"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-"