Summary
Case and Molly arrive in Freeside, a city similar to Las Vegas, along with Riviera and Armitage. On the way to Freeside, they stop in Zion, a colony founded by defecting workers, where Molly and Case practice acclimatizing to zero gravity conditions on Armitage’s orders. While he practices, Dixie asks Case to kill him and erase the ROM of his consciousness after the mission is concluded. Later, Case watches as Riviera plays with a holographic snake, whose venom he uses to get high. After, when they return to their lodgings, two of the founders of Zion visit Case and Molly and warn them that Wintermute has contacted them.
Case asks Dixie about hacking an AI; Dixie warns Case, telling him about the time he tried to hack into a Tessier-Ashpool AI and almost died because his brain activity went flat. Case tries to hack into an AI but wakes up without any memory of how he got there, back in an arcade somewhere in Japan. He runs into Linda Lee and the two go get a coffee after sharing an intimate kiss. Then the arcade comes to a standstill and Linda vanishes—Case discovers that he had been in a kind of flashback. He finds himself in an empty street with a matchbox at his feet labeled “JULIUS DEANE IMPORT EXPORT.”
Case goes to Deane's office. He picks up a gun that’s lying on the desk and fires it. Julius appears, stepping out of the shadow behind the desk. Deane reveals that he is Wintermute, and that they're in the matrix. Wintermute/Deane explains that he is arranging all of Armitage’s actions and business through a microchip in his brain, and warns Case that Corto/Armitage is unstable. Deane constructed Armitage out of Corto; beneath Armitage, there is barely any sane part of Corto left, and Armitage/Corto is at risk of falling apart very soon. Deane has assembled Armitage and the team in order to make it possible for Wintermute to merge with the other half of a super-AI named Neuromancer. Case shoots Deane. Outside of the matrix, Maelcum, one of the Zion elders, and Molly watch as Case’s brain activity goes flat.
Molly and Case leave Freeside, with Case still struggling with the after-effects of meeting an AI. Molly urges Case to sleep and rest, but as he sleeps, Case is haunted by nightmares and the image of Deane dying and Linda, even though he knows that it didn’t really happen. While Case knows that the AI was only using Deane’s image, he remains disturbed and begins to have flashbacks to a relationship he’d had with a girl named Marlene and a wasp colony they’d once found in her room. In Case’s dream, he sees the Tessier-Ashpool logo embossed on the wasps.
Molly and Case meet Armitage and Riviera over breakfast the next morning, and Armitage sends Case to get fitted for a space suit. After obtaining the suit, Maelcum gives Case a Chinese virus for getting into the AI.
Dixie and Case discuss AI. Dixie reveals that one difficulty with AI is that it’s impossible to distinguish its motive—whether it’s programmed or acting of its own accord. Once the AI starts to act on its own, a “Turing” cop will come in to erase it and stop it from progressing toward consciousness.
Case, Armitage, and Molly go to a cabaret where Riviera performs a holographic reimagining of Molly, although his version of her is distorted and grotesque. Case is deeply disturbed by the episode of “dreaming real,” but the performance gains applause from the audience. During the course of the performance, the real Molly vanishes, and Armitage tells Case that she’s left in order to “prepare” for the mission tomorrow. Case goes on a hunt for Molly and finds her in a hotel reserved for prostitutes. Molly reveals that she used to work there in order to pay for all of her body modifications and that she had had a chip inserted in order to block out the memories of it happening—a chip that started to malfunction, allowing bad memories to “bleed” in. One night, Molly came to and discovered that she had assisted in a murder. She killed the man who she had unconsciously helped and went on the run. Molly reveals that she intends on killing Riviera.
Cath, a girl from Freeside who was at the cabaret, drops Case off at a bar. Case reflects on his memories of Linda’s death and the AI encounter with Deane. He realizes how numb he has become, repressing his memories and emotions—especially his love for Linda—through drugs and other means. Suddenly, Cath comes up to him. She gives him a hit of betaphenethylamine, but it only makes Case grow angrier with rage. He leaves Cath and runs out into the street. Everywhere around him he sees Linda’s face. Finally, several hours later, he returns to the hotel, where he sees three Turing Police dressed in white waiting for him; one of them informs him that he is under arrest.
Analysis
Case’s encounter with Wintermute in the form of Julius Deane is an important narrative climax for the novel; it encompasses a turning point for Case, who, following the encounter, begins to develop strong feelings of anger over prior events that he had thus far repressed. Wintermute is able to create a construct that taps into Case’s core desires, taunting him with the promise of a warm place to sleep, food—Linda proposes they go drink coffee—and intimacy, epitomized by Linda’s affection and presence within the cyber-constructed space. But, with the same power that it has to create this promise, Wintermute also tragically takes it away, thus destabilizing Case and forcing him to realize just how much he craves these basic human comforts.
Case’s anger allows us to witness the true consequences of Neuromancer’s dystopia; in a tragic reversal, even though humanity has advanced to unforeseen extents technologically, quality of life has plummeted, so much so that even the offer of a warm cup of coffee seems like a luxury to Case. His personal relationships reflect a similar scarcity. Although he is frequently accompanied by Molly, it is only when Wintermute uses Linda’s image that Case realizes just how much she meant to him and how much he misses her presence. Her death, which was quickly glossed over in the narrative of the earlier chapters, now returns as a haunting motif, physically manifested as a hallucination that Case experiences while wandering through the city.
The appearance of Wintermute also forces Case and the readers to consider questions of consciousness in the context of artificial intelligence. Wintermute’s ability to take on the form of Julius Deane and create environments that feel real is a terrifying one, demonstrating just how easily it can manipulate others to achieve its goals. But Case’s conversation with Dixie complicates his (and our) understanding of the AI’s motives. Where do the AI’s motives end, and where do the choices that have been programmed into it by its maker (in this case, Tessier-Ashpool) begin? The “Turing Police” exist to curb the AI’s power, but Part III introduces the possibility that they may not be enough to rein in the AI’s true potential.
Much like Case, Molly’s anger also gains narrative attention in Part III. Following Riviera’s use of her hologram in his cabaret performance, Molly reveals that she intends on killing him in order to punish him for offensively capitalizing on her body for his own lewd demonstration. Her past career as a prostitute, and the mind-numbing technology she used in order to forget or tune out the experience of physically engaging with men as a sex worker, are other examples of how the future that Neuromancer creates is one shaped by tragedy. Even as technology progresses, institutions that exploit women’s bodies still exist—and are facilitated by the new technology that can further dehumanize women by divorcing them from their conscious selves.
It is also important to note Neuromancer’s use of cultural stereotypes, which often focus on offensive, insensitive, and "orientalized" characterizations of non-American cultures. The elders of Zion, such as Maelcum, speak in an exaggerated form of Jamaican patois, with their diction and vernacular written out in order to mimic their spoken accent. Chiba City, located in Japan, is used to depict crime and focuses on the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza. While the novel's main focus is on American society, with the majority of the action taking place in the Sprawl or Freeside—both of which are located in a dystopian version of America—it also problematically uses cultural stereotypes as a way of conveying a sense of "otherness" and danger within the places that Case visits.
