SNOW CRASH
of going onto hurt others, a warning tattoo on a prominent body part POOR IMPULSE CONTROL Apparently, this guy went to such a place and lost his temper real bad.
For an instant, a glowing red gridwork is plotted against the side of Raven’s face. It rapidly shnnks, all sides converging inward toward the right pupil. Raven shakes his head, turns to look for the source of the laser light, but it’s already gone. Lagos has already got his retinal scan.
That’s why Lagos is here. He’s not interested in Him or Vitaly Chemobyl. He’s interested in Raven. And somehow, Lagos knew that he was going to be here. And Lagos is somewhere nearby, right now, videotaping the guy, probing the contents of his pockets with radar, recording his pulse and respiration.
Him picks up his personal phone. “Y.T.,” he says, and it dials Y.T.’s number.
It rings for a long time before she picks it up. It’s almost impossible to hear anything over the sound of the concert.
“What the flick do you want?”
“Y.T., I’m sorry about this. But something’s going on. Something big time. I’m keeping one eye on a big biker named Raven.”
“The problem with you hackers is you never stop working.”
“That’s what a hacker is,” Hiro says.
“I’ll keep an eye on this Raven guy, too,” she says, “sometime when am working.” Then she hangs up.
16
Raven makes a couple of broad, lazy sweeps along the perimeter of the crowd, going very slowly, looking in all directions. He is annoyingly calm and unhurried.
Then he cuts farther out into the darkness, away from the crowd. He does a little more looking around, checking out the perimeter of the shantytown. And finally, he swings the big Harley around in a trajectory that brings him back to the big important Crip. The guy with the sapphire tie clip and the personal security detail.
Hiro begins weaving through the crowd in that direction, try.