Neuromancer - William Gibson Page 0,63

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 Manhattan, 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