All Tomorrow's Parties (Bridge, #3)

by William Gibson

LATER YAMAZAKI STANDS, staring up at the towers of Shinjuku, the walls of animated light, sign and signifier twisting toward the sky in the unending ritual of commerce, of desire.

She straightened, turned, looked out at the lightening gray that was all she could see of the ocean now, past the black coils of razor wire, and felt a kind of vertigo, as though for just a second she stood at the very edge of the turning world.

Somewhere within Laney, something else is shifting. There is movement, and potential for greater movement still, and he wonders why he is no longer afraid.

She hunches her shoulders, drawing her neck down into the carapace of Skinner’s jacket, and imagines herself crying, though she knows she won’t, and climbs back down.

They spoke to him mainly, as did the window of any army surplus store, of male fear and powerlessness.

And gently says: “Asked us where you were, you know?” Her fit with history, and how that hurts.

If the world is to be reborn, I wish to be reborn in it, as something akin to what I am today.”