Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant, #1)

by William Gibson

We don’t know what you’re doing, or why. Parkaboy thinks you’re dreaming. Dreaming for us. Sometimes he sounds as though he thinks you’re dreaming us. He has this whole edged-out participation mystique: how we have to allow ourselves so far into the investigation of whatever this is, whatever you’re doing, that we become part of it. Hack into the system. Merge with it, deep enough that it, not you, begins to talk to us. He says it’s like Coleridge, and De Quincey. He says it’s shamanic. That we may all seem to just be sitting there, staring at the screen, but really, some of us anyway, we’re adventurers. We’re out there, seeking, taking risks. In hope, he says, of bringing back wonders. Trouble is, lately, I’ve been living that. She looks up, everything made pale and washed-out by the light. She’s forgotten to bring her sunglasses again. I’ve been out there, out here, seeking. Taking risks. Not sure exactly why. Scared. Turns out there are some very not-nice people, out here. Though I guess that was never news. She stops, and looks over at Peter Pan, noticing how the bronze ears of the rabbits at his base are kept polished by the hands of children. Do you know we’re all here, waiting for the next segment? Wandering up and down the web all night, looking for where you’ve left it for us? We are. Well, not me personally, lately, but that’s because I seem to have followed Parkaboy’s advice and started trying to find another way to hack in. And I guess I have—we have—because we...