Unconscious

 Case flipped.

Into her darkness, a churning synaesthesia, where her pain was the taste of old iron, scent of melon, wings of a moth brushing her cheek. She was unconscious, and he was barred from her dreams. When the optic chip flared, the alphanumerics were haloed, each one ringed with a faint pink aura.

07:29:40.

“I’m very unhappy with this, Peter.” 3Jane’s voice seemed to arrive from a hollow distance. Molly could hear, he realized, then corrected himself. The simstim unit was intact and still in place; he could feel it digging against her ribs. Her ears registered the vibrations of the girl’s voice. Riviera said something brief and indistinct. “But I don’t,” she said, “and it isn’t fun. Hideo will bring a medical unit down from intensive care, but this needs a surgeon.”

There was a silence. Very distinctly, Case heard the water lap against the side of the pool.

“What was that you were telling her, when I came back?” Riviera was very close now.

“About my mother. She asked me to. I think she was in shock, aside from Hideo’s injection. Why did you do that to her?”

“I wanted to see if they would break.”

“One did. When she comes around—if she comes around—we’ll see what color her eyes are.”

***

Neuromancer ch 18