How It All Goes Down
- In a scene reminiscent of a laser light show, Case and Dixie hack into the London database. They find a file on a man named Colonel Willis Corto.
- Case lies next to Molly and thinks about Corto. Corto had been in operation Screaming Fist. His team had trained for three years, but a Russian emp (electro-magnetic pulse) had messed up all their equipment. The team made it out, somehow, and crashed landed in Finland.
- Corto was badly injured. A group of congressmen fixed him up to testify, but once he met their needs, they dumped him. Obsessed and depressed by their betrayal, Corto went 'round the bend: killing people, robbing banks, and being an all-around heinous guy.
- He wound up in a Paris mental hospital, where he received an experimental treatment for schizophrenia. The treatment reversed schizophrenia by allowing scientists to program the patient's minds. Of the experiment group, only Corto was successfully "treated."
- The record ends there.
- Case wakes up to the telephone ringing. It's Corto, erm, Armitage that is. He says their heading to Constantinople, erm, now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople. Sorry, we're huge They Might Be Giants fans. We couldn't resist.
- Case and Molly pack up. While leaving the Sprawl, Case remembers his childhood there.