Mona Lisa Overdrive (Sprawl, #3)

by William Gibson

She was wearing at least four leather jackets, all of them several sizes too big.

I’m an indie. I make investments, mostly.” “In what do you invest?” “In other indies.” She shrugged.

You ever see a Fujiwara HE fléchette? Hits something hard, it goes off. Hits something soft, like most of you, buddy, it goes in, then it goes off. Ten seconds later.” “Why?” “So you get to think about it.”

Cherry gave a little shiver. She was wearing three or four leather jackets she’d gotten off different boyfriends; that was a Cleveland thing.

And Mona could just watch, because she was so still, and it was all interesting stuff. How the big guy gives this bellow and rushes over, shouting how they’re his, they’re his. How the face on the screen says: “Slick, c’mon, you don’t need ’em anymore.…” Then this engine starts up, somewhere downstairs, and Mona hears this clanking and rattling, and then somebody yelling, down there. And sun’s coming in the tall, skinny window now, so she moves over there for a look. And there’s something out there, kind of a truck or hover, only it’s buried under this pile of what looks like refrigerators, brand-new refrigerators, and broken hunks of plastic crates, and there’s somebody in a camo suit, lying down with his face in the snow, and out past that there’s another hover looks like it’s all burned up. It’s interesting.