Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)

by William Gibson

cut-out and the circuitry the Chiba clinics put in weren’t compatible. So the worktime started bleeding in, and I could remember it. . . . But it was just bad dreams, and not all bad.” She smiled. “Then it started getting strange.” She pulled his cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. “The house found out what I was doing with the money. I had the blades in, but the fine neuromotor work would take another three trips. No way I was ready to give up puppet time.” She inhaled, blew out a stream of smoke, capping it with three perfect rings. “So the bastard who ran the place, he had some custom software cooked up. Berlin, that’s the place for snuff, you know? Big market for mean kicks, Berlin. I never knew who wrote the program they switched me to, but it was based on all the classics.” “They knew you were picking up on this stuff? That you were conscious while you were working?” “I wasn’t conscious. It’s like cyberspace, but blank. Silver. It smells like rain. . . . You can see yourself orgasm, it’s like a little nova right out on the rim of space. But I was starting to remember. Like dreams, you know. And they didn’t tell me. They switched the software and started renting to specialty markets.” She seemed to speak from a distance. “And I knew, but I kept quiet about it. I needed the money. The dreams got worse and worse, and I’d tell myself that at least some of them were just dreams, but by then I’d started to figure that the boss had a whole little clientele going for me....