Sponsoring Professor's Note: This final project for Science Fiction (ENG 2420) asked students to write a creative "riff" on a SF text that explores its connections to another SF text, and/or a philosophical or sociopolitical issue common to both. In the following, Rex offers his take on a mashup of William Gibson's short story classic "The Winter Market" and the seminal 1996 manga Ghost In The Shell.

Vancouver looks like a nocturnal city during the winter. Gray Snow or acid rain clouds over the city are often enough to threaten months of darkness alongside the smog. The holos that suspend over the scrapers shine brighter than the sun on days like these. Along the highway, fewer and fewer cars ebb through the morning hours. It’s not long until I am the only one left. Took a left, and there it was, Granville, ‘land beyond the city,’ so they say. It might not be out of the jurisdiction of the Vancouver PD, but it might as well not have existed to any of them. Dispatchers routinely ignore calls from its coords, cadets are never allowed anywhere near the island, and those brave enough to answer the call end up missing and evicted. So imagine the surprise as an unmarked sedan threaded through the gomi-covered dirt of Anderson.

“Another? Makes me want to off myself this fine day.”

“Whoever got her must be really damn lucky.”

“Damn straight, probably bedded her way up to some bleeding heart corpo.”

My heart sinks as I see the life teeming on the streets. I had hoped that whatever passes as storefronts were shuttered today. Instead, every moving body stares soullessly, trying to catch my eye despite shuffling away at the sight of the car. My knuckles whiten as I pass those who looked healthy, standing at street corners running their nervous hands over barely concealed iron.

I sighed as I was bombarded by the stink of Gomi, stepping out into the murky daylight. Taking a few experimental steps on the familiar dirt, I glance around before noticing a crowd that has formed above the flood wall. I stare at them, and they stare back; a few reach for their pockets. “You Will? Said ya’ wanna take a look at the body before we brought it up?”

I nearly jumped for my iron. Instead, thankfully, a worried-looking uniform startled me back to what I was here for. It’s surprising how much a call and a couple favors can do as I take account of the small armada of patrols around the scene. “Well, there ain’t much to see, can’t make sense of what we are seeing, chips corrupted so no ID. Not sure why we’re here, it’s getting plenty hot already downtown,” he said before turning.

Corrupted.

Chips are as cheap as they come, simple electronic implants to connect to the citywide network. Not that Granville’s hooked up to the citywide network, but it’s supposedly infallible tech. I wouldn’t blame them for wanting to return to the station, not with the crowd staring at us and the distance from any backup.

“Anything physical?” The crowd loosened up as I took another look, seemingly satisfied that they were not of my interest, before we disappeared into a scant-looking shack along the waterline.

“You kidding?” The uniform gives me a look. “You can’t be serious. Preliminary says she took her own life in a tub.”

No, no, I haven’t looked at the preliminary, but I wasn’t expecting that. It’s almost tradition to read anything from the uniforms on the way to scenes, even if only incomplete, and even on the net while driving. But that’s far from now. I couldn’t spend another moment or two more without seeing her name.

Just like the uniform said, it’s in a tub, precariously floating in a tub filled with water, a thin layer of transparent ice chunks still visible floating alongside the body. I take note of the too-large cooling suit and the electrodes hidden by her hair splayed out across the head of the tub. I’ve seen enough suicides that this was abnormal; there are murders better dressed up as suicides than this. Tracing the trodes to a terminal, my hands glide over the well-worn keys before tapping experimentally. I remember the ease Akira once had with tech.

I had hoped that whatever passes as storefronts were shuttered today. Instead, every moving body stares soullessly, trying to catch my eye despite shuffling away at the sight of the car.

“The boys and I looked at that, connected to the city network, wiped though, no idea how they connected, probably stolen.” The uniform coughed and posited. He seemed jittery, taking occasional glances at the body. Anger, indifference, and sadness are expected; he’s probably green enough not to have seen this too often.

“They, Freeman?” I ask, taking a glance at his tag.

The uniform, Freeman, took a deep breath, appreciative of the change in topic, before pointing towards an adjacent room. “Yeah, uh... another girl. Same age, I think.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Ohhkay? We can book her, lend her to the breakers, and see what they can get out of her then.”

“We’ll talk here,” I emphasize, hoping to get the point across. “Take the rest of your guys and keep order out there, will you?”

“Sure, whatever,” Freeman starts shuffling towards the door, “sir.”

I glance at the unresponsive machine as the uniform dashes out of the room. But, of course, it’s not the standard operating procedure to speak to a witness or relation away from the station, away from the interrogators, the bright lights, and the chains where everything can be recorded. But hey, we get paid by the hour regardless, so the guy couldn’t give much more of a fuss.

Confusion, recognition, anger, then an unreadable expression lit up across the girl’s face when I entered the adjoining bedroom. You can scarcely call it one, as a hint of a clean mattress adorns the floor decorated with gomi and strewn boxes of buck-a-slice. I expected fury, kicking, and screaming from Anne. But she kept her hands squeezed around the spine of a polycarbon access pad. Slowly, she eases her grip on the pad and takes muted steps toward the only window in the room.

Akira often wrote to me about what Anne meant to her. Supposedly a pillar of sunshine and mirth in the darkness of Granville, it seems so distant and different from the utter silence standing in front of me. A powerful gust of bay winds shatters along the corrugated walls.

“This is what’s left of it all,” she said, in a whisper, barely loud enough over the rattling walls to hear. “What do you want from us?”

“I made a promise,” I said, hoping to sound as tactful as possible.

“Well, now.” she huffed, turning back. “You could’ve visited before... before this.”

I glance at the wall isolating me from Akira, double checking that the uniforms are well out of earshot. It’s all playing out like some Wednesday night soap they played at the station waiting room. I question whether I or the soap is the joke. I thought of turning tail, hating every moment since I gave my word. “Cats got your tongue, detective?”

It was a low blow, even for her, having to resort to where I am and, by extension, our history. “Did you know we were partners once, Anne?”

Her eyes widen, but her grip on the pad still whitens her knuckles. “No,” Anne almost whispers, “sometimes I wonder, but I couldn’t ask.”

“Yeah... worked everything from vice to homicide.” I drag my hands over my eyes. We didn’t just work together; We gave up nearly everything for what we believed in. Granville was still livable back then, filled with recording studios and aspiring artists. We wanted to preserve that state but dug too deep and found ties we weren’t supposed to. I was horrified by what they did back then, and now I feel horrified at my inaction.

I drop my arms and see Anne’s pale eyes have now darkened. She blows her hair out of her face, rounds on me, and stares into my soul. I was glad I was still across the room, wishing I hadn’t looked back. “Like I said, you could have seen her. You could have visited. Gone and done so much apparently, but to drop her like that?” Anne’s tone sharpens as through her tirade, punctuating every point with a jab at me with her hand. “Unbelievable.”

It was a crack of lightning on an otherwise calm day; I glanced back outside, counting my blessings no one heard and pleading “Please don’t yell, the—”

“You lied so you could get them to come, didn’t you?” She scoffed, throwing her hands in the air, “Unsurprising you got shook down by the bullpen to get them to send backup. They should’ve pocketed the hazard slips and sent you alone so we could tear you apart.”

“I can’t ask them if they knew. Akira dove too deep. She found things the force couldn’t wipe away, so they got rid of her instead,” I tentatively took a step forwards, hoping not to get bitten. But, instead, Anne huffed and threw the pad into my chest, returning to the window. “She wanted you to have that; it’s locked, said you... of all damned people, would know the cipher.”

Her shoulders were set, and the reflection on the gomi-caked glass was blurry, but I could make out the tears despite that. “She isn’t gone if it’s anything to you,” Anne says, taking care not to express her emotions. Then, taking a quick swipe at her eyes, Anne swivels and stares past me, the tension gone. “Every last bit of what she saved went into the equipment in the other room so she could escape with her mind to the net.”

“Did she make it?” I trailed off.

“I would never understand why she did it, to dream of returning by doing that to herself... wild.” Anne let a smirk appear for just a moment. “You haven’t seen her hunger for escape, an almost singleness of purpose.” A moment and a glance around the room.

“Yeah, I know. Akira would have spent all that she earned just for another chance to help anyone at the end.”

“You should know. You said you were partners. Perhaps she won’t be the same person you knew.”

I let Anne go, despite the questioning of the uniforms outside. Buried Akira in an unmarked grave I visit on occasion. Ultimately, I set aside the pad, deathly afraid that Anne’s right and I wouldn’t recognize the person on the other side.

Author's Statement

Science fiction does not shy away from questions about human mortality. In using technology as a tool to tell unique stories about death and its relationship with society, science fiction writers often tell stories of how people deal with death or the process of dying. In the short story“The Winter Market" (1986), William Gibson creates a world where people can transcend death through technology. Gibson tells a story of a woman, Lise, whose humanity is stripped from them bit by bit until, ultimately, they are no longer recognizable to those closest to them. The plot recalls another excellent example of mortality in fiction, Masamune Shirow’s manga Ghost in the Shell (1995). Shirow’s landmark manga portrays similar technology that also allows consciousness to go beyond its physical limitations. Like Gibson’s “The Winter Market”, Ghost in the Shell (GITS) also belongs to the cyberpunk genre of science fiction, a mix of high-tech societies and a particular focus on the nitty-gritty aspects of daily life in those societies. In addition, both works tell their stories from what could be considered a working class lens, bring into perspective confrontations between different classes.

That said, the two narratives display distinct styles. As a manga comic, Ghost in the Shell relies on visuals for environmental storytelling, and they are often told from the third person limited point of view. Moreover, Ghost in the Shell combines detective fiction with cyberpunk, providing unique relationships between the story’s main character(s) and their society. And lastly, Ghost in the Shell employs a much more action-orientated narrative than Gibson's "The Winter Market," following the work of detectives uncovering crimes, dangerous shootouts, and many other life-threatening scenarios. These characteristics create a story that, in contrasting with Gibson’s style, cast a different light onto the themes "The Winter Market" shares with Ghost In The Shell.

In the above story, I created a riff based on Gibson’s use of perspective, characterization, and character change, in combination with a plot based on the detective fiction universe Ghost in the Shell. My creative riff demonstrates Gibson’s views on how technology affects social structures, as well as the philosophical ramifications of transferring consciousness. Ultimately, the juxtaposition of the texts highlights the way Gibson offers differing points of view about the fusion of human and digital.

My creative riff explores two particular themes in Gibson’s short story. Firstly, Gibson emphasizes how people living "the low life" in cyberpunk view their social mobility. Near the closing act of “The Winter Market," the artist Rubin explains to Casey, his friend and the story's narrator, the weight of what the character Lise has created for those at the bottom of society.

…What else did you think she was after? Sex? More win? A world tour? She was past all that. That’s what made her so strong. She was past it. That’s why Kings of Sleep’s as big as it is, and why the kids buy it, why they believe it. They know. Those kids back down the Market, warming their butts around the fires and wondering if they’ll find someplace to sleep tonight, they believe it… (Gibson 15)

In this small moment of exposition, Gibson explores the relationship between technology and society. In the universe of “The Winter Market”, there are bounds to people’s mobility in a society that is invisible to those in it. Gibson uses the character Lise, as well as the video game that she has co-created, Kings of Sleep, to show how technology “…painted them a picture…” (Gibson 16) , revealing to those in the underclass the cages they live in. Viewing Lise as someone who came from the same roots they are living, the kids consider her and her art as living proof that they, too, have a chance to make it big or to leave the low life behind. Although Gibson’s story is not about the fight of those “kids,” the scene shows Lise’s relationship with her society and what she stands for, through the lens of Rubin’s more privileged character.

That said, Rubin also notes moments later that not too many have made it on the same path of success, and most are not viewed in the light as Lise is. Indeed, over the course of the narrative, Lise’s relationship with society, and ultimately Casey, takes a dramatic shift, exposing the escape Lise stood for as nothing more than an illusion. This occurs when, despite her origins, Lise is able to transcend death: through a combination of determination and happenstance, she has her consciousness uploaded to the cloud. Casey describes Lise as one with a “…singleness of purpose," who can understand and present things that others simply cannot. When speaking of Lise, Rubin adds:

“So she sang it for them, said it that way they can’t, painted them a picture. And she used the money to buy herself a way out, that’s all.” (Gibson 16)

Lise is presented as someone, who, from nothing, became an icon to those of similar circumstances, and with some luck, was able to escape destined death from her congenital disease. However, the story’s crux turns on whether the final facsimile of Lise's consciousness, stored in the cloud, represents the same person as Lise herself. Through interactions between Casey and Rubin, and the penultimate interaction between Casey and Lise, we can see that Lise’s escape is socially impossible, and she may have even failed to escape death.

My creative riff demonstrates Gibson’s views on how technology affects social structures, as well as the philosophical ramifications of transferring consciousness.

During the story’s closing, Casey questions if the Lise who calls him from the cloud would be the same person he knows. Unlike Rubin, Casey has had a much closer relationship with Lise and has seen her the day before she went beyond death’s grasp. At that time, Casey comes to the conclusion that:

…if I hadn’t happened in there, hadn’t seen them, I’d have been able to accept all that came later. Might even have found a way to rejoice on her behalf, or found a way to trust in whatever it is that she’s since become, or had built in her image… I could have believed what Rubin believes, that she was so truly past it… that nothing mattered to her except the hour of her departure…

Casey ends the story conflicted about his history with Lise, stranded with the knowledge that she is physically no longer present. Juxtaposed with Rubin’s view of Lise’s departure as an escape from social and physical ailments, the ending allows Gibson’s to emphasize how different people view consciousness transference. Seen in the light of Casey's close relationship with Lise, these contrasting views help Gibson show ambiguity and uncertainty over the possibility of escape.

These themes contextualize my creative riff's approach to the stylistic differences between “The Winter Market" and Ghost In The Shell. In relying on GITS's more expressive and colorful imagery, I sought to shift the atmosphere created by “The Winter Market," even while presenting a relationship between society and the main character/narrator that is similar to the one portrayed in "The Winter Market." In using GITS' more visual style of storytelling, the riff depicts two conflicting characters reflecting on someone who has achieved immortality through uploading their consciousness. The characters' contradictory views not only reinforce the relationship between different characters and their class-divdied society, but also tells a different narrative when compared to Gibson’s Casey/Rubin dynamic.

My riff begins with a similar atmosphere to that of Gibson's story. "The Winter Market" opens in a very gritty and blunt atmosphere, with Gibson describing the setting of Vancouver as dark, emphasizing contrasting colors through snow and black water. However, unlike in Gibson's story, I show technology's advancements, via the introduction of holographic imagery and towering skyscrapers compared to the simple neon and mercury vapour lights of Gibson's Vancouver.