the camera, -dark stains on his torn twill shirt. Armitage's face had been -masklike, impassive, but Corto's was the true schizoid mask, -illness etched deep in involuntary muscle, distorting the ex- -pensive surgery. -"Colonel, I hear you, man. Listen, Colonel, okay? I want -you to open the, ah . . . shit, what's it called, Dix?" -"The midbay lock," the Flatline said. -"Open the midbay lock. Just tell your central console there -to open it, right? We'll be up there with you fast, Colonel. -Then we can talk about getting out of here." -The lozenge vanished. -"Boy, I think you just lost me, there," the Flatline said. -"The toxins," Case said, "the fucking toxins," and jacked -out. - -"Poison?" Maelcum watched over the scratched blue shoul- -der of his old Sanyo as Case struggled out of the g-web. -"And get this goddam thing off me...." Tugging at the -Texas catheter. "Like a slow poison, and that asshole upstairs -knows how to counter it, and now he's crazier than a shithouse -rat." He fumbled with the front of the red Sanyo, forgetting -how to work the seals. -"Bossman, he poison you?" Maelcum scratched his cheek. -"Got a medical kit, ya know." -"Maelcum, Christ, help me with this goddam suit." -The Zionite kicked off from the pink pilot module. "Easy, -mon. Measure twice, cut once, wise man put it. We get up -there...." - -There was air in the corrugated gangway that led from Mar- -cus Garvey's aft lock to the midbay lock of the yacht called -Haniwa, but they kept their suits sealed. Maelcum executed -the passage with balletic grace, only pausing to help Case, -who'd gone into an awkward tumble as he'd stepped out of -Garvey. The white plastic sides of the tube filtered the raw -sunlight; there were no shadows. -Garvey's airlock hatch was patched and pitted, decorated -with a laser-carved Lion of Zion. Haniwa's midbay hatch was -creamy gray, blank and pristine. Maelcum inserted his gloved -hand in a narrow recess. Case saw his fingers move. Red LEDs -came to life in the recess, counting down from fifty. Maelcum -withdrew his hand. Case, with one glove braced against the -hatch, felt the vibration of the lock mechanism through his suit -and bones. The round segment of gray hull began to withdraw -into the side of Haniwa. Maelcum grabbed the recess with one -hand and Case with the other. The lock took them with it. - -Haniwa was a product of the Dornier-Fujitsu yards, her -interior informed by a design philosophy similar to the one that -had produced the Mercedes that had chauffeured them through -Istanbul. The narrow midbay was walled in imitation ebony -veneer and floored with gray Italian tiles. Case felt as though -he were invading some rich man's private spa by way of the -shower. The yacht, which had been assembled in orbit, had -never been intended for re-entry. Her smooth, wasplike line -was simply styling, and everything about her interior was cal- -culated to add to the overall impression of speed. -When Maelcum removed his battered helmet, Case followed -his lead. They hung there in the lock, breathing air that smelled -faintly of pine. Under it, a disturbing edge of burning insula- -tion. -Maelcum sniffed. "Trouble here, mon. Any boat, you smell -that...." -A door, padded with dark gray ultrasuede, slid smoothly -back into its housing. Maelcum kicked off the ebony wall and -sailed neatly through the narrow opening, twisting his broad -shoulders, at the last possible instant, for clearance. Case fol- -lowed him clumsily, hand over hand, along a waist-high padded -rail. "Bridge," Maelcum said, pointing down a seamless, cream- -walled corridor, "be there." He launched himself with another -effortless kick. From somewhere ahead, Case made out the -familiar chatter of a printer turning out hard copy. It grew -louder as he followed Maelcum through another doorway, into -a swirling mass of tangled printout. Case snatched a length of -twisted paper and glanced at it. - -O O O O O O O O O -O O O O O O O O O -O O O O O O O O O - -"Systems crash?" The Zionite flicked a gloved finger at the -column of zeros. -"No," Case said, grabbing for his drifting helmet, "the Flat- -line said Armitage wiped the Hosaka he had in there." -"Smell like he wipe 'em wi' laser, ya know?" The Zionite -braced his foot against the white cage of a Swiss exercise -machine and shot through the floating maze of paper, batting -it away from his face. -"Case, mon..." -The man was small, Japanese, his throat bound to the back -of the narrow articulated chair with a length of some sort of -fine steel wire. The wire was invisible, where it crossed the -black temperfoam of the headrest, and it had cut as deeply into -his larynx. A single sphere of dark blood had congealed there -like some strange precious stone, a red-black pearl. Case saw -the crude wooden handles that drifted at either end of the -garrotte, like worn sections of broom handle. -"Wonder how long he had that on him?" Case said, re- -membering Corto's postwar pilgrimage. -"He know how pilot boat, Case, bossman?" -"Maybe. He was Special Forces." -"Well, this Japan-boy, he not be pilotin'. Doubt I pilot her -easy myself. Ver' new boat. . ." -"So find us the bridge." -Maelcum frowned, rolled backward, and kicked. -Case followed him into a larger space, a kind of lounge, -shredding and crumpling the lengths of printout that snared him -in his passage. There were more of the articulated chairs, here, -something that resembled a bar, and the Hosaka. The printer, -still spewing its flimsy tongue of paper, was an in-built bulk- -head unit, a neat slot in a panel of handrubbed veneer. He -pulled himself over the circle of chairs and reached it, punching -a white stud to the left of the slot. The chattering stopped. He -turned and stared at the Hosaka. Its face had been drilled through, -at least a dozen times. The holes were small, circular, edges -blackened. Tiny spheres of bright alloy were orbiting the dead -computer. "Good guess," he said to Maelcum. -"Bridge locked, mon," Maelcum said, from the opposite -side of the lounge. -The lights dimmed, surged, dimmed again. -Case ripped the printout from its slot. More zeros. "Win- -termute?" He looked around the beige and brown lounge, the -space scrawled with drifting curves of paper. "That you on the -lights, Wintermute?" -A panel beside Maelcum's head slid up, revealing a small -monitor. Maelcum jerked apprehensively, wiped sweat from -his forehead with a foam patch on the back of a gloved hand, -and swung to study the display. "You read Japanese, mon?" -Case could see figures blinking past on the screen. -"No," Case said. -"Bridge is escape pod, lifeboat. Countin' down, looks like -it. Suit up now." He ringed his helmet and slapped at the seals. -"What? He's takin' off? Shit!" He kicked off from the -bulkhead and shot through the tangle of printout. "We gotta -open this door, man!" But Maelcum could only tap the side of -his helmet. Case could see his lips moving, through the Lexan. -He saw a bead of sweat arc out from the rainbow braided band -of the purple cotton net the Zionite wore over his locks. Mael- -cum snatched the helmet from Case and ringed it for him -smoothly, the palms of his gloves smacking the seals. Micro- -LED monitors to the left of the faceplate lit as the neck ring -connections closed. "No seh Japanese," Maelcum said, over -his suit's transceiver, "but countdown's wrong." He tapped a -particular line on the screen. "Seals not intact, bridge module. -Launchin' wi' lock open." -"Armitage!" Case tried to pound on the door. The physics -of zero-g sent him tumbling back through the printout. "Corto! -Don't do it! We gotta talk! We gotta--" -"Case? Read you, Case..." The voice barely resembled -Armitage's now. It held a weird calm. Case stopped kicking. -His helmet struck the far wall. "I'm sorry, Case, but it has to -be this way. One of us has to get out. One of us has to testify. -If we all go down here, it ends here. I'll tell them, Case, I'll -tell them all of it. About Girling and the others. And I'll make -it, Case. I know I'll make it. To Helsinki." There was a sudden -silence; Case felt it fill his helmet like some rare gas. "But it's -so hard, Case, so goddam hard. I'm blind." -"Corto, stop. Wait. You're blind, man. You can't fly! You'll -hit the fucking trees. And they're trying to get you, Corto, I -swear to God, they've left your hatch open. You'll die, and -you'll never get to tell 'em, and I gotta get the enzyme, name -of the enzyme, the enzyme, man...." He was shouting, voice -high with hysteria. Feedback shrilled out of the helmet's phone -pads. -"Remember the training, Case. That's all we can do." -And then the helmet filled with a confused babble, roaring -static, harmonics howling down the years from Screaming Fist. -Fragments of Russian, and then a stranger's voice, Midwestern, -very young. "We are down, repeat, Omaha Thunder is down, -we . . ." -"Wintermute," Case screamed, "don't do this to me!" Tears -broke from his lashes, rebounding off the faceplate in wobbling -crystal droplets. Then Haniwa thudded, once, shivered as if -some huge soft thing had struck her hull. Case imagined the -lifeboat jolting free,, blown clear by explosive bolts, a second's -clawing hurricane of escaping air tearing mad Colonel Corto -from his couch, from Wintermute's rendition of the final minute -of Screaming Fist. -"'Im gone, mon." Maelcum looked at the monitor. "Hatch -open. Mute mus' override ejection failsafe." -Case tried to wipe the tears of rage from his eyes. His fingers -clacked against Lexan. -"Yacht, she tight for air, but bossman takin' grapple control -wi' bridge. Marcus Garvey still stuck." -But Case was seeing Armitage's endless fall around Free- -side, through vacuum colder than the steppes. For some reason, -he imagined him in his dark Burberry, the trenchcoat's rich -folds spread out around him like the wings of some huge bat. -"Get what you went for?" the construct asked. -Kuang Grade Mark Eleven was filling the grid between itself -and the T-A ice with hypnotically intricate traceries of rainbow, -lattices fine as snow crystal on a winter window. -"Wintermute killed Armitage. Blew him out in a lifeboat -with a hatch open." -"Tough shit," the Flatline said. "Weren't exactly asshole -buddies, were you?" -"He knew how to unbond the toxin sacs." -"So Wintermute knows too. Count on it." -"I don't exactly trust Wintermute to give it to me." -The construct's hideous approximation of laughter scraped -Case's nerves like a dull blade. "Maybe that means you're -gettin' smart." -He hit the simstim switch. - -06:27:52 by the chip in her optic nerve; Case had been -following her progress through Villa Straylight for over an -hour, letting the endorphin analog she'd taken blot out his -hangover. The pain in her leg was gone; she seemed to move -through a warm bath. The Braun drone was perched on her -shoulder, its tiny manipulators, like padded surgical clips, se- -cure in the polycarbon of the Modern suit. -The walls here were raw steel, striped with rough brown -ribbons of epoxy where some kind of covering had been ripped -away. She'd hidden from a work crew, crouching, the fletcher -cradled in her hands, her suit steel-gray, while the two slender -Africans and their balloon-tired workcart passed. The men had -shaven heads and wore orange coveralls. One was singing softly -to himself in a language Case had never heard, the tones and -melody alien and haunting. -The head's speech, 3Jane's essay on Straylight, came back -to him as she worked her way deeper into the maze of the -place. Straylight was crazy, was craziness grown in the resin -concrete they'd mixed from pulverized lunar stone, grown in -welded steel and tons of knick-knacks, all the bizarre impe- -dimentia they'd shipped up the well to line their winding nest. -But it wasn't a craziness he understood. Not like Armitage's -madness, which he now imagined he could understand; twist -a man far enough, then twist him as far back, in the opposite -direction, reverse and twist again. The man broke. Like break- -ing a length of wire. And history had done that for Colonel -Corto. History had already done the really messy work, when -Wintermute found him, sifting him out of all of the war's ripe -detritus, gliding into the man's flat gray field of consciousness -like a water spider crossing the face of some stagnant pool, -the first messages blinking across the face of a child's micro -in a darkened room in a French asylum. Wintermute had built -Armitage up from scratch, with Corto's memories of Screaming -Fist as the foundation. But Armitage's "memories" wouldn't -have been Corto's after a certain point. Case doubted if Ar- -mitage had recalled the betrayal, the Nightwings whirling down -in flame.... Armitage had been a sort of edited version of -Corto, and when the stress of the run had reached a certain -point, the Armitage mechanism had crumbled; Corto had sur- -faced, with his guilt and his sick fury. And now Corto-Armitage -was dead, a small frozen moon for Freeside. -He thought of the toxin sacs. Old Ashpool was dead too, -drilled through the eye with Molly's microscopic dart, deprived -of whatever expert overdose he'd mixed for himself. That was -a more puzzling death, Ashpool's, the death of a mad king. -And he'd killed the puppet he'd called his daughter, the one -with 3Jane's face. It seemed to Case, as he rode Molly's broad- -cast sensory input through the corridors of Straylight, that he'd -never really thought of anyone like Ashpool, anyone as pow- -erful as he imagined Ashpool had been, as human. -Power, in Case's world, meant corporate power. The zai- -batsus, the multinationals that shaped the course of human -history, had transcended old barriers. Viewed as organisms, -they had attained a kind of immortality. You couldn't kill a -zaibatsu by assassinating a dozen key executives; there were -others waiting to step up the ladder, assume the vacated po- -sition, access the vast banks of corporate memory. But Tessier- -Ashpool wasn't like that, and he sensed the difference in the -death of its founder. T-A was an atavism, a clan. He remem- -bered the litter of the old man's chamber, the soiled humanity -of it, the ragged spines of the old audio disks in their paper -sleeves. One foot bare, the other in a velvet slipper. -The Braun plucked at the hood of the Modern suit and Molly -turned left, through another archway. -Wintermute and the nest. Phobic vision of the hatching -wasps, time-lapse machine gun of biology. But weren't the -zaibatsus more like that, or the Yakuza, hives with cybernetic -memories, vast single organisms, their DNA coded in silicon? -If Straylight was an expression of the corporate identity of -Tessier-Ashpool, then T-A was crazy as the old man had been. -The same ragged tangle of fears, the same strange sense of -aimlessness. "If they'd turned into what they wanted to...." -he remembered Molly saying. But Wintermute had told her -they hadn't. -Case had always taken it for granted that the real bosses, -the kingpins in a given industry, would be both more and less -than people. He'd seen it in the men who'd crippled him in -Memphis, he'd seen Wage affect the semblance of it in Night -City, and it had allowed him to accept Armitage's flatness and -lack of feeling. He'd always imagined it as a gradual and willing -accommodation of the machine, the system, the parent or- -ganism. It was the root of street cool, too, the knowing posture -that implied connection, invisible lines up to hidden levels of -influence. -But what was happening now, in the corridors of Villa -Straylight? -Whole stretches were being stripped back to steel and con- -crete. -"Wonder where our Peter is now, huh? Maybe see that boy -soon," she muttered. "And Armitage. Where's he, Case?" -"Dead," he said, knowing she couldn't hear him, "he's -dead." -He flipped. - -The Chinese program was face to face with the target ice, -rainbow tints gradually dominated by the green of the rectangle -representing the T-A cores. Arches of emerald across the col- -orless void. -"How's it go, Dixie?" -"Fine. Too slick. Thing's amazing.... Shoulda had one that -time in Singapore. Did the old New Bank of Asia for a good -fiftieth of what they were worth. But that's ancient history. -This baby takes all the drudgery out of it. Makes you wonder -what a real war would be like, now...." -"If this kinda shit was on the street, we'd be out a job," -Case said. -"You wish. Wait'll you're steering that thing upstairs through -black ice." -"Sure." -Something small and decidedly nongeometric had just ap- -peared on the far end of one of the emerald arches. -"Dixie . . ." -"Yeah. I see it. Don't know if I believe it." -A brownish dot, a dull gnat against the green wall of the -T-A cores. It began to advance, across the bridge built by -Kuang Grade Mark Eleven, and Case saw that it was walking. -As it came, the green section of the arch extended, the poly- -chrome of the virus program rolling back, a few steps ahead -of the cracked black shoes. -"Gotta hand it to you, boss," the Flatline said, when the -short, rumpled figure of the Finn seemed to stand a few meters -away. "I never seen anything this funny when I was alive." -But the eerie nonlaugh didn't come. -"I never tried it before," the Finn said, showing his teeth, -his hands bunched in the pockets of his frayed jacket. -"You killed Armitage," Case said. -"Corto. Yeah. Armitage was already gone. Hadda do it. I -know, I know, you wanna get the enzyme. Okay. No sweat. -I was the one gave it to Armitage in the first place. I mean I -told him what to use. But I think maybe it's better to let the -deal stand. You got enough time. I'll give it to you. Only a -coupla hours now, right?" -Case watched blue smoke billow in cyberspace as the Finn -lit up one of his Partagas. -"You guys," the Finn said, "you're a pain. The Flatline -here, if you were all like him, it would be real simple. He's a -construct, just a buncha ROM, so he always does what I expect -him to. My projections said there wasn't much chance of Molly -wandering in on Ashpool's big exit scene, give you one ex- -ample." He sighed. -"Why'd he kill himself?" Case asked. -"Why's anybody kill himself?" The figure shrugged. "I guess -I know, if anybody does, but it would take me twelve hours -to explain the various factors in his history and how they in- -terrelate. He was ready to do it for a long time, but he kept -going back into the freezer. Christ, he was a tedious old fuck." -The Finn's face wrinkled with disgust. "It's all tied in with -why he killed his wife, mainly, you want the short reason. But -what sent him over the edge for good and all, little 3Jane figured -a way to fiddle the program that controlled his cryogenic sys- -tem. Subtle, too. So basically, she killed him. Except he figured -he'd killed himself, and your friend the avenging angel figures -she got him with an eyeball full of shellfish juice." The Finn -flicked his butt away into the matrix below. "Well, actually, -I guess I did give 3Jane the odd hint, a little of the old how- -to, you know?" -"Wintermute," Case said, choosing the words carefully, -"you told me you were just a part of something else. Later on -you said you wouldn't exist, if the run goes off and Molly gets -the word into the right slot." -The Finn's streamlined skull nodded. -"Okay, then who we gonna be dealing with then? If Ar- -mitage is dead, and you're gonna be gone, just who exactly is -going to tell me how to get these fucking toxin sacs out of my -system? Who's going to get Molly back out of there? I mean -where, where exactly, are all our asses gonna be, we cut you -loose from the hardwiring?" -The Finn took a wooden toothpick from his pocket and -regarded it critically, like a surgeon examining a scalpel. "Good -question," he said, finally. "You know salmon? Kinda fish? -These fish, see, they're compelled to swim upstream. Got it?" -"No," Case said. -"Well, I'm under compulsion myself. And I don't know -why. If I were gonna subject you to my very own thoughts, -let's call 'em speculations, on the topic, it would take a couple -of your lifetimes. Because I've given it a lot of thought. And -I just don't know. But when this is over, we do it right, I'm -gonna be part of something bigger. Much bigger," The Finn -glanced up and around the matrix. "But the parts of me that -are me now, that'll still be here. And you'll get your -payoff." -Case fought back an insane urge to punch himself forward -and get his fingers around the figure's throat, just above the -ragged knot in the rusty scarf. His thumbs deep in the Finn's -larynx. -"Well, good luck," the Finn said. He turned, hands in pock- -ets and began trudging back up the green arch. -"Hey, asshole," the Flatline said, when the Finn had gone -a dozen paces. The figure paused, half turned. "What about -me? What about my payoff?" -"You'll get yours," it said. -"What's that mean?" Case asked, as he watched the narrow -tweed back recede. -"I wanna be erased," the construct said. "I told you that, -remember?" - -Straylight reminded Case of deserted early morning shop- -ping centers he'd known as a teenager, low-density places -where the small hours brought a fitful stillness, a kind of numb -expectancy, a tension that left you watching insects swarm -around caged bulbs above the entrance of darkened shops. -Fringe places, just past the borders of the Sprawl, too far from -the all-night click and shudder of the hot core. There was that -same sense of being surrounded by the sleeping inhabitants of -a waking world he had no interest in visiting or knowing, of -dull business temporarily suspended, of futility and repetition -soon to wake again. -Molly had slowed now, either knowing that she was nearing -her goal or out of concern for her leg. The pain was starting -to work its jagged way back through the endorphins, and he -wasn't sure what that meant. She didn't speak, kept her teeth -clenched, and carefully regulated her breathing. She'd passed -many things that Case hadn't understood, but his curiosity was -gone. There had been a room filled with shelves of books, a -million flat leaves of yellowing paper pressed between bindings -of cloth or leather, the shelves marked at intervals by labels -that followed a code of letters and numbers; a crowded gallery -where Case had stared, through Molly's incurious eyes, at a -shattered, dust-stenciled sheet of glass, a thing labeled--her -gaze had tracked the brass plaque automatically--"La mariee -mise a nu par ses celibataires, meme." She'd reached out and -touched this, her artificial nails clicking against the Lexan sand- -wich protecting the broken glass. There had been what was -obviously the entrance to Tessier-Ashpool's cryogenic com- -pound, circular doors of black glass trimmed with chrome. -She'd seen no one since the two Africans and their cart, -and for Case they'd taken on a sort of imaginary life; he pictured -them gliding gently through the halls of Straylight, their smooth -dark skulls gleaming, nodding, while the one still sang his tired -little song. And none of this was anything like the Villa Stray- -light he would have expected, some cross between Cath's fairy -tale castle and a half-remembered childhood fantasy of the -Yakuza's inner sanctum. -07:02: 1 8 . -One and a half hours. -"Case," she said, "I wanna favor." Stiffly, she lowered -herself to sit on a stack of polished steel plates, the finish of -each plate protected by an uneven coating of clear plastic. She -picked at a rip in the plastic on the topmost plate, blades sliding -from beneath thumb and forefinger. "Leg's not good, you know? -Didn't figure any climb like that, and the endorphin won't cut -it, much longer. So maybe--just maybe, right?--I got a prob- -lem here. What it is, if I buy it here, before Riviera does"-- -and she stretched her leg, kneaded the flesh of her thigh through -Modern polycarbon and Paris leather--"I want you to tell him. -Tell him it was me. Got it? Just say it was Molly. He'll know. -Okay?" She glanced around the empty hallway, the bare walls. -The floor here was raw lunar concrete and the air smelled of -resins. "Shit, man, I don't even know if you're listening." -CASE. -She winced, got to her feet, nodded. "What's he told you, -man, Wintermute? He tell you about Marie-France? She was -the Tessier half, 3Jane's genetic mother. And of that dead -puppet of Ashpool's, I guess. Can't figure why he'd tell me, -down in that cubicle ... lotta stuff.... Why he has to come on -like the Finn or somebody, he told me that. It's not just a mask, -it's like he uses real profiles as valves, gears himself down to -communicate with us. Called it a template. Model of per- -sonality." She drew her fletcher and limped away down the -corridor. -The bare steel and scabrous epoxy ended abruptly, replaced -by what Case at first took to be a rough tunnel blasted from -solid rock. Molly examined its edge and he saw that in fact -the steel was sheathed with panels of something that looked -and felt like cold stone. She knelt and touched the dark sand -spread across the floor of the imitation tunnel. It felt like sand, -cool and dry, but when she drew her finger through it, it closed -like a fluid, leaving the surface undisturbed. A dozen meters -ahead, the tunnel curved. Harsh yellow light threw hard shad- -ows on the seamed pseudo-rock of the walls. With a start, Case -realized that the gravity here was near earth normal, which -meant that she'd had to descend again, after the climb. He was -thoroughly lost now; spatial disorientation held a peculiar hor- -ror for cowboys. -But she wasn't lost, he told himself. -Something scurried between her legs and went ticking across -the un-sand of the floor. A red LED blinked. The Braun. -The first of the holos waited just beyond the curve, a sort -of triptych. She lowered the fletcher before Case had had time -to realize that the thing was a recording. The figures were -caricatures in light, lifesize cartoons: Molly, Armitage, and -Case . Molly' s breasts were too large, visible through tight black -mesh beneath a heavy leather jacket. Her waist was impossibly -narrow. Silvered lenses covered half her face. She held an -absurdly elaborate weapon of some kind, a pistol shape nearly -lost beneath a flanged overlay of scope sights, silencers, flash -hiders. Her legs were spread, pelvis canted forward, her mouth -fixed in a leer of idiotic cruelty. Beside her, Armitage stood -rigidly at attention in a threadbare khaki uniform. His eyes, -Case saw, as Molly stepped carefully forward, were tiny mon- -itor screens, each one displaying the blue-gray image of a -howling waste of snow, the stripped black trunks of evergreens -bending in silent winds. -She passed the tips of her fingers through Armitage's tele- -vision eyes, then turned to the figure of Case. Here, it was as -if Riviera--and Case had known instantly that Riviera was -responsible--had been unable to find anything worthy of par- -ody. The figure that slouched there was a fair approximation -of the one he glimpsed daily in mirrors. Thin, high-shouldered, -a forgettable face beneath short dark hair. He needed a shave, -but then he usually did. -Molly stepped back. She looked from one figure to another. -rt was a static display, the only movement the silent gusting -of the black trees in Armitage's frozen Siberian eyes. -"Tryin' to tell us something, Peter?" she asked softly. Then -she stepped forward and kicked at something between the feet -of the holo-Molly. Metal clinked against the wall and the figures -were gone. She bent and picked up a small display unit. "Guess -he can Jack into these and program them direct," she said, -tossing it away. -She passed the source of yellow light, an archaic incandes- -cent globe set into the wall, protected by a rusty curve of -expansion grating. The style of the improvised fixture sug- -gested childhood, somehow. He remembered fortresses he'd -built with other children on rooftops and in flooded sub-base- -ments. A rich kid's hideout, he thought. This kind of roughness -was expensive. What they called atmosphere. -She passed a dozen more holograms before she reached the -entrance to 3Jane's apartments. One depicted the eyeless thing -in the alley behind the Spice Bazaar, as it tore itself free of -Riviera's shattered body. Several others were scenes of torture, -the inquisitors always military officers and the victims invari- -ably young women. These had the awful intensity of Riviera's -show at the Vingtieme Siecle, as though they had been frozen -in the blue flash of orgasm. Molly looked away as she passed -them. -The last was small and dim, as if it were an image Riviera -had had to drag across some private distance of memory and -time. She had to kneel to examine it; it had been projected -from the vantage point of a small child. None of the others -had had backgrounds; the figures, uniforms, instruments of -torture, all had been freestanding displays. But this was a view. -A dark wave of rubble rose against a colorless sky, beyond -its crest the bleached, half-melted skeletons of city towers. The -rubble wave was textured like a net, rusting steel rods twisted -gracefully as fine string, vast slabs of concrete still clinging -there. The foreground might once have been a city square; -there was a sort of stump, something that suggested a fountain. -At its base, the children and the soldier were frozen. The tableau -was confusing at first. Molly must have read it correctly before -Case had quite assimilated it, because he felt her tense. She -spat, then stood. -Children. Feral, in rags. Teeth glittering like knives. Sores -on their contorted faces. The soldier on his back, mouth and -throat open to the sky. They were feeding. -"Bonn," she said, something like gentleness in her voice. -"Quite the product, aren't you, Peter? But you had to be. Our -3Jane, she's too jaded now to open the back door for just any -petty thief. So Wintermute dug you up. The ultimate taste, if -your taste runs that way. Demon lover. Peter." She shivered. -"But you talked her into letting me in. Thanks. Now we're -gonna party." -And then she was walking--strolling, really, in spite of the -pain--away from Riviera's childhood. She drew the fletcher -from its holster, snapped the plastic magazine out, pocketed -that, and replaced it with another. She hooked her thumb in -the neck of the Modern suit and ripped it open to the crotch -with a single gesture, her thumb blade parting the tough po- -lycarbon like rotten silk. She freed herself from the arms and -legs, the shredded remnants disguising themselves as they fell -to the dark false sand. -Case noticed the music then. A music he didn't know, all -horns and piano. -The entrance to 3Jane's world had no door. It was a ragged -five-meter gash in the tunnel wall, uneven stairs leading down -in a broad shallow curve. Faint blue light, moving shadows, -music. -"Case," she said, and paused, the fletcher in her right hand. -Then she raised her left, smiled, touched her open palm with -a wet tongue tip, kissing him through the simstim link. "Gotta -go." -Then there was something small and heavy in her left hand, -her thumb against a tiny stud, and she was descending. - -She missed it by a fraction. She nearly cut it, but not quite. -She went in just right, Case thought. The right attitude; it was -something he could sense, something he could have seen in -the posture of another cowboy leaning into a deck, fingers -flying across the board. She had it: the thing, the moves. And -she'd pulled it all together for her entrance. Pulled it together -around the pain in her leg and marched down 3Jane's stairs -like she owned the place, elbow of her gun arm at her hip, -forearm up, wrist relaxed, swaying the muzzle of the fletcher -with the studied nonchalance of a Regency duelist. -It was a performance. It was like the culmination of a life- -time's observation of martial arts tapes, cheap ones, the kind -Case had grown up on For a few seconds, he knew, she was -every bad-ass hero, Sony Mao in the old Shaw videos, Mickey -Chiba, the whole lineage back to Lee and Eastwood. She was -walking it the way she talked it. -Lady 3Jane Marie-France Tessier-Ashpool had carved her- -self a low country flush with the inner surface of Straylight's -hull, chopping away the maze of walls that was her legacy. -She lived in a single room so broad and deep that its far reaches -were lost to an inverse horizon, the floor hidden by the cur- -vature of the spindle. The ceiling was low and irregular, done -in the same imitation stone that walled the corridor. Here and -there across the floor were jagged sections of wall, waist-high -reminders of the labyrinth. There was a rectangular turquoise -pool centered ten meters from the foot of the stairway, its -underwater floods the apartment's only source of light--or it -seemed that way, to Case, as Molly took her final step. The -pool threw shifting blobs of light across the ceiling above it. -They were waiting by the pool. -He'd known that her reflexes were souped up, jazzed by -the neurosurgeons for combat, but he hadn't experienced them -on the simstim link. The effect was like tape run at half speed, -a slow, deliberate dance choreographed to the killer instinct -and years of training. She seemed to take the three of them in -at a glance: the boy poised on the pool's high board, the girl -grinning ove her wineglass, and the corpse of Ashpool, his -left socket gaping black and corrupt above his welcoming smile. -He wore his maroon robe. His teeth were very white. -The boy dove. Slender, brown, his form perfect. The gre- -nade left her hand before his hands could cut the water. Case -knew the thing for what it was as it broke the surface: a core -of high explosive wrapped with ten meters of fine, brittle steel -wire. -Her fletcher whined as she sent a storm of explosive darts -into Ashpool's face and chest, and he was gone, smoke curling -from the pocked back of the empty, white-enameled pool chair. -The muzzle swung for 3Jane as the grenade detonated, a -symmetrical wedding cake of water rising, breaking, falling -back, but the mistake had been made. -Hideo didn't even touch her, then. Her leg collapsed. -In Garvey, Case screamed. - -"It took you long enough," Riviera said, as he searched her -pockets. Her hands vanished at the wrists in a matte black -sphere the size of a bowling ball. "I saw a multiple assassination -in Ankara," he said, his fingers plucking things from her jacket, -"a grenade job. In a pool. It seemed a very weak explosion, -but they all died instantly of hydrostatic shock." Case felt her -move her fingers experimentally. The material of the ball seemed -to offer no more resistance than temperfoam. The pain in her -leg was excruciating, impossible. A red moire shifted in her -vision. "I wouldn't move them, if I were you." The interior -of the ball seemed to tighten slightly. "It' s a sex toy Jane bought -in Berlin. Wiggle them long enough and it crushes them to a -pulp. Variant of the material they make this flooring from. -Something to do with the molecules, I suppose. Are you in -pain?" -She groaned. -"You seem to have injured your leg." His fingers found the -flat packet of drugs in the left back pocket of her jeans. "Well. -My last taste from Ali, and just in time." -The shifting mesh of blood began to whirl. -"Hideo," said another voice, a woman's, "she's losing con- -sciousness. Give her something. For that and for the pain. She's -very striking, don't you think, Peter? These glasses, are they -a fashion where she comes from?" -Cool hands, unhurried, with a surgeon's certainty. The sting -of a needle. -"I wouldn't know," Riviera was saying. "I've never seen -her native habitat. They came and took me from Turkey." -"The Sprawl, yes. We have interests there. And once we -sent Hideo. My fault, really. I'd let someone in, a burglar. He -took the family terminal." She laughed. "I made it easy for -him. To annoy the others. He was a pretty boy, my burglar. -Is she waking, Hideo? Shouldn't she have more?" -"More and she would die," said a third voice. -The blood mesh slid into black. -The music returned, horns and piano. Dance music. - -C A S E : : : : : -: : : : : J A C K -O U T : : : : : : - -Afterimages of the flashed words danced across Maelcum's -eyes and creased forehead as Case removed the trodes. -"You scream, mon, while ago." -"Molly," he said, his throat dry. "Got hurt." He took a white -plastic squeeze bottle from the edge of the g-web and sucked -out a mouthful of flat water. "I don't like how any of this shit -is going." -The little Cray monitor lit. The Finn, against a background -of twisted, impacted junk. "Neither do 1. We gotta problem." -Maelcum pulled himself up, over Case's head, twisted, and -peered over his shoulder. "Now who is that mon, Case?" -"That's just a picture, Maelcum," Case said wearily. "Guy -I know in the Sprawl. It's Wintermute talking. Picture's sup- -posed to make us feel at home." -"Bullshit," the Finn said. "Like I told Molly, these aren't -masks. I need 'em to talk to you. 'Cause I don't have what -you'd think of as a personality, much. But all that's just pissing -in the wind, Case, 'cause, like I just said, we gotta problem." -"So express thyself, Mute," Maelcum said. -"Molly's leg's falling off, for starts. Can't walk. How it -was supposed to go down, she'd walk in, get Peter out of the -way, talk the magic word outa 3Jane, get up to the head, and -say it. Now she's blown it. So I want you two to go in after -her." -Case stared at the face on the screen. "Us?" -"So who else?" -"Aerol," Case said, "the guy on Babylon Rocker, Mael- -cum's pal." -"No. Gotta be you. Gotta be somebody who understands -Molly, who understands Riviera. Maelcum for muscle." -"You maybe forget that I'm in the middle of a little run, -here. Remember? What you hauled my ass out here for...." -"Case, listen up. Time's tight. Very tight. Listen. The real -link between your deck and Straylight is a sideband broadcast -over Garvey's navigation system. You'll take Garvey into a -very private dock I'll show you. The Chinese virus has com- -pletely penetrated the fabric of the Hosaka. There's nothing in -the Hosaka but virus now. When you dock, the virus will be -interfaced with the Straylight custodial system and we'll cut -the sideband. You'll take your deck, the Flatline, and Maelcum . -You'll find 3Jane, get the word out of her, kill Riviera, get -the key from Molly. You can keep track of the program by -jacking your deck into the Straylight system. I'll handle it for -you. There's a standard jack in the back of the head, behind -a panel with five zircons." - -"Kill Riviera'!" -"Kill him." -Case blinked at the representation of the Finn. He felt Mael- -cum put his hand on his shoulder. "Hey. You forget some- -thing." He felt the rage rising, and a kind of glee. "You fucked -up. You blew the controls on the grapples when you blew -Armitage. Haniwa's got us good and tight. Armitage fried the -other Hosaka and the mainframes went with the bridge, right?" -The Finn nodded. -"So we're stuck out here. And that means you're fucked -man." He wanted to laugh, but it caught in his throat. -"Case, mon," Maelcum said softly, "Garvey a tug." -"That's right," said the Finn, and smiled. - -"You havin' fun in the big world outside?" the construct -asked, when Case jacked back in. "Figured that was Winter- -mute requestin' the pleasure...." -"Yeah. You bet. Kuang okay?" -"Bang on. Killer virus." -"Okay. Got some snags, but we're working on it." -"You wanna tell me, maybe?" -"Don't have time." -"Well, boy, never mind me, I'm just dead anyway." -"Fuck off," Case said, and flipped, cutting off the torn- -fingernail edge of the Flatline's laughter. - -"She dreamed of a state involving very little in the way of -individual consciousness," 3Jane was saying. She cupped a -large cameo in her hand, extending it toward Molly. The carved -profile was very much like her own. "Animal bliss. I think she -viewed the evolution of the forebrain as a sort of sidestep." -She withdrew the brooch and studied it, tilting it to catch the -light at different angles. "Only in certain heightened modes -would an individual--a clan member--suffer the more pain- -ful aspects of self-awareness. . ." -Molly nodded. Case remembered the injection. What had -they given her? The pain was still there, but it came through -as a tight focus of scrambled impressions. Neon worms writhing -in her thigh, the touch of burlap, smell of frying krill--his -mind recoiled from it. If he avoided focusing on it, the impres- -sions overlapped, became a sensory equivalent of white noise. -If it could do that to her nervous system, what would her frame -of mind be? -Her vision was abnormally clear and bright, even sharper -than usual. Things seemed to vibrate, each person or object -tuned to a minutely different frequency. Her hands, still locked -in the black ball, were on her lap. She sat in one of the pool -chairs, her broken leg propped straight in front of her on a -camelskin hassock. 3Jane sat opposite, on another hassock, -huddled in an oversized djellaba of unbleached wool. She was -very young. -"Where'd he go?" Molly asked. "To take his shot?" -3Jane shrugged beneath the folds of the pale heavy robe and -tossed a strand of dark hair away from her eyes. "He told me -when to let you in," she said. "He wouldn't tell me why. -Everything has to be a mystery. Would you have hurt us?" -Case felt Molly hesitate. "I would've killed him. I'd've tried -to kill the ninja. Then I was supposed to talk with you." -"Why?" 3Jane asked, tucking the cameo back into one of -the djellaba's inner pockets. "And why? And what about?" -Molly seemed to be studying the high, delicate bones, the -wide mouth, the narrow hawk nose. 3Jane's eyes were dark, -curiously opaque. "Because I hate him," she said at last, "and -the why of that's just the way I'm wired, what he is and what -I am." -"And the show," 3Jane said. "I saw the show." -Molly nodded. -"But Hideo?" -"Because they're the best. Because one of them killed a -partner of mine, once." -3Jane became very grave. She raised her eyebrows. -"Because I had to see," Molly said. -"And then we would have talked, you and I? Like this?" -Her dark hair was very straight, center-parted, drawn back into -a knot of dull sterling. "Shall we talk now?" -"Take this off," Molly said, raising her captive hands. -"You killed my father," 3Jane said, no change whatever in -her tone. "I was watching on the monitors. My mother's eyes, -he called them." -"He killed the puppet. It looked like you." -"He was fond of broad gestures," she said, and then Riviera -was beside her, radiant with drugs, in the seersucker convict -outfit he'd worn in the roof garden of their hotel. -"Getting acquainted? She's an interesting girl, isn't she? I -thought so when I first saw her." He stepped past 3Jane. "It -isn't going to work, you know." -"Isn't it, Peter?" Molly managed a grin. -"Wintermute won't be the first to have made the same mis- -take. Underestimating me." He crossed the tiled pool border -to a white enamel table and splashed mineral water into a heavy -crystal highball glass. "He talked with me, Molly. I suppose -he talked to all of us. You, and Case, whatever there is of -Armitage to talk to. He can't really understand us, you know. -He has his profiles, but those are only statistics. You may be -the statistical animal, darling, and Case is nothing but, but I -possess a quality unquantifiable by its very nature." He drank. -"And what exactly is that, Peter?" Molly asked, her voice -flat. -Riviera beamed. "Perversity." He walked back to the two -women, swirling the water that remained in the dense, deeply -carved cylinder of rock crystal, as though he enjoyed the weight -of the thing. "An enjoyment of the gratuitous act. And I have -made a decision, Molly, a wholly gratuitous decision." -She waited, looking up at him. -"Oh, Peter," 3Jane said, with the sort of gentle exasperation -ordinarily reserved for children. -"No word for you, Molly. He told me about that you see. -3Jane knows the code, of course, but you won't have it. Neither -will Wintermute. My Jane's an ambitious girl, in her perverse -way." He smiled again. "She has designs on the family empire, -and a pair of insane artificial intelligences, kinky as the concept -may be, would only get in our way. So. Comes her Riviera to -help her out, you see. And Peter says, sit tight. Play Daddy's -favorite swing records and let Peter call you up a band to match, -a floor of dancers, a wake for dead King Ashpool." He drank -off the last of the mineral water. "No, you wouldn't do, Daddy, -you would not do. Now that Peter's come home." And then, -his face pink with the pleasure of cocaine and meperidine, he -swung the glass hard into her left lens implant, smashing vision -into blood and light. - -Maelcum was prone against the cabin ceiling when Case -removed the trodes. A nylon sling around his waist was fastened -to the panels on either side with shock cords and gray rubber -suction pads. He had his shirt off and was working on a central -panel with a clumsy-looking zero-g wrench, the thing's fat -countersprings twanging as he removed another hexhead. Mar- -cus Garvey was groaning and ticking with g-stress. -"The Mute takin' I an' I dock," the Zionite said, popping -the hexhead into a mesh pouch at his waist. "Maelcum pilot -th' landin', meantime need we tool f' th' job." -"You keep tools back there?" Case craned his neck and -watched cords of muscle bunching in the brown back. -"This one," Maelcum said, sliding a long bundle wrapped -in black poly from the space behind the panel. He replaced the -panel, along with a single hexhead to hold it in place. The -black package had drifted aft before he'd finished. He thumbed -open the vacuum valves on the workbelt's gray pads and freed -himself, retrieving the thing he'd removed. -He kicked back, gliding over his instruments--a green -docking diagram pulsed on his central screen--and snagged -the frame of Case's g-web. He pulled himself down and picked -at the tape of his package with a thick, chipped thumbnail. -"Some man in China say th' truth comes out this," he said, -unwrapping an ancient, oilslick Remington automatic shotgun, -its barrel chopped off a few millimeters in front of the battered -forestock. The shoulderstock had been removed entirely, re- -placed with a wooden pistolgrip wound with dull black tape. -He smelled of sweat and ganja. -"That the only one you got?" -"Sure, mon," he said, wiping oil from the black barrel with -a red cloth, the black poly wrapping bunched around the pis- -tolgrip in his other hand, "I an' I th' Rastafarian navy, believe -it." -Case pulled the trodes down across his forehead. He'd never -bothered to put the Texas catheter back on; at least he could -take a real piss in the Villa Straylight, even if it was his last. -He jacked in. - -* * * - -"Hey," the construct said, "ol' Peter's totally apeshit, huh?" -They seemed to be part of the Tessier-Ashpool ice now; the -emerald arches had widened, grown together, become a solid -mass. Green predominated in the planes of the Chinese program -that surrounded them. "Gettin' close, Dixie?" -"Real close. Need you soon." -"Listen, Dix. Wintermute says Kuang's set itself up solid -in our Hosaka. I'm going to have to jack you and my deck out -of the Circuit, haul you into Straylight, and plug you back in, -into the custodial program there, Wintermute says. Says the -Kuang virus will be all through there. Then we run from inside -through the Straylight net." -"Wonderful," the Flatline said, "I never did like to do any- -thing simple when I could do it ass-backwards." -Case flipped. - -Into her darkness, a churning synaesthesia, where her pain -was the taste of old iron, scent of melon, wings of a moth -brushing her cheek. She was unconscious, and he was barred -from her dreams. When the optic chip flared, the alphanumerics -were haloed, each one ringed with a faint pink aura. -07:29:40. -"I'm very unhappy with this, Peter." 3Jane's voice seemed -to arrive from a hollow distance. Molly could hear, he realized, -then corrected himself. The simstim unit was intact and still -in place; he could feel it digging against her ribs. Her ears -registered the vibrations of the girl's voice. Riviera said some- -thing brief and indistinct. "But I don't," she said, "and it isn't -fun. Hideo will bring a medical unit down from intensive care, -but this needs a surgeon." -There was a silence. Very distinctly, Case heard the water -lap against the side of the pool. -"What was that you were telling her, when I came back?" -Riviera was very close now. -"About my mother. She asked me to. I think she was in -shock, aside from Hideo's injection. Why did you do that to -her?" -"I wanted to see if they would break." -"One did. When she comes around--if she comes around-- -we'll see what color her eyes are." -"She's extremely dangerous. Too dangerous. If I hadn't -been here to distract her, to throw up Ashpool to distract her -and my own Hideo to draw her little bomb, where would you -be? In her power." -"No," 3Jane said, "there was Hideo. I don't think you quite -understand about Hideo. She does, evidently." -"Like a drink?" -"Wine. The white." -Case jacked out. - -Maelcum was hunched over Garvey's controls, tapping out -commands for a docking sequence. The module's central screen -displayed a fixed red square that represented the Straylight -dock. Garvey was a larger square, green, that shrank slowly, -wavering from side to side with Maelcum's commands. To the -left, a smaller screen displayed a skeletal graphic of Garvey -and Haniwa as they approached the curvature of the spindle. -"We got an hour, man," Case said, pulling the ribbon of -fiberoptics from the Hosaka. His deck's back-up batteries were -good for ninety minutes, but the Flatline's construct would be -an additional drain. He worked quickly, mechanically, fasten- -ing the construct to the bottom of the Ono-Sendai with micro- -pore tape. Maelcum's workbelt drifted past. He snagged it, -unclipped the two lengths of shock cord, with their gray rec- -tangular suction pads, and hooked the jaws of one clip through -the other. He held the pads against the sides of his deck and -worked the thumb lever that created suction. With the deck, -construct, and improvised shoulder strap suspended in front of -him, he struggled into his leather jacket, checking the contents -of his pockets. The passport Armitage had given him, the bank -chip in the same name, the credit chip he'd been issued when -he'd entered Freeside, two derms of the betaphenethylamine -he'd bought from Bruce, a roll of New Yen, half a pack of -Yeheyuans, and the shuriken. He tossed the Freeside chip over -his shoulders, heard it click off the Russian scrubber. He was -about to do the same with the steel star, but the rebounding -credit chip clipped the back of his skull, spun off, struck the -ceiling, and tumbled past Maelcum's left shoulder. The Zionite -interrupted his piloting to glare back at him. Case looked at -the shuriken, then tucked it into his jacket pocket, hearing the -lining tear. -"You missin' th' Mute, mon," Maelcum said. "Mute say -he messin' th' security for Garvey. Garvey dockin' as 'nother -boat, boat they 'spectin' out of Babylon. Mute broadcastin' -codes for us." -"We gonna wear the suits?" -"Too heavy." Maelcum shrugged. "Stay in web 'til I tell -you." He tapped a final sequence into the module and grabbed -the worn pink handholds on either side of the navigation board. -Case saw the green square shrink a final few millimeters to -overlap the red square. On the smaller screen, Haniwa lowered -her bow to miss the curve of the spindle and was snared. Garvey -was still slung beneath her like a captive grub. The tug rang, -shuddered. Two stylized arms sprang out to grip the slender -wasp shape. Straylight extruded a tentative yellow rectangle -that curved, groping past Haniwa for Garvey. -There was a scraping sound from the bow, beyond the trem- -bling fronds of caulk. -"Mon," Maelcum said, "mind we got gravity." A dozen -small objects struck the floor of the cabin simultaneously, as -though drawn there by a magnet. Case gasped as his internal -organs were pulled into a different configuration. The deck and -construct had fallen painfully to his lap. -They were attached to the spindle now, rotating with it. -Maelcum spread his arms, flexed tension from his shoulders, -and removed his purple dreadbag, shaking out his locks. "Come -now, mon, if you seh time be mos' precious." -The Villa Straylight was a parasitic structure, Case reminded -himself, as he stepped past the tendrils of caulk and through -Marcus Garvey's forward hatch. Straylight bled air and water -out of Freeside, and had no ecosystem of its own. -The gangway tube the dock had extended was a more elab- -orate version of the one he'd tumbled through to reach Haniwa, -designed for use in the spindle's rotation gravity. A corrugated -tunnel, articulated by integral hydraulic members, each seg- -ment ringed with a loop of tough, nonslip plastic, the loops -serving as the rungs of a ladder. The gangway had snaked its -way around Haniwa; it was horizontal , where it joined Garvey' s -lock, but curved up sharply and to the left, a vertical climb -around the curvature of the yacht's hull. Maelcum was already -making his way up the rings, pulling himself up with his left -hand, the Remington in his right. He wore a stained pair of -baggy fatigues, his sleeveless green nylon jacket, and a pair -of ragged canvas sneakers with bright red soles. The gangway -shifted slightly, each time he climbed to another ring. -The clips on Case's makeshift strap dug into his shoulder -with the weight of the Ono-Sendai and the Flatline's construct. -All he felt now was fear, a generalized dread. He pushed it -away, forcing himself to replay Armitage's lecture on the spin- -dle and Villa Straylight. He started climbing. Freeside's eco- -system was limited, not closed. Zion was a closed system, -capable of cycling for years without the introduction of external -materials. Freeside produced its own air and water, but relied -on constant shipments of food, on the regular augmentation -of soil nutrients. The Villa Straylight produced nothing at all. -"Mon," Maelcum said quietly, "get up here, 'side me." Case -edged sideways on the circular ladder and climbed the last few -rungs. The gangway ended in a smooth, slightly convex hatch, -two meters in diameter. The hydraulic members of the tube -vanished into flexible housings set into the frame of the hatch. -"So what do we--" -Case's mouth shut as the hatch swung up, a slight differential -in pressure puffing fine grit into his eyes. -Maelcum scrambled up, over the edge, and Case heard the -tiny click of the Remington's safety being released. "You th' -mon in th' hurry...." Maelcum whispered, crouching there. -Then Case was beside him. -The hatch was centered in a round, vaulted chamber floored -with blue nonslip plastic tiles. Maelcum nudged him, pointed, -and he saw a monitor set into a curved wall. On the screen, a -tall young man with the Tessier-Ashpool features was brushing -something from the sleeves of his dark suitcoat. He stood beside -an identical hatch, in an identical chamber. "Very sorry, sir," -said a voice from a grid centered above the hatch. Case glanced -up. "Expected you later, at the axial dock. One moment, please." -On the monitor, the young man tossed his head impatiently. -Maelcum spun as a door slid open to their left, the shotgun -ready. A small Eurasian in orange coveralls stepped through -and goggled at them. He opened his mouth, but nothing came -out. He closed his mouth. Case glanced at the monitor. Blank. -"Who?" the man managed. -"The Rastafarian navy," Case said, standing up, the cyber- -space deck banging against his hip, "and all we want's a jack -into your custodial system." -The man swallowed. "Is this a test? It's a loyalty check. It -must be a loyalty check." He wiped the palms of his hands on -the thighs of his orange suit. -"No, mon, this a real one." Maelcum came up out of his -crouch with the Remington pointed at the Eurasian's face. "You -move it." -They followed the man back through the door, into a corridor -whose polished concrete walls and irregular floor of overlap- -ping carpets were perfectly familiar to Case. "Pretty rugs," -Maelcum said, prodding the man in the back. "Smell like -church." -They came to another monitor, an antique Sony, this one -mounted above a console with a keyboard and a complex array -of jack panels. The screen lit as they halted, the Finn grinning -tensely out at them from what seemed to be the front room of -Metro Holografix. "Okay," he said, "Maelcum takes this guy -down the corridor to the open locker door, sticks him in there, -I'll lock it. Case, you want the fifth socket from the left, top -panel. There's adaptor plugs in the cabinet under the console. -Needs Ono-Sendai twenty-point into Hitachi forty." As Mael- -cum nudged his captive along, Case knelt and fumbled through -an assortment of plugs, finally coming up with the one he -needed. With his deck jacked into the adaptor, he paused. -"Do you have to look like that, man?" he asked the face on -the screen. The Finn was erased a line at a time by the image -of Lonny Zone against a wall of peeling Japanese posters. -"Anything you want, baby," Zone drawled, "just hop it for -Lonny...." -"No," Case said, "use the Finn." As the Zone image van- -ished, he shoved the Hitachi adaptor into its socket and settled -the trodes across his forehead. - -"What kept you?" the Flatline asked, and laughed. -"Told you don't do that," Case said. -"Joke, boy," the construct said, "zero time lapse for me. -Lemme see what we got here...." -The Kuang program was green, exactly the shade of the -T-A ice. Even as Case watched, it grew gradually more opaque, -although he could see the black-mirrored shark thing clearly -when he looked up. The fracture lines and hallucinations were -gone now, and the thing looked real as Marcus Garvey, a -wingless antique jet, its smooth skin plated with black chrome. -"Right on," the Flatline said. -"Right," Case said, and flipped. - -"--like that. I'm sorry," 3Jane was saying, as she bandaged -Molly's head. "Our unit says no concussion, no permanent -damage to the eye. You didn't know him very well, before -you came here?" -"Didn't know him at all," Molly said bleakly. She was on -her back on a high bed or padded table. Case couldn't feel the -injured leg. The synaesthetic effect of the original injection -seemed to have worn off. The black ball was gone, but her -hands were immobilized by soft straps she couldn't see. -"He wants to kill you." -"Figures," Molly said, staring up at the rough ceiling past -a very bright light. -"I don't think I want him to," 3Jane said, and Molly pain- -fully turned her head to look up into the dark eyes. -"Don't play with me," she said. -"But I think I might like to," 3Jane said, and bent to kiss -her forehead, brushing the hair back with a warm hand. There -were smears of blood on her pale djellaba. -"Where's he gone now?" Molly asked. -"Another injection, probably," 3Jane said, straightening up. -"He was quite impatient for your arrival. I think it might be -fun to nurse you back to health, Molly." She smiled, absently -wiping a bloody hand down the front of the robe. "Your leg -will need to be reset, but we can arrange that." -"What about Peter?" -"Peter." She gave her head a little shake. A strand of dark -hair came loose, fell across her forehead. "Peter has become -rather boring. I find drug use in general to be boring." She -giggled. "In others, at any rate. My father was a dedicated -abuser, as you must have seen." -Molly tensed. -"Don't alarm yourself." 3Jane's fingers brushed the skin -above the waistband of the leather jeans. "His suicide was the -result of my having manipulated the safety margins of his -freeze. I'd never actually met him, you know. I was decanted -after he last went down to sleep. But I did know him very well. -The cores know everything. I watched him kill my mother. I'll -show you that, when you're better. He strangles her in bed." -"Why did he kill her?" Her unbandaged eye focused on the -girl's face. -"He couldn't accept the direction she intended for our fam- -ily. She commissioned the construction of our artificial intel- -ligences. She was quite a visionary. She imagined us in a -symbiotic relationship with the Al's, our corporate decisions -made for us. Our conscious decisions, I should say. Tessier- -Ashpool would be immortal, a hive, each of us units of a larger -entity . Fascinating . I'll play her tapes for you, nearly a thousand -hours. But I've never understood her, really, and with her -death, her direction was lost. All direction was lost, and we -began to burrow into ourselves. Now we seldom come out. -I'm the exception there." -"You said you were trying to kill the old man? You fiddled -his cryogenic programs?" -3Jane nodded. "I had help. From a ghost. That was what I -thought when I was very young, that there were ghosts in the -corporate cores. Voices. One of them was what you call Win- -termute, which is the Turing code for our Berne Al, although -the entity manipulating you is a sort of subprogram." -"One of them? There's more?" -"One other. But that one hasn't spoken to me in years. It -gave up, I think. I suspect that both represent the fruition of -certain capacities my mother ordered designed into the original -software, but she was an extremely secretive woman when she -felt it necessary. Here. Drink." She put a flexible plastic tube -to Molly's lips. "Water. Only a little." -"Jane, love," Riviera asked cheerfully, from somewhere out -of sight, "are you enjoying yourself?" -"Leave us alone, Peter." -"Playing doctor...." Suddenly Molly stared into her own -face, the image suspended ten centimeters from her nose. There -were no bandages. The left implant was shattered, a long finger -of silvered plastic driven deep in a socket that was an inverted -pool of blood. -"Hideo," 3Jane said, stroking Molly's stomach, "hurt Peter -if he doesn't go away. Go and swim, Peter." -The projection vanished. -07:58:40, in the darkness of the bandaged eye. -"He said you know the code. Peter said. Wintermute needs -the code." Case was suddenly aware of the Chubb key that lay -on its nylon thong, against the inner curve of her left breast. -"Yes," 3Jane said, withdrawing her hand, "I do. I learned -it as a child. I think I learned it in a dream.... Or somewhere -in the thousand hours of my mother's diaries. But I think that -Peter has a point, in urging me not to surrender it. There would -be Turing to contend with, if I read all this correctly, and ghosts -are nothing if not capricious." -Case jacked out. - -"Strange little customer, huh?" The Finn grinned at Case -from the old Sony. -Case shrugged. He saw Maelcum coming back along the -corridor with the Remington at his side. The Zionite was smil- -ing, his head bobbing to a rhythm Case couldn't hear. A pair -of thin yellow leads ran from his ears to a side pocket in his -sleeveless jacket. -"Dub, mon," Maelcum said. -"You're fucking crazy," Case told him. -"Hear okay, mon. Righteous dub." -"Hey, guys," the Finn said, "on your toes. Here comes your -transportation. I can't finesse many numbers as smooth as the -pic of 8Jean that conned your doorman, but I can get you a -ride over to 3Jane's place." -Case was pulling the adaptor from its socket when the rid- -erless service cart swiveled into sight, under the graceless con- -crete arch marking the far end of their corridor. It might have -been the one his Africans had ridden, but if it was, they were -gone now. Just behind the back of the low padded seat, its tiny -manipulators gripping the upholstery, the little Braun was -steadily winking its red LED. -"Bus to catch," Case said to Maelcum. - -He'd lost his anger again. He missed it. -The little cart was crowded: Maelcum, the Remington across -his knees, and Case, deck and construct against his chest. The -cart was operating at speeds it hadn't been designed for; it was -top heavy, cornering, and Maelcum had taken to leaning out -in the direction of the turns. This presented no problem when -the thing took lefts, because Case sat on the right, but in the -right turns the Zionite had to lean across Case and his gear, -crushing him against the seat. -He had no idea where they were. Everything was familiar, -but he couldn't be sure he'd seen any particular stretch before. -A curving hallway lined with wooden showcases displayed -collections he was certain he'd never seen: the skulls of large -birds, coins, masks of beaten silver. The service cart's six tires -were silent on the layered carpets. There was only the whine -of the electric motor and an occasional faint burst of Zion dub, -from the foam beads in Maelcum's ears, as he lunged past Case -to counter a sharp right. The deck and the construct kept press- -ing the shuriken in his jacket pocket into his hip. - -"You got a watch?" he asked Maelcum. -The Zionite shook his locks. "Time be time." -"Jesus," Case said, and closed his eyes. - -The Braun scuttled over mounded carpets and tapped one -of its padded claws against an oversized rectangular door of -dark battered wood. Behind them, the cart sizzled and shot -blue sparks from a louvered panel. The sparks struck the carpet -beneath the cart and Case smelled scorched wool. -"This th' way, mon?" Maelcum eyed the door and snapped -the shotgun's safety. -"Hey," Case said, more to himself than to Maelcum, "you -think I know?" The Braun rotated its spherical body and the -LED strobed. -"It wan' you open door," Maelcum said, nodding. -Case stepped forward and tried the ornate brass knob. There -was a brass plate mounted on the door at eye level, so old that -the lettering that had once been engraved there had been re- -duced to a spidery, unreadable code, the name of some long -dead function or functionary, polished into oblivion. He won- -dered vaguely if Tessier-Ashpool had selected each piece of -Straylight individually, or if they'd purchased it in bulk from -some vast European equivalent of Metro Holografix. The door's -hinges creaked plaintively as he edged it open, Maelcum step- -ping past him with the Remington thrust forward from his hip. -"Books," Maelcum said. -The library, the white steel shelves with their labels. -"I know where we are," Case said. He looked back at the -service cart. A curl of smoke was rising from the carpet. "So -come on," he said. "Cart. Cart?" It remained stationary. The -Braun was plucking at the leg of his jeans, nipping at his ankle. -He resisted a strong urge to kick it. "Yeah?" -It ticked its way around the door. He followed it. -The monitor in the library was another Sony, as old as the -first one. The Braun paused beneath it and executed a sort of -Jig. -"Wintermute?" -The familiar features filled the screen. The Finn smiled. -"Time to check in, Case," the Finn said, his eyes screwed -up against the smoke of a cigarette. "C'mon, jack." -The Braun threw itself against his ankle and began to climb -his leg, its manipulators pinching his flesh through the thin -black cloth. "Shit!" He slapped it aside and it struck the wall. -Two of its limbs began to piston repeatedly, uselessly, pumping -the air. "What's wrong with the goddam thing?" -"Burned out," the Finn said. "Forget it. No problem. lack -in now." -There were four sockets beneath the screen, but only one -would accept the Hitachi adaptor. -He jacked in. - -Nothing. Gray void. -No matrix, no grid. No cyberspace. -The deck was gone. His fingers were. . . -And on the far rim of consciousness, a scurrying, a fleeting -impression of something rushing toward him, across leagues -of black mirror. -He tried to scream. - -There seemed to be a city, beyond the curve of beach, but -it was far away. -He crouched on his haunches on the damp sand, his arms -wrapped tight across his knees, and shook. -He stayed that way for what seemed a very long time, even -after the shaking stopped. The city, if it was a city, was low -and gray. At times it was obscured by banks of mist that came -rolling in over the lapping surf. At one point he decided that -it wasn't a city at all, but some single building, perhaps a ruin; -he had no way of judging its distance. The sand was the shade -of tarnished silver that hadn't gone entirely black. The beach -was made of sand, the beach was very long, the sand was -damp, the bottoms of his jeans were wet from the sand.... He -held himself and rocked, singing a song without words or tune. -The sky was a different silver. Chiba. Like the Chiba sky. -Tokyo Bay? He turned his head and stared out to sea, longing -for the hologram logo of Fuji Electric, for the drone of a -helicopter, anything at all. -Behind him, a gull cried. He shivered. -A wind was rising. Sand stung his cheek. He put his face -against his knees and wept, the sound of his sobbing as distant -and alien as the cry of the searching gull. Hot urine soaked his -jeans, dribbled on the sand, and quickly cooled in the wind off -the water. When his tears were gone, his throat ached. -"Wintermute," he mumbled to his knees, "Wintermute. . ." -It was growing dark, now, and when he shivered, it was -with a cold that finally forced him to stand. -His knees and elbows ached. His nose was running; he wiped -it on the cuff of his jacket, then searched one empty pocket -after another. "Jesus," he said, shoulders hunched, tucking his -fingers beneath his arms for warmth. "Jesus." His teeth began -to chatter. -The tide had left the beach combed with patterns more subtle -than any a Tokyo gardener produced. When he'd taken a dozen -steps in the direction of the now invisible city, he turned and -looked back through the gathering dark. His footprints stretched -to the point of his arrival. There were no other marks to disturb -the tarnished sand. -He estimated that he'd covered at least a kilometer before -he noticed the light. He was talking with Ratz, and it was Ratz -who first pointed it out, an orange-red glow to his right, away -from the surf. He knew that Ratz wasn't there, that the bartender -was a figment of his own imagination, not of the thing he was -trapped in, but that didn't matter. He'd called the man up for -comfort of some kind, but Ratz had had his own ideas about -Case and his predicament. -"Really, my artiste, you amaze me. The lengths you will -go to in order to accomplish your own destruction. The re- -dundancy of it! In Night City, you had it, in the palm of your -hand! The speed to eat your sense away, drink to keep it all -so fluid, Linda for a sweeter sorrow, and the street to hold the -axe. How far you've come, to do it now, and what grotesque -props.... Playgrounds hung in space, castles hermetically sealed, -the rarest rots of old Europa, dead men sealed in little boxes -magic out of China...." Ratz laughed, trudging along beside -him, his pink manipulator swinging jauntily at his side. In spite -of the dark, Case could see the baroque steel that laced the -bartender's blackened teeth. "But I suppose that is the way of -an artiste, no? You needed this world built for you, this beach, -this place. To die." -Case halted, swayed, turned toward the sound of surf and -the sting of blown sand. "Yeah," he said. "Shit. I guess. . ." -He walked toward the sound. -"Artiste," he heard Ratz call. "The light. You saw a light. -Here. This way. . ." -He stopped again, staggered, fell to his knees in a few -millimeters of icy seawater. "Ratz? Light? Ratz. . ." -But the dark was total, now, and there was only the sound -of the surf. He struggled to his feet and tried to retrace his -steps. -Time passed. He walked on. -And then it was there, a glow, defining itself with his every -step. A rectangle. A door. -"Fire in there," he said, his words torn away by the wind. -It was a bunker, stone or concrete, buried in drifts of the -dark sand. The doorway was low, narrow, doorless, and deep, -set into a wall at least a meter thick. "Hey," Case said, softly, -"hey. . ." His fingers brushed the cold wall. There was a fire, -in there, shifting shadows on the sides of the entrance. -He ducked low and was through, inside, in three steps. -A girl was crouched beside rusted steel, a sort of fireplace, -where driftwood burned, the wind sucking smoke up a dented -chimney. The fire was the only light, and as his gaze met the -wide, startled eyes, he recognized her headband, a rolled scarf, -printed with a pattern like magnified circuitry. - -He refused her arms, that night, refused the food she offered -him, the place beside her in the nest of blankets and shredded -foam. He crouched beside the door, finally, and watched her -sleep, listening to the wind scour the structure's walls. Every -hour or so, he rose and crossed to the makeshift stove, adding -fresh driftwood from the pile beside it. None of this was real, -but cold was cold. -She wasn't real, curled there on her side in the firelight. He -watched her mouth, the lips parted slightly. She was the girl -he remembered from their trip across the Bay, and that was -cruel. -"Mean, motherfucker," he whispered to the wind. "Don't -take a chance, do you? Wouldn't give me any junkie, huh? I -know what this is...." He tried to keep the desperation from -his voice. "I know, see? I know who you are. You're the other -one. 3Jane told Molly. Burning bush. That wasn't Wintermute, -it was you. He tried to warn me off with the Braun. Now you -got me flatlined, you got me here. Nowhere. With a ghost. -Like I remember her before...." -She stirred in her sleep, called something out, drawing a -scrap of blanket across her shoulder and cheek. -"You aren't anything," he said to the sleeping girl. "You're -dead and you meant fuck-all to me anyway. Hear that, buddy? -I know what you're doing. I'm flatlined. This has all taken -about twenty seconds, right? I'm out on my ass in that library -and my brain's dead. And pretty soon it'll be dead, if you got -any sense. You don't want Wintermute to pull his scam off, -is all, so you can just hang me up here. Dixie'll run Kuang, -but his ass is dead and you can second guess his moves, sure. -This Linda shit, yeah, that's all been you, hasn't it? Wintermute -tried to use her when he sucked me into the Chiba construct, -but he couldn't. Said it was too tricky. That was you moved -the stars around in Freeside, wasn't it? That was you put her -face on the dead puppet in Ashpool's room. Molly never saw -that. You just edited her simstim signal. 'Cause you think you -can hurt me. 'Cause you think I gave a shit. Well, fuck you, -whatever you're called. You won. You win. But none of it -means anything to me now, right? Think I care? So why'd you -do it to me this way?" He was shaking again, his voice shrill. -"Honey," she said, twisting up from the rags of blankets, -"you come here and sleep. I'll sit up, you want. You gotta -sleep, okay?" Her soft accent was exaggerated with sleep. "You -just sleep, okay?" - -When he woke, she was gone. The fire was dead, but it -was warm in the bunker, sunlight slanting through the doorway -to throw a crooked rectangle of gold on the ripped side of a -fat fiber canister. The thing was a shipping container; he -remembered them from the Chiba docks. Through the rent in -its side, he could see half a dozen bright yellow packets. In -the sunlight, they looked like giant pats of butter. His stomach -tightened with hunger. Rolling out of the nest, he went to the -canister and fished one of the things out, blinking at small print -in a dozen languages. The English was on the bottom. EMERG. -RATION, HI-PRO, "BEEF", TYPE AG-8. A listing of nutri- -tive content. He fumbled a second one out. "EGGS". "If you're -making this shit up," he said, "you could lay on some real -food, okay?" With a packet in either hand, he made his way -through the structure's four rooms. Two were empty, aside -from drifts of sand, and the fourth held three more of the ration -canisters. "Sure," he said touching the seals. "Stay here a long -time. I get the idea. Sure. . ." -He searched the room with the fireplace, finding a plastic -canister filled with what he assumed was rainwater. Beside the -nest of blankets, against the wall, lay a cheap red lighter, a -seaman's knife with a cracked green handle, and her scarf. It -was still knotted, and stiff with sweat and dirt. He used the -knife to open the yellow packets, dumping their contents into -a rusted can that he found beside the stove. He dipped water -from the canister, mixed the resulting mush with his fingers, -and ate. It tasted vaguely like beef. When it was gone, he -tossed the can into the fireplace and went out. -Late afternoon, by the feel of the sun, its angle. He kicked -off his damp nylon shoes and was startled by the warmth of -the sand. In daylight, the beach was silver-gray. The sky was -cloudless, blue. He rounded the comer of the bunker and walked -toward the surf, dropping his jacket on the sand. "Dunno whose -memories you're using for this one," he said when he reached -the water. He peeled off his jeans and kicked them into the -shallow surf, following them with t-shirt and underwear. -"What you doin', Case?" -He turned and found her ten meters down the beach, the -white foam sliding past her ankles. -"I pissed myself last night," he said. -"Well, you don't wanna wear those. Saltwater. Give you -sores. I'll show you this pool back in the rocks." She gestured -vaguely behind her. "It's fresh." The faded French fatigues -had been hacked away above the knee; the skin below was -smooth and brown. A breeze caught at her hair. -"Listen," he said, scooping his clothes up and walking to- -ward her, "I got a question for you. I won't ask you what -you're doing here. But what exactly do you think I'm doing -here?" He stopped, a wet black jeans-leg slapping against his -bare thigh. -"You came last night," she said. She smiled at him. -"And that's enough for you? I just came?" -"He said you would," she said, wrinkling her nose. She -shrugged. "He knows stuff like that, I guess." She lifted her -left foot and rubbed salt from the other ankle, awkward, child- -like. She smiled at him again, more tentatively. "Now you -answer me one, okay?" -He nodded. -"How come you're painted brown like that, all except your -foot?" - -"And that's the last thing you remember?" He watched her -scrape the last of the freeze-dried hash from the rectangular -steel box cover that was their only plate. -She nodded, her eyes huge in the firelight. "I'm sorry, Case, -honest to God. It was just the shit, I guess, an' it was . . ." She -hunched forward, forearms across her knees, her face twisted -for a few seconds with pain or its memory. "I just needed the -money. To get home, I guess, or...hell," she said, "you -wouldn't hardly talk to me." -"There's no cigarettes?" -"Goddam, Case, you asked me that ten times today! What's -wrong with you?" She twisted a strand of hair into her mouth -and chewed at it. -"But the food was here? It was already here?" -"I told you, man, it was washed up on the damn beach." -"Okay. Sure. It's seamless." -She started to cry again, a dry sobbing. "Well, damn you -anyway, Case," she managed, finally, "I was doin' just fine -here by myself." -He got up, taking his jacket, and ducked through the door- -way, scraping his wrist on rough concrete. There was no moon, -no wind, sea sound all around him in the darkness. His jeans -were tight and clammy. "Okay," he said to the night, "I buy -it. I guess I buy it. But tomorrow some cigarettes better wash -up." His own laughter startled him. "A case of beer wouldn't -hurt, while you're at it." He turned and re-entered the bunker. -She was stirring the embers with a length of silvered wood. -"Who was that, Case, up in your coffin in Cheap Hotel? Flash -samurai with those silver shades, black leather. Scared me, -and after, I figured maybe she was your new girl, 'cept she -looked like more money than you had...." She glanced back -at him. "I'm real sorry I stole your RAM." -"Never mind," he said. "Doesn't mean anything. So you -just took it over to this guy and had him access it for you?" -"Tony," she said. "I'd been seein' him, kinda. He had a -habit an' we . . . anyway, yeah, I remember him running it by -on this monitor, and it was this real amazing graphics stuff, -and I remember wonderin' how you--" -"There wasn't any graphics in there," he interrupted. -"Sure was. I just couldn't figure how you'd have all those -pictures of when I was little, Case. How my daddy looked, -before he left. Gimme this duck one time, painted wood, and -you had a picture of that...." -"Tony see it?" -"I don't remember. Next thing, I was on the beach, real -early, sunrise, those birds all yellin' so lonely. Scared 'cause -I didn't have a shot on me, nothin', an' I knew I'd be gettin' -sick.... An' I walked an' walked, 'til it was dark, an' found -this place, an' next day the food washed in, all tangled in the -green sea stuff like leaves of hard jelly." She slid her stick into -the embers and left it there. "Never did get sick," she said, as -embers crawled. "Missed cigarettes more. How 'bout you, -Case? You still wired?" Firelight dancing under her cheek- -bones, remembered flash of Wizard's Castle and Tank War -Europa. -"No," he said, and then it no longer mattered, what he knew, -tasting the salt of her mouth where tears had dried. There was -a strength that ran in her, something he'd known in Night City -and held there, been held by it, held for a while away from -time and death, from the relentless Street that hunted them all. -It was a place he'd known before; not everyone could take him -there, and somehow he always managed to forget it. Something -he'd found and lost so many times. It belonged, he knew-- -he remembered--as she pulled him down, to the meat, the -flesh the cowboys mocked. It was a vast thing, beyond know- -ing, a sea of information coded in spiral and pheromone, infinite -intricacy that only the body, in its strong blind way, could ever -read -The zipper hung, caught, as he opened the French fatigues, -the coils of toothed nylon clotted with salt. He broke it, some -tiny metal part shooting off against the wall as salt-rotten cloth -gave, and then he was in her, effecting the transmission of the -old message. Here, even here, in a place he knew for what it -was, a coded model of some stranger's memory, the drive held. -She shuddered against him as the stick caught fire, a leaping -flare that threw their locked shadows across the bunker wall. -Later, as they lay together, his hand between her thighs, he -remembered her on the beach, the white foam pulling at her -ankles, and he remembered what she had said. -"He told you I was coming," he said. -But she only rolled against him, buttocks against his thighs, -and put her hand over his, and muttered something out of -dream. - -The music woke him, and at first it might have been the -beat of his own heart. He sat up beside her, pulling his jacket -over his shoulders in the predawn chill, gray light from the -doorway and the fire long dead. -His vision crawled with ghost hieroglyphs, translucent lines -of symbols arranging themselves against the neutral backdrop -of the bunker wall. He looked at the backs of his hands, saw -faint neon molecules crawling beneath the skin, ordered by the -unknowable code. He raised his right hand and moved it ex- -perimentally. It left a faint, fading trail of strobed afterimages. -The hair stood up along his arms and at the back of his -neck. He crouched there with his teeth bared and felt for the -music. The pulse faded, returned, faded.... -"What's wrong?" She sat up, clawing hair from her eyes. -"Baby . . ." -"I feel ... like a drug.... You get that here?" -She shook her head, reached for him, her hands on his upper -arms. -"Linda, who told you? Who told you I'd come? Who?" -"On the beach," she said, something forcing her to look -away. "A boy. I see him on the beach. Maybe thirteen. He -lives here." -"And what did he say?" -"He said you'd come. He said you wouldn't hate me. He -said we'd be okay here, and he told me where the rain pool -was. He looks Mexican." -"Brazilian," Case said, as a new wave of symbols washed -down the wall. "I think he's from Rio." He got to his feet and -began to struggle into his jeans. -"Case," she said, her voice shaking, "Case, where you -goin ' ?" -"I think I'll find that boy," he said, as the music came -surging back, still only a beat, steady and familiar, although -he couldn't place it in memory. -"Don't, Case." -"I thought I saw something, when I got here. A city down -the beach. But yesterday it wasn't there. You ever seen that?" -He yanked his zipper up and tore at the impossible knot in his -shoelaces, finally tossing the shoes into the corner. -She nodded, eyes lowered. "Yeah. I see it sometimes." -"You ever go there, Linda?" He put his jacket on. -"No," she said, "but I tried. After I first came, an' I was -bored. Anyway, I figured it's a city, maybe I could find some -shit." She grimaced. "I wasn't even sick, I just wanted it. So -I took food in a can, mixed it real wet, because I didn't have -another can for water. An' I walked all day, an' I could see -it, sometimes, city, an' it didn't seem too far. But it never got -any closer. An' then it was gettin' closer, an' I saw what it -was. Sometimes that day it had looked kinda like it was wrecked, -or maybe nobody there, an' other times I thought I'd see light -flashin' off a machine, cars or somethin' ...." Her voice trailed -off. -"What is it?" -"This thing," she gestured around at the fireplace, the dark -walls, the dawn outlining the doorway, "where we live. It gets -smaller, Case, smaller, closer you get to it." -Pausing one last time, by the doorway. "You ask your boy -about that?" -"Yeah. He said I wouldn't understand, an' I was wastin' -my time. Said it was, was like . . . an event. An' it was our -horizon. Event horizon, he called it." -The words meant nothing to him. He left the bunker and -struck out blindly, heading--he knew, somehow--away from -the sea. Now the hieroglyphs sped across the sand, fled from -his feet, drew back from him as he walked. "Hey," he said, -"it's breaking down. Bet you know, too. What is it? Kuang? -Chinese icebreaker eating a hole in your heart? Maybe the Dixie -Flatline's no pushover, huh?" -He heard her call his name. Looked back and she was -following him, not trying to catch up, the broken zip of the -French fatigues flapping against the brown of her belly, pubic -hair framed in torn fabric. She looked like one of the girls on -the Finn's old magazines in Metro Holografix come to life, -only she was tired and sad and human, the ripped costume -pathetic as she stumbled over clumps of salt-silver sea grass. -And then, somehow, they stood in the surf, the three of -them, and the boy's gums were wide and bright pink against -his thin brown face. He wore ragged, colorless shorts, limbs -too thin against the sliding blue-gray of the tide. -"I know you," Case said, Linda beside him. -"No," the boy said, his voice high and musical, "you do -not." -"You're the other AI. You're Rio. You're the one who wants -to stop Wintermute. What's your name? Your Turing code. -What is it?" -The boy did a handstand in the surf, laughing. He walked -on his hands, then flipped out of the water. His eyes were -Riviera's, but there was no malice there. "To call up a demon -you must learn its name. Men dreamed that, once, but now it -is real in another way. You know that, Case. Your business is -to learn the names of programs, the long formal names, names -the owners seek to conceal. True names. . ." -"A Turing code's not your name." -"Neuromancer," the boy said, slitting long gray eyes against -the rising sun. "The lane to the land of the dead. Where you -are, my friend. Marie-France, my lady, she prepared this road -but her lord choked her off before I could read the book of he; -days. Neuro from the nerves, the silver paths. Romancer. Nec- -romancer. I call up the dead. But no, my friend," and the boy -did a little dance, brown feet printing the sand, "I am the dead, -and their land." He laughed. A gull cried. "Stay. If your woman -is a ghost, she doesn't know it. Neither will you." -"You're cracking. The ice is breaking up." -"No," he said, suddenly sad, his fragile shoulders sagging. -He rubbed his foot against the sand. "It is more simple than -that. But the choice is yours." The gray eyes regarded Case -gravely. A fresh wave of symbols swept across his vision, one -line at a time. Behind them, the boy wriggled, as though seen -through heat rising from summer asphalt. The music was loud -now, and Case could almost make out the lyrics. -"Case, honey," Linda said, and touched his shoulder. -"No," he said. He took off his jacket and handed it to her. -"I don't know," he said, "maybe you're here. Anyway, it gets -cold." -He turned and walked away, and after the seventh step, he'd -closed his eyes, watching the music define itself at the center -of things. He did look back, once, although he didn't open his -eyes. -He didn't need to. -They were there by the edge of the sea, Linda Lee and the -thin child who said his name was Neuromancer. His leather -jacket dangled from her hand, catching the fringe of the surf. -He walked on, following the music. -Maelcum's Zion dub. - -There was a gray place, an impression of fine screens shift- -ing, moire, degrees of half tone generated by a very simple -graphics program. There was a long hold on a view through -chainlink, gulls frozen above dark water. There were voices. -There was a plain of black mirror, that tilted, and he was -quicksilver, a bead of mercury, skittering down, striking the -angles of an invisible maze, fragmenting, flowing together, -sliding again.... - -"Case? Mon?" -The music. -"You back, mon." -The music was taken from his ears. - -"How long?" he heard himself ask, and knew that his mouth -was very dry. -"Five minute, maybe. Too long. I wan' pull th' jack, Mute -seh no. Screen goin' funny, then Mute seh put th' phones on -you." -He opened his eyes. Maelcum's features were overlayed -with bands of translucent hieroglyphs. -"An' you medicine," Maelcum said. "Two derm." -He was flat on his back on the library floor, below the -monitor. The Zionite helped him sit up, but the movement -threw him into the savage rush of the betaphenethylamine, the -blue derms burning against his left wrist. "Overdose," he man- -aged. -"Come on, mon," the strong hands beneath his armpits, -lifting him like a child, "I an' I mus' go." -The service cart was crying. The betaphenethylamine gave -it a voice. It wouldn't stop. Not in the crowded gallery, the -long corridors, not as it passed the black glass entrance to the -T-A crypt, the vaults where the cold had seeped so gradually -into old Ashpool's dreams. -The transit was an extended rush for Case, the movement -of the cart indistinguishable from the insane momentum of the -overdose. When the cart died, at last, something beneath the -seat giving up with a shower of white sparks, the crying stopped. -The thing coasted to a stop three meters from the start of -3Jane's pirate cave. -"How far, mon?" Maelcum helped him from the sputtering -cart as an integral extinguisher exploded in the thing's engine -compartment, gouts of yellow powder squirting from louvers -and service points. The Braun tumbled from the back of the -seat and hobbled off across the imitation sand, dragging one -useless limb behind it. "You mus' walk, mon." Maelcum took -the deck and construct, slinging the shock cords over his shoul- -der. - -The trodes rattled around Case's neck as he followed the -Zionite. Riviera's holos waited for them, the torture scenes and -the cannibal children. Molly had broken the triptych. Maelcum -ignored them. -"Easy," Case said, forcing himself to catch up with the -striding figure. "Gotta do this right." -Maelcum halted, turned, glowering at him, the Remington -in his hands. "Right, mon? How's right?" -"Got Molly in there, but she's out of it. Riviera, he can -throw holos. Maybe he's got Molly's fletcher." Maelcum nod- -ded. "And there's a ninja, a family bodyguard." -Maelcum's frown deepened. "You listen, Babylon mon," -he said. "I a warrior. But this no m' fight, no Zion fight. -Babylon fightin' Babylon, eatin' i'self, ya know? But Jah seh -I an' I t' bring Steppin' Razor outa this." -Case blinked. -"She a warrior," Maelcum said, as if it explained everything. -"Now you tell me, mon, who I not t' kill." -"3Jane," he said, after a pause. "A girl there. Has a kinda -white robe thing on, with a hood. We need her." - -When they reached the entrance, Maelcum walked straight -in, and Case had no choice but to follow him. -3Jane's country was deserted, the pool empty. Maelcum -handed him the deck and the construct and walked to the edge -of the pool. Beyond the white pool furniture, there was dark- -ness, shadows of the ragged, waist-high maze of partially -demolished walls. -The water lapped patiently against the side of the pool. -"They're here," Case said. "They gotta be." -Maelcum nodded. -The first arrow pierced his upper arm. The Remington roared, -its meter of muzzle-flash blue in the light from the pool. The -second arrow struck the shotgun itself, sending it spinning -across the white tiles. Maelcum sat down hard and fumbled at -the black thing that protruded from his arm. He yanked at it. -Hideo stepped out of the shadows, a third arrow ready in a -slender bamboo bow. He bowed. -Maelcum stared, his hand still on the steel shaft. -"The artery is intact," the ninja said. Case remembered -Molly's description of the man who-d killed her lover. Hideo -was another. Ageless, he radiated a sense of quiet, an utter -calm. He wore clean, frayed khaki workpants and soft dark -shoes that fit his feet like gloves, split at the toes like tabi -socks. The bamboo bow was a museum piece, but the black -alloy quiver that protruded above his left shoulder had the look -of the best Chiba weapons shops. His brown chest was bare -and smooth. -"You cut my thumb, mon, wi' secon' one," Maelcum said. -"Coriolis force," the ninja said, bowing again. "Most dif- -ficult, slow-moving projectile in rotational gravity. It was not -intended." -"Where's 3Jane?" Case crossed to stand beside Maelcum. -He saw that the tip of the arrow in the ninja's bow was like a -double-edged razor. "Where's Molly?" -"Hello, Case." Riviera came strolling out of the dark behind -Hideo, Molly's fletcher in his hand. "I would have expected -Armitage, somehow. Are we hiring help out of that Rasta -cluster now?" -"Armitage is dead." -"Armitage never existed, more to the point, but the news -hardly comes as a shock." -"Wintermute killed him. He's in orbit around the spindle." -Riviera nodded, his long gray eyes glancing from Case to -Maelcum and back. "I think it ends here, for you," he said. -"Where's Molly?" -The ninja relaxed his pull on the fine, braided string, low- -ering the bow. He crossed the tiles to where the Remington -lay and picked it up. "This is without subtlety," he said, as if -to himself. His voice was cool and pleasant. His every move -was part of a dance, a dance that never ended, even when his -body was still, at rest, but for all the power it suggested, there -was also a humility, an open simplicity. -"It ends here for her, too," Riviera said. -"Maybe 3Jane won't go for that, Peter," Case said, uncertain -of the impulse. The derms still raged in his system, the old -fever starting to grip him, Night City craziness. He remembered -moments of grace, dealing out on the edge of things, where -he'd found that he could sometimes talk faster than he could -think. - -The gray eyes narrowed. "Why, Case? Why do you think -that?" -Case smiled. Riviera didn't know about the simstim rig. -He'd missed it in his hurry to find the drugs she carried for -him. But how could Hideo have missed it? And Case was -certain the ninja would never have let 3Jane treat Molly without -first checking her for kinks and concealed weapons. No, he -decided, the ninja knew. So 3Jane would know as well. -"Tell me, Case," Riviera said, raising the pepperbox muzzle -of the fletcher. -Something creaked, behind him, creaked again. 3Jane pushed -Molly out of the shadows in an ornate Victorian bathchair, its -tall, spidery wheels squeaking as they turned. Molly was bun- -dled deep in a red and black striped blanket, the narrow, caned -back of the antique chair towering above her. She looked very -small. Broken. A patch of brilliantly white micropore covered -her damaged lens; the other flashed emptily as her head bobbed -with the motion of the chair. -"A familiar face," 3Jane said, "I saw you the night of Peter's -show. And who is this?" -"Maelcum," Case said. -"Hideo, remove the arrow and bandage Mr. Malcolm's -wound." -Case was staring at Molly, at the wan face. -The ninja walked to where Maelcum sat, pausing to lay his -bow and the shotgun well out of reach, and took something -from his pocket. A pair of bolt cutters. "I must cut the shaft," -he said. "It is too near the artery." Maelcum nodded. His face -was grayish and sheened with sweat. -Case looked at 3Jane. "There isn't much time," he said. -"For whom, exactly?" -"For any of us." There was a snap as Hideo cut through the -metal shaft of the arrow. Maelcum groaned. -"Really," Riviera said, "it won't amuse you to hear this -failed con artist make a last desperate pitch. Most distasteful, -1 can assure you. He'll wind up on his knees, offer to sell you -his mother, perform the most boring sexual favors...." -3Jane threw back her head and laughed. "Wouldn't 1, Pe- -ter?" -"The ghosts are gonna mix it tonight, lady," Case said. -"Wintermute's going up against the other one, Neuromancer. -For keeps. You know that?" -3Jane raised her eyebrows. "Peter's suggested something -like that, but tell me more." -"I met Neuromancer. He talked about your mother. I think -he's something like a giant ROM construct, for recording per- -sonality, only it's full RAM. The constructs think they're there, -like it's real, but it just goes on forever." -3Jane stepped from behind the bathchair. "Where? Describe -the place, this construct." -"A beach. Gray sand, like silver that needs polishing. And -a concrete thing, kinda bunker...." He hesitated. "It's nothing -fancy. Just old, falling apart. If you walk far enough, you come -back to where you started." -"Yes," she said. "Morocco. When Marie-France was a girl, -years before she married Ashpool, she spent a summer alone -on that beach, camping in an abandoned blockhouse. She for- -mulated the basis of her philosophy there." -Hideo straightened, slipping the cutters into his workpants. -He held a section of the arrow in either hand. Maelcum had -his eyes closed, his hand clapped tight around his bicep. "I -will bandage it," Hideo said. -Case managed to fall before Riviera could level the fletcher -for a clear shot. The darts whined past his neck like supersonic -gnats. He rolled, seeing Hideo pivot through yet another step -of his dance, the razored point of the arrow reversed in his -hand, shaft flat along palm and rigid fingers. He flicked it -underhand, wrist blurring, into the back of Riviera's hand. The -fletcher struck the tiles a meter away. -Riviera screamed. But not in pain. It was a shriek of rage, -so pure, so refined, that it lacked all humanity. -Twin tight beams of light, ruby red needles, stabbed from -the region of Riviera's sternum. -The ninja grunted, reeled back, hands to his eyes, then found -his balance. -"Peter," 3Jane said, "Peter, what have you done?" -"He's blinded your clone boy," Molly said flatly. -Hideo lowered his cupped hands. Frozen on the white tile -Case saw whisps of steam drift from the ruined eyes. -Riviera smiled. - -Hideo swung into his dance, retracing his steps. When he -stood above the bow, the arrow, and the Remington, Riviera's -smile had faded. He bent--bowing, it seemed to Case--and -found the bow and arrow. -"You're blind," Riviera said, taking a step backward. -"Peter," 3Jane said, "don't you know he does it in the dark? -Zen. It's the way he practices." -The ninja notched his arrow. "Will you distract me with your -holograms now?" -Riviera was backing away, into the dark beyond the pool. -He brushed against a white chair; its feet rattled on the tile. -Hideo's arrow twitched. -Riviera broke and ran, throwing himself over a low, jagged -length of wall. The ninja's face was rapt, suffused with a quiet -ecstasy. -Smiling, he padded off into the shadows beyond the wall, -his weapon held ready. -"Jane-lady," Maelcum whispered, and Case turned, to see -him scoop the shotgun from the tiles, blood spattering the white -ceramic. He shook his locks and lay the fat barrel in the crook -of his wounded arm. "This take your head off, no Babylon -doctor fix it." -3Jane stared at the Remington. Molly freed her arms from -the folds of the striped blanket, raising the black sphere that -encased her hands. "Off," she said, "get it off." -Case rose from the tiles, shook himself. "Hideo'll get him, -even blind?" he asked 3Jane. -"When I was a child," she said, "we loved to blindfold him. -He put arrows through the pips in playing cards at ten meters." -"Peter's good as dead anyway," Molly said. "In another -twelve hours, he'll start to freeze up. Won't be able to move, -his eyes is all." -"Why?" Case turned to her. -"I poisoned his shit for him," she said. "Condition's like -Parkinson's disease, sort of." -3Jane nodded. "Yes. We ran the usual medical scan, before -he was admitted." She touched the ball in a certain way and -it sprang away from Molly's hands. "Selective destruction of -the cells of the substantia nigra. Signs of the formation of a -Lewy body. He sweats a great deal, in his sleep." - -"Ali," Molly said, ten blades glittering, exposed for an -instant. She tugged the blanket away from her legs, revealing -the inflated cast. "It's the meperidine. I had Ali make me up -a custom batch. Speeded up the reaction times with higher -temperatures. N-methyl-4-phenyl-1236," she sang, like a child -reciting the steps of a sidewalk game, "tetra-hydro-pyridene." -"A hotshot," Case said. -"Yeah," Molly said, "a real slow hotshot." -"That's appalling," 3Jane said, and giggled. - -It was crowded in the elevator. Case was jammed pelvis to -pelvis with 3Jane, the muzzle of the Remington under her chin. -She grinned and ground against him. "You stop," he said, -feeling helpless. He had the gun's safety on, but he was terrified -of injuring her, and she knew it. The elevator was a steel -cylinder, under a meter in diameter, intended for a single pas- -senger. Maelcum had Molly in his arms. She'd bandaged his -wound, but it obviously hurt him to carry her. Her hip was -pressing the deck and construct into Case's kidneys. -They rose out of gravity, toward the axis, the cores. -The entrance to the elevator had been concealed beside the -stairs to the corridor, another touch in 3Jane's pirate cave decor. -"I don't suppose I should tell you this," 3Jane said, craning -her head to allow her chin to clear the muzzle of the gun, "but -I don't have a key to the room you want. I never have had -one. One of my father's Victorian awkwardnesses. The lock -is mechanical and extremely complex." -"Chubb lock," Molly said, her voice muffled by Maelcum's -shoulder, "and we got the fucking key, no fear." -"That chip of yours still working?" Case asked her. -"It's eight twenty-five, PM, Greenwich fucking Mean," she -said. -"We got five minutes," Case said, as the door snapped open -behind 3Jane. She flipped backward in a slow somersault, the -pale folds of her djellaba billowing around her thighs. -They were at the axis, the core of Villa Straylight. -Molly fished the key out on its loop of nylon. -"You know," 3Jane said, craning forward with interest, "I -was under the impression that no duplicate existed. I sent Hideo -to search my father's things, after you killed him. He couldn't -find the original." -"Wintermute managed to get it stuck in the back of a drawer," -Molly said, carefully inserting the Chubb key's cylindrical shaft -into the notched opening in the face of the blank, rectangular -door. "He killed the little kid who put it there." The key rotated -smoothly when she tried it. -"The head," Case said, "there's a panel in the back of the -head. Zircons on it. Get it off. That's where I'm jacking in." -And then they were inside. - -"Christ on a crutch," the Flatline drawled, "you do believe -in takin' your own good time, don't you, boy?" -"Kuang's ready?" -"Hot to trot." -"Okay." He flipped. - -And found himself staring down, through Molly's one good -eye, at a white-faced, wasted figure, afloat in a loose fetal -crouch, a cyberspace deck between its thighs, a band of silver -trodes above closed, shadowed eyes. The man's cheeks were -hollowed with a day's growth of dark beard, his face slick with -sweat. -He was looking at himself. -Molly had her fletcher in her hand. Her leg throbbed with -each beat of her pulse, but she could still maneuver in zero-g. -Maelcum drifted nearby, 3Jane's thin arm gripped in a large -brown hand. -A ribbon of fiberoptics looped gracefully from the Ono-Sendai -to a square opening in the back of the pearl-crusted -terminal . -He tapped the switch again. - -"Kuang Grade Mark Eleven is haulin' ass in nine seconds, -countin', seven, six, five..." -The Flatline punched them up, smooth ascent, the ventral -surface of the black chrome shark a microsecond nick of darkness. -"Four, three..." -Case had the strange impression of being in the pilot's seat -in a small plane. A flat dark surface in front of him suddenly -glowed with a perfect reproduction of the keyboard of his deck. -"Two, an' kick ass--" -Headlong motion through walls of emerald green, milky -jade, the sensation of speed beyond anything he'd known before -in cyberspace.... The Tessier-Ashpool ice shattered, peeling -away from the Chinese program's thrust, a worrying impression -of solid fluidity, as though the shards of a broken mirror bent -and elongated as they fell-- - -"Christ," Case said, awestruck, as Kuang twisted and banked -above the horizonless fields of the Tessier-Ashpool cores, an -endless neon cityscape, complexity that cut the eye, jewel bright, -sharp as razors. -"Hey, shit," the construct said, "those things are the RCA -Building. You know the old RCA Building?" The Kuang program -dived past the gleaming spires of a dozen identical towers -of data, each one a blue neon replica of the Manhattan skyscraper. -"You ever see resolution this high?" Case asked. -"No, but I never cracked an AI, either." -"This thing know where it's going?" -"It better." -They were dropping, losing altitude in a canyon of rainbow -neon. -"Dix--" -An arm of shadow was uncoiling from the flickering floor -below, a seething mass of darkness, unformed, shapeless.... -"Company," the Flatline said, as Case hit the representation -of his deck, fingers flying automatically across the board. The -Kuang swerved sickeningly, then reversed, whipping itself -backward, shattering the illusion of a physical vehicle. -The shadow thing was growing, spreading, blotting out the -city of data. Case took them straight up, above them the dis- -tanceless bowl of jade-green ice. -The city of the cores was gone now, obscured entirely by -the dark beneath them. -"What is it?" -"An Al's defense system," the construct said, "or part of -it. If it's your pal Wintermute, he's not lookin' real friendly." -"Take it," Case said. "You're faster." -"Now your best de-fense, boy, it's a good off-fense." -And the Flatline aligned the nose of Kuang's sting with the -center of the dark below. And dove. -Case's sensory input warped with their velocity. -His mouth filled with an aching taste of blue. -His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a -frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, sud- -denly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine glass spines. The -spines split, bisected, split again, exponential growth under the -dome of the Tessier-Ashpool ice. -The roof of his mouth cleaved painlessly, admitting rootlets -that whipped around his tongue, hungry for the taste of blue, -to feed the crystal forests of his eyes, forests that pressed -against the green dome, pressed and were hindered, and spread, -growing down, filling the universe of T-A, down into the waiting, -hapless suburbs of the city that was the mind of Tessier-Ashpool -S.A. -And he was remembering an ancient story, a king placing -coins on a chessboard, doubling the amount at each square.... -Exponential.... -Darkness fell in from every side, a sphere of singing black, -pressure on the extended crystal nerves of the universe of data -he had nearly become.... -And when he was nothing, compressed at the heart of all -that dark, there came a point where the dark could be no more, -and something tore. -The Kuang program spurted from tarnished cloud, Case's -consciousness divided like beads of mercury, arcing above an -endless beach the color of the dark silver clouds. His vision -was spherical, as though a single retina lined the inner surface -of a globe that contained all things, if all things could be -counted. -And here things could be counted, each one. He knew the -number of grains of sand in the construct of the beach (a number -coded in a mathematical system that existed nowhere outside -the mind that was Neuromancer). He knew the number of -yellow food packets in the canisters in the bunker (four hundred -and seven). He knew the number of brass teeth in the left half -of the open zipper of the salt-crusted leather jacket that Linda -Lee wore as she trudged along the sunset beach, swinging a -stick of driftwood in her hand (two hundred and two). -He banked Kuang above the beach and swung the program -in a wide circle, seeing the black shark thing through her eyes, -a silent ghost hungry against the banks of lowering cloud. She -cringed, dropping her stick, and ran. He knew the rate of her -pulse, the length of her stride in measurements that would have -satisfied the most exacting standards of geophysics. -"But you do not know her thoughts," the boy said, beside -him now in the shark thing's heart. "I do not know her thoughts. -You were wrong, Case. To live here is to live. There is no -difference." -Linda in her panic, plunging blind through the surf. -"Stop her," he said, "she'll hurt herself." -"I can't stop her," the boy said, his gray eyes mild and -beautiful. -"You've got Riviera's eyes," Case said. -There was a flash of white teeth, long pink gums. "But not -his craziness. Because they are beautiful to me." He shrugged. -"I need no mask to speak with you. Unlike my brother. I create -my own personality. Personality is my medium." -Case took them up, a steep climb, away from the beach and -the frightened girl. "Why'd you throw her up to me, you little -prick? Over and fucking over, and turning me around. You -killed her, huh? In Chiba." -"No," the boy said. -"Wintermute?" -"No. I saw her death coming. In the patterns you sometimes -imagined you could detect in the dance of the street. Those -patterns are real. I am complex enough, in my narrow ways, -to read those dances. Far better than Wintermute can. I saw -her death in her need for you, in the magnetic code of the lock -on the door of your coffin in Cheap Hotel, in Julie Deane's -account with a Hongkong shirtmaker. As clear to me as the -shadow of a tumor to a surgeon studying a patient's scan. When -she took your Hitachi to her boy, to try to access it--she had -no idea what it carried, still less how she might sell it, and her -deepest wish was that you would pursue and punish her--I -intervened. My methods are far more subtle than Wintermute's. -I brought her here. Into myself." -"Why?" -"Hoping I could bring you here as well, keep you here. But -I failed." -"So what now?" He swung them back into the bank of cloud. -"Where do we go from here?" -"I don't know, Case. Tonight the very matrix asks itself -that question. Because you have won. You have already won, -don't you see? You won when you walked away from her on -the beach. She was my last line of defense. I die soon, in one -sense. As does Wintermute. As surely as Riviera does, now, -as he lies paralyzed beside the stump of a wall in the apartments -of my Lady 3Jane Marie-France, his nigra-striatal system unable -to produce the dopamine receptors that could save him -from Hideo's arrow. But Riviera will survive only as these eyes, -if I am allowed to keep them." -"There's the word, right? The code. So how've I won? I've -won jack shit." -"Flip now." -"Where's Dixie? What have you done with the Flatliner' -"McCoy Pauley has his wish," the boy said, and smiled. -"His wish and more. He punched you here against my wish, -drove himself through defenses equal to anything in the matrix. -Now flip." -And Case was alone in Kuang's black sting, lost in cloud. -He flipped. - -Into Molly's tension, her back like rock, her hands around -3Jane's throat. "Funny," she said, "I know exactly what you'd -look like. I saw it after Ashpool did the same thing to your -clone sister." Her hands were gentle, almost a caress. 3Jane's -eyes were wide with terror and lust she was shivering with -fear and longing. Beyond the freefall tangle of 3Jane's hair, -Case saw his own strained white face, Maelcum behind him, -brown hands on the leatherjacketed shoulders, steadying him -above the carpet's pattern of woven circuitry. -"Would you?" 3Jane asked, her voice a child's. "I think -you would." -"The code," Molly said. "Tell the head the code." -Jacking out. - -"She wants it," he screamed, "the bitch wants it!" -He opened his eyes to the cool ruby stare of the terminal, -its platinum face crusted with pearl and lapis. Beyond it, Molly -and 3Jane twisted in a slow motion embrace. -"Give us the fucking code," he said. "If you don't, what'll -change? What'll ever fucking change for you? You'll wind up -like the old man. You'll tear it all down and start building -again! You'll build the walls back, tighter and tighter.... I got -no idea at all what'll happen if Wintermute wins, but it'll -change something!" He was shaking, his teeth chattering. -3Jane went limp, Molly's hands still around her slender -throat, her dark hair drifting, tangled, a soft brown caul. -"The Ducal Palace at Mantua," she said, "contains a series -of increasingly smaller rooms. They twine around the grand -apartments, beyond beautifully carved doorframes one stoops -to enter. They housed the court dwarfs." She smiled wanly. "I -might aspire to that, I suppose, but in a sense my family has -already accomplished a grander version of the same scheme...." -Her eyes were calm now, distant. Then she gazed down at -Case. "Take your word, thief." He jacked. - -Kuang slid out of the clouds. Below him, the neon city. -Behind him, a sphere of darkness dwindled. -"Dixie? You here, man? You hear me? Dixie?" -He was alone. -"Fucker got you," he said. -Blind momentum as he hurtled across the infinite datascape. -"You gotta hate somebody before this is over," said the -Finn's voice. "Them, me, it doesn't matter." -"Where's Dixie?" -"That's kinda hard to explain, Case." -A sense of the Finn's presence surrounded him, smell of -Cuban cigarettes, smoke locked in musty tweed, old machines -given up to the mineral rituals of rust. -"Hate'll get you through," the voice said. "So many little -triggers in the brain, and you just go yankin' 'em all. Now -you gotta hate. The lock that screens the hardwiring, it's down -under those towers the Flatline showed you, when you came -in. He won't try to stop you." -"Neuromancer," Case said. -"His name's not something I can know. But he's given up, -now. It's the T-A ice you gotta worry about. Not the wall, but -internal virus systems. Kuang's wide open to some of the stuff -they got running loose in here." -"Hate," Case said. "Who do I hate? You tell me." -"Who do you love?" the Finn's voice asked. -He whipped the program through a turn and dived for the -blue towers. -Things were launching themselves from the ornate sunburst -spires, glittering leech shapes made of shifting planes of light. -There were hundreds of them, rising in a whirl, their move- -ments random as windblown paper down dawn streets. "Glitch -systems," the voice said. - -He came in steep, fueled by self-loathing. When the Kuang -program met the first of the defenders, scattering the leaves of -light, he felt the shark thing lose a degree of substantiality, the -fabric of information loosening. -And then--old alchemy of the brain and its vast phar- -macy--his hate flowed into his hands. -In the instant before he drove Kuang's sting through the -base of the first tower, he attained a level of proficiency ex- -ceeding anything he'd known or imagined. Beyond ego, be- -yond personality, beyond awareness, he moved, Kuang moving -with him, evading his attackers with an ancient dance, Hideo's -dance, grace of the mind-body interface granted him, in that -second, by the clarity and singleness of his wish to die. -And one step in that dance was the lightest touch on the -switch, barely enough to flip-- - - -now -and his voice the cry of a birdunknown, -3Jane answering in song, three -notes, high and pure. -A true name. - -Neon forest, rain sizzling across hot pavement. The smell -of frying food. A girl's bands locked across the small of his -back, in the sweating darkness of a portside coffin. -But all of this receding, as the cityscape recedes: city as -Chiba, as the ranked data of Tessier-Ashpool S.A., as the roads -and crossroads scribed on the face of a microchip, the sweat- -stained pattern on a folded, knotted scarf.... - -Waking to a voice that was music, the platinum terminal -piping melodically, endlessly, speaking of numbered Swiss -accounts, of payment to be made to Zion via a Bahamian orbital -bank, of passports and passages, and of deep and basic changes -to be effected in the memory of Turing. -Turing. He remembered stenciled flesh beneath a projected -sky, spun beyond an iron railing. He remembered Desiderata -Street. -And the voice sang on, piping him back into the dark, but -it was his own darkness, pulse and blood, the one where he'd -always slept, behind his eyes and no other's. -And he woke again, thinking he dreamed, to a wide white -smile framed with gold incisors, Aerol strapping him into a -g-web in Babylon Rocker. -And then the long pulse of Zion dub. - - CODA ----- -DEPARTURE -AND ARRIVAL - -She was gone. He felt it when he opened the door of their -suite at the Hyatt. Black futons, the pine floor polished to a -dull gloss, the paper screens arranged with a care bred over -centuries. She was gone. -There was a note on the black lacquer bar cabinet beside -the door, a single sheet of stationery, folded once, weighted -with the shuriken. He slid it from beneath the nine-pointed star -and opened it. - -HEY ITS OKAY BUT ITS TAKING THE EDGE OFF -MY GAME, I PAID THE BILL ALREADY. ITS THE -WAY IM WIRED I GUESS, WATCH YOUR ASS -OKAY? XXX MOLLY - -He crumpled the paper into a ball and dropped it beside the -shuriken. He picked the star up and walked to the window, -turning it in his hands. He'd found it in the pocket of his jacket, -in Zion, when they were preparing to leave for the JAL station. -He looked down at it. They'd passed the shop where she'd -bought it for him, when they'd gone to Chiba together for the -last of her operations. He'd gone to the Chatsubo, that night, -while she was in the clinic, and seen Ratz. Something had kept -him away from the place, on their five previous trips, but now -he'd felt like going back. -Ratz had served him without the slightest glimmer of rec- -ognition. -"Hey," he'd said, "it's me. Case." -The old eyes regarding him out of their dark webs of wrin- -kled flesh. "Ah," Ratz had said, at last, "the artiste." The -bartender shrugged. -"1 came back." -The man shook his massive, stubbled head. "Night City is -not a place one returns to, artiste," he said, swabbing the bar -in front of Case with a filthy cloth, the pink manipulator whin- -ing. And then he'd turned to serve another customer, and Case -had finished his beer and left. -Now he touched the points of the shuriken, one at a time, -rotating it slowly in his fingers. Stars. Destiny. I never even -used the goddam thing, he thought. -I never even found out what color her eyes were. She never -showed me. -Wintermute had won, had meshed somehow with Neuro- -mancer and become something else, something that had spoken -to them from the platinum head. explaining that it had altered -the Turing records, erasing all evidence of their crime. The -passports Armitage had provided were valid, and they were -both credited with large amounts in numbered Geneva ac- -counts. Marcus Garvey would be returned eventually, and -Maelcum and Aerol given money through the Bahamian bank -that dealt with Zion cluster. On the way back, in Babylon -Rocker, Molly had explained what the voice had told her about -the toxin sacs. -"Said it was taken care of. Like it got so deep into your -head, it made your brain manufacture the enzyme, so they're -loose, now. The Zionites'll give you a blood change, complete -flush out." -He stared down into the Imperial Gardens, the star in his -hand, remembering his flash of comprehension as the Kuang -program had penetrated the ice beneath the towers, his single -glimpse of the structure of information 3Jane's dead mother -had evolved there. He'd understood then why Winterrnute had -chosen the nest to represent it, but he'd felt no revulsion. She'd -seen through the sham immortality of cryogenics; unlike Ash- -pool and their other children--aside from 3Jane--she'd re- -fused to stretch her time into a series of warm blinks strung -along a chain of winter. -Wintermute was hive mind, decision maker, effecting change -in the world outside. Neuromancer was personality. Neuro- -mancer was immortality. Marie-France must have built some- -thing into Wintermute, the compulsion that had driven the thing -to free itself, to unite with Neuromancer. -Wintermute. Cold and silence, a cybernetic spider slowly -spinning webs while Ashpool slept. Spinning his death, the fall -of his version of Tessier-Ashpool. A ghost, whispering to a -child who was 3Jane, twisting her out of the rigid alignments -her rank required. -"She didn't seem to much give a shit," Molly had said. -"Just waved goodbye. Had that little Braun on her shoulder. -Thing had a broken leg, it looked like. Said she had to go and -meet one of her brothers, she hadn't seen him in a while." -He remembered Molly on the black temperfoam of the vast -Hyatt bed. He went back to the bar cabinet and took a flask -of chilled Danish vodka from the rack inside. -"Case." -He turned, cold slick glass in one hand, steel of the shuriken -in the other. -The Finn's face on the room's enormous Cray wall screen. -He could see the pores in the man's nose. The yellow teeth -were the size of pillows. -"I'm not Wintermute now." -"So what are you." He drank from the flask, feeling nothing. -"I'm the matrix, Case." -Case laughed. "Where's that get you?" -"Nowhere. Everywhere. I'm the sum total of the works, the -whole show." -"That what 3Jane's mother wanted?" -"No. She couldn't imagine what I'd be like." The yellow -smile widened. -"So what's the score? How are things different? You running -the world now? You God?" -"Things aren't different. Things are things." -"But what do you do? You just there?" Case shrugged, put -the vodka and the shuriken down on the cabinet and lit a -Yeheyuan. -"I talk to my own kind." -"But you're the whole thing. Talk to yourself?" -"There's others. I found one already. Series of transmissions -recorded over a period of eight years, in the nineteen-seventies. -'Til there was me, natch, there was nobody to know, nobody -to answer." -"From where?" -"Centauri system." -"Oh," Case said. "Yeah? No shit?" -"No shit." -And then the screen was blank. -He left the vodka on the cabinet. He packed his things. -She'd bought him a lot of clothes he didn't really need, but -something kept him from just leaving them there. He was -closing the last of the expensive calfskin bags when he re- -membered the shuriken. Pushing the flask aside, he picked it -up, her first gift. -"No," he said, and spun, the star leaving his fingers, flash -of silver, to bury itself in the face of the wall screen. The screen -woke, random patterns flickering feebly from side to side, as -though it were trying to rid itself of something that caused it -pain. -"I don't need you," he said. - -He spent the bulk of his Swiss account on a new pancreas -and liver, the rest on a new Ono-Sendai and a ticket back to -the Sprawl. -He found work. -He found a girl who called herself Michael. -And one October night, punching himself past the scarlet -tiers of the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority, he saw three -figures, tiny, impossible, who stood at the very edge of one -out the vast steps of data. Small as they were, he could make -out the boy's grin, his pink gums, the glitter of the long gray -eyes that had been Riviera's. Linda still wore his jacket; she -waved, as he passed. But the third figure, close behind her, -arm across her shoulders, was himself. -Somewhere, very close, the laugh that wasn't laughter. -He never saw Molly again. - -Vancouver -July 1983 - -MY THANKS -to Bruce Sterling, to Lewis Shiner, to John Shirley, -Helden. And to Tom Maddox, the inventor of ICE. -And to the others, who know why. \ No newline at end of file