NEAL STEPHENSON

125

in an instant. He stares at the crowd, five thousand potential market shares, young people with funkiness on their minds. They’ve never heard any music before that wasn’t perfect. It’s either studio-perfect digital sound from their CD players or performance-perfect fuzz-grunge from the best people in the business, the groups that have come to L.A. to make a name for themselves and have actually survived the gladiatorial combat environment of the clubs. Sushi K’s face lights up with a combination of joy and terror. Now he actually has to go up there and do it. In front of the seething biomass.

Hiro goes out and paves the way for him. That’s easy enough. Then he bails. He’s done his bit. No point in wasting time on this puny Sushi K thing when Raven is out there, representing a much larger source of income. So he wanders back out toward the periphery.

“Yol Dude with the swords,” someone says.

Hiro turns around, sees a green-jacketed Enforcer motioning to him. It’s the short, powerful guy with the headset, the guy in charge of the security detail.

“Squeaky,” he says, extending his hand.

“Hiro,” Hiro says, shaking it, and handing over his business card. No particular reason to be coy with these guys. ‘What can I do for you, Squeaky?”

Squeaky reads the card. He has a kind of exaggerated politeness that is kind of like a military man. He’s calm, mature, rolemodelesque, like a high school football coach. “You in charge of this thing?”

“To the extent anyone is.”

“Mr. Protagonist, we got a call a few minutes ago from a friend of yours named Y.T.”

“What’s wrong? Is she okay?”

“Oh, yes, sir, she’s just fine. But you know that bug you were talking to earlier?”

Hiro’s never heard the term “bug” used this way, but he reckons that Squeaky is referring to the gargoyle, Lagos.

“Yeah.”

‘Well, there’s a situation involving that gentleman that Y.T. sort of tipped us off to. We thought you might want to have a look.”

iió