In this blog, I have taken a passage from William Gibson's Neuromancer (pages 247-9) and "starred" it, in the spirit of Roland Barthes' style in S/Z. I've included references to Barthes' codes: the Hermeneutic Code, the Semantic Code, the Proairetic Code, the Cultural Code, and the Symbolic Code. I've also linked and decoded the text in other ways, including references to images, videos, other websites, films, other texts and other passages in Neuromancer. Some of these links are explicitly commented on, while others are commented on via the title of a post or the context of the link, or are commented on implicitly by the choice of reference. In some cases, the commentary is formed by addressing the reader of this blog.
The links from the passage are accessed by direct links from the text. Further links are not always explicit; some are accessed through text (or lack there of), while others are accessed through images. Some links lead to dead ends, whereas others lead to further series of links, some of which lead back to the original passage. This is better explained by experimenting with and exploring the blog.
The entire project actually consists of two blogs: Cracked AI and AI Cracked. The former includes this introduction and the actual passage, whereas the other consists of links and commentary.
Enjoy.
-Charles Crandon
The Straylight Run
"Kuang Grade Mark Eleven is haulin' ass in nine seconds, countin', seven, six, five..."
The Flatline punched them up, smooth ascent, the ventral surface of the black chrome shark a microsecond flick of darkness.
"Four, three..."
The Flatline punched them up, smooth ascent, the ventral surface of the black chrome shark a microsecond flick of darkness.
"Four, three..."
Case had the strange impression of being in the pilot’s seat in a small plane. A slat dark surface in front of him suddenly glowed with a perfect reproduction of the keyboard of his deck.
"Two, an’ kick ass-"
Headlong motion through the walls of emerald green, milky jade, the sensation of speed beyond anything he’d known before in cyberspace.... The Tessier-Ashpool ice shattered, peeling away from the Chinese program’s thrust, a worrying impression of solid fluidity, as though the shards of a broken mirror bent and elongated as they fell-
"Two, an’ kick ass-"
Headlong motion through the walls of emerald green, milky jade, the sensation of speed beyond anything he’d known before in cyberspace.... The Tessier-Ashpool ice shattered, peeling away from the Chinese program’s thrust, a worrying impression of solid fluidity, as though the shards of a broken mirror bent and elongated as they fell-
"Christ," Case said, awestruck, as Kuang twisted and banked above the horizonless fields of the Tessier-Ashpool cores, an endless neon cityscape, complexity that cut the eye, jewel bright, sharp as razors.
"Hey, shit," the construct said, "those things are the RCA Building. You know the old RCA Building?" The Kuang program dived past the gleaming spires of a dozen identical towers of data, each one a blue neon replica of a Manhattan skyscraper.
"You ever seen resolution this high?" Case asked.
"No, but I never cracked an AI, either."
"This thing know where it’s going?"
"It better."
They were dropping, losing altitude in a canyon of rainbow neon.
"Dix-"
"Hey, shit," the construct said, "those things are the RCA Building. You know the old RCA Building?" The Kuang program dived past the gleaming spires of a dozen identical towers of data, each one a blue neon replica of a Manhattan skyscraper.
"You ever seen resolution this high?" Case asked.
"No, but I never cracked an AI, either."
"This thing know where it’s going?"
"It better."
They were dropping, losing altitude in a canyon of rainbow neon.
"Dix-"
An arm of shadow was uncoiling from the flickering floor below, a seething mass of darkness, unformed, shapeless...
"Company," the Flatline said, as Case hit the representation of his deck, fingers flying automatically across the board. The Kuang swerved sickeningly, then reversed, whipping itself backward, shattering the illusion of a physical vehicle.
The shadow thing was growing, spreading, blotting out the city of data. Case took them straight up, above them the distanceless bowl of jade-green ice.
The city of the cores was gone now, obscured entirely by the dark beneath them.
"Company," the Flatline said, as Case hit the representation of his deck, fingers flying automatically across the board. The Kuang swerved sickeningly, then reversed, whipping itself backward, shattering the illusion of a physical vehicle.
The shadow thing was growing, spreading, blotting out the city of data. Case took them straight up, above them the distanceless bowl of jade-green ice.
The city of the cores was gone now, obscured entirely by the dark beneath them.
"What is it?"
"An AI’s defense system," the construct said, "or part of it. If it’s your pal Wintermute, he’s not lookin’ real friendly."
"Take it," Case said. "You’re faster."
"Now your best de-fense, boy, it’s a good off-fense."
And the Flatline aligned the nose of Kuang’s sting with the center of the dark below. And dove.
"An AI’s defense system," the construct said, "or part of it. If it’s your pal Wintermute, he’s not lookin’ real friendly."
"Take it," Case said. "You’re faster."
"Now your best de-fense, boy, it’s a good off-fense."
And the Flatline aligned the nose of Kuang’s sting with the center of the dark below. And dove.
Case’s sensory input warped with their velocity.
His mouth filled with an aching taste of blue.
His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair–fine glass spines. The spines split, bisected, split again, exponential growth under the dome of the Tessier-Ashpool ice.
The roof of his mouth cleaved painlessly, admitting rootlets that whipped around his tongue, hungry for the taste of blue, to feed the crystal forests of this eyes, forests that pressed against the green dome, pressed and were hindered, and spread, growing down, filling the universe of T-A, down into the waiting, hapless suburbs of the city the was the mind of Tessier-Ashpool S.A.
His mouth filled with an aching taste of blue.
His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair–fine glass spines. The spines split, bisected, split again, exponential growth under the dome of the Tessier-Ashpool ice.
The roof of his mouth cleaved painlessly, admitting rootlets that whipped around his tongue, hungry for the taste of blue, to feed the crystal forests of this eyes, forests that pressed against the green dome, pressed and were hindered, and spread, growing down, filling the universe of T-A, down into the waiting, hapless suburbs of the city the was the mind of Tessier-Ashpool S.A.
And he was remembering an ancient story, a king placing coins on a chessboard, doubling the amount at each square....
Exponential....
Exponential....
Darkness fell in from every side, a sphere of singing black, pressure on the extended crystal nerves of the universe of data he had nearly become....
And when he was nothing, compressed at the heart of all that dark, there came a point where the dark could be no more, and something tore.
And when he was nothing, compressed at the heart of all that dark, there came a point where the dark could be no more, and something tore.
The Kuang program spurted from tarnished cloud, Case’s consciousness divided like beads of mercury, arcing above an endless beach the color of the dark silver clouds. His vision was spherical, as though a single retina lines the inner surface of a globe that contained all things, if all things could be counted.
And here things could be counted, each one. He knew the number of grains of sand in the construct of the beach (a number coded in a mathematical system that existed nowhere outside the mind that was Neuromancer). He knew the number of yellow food packets in the canisters in the bunker (four hundred and seven). He knew the number of brass teeth in the left half of the open zipper of the self –crusted leather jacket that Linda Lee wore as she trudged along the sunset beach, swinging a stick of driftwood in her hand (two hundred and two).
And here things could be counted, each one. He knew the number of grains of sand in the construct of the beach (a number coded in a mathematical system that existed nowhere outside the mind that was Neuromancer). He knew the number of yellow food packets in the canisters in the bunker (four hundred and seven). He knew the number of brass teeth in the left half of the open zipper of the self –crusted leather jacket that Linda Lee wore as she trudged along the sunset beach, swinging a stick of driftwood in her hand (two hundred and two).
He banked Kuang above the beach and swung the program in a wide circle, seeing the black shark thing through her eyes, a silent ghost hungry against the banks of lowering cloud. She cringed, dropping her stick, and ran. He knew the rate of her pulse, the length of her stride in measurements that could have satisfied the most exacting standards of geophysics.
"But you do not know her thoughts," the boy said, beside him now in the shark thing’s heart. "I do not know her thoughts. You were wrong, Case. To live here is to live. There is no difference."
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