A washed-up hacker living in the gutter of Chiba City, his nervous system deliberately damaged by the employers he betrayed, unable to jack into cyberspace - the matrix - that he lived for. Case was once one of the best console cowboys in the business; now he is running petty errands for dangerous people and slowly dying. When a mysterious operator called Armitage offers to repair the damage in exchange for one last job, Case takes it because he has nothing left to lose. The job involves Molly, the AI called Wintermute, and a target so vast it changes everything. Case is not a hero and does not become one - he is a man who is very good at one thing and is given the chance to do it again.