Neuromancer

The first cyberpunk novel, written in a film noir style and featuring Case, a hacker or "cowboy" whose previous employers surgically altered his brain to remove his ability to connect to cyberspace after he cheated them. At the start of the novel he is an impoverished drug addict. Armitage hires him for a new job, and provides him with new surgery that allows him to "jack in" to the Matrix again. He is assigned to work with Molly, a skilled fighter with optical implants that look like sunglasses permanently covering her eye sockets, and with sharp blades she can extend from beneath her fingernails. The two become lovers. Molly does most of the physical intrusion, while Case works from cyberspace, connecting to Molly's sensory input through a simstim link. Wintermute, a mysterious AI, turns out to be controlling both Armitage and ultimately Molly and Case.