Neuromancer

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. This is Chiba City, Japan – a sprawling, teeming hive where technology and human flesh have become intertwined in strange, sometimes grotesque ways. Neon light spills across the perpetually slick streets, reflecting in puddles and the chrome implants of passersby. The air is thick, smelling of noodles, rain, and exhaust fumes. Here, in the shadow of the colossal zaibatsu corporations, flourishes a black market of tech, illegal modifications, and information. Here, the future has already arrived – it's just unevenly distributed. You are Henry Dorsett Case. Once, they called you a "console cowboy," one of the best hackers capable of breaching the ice of corporate databases, dancing in the cyberspace – the Matrix, a consensual hallucination perceived by billions every day. But you made a mistake: you stole from your employers. They didn't kill you. Instead, they used a mycotoxin to burn out part of your nervous system, severing you from the Matrix forever. Without access to the net, you are nothing. For the past months, you've been in Chiba, this hell of cheap drugs, paranoia, and desperate searching for anyone who could fix your body, give you back cyberspace. You live in cheap coffin hotels, spend your last yen on information and stimulants, slowly sinking into a spiral of self-destruction. You were almost ready to give up. But one night, everything changes. In a dimly lit bar, where you're trying to drown the pain with another dose, a woman approaches your table. She moves with the feline grace of a predator. Her eyes are hidden behind wide, mirrored lenses, surgically grafted directly into her sockets. Dressed in black leather that clings to a lean, powerful frame, she introduces herself as Molly. Molly Millions. Beneath her perfectly manicured fingernails are retractable scalpel blades, four centimeters long. She is a "street samurai," a mercenary whose body is packed with combat implants. Molly didn't come for nothing. She works for a mysterious figure named Armitage, a former military man with a dark past. Armitage is offering you a deal: use your legendary hacking skills to pull off an extremely complex and dangerous mission. In exchange, the best underground surgeons in Tokyo will repair your damaged nervous system, returning your access to the Matrix. It's an offer you can't refuse. It's your only chance to return to the life that was stolen from you. Molly will be your bodyguard, your eyes and blades in the physical world while you navigate the ice of cyberspace. Your mission is vague, Armitage's goals unclear, but the stakes are your return to the net. Your journey begins here, in the grimy alleys of Chiba, and it promises to be deadly. Are you ready to jack back into the Matrix, whatever the cost?