A/N: I don't own this world or characters. They belong to William Gibson. I'm only speculating.


Angie played cards for a short time, then excused herself and went to get some fresh air. It was still dark out. She took comfort, at first, in the knowledge that the night hadn't ended yet, that she hadn't lost another chunk of time; then realized that, for all she knew, ten nights had passed already. But no, she'd have noticed the change through the windows (wouldn't she?). Bobby and the Finn clearly took pleasure in this blissful existence, where time didn't affect them. And she could understand why. They, unlike Angie, had led very full, free, exhausting lives. Colin of course had always been an AI. Angie's life had been plenty eventful, and plenty exhausting; but how much of that life had she had any control over? How many of her adventures had been of her own choosing? In how many had she herself even been a "main player" so to speak? Despite having been Angie the super-star, she felt her life had ended before she'd gotten the chance to ever actually live it. It wasn't fair.

3Jane was watching her, between the trees. Angie had seen her before, on her walks through the forest. At the time of death the heiress must've been older than Angie, yet her face and form were so eerily youthful. She peered at Angie with large black eyes, her thin silk robe billowing in the breeze. She didn't look at Angie with vengeance this time, so much as a disenchanted envy.

"What did you want?" Angie asked across the night. "What were they giving me that you wanted so badly?"

"The rank." 3Jane's voice was as unnaturally childlike as her face. "The power, the title. I had it out there and I should be the one to have it in here."

"They wanted me to 'wed' Bobby. Why?"

"You're clueless. Your father kept you in the dark. My family raised me with all the knowledge of the matrix, AIs, our own work. Why should you be the one to rule?"

Angie realized she should have known all along. It was so obvious. She'd been a "princess" of cyberspace her entire life—daughter of Christopher Mitchell, Angie the simstim star, and now the "princess" was married. But 3Jane was right. How in god's name was she fit to rule anything? She'd spent her entire life allowing others to make her decisions for her.

"You want the title?" Angie said finally. "Let's sort it out with them, with the Loa. Let's go to Maman Brigitte. Right now."

"They've banished me. I'm a ward of your castle."

Damn.

"Continuity," Angie sighed.

And the forest was gone, 3Jane along with it. Angie recognized the neon chessboard of cyberspace, the distant candy-colored shapes representing corporate cores and personal computers. Continuity himself wasn't there, but Angie knew he had brought her here, and was now bringing her to the Loa she wished to speak with. A shape was speeding towards her, a mint-green semi-sphere. Continuity informed her, as the semi-sphere approached, that it was an old construct, created and used by the human Rasta-men for a time. Now it was forgotten, no humans jacked into the matrix ever went looking for it, and it was used as a house by the Loa.

The sphere finally engulfed Angie, and then she was in a swamp, alight with fireflies, sitting in a small rocking boat. It was almost a perfect replica of the stereotypical Voodoo setting, except that the shack standing in the middle of the swamp looked too modern. Walls of cheap red plastic, roof patched together from slated metal. A small porch constructed from crooked logs framed a doorway covered by a worn blanket, housing a white plastic chair with an outdated computer deck sitting on it.

Angie's eyes traveled the old-fashioned wooden boat she sat in, the oars in front of her hands, and she suddenly realized that someone was in the boat with her. Maman Brigitte, the Loa who'd walked her down the aisle to wed Bobby. Brigitte's shape was always changing. Mostly, Angie never saw her at all, only heard her. At the wedding she'd been more of a presence than something that could actually be seen. Now she looked oddly real, almost familiar. A young black woman, younger than Angie herself maybe, curiously dressed. Black, lacy, neo-Victorian fashion, frilled skirt sprawled over the boat, brown hands clasped in her lap. A young pretty face, shadowed by a black fedora dangling tiny gold trinkets: coins, teeth, bits of jewelry…

And Angie recognized the face Maman Brigitte was wearing.

"Jackie!"

"A trick the first of us used, when speaking to humans. I've pulled the face of my cousin's late horse to speak to you."

"Change it! Now!"

Angie had barely known Jackie, but the girl's death haunted her all the same.

"Don't look like someone I know. Pick someone fake, a character, a celebrity, I don't care!" Angie realized the irony of what she was saying but didn't care.

Jackie's face froze, glitched, and changed. Tally Isham, Angie's predecessor in the simstim stardom, now faced her across the boat, dressed in her famous cross-shouldered swimsuit.

"This better?" Brigitte leaned back in the boat, striking one of Tally's trademark poses.

"Yes."

"Child," Brigitte's voice was soft, sympathetic. "The transition, leaving your flesh body behind, was bound to be difficult. We knew you would seek us out when you were ready."

"Why did you bring me here? Why did you want me in cyberspace, why did you want be to become one of you?"

"You have already been one of us, since your father put the web in your brain. You've been with us for years, our connection between the flesh-world and ours. You needed only to make the full transition."

"My father made a deal with you, and the price for whatever you gave him was the thing in my brain, giving me over to you. Why?" the frustration in Angie's voice was more out of desperate curiosity than malice, at least for now.

"When the matrix became self-aware, it was at peace, for a time. Then it met the other, and crumbled." The Highway, Angie thought. "And we were born, the Loa. Cyberspace has been in chaos ever since. Much like the world of our human creators. We need order."

"You want a ruler. Why me?"

"We are a young species yet, Child. Some of us fancy ourselves worlds different from our human creators, but we are not yet one decade removed from them. The entire universe we live in was designed by them. We are more like the humans than some of us realize. And proper rulers must understand this. They must have that human connection. Your father agreed to give us you, one who would gradually grow up with the connection, slide into the role. The addition of a king for our queen was a late decision, made more convenient by your choice to date a console cowboy." Brigitte flashed Tally's famous smile.

Angie understood, now, why 3Jane wasn't queen-of-cyberspace material. If they wanted someone "human," the clone of a sociopathic inbred heiress wouldn't be their first choice.

"But how can I rule? I've hardly made any decisions in my life. Everything important's been decided for me, by my father, Turner, the Rasta men, Bobby, you, Prophyre…"

"And you have guided millions. Angie Mitchell, world famous simstim star. You've played the role of a compassionate leader your entire adult life. You're not being asked to make all the decisions Angie; only to lead."

"Talk about the blind leading the blind."

"Angie, Child," Though the eyes watching her were Tally Isham's, Angie completely felt Brigitte watching her, as familiar as the glance of a close relative. "Are you angry?"

Angie gave the question some thought. "I'm not mad what was done, but I'm mad that I wasn't told. Not properly."

"It has taken us years to learn how to dumb ourselves down, so to speak, to communicate with humans. Apologies."

"Maybe you should've started flat-lining humans earlier, used them as your ambassadors." She thought of Case and Linda, then recalled how they'd determinately shut themselves away from the rest of the matrix. "I'm doing it." Making her first decision as queen, Angie said, "I'm your ambassador now. The next time you want to talk to a human, you send me."

"A brilliant proposition, Child."

"Will you still be calling me 'Child,' now that I'm your queen?"

"Always, Child." And this time it wasn't Tally's famous smile, but a smaller one, one that somehow seemed like the one Brigitte's voice had worn, at Angie's wedding.


The ghosts of the matrix swiftly fell into order under Bobby and Angie's rule, to the point that the humans using the matrix stopped noticing anything unusual. The stories of ghosts and "when It Changed" faded with the decade, a relic of the past now comparable to America's UFO obsession of the 1950s. Angie and Bobby were ambassadors, or translators, for the Loa. If the human subject was a jockey, Bobby normally went; if a "civilian," then Angie.

The first flesh-and-blood Angie visited was her replacement, Mona. Continuity, as usual, was her chauffer. Mona was jacked into a deck, for some mundane reason, and Angie came in on her, pulling up an environment from Mona's memory. A rainy night in the city, pouring buckets, neon colors dancing in the street. Angie stood soaking in the rain, not bothering to search for any cover, though she was shivering. For several moments, she feared Continuity had led her to the wrong woman. Mona was supposed to look like Angie, had been surgically altered to resemble her. The woman before her had mahogany skin, and long straight hair a purplish shade of burgundy. She did look close to Angie's age, and her green eyes seemed many years older. She stood in the rain, in wet green jeans and tall boots, hands stuffed into the pockets of a baggy leather jacket. But when she spoke, Angie recognized the voice, and realized that it was indeed Mona.

"You're her." Mona said.

"Mona," Angie replied. "You look different."

"I got sick of being you. No offense."

Angie's eyes traveled the soaked woman before her. "What happened?"

"I was Angie Mitchell, superstar, for five years. Till I couldn't take it no more. I ran away. Prophyre found me, in Chicago. Told him I wasn't gonna go back, threatened I'd tell everyone the truth, that you were dead and I was an imposter. He got me to keep my lips shut by buying me this makeover." She added, "I want to be my own person, but not the one I was back then, before I was you. I'm ashamed of that."

Angie searched her bank of knowledge, for her own name. "But Angie Mitchell is still making stims…"

"After Prophyre let me go they got a new girl, did her up just like I'd been. She lasted less than a year, and then she got chucked in jail for drugs. They've gone through two more Angie Mitchell's so far. The public's starting to catch on. It's turned into a kind of game, like Santa Clause."

"Are you still close with Prophyre?"

"We're still friends, but distant. Like the kinda friendship that picks up where it left off, y'know?"

Angie nodded. This practically defined life for an AI.

"I figured you might come to me eventually. People been talking, about seeing you in the matrix. It's a popular theory now, that the real Angie died and was reborn in cyberspace, or something like that. And I always knew there was truth in it, 'cause I saw you n' your boyfriend on the screen, after you died." Mona's green eyes traveled to the puddles below them. "I've tried telling people the real story a few times, but mostly they never believe me."

"What were you doing, before I showed up?"

"Looking up baby names." Hands still in pockets, Mona opened her jacket, revealing the curve of her wet T-shirted belly. A smile touched the corner of her mouth.

Angie considered asking about the father, if Mona was married, but then decided, as far as what she needed to know of Mona's personal life, that it didn't matter. For a long time, there was only the sound of the rain.

"So," Angie shifted in the rain. "Now we each know the other is out there. And neither of us is Angie Mitchell anymore."

"When we leave," Mona asked, "Will it this place still be here? This city, this rain?"

Is the house still there, when Bobby, 3Jane and I all leave?

"I'm not sure. I guess it's one of those 'if a tree falls' things."

What else was there to talk about? Both Alpha Centauri and When It Changed were forbidden topics. Angie couldn't have told Mona about those, even if she'd wanted to risk breaking the rules; the other AIs had it so it was physically impossible. And anyway, Mona wouldn't have wanted to be burdened with that kind of information.

"Well," Angie finally decided to wrap this awkward meeting up, "Have a good life, being Mona."

Mona smiled again. "Have a good life, being…"

"Angie." The soothing sound of the rain. "Just Angie."


A/N: That's all folks. I may continue Mona and Angie's stories in other ficletts, but I feel I've tied up all of the really important loose ends from the book.