Molly Millions (a.k.a. Sally Shears) is a recurring character in stories and novels written by William Gibson. She first appeared in Johnny Mnemonic, which she makes an oblique reference to in her second appearance in Neuromancer (where she's referred to primarily as "Molly", no last name given), and finally appears using the name "Sally Shears" in the book Mona Lisa Overdrive.

In all three stories, Molly is a physically tough (but not instantly imposing) bodyguard/mercenary referred to as a "razor girl" (in apparent homage to the song "Razor Boy" by the band Steely Dan, whose songs are frequently referenced by Gibson throughout his stories). A useful contact for dealing with gangs and black market elements, she tends to show little remorse for the opponents she ruthlessly dispatches in the course of her objectives, and in fact shows little deep emotions towards anyone outside of hatred, suspicion or bemused contempt. An exception to this was Johnny (of Johnny Mnemonic), whom she still mourned at the time of Neuromancer, part of the personal history she relates to its protaganist, Case, at length in addition to the revelation that she worked as a prostitute in a "puppet parlor" (a brothel where girls loan out their bodies while maintained in an induced trance state) to pay for her considerable cybernetic enhancements. Pseudonyms aside, she rents a hotel room in Neuromancer under the name "Rose Kolodny"; it is later confirmed by the Turing Police that her actual name is "Kolodny".

An attractive woman who appears at first glance to be wearing wraparound shades, her eye sockets are in fact sealed with vision-enhancing mirrored lenses that have been surgically attached to her face, and she has razor-sharp retractable claws underneath her fingernails - ten double-edged blades of four centimeters in length. Her metabolism and reflexes are also artificially heightened, with the tracery of electronic circuitry visible beneath certain areas of her skin, such as near her shoulders. Additionally, she frequently employs a flechette pistol that fires a variety of different rounds, ranging from poisons to explosives.

Because the screenplay (and characters) of Neuromancer was owned by a company called Alliance Communications at the time that the movie of Johnny Mnemonic was made, Molly was replaced in the movie by a fairly generic action character named "Jane", who lacked both her cybernetic implants and lethal tendencies.

References

• William Gibson, Neuromancer, 1984, ISBN 0441569560
• William Gibson, Burning Chrome ("Johnny Mnemonic"), 1986, ISBN 0060539828
• William Gibson, Mona Lisa Overdrive, 1988, ISBN 0553281747

External Link:

• William Gibson aleph Fan site
• Voidspace Online excerpts from Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive