Neuromancer by William Gibson Read Free Book Online Page A

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 Molly’s lenses as the men circled. The holograms were
     ten-power magnifications; at ten, the knives they held were just under a meter long.
     The knife-fighter’s grip is the fencer’s 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. Molly’s upturned face was smooth and still,
     watching.
    “I’ll go find us some food,” Case said. She nodded, lost in contemplation of the dance.
    He didn’t 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.
    He’d 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 figure’s chest. Thick brown sauce trickled down the skewers
     and over his knuckles.
    Seven days and he’d jack in. If he closed his eyes now, he’d 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 hadn’t 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 figure 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 fatigues.
    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 he’d never be sure.
    Afterimage of a single hair-fine 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 blinked past them into the dark. Case saw the
     razor dipping for his throat like a dowser’s wand.
    The face was erased in a humming cloud of microscopic explosions. Molly’s fletchettes,
     at twenty rounds per second.