Okay, I was reading the Maul as an extended metaphor for his body in general - the cops are the antibodies, Bugaboos are the az79, GoldYlocks is an original strain of the Y-plague. The Maul starts changing when Meniscus figures out he can grow his fingernails. Sun having sex with that guy from her class is roughly correlated to when Meniscus sees Naomi and the other male, Starry Eyes, getting it on - he mentions later that that's when he learned to have sex with the disease in his body.
I was taking the subconscious bit from the fact that the Mall program, as described in Meniscus's world, seems to run using pieces to represent parts of the subconscious. Which is why I went to the place that it was some kind of full-body representation, though largely focused on the immune system in this case.
Particularly when 10Esha takes Keri hostage and uses her to shoot a bunch of mall security/antibodies, which I took as the newest strain of az79 using some of Meniscus's newfound powers as controlled by his subconscious to get better access to parts of his body.
Is this gelling better with your reading of it?
My biggest question is, if you read this as specifically as an extended metaphor of the immune system, then what were Keri, Sun, and Suk Hee?
Er ... I don't see anything in your comment that isn't related to an immune response, so I'm still not sure where you're coming from regarding it being his entire body. There's nothing, as far as I can recall, that represents hepatic or cardiac or neurological function, for instance. And it's also about three years since I read the book, but I think I decided that the girls were the antibodies (recognise the virus) and the cops were lymphocytes (recognise the antibodies).
You're right, there's nothing that references hepatic/cardiac/neurological functions. I mainly got the 'entire body' thing from two places. First, the Mall software is often used for psychotherapy, etc, and there was no information that the scientists had reset the software only to model Meniscus's immune system. The implication I took from it is that the program's essentially modelling his subconscious, it's just that Meniscus's entire life has been about his immune system, so the focus is there. Second, since there's reference in the latter half of the book to Meniscus growing his fingernails, his muscles, neuron systems in his skin, etc, on top of him manipulating his immune system, I took the Maul movements (shops opening and closing, etc) to at least partially reference those other physical changes. I could see it as just being a model of his immune system - it's just that few bits stick out then. This was more an instictive than an examined conclusion on my part, I'll admit.
Re: girls/antibodies, cops/lymphocytes
Huh! I hadn't thought to look at it that way. That makes a hell of a lot more sense. There's three kinds of lymphocytes, too, apparently, which kind of maps onto the three girls.
I was taking the subconscious bit from the fact that the Mall program, as described in Meniscus's world, seems to run using pieces to represent parts of the subconscious. Which is why I went to the place that it was some kind of full-body representation, though largely focused on the immune system in this case.
Particularly when 10Esha takes Keri hostage and uses her to shoot a bunch of mall security/antibodies, which I took as the newest strain of az79 using some of Meniscus's newfound powers as controlled by his subconscious to get better access to parts of his body.
Is this gelling better with your reading of it?
My biggest question is, if you read this as specifically as an extended metaphor of the immune system, then what were Keri, Sun, and Suk Hee?
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Re: girls/antibodies, cops/lymphocytes
Huh! I hadn't thought to look at it that way. That makes a hell of a lot more sense. There's three kinds of lymphocytes, too, apparently, which kind of maps onto the three girls.
Hm. That's elegant. Thanks.
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