NEAL STEPHENSON

the other hackers have their houses. Hiro has the Graveyard Daemon deposit the rolled-up scroll in his workshop, down in the basement-the room where Him does his backing. Then Him continues upstairs to his office.

27

His voice phone is ringing. Him picks it up.

“Pod,” Y.T. says, “I was beginning to think you’d never come out of there.”

“Where are you?” Him says.

“In Reality or the Metaverse?”

“In the Metaverse, I’m on a plusbound monorail train. Just passed by Port 35.”

“Already? It must be an express.”

“Good thinking. That Clint you cut the arms off of is two cars ahead of me. I don’t think he knows I’m following him.”

‘Where are you in Reality?”

“Public terminal across the street from a Reverend Wayne’s,” she saxs.

“Oh, yeah? How interesting.”

“Just made a delivery there.”

“What kind of delivery?”

“An aluminum suitcase.”

He gets the whole story out of her, or what he thinks is the whole story-there’s no real way to tell.

“You’re sure that the babbling that the people did in the park was the same as the babbling that the woman did at the Reverend Wayne’s?”

“Sure,” she says. “I know a bunch of people who go there. Or their parents go there and drag them along, you know.”

“To the Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates?”

“Yeah. And they all do that speaking in tongues. So I’ve heard it before.”

“I’ll talk to you later, pod,” Him says. “I’ve got some serious research to do.”

“Later.”

192