Contents
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Overview
Molly infiltrates Straylight via simstim, recounting her past while tracking Wintermute’s lead to a hidden CHUBB key. Case and the Dixie Flatline nurture the Kuang virus. Molly ignores Wintermute’s warnings, is trapped by Ashpool, discovers a murdered girl, and executes Ashpool, while Wintermute manipulates Case’s perceptions.
Summary
Case links to Molly via simstim as she navigates Straylight’s dim, museum-like corridors in a polycarbon suit, narrating her past with Johnny and the slow vengeance of the Yakuza. Guided by Wintermute’s prompts, Molly enters a tool closet and retrieves a CHUBB key Wintermute had covertly arranged decades earlier, revealing its long game against the Tessier-Ashpools.
Case flips to cyberspace where Kuang Grade Mark Eleven grows under his and the Dixie Flatline’s control, forming a shark-like sting that will ride through Tessier-Ashpool ice. They confirm a manual override exists, triggered by a spoken word at a special terminal, while Maelcum watches Case’s risky jumps.
Back in Molly’s POV, nearing Straylight’s tip with waning gravity, she resists Wintermute’s directions, enters a corridor booby-trapped with a neural disruptor, and is disarmed and taken at gunpoint by an aged, drugged Ashpool. Ashpool monologues about cold sleep, dreams, AI “madness,” and Marie-France’s conditioning, revealing family decay and his intention to die.
Exploring the room, Molly finds a blood-soaked quilt and the body of a girl whose face Case recognizes from the Freeside restaurant. Wintermute freezes and alters the simstim to momentarily show Linda Lee’s face, a manipulation only Case perceives. Molly calmly retrieves her fletcher and kills Ashpool with a toxin dart through his eyelid, then leaves, advancing the break-in while Case prepares Kuang.
Who Appears
- MollyInfiltrates Straylight, recounts her past, retrieves a CHUBB key, is captured by Ashpool, finds a murdered girl, and kills Ashpool.
- CaseJuggles simstim with Molly and cyberspace, grows Kuang with Dixie, and notes Wintermute’s manipulation of Molly’s feed.
- The Dixie FlatlineAdvises Case as Kuang develops, explaining the program’s sting and their plan of attack.
- AshpoolElder Tessier-Ashpool; drugged and suicidal, captures Molly, reveals family history, and is killed by her.
- WintermuteGuides Molly to the key, warns of danger, and alters simstim to show Linda’s face, pressuring Case psychologically.
- MaelcumMonitors Case between dives, voicing concern as Case risks repeated jacks.
- Unidentified girl from the restaurantFound murdered in Ashpool’s suite; her face matches the woman Case saw earlier.