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DOC :ch19.txt

the villa straylight was a parasitic structure case reminded
himself as he stepped past the tendrils of caulk and through
marcus garveys 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 hed tumbled through to reach haniwa
designed for use in the spindles 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 garveys
lock but curved up sharply and to the left a vertical climb
around the curvature of the yachts 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 cases makeshift strap dug into his shoulder
with the weight of the onosendai and the flatlines construct 
all he felt now was fear a generalized dread he pushed it
away forcing himself to replay armitages lecture on the spin
dle and villa straylight he started climbing freesides 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 
 cases 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 remingtons 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 tessierashpool 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 wants a jack
into your custodial system
 the man swallowed is this a test its 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 eurasians 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
ill lock it case you want the fifth socket from the left top
panel theres adaptor plugs in the cabinet under the console 
needs onosendai twentypoint 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 dont 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
ta ice even as case watched it grew gradually more opaque
although he could see the blackmirrored 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 im sorry 3jane was saying as she bandaged
mollys head our unit says no concussion no permanent
damage to the eye you didnt know him very well before
you came here
 didnt know him at all molly said bleakly she was on
her back on a high bed or padded table case couldnt 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 couldnt see
 he wants to kill you
 figures molly said staring up at the rough ceiling past
a very bright light
 i dont think i want him to 3jane said and molly pain
fully turned her head to look up into the dark eyes
 dont 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
 wheres 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
 dont alarm yourself 3janes 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 id 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 ill
show you that when youre better he strangles her in bed
 why did he kill her her unbandaged eye focused on the
girls face
 he couldnt 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 ais 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 ill play her tapes for you nearly a thousand
hours but ive 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 
im 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 ai although
the entity manipulating you is a sort of subprogram
 one of them theres more
 one other but that one hasnt 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 mollys 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 mollys stomach hurt peter
if he doesnt go away go and swim peter
 the projection vanished
 075840 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 mothers 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 couldnt hear a pair
of thin yellow leads ran from his ears to a side pocket in his
sleeveless jacket
 dub mon maelcum said
 youre fucking crazy case told him
 hear okay mon righteous dub
 hey guys the finn said on your toes here comes your
transportation i cant finesse many numbers as smooth as the
pic of 8jean that conned your doorman but i can get you a
ride over to 3janes 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

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Top topics in this doc (% words in doc assigned to this topic)

	(11%)	case molly thing back left im head asked didnt began ...
	(7%)	peter maelcum pool remington cart wheres shotgun adaptor robe brushed ...
	(7%)	eyes man hed black face dark past good open back ...
	(6%)	maelcum mon garvey straylight zionite mute helmet theyre yeah monitor ...
	(6%)	hatch tube hear hosaka lock suit ladder japanese rungs gangway ...

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