Summary
Molly enters Jane’s home in the center of Straylight. Fooled by a hologram of Ashpool, she shoots and accidentally detonates a grenade. She loses consciousness, then wakes up surrounded by Riviera, 3Jane, and Hideo, 3Jane’s bodyguard. Back on Marcus Garvey, Wintermute tells Case that he must go into Straylight himself; Molly is too injured, and Wintermute needs to get the password out of 3Jane. Wintermute tells Case to kill Riviera.
When Case walks into Straylight, he sees 3Jane and Molly speaking to each other; 3Jane is surprisingly kind to Molly. Riviera enters, ridiculing Molly and explaining that he betrayed their team in order to help the Tessier-Ashpool family. He then smashes a glass into Molly’s head and damages her lens implant. Even though Molly is knocked unconscious, Case continues to listen in on Riviera and 3Jane’s conversation. 3Jane expresses dissatisfaction with what Riviera did, telling him it isn’t “fun” and that Hideo could have handled her.
Maelcum manages to get Marcus Garvey to dock onto Straylight and the two enter, hoping to trail another member of the Tessier-Ashpool family who had appeared at its entrance. Back with 3Jane and Molly, 3Jane tells Molly that she didn’t want Riviera to kill Molly, because she wants to kill Molly herself after nursing her back to health. 3Jane reveals that her father had killed her mother because she had wanted to construct AIs with the goal of establishing a symbiotic relationship between the family and the AIs—making the clan immortal. 3Jane also explains that she had tried to kill her father, and that she had initially been helped by Wintermute and another AI; presumably, this other AI was Neuromancer.
Molly asks 3Jane if she knows the password and 3Jane tells her that she learned it a long time ago in a dream. Back with Case and Maelcum, Wintermute sends them a cart that will take them to another console from which they can try to jack into the matrix. Something malfunctions and Case wakes up on an unknown beach. He sees Ratz—the bartender from Chiba—and realizes that this can’t be real. After walking along the beach, he encounters a girl, and realizes that the other AI is controlling this place after Case flatlined. The girl is Linda Lee, which is what clues Case into the fact that he is in a virtual simulation. He loses consciousness and wakes up again, with Linda Lee gone. Now he finds himself in a shipping container. Linda returns and Case asks her why she’s there; she can’t give him a clear answer, as her memory seems to have been damaged. She apologizes for stealing his RAM but mentions that there were graphics on it, which Case is confused by, since the RAM was supposedly empty. All she can remember is waking up on the beach after stealing the RAM.
When the two of them wake up, Linda tells Case that a boy on the beach had told her Case would come. The simulation seems to be breaking down; the Chinese virus, the Kuang, that Dixie and Case had set out earlier appears to be working on the AI. Case and Linda go search for the boy. When they find him, Case realizes that the boy is the other AI: Neuromancer. Neuromancer tells Case he has the option of staying in this virtual reality with Linda, trying to convince him that it doesn’t matter whether Linda is real or not since neither of them will ever know for certain. Case refuses and wakes up where Maelcum is. Maelcum had revived him with music and doses of betaphenethylamine.
Maelcum and Case take the service cart back to where 3Jane and Molly are. Case explains to 3Jane that he met Neuromancer. After Case describes the beach where they were, 3Jane identifies it as one that her mother, Marie-France, had visited as a child. While Case and 3Jane talk, Riviera attacks Hideo and blinds him. Riviera attempts to run away; Molly reveals that in twelve hours, he’ll die, because she poisoned him.
Case, 3Jane, Molly, and Malecum go to the core of Straylight, where they can only stay for five minutes. Molly reveals that she has the key to unlock Straylight’s core. Flatline and Case prepare to release the virus. Case takes the Kuang to the beach where Neuromancer is. Case asks Neuromancer why he keeps showing him Linda; Neuromancer explains that he killed Linda because she was too in love with Case—a fact that, according to Neuromancer, would have killed her anyway. Neuromancer killed Linda to lure Case into the matrix. When Case refused to stay on the beach and saw through Linda’s projection, Neuromancer failed, since Linda was his last hope for stopping Case from destroying both Neuromancer and Wintermute. Case jacks back to Molly, where 3Jane is refusing to tell her the password.
Case goes back into the matrix and inserts Kuang into Wintermute, who has appeared in the mask of the Finn. He flips once and hears 3Jane say the password—”three notes, high and pure. A true name.” He regains consciousness somewhere near Zion, aboard the spaceship the Babylon Rocker.
Case returns to the hotel and finds that Molly has vanished, leaving behind a goodbye note. Case goes back to Chiba. He realizes that Wintermute and Neuromancer had managed to merge. In his hotel room, Case’s wall screen turns on; Wintermute, in the form of the Finn, appears on the screen. Wintermute tells Case that he is the “sum total of the works” now, beyond anything anyone could ever have dreamed of. In the matrix, Wintermute explains, he is now talking to different AIs, and has received a transmission from the Alpha Centauri system.
Case leaves Chiba and moves back to the Sprawl, where he finds a new girlfriend named Michael. One day, in cyberspace, Case sees Neuromancer and Linda, as well as a third figure that he realizes is himself. He hears laughter. Case never sees Molly again.
Analysis
The novel ends on a potential cliffhanger, leaving its conclusion up for the reader's interpretation. When Case encounters Neuromancer in cyberspace, he sees the little boy that Neuromancer adopted as his physical form alongside Linda on the beach. When he looks closer, he realizes that the third figure is himself. This realization forces us to ask whether the Case that we follow in the final chapter is the "real" Case or whether Case, like Dixie Flatline, has been stored in a ROM and uploaded as a data-stored memory of the original Case.
In the same way that Case could not decide whether the Linda Lee that Neuromancer recreated was the true Linda Lee, the novel's final scene pushes the reader to consider the value of a "real," tangible form of human consciousness and one that may be the result of a data-stored or artificially created simulated intelligence. If the protagonist at the end of the narrative is a data-stored ROM of Case, would our evaluation of it be different? What value do we ascribe to human originality versus artificial intelligence that may pass as human?
The fact that Wintermute/Neuromancer has reached other AIs also suggests that there is intelligent life in other star systems. This revelation subverts the common science fiction trope of searching for intelligence and other life forms in space; here, it is not people but AI that finds intelligence in space—albeit intelligence that is, like the AI itself, non-human. This may also suggest that life on these other star systems has already been overtaken by artificial intelligences like Wintermute-Neuromancer.
The novel refuses to fulfill the narrative expectation of closure by ending Molly's storyline abruptly. Rather than provide an explanation for her disappearance, she vanishes from the novel, in the same mysterious way that she appeared. In this plot arc, the novel's narrative reflects the society it represents. It is easy for Molly to slip through the cracks of the narrative as it is for Molly to slip through the cracks of society. As readers, we are denied the privilege of closure. The only closure that Molly's storyline receives is her final act of revenge against Riviera, who she poisons as he flees from Molly, Case, and 3Jane after double-crossing them.
3Jane's explanation of her mother's desire to unite the family with AI brings to light the novel's exploration of human-technology relations. Here, human-technology relations allow the Tessier-Ashpool family a way of extending their corporate power and rendering it immortal. However, in their quest for corporate immortality, 3Jane's mother was ready to surrender her family's humanity by fusing their own consciousnesses with that of the AI. The novel ironically frames 3Jane's mother's desire against the actual consequences her AI development has on the family; the Tessier-Ashpools are plunged into ruin, with only 3Jane surviving as Wintermute and Neuromancer fuse into a superintelligence that abandons the Tessier-Ashpool family.
