MINA2

Part I of 'Beyond the Symbolic Order'

The Psychotic Universe Iles Flotantes: The Lady The Noir Mementos The Detective The Psychopath The Femme Fatale

The Psychotic Universe

Gibson launches the beginning of his career with a vision of a future in which the world has ended. The symbolic order, reality as such has disappeared and everyone has surrendered to the death drive: ' Biz here was a constant subliminal hum, and death the accepted punishment for laziness...' (Neuromancer, 14). The symbolic universe has been submerged in an ocean of jouissance with only a few isolated islands, remnants of its past existence, striving for survival. The space people inhabit is no longer defined as the ' world' but as the ' Sprawl' , a terminal overdrive of unfolding cultural diversification. The Sprawl is nothing but a projection, a subjective phantasmagoric hallucination since it differs from one person to the next: ' Her Sprawl wasn' t his Sprawl, he decided' (N, 62). It is not described so much in terms of space but of cognition: ' This was different commerce, a different rhythm, in the smell of fast food and perfume and fresh summer sweat' (N, 61). The Sprawl can be interpreted as ' an image of the carnivalized city, the city as permanent carnival' (McHale, 154) made up of data freaks and ' mall crowds' , ' a field of flesh ... with sudden eddies of need and gratification' (N, 61). The Sprawl and its inhabitants, is nothing but the frenetic waltz of pure information in which everyone is intent on deriving immense pleasure from the endless surge of data:

For the inhabitants of this world there is obviously no difference between the cityscape, cyberspace and the human being, since the concept of space itself has been redefined: ' physical and electronic spaces are made equivalent, each an extension of the other' (Bukatman, 148). Cyberspace itself is described as ' Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights receding...' (N, 67). It seems that there are no longer any categories, any borders separating one existence from the next, everything has been made equal, the same, which is why ' hustling fresh capital' can be a substitute for the matricial experience:

It is not just the outside world but the cognitive functions of the human being that have been altered since now he can perceive everything only as information, lacking any form or meaning. Case perceives Linda' s face ' bathed in restless laser light, features reduced to a code' (N, 15), in the exact same manner that he views her hair band ' the pattern might have represented microcircuits or a city map' (N, 17). Even sexual pleasure itself is associated with space and data ' his orgasm flaring blue in a timeless space, a vastness like the matrix' (N, 45), its articulation only possible through information terminology. Moreover there is no longer such a thing as a pure human being since almost everyone has an implant of some type or is spending most of his time in cyberspace as a ' disembodied consciousness' . Not only is there no difference between a cyborg and an AI but there is also no such thing as individuality, personal identity or even physical death; every person' s mind can be copied and replicated: ' It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct, a hardwired ROM cassette replicating a dead man' s skills, obsession, knee-jerk responses...(N, 97).

Iles Flotantes

The Lady

This chaotic world though could not be sustained without the few isolated islands of the symbolic because it is through them that the concept of the symbolic order is kept alive. Without the existence of the concept even on a fantastical level, this chaotic world would be eradicated. There would simply be no world, chaotic or not if all the subjects were to assume the death drive and commit psychic suicide. The characters despite their immersion in jouissance are discouraged from annihilating themselves by being given the alternative, if not the imperative of constructing a new symbolic order. In this world then, cyberspace is part of the fantasy formation through which the characters are supposed to extricate themselves from the end of the world. The only way to control, bind this sea of freely floating jouissance is by localising information and reordering its circulation. It is cyberspace then that assumes the role of the object petit a so that the subject can sacrifice his enjoyment for the Name of the Father. It performs the same function as the Ideal Lady, the femme fatale in the noir universe, it domesticates jouissance and makes it possible for the subject to locate himself within the symbolic universe. This way man is no longer bent upon perceiving himself as information, non-existent but settles for the ' pleasure in pain' he experiences by never attaining the object of his desire, by endlessly circling around it. Hence as long as Case is jacking into the matrix he can deny his death drive which he is relishing when unable to participate in cyberspace: ' that same part of him basked in the knowledge that it was only a matter of time...smug in its expectation of death' (N, 15). Perhaps one of the most fascinating elements in Neuromancer is the emotional commitment of the cyberspace cowboy to cyberspace, the object of his desire: ' A year here and he still dreamed of cyberspace... and still he' d see the matrix in his sleep' (N, 10-11). This relationship can be best expressed through the discourse of courtly love, reminiscent of the relationship between the femme fatale and the detective in the noir universe:

Cyberspace can function as the Lady, the romantic poets desperately desired only because they could never attain: ' like the Lady, the femme fatale [cyberspace] is an ' inhuman partner' , a traumatic Object with whom no relationship is possible, an apathetic void imposing senseless, arbitrary ordeals' (ibid.). No matter how much Case may suffer without her ' he' d cry for it, cry in his sleep, and wake alone in the dark, curled in his capsule in some coffin hotel' (N, 11) she will be for ever icy cold. The inhuman nature of the Lady ' a kind of automation, a machine which utters meaningless demands at random' (Zizek 1994:90), reinforces the status of cyberspace as the Lady. ' The abstract character of the lady' , cyberspace ' pertains to a cold, inhuman partner' (ibid., 89) who is entirely indifferent to the other' s needs and desires, quite unaware of his suffering. It is rather obvious then that ' The idealization of the Lady (cyberspace), her elevation to a spiritual, ethereal Ideal, ... is a narcissistic projection whose function is to render her traumatic dimension invisible' (ibid., 90). The ' bodiless exultation of cyberspace' (N, 12) that is, is nothing but a ploy to disguise the fact that cyberspace, ' the Lady is the Other which is not our ' fellow-creature' ; ... someone with which no relationship of empathy is possible' (Zizek 1994:90). In this scenario the ' external hindrances that thwart our access to the object' (ibid., 94) are represented by the concept of ' Ice' . This term appeared for the first time in Gibson' s short story Burning Chrome, and stands for ' intrusion countermeasures electronics' . It is a defence system created by the AIs in an effort to hide, protect specific information; it is actually a highly dense network of information, which cannot be easily penetrated by ' rustlers' . The function of ' ice' is two-fold; it is ' there precisely to create the illusion that without them (it), the object would be directly accessible' (ibid.). It conceals the fact that we cannot access the object because it does not really exist, it is a void, ' a black hole around which the subject' s desire is structured' (ibid.). Its second function is associated with the fact that breaking through the ice always involves the threat of death: ' The dark came down like a hammer. Cold steel odor and ice caressed his spine' (N, 140). It is precisely, through these phantasmal near-death experiences that cyberspace cowboys are able to satiate their craving for self-eradication, exchange drive for desire. Instead of being discouraged by their ' flatlining' , ' EEG flat as a strap' (N, 147), being brain dead for a few seconds in their effort to penetrate the ice, they are fascinated. They become even more persistent because they believe that if they melt the ice they will have access to a hidden treasure in the Lady.

The Noir Mementos

Cyberspace by itself though is not capable of sustaining people' s desire because the object petit a can be sufficient only within a normal not a psychotic world. The moment the subjects disengage themselves from the digital world, they find themselves immersed in jouissance, lacking the urge to desire. This why the subjects are in need of some additional traces of the symbolic that will function as a second fantasy frame, through which they can be reminded of how they used to desire. Since their function is actually to remind people of their past status it is only fitting that they are constituted by the spaces and characters that can be composed through the noir narrative, one of the oldest ' desire' discourses. The first residue of the past then would be the noir city, as represented by the illicit zones of the Sprawl, namely Night City in Chiba, Japan. Night City is usually described as nothing more than ' the lonely, lawless environment of the mean streets' the ' alienated, anonymous spaces' so characteristic of film noir (Ross, 154). It is a futuristic replica of the noir universe and it is constructed around an inner zone, Ninsei the ultimate locus of violence, insanity and desire:

The trafficking in this inner world resembles the plot line of a noir film, since the techniques employed are identical, they ' emphasize loss, nostalgia, lack of clear priorities, and insecurity' (Schrader, 105). Ninsei and everyone in it is on a temporal overdrive, existing on the edge of time and space; it is technology' s black market and its inhabitants are the people who failed in their quest for a miraculous technological cure. Once part of this insane vortex, characters can choose either to stand still and observe the overall pattern or to participate in its disorienting gyrations by hustling, becoming ' artistes' . Ninsei hence ' becomes a space of performance' (Bukatman, 169) in which the artiste is actually a middleman, locating what other people desire, in a sense dealing with information. This outlaw zone is a prime example of the noir universe since it does indeed embody ' in an acute form the unheeding randomness of a world in which the only certainty is death' (Walker, 22). The moment one transgresses the unwritten laws of this underground sector, he is in danger of being erased so that the fragile balance of the construct will not be threatened: ' Stop hustling and you sank without a trace, but move a little to swiftly and you' d break the fragile surface tension of the black market' (N, 14). This area is being preserved by the Yakuza not ' as a kind of historical park, a reminder of humble origins' (N, 19) but as the only space within which Yakuza can still exist. Ninsei functions as the final frontier, a safe haven for the people who cannot survive in the Sprawl, because they are lacking in technological advancement. This is a fact that its inhabitants prefer to deny so that they can sustain their existence: ' But he also saw a certain sense in the notion that burgeoning technologies require outlaw zones, that Night City wasn' t there for its inhabitants, but as a deliberately unsupervised playground for technology itself' (N, 19). It is not technology though, that requires a playground since the whole world is its playground but people like the console cowboy who is no longer capable of jacking in the matrix. He needs a space in which he can simulate his cyberspace experience, remain a ' playing boy' :

The Detective

Although it is indeed only in this sphere, a remnant of the past symbolic order that ' rustlers' can be conferred a legitimate place they can do so only by fully assuming the role of one of the film noir characters. Clearly, then, the only position a cyberspace cowboy like Case can assume is that of the detective, the noir hero. Case descended into this dark universe the moment he was no longer capable of jacking in due to a toxin that ruined his nervous system. He fell into this noir world not because, he was seduced by the femme fatale, but ' by the lure of the big break, the easy money' (Walker, 30). In the exact manner of the classical noir hero then he was ' driven into a direct transgression of the law by some fatal flaw within' (Kurtnik, 47) himself, greed. Case, though, never really fell from grace, he was not ' castrated' as a punishment for stealing from his employers, transgressing the Law, because there is no Law -- no symbolic order. This fall, castration, was staged in his mind, so that he could identify with the role of the noir hero, share the detective' s fate, thus repressing his death drive. Through this symbolic castration he exchanged ' his being (an object) for a place in the symbolic exchange, for a signifier which represents him' (Zizek 1992a:171). Case had no choice but to be ' colonized by the ' dead' symbolic order' and so become ' dead while alive' (Zizek 1997:89) in order to retain his biological existence. Besides this is a noir universe which means that ' the integration of the subject' s position into the field of the big Other, the narrativization of his fate, becomes possible only when the subject is in one sense already dead, although still alive' (Zizek 1992a:151). The alternative to that would have been assuming a psychotic position and either becoming a monster like Reviera or committing psychic suicide. This is why Case convinces himself that cyberspace is far more valuable than his own life, it is his one enjoyment and only identity: he had always ' lived for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace' (N, 12). As long as he can believe that there is even a remote chance that he may one day be able to regain this lost object and the bliss it brought him, he can deny his death drive and assume the role of the noir hero. From the moment he falls into this world he is never in total control of his actions, he is ' subject to darker inner impulses' (Kurtnik, 47). It seems the longer he stays in this timeless city the more proficient he becomes in his role as a noir detective: ' In the first month, he' d killed two men and a woman over sums that a year before would have seemed ludicrous' (N, 14). He fully immerses himself in this world, ' he becomes an active hero confronted with a chaotic, corrupt world, the more he intervenes in it, the more involved in its wicked ways he becomes' (Zizek 1993:60). As time goes by Case becomes more and more desperate, consumed by ' a fear of the future' (Schrader, 105) the fact that he might never be able to jack again. Much like the noir heroes he ' dread[s] to look ahead, but instead tr[ies] to survive by the day, and if unsuccessful at that, [he] retreat[s] to the past' (ibid.); all he ever thinks or dreams of is cyberspace and his past glory.

When Case was forced to abandon his home, the Sprawl, in a desperate quest for a cure he was plunged into a time warp that took him back in time to:

The reason why it did not prove difficult for him, to adjust to the disorienting rhythms and laws of this ' new' , timeless world is the fact that his role, function is still the same. He has always been a hard-boiled detective uncovering information in the matrix, not because he wants to solve a mystery through the use of his ' deductive reasoning' but because in the tradition of noir heroes he is fascinated by the ' suspense' of the run. When he finally solves the mystery, unfolds a matrix of information, it is not through reason but through blind, relentless ' action' (Kurtnik, 39). In this noir world then it is actually only the medium and the type of information that changes:

One of his duties as a ' physical' detective is to expose those transgressions of the law related to physical space, to the city ' as a decaying body' : ' The function of the detective is to reveal this urban body, to lap open its obsolescent, decaying form to our gaze' (Bukatman, 284). It is always through Case' s eyes that we see and experience both the metroscape and cyberspace; he is the one that detects and discloses the proliferation of technological junk. ' Junk' no longer signifies scattered garbage but a seething form of energy: ' The junk looked like something, that had grown there, a fungus of twisted metal and plastic' (N, 63). His status and function as a detective is also the actual reason for his fall; even though he was already a ' detective' yet he could not function ' as the intertextual agent of narrative (re)ordering' (Kurtnik, 6) because his potency had to be ' proved and asserted, rather than being simply assumed' (ibid., 88). In order for him to prove his worth it was necessary that he fall into this paranoid world and overcome all obstacles: ' face up to various forms of obstruction and delay, and these provide opportunities for a testing of his prowess - his ingenuity, physical courage or ' honour' ' (ibid.). By becoming a middleman in Ninsei he gains insight in the nature of information, how to treat it and what is involved in becoming a successful middleman in cyberspace. Most importantly he is painfully reminded of his physical existence, the meat and its emotions, which he was so desperately trying to erase: ' The body was meat. Case fell into the prison of his own flesh' (N, 14). These emotions located in the meat are in fact what he needed to recover: they are the essential, missing element for the reconstruction of a new symbolic order. It is only through the rekindling of these emotions that Case can be made aware of his own existence, attain an ideal ego, stop being a monster and thus aid in the subjectification of cyberspace. His position as a detective is contingent upon his being a monster and not a psychopath, since a monster is just the subject who ' was directly thrown into the symbolic network, by-passing the imaginary (mis)recognition which enables one to experience oneself as a ' person' ' (Zizek 1992a:136).

The Psychopath

The figure which ' allows us to condense, to locate, to materialize' the insanity of this universe in it, that ' serves to represent this nonsense' and enables us to sustain our existence (Zizek 1993:135) is Riviera, the psychopath. Riviera is in a way a serial killer, a ' madman who, with no ' rational ground' , compulsively repeats murderous acts' (Zizek 1992a:57) which is why he is ' the figure which comes closest to this role of a scapegoat embodying sacred violence' (ibid.). As long as the society' s guilt can be projected on this scapegoat and the ' society ' really believes' in the scapegoat' s guilt' its sacrifice will ' allow us to establish social peace by localizing violence' (ibid., 73). Hence even this psychotic world can be sustained through his sacrifice since ' Sacrifice is a guarantee that ' the Other exists' : that there is an Other who can be appeased by means of a sacrifice' (ibid., 56). It is only natural then that Riviera dies at the end of the novel since that is the time that a new symbolic order is beginning to form and, as always a sacrifice is needed for the christening. Riviera rarely speaks, preferring to express himself through holographic projections because language for him is almost nonexistent. In his eyes the ' frontier separating the two ' substances' , separating the thing that appears clearly in an objective view from the ' substance of enjoyment' that can be perceived clearly only by ' looking awry' ' (Zizek 1993:13) is not visible; it does not exist. Riviera' s relationship with language is a distanced, apathetic one mainly as a result of his childhood, a view of which is made available to us through one of his holograms. He grew up as an animal whose only concern was survival: ' Children. Feral, in rags. Teeth glittering like knives. Sores on their contorted faces. The soldier on his back, mouth and throat open to the sky. They were feeding' (N, 251). While, then, ' access to enjoyment is denied to the speaking being, as such' (Zizek 1993:24), that is not true of Riviera because his vision has not been altered in the slightest. For him ' The emergence of language' did not open up ' a hole in reality' (ibid., 13) therefore the axis of his gaze was never shifted. He is not fascinated either by cyberspace or Molly and hence cannot perceive either of them as the Thing because it is nothing but a void that ' can be filled out only by an anamorphotic gaze from aside' (ibid.). He cannot perceive the object petit a, because his gaze was never ' ' distorted' by desire' and this is ' an object that does not exist for an ' objective gaze' ' (ibid., 12); it is ' always by definition, perceived in a distorted way, because outside this distortion, ' in itself' , it does not exist' (ibid.). Riviera then is the only one that rejected the community, the social contract ' a paradoxical choice where I maintain the freedom of choice only if I ' make the right choice' ' (Zizek 1992a:75). He is the madman, the ' subject who has refused to walk into the trap of the forced choice and to accept that he has ' always already chosen' ; he took the choice ' seriously' and chose the impossible opposite of the Name of the Father' (ibid., 76). He is not concerned with being conferred a place within ' the intersubjective space' (ibid.): for him such a space is but an illusion, all he is interested in is his own enjoyment. He does not abide by any kind of rules, and therefore he does not hesitate to inflict pain and feed off other people' s suffering: ' He' s done eighteen in three years. All women age twenty to twenty-five' (N, 118). He is not really ' a kind of compulsive Judas. Can' t get off sexually unless he knows he is betraying the object of desire' (ibid.), because he does not know what desire is. Even when he is dreaming real it is not his dream-fantasies that he is projecting; he is exposing the audience' s filthiest subconscious desires, relishing the excruciating pain and guilt he is bestowing upon them.

Riviera, although in reality a psychotic, is perceived by others, as a monster figure so as to disguise his traumatic nature, the formless mass of unspeakable enjoyment that is his only identity. He is a sadistic monster, a psychotic, since he chose not to join the symbolic order and thrives on other people' s pain. Evidently, in this cyber-noir world the figures of the monster and the psychopath are no longer identical: ' Film noir psychopaths, who are a legion, are divisible into three main groups: the heroes with a tragic flaw, the unassuming monsters, and the obvious monsters' (Durgnat, 95). While Riviera can be perceived both as a monster and as a psychotic depending on the spectator, the cyber-detective is no longer a psychopath, but a monster. Case has never really indulged in sadistic play even though he is mesmerised by the sweetness of another' s agonizing pain: ' Into her darkness, a churning synaesthesia, where her pain was the taste of old iron, scent of melon, wings of a moth brushing her cheek' (N, 263). His pleasure stems from identifying with the victim' s position, not the master' s; after all it is with Molly, not Riviera that he identifies through the use of the simstim technology. His desire is not to torture but to be tortured, humiliated which is why he could never be a psychopath; he is forever trapped in the intricate cobweb of desire. Therefore, while Riviera' s perception of Molly oscillates, depending on who is perceiving him, Case' s mind is fixed on treating Molly as the actual object petit a, as a real mirror. Case and Riviera can be categorized as monsters because they are ' lacking the mirror captivation, in other words' they are ' the subject without the ego' (Zizek 1992a:136). This is why they are so obsessed with Molly' s mirrored glasses, through them, they encounter a semblance of their double and are captivated by it since they ' lack the efficiency of the central signifier' (ibid., 143). In that sense what both Case and Riviera are so obsessed with, is merely the externalisation of the mirror capacity within her. That is why they can be viewed as descendants of the monster figures ' who could not stand their mirror images' (ibid., 136). The only difference between them is Case' s willingness to acquire an ideal ego due to his position as the detective, and the psychopath' s aversion towards such a deadly trap. Case, much like Hammett' s detective, lacks ' the dimension of imaginary identification, of the ideal ego, of an image in which the detective can ' see himself as likeable to himself' ' (ibid., 157), which is why he cannot experience himself as a person. But he is in a sense cured because this is exactly what he attains the moment he is confronted with his reflection in Molly' s glasses:

Riviera' s case is of course different because we can never be sure of what is going on in his mind since we only perceive him through Case' s or Molly' s eyes. We are told that not only does he despise Molly' s glasses, but he is also intimidated by his own reflection, as well as being obsessed with discovering, whether she has real eyes behind these mirrored glasses. Actually, though, it is more plausible that his only intention is to torture Molly, by stressing the origin of her cybernetic enhancements, knowing full well that this is her one weakness. For Molly, then, Riviera has been forever frozen in time, distilled in the form of the holographic monster they were faced with when they first tried to capture Riviera:

She prefers to view him as a monster instead of a psychopath because she does not want to face her own psychotic nature; she is terrified by the burning sensation of this pure, unadulterated enjoyment. She does not wish to be reminded of her now dormant but ever present craving for other people' s anguish, of the bittersweet taste of jouis-sence.

The Femme Fatale

This psychotic nature that Molly is so desperately trying to deny, though, is conducive to her temporary sublimation into the dignity of the Thing, into the position of the femme fatale. The woman as femme fatale cannot function as the Lady, as ' ' an inhuman partner' , a traumatic Object with which no relationship is possible, an apathetic void imposing senseless, arbitrary ordeals' (Zizek 1994:151), because that position has been filled by cyberspace. Molly can act only as a substitute for cyberspace, her role being to re-establish cyberspace as the object petit a by leading Case to the cure that will allow him to enter this dreamscape again. She is nothing but a shadow of the original noir femme fatale, since now her charm, powers of fascination, sexual allure stem from her connection to cyberspace, through the simstim technology and the technological enhancements she has effected on herself. The simstim unit allows her to embody cyberspace because it enables Case to jack in her, in almost the same way he is jacking in cyberspace. He keeps flipping from her to cyberspace, experiencing her every emotion, be it pain or pleasure, erasing any distinction between her and cyberspace:

It is through this disorienting whirlwind of emotional and sexual tension, the constant shifting from a human to an artificial sensorium, that Molly attains the status of the femme fatale. She sublimates herself the moment Case comes to believe that she can offer him something more than cyberspace: ' cyberspace matrix was actually a drastic simplification of the human sensorium, ...but simstim itself struck him as a gratuitous multiplication of flesh input' (N, 71). Her ability to stimulate Case' s desire is a direct consequence of her cyber-enhanced fingernails and her mirrored glasses: ' She held out her hands, palms up, the white fingers slightly spread, and with a barely audible click, ten double-edged, four centimetre scalpel blades slid from their housing beneath the burgundy nails' (N, 37). Her mirrored glasses are actually her most valuable possession, because they symbolise her position as the Lady who ' functions as a mirror on to which the subject projects his narcissistic ideal' (Zizek 1994:90). This mirrored surface is tangible proof that Molly ' functions as a kind of ' black hole' in reality, as a limit whose Beyond is inaccessible' (ibid., 91). It acts as a safety net for the detective, it assures him that there is a hidden treasure behind the screen. The element that provides the femme fatale with a skin, a shroud that holds together and shapes all her incongruent parts, is her dress code, which has remained the same even in this futuristic version of the noir universe. In the past the femme fatale was ' glamorously dressed in revealing gowns and coolly enigmatic, and the private eye, sloppily dressed in trench-coat and fedora, and suitably hard boiled' (Walker, 32). In this world Molly is equally enigmatic but also hard boiled, since she is dressed to kill: ' She wore mirrored glasses. Her clothes were black, the heels of black boots deep in the temperfoam... The fingers curled around the fletcher were slender, white, tipped with polished burgundy' (N, 36).

Obviously then Molly has been transformed into a horrific apparition that shrouds Case' s vision to such a degree that he forgets that she maybe there to kill him: ' I think you screwed up, Case, I showed up and you just fit me right into your reality picture' (N, 37). This mutation though is reversible, because although initially her appearance was shocking and enigmatic enough to temporarily sedate Case, keep his death drive under control, it cannot save him. Case will not be forever lost in her image, no matter how powerful: ' the beltloops of her leather jeans and rocked backward on the lacquered heels of cherry red cowboy boots' (N, 41). Due to her position as a substitute, a copy, the femme fatale, much like the noir city, can sustain the hero' s desire for a very limited time, after which her charm will be dispelled and the cowboy will be left without a single trace of the fantasy that initiated his desire. After all, although her role is still that of sustaining the hard-boiled detective' s fantasy frame, this time she does not, cannot pose any threat to his life. The woman as femme fatale is no longer ' the key figure who lures/tempts/seduces the hero into the noir world' (Walker, 12); on the contrary she is the one that saves him. Molly enters the scene at the exact moment that Case' s fantasy scenario starts falling apart and he is ready to assume the death drive yet again: ' the street itself came to seem the externalization of some death wish' (N, 14). Case' s occasional brushes with death are no longer enough to satiate his hunger because he is now ' trying to con the street into killing (him) when (he is) not looking' (N, 40). After all, his status as ' dead while alive' is actually only possible within the space of the death drive, ' the space between two deaths, symbolic and real' (Zizek 1997:89). Unlike the noir femme fatale Molly has emotions, and not only does she not ' seek to advance (herself) by manipulating (her) sexual allure and controlling its value' (Kurtnik, 63), but she actually uses her sexuality to alleviate Case' s pain. She comforts and supports Case, keeping him away from his death drive: ' She rode him that way, impaling herself, slipping down on him again and again, until they both had come, his orgasm flaring blue in a timeless space, a vastness like the matrix' (N, 45). Molly made use of her body as a sexual object, by becoming a prostitute, only once in the past, in order to ensure her survival, to attain the mystique of the femme fatale. Had she not enhanced her fighting abilities, she would have been just another woman devoid of the uncanny, monstrous qualities imperative for her function as a substitute for the ideal Lady. At the same time, though, if she had settled for being just the ' girl with a gymnast' s body and conjurer' s hands' (N, 42) she would have been erased. It was imperative that she evolve into a much more complicated entity, an impenetrable enigma so as to escort Case to the end of his journey.

The only way that Molly could retain her mysterious aura was by assuming a psychotic position, becoming an amalgam of the sexual woman, the noir detective and the psychopath. It is only as long as she wears these masks as one that she can recover her glorious past, the femme fatale' s horrifyingly seductive nature, the mirror position. In a truly noir fashion then it is virtually impossible to determine who she is and what she is feeling:

The most instrumental element for the construction of such an illusionary existence was her transformation to a razorgirl, ' a hardened techno-altered moll, highly skilled in martial arts and capable of outmatching all her competitors on traditionally masculine terrain' (Ross, 158). She could not have possibly replaced Case as the noir detective in the physical world or acted as a monster without the ability of effortlessly terminating another' s life. After Case regains his ability to jack in cyberspace, she becomes the physical equivalent of the cyberspace cowboy: ' The right attitude; it was something he could sense, something he could have seen in the posture of another cowboy leaning into a deck, fingers flying across the board. She had it; the moves' (N, 253). But at the very instant we perceive her as ' every bad-ass hero' , ' she was walking it the way she talked it' (N, 252), we realise that she is actually a homicidal psychopath. She is in grave danger, and although it is unlikely that she can survive, her only emotion is not fear but a deep seeded hatred, accompanied by a cold determination upon murdering Riviera, even beyond her own death-bed. On the surface, she appears to be a sexually attractive, painfully desirable woman: ' She wore tight black gloveleather jeans and a bulky black jacket cut from some matte fabric that seemed to absorb light' (N, 37). Underneath the charming exterior, though, even she herself knows that she is a killer: ' Cept I do hurt people sometimes, Case. I guess it' s just the way I' m wired' (ibid.). Even during the time she was a prostitute, in a sense a victim, it is not certain that she was suffering without receiving any pleasure: ' ' So the worktime started bleeding in, and I could remember it...But it was just bad dreams, and not all bad.' She smiled.' (N, 177). In time her suffering intensified, but only in direct proportion to her pleasure; she was now having only ' Bad dreams. Real ones.' (N, 178), because she was rented to ' specialty markets' , snuff. At the exact moment, though, that her suffering seemed to have become unbearable, she ended it, by realising her client' s desire, by killing him. This veil of intrigue that encompasses her will never be raised because we will never know whether she exacted pleasure from taking him apart, or whether it was not just his but also her own desire that she realised: ' So I guess I gave the Senator what he really wanted, you know?' (ibid.). Had she not savoured the taste of blood, though, were she not terrified of facing her own sickness, she would not have reacted so strongly to Riviera' s fantasy scenario. Riviera may be a psychopath but that does not explain Molly' s yearning to erase his existence: ' ' You gonna kill him?' She smiled. Cold. ' He' s going to die, yeah. Soon' ' (ibid.).