Neuromancer why case

One afternoon after they each had a dozen beers, a wasp stung Marlene and ordered him to kill and burn them. Drunk, Case found Rollo 's "dragon" flamethrower in the closet, checked the batteries and fuel and started frying the hive. The fuel was pumped up to psi and spat a 5m spray of white fire, knocking the hive down to the alley, causing someone to cheer across.

Marlene's complaining voice sawed at his nerves and while imagining about burning her, he went down the alley. The nest was blackened, broken open, and singed wasps moving on the asphalt. Behind the shell of gray paper he saw the larvae and unborn wasps in various stages, like the biological equivalent of a machine gun. He clumsily pulled the trigger, forgetting to press the ignition, hissing fuel over it.

When he remembered to hit the ignition, it exploded with a thump, singeing an eyebrow. Marlene laughing from the open window above. When he was 17 he engaged in a fight on a rooftop, while the dawn geodesics glowed rose around him.

He never traveled much, only for business. At some point of his life he visited Istanbul once. When he was 19 years old, he had never touched a cyberspace deck yet but knew it was what he wanted. He was one of the 20 young hopefuls who haunted the Gentleman Loser that summer, watching the older cowboys over expensive beers, hoping they would become a joeboy.

Case bought one of them a beer to learn more about Dixie Flatline who was sitting across the bar, learning his feats and breaindeath. Indeed he became Dixie's joeboy and months later they were in Miami ; Dixie would remember that he was a "quick study". The legendary Bobby Quine was also his mentor. At 22, he'd been one of the best hackers in the Sprawl ; in his youth he was a rustler always in high adrenaline living for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace.

He frequented in the bars as a cowboy hotshot, where the elite stance involved contempt for the meatspace. Operating as a console cowboy from a custom deck, he worked for employers who provided software to penetrate the ICE of corporate systems and steal their data, and swore to never make the classic mistake to steal from his employers.

But one time he did exactly that, kept something for himself and tried to move it through a fence in Amsterdam. He met his employers in a Memphis hotel, they paid him, but with ways he never learned, they lerned his moves and punished him. They tied him on a hotel bed, hallucinating for 30 hours, as a wartime Russian mycotoxin subtly burned his nervous system micron by micron. Unable to jack into cyberspace any more, it was the end of his career and the bodiless exultation of cyberspace, trapping him forever in the flesh.

When he was 23 he converted all of his assets to a fat sheaf of illegal New Yen , hoping that he would find a cure, in the registered, or illegal, clinics of Chiba City. He spent his first 2 months in Chiba in examinations and consultations, exhausting all his money.

The black clinics didn't do anything either, other than admiring the expertise of what afflicted him. During his first month there, he hustled intensely all fresh capital in Ninsei.

He managed to find a position in the criminal ecology of Night City through lies and betrayal, occupiynig the dubious position of a middleman, a necessary evil between the buyer and the seller.

He ran the fastest and loosest deals on the street, and built a reputation for getting whatever his clients wanted. Wage was his primary supplier. He killed 2 men and a woman over ridiculous sums to defend his dealing interests. He had sent a brick of Wage's ketamine to Yokohama and was paid. Feeling high that rainy night, he went to an arcade the Namban? They ended up together in a portside capsule hotel. Together they bought tickets at the hoverport and made a first trip to Tokyo and Harajuku , ending up in a pachinko parlor.

Within a month, the combination of his drugs and intense lifestyle, was toxic to her, and she became addicted too. He was a regular at the Chatsubo bar, often confiding in the robot-armed bartender Ratz. Within a year after his arrival, there was no improvement. He was a depressed, drug-addicted and impoverished hustler, trying to make it through, slept in capsule hotels, took turns and cut corners in Night City ; but even then saw the matrix in his sleep, and crying he reaches for a console, grasping temperfoam from his bedslab instead.

He entered a self-destructing arc, even no longer carrying a weapon as a basic precaution, a phase obvious to his, ever fewer, customers.

Furthermore he almost destroyed his pancreas. Once he'd delayed transfer of a synthetic glandular extract, retailing it for a wider margin than usual. He knew Wage hadn't liked that. Seeing her troubled, he offers her 50 New Yen, lying that he can get more anytime. He saw a figure stalking him, and thinking that it was an assassin paid by Wage, he tried to avoid it and defend himself. When he was finally caught, she introduced as Molly Millions with a job offer from Armitage.

Armitage offered him to correct his neural damage. For this he gave the neurologists of an unnamed clinic an ultra-advanced program of the procedure, so that they will do it to Case for free. They replaced his blood in order to receive a new pancreas, as well as the fluid in his back; a new tissue was patched into his liver and a series of injections restored his neural system. The new pancreas cures him of his drug addiction but also nullifying his ability to experience a high.

Case lied to Molly that he must talk to Deane in order to maintain his connections in Singapore , Shinjuku and Asakuza. Actually he wanted Deane to search on Armitage and Screaming Fist but he couldn't help him. Then returned to Chat. Around the same time, he sees Linda Lee killed at Sammi's.

Case accepts the job offer, and begins a new life as a hacker once again. They left Chiba on a hovercraft, then hopped along airports at Narita , Schiphol , Orly. They stayed in the Old City cestion of the Amsterdam -Centrum; Armitage again was off on some business, and walked with Molly past Dam Square and a bar on a Damrak thoroughfare. In Paris she took him shopping. Molly bought him books, tapes, a SimStim deck, French and Italian clothing and a 9-pointed shuriken because she noticed him always looking at them.

Before dawn he bought a flat plastic flask of Danish vodka at some kiosk. They ended up in a loft of an abandoned factory where Armitage provides them equipment for their "mission": An Ono-Sendai Cyberspace VII Molly noted that he hows significant intimacy when he saw the console , an advanced Hosaka computer with a Sony monitor, disks of corporate-grade ICE , a Braun coffee maker; Armitage wanted Case's approval of each piece.

He complained that the augmentations didn'tallow him to get high any more; it was then when Armitage reveals that the treatment given to Case's system is temporary: 15 slowly dissolving mycotoxin sacs were bonded to the lining of main arteries, threatening to undo the repair and revert him to his previous state; an enzyme that only he can provide will dissolve the bond, and the sacs will be cleared with a blood change; thus forcing his loyalty to him.

Armitage continuously withholds information about the mission from Case and Molly, and at Molly's insistence, the two team up to investigate their mysterious employer.

After unpacking he went to a hotel and the pair sat by a concrete fountain discussing about whether Armitage's story with the toxin is true. Then took a tube to Manhattan for breafast. Molly led him through a dozen bars and clubs he'd never seen before. Then took him to Metro Holografix. Afterwards Case had his first use of cyberspace after a long time, and enjoyed it for 5 hours. Molly introduces Case to her old friend the Finn and the Panther Moderns who help them on their mission; Case felt a certain "generation gap" with the youths.

Case was absorbed in its patterns, tracing them and probing for gaps, skirting traps and mapping the route he'd take. Its rainbow pixel maze was the first thing he saw when he woke; he went straight to the deck still naked. Once he remembered Linda Lee, he jacked in and worked for 9 hours. He lost the counting of days but in a total of 9 he provided Armitage with his plan.

Unable to hide his satisfaction, he complained that it took longer than he asked. Connected with " Brood ", the link man of the Moderns between him "Cutter" and Molly, he jacked in on the appropriate time. In the matrix, his icebreaker strobed and shifted in front of him, with his hands coding real-time minor adjustments.

As he entered, viral subprograms peeled off from the icebreaker, meshing with the gate's code to deflect the upcoming real data. It surged through the gates of the subsystem that controlled security for the research library under the Pyramid. As Molly reached the basement, Case triggered his second program, a carefully engineered virus that attacked the code fabric screening primary custodial commands for the sub-basement that housed the research materials.

Inside it was an infinite blue space ranged with color-coded spheres strung on a tight grid of pale blue neon. Case began to key a sequence the Finn gave him. He began to glide through the spheres as if he were on invisible tracks and reached the right sphere, punching his way into it. Inside was a chill blue neon vault starless and smooth as frosted glass; he triggered a subprogram that effected certain alterations in the core custodial commands.

Then he reversed smoothly, letting the cycling virus to re-knit the window with a hair-fine thread of crimson neon still penetrating the wall. He flipped to Molly and felt agony; she had broken her leg, and notified Brood. Molly temporarily restored herself with dermadiscs , and entered the library. Case exited the matrix drenched in sweat; he wiped himself, drank water and checked the map of the library on the screen to see how far Molly is from the construct; 5 more and 10 to her left and said so to Brood.

Once Molly stood before the right cabinet, Case sent a command through the crimson thread that fooled 5 separate alarm systems and the 3 locks of the door; he planted in the memory of the central bank the information that the item was removed a month ago per executive order and erasing the records so that the "authorisation" would not be found. Once finished, the crimson line was withrawn into the icebreaker and the system was reversed, the subprograms whirled back into the core of the program as the ICE gates were closing behind.

Then he watched Molly's escape reaching the Moderns outside. Later he was joined by Armitage and the leader of Moderns Lupus Yonderboy who said that Molly is in good hands.

Case insisted to Armitage that he should pay him now. When they left, at dawn he exited the loft deep in thoughts, pondering on the toxic sacs and the people who killed in Chiba. A battered tricycle-truck with mirrored windows bounced past him, with empty plastic cylinders in its bed. Then Lupus showed up saying he has a message, " Wintermute ", before disappearing in his chameleon suit.

He went to Baltimore and joined Molly who had healed, not wanting to listen anything. Then they went to the Finn where they found out that Wintermute is an A.

Molly left for the loft and Case was drinking steadily. The he took a trans-BAMA local. Inside the car he noticed a pair of predatory Christian Scientists approaching a trio of 2 young office tech girls. Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day by post, in regard to the ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think you are a little high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to believe you will accept.

Huckleberry Finn deceives his father because he knows the only reason why he wants the money is to buy liquor, get drunk and, beat Huck Finn.

Another example of Huckleberry Finn lying to his father is when Pap asked Huck what is he doing with his gun. In one of the last scenes we are told how he has stolen a whole living room worth of dinning sets, and tables. Parks showed us through the character Booth, that he just decided to teach us a valuable life lesson, through the actions of shooting his own. Greed will corrupt and change people take the Whites for example, they wish for money while knowing there would be consequences and they lost their son.

Through the story The monkey's Paw, the Whites our visited by a friend with a magical item, the Whites make the decision to wish while knowing there will be consequences.

Greed takes over people, Mr. White wished for money and his son was killed in a factory and he got his money Mrs. White wished her son back to life but then Mr. White wished his son back to rest because you knew there would be more consequences. The whites were the same as any other family only if they weren't corrupted by an evil force of greed. My first example is how greed affects people's minds. He broke it, some tiny metal part shooting off against the wall as salt-rotten cloth gave, and then he was in her, effecting the transmission of the old message.

Men dreamed that, once, but now it is real in another way. You know that, Case. Your business is to learn the names of programs, the long formal names, names the owners seek to conceal.

True names Where you are, my friend. Marie-France, my lady, she prepared this road, but her lord choked her off before I could read the book of her days. Neuro from the nerves, the silver paths. I call up the dead. A gull cried. Neither will you. He came in steep, fueled by self-loathing. When the Kuang program met the first of the defenders, scattering the leaves of light, he felt the shark thing lose a degree of substantiality, the fabric of information loosening.

And then—old alchemy of the brain and its vast pharmacy—his hate flowed into his hands. And one step in that dance was the lightest touch on the switch, barely enough to flip—.

Plot Summary. All Symbols Wasp Nest Shuriken. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play. Sign Up. Already have an account? Sign in. From the creators of SparkNotes, something better.

Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this LitChart! Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning? Our Teacher Edition on Neuromancer can help. Themes All Themes. Symbols All Symbols. Theme Wheel. Everything you need for every book you read. The way the content is organized and presented is seamlessly smooth, innovative, and comprehensive.

Case, referred to almost exclusively by his last name, is a former console cowboy , born and raised in the Sprawl , but now living in Chiba. Case looks out for himself and his own interests, and this continually gets him into trouble—he has no moral qualms about ripping off employers if it will make him richer.

Although this has backfired time and again, he continues to jilt those who pay him, and the novel opens with Case nervous that his supplier, Wage , who he owes money to, has put a hit on him. Case is only in Chiba because, after stealing from another former employer, they poisoned him, ruining his nervous system and preventing him from connecting to the matrix. Case moved to Chiba in hopes of finding a cure, but ran out of money before he could heal himself.

Case is an addict. Addicted both to drugs and to jacking into the matrix, his relationships and even his work always come second to feeding his hunger. Early in the novel Armitage hires Case and fixes his nervous system, taking him along on a mission that spans the globe and sets its third act in space. A teenage girlfriend, Marlene , appears in a dream, and Linda Lee , his most recent ex, appears physically in the beginning, and digitally throughout the text.

The AI Neuromancer frequently tries to use Linda and her likeness to manipulate Case, although its attempts fail—he loved her, but she does not have a lasting hold on him. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:. Chapter 1 Quotes. Related Themes: Technology and the Body. Page Number and Citation : Cite this Quote. Explanation and Analysis:.

Related Characters: Henry Dorsett Case. Page Number and Citation : 6 Cite this Quote. Chapter 2 Quotes. Related Themes: Identity and Personhood. Page Number and Citation : 28 Cite this Quote. Chapter 3 Quotes. Page Number and Citation : 47 Cite this Quote. Related Themes: Addiction and Dependency. Page Number and Citation : 51 Cite this Quote. Chapter 4 Quotes. Page Number and Citation : 59 Cite this Quote. Related Themes: Reality and Perception. Page Number and Citation : 62 Cite this Quote.

Chapter 5 Quotes. He coughed. That you man? Who the fuck are you? You are a ROM construct. Got me? Page Number and Citation : 78 Cite this Quote. Chapter 7 Quotes. Page Number and Citation : 95 Cite this Quote. Chapter 8 Quotes. Related Themes: Self-Interest vs. Human Connection. Chapter 9 Quotes. Chapter 10 Quotes. Not human, see?

Chapter 11 Quotes. Chapter 12 Quotes. It was a strange thing. Chapter 13 Quotes. Chapter 14 Quotes. Related Symbols: Wasp Nest. Chapter 16 Quotes.

Chapter 18 Quotes. Riviera beamed. Chapter 20 Quotes. Chapter 21 Quotes. Chapter 23 Quotes. And one step in that dance was the lightest touch on the switch, barely enough to flip— — now …. Chapter 24 Quotes.

Related Symbols: Shuriken. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance. Chapter 1. Case sits in the Chatsubo, a bar in Chiba, Japan, that primarily caters to expats. Case has been to every neurosurgery clinic in Chiba, and knows first-hand that they cannot repair After his firing and mutilation, Case moved to Japan, hoping to find a cure in Chiba, but his money ran out He reflects on Case remembers meeting his ex, Linda Lee, in an arcade.

Back in the present, Case is high. He spots Linda Lee, who joins him at his table, offers him a Discovering she Case leaves and wanders through Night City. Case meets him in his office, and tells Julie that a friend told him Wage wants Spooked, Case Back outside, he senses Case decides to throw out the cobra and rent a gun, which is now available. Case enters the Chat with a pistol in one pocket and his flask in the other I just want to caution against being too dismissive.

And regardless of who you are or who you claim to be , consumption eventually subsumes our identities and leaves us with nothing but trauma, violence, and the feelings of isolation that fuel both.

Thomas Jiwon Lynch is a junior studying English literature with a focus on creative writing.