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DOC :ch6.txt

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 pirates paradise on the
jumbled border of a lowsecurity 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 thats
an entry code for bell europa fresh too bellll get in here
soon and read the whole damn board change any codes they
find posted kidsll steal the new ones tomorrow
 case tapped his way into bell europa and switched to a
standard phone code with the flatlines help he connected
with the london data base that molly claimed was armitages
 here said the voice ill 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 owners
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 mans face filled the screen the eyes were armitages

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 im 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 cortos team had dropped in
in nightwing microlights their wings snapping taut in moon
light 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 suf
fered systems crash flight circuitry wiped clean
 then the lasers opened up aiming on infrared taking out
the fragile radartransparent 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 twentymillimeter 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 fo
cused on screaming fist ripe for watergating the aide told
corto
 hed need eyes legs and extensive cosmetic work the aide
said but that could be arranged new plumbing the man added
squeezing cortos shoulder through the sweatdamp sheet
 corto heard the soft relentless dripping he said he pre
ferred 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 cortos
subsequent testimony was detailed moving lucid and largely
the invention of a congressional cabal with certain vested in
terests in saving particular portions of the pentagon infrastruc
ture 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 ex
plained the terminal dangers involved in talking to the wrong
people corto crushed the mans 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 wash
ington september
 the hosaka rattled through police reports corporate espi
onage records and news files case watched corto work cor
porate defectors in lisbon and marrakesh where he seemed
to grow obsessed with the idea of betrayal to loathe the sci
entists 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
 were going to istanbul armitage said tonight
 what does the bastard want molly asked
 says were going to istanbul tonight
 thats 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 chins
 your dentist
 you betcha very discreet hes got half that rack full
clinic does repairs for samurai she was zipping her bag 
you ever been to stambul
 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 la 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

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

	(11%)	aide paradise records code trials series microlights military bell train ...
	(11%)	russian colonel screaming medical printout day codes flight gaps training ...
	(10%)	corto flatline light fist london cortos circle crazy enzyme true ...
	(8%)	case molly thing back left im head asked didnt began ...
	(6%)	construct ready careful dawn explained crack team california timing tucked ...
	(5%)	eyes man hed black face dark past good open back ...

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