Neuromancer Chapters 16 - 18: Break In and Breakdown

The action ratchets up from tense to chaotic as Corto breaks through as the run is going down. We follow Molly’s Straylight approach through SimStim, and encounter Riviera’s bizarre mind games as the plan inevitably goes off the rails.

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Welcome And Chapter Roadmap

Michael Kentris 0:01

Hello and welcome back to Brothers Reading Books. I am one of the brothers, Will Kentris, joined as always by my brother, Michael. And today we are continuing our reading of Neuromancer, chapters 16 through 18.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Michael, I'm uh turn the lens at you this time and say, do you have any hot takes or initial point of views that you want to pass off to our listeners today?

Michael Kentris 0:30

So we are we are moving rapidly towards this story's climax, and things are getting weird, is what I would say. So I've been trying to take a page out of your book and jotting down some some little notes here. And they're they're very, I would say, high-level summary-wise here, but let's see, just scrolling through my notes here. So we start getting Armitage, breaking down, and all of the things that that ensues. We get some more backstory from Molly as Case rides along on the SimStim ride. And then we uh write. Yeah, the SimStim switch. And then we finally get uh Molly reaching 3G and uh Peter Riviera and the uh dialogue with that encounter as well. So a lot of a lot of moving pieces in this uh part of the story here, and lots of shifting perspectives. A lot of things are in evolution in terms of all the various plot threads we've had going on with with Wintermute, with the Armitage slash Quarto character. And then, you know, again, getting more of Molly's backstory as well. So some interesting things happening, and yeah, it can it can be hard sometimes, even though this is just a few chapters, right? This is just under what, 40 pages or so?

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Mm-hmm.

Michael Kentris 2:02

It can get pretty discombobulated pretty quickly. Uh I know I had to like glance back a couple times as I was reading through here to be like, where is this person, or who were they just talking to, and making sure that I was keeping keeping the different lines of dialogue and events straight in my mind. Right. Yeah, I I especially feel that way anytime Peter starts making his presence known just because it's yeah, kind of like, did I read that right, or am I forgetting who's who, or is it literally just, you know, the mental manipulation projections that he's able to do that are messing with our character's point of view to begin with? Like, what is even reality, man? I mean, that seems a very core part of what this book is about. It kind of is, right? It's a tongue-in-cheek. But there's the the cyberspace element, there is the the internal monologue, and we get all these conversations that we've had in the past chapters with Wintermute about what is memory and how does that make him, or as Dixie Flatline reminded us last time, it. Yes. Don't go personifying it. Uh it is is it a sentient creature? Is it just fooling you? All right, kind of like the conversations that we're having on a much lower scale about large language models uh these days.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Absolutely. Yeah. No, it's it very much, yeah. It's like what is it actually trying to achieve? Obviously, we know we want it to be f it wants to be free, but what does that actually entail? And as it kind of like keeps tying out some of these loose ends, it just makes you wonder like very possible.

Michael Kentris 3:46

So as we may recall from last time, Molly had just shot a poison dart through the eyeball of Ashpool.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

One Mr. Ashpool.

Michael Kentris 3:57

And

Armitage Cracks And Reality Wobbles

Michael Kentris 3:58

so now we are switching back to Case's perspective, uh talking with uh Armitage, and this gets pretty intense pretty fast. So I'm just gonna read a little little piece here. So we get uh Flatline is telling Case that he's he's got his boss on the call. And he says, uh a lozenge of white light clicked into place in front of him, hiding the tesser ash pool ice. It showed him the calm, perfectly focused, utterly crazy face of Armitage, his eyes blank as buttons. Armitage blinked, stared. Which I love that line. Perfectly focused, utterly crazy. So it evokes exactly the image that I you know, it's I know what it's talking about. Right. And uh we get this weird back and forth between Case and Armitage here. Uh he said, Case, you've seen Wintermute, haven't you, in The Matrix? And this little part I thought was a little anachronistic, right? Uh a camera on the face of his Osaka in Marcus Garvey would relay the gesture to the Naniwa monitor, right? Because it case nodded. You know, you and I we're using uh televideo communication software right now. Pretty much anyone listening to this has used a laptop with a camera on it. So it's funny to me that back here in the 1980s, he has to explicitly state that there is a camera on this device because it's like, well, this is what is like a phone call? Right. So it's very interesting, just in that short period of time, seeing the kind of things that you have to explain to your audience then versus now. Like now you wouldn't have to say, oh yeah, it's just uh it's an online call. Of course, of course you can see the gestures that you're making. But uh here in the distant past, 40 years ago, not so much. But uh Armitage asks, Case, what is he when you see him? And Case just says, a high-rise Sim Stim construct. He's like, but who? He's like, Finn last time, before that, this pimp. And he's like, not General Girling. And he's like, who? And then Case flips off. So he flips out of the uh conversation. So we get a little more like General Girling is some person. That's that's all we really get from this. But uh, we're starting to see, as they've been hinting at pretty explicitly, yeah, that the Armitage Corto construct is breaking down. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

And again, this is kind of one of those chapters where we're flipping between a bunch of point of views. So now we're flipping into Molly's Sim Stim piece. And again, we're kind of like getting kind of the build-up with her side of things as she's continuing to sneak through straight light. So, you know, mentions here that she's like crouching between some steel girdles high above the ground. She hears some Japanese voices, a lot of figures in orange jumpsuits, as it turns out, to assume like workers or custodial staff or something. But again, she's just like waiting there for a guide, and eventually this little drone doohickey shows up that again, being navigated by Wintermute, it would be safe to assume to lead her to where she needs to go.

Michael Kentris 7:18

Yeah, I I like this little basically like little Daddy Long Legs robot thing with a blinking red LED. And then uh it was the brand is Braun, which I thought was funny because I think of like, oh, is it like you know, like the current modern day electronics company that makes things like coffee makers and electric razors and stuff like that. Sure. So I'm like, sure, why not? Everybody's gonna be a Zaibatsu in the future. Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah, right. Well, we'll talk about Zaibatsus later, but uh things get philosophical. Right. But uh but yeah, so right, yeah, Case is kind of our linchpin for all these perspectives because he was flipping back and forth from Molly to the Malcolm Garvey, or not the Malcolm Garvey, the uh Marcus Garvey with Malcolm.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Yes, yes.

Michael Kentris 8:07

And uh then also back into cyberspace with the ice and Dixie Flatline. So yes, there's all these juxtaposed perspectives that are just the kind of rapid fire bouncing around. Uh but case is kind of the focal point for all of this. Right. Which again, I feel like is fair because as you have kind of all these processes going on simultaneously, I know personally I'd also be like switching between everything, like, okay, how's this going? What's the progress on this piece? Armitage is losing it. Cool, cool, neat, neat.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Love that. So it's also worth mentioning that uh Molly's leg is hurting, even through all the uh endorphins and things that she's got, sort of souping her up. So a little foreshadowing there, I suppose.

Michael Kentris 8:57

And I like that they they kind of explain a little bit when Case is riding around in the SIM stem, is that um what did she say here? I've always talked to myself in my head when I've been in tight spots, pretend I got some friends, somebody I can trust, and I'll tell them what I really think, what I feel like, and then I'll pretend they're telling me what they think about that, and I'll just go along that way. Having you in is kind of like that. Uh, that scene with Ashpool, dot dot dot. I was expecting something maybe a little less gone, you know. I mean, these guys are all batshit in here. Like they got luminous messages scrawled across the inside of their foreheads or something. I don't like the way it looks, I don't like the way it smells. And right, they're they're really building up to the the element uh of most heist stories where things start going sideways. Right. Right, it's already started going sideways, but it's about to take a hard pivot. So, so yeah, but we're essentially getting Molly's little perspective here going on for a little bit. Um and she said, I never much expected to make it out of this one anyway, which is kind of a nihilistic kind of perspective.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 10:04

It was giving like one month from retirement vibes for me while I was reading this. One last one last job. That's right. Ah, I'm gonna buy a boat and sail around the world. Me and my wife. We didn't get that one kind of sweet thing she says very nearly, where that nothing really had gone right with this one until she met Case. But she says that not that you're all that, you know, all that shit hot as opposed to hot shit. So uh but yeah, so there's a fondness at least that Molly has for Case.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

Mm-hmm.

Michael Kentris 10:40

And now we start getting the uh the time, the countdown. And this is kind of a recurrent thing throughout the next uh few chapters where we get like these timestamps. So it's uh 042304. So just say 430 for easy, uh easy notation here. But we we start getting this countdown, and we get a little bit more info as to why that matters uh once we have one of our conversations with, I believe, Dixie later on.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Mm-hmm. Right, Dixie, and I think also in her mute, they provide some context on our time frame that matters. Right.

Michael Kentris 11:18

So

The Ticking Clock Behind The Run

Michael Kentris 11:19

we get a little telegram, a little telegram for case.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

So I guess she's got kind of like this little marquee type thing that is showing up in her vision that Case is also viewing, and it's just case in all caps with like a bunch of sequential zeros, and it's done in a sort of grid. This one's like a what is it, three by eight would make sense, but it's three by nine.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

And then she's like, guess it's for you.

Michael Kentris 11:49

And we get a warning from Wintermute via Dixie about uh just hey, that reference to General Girling. Uh, we figure out that it was who trained Corto for screaming fists, sold his butt to the Pentagon. Basically, Wintermute's like, the fact that Armitage mentioned General Girling is a very bad sign. And then we get a little follow-up from Dixie, watch your ass. And she's like, Well, guess you've got problems too. Yeah, yeah, that's that is very true. But yeah, apparently, and this is something that uh Wintermute has talked about in the past conversations. I think he mentions it again, right, when he's using these personas that people have. He says it's like it's like gearing down, right? It's like think of like a high-speed engine. I need to slow ratchet into a lower gear so I can talk with you meatbags. So he's able to use that. And apparently, I guess he's been using the general girling persona talking to Armitage slash Corto. But the fact that that knowledge of who this person is is coming to light means that again, that barrier between the two personas is breaking down. Which, yeah, not good. When you have like a when you have a I think I've seen this done in different stories before where they call like rapid integration of multiple personalities or some stuff like that. It's always a bad thing, right? Right, right. No, yeah, it's it's never a good thing having two personalities in a a single entity. Yeah. And uh I like that um so again, right, as Case is riding aro along in Molly's head, we uh she's climbing up some tube and uh she just says, Nobody told me about this part. And then uh Case jacks out. So he's back in the mouth uh the the Garvey at this point.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Mm-hmm.

Michael Kentris 13:42

And he's talking to Malcolm here, right? And he just says, like, your boss man's gone, very strange. The founders are telling him to cut and run. So So yeah. And he's not Armitage, uh, he's like, he's telling me to set course for Finland. So So yeah, that is right. I think we remember back to the story from the Screaming Fist. The idea was like they're trying to get out of Russia to Finland to Helsinki to like find safe findings or something, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Just a quick quick aside, totally not essential point. He's still got his come down from the beta-phenylethylamine uh hangover, and he's like, brain's got no nerves in it. He told himself it can't really feel this bad. Which is true, technically. Your brain doesn't feel pain. It's all the stuff around your brain that feels the fair. Right, all right. Anyway, but yes, so yeah, anyway, the uh all the screaming fists and Russians and the blood of the betrayer shall be on our hands. Founders say the mute voice be false prophet. Uh Aaron and I must abandon the Marcus Garvey in return.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I'd kind of like this where So we do find out that apparently Armitage in those little videos that he's sending me orders is covered in blood. We don't know who's yet. But uh Kay's like, what about me? Malcolm's essentially like, hey, you're coming with me.

Michael Kentris 15:04

I I got you, buddy. Like, I got you. Yeah. Malcolm seems like an upright guy. Malcolm seems like a pretty solid guy. They've built up a rapport over these past however many days. Like a few. But um but yeah, Case is uh he's ruminating on this, and he's like, he's got he saw the sacks of toxin dissolving in his arteries. He saw Molly hauling herself up the endless steel rungs, and uh he's like, I don't know. She's inside, Molly's inside in stray light. Uh if there's any Babylon, man, that's it. And uh if we leave on her, she ain't coming out. Steppen Razor or not, which is still a good name. Um so I like this. Uh Malcolm asks case, uh, she or woman, and he's like, I don't know, nobody's woman, maybe. Uh and he's like, F this, f Armitage, F Wintermute, and F U. I'm staying right here. So case I kind of have a little bit of uh breakdown there. Or not breakdown, but a stiffening of his spine, let's say.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Stiff upper lip. So yeah, he refuses to abandon Molly.

Michael Kentris 16:10

Yes. I like this. Malcolm is a rude boy. Uh Malcolm refers to himself as a rude boy, which I always I always thought that was like a funny phrasing. Yeah. I mean, I get it. It's uh, you know, like you don't follow rules, basically. But so he uh you know flips back in to the Matrix, has a conversation with Dixie again. Uh the Chinese program's getting bigger, as Flatline says here, it's getting stickier. And he says, again, your boss is getting weird. Uh he wiped the bank on the other Osaka, damn near took ours with it. Uh, Wintermute put some on something on there before it went black. And he's straylight is uh you find out that uh Wintermute is blocking stray light's internal security alarms. So most of the people there are in the cold sleep still. And so but they haven't been able to block all of the transmissions. So they find out that the law firm and Tesser Ashpool know that old man Ashpool is dead.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah, has one of these medical remote planted in his sternum, so once he died, it kind of just went off and alerted everybody. Life alert. Life alert, basically.

Michael Kentris 17:17

Help. I've been shot with a mycotoxin and I can't get up. Yes. As he says here, uh yeah, not that your girl's dart would have left a resurrection crew with much to work with. Shellfish toxin.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Oh, shellfish, not myco. That's right.

Michael Kentris 17:32

Still, pretty bad. Mm-hmm. So we this is where we find out why the timeline matters right here. So they've got we've been talking about three gene, so this is eight gene. So eight gene has been down on Earth in, I believe, Australia. And um which is weird. Oh wait, no, three jane, eight gene. Yes. Oh my gosh. Totally differently. You know, this is like I got a thing with threes and eights, they get mixed up in my head sometimes because they look the same. Anyway, so so eight gene is down planet side. And that's right. He's gonna be able to handle things when he gets back, which they're estimating is around 0900. So they slotted the Kouang virus at 0232, it is currently 0445, and they estimate that it will penetrate the core at 0830. So they're gonna have a window of roughly 30 minutes once the ice is in place to do the physical password. So there basically we've got like four hours and fifteen minutes before this whole thing goes up in flames.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yes.

Michael Kentris 18:51

Not all the time. Yes. So we get yeah, very much like the um the Oceans Eleven movie where you got all the different, like, you know, the you know, picture in pictures coming up there with like the ticking clock kind of thing. The split screens. Right. Or if you want to go even older, like the old episodes of 24.

unknown 19:08

Oh my god.

Michael Kentris 19:08

Do you ever watch? Do you remember that? I do remember. I never watched it, but I remember commercials. There'd be like four screens on the TV, and it'd be like, you know, that's very menacing, like cock, tick, tock tick. Yeah. With like this huge echo on it. Anyway, uh so we're sort of getting that kind of vibe from this, I think. So yeah, uh, we find out that uh Riviera must have talked 3 Jane into blocking some of this. Uh and I like this, or else she's just as crazy as her old man was. But so yeah, they're they're kind of talking about all these moving things here, and the reason why security has been hackable a little bit is because all of these people over the years have created their own personal backdoors for various scams and schemes. So there have been some areas where other people can work their way through.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Feints within feints.

Michael Kentris 20:08

And what happens next, well? So we get another uh little video from Armitage.

Corto Surfaces And The Ship Goes Wrong

Michael Kentris 20:15

Again, uh a white lozenge snapped into position, filled with a close-up of mad blue eyes. Case could only stare. Colonel Willie Corto, special forces, strike force screen fist had found his way back. Uh-oh. The image was dim, jerky, badly focused. Jeez. Corto was using the Haniwa's navigation deck to link with the Hosaka and Marcus Garvey. And so, yes, he's completely lost. Lost it. Yeah. Yes. So he's like, Case, I need the damage reports at Omaha Thunder. And Case just kind of like plays along with it a little bit. Say uh Colonel, hang in there, boy. Remember your training. And basically, you know, Corto's back in the screaming fist operation at this point in time. He's again like, we gotta get to Finland. We are trying to escape. General Girling betrayed me. Just all of these very bad things.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

So case, uh case is a little concerned to say the least.

Michael Kentris 21:17

I like this little there's a couple lines here from this next paragraph that I thought were very poetic and dark. Wintermute had built something called Armitage into a catatonic fortress named Corto. And now Armitage was gone, blown away by the winds of Corto's madness. But where had Corto been those years? Yeah, again, I think it ties in very much to that concept of memory that Wintermute was talking about before.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

Mm-hmm.

Michael Kentris 21:45

Where it's like, there's this personality now. While Armitage, quote unquote, had been walking around running errands for how many years for Wintermute, what was going on with this personality? Was it just you know like like with uh if we want to further strain our analogy, like with Ashpool, where the um the coldness came in drop by drop in the night, uh or was it drops of night? Is that right? That came in from the void. Yes. Yeah. It has that same flavor of things, right? Like this personality has also been in some sort of stasis. But was it true? Like was it just like, you know, blip or was it one of those things where like they said we wouldn't feel anything, they were wrong. Um that kind of thing. So has he gotten progressively more unstable during this period of time? I mean I think you'd make an argument for very likely, yes. But uh but yes, he says uh who's betrayed us? General Girling you know him by a code name which I thought like did I miss where they mentioned the code name? I didn't find it here. So I wonder if this is some sort of foreshadowing here. Maybe is General Girling somebody else that we have met? Question mark. I'm very curious. I don't know if we'll find out or if this is just a red herring but it it it has the the taste of a foreshadowing to me. Okay. Sure. Anyway But but yeah he's talking about right he's basically reliving right this is this is this is very much like a like I don't know a PTSD sort of flashback. He's reliving the escape to to Helsinki. So he's kind of saying like we'll we'll do the best but he's like literally breaking down he's starting to cry and the end of this little part here is Armitage's face had been mask like impassive but Cortose was the true schizoid mask illness etched deep in involuntary muscle distorting the expensive surgery. And so he's trying to get him to basically open the mid bay lock. So we'll he's gonna go over there basically so the the call ends and he's just like the toxins the effing toxins and he's talking to Malcolm here as like a slow poison. That a hole upstairs knows how to counter it and now he's crazier than a shit house rat. Uh-huh so we're trying to minimize our swears as much as possible but there's a fair amount in these chapters. There's a lot in this book yes yes so anywho uh yes so he is crazier than uh rat. Yes so he's uh he's heading on up there through the the airway here and basically we get this this description of of the ship which you know it's I don't know if you have much to say about that well just sounds like it's uh very fancy compared to you know this very bare bones Garvey that they've been in so far.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

So the honey was Bid Bay hatch was creamy gray, blank and pristine. I think at some point it's mentioned that oh here we go. Case fell as though he were invading some rich man's private spa by way of the shower so it's just like covered in all these grey Italian tiles just very very expensive very over the top and apparently had been built or at least assembled in orbit. So again never intended for reentry just so you can flaunt like it can be whatever we want it to be. It doesn't have to be confined by gravity necessarily right and they basically describe it to like a Mercedes.

Michael Kentris 25:24

So it's like the Mercedes of Space Yachts.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Mm-hmm and as they're navigating towards Corto uh they smell faintly well it smells faintly of pine the air but there's also disturbing edge of burning insulation which never a good sign might be like an electrical fire or something going on.

Michael Kentris 25:46

Yeah which is exactly what Malcolm says there's trouble here any boat you smell that which you know you don't want an electrical fire in your spaceship I can only presume right there's only so much oxygen that you can burn up. Right I like this uh as they're going through here he case makes out the familiar chatter of a printer turning out hard copy so I like that in in my head it's like the old like bitmap style printers you know like the really loud chunky ones. Yeah the dot matrix printers.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Exactly yes get the perforated edges on the sides so it can feed it through everything like that. Oh yeah takes me back to our childhood and then yeah they see the printout it's all zeros and initially Malcolm's just wondering if it's like a systems crash but case does mention that the flat line had mentioned that Armitage had wiped the Hosaka that he had in here. So I don't necessarily know what that means in this context just like clearing out the electronics or do you in this case it sounds like as we get a description in a page or two he shot a bunch of holes at it.

Michael Kentris 27:02

Just blowing it up okay all right but on en route to the computer we we find a uh small Japanese man who had been garreted which is probably where our blood came from yeah yeah single sphere of dark blood had congealed there like some strange precious stone a red black pearl talking about on his throat obviously yeah I do like the one wonder how long he had that on him case said remembering Quarto's postwar pilgrimage so it's just like oh he had that probably the whole time so navigating the ship looking for the bridge because that's obviously where Quarto's supposed to be and again we get another thing with the printer here still spewing its flimsy tongue of paper and obviously with kind of Wintermute working in the background it it's kind of like this thought of is that winter mute trying to get her intention or something or some other behind the scenes but I don't know if it's necessarily explained here if it is or not.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

It left it a little vague.

Michael Kentris 28:07

Yeah but again we do see here at the Osaka its face had been drilled through at least a dozen times and yeah you can tell Malcolm's like good guess on the burning the computer with a laser yes and so they find the bridge is locked and we learned that it also serves as an escape pod slash lifeboat and that it is in process of blasting off right and I like this uh we get uh some layers on Malcolm here uh because this display pops up and he's like you read Japanese and he's like uh and that's what he says right the bridge is it's counting down and he slaps on his helmet and seals it so I'm like ooh things things are getting hot right now yeah so the seal's not intact it's launching with an open lock which again is not good it's going to take all the atmosphere out when that blasts off but uh basically we get a little a little bit here from Quarto and he's like sorry Case it has to be this way one of us has to get out one of us has to testify if we all go down here it ends here but I'll tell them case I'll tell them all of it so again he's he's thinking he's going to Finley he's going to Helsinki to to testify about all the events that have gone down with screaming fist but uh yeah that uh it doesn't it doesn't go that way does it nope so so yeah and case now thinking like hey this is this is winter mute uh he's just like screaming don't do this to me you know he starts tearing up and you kind of get this zero G the tears bouncing off the face plates wobbling crystal droplets and yeah and he's gone he's gone and the last paragraph of this chapter was was kind of dark here. Case was seeing Armitage's endless fall around Freeside through vacuum colder than the steps. For some reason he imagined him in his dark burberry the trench coat's rich folds spread out around him like the wings of some huge bat End chapter. So

Armitage Falls Into The Void

Michael Kentris 30:18

yeah that that was a pretty actiony chapter I would say. Yeah. I mean yeah killed off one of the uh main characters but who was he even uh but yeah it's it's kind of a sad right this guy with special forces and he gets all mangled up and then he gets rebuilt by some AI into a disposable front.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Yeah. Right. It it does make you wonder why Wintermute chose him in the first place just because it seemed like it did take a lot of extra effort to salvage him to some degree to be able to use for this maybe it was just because it's like okay this is a disposable tool so once he serves his purpose to be dead that kind of thing.

Michael Kentris 31:00

Right. Maybe it was that he had access to the clinic right because we know that some places he has access to some places he doesn't so yeah so case jacks back into the Matrix or cyberspace when he's on the Garvey and Dixie Flatlines just asking like what you went for and we have cages like where mute killed Armitage Bloom out in a lifeboat with the hatch open I like this response like tough crap the Flatline said weren't exactly butthole buddies were right obviously swap in swap in swears where appropriate. The stronger swears yeah flatline not exactly a pillar of empathy here no no to be fair he wants to just be erased at this point and uh yeah case's trust in Wintermute already weak continues to weaken because I was like I don't exactly trust Wintermute to give it to me referring to how to unbond the toxin sacks and I I like this like every time Dixie Flatline laughs it's always described as like a hideous approximation of laughter like scrapes under Case's nerves like a dull blade.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

I was like maybe that means you're getting smart.

Michael Kentris 32:19

And

Molly Pushes Deeper Into Straylight

Michael Kentris 32:20

then he sim stim switches back to Molly's point of view. Rice. And it is 0627 so time is progressing. About two hours till the ice is supposed to be hacked by the virus and two and a half hours until eight Jean arrives back at Freeside slash straylight. Right we find out she's been she's been making her way through Villa Straylight for an over an hour. Make a lot of endorphins for that leg pain. And she seemed to move through a warm bath. I like this the brawn drone was perched on her shoulder uh so my head it's like this this would be such a good movie, you know uh reading through this I think we have the technology to to make it into something good now. Maybe back in the 80s it would have been a little lackluster with the special effects but I I think this could be made into a pretty solid film these days. I think so she's making her way and we get this like big diversion. So we're we're in Molly's head but we're in Case's head inside of Molly's head right yes so he's ruminating here the head speech Three Jane's essay on straylight came back to him as she worked her way deeper into the maze of the place. Straylight was crazy. Was craziness grown in the resin concrete they'd mixed from pulverized lunar stone grown in welded steel and tons of knick knacks all the bizarre impedimenta they'd shipped up the well to line their winding nest. But it wasn't a craziness he understood, not like Armitage's madness, which he now imagined he could understand. Twist a man far enough, then twist him as far back in the opposite direction, reverse and twist again the man broke, like breaking a length of wire So you know Casey's a little bit of a philosopher sometimes here. Mm-hmm definitely he certainly had uh reason for it as of late for the nature of his operation right and we again again he's he is ruminating on the idea of memories here. Mm-hmm Winterm had built Armitage up from scratch with Corto's memories of screaming fist as the foundation but Armitage's memories quote wouldn't have been Corto's after a certain point. Case doubted if Armitage had recalled the betrayal, the night wings whirling down in flame. Armitage had been a sort of edited version of Corto, and when the stress of the run had reached a certain point, the Armitage mechanism had crumbled, Corto had surfaced with his guilt and his sick fury. And then he's going over like Ashpool's death this was a more puzzling death Ashpool's the death of a mad king and he'd killed the puppet he'd called his daughter the one with three Jane's face This was the part I like about the Zaibatsus here. It seemed to Case as he rolled Molly's broadcast sensory input through the corridors of stray light that he'd never really thought of anyone like Ashpool, anyone as powerful as he imagined Ashpool had been as human. Power in Case's world meant corporate power. The Zaibatsus, the multinationals that shaped the course of human history had transcended old barriers viewed as organisms they had attained a kind of immortality you couldn't kill a zaibatsu by assassinating a dozen key executives so a very long diversion there on like the nature of memory and like individual versus corporate memory also which is I thought an interesting thing.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Yeah definitely and I mean to a point it makes sense like like he said you know with the Zaibatsu it's not a single entity you can kill necessarily it's a whole host it's like a hive essentially of of people who are able to kind of keep replacing the individuals that you think are kind of these linchpins of the organization or the entity right I mean that's what they say about anyone working in a corporate job you know you are replaceable.

Michael Kentris 36:21

Right. So yeah and that that is that is the whole point of a corporate organization is to have replaceable people. So it it can be right that's the the extreme of it is a dehumanizing widget factory. Yeah. I mean yeah it literally like kind of runs off the principle of like getting hit by a bus where you know if something were to happen to somebody like we need to be able to continue doing what you were doing.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

So we need that documentation we need just a breakdown of everything.

Michael Kentris 36:53

So if we need to yeah we can pass it off to someone else so and then we we kind of get a little bit you know he talks a little revisit of the wasps versus like Zaibatsus and yakuza hives with cybernetic memories and this line here Case had always taken it for granted that the real bosses the king's the kingpins in a given industry would be both more and less than people. So and I think that has been illustrated by like Ashpool in particular right he he had a lot of knowledge and power but also had become sort of degraded in various ways so I think that is something that we're seeing illustrate a little bit here. You know Armitage was his boss he had again money and influence but was he even a quote unquote real human near the end there. So he'd always imagined it as a gradual and willing accommodation of the machine the system the parent organism so it's it's a very interesting concept that you're you're sacrificing and I think you get a little bit of this with like let's say Molly for example right she's got some cybernetic implants and all this kind of stuff she has sacrificed certain things to get other things so does that make you less human to some degree? I'm not saying I know the answer to that. It's just I think it's a question that is being raised. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Alright and then we get some last germination like wonder where Peter is now huh? Maybe see that boy soon she muttered an ambash where's he case he just responds dead he said no she couldn't hear him he's dead and he flips back to the matrix cyberspace whatever we want to call it punching down I think both are acceptable and again yeah just we get it steady updates here on the virus it keeps getting bigger it's continuing to do what it needs to do. And I do like how Dixie like kind of raises the question like makes you wonder what a real war would be like now that you know we have pieces like this available. So just like and all again an alternative weapon in this world as opposed to like you know nuclear weapons or anything like that.

Michael Kentris 39:24

It's information oriented. So as they're having their conversation there in cyberspace they see something small and decidedly non-geometric up here and who should it be? It is wintermutes in the aspect of the fin.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

Right? Wintermute is fin.

Michael Kentris 39:44

And the flat line says to him I'd never seen anything this funny when I was alive but the eerie non laugh didn't come and so cases like just like you killed Armitage is like Corto, yeah Armitage was already gone. Had to do it. I know, I know you want to get the enzyme okay no sweat. I was the one that gave it to Armitage in the first place. I mean I told him what to use but I think maybe it's better to let the deal stand. You got enough time I'll give it to you. Only a couple hours now right and then uh he keeps going you guys the Finn said you're a pain. The flat line here if you were all like him it would be real simple.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

He's a construct just a bunch of ROM so he always does what I expect him to my projection said there wasn't much chance of Molly wandering in on Ashwell's big exit scene give you one example makes me it makes me think of like you know in any sort of tactical RPG like Final Fancy tactics or something where it's like okay 85% chance to hit this guy and you swing and it misses like that's crap.

Michael Kentris 40:43

That's not how I was supposed to work 100% it's not 100% that's right as long as it's not a hundred and so so Case does ask why'd he kill himself and he just like why does anybody kill himself I guess I know if anybody does but it would take me 12 hours to explain the various factors in his history and how they interrelate and we get a lot of kind of hints at backstory for the Ashpools here. He was ready to do it for a long time but he kept going back into the freezer and he's like man he was tedious it's all tied in with why he killed his wife if you want the short reason but what sent him over the edge for good and all little three Jane figured a way to fiddle the program that controlled his cryogenic system, subtle too. So basically she killed him. Except he figured he'd kill himself and your friend the Avenging angel figures she got him with an eyeball full of shellfish juice juice. And he's like, well actually I guess I did give three Jane the odd hint a little of the old how to, you know so if we think back to that that same conversation that Ashwell had with Molly, right? You're thinking about like they said we wouldn't feel the cold I wonder if if that's what they're talking about filling with. Was that like that perspective of time and all that kind of stuff. Right manipulating the cryogenic process somehow to made him go insane. Decay him yeah and uh case I like this choosing the words carefully Wintermute you told me you were just a part of something else later on you said you wouldn't exist if the run goes off and Molly gets the word into the right slot and Finn's screen blind skull nods. Okay then who are we going to be dealing with if Armitage is dead and you're gonna be gone just who exactly is going to tell me how to get these effing toxin sacks out of my system? Who's going to get Molly back out of there? I mean where where exactly are all our butts gonna be when we cut you loose from the hard wiring very good question. And I like this he tries to make an analogy about salmon and case as we know doesn't even know what fresh grass smells like fresh cut grass. So he's like do you know what salmon are he's like no it's like well they're under a compulsion to swim upstream. It's like I got a compulsion too. So and he says the parts of me that are me now will still be there and you'll get your payoff and case just wants to like punch him in the throat basically and the flatline tries to also confirm that he'll get his payout as well which is being erased right and he's like I told you that remember which I thought he just mentioned that he's Rom, right? And you know you tell me Will I mean ROM is read only memory.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Yes.

Michael Kentris 43:23

So can you make new memories on read only memory I mean you need to be doing some sort of writing and again I don't know exactly what what I don't know it's just a little like we've talked about how uh flatlines having this persistence of his memory over some of these conversations which wasn't supposed to happen for kind of what they implied earlier.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Right.

Michael Kentris 43:46

And I mean one of the things I guess that would be worth considering here is does that memory reset each time like the instance of Dixie Flatline is started up? How long has this instance been going on You know, it sounds like he's been kind of turned on and plugged into things for the past since Sensenet, basically. So he just hasn't been down, is what you're saying. Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

He hasn't had a chance to reset.

Michael Kentris 44:13

Fair enough. Perhaps true. Again, working with what I what I so we basically switch back in, switch back into the SimStim deck. SimSimStick. And that's it, the SimStim switch. So he's back Australia reminded case of deserted early morning shopping centers he'd known as a teenager. Right? So this is gonna I think this is kind of becoming anachronistic too with the decline of the American mall. Like, do people know what it's like a shopping center when there's nobody there?

SPEAKER_00 44:46

I don't know, but I know the one back in our hometown recently got shut down as due for demolition.

Michael Kentris 44:55

Does it really? Mm-hmm. Gosh. Man, small town Ohio, I'll tell you what. Right. The malls, the malls in my area are also starting to have some financial strain. Sure. So, anywho, but that is the analogy, right? So it's this this empty edifice. Molly's slowing down here, either knowing that she was nearing her goal or out of concern for her leg. So she's going through a bunch of weird areas, right? I think that's kind of the recurring theme with the villa strailite here and sort of all these weird artifacts of like old world stuff. And it almost seems like like a crazy hoarder house a la space station. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

And there's also a lot of description, I don't know if necessarily here, but I know coming up soon, of like how everything is designed to look like it was carved out of a natural edifice and just very irregular. I don't know. It the whole thing was very peculiar in how it's been designed. Definitely not what I would expect from you know a gigantic space station like this. Right.

Michael Kentris 46:02

And the only thing I really marked in this, you know, she goes through like an old library, a dust stencil sheet of glass, a thing labelled with a brass plaque. La Marie My apologies for my French La Marie Mise à nous par ses cellars meme, which I I tried to translate here. The bride stripped bare by her bachelors. Which unknown. I don't know what the significance of that is, per se. Because it's just a piece of glass. It's not a piece of art. It sounds like it would be the name of like an artwork. So I'm not sure what significance to put to that. But it seems like a lot of effort for a throwaway name. But yeah. So what do they say? The bride stripped bare by her bachelors. Again, this is Google Translate, as I do not speak French. But uh but yeah, it's suggestive, let's say. So she's moving through here, and she comes across some workers again, and it is now oh seven oh two, one and a half hours, and she starts talking to Case. She's like, I want a favor. Leg's not good, you know? Didn't figure any climb like that, and the endorphin won't cut it much longer. So maybe, just maybe, right? I got a problem here. What it is, if I buy it here before Riviera does, I want you to tell him. Tell him it was me. Got it? Just say it was Molly. He'll know. Which I love this. Like, what is it? The suspense is killing me.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

For real. I want him to know. I want him to know.

Michael Kentris 47:39

And then she kind of yeah, ruminates, like, I don't even know if you're listening. And then case, I assume like pops up in like her peripheral winter mute's letting her know that he's there. And then yeah, we kind of get a little info here about what Wintermute had been telling Molly uh before she started her portion of this run, you know, back at the uh hotel, the doll hotel.

SPEAKER_00 48:05

So it's like he'd tell you about Marie France, she was the test you're half, three chains genetic mother, and of that dead puppet of Ashpools, I guess.

Michael Kentris 48:14

Can't figure why you'd tell me down in that cubicle, a lot of stuff, why he has to come on like the fin or somebody. He told me that it's not just a mask. It's like he uses real profiles as valves, as is what you said before, gears himself down to communicate with us, called it a template model of personality. So she's trucking on, and I think that's what you were talking about here, Will, where they come across some dark sand and they it's an imitation sand, right? She touches it and it closes like a fluid, leaving the surface undisturbed. So kind of weird future sand. Right. Some s honestly, I thought at first it was like, I don't know, like some sort of pharaoh like magnetic sand or something. Ooh, fancy. Right. And the uh case realizes that the gravity here is near Earth normal, which meant she'd had to descend again after the climb. He was thoroughly lost now. Spatial disorientation held a peculiar horror for cowboys. So again, that kind of like anti-meat stance of the cyberspace cowboys.

SPEAKER_03 49:18

Mm-hmm.

Michael Kentris 49:20

And then we get something bizarre. Right?

Riviera’s Holograms And The Long Walk

Michael Kentris 49:24

We start getting some uh hollows. So a lot of these projections, and it seems like they are the work of one Mr. Peter Riviera. So the first of the hollows waited just beyond the curve, a sort of triptych. Uh she lowered the fletcher before Case had had time to realize that the thing was recording, and they were caricatures in light life science cartoons of Molly, Armitage, and Case. And so, yeah, we get one where Molly's has been overly sexualized and like has like these silver lenses covering half her face. We get one of Armitage there, like kind of like this army caricature. And then I don't know if Case disappointed or not, but the one of him is not too ridiculous, but it's just like him looking a little scruffy. It's like, yeah, I often need to shave. Right. Which they do mention the one thing about uh Armitage also, his eyes have been replaced with like TVs.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

Yes.

Michael Kentris 50:24

Yeah, showing kind of the uh snow, the waste of snow. Right. So very unsettling. So and yeah, so Molly's like kind of talking to herself, trying to tell us something, Peter. As she steps forward, kicks something at the near the feet of the holographic Molly, and there's a little projector here. She basically knocks it off. So she is Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

And yeah, uh so apparently, yeah, it's like a little display unit that he can jack into to kind of program and direct these, similar to what he does naturally. But yeah, just passing a dozen more of these holograms before she reached the entrance to 3 Jane's apartments.

Michael Kentris 51:05

A lot a lot of disturbing imagery. We get that one creature that they had run into uh in the Spice Bazaar when they first were trying to capture Peter, several scenes of torture. Yeah, a lot of a lot of things reminiscent of that one display that they had done for 3 Jane.

SPEAKER_02 51:24

Yes.

Michael Kentris 51:26

And then the last one they come to is particularly gruesome, also. Projected from the vantage point of a small child. And so we we kind of see this one has a background. The other ones had just been figures without any background, I guess. So they're kind of in this uh area of rubble, colorless sky, hell half melted skeletons of city towers, and the foreground might once have been a city square, but there was a sort of stump, something that suggested a fountain. At its base the children and the soldiers were frozen. The tableau was confusing at first. Molly must have read it correctly before Case had quite assimilated it because he felt her tense. She spat then s children, feral in rags, teeth glittering like knives, sores on their contorted faces, the soldier on his back, mouth and throat open to the sky. They were feeding. R three Jane, she's too jaded now to open the back door for just any petty thief. So Wintermute dug you up. The ultimate taste if your taste runs that way. Demon lover, Peter. Oh Right, the the whole idea with Peter is that he is so dark and gruesome that he would titillate this jaded, ultra-rich person.

SPEAKER_02 52:42

Mm-hmm. Right. He wasn't sure if there was like any deeper meaning behind the the Bonn comment.

Michael Kentris 52:53

So I believe so. I I believe going back to his profile earlier in the story, he is supposed to have grown up in Bonn. Okay. So this is from right, they said it was from a child's perspective. So this is supposed to be his childhood in some aspect, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

Okay.

Michael Kentris 53:13

Interesting. Which is dark. Yes. Yes. Yeah. With a crowd of cannibal children. Cannibal children.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

Yeah. Seems like something out of a horror film.

Michael Kentris 53:23

Uh, basically. So she keeps walking and she's kind of like getting herself into mindset, right? She's strolling. Um, you know, draws her Fletcher, etc., etc., and start hearing some music, some piano and horns, and the entrance to Three Jane's world had no door, a ragged five-meter gash in the tunnel wall, uneven stairs leading down in a broad, shallow curve, faint blue light, moving shadows, music. And she says, Case, she said and paused the Fletcher in her right hand. Then she raised her left, smiled, touched her open palm with a wet tongue tip, kissing him through the Sim Stim link. Gotta go. So yeah, she's she's kind of like I want to say almost like sacheting her way into to do the job. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 54:12

You gotta have a good entrance.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

Which is kind of what this whole thing is. So I I do like this beginning part, so she went in just right, case thought, the right attitude.

Michael Kentris 54:27

It was something you could sense, something he could have seen in the posture of another cowboy leaning into a deck, fingers flying across the board. She had it. The thing, the moves, pulled it together around the pain in her leg and marched down three Jane stairs like she owned the place, elbow over gun, arm at her hip, forearm up, wrist relaxed, swaying the muzzle of the Fletcher with the studied nonchalance of a Regency duelist. It was a performance. For a few seconds he knew she was every bad butt hero. Yeah, but it doesn't go off quite the way. So I like this they keep going through her perspective here.

SPEAKER_02 55:05

Right, so she throws Let me see here.

Michael Kentris 55:11

I want to get this the sequence here gets a little off kilter. He'd known and I think that's intentional, right? He'd known that her reflexes were souped up, jazzed by the neurosurgeons for combat, but he hadn't experienced them on the SimStim link. The effect was like tape run at half speed. So, yeah, kind of like uh what do they call it in movies? Bullet time? Sure, yeah. Right, where things just kind of like slow down, like like like in The Matrix, where they're like dodging bullets and they slow down and do like all these like high ultra high frequency scenes.

SPEAKER_00 55:41

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 55:44

So very cool. So we see three of them. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Yeah. And just to point out as she enters the room, she she it says like they were waiting by the pool. Yeah. Mentioned that here.

Michael Kentris 55:56

Yeah, go ahead, take it, take over the next part. So yeah, she seemed to take the three of them in at a glance, the boy poised on the pool's high board, the girl grinning over her wine glass, and the corpse of Ashpool, his left socket gaping black and corrupt above his welcoming smile. He over his maroon robe. His teeth were very white. The boy dove, slender brown, his form perfect. The grenade left her hand before his hands could cut the water. Case the knew the thing for what it was as it broke the surface, a core of high explosive wrapped with ten meters of fine brittle steel wire. Her Fletcher whined as she sent a storm of explosive darts into Ashpool's face and chest, and he was gone, smoke curling from the pocked back of the empty, white enameled pool chair. The muzzles swung for three Jane as the grenade detonated, a symmetrical wedding cake of water rising, breaking, falling back, but the mistake had been made. Hideo didn't even touch her then, her leg collapsed. In Garvey, Case screamed. So right, this is where things just get like disorienting, and you remember. So just as a quick aside, it took you long enough, Riviera said, as he searched her pockets. So the one thing that was weird, and I had to go back and read this like two or three times, but when she shot the darts into Ashpool's face and chest, and he was gone in empty white enameled pool chair.

SPEAKER_02 57:21

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 57:22

So it's like was he vaporized by the which is what I thought initially, like he was vaporized, but he we already know he's dead, so how is he there? So is he vaporized? And then you realize Riviera's here. Yep. And he is casting his illusions. Alright. He's betrayed them. Yes, he is a betrayer. Uh yeah, so he he's searching through her pockets. What for? We'll find out momentarily. Um her hands vanished at the wrist in a matte black sphere the size of a bowling ball. And he says, I saw a multiple assassination in Ankara, a grenade job in a pool. It seemed a very weak explosion, but they all died instantly of hydrostatic shock. And she's like trying to get her hands out here a little bit, and uh he's like, I wouldn't move them if I were you. It's a sex toy Jane bought in Berlin. Wiggle them long enough and it crushes them to a pulp. Like, what? What kind of freaky thing? Don't even want to know, man.

SPEAKER_02 58:19

Don't know.

Michael Kentris 58:23

And uh he's like, variant of the material they make this fluorine from. Something to do with the molecules, I suppose. Are you in pain? She groans. You seem to have injured your leg. He thinks he finds the uh flat packet of drugs in her left back pocket. It's like, well, my last taste from Ali and just in time. So so we get another voice here. It's like, Hideo, she's losing consciousness. Give her something for that and for the pain. She's very striking, don't you think, Peter? These glasses, are they a fashion where she comes from? And uh we get a little more background here, and it's like I wouldn't know Rivera Russain, I've never seen her native habitat. They came and took me from Turkey. It's like the sprawl, yes, we have interest there, and once we sent Hideo, my fault really, I let someone in, a burglar. He took the family terminal. She laughed. I made it easy for him to annoy the others. He was a pretty boy, my burglar. Is she waking Hideo? Shouldn't she have more? It's like more and she would die, said a third voice. And then we get uh message saying, Case, jack out in the winter mute font.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

Yes.

Three Jane’s Room And Molly’s Capture

Michael Kentris 59:28

So a lot of uh a lot of stuff happening right there. So Molly has been captured. Captured. Peter's betrayed them, and three Jaints seems the most reasonable out of everyone there for some reason. She still sounds kind of well, if you think about what she's actually saying, I let a burglar in, had to send Hideo after him. She's she's casually talking about this this petty burglar that she like led in to play with and then sent her genetic cryoassassin after.

SPEAKER_00 59:55

Yes.

Michael Kentris 59:56

Yes. Again, just to annoy the others. Right. So perhaps she's more normal than the others, but she is not normal. Sure. So now we're back with the Finn a la Wintermute talking to Case. And uh it's like, we got a problem. It's like, yeah, obviously. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

Yeah. And so Malcolm's there too. Like they're they're IRL, and you know, Malcolm does mention, like, hey man, you screamed a while ago. And that was, of course, when Molly got hurt, and the monitor lights up with the fin, and like you just said, like, we've got a problem.

Michael Kentris 1:00:38

And Malcolm's like, now who's that? It's like, oh, that's Wintermute. Uh, the picture's supposed to make us feel feel at home, which I thought was pretty funny. Yeah, he's a he's a sarcastic SOB. Yeah. And like I told Molly, these aren't masks. I need to talk to you, because I don't have what you would think of as a personality much, but that's just pissing in the wind case. Because, like I just said, we got a problem. So express thyself mute. Yeah, well, says Malcolm, right? Very formal. And so he breaks it down, Molly's legs, falling off for starts, can't walk. How it's supposed to go down, she'd walk in, get Peter out of the way, talk the magic word out of three Jane, get up to the head and say it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:22

Now she's blown it. So I want you two to go in after her. Of course, that's not Case's usual mode of operant operating.

Michael Kentris 1:01:31

He's he's a keyboard cowboy. He's a keyboard cowboy, he's a Jackie. He's like, us? It's like, who else? So it's like, how about Errol, the guy on Babylon Rack Rocker, Malcolm's pals? Like, nah, it's gotta be you. Gotta be somebody who understands Molly, who understands Riviera. Malcolm from Muscle, which I think is interesting considering he's, you know, in a lighter gravitational field her his whole life. Like, I would assume his density and muscles wouldn't be as strong. I don't know. That's just my thought. It's a good question. And Case is like, hey, I can't do it. I'm in the middle of a run. And he's like, yeah, time's tight, very tight. Listen. And so he's you know, we get some techno babble about a sideband broadcast, blah, blah, blah. And I'll I'll show you how to do all that stuff. But uh, you'll have to take your deck with you, the flat line and Malcolm. You'll find three Jane, get the word out of her, kill Riviera, get the key from Molly. Look, that's all. That's all you gotta do.

unknown 1:02:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:26

Basically the whole thing. Again, tying up another loose end with Riviera. Like, doesn't boat well. Not a good, not a good vibe here. Right.

Michael Kentris 1:02:37

And then he's like, yeah, it's like, I can't go. We're trapped in this other ship. And he's like, no, dum-dum. The Marcus Garvey is a tugboat. You can still go. And so he's like, go to this, go to this dock, and you know, you can get in there that way. And then he jacks back into cyberspace and talks to Dixie here a little bit, again, just getting some progress here on the virus. And I was like, Quang okay, bang on, killer virus. And case cells, I'm like, okay, got some snacks, we're working on it. It's like you want to tell me maybe? It's like, don't have time.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:08

Well boy, never mind me. I'm just dead anyway. Dixie flatline. Classic.

Michael Kentris 1:03:15

Yes. And he's like, F off. And then he flips out, cutting off his torn fingernail edge of laughter. Then we get to scene transition. So we're back with Molly again. And this is a weird conversation. She dreamed of a state involving very little in the way of individual consciousness, 3 Jane was saying. She cupped a large cameo in her hand, extending it toward Molly. The carved profile was very much like her own. Animal bliss. I think she viewed the evolution of the forebrain as a sort of sidestep. Only in certain heightened modes would an individual, a clan member, suffer the more painful aspects of self-awareness. So I wonder if she's talking about Marie, Marie Tessier. Which is interesting. Like because we get all these talks about clans and memory and corporate memory versus individual, and then we get this diversion here, right? It just it's too much of a coincidence. We have here another historical member of this family who's again talking about collectivism, like a collective conscious, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:00

So probably some sort of truth serum or something like that, I suppose.

Michael Kentris 1:05:05

Well, it's like uh whatever she told Hideo to get her to cover the pain and keep her awake. Yes. Surprise some uppers and some downers.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:15

A little bit of off.

Michael Kentris 1:05:16

Maybe But Molly's like, where'd he go to take a shot? And three Jane just shrugs. She's wearing like this large, kind of like Middle Eastern style cloak, essentially. This uh oversized Diabba. Jalaba? I don't know how to pronounce it. Jalaba. Yeah, thank you. Dictionary. So Yeah, interesting. But uh he told me when to let you in, she said. He wouldn't tell me why. Everything has to be a mystery. Would you have heard us? Case felt Molly hesitate. I would have killed him. I'd have tried to kill a ninja. Then I was supposed to talk with you. And 3 Jane just asked why. And why? And what about? Molly seemed to be studying the high, delicate bones, the wide mouth, the narrow hawk nose. Three Jane's eyes were dark, curiously opaque. Because I hate him, she said at last, and that's the why of that's just the way I'm wired. What he is and what I am. And the show, Three Jane said. I saw the show. Molly nodded. But Hideo, because they're the best, because one of them killed a partner of mine once. Because I had to see. So she wanted to test herself against the the the ninjas.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:29

Genetic ninjas. And then we could have talked, you and I, like this. Shall we talk now? Yes. And Molly's like, take this off.

Michael Kentris 1:06:39

And three drain just continues over that. You killed my father. I was watching on the monitors. My mother's eyes, he called them. Like you killed the puppet. It looked like you. He was fond of broad gestures.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

And then that's when Peter Riviera comes back in radiant with drugs in the Sears Sucker convict outfit he'd worn in the roof garden of the hotel. Yeah. Let me get Peter kind of explaining some of the reason for his betrayal. So, at first he says, like, getting acquainted.

Michael Kentris 1:07:11

She's an interesting girl, isn't she? I thought so when I first saw her. It isn't going to work, you know. And Molly's just like, isn't it, Peter? And he responds, Wood or me won't be the first to have made the same mistake, underestimating me. I don't know. Sounds like Peter's pretty full of himself. And he's just like, uh, he talked with me, Molly. I suppose he talked to all of us. You and Case, whatever there is of Armitage to talk to. He can't really understand us, you know. He has his profiles, but those are only statistics. You may be the statistical animal, darling, and case is nothing but, but I possess a qual a quality unquantifiable by its very nature. Which he calls perversity. Yes. And uh three Jane says, Oh Peter, and she's like, no word for you, Molly. He told me about that, you see. Three Jane knows the code, of course, but you won't have it, neither will Wintermute. My Jane's an ambitious girl in her perverse way. She has designs on the family empire, and a pair of insane artificial intelligences, kinky as the concept may be, would only get in our way. So come comes her Riviera to help her out, you see, and Peter says, Sit tight, play Daddy's favorite swing records, and let Peter call you up a band to match, a floor of dancers awake for dead king Ashpool. He drank off the last of the mineral water. No, you wouldn't do. Daddy, you would not do, now that Peter's come home. And then, his face pink with the pleasure of cocaine and niperidine, he swung the glass hard into her left lens implant, smashing vision into blood and light. So, yeah, they bust in one of her implants there. And then we go back uh to Malcolm in case as they're bringing the ship in.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:51

Right.

Case And Malcolm Get Ordered In

SPEAKER_00 1:08:52

Yeah, they're docking.

Michael Kentris 1:08:53

And uh it turns out that Malcolm has a gun on hand, a singular shotgun, an oil slick Rummington automatic shotgun, its barrel chopped off a few millimeters in front of the battered four stock. But apparently just the one. Right. Did you like that uh that which one? Some man in China say the truth comes out of this as he pulls out. Yeah. I didn't have that highlighted, yeah. Right. I believe this is a uh this is a Chairman Mao quote, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:30

That's a good question. I don't know. Oh let me let me fact check that here. Sure.

Michael Kentris 1:09:37

Yes, Mao Zedong. That is the attribution. I thought it sounded familiar. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:46

Alright.

Michael Kentris 1:09:47

So punches into his deck here real quick, talks to Dixie Flatline for a second, and he's like, hey, the construct said old Peter's totally ape ape poop, huh? Yeah. Basically so.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:04

Yes. And basically at this point as well, you know, they're very close to the virus uh getting into, you know, the Teshier Ash pool ice at this point in time. And basically they're very close that they're going to need Case here very soon to continue with the next point of this injection attack, whatever, this virus attack.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:26

Mm-hmm.

Michael Kentris 1:10:28

And yeah, Case kind of updates him on all of the like, hey, we're gonna have to do X, Y, and Z as far as like location is like wonderful. I never like to do anything simple when I could do an ass backwards. So it very much is like the like the talk of an old hand who's experienced at his craft, who's just like, uh, these young kids these days. That's like he sounds like the old curmudgeon, like on the work site, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:51

Mm-hmm. Definitely.

Michael Kentris 1:10:53

Yeah. So he flips back into Molly's uh sim stim and like her darkness, a churning synesthesia, where her pain was the taste of old iron, scent of melon, wings of a moth, brushing her cheek. She was unconscious and he was barred from her dreams. Uh the optic flares is 0729. So the time is ticking by, but he can still hear through her ears, even though she is unconscious. Uh 3 Jane says, I'm very unhappy with this, Peter. Then he says something she can't make out, and it's like, but I don't, and it isn't fun. Hideo will bring a medical unit down from intensive care, but this needs a surgeon. Uh what was that you were telling her when I came back? About my mother. She asked me to. I think she was in shock, aside from Hideo's injection. Why did you do that to her? And he just says, I wanted to see if they would break. One did. When she comes around, if she comes around, we'll see what color her eyes are. Very macabre. Mm-hmm. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:54

And again, Peter just like, she's extremely dangerous, too dangerous.

Michael Kentris 1:11:57

If I hadn't been here to distract her, to throw up ash pool to distract her and my own Hideo to draw her little bomb, where would you be in her power?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:05

And Free Jane says, No. There was Hideo. I don't think you quite understand about Hideo. She does, evidently. It's like Would you care for a drink? It's like wine, the white. Case Jack's back out.

Michael Kentris 1:12:17

So so yeah, they're getting getting all the gear together. I like this. His deck's backup batteries were good for 90 minutes, but the Flatline's construct would be an additional drain. Man, even in the future, we can't really get solid battery life out of anything, can we? No, it's all lithium-based still. Oh shoot. So he uh starts going through his pockets and he like tosses one of the chips out of his thing and it like bounces around in the low gravity, and Malcolm like glares at him. Yeah. So he like puts the rest of the stuff into his uh thing. He takes the shuriken, puts it back into his jacket pocket, and here's the lining tear. So and then they flip the gravity on here. Case gasped as his internal organs were pulled into a different configuration. I like that. That's uh that's a a good detail to bring in. Normally, yeah, your gut's just kind of like doing their own thing and with gravity you don't notice, but yeah, gravity shift. I could see that certainly being an uncomfortable experience. Right. Maybe you get like gravity-induced diarrhea or something. It's all downhill from here.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:19

Right.

Michael Kentris 1:13:20

So

Takeaways On The Run’s Turning Point

Michael Kentris 1:13:21

that brings us to the end of chapter 18.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:23

Yep. Yeah.

Michael Kentris 1:13:24

The darking. So we're we're cooking through this book pretty good, I think. Mm-hmm. I think at this at this current pace will be about two more two more episodes on uh neuromancer, and then uh yeah, we'll have to decide where we're going from here. I know we've been talking about it, but we'll finalize that in time, but Will. Thoughts on on this? It felt pretty action-packed to me today. Definitely. I I feel like, yeah, ever since the run has started, it's been very action-heavy, which, you know, is always very engaging, makes you want to keep reading. I I have to restrain myself from going further because obviously if I go too far, I'm not gonna remember what happened in the chapters for details get a little fuzzy. Absolutely. Like you can take notes, but if you take too many notes, right. These like let me read these real quick. But no, it's it's good. I and I I do feel like we had the kind of like the quintessential things going from bad to worse that you have in a lot of these sort of heist type situations. So Right, right. I wasn't expecting this at all when we started reading. So it's it's been a very nice, uh surprising, pleasant experience. And for me, it's been so long since I've read this book, I do not remember the ending whatsoever. So I feel like I feel like it's still fresh for me. I really only really remembered the first third of the book or so. Again, probably because it was too odd and my brain was too underdeveloped at the time that I was reading it to to make good sense of it. It's I think it's hanging together better for me this time around. So so yeah, this is this has been fun. I've been enjoying this book, and yeah, we'll have to decide. You know, we're gonna continue one of our old series, pick up some new stuff. But yeah, stay tuned for that. So in our final segment, Will, what have you been reading on the side?

Between Two Fires Recommendation

Michael Kentris 1:15:15

Yeah, so there's been a few books, but uh probably the one I've enjoyed the most is uh Between Two Fires by Christopher Buhlman. So I had read one of his books a few years ago called The Black Tongue Thief, which it's kind of like one of those humorous fantasy romp type of things, and I did enjoy it. And this is the Between Two Fires is one that I'd seen kind of like making its circuit on the internet social media, despite the fact that it came out back in I think 2012 or something. But really, yeah. But it's it's definitely got a much darker narrative style to it. It's it's like sort of described as being this horror, like dark gothic fantasy horror type of thing. And it was good. I really enjoyed it. Uh the first half, especially, it was just very well written. I thought the characters were great and the build-up between sort of these climatic events was really good. The second half I felt like maybe it got rushed just a little bit, like the pacing wasn't as nice and consistent, but I thought he was able to wrap it up very well. I was I was very happy with the ending, so it was good. It was very dark, very, very violent, but I I enjoyed it a lot. Nice.

unknown 1:16:31

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 1:16:33

I suppose I suppose just for context, it's it is uh I think during the 14th century in France, during like the Black Death. So there's there's a lot of just a lot of plague victims and you know, ravaging bandits and things of that sort.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:49

So the setting, you you're one of your main characters is like this excommunicated knight who is just trying to like survive and sort of happens upon this girl and is trying to like keep the girl alive.

Michael Kentris 1:17:02

So yeah, it's it's pretty dark, pretty but I enjoyed it a lot, nevertheless.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:09

Very good, yes. How about you? What have you been reading?

Iron Bound And Monster Hunters International

Michael Kentris 1:17:16

So I had read a couple of things since yeah, kind of because we've been lax about our segments for for this other reading, but I had a couple things that I finished recently. So I read a couple books by Andrew Givler. Uh the first one it's like I think it's a trilogy. And the first two are out. The last one's going to be coming out sometime later this year in 2026. But the first one's called Iron Bound, and I guess these he they're being billed as like a progression or cultivation fantasy kind of thing, you know, like, you know, kind of shown in settle, like getting stronger, blah, blah, blah. But to be honest, it doesn't really, it's not as on the face of it as a lot of other cultivation style progression novels are. I think this, to me, it reads more like just like a like a regular fantasy novel.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:11

Okay.

Michael Kentris 1:18:11

But it's kind of a pseudo-Roman setting. And I'll be honest, like in the first chapter or two, it was kind of annoying because they were explaining like all these words like Primus and Secundus, you know, like things that probably didn't need too much explanation. But after that little intro bit, it it really opened up the world. And the idea is that you have the Iron Empire, which is like the Roman Empire essentially, and they have the legionnaires and all this kind of stuff. And when you reach kind of the end of your training at the collegium, you uh compete for a core, uh C-O-R, and this can give you abilities and things like that, like kind of make you more powerful, and you know, kind of goes through like the copper, silver, gold progression arc. And basically uh the main characters from a small village in the Iron Empire, things go wrong, and basically you know, he winds up having going all over the empire, and so you get a lot of the kind of the flavor of the Roman Empire, and I think it's pretty well done because it's more like you know, you get like some of the corruption aspects of it and all that kind of stuff, which I don't think is a spoiler because that's pretty early on. But I think they're very well written, and you know, you definitely get some some drama, some good fight scenes. So it's definitely more in that kind of action vein of things, so it's been very fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:34

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 1:19:36

The other the other thing I've read recently, on the more classical side of things, I guess, was um actually, you know, there's a couple things. I don't know if I should, you know, shoot all my shots this week. I think I'll have something for next week. But uh there was uh a book called Monster Hunters International, which is kind of a little more like super paranormal fantasy, but it's uh as the book would say, they're monster hunters and their superpowers are guns. So they basically uh you know hunt monsters, shoot them up with special guns and stuff like that. And it's it's again super action-y, uh very high tension. It's one of those books where I just was like reading through it like non-stop, couldn't put it down. And then uh I also finished off the Theban plays by Sophocles.

Why The Theban Plays Still Hit

Michael Kentris 1:20:26

So that's like uh uh what is it? Oh gosh, I forgot the first one all of a sudden Oedipus Rex or No, that's the second one. So there is Oedipus the King, and then the third one's Oedipus at Colonis. It's named after his daughter. Oh my goodness, this is driving me crazy. It's sitting on my bedside. But uh Antigone. It's Antigone.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:49

Oh, okay.

Michael Kentris 1:20:50

So they're not written. So an interesting thing, right? They're the way that they are published in some editions is not in chronological order of the myth. So you know, spoilers, I guess, for this uh 2,500-year-old play. Right. But uh, Antigone is the first that he wrote, uh Socles wrote in his career, but it takes place chronologically at the end of them. Okay. So it's about Antigone, and she wants to bury her brother to give him honors, so it's about duty to the family versus the gods versus the city. Um as with most Greek plays, uh, there are suicides and you know, so on and so forth. But uh it's a good exposition on piety and duty. Then there is the famous, you know, Oedipus Rex, where you know, Oedipus famously murdered his father and slept with his mother, unknowns to him, right? He was cursed, he was raised as the son of the like a prince of Corinth, and he had gotten a prophecy from the Delphic Oracle that he was going to kill his father and sleep with his mother, and so he never went back to Corinth. So I'll I'll avoid this prophecy. And so on the road back, he runs into a man in a wagon or something like that, and it ends up being his actual father who gave him away because his father had gotten a prophecy that your son will kill you, and so he had sent baby Oedipus with a shepherd to die of exposure on a mountainside. Yeah. And then that shepherd gave him to some other person who, you know, so on. Raised them and so forth. Yep. Exactly, exactly. And you kind of get the same echo of like in the Odyssey, where when Odysseus has his homecoming, one of the long-standing servants in his household, she recognizes him because he has an old boar scar on his chest. In the same way, Oedipus, his feet were bound as an infant, and so he has a scar on one of his legs. And so, you know, he shows this to his wife, and she's just like, Oh, prophecies are all nonsense anyway. Anyway, she kills herself because she can't come to grips with what she's done. They also have four children together, so that was it. Uh there's Antigone and uh Ismeni, and then there is uh Polynyces and Ediocles. I feel pretty good. I just remembered those all off the top of my head. So, but in the the uh there's a Homeric epic, Seven Against Thebes, which is the war between Polyneices, where he comes back with six other warriors to attack the seven gates of Thebes, and basically he and his twin brother, Ediocles, they kill each other in battle, and their uncle, Creon, says that he can he's a traitor to the city and he can't be, right? That's the whole premise for Antigone. And then the last one is Oedipus at Colonus, where Oedipus, that's the death of Oedipus, essentially. And um uh he uh travels to Colonis, which is a suburb, this is actually Sophocles' hometown, a suburb of Athens, and um basically you get kind of a glorification of him, or he becomes kind of a a spirit, a defending spirit, like in the vein of a lot of heroic tombs in the ancient world. So the well, the relics of these ancient heroes would be considered very powerful and could ward off battles or you know, turn enemies away, things like that. And that was supposed to be the blessing that anyone who had his remains there would be able to defeat Thebes. So there's this whole thing about uh who can claim his relics, and he is hidden in a buried in a hidden place there. But it's a very it's a very fitting end to this series. So even though they're like not chronologically in order, it uh it's a very, I think, fitting end to the cycle. So I highly recommend the Theban plays. They're like, even though we like know, like everyone knows, you know, thanks to Freud, the the whole Oedipal complex thing, seeing it play out is is very interesting because like over the course of Oedipus Rex, you see Oedipus going from this very beloved leader, uh, who's like renowned for his wit and intelligence, to becoming kind of a pariah by the end of the play. And it's very heartbreaking because it's all about how he can't leave. Like everyone's like the shepherd, you know, who he summons from you know to tell him, like, like I heard you were the one who took the baby into the woods, and uh is like, you know, please don't ask me any more questions. And the same to you know his wife slash mother.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:29

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 1:25:31

Like, don't ask anymore, stop picking at this, and you know, he can't leave it alone. He has to know, even though it is to his own ultimate, you know, dishonor. So it's one of those things where it's like you you know the ending, and so it's bringing that tension to it despite everyone knowing the story. So it's it's very well done. And I believe in Aristotle's works, he calls it like the pinnacle of tragedy. So definitely uh worth worth a read, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:03

Yeah, for sure. Or at least seeing a production of it.

Michael Kentris 1:26:06

Right. Yeah, if you can find one, yes. It has been reproduced in several different fashions. There was a famous French one that was, gosh, sometime in the early 1900s uh that was pretty well known, but it seems that a lot of the modern updates to it lose some of that tension when they've tried to remake it in different ways. The Penguin Classics edition does have a nice foreword by I believe it's by Fagels, Robert Fagels, who's a classicist, and uh he talks about some of these other productions that were done. So yeah, it would be interesting because a lot of times the ones that do the classical ones, they have the the old tragedy masks, right? So that's the other thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:48

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 1:26:49

There is there is actually a famous one, I think you can find on YouTube of Agamemnon, which is very interesting. But yeah, like they have the giant Greek tragedy masks. And actually, it's funny you mentioned that, Will, the production, because historically, the like everyone knows that Oedipus blinds himself at the end. If you didn't, now you do. His mask, like so he changes his mask after that final scene, and so you've seen him come out with a mask that has like blood streaming from the eye holes across the face there. And it is by all accounts uh quite striking. So yeah, he talks about like the looking on the last thing that he will ever see so that he doesn't have to see his shame before him any longer. Uh yeah, anyway, it's one of those things where oh ancient Greek poetry, tragedies, blah, blah, blah, so dry. Some of these are very, I think, very with us still. They're very human. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:45

I do feel like that is very much the case also with like Shakespeare and a lot of classic plays. Like they wouldn't, they wouldn't be classics if they weren't good, you know?

Michael Kentris 1:27:55

Right. And I think this is one of the things, right? The kind of the reason why we're doing older sci-fi and fantasy, bring it back around.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:02

Yeah.

Michael Kentris 1:28:02

Is like what are the ones that have stood the test of time? And when we think about, like obviously, this is a much shorter, we're talking about like, you know, things 50 to 60 years old. But not even for the neuromancer, right? Uh like 40 years old. 40 years old. But these plays are thousands of years old and they still have persisted and people still read them. Why do they do that? What do they have to teach us? Um and it's it's one of those things when you start getting into the classics a bit, you realize how much has been lost. Um, Aeschylus and Sophocles both had dozens of plays, like 70 plus plays. But each of them, there's only about seven for each of those playwrights that survive to the modern era, which is crazy. And we we like to think that, although those are probably the best ones, we don't know. Right. Um kind of same thing with Homer, right? How we only have like the uh Iliad and the Odyssey of what was this would be like seven or so. Six or seven, yeah. The Seven Against Thieves was one of those. There's the uh Nostos, the return, right? Nostalgia. Um and then there's uh various other fragments. We have fragments. Actually, I have a copy of the Loeb edition over on my bookshelf over here of the uh Homeric fragments, which I did read. And it does give you some interesting perspectives as far as like, you know, what happens to like some of the people like Ajax or uh what happens to Odysseus after he gets home. There's some different traditions about that. I know this is not a classics podcast, but uh but that is one of the things I read in my free time. Also have cracked open some nonfiction. I'm still working through uh some books on the Byzantine Empire right now, so I'll I'll give you an update on those when I finish those eventually.

Where To Find Us And Sign Off

Michael Kentris 1:29:41

All right. Well, thank you all for listening this far into it. You can, of course, find us on uh our website, brothersreadingbooks.com, as well as on X at BrothersReading, and you can send us an email at brothersreadingbooks at gmail.com. Will, as always, it has been a pleasure, and I look forward to talking to you and the rest of our crew next week.