The provided excerpts from William Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive follow three interwoven narratives concerning characters navigating a highly technological, often gritty, future world. One storyline centers on Kumiko, the daughter of a powerful Yakuza figure, who is sent to London and interacts with a Maas-Neotek biochip ghost named Colin and an independent operator named Sally Shears while attempting to survive political intrigue. A second arc details the experiences of Mona, a young woman undergoing cosmetic surgery to resemble the celebrity Angie Mitchell, while traveling with her manipulative partner Eddy and a mysterious man named Prior. The final thread focuses on Angie Mitchell, a SimStim superstar who is dealing with her own traumatic past, her connection to the voodoo Loa, and the complex political and corporate maneuvers of entities like Sense/Net and the Tessier-Ashpool family’s orbital home, Freeside. Throughout these sections, themes of corporate control, virtual reality, identity, and illegal activities in a cyberpunk landscape are explored.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.