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DOC :ch2.txt

after a year of coffins the room on the twentyfifth floor
of the chiba hilton seemed enormous it was ten meters by
eight half of a suite a white braun coffeemaker 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 suns
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
ricepaper 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
youre not going anywhere til armitage has his say she sat
crosslegged 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 arent you case ar
mitage 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
 whats that supposed to mean
 screaming fist case youve heard the name
 some kind of run wasnt 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 isnt true one unit
made it back to helsinki case
 case shrugged sipped coffee
 youre 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 microlight 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 im no jockey now so i think ill 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 youre
rich enough to hire expensive razorgirls to haul my ass up here
is all im never gonna punch any deck again not for you or
anybody else he crossed to the window and looked down 
thats where i live now
 our profile says youre trying to con the street into killing
you when youre not looking
 profile
 weve built up a detailed model bought a goto for each
of your aliases and ran the skim through some military software 
youre suicidal case the model gives you a month on the
outside and our medical projection says youll 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 hed wake armitage wouldnt speak again cases dreams
always ended in these freezeframes and now this one was
over
 what would you say case
 case looked out over the bay and shivered
 id say you were full of shit
 armitage nodded
 then id ask what your terms were
 not very different than what youre 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 hes coming apart at the seams
 terms case said and now right now
 he was still shivering he couldnt stop shivering

the clinic was nameless expensively appointed a cluster
of sleek pavilions separated by small formal gardens he re
membered the place from the round hed made his first month
in chiba
 scared case youre 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
 itll work case you got no idea the kind of stuff ar
mitage has like hes gonna pay these nerve boys for fixing
you with the program hes giving them to tell them how to do
it hell put them three years ahead of the competition you
got any idea what thats worth she hooked thumbs in the
beltloops 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
 youre 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
 whats funny
 its like i know you that profile hes got i know how
youre wired
 you dont know me sister
 youre okay case what got you its 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 boottip 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 op
erating table
 well ill tell you the mans definitely on to something 
hes got big money now and hes never had it before and he
gets more all the time case noticed a certain tension around
her mouth or maybe maybe somethings on to him 
she shrugged
 whats that mean
 i dont know exactly i know i dont know who or what
were really working for
 he stared at the twin mirrors leaving the hilton saturday
morning hed gone back to cheap hotel and slept for ten hours 
then hed taken a long and pointless walk along the ports
security perimeter watching the gulls turn circles beyond the
chainlink if shed followed him shed done a good job of it 
hed avoided night city hed waited in the coffin for ar
mitages call now this quiet courtyard sunday afternoon this
girl with a gymnasts body and conjurers hands
 if youll 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 dont 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 chainlink
and the prison of the skull
 goddamn dont you move
 where the sky faded from hissing static to the noncolor 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 dont lie still ill slit your fucking throat youre
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 sprawls towers and
ragged fuller domes dim figures moving toward him in the
shade beneath a bridge or overpass
 case its 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 
microchannel imageamps in my glasses
 my back hurts
 thats 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 didnt have to open anything
up for the main show she settled back beside him its
24312 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 doctors orders 
besides they figure it worked check you in a day or so he
lay down again
 where are we
 home cheap hotel
 wheres armitage
 hilton selling beads to the natives or something were
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 temperfoam the leather
jeans cool against his skin her fingers brushed his neck
 how come youre 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 temperfoam
 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
 its 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 dont she said finger
prints
 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 arriv
ing 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 ninsei 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 beersmell
ing 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 re
flection in her glasses i got biz to cancel out of
 armitage wont like it i let you out of my sight she
stood beneath deanes melting clock hands on her hips
 the guy wont talk to me if youre there deane i dont
give two shits about he takes care of himself but i got people
wholl just go under if i walk out of chiba cold its my people
you know
 her mouth hardened she shook her head
 i got people in singapore tokyo connections in shinjuku
and asakuza and theyll go down understand he lied his
hand on the shoulder of her black jacket five five minutes 
by your clock okay
 not what im paid for
 what youre paid for is one thing me letting some tight
friends die because youre too literal about your instructions is
something else
 bullshit tight friends my ass youre going in there to
check us out with your smuggler she put a booted foot up
on the dustcovered 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 deanes ghostly
cough seemed to hang in the air between them
 hold on julie anyway ill be coming in alone
 you can be sure of that old son wouldnt have it any
other way
 okay she said go but five minutes any more and
ill come in and cool your tight friend permanently and while
youre at it you try to figure something out
 whats that
 why im 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 shes 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
 its 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 deans manicured pink hands just taking care you
understand nothing personal now tell me what you want
 i need a history lesson julie and a goto on somebody
 whats moving old son deanes shirt was candystriped
cotton the collar white and rigid like porcelain
 me julie im leaving gone but do me the favor okay
 goto 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 wouldnt have it any other way now history 
you said history he picked up the gun again but didnt point
it directly at case what sort of history
 the war you in the war julie
 the war whats there to know lasted three weeks
 screaming fist
 famous dont 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 de
fenses 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 its 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 didnt
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 over
whelming
 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 ones markets
 thanks julie i owe you one
 hardly case and goodbye

and later hed tell himself that the evening at sammis had
felt wrong from the start that even as hed followed molly
along that corridor shuffling through a trampled mulch of ticket
stubs and styrofoam cups hed sensed it lindas death wait
ing
 theyd gone to the namban after hed seen deane and
paid off his debt to wage with a roll of armitages new yen 
wage had liked that his boys had liked it less and molly had
grinned at cases side with a kind of ecstatic feral intensity
obviously longing for one of them to make a move then hed
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
 hows 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 youre 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 nothingll happen
 he did nothing did
 three beers later she was asking ratz about the fights
 sammis ratz said
 ill 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 tshirt and baggy rugby shorts
 sammis was an inflated dome behind a portside warehouse
taut gray fabric reinforced with a net of thin steel cables the
corridor with a door at either end was a crude airlock pre
serving the pressure differential that supported the dome flu
orescent 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 mollys lenses as the men
circled the holograms were tenpower magnifications at ten
the knives they held were just under a meter long the knife
fighters grip is the fencers 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 mollys upturned face was smooth
and still watching
 ill go find us some food case said she nodded lost in
contemplation of the dance
 he didnt 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 techs 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
 hed 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 figures chest thick brown sauce trickled
down the skewers and over his knuckles
 seven days and hed jack in if he closed his eyes now
hed 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 hadnt 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 fig
ure 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 fa
tigues
 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 hed
never be sure
 afterimage of a single hairfine 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 blink...

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