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DOC :ch9.txt

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 gweb case
watched the zionites muscular back through a haze of sco
polamine hed 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 longs it gonna take us to make freeside molly
asked from her web beside maelcums pilot module
 don be long now mseh dat
 you guys ever think in hours
 sister time it be time ya know wha mean dread and
he shook his locks at control mon 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 havent 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 just 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
 im all doped he protested but reached for the trodes 
his deck and the hosaka had been mounted behind maelcums
module along with a very highresolution 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 lions of zion
and black star liners the reds and greens and yellows over
laying wordy decals in cyrillic script someone had sprayed
maelcums 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 maelcums
shoulder to the central screen and saw a docking display the
tugs 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
 howd you know it was an ai
 howd i know jesus it was the densest ice id ever seen 
so what else was it the military down there dont have any
thing like that anyway i jacked out and told my computer to
look it up
 yeah
 it was on the turing registry ai 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 tessierashpool dixie
 tessier yeah
 and you went back
 sure i was crazy figured id try to cut it hit the first
strata and thats 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 thats the stuff of legend aint 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 itll be high
 they ascended lattices of light levels strobing a blue flicker
 thatll be it case thought
 wintermute was a simple cube of white light that very
simplicity suggesting extreme complexity
 dont look much does it the flatline said but just you
try and touch it
 im 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 were 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 arcades 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
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
arcades 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 tshirt nuked
bonn on a tank war console an azure flash
 she was playing wizards 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
asshole seventh level dungeon and the goddam vampires got
me she passed him a cigarette you look pretty strung man 
where you been
 i dont know
 you high case drinkin again eatin zones dex
 maybe how long since you seen me
 hey its a puton 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 well get you a coffee
and something to eat take you home its 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 tshirt 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 vendors pushcart across the street an unopened
pack of yeheyuans lay at his feet beside a book of matches 
julius deane import export case stared 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 deanes 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 neoaztec 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 greenshaded brass lamp cast a circle of light on deanes
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 deanes
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 triggerguard 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 im not in any hurry i guess its your show but
all this shit you know its 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 muzzleflash 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 neednt do that old son julie said stepping out of
the shadows he wore a threepiece drape suit in silk herring
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 deanes pink ageless face
 dont deane said youre right about what this all is 
what i am but there are certain internal logics to be honored 
if you use that youll see a lot of brains and blood and it
would take me several hours your subjective time to effect
another spokesperson this set isnt easy for me to maintain 
oh and im sorry about linda in the arcade i was hoping to
speak through her but im generating all this out of your
memories and the emotional charge well its very tricky 
i slipped sorry
 case lowered the gun this is the matrix youre winter
mute
 yes this is all coming to you courtesy of the simstim unit
wired into your deck of course im glad i was able to cut you
off before youd 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 times very short
now youll be making your run in a matter of days case 
deane picked up a bonbon and stripped off its checkered wrap
per popped it 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 youre
asking yourself is wintermute am i right
 more or less
 an artificial intelligence but you know that your mistake
and its quite a logical one is in confusing the wintermute
mainframe berne with the wintermute entity deane sucked
his bonbon noisily youre already aware of the other ai in
tessierashpools linkup arent 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 youre so goddam smart
 why aint i rich deane laughed and nearly choked on
his bonbon well case all i can say to that and i really
dont 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 entitys brain its rather like dealing from your
point of view with a man whose lobes have been severed lets
say youre dealing with a small part of the mans left brain 
difficult to say if youre 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 isnt my basic
mode really i improvise its my greatest talent i prefer
situations to plans you see really ive had to deal with
givens i can sort a great deal of information and sort it very
quickly its taken a very long time to assemble the team youre
a part of corto was the first and he very nearly didnt 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
 hes not quite a personality deane smiled but im sure
youre aware of that but corto is in there somewhere and i
can no longer maintain that delicate balance hes going to
come apart on you case so ill be counting on you
 thats good motherfucker case said and shot him in
the mouth with the 357
 hed been right about the brains and the blood

mon maelcum was saying i dont like this
 its cool molly said its just okay its something these
guys do is all like he wasnt dead and it was only a few
seconds
 i saw th screen eeg readin dead nothin movin forty
second
 well hes okay now
 eeg flat as a strap maelcum protested

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

	(14%)	case deane ninsei money japanese arcade desk deanes console im ...
	(7%)	hand youre looked hands back time wall place small whats ...
	(6%)	told wintermute time mouth sleep id guess shoulder faint hard ...
	(6%)	case molly thing back left im head asked didnt began ...
	(6%)	eyes man hed black face dark past good open back ...
	(6%)	dont shit shadows braun ice smiled lost glanced kicked wet ...

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