Burning Chrome

Johnny and Molly exemplify Gibson’s trend of using a pair of closely connected characters with distinct characteristics to play off one another and explore different aspects of a story’s world—a technique that is utilized frequently in Burning Chrome. Johnny is technologically proficient, flippantly calling himself “a very technical boy” (1), but he is not without his shortcomings. Most significantly, he lacks first-hand knowledge or awareness of some critical aspects of his world. It is Molly who introduces Johnny to the world of the Lo Teks, who knows how to engage the dolphin Squid, and who has the street smarts to rid them of the Yakuza assassin’s threat. Molly becomes Johnny’s guide, and readers see through his eyes, learning as he does.

The street wisdom that Molly imparts assists Johnny as he evolves over the course of the story from essentially a servant as a data trafficker for his clients, to a rebel resisting the powerful clutches of the Yakuza, to a fully formed cyberpunk force able to blackmail ex-clients for profit. The cyborg-like razor-girl Molly, with her blade-tipped fingers and mirrored “surgical inlays” in her eyes, is more a harbinger of the harrowing world Gibson imagines may come than Johnny is, and so it is no surprise that she reappears in later works by Gibson set in the Sprawl (6).