Mona Lisa Overdrive (The Neuromancer Trilogy)

by William Gibson

She was accompanied, on these walks, by an armed remote, a tiny Dornier helicopter that rose from its unseen rooftop nest when she stepped down from the deck. It could hover almost silently, and was programmed to avoid her line of sight. There was something wistful about the way it followed her, as though it were an expensive but unappreciated Christmas gift.

The plane wasn’t what she knew from the stims, not like a long rich bus inside, with lots of seats. It was a little black thing with sharp, skinny wings and windows that made it look like it was squinting.

‘It’s not the Ritz,’ he said, ‘but we’ll try to make you comfortable.’ Mona made a non-committal sound. The Ritz was a burger place in Cleveland and she couldn’t see what that had to do with anything.

‘You were hurt,’ Kumiko said, looking at the scar. Sally looked down. ‘Yeah.’ ‘Why didn’t you have it removed?’ ‘Sometimes it’s good to remember.’ ‘Being hurt?’ ‘Being stupid.’

She said suits were the weirdest of all, the big suits way up in big companies, because they couldn’t afford to lose control when they were working. But when they weren’t working, Lanette said, they could afford to lose it any way they wanted.

But maybe it wouldn’t be the right thing; she had to admit that what she did on wiz didn’t always work out, even though it made you feel like you couldn’t make a mistake if you tried.