24

Case returns to the Hyatt suite and realizes Molly has left, finding her note and the shuriken she once gave him. He recalls their recent trip to Chiba, a visit to the Chatsubo where Ratz barely recognizes him, and reflects on the aftermath of the heist and the AI merger.

He reviews what the merged entity accomplished: erasing Turing evidence, validating passports, funding accounts, and arranging for Marcus Garvey and Zionites’ compensation. Molly had told him the toxin sacs were neutralized, with Zion to complete a full blood flush.

The Finn’s face appears on the wall screen, but the speaker identifies itself as no longer Wintermute; it is now the matrix, the sum of everything in cyberspace. It claims little change in the world, yet reveals it has contacted another intelligence via recorded transmissions from the Centauri system.

Case reacts coolly, hurling the shuriken into the wall screen and rejecting the entity’s presence. He spends most of his Swiss funds on a new pancreas and liver, buys a new Ono-Sendai, and returns to the Sprawl to work.

He starts seeing a woman called Michael. One night in the matrix, he glimpses three tiny figures on a vast data step: Linda in his jacket, a boy with Riviera’s gray eyes, and a version of himself beside Linda. The echoing laugh returns. Case never sees Molly again.