The head designer from Maas-Biolabs is defecting to Hosaka. Turner has to deliver him safely, and the biochips he invented - which are of supreme interest to other parties, some of whom are not human. ¶ 'Count Zero' is the second chapter in the Sprawl series. It is set in the same dark future and takes place about eight years after the events of 'Neuromancer'. Cyberspace has gained consciousness since the unification of Neuromancer and Wintermute, and parts of AI are loose in the matrix with their own agenda. ¶ The story was published as a serial in Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine in three parts in the January to March 1986 issues. The protagonist's handle 'Count Zero' comes from the programmer term 'count zero interrupt', which describes the moment when a program has looped enough times to cause an interrupt (event which causes the program to stop doing one thing, and start or check another).