SNOW CRASH

“So I heard. But that kayak’s not big enough. It’s tiny. I can’t believe you’d go out to sea in something like that.”

A mountain is growing out of the sea. A bubble of black water that keeps rising and broadening. Well behind the bobbing raft, a black tower has appeared, jutting vertically out of the water, a pair of wings sprouting from its top. The tower keeps getting taller, the wings getting higher out of the water, as before and aft, the mountain rises and shapes itself. Red stars and a few numbers. But no one has to read the numbers to know it’s a submarine. A nuclear-missile submarine.

Then it stops. So close to the Russians on their little raft that Gurov and friends can practically jump onto it. Raven paddles toward them, cutting through the waves like a glass knife.

“Fuck me,” the man with the glass eye says. He is utterly astounded. “Fuck me, fuck me, flick me. Uncle Enzo’s gonna be pissed.”

“You couldn’t of known,” Livio says. “Should we shoot at

‘em?”

Before the man with the glass eye can make a policy decision, the deck gun on the top of the nulcesub opens up. The fIrst shell misses them by just a few yards.

“Okay, we got a rapidly evolving situation. Hiro, you come with me.”

The crew of the Kowloon has already sized up the situation and placed their bets on the nuclear submarine. They are running up and down the rails, dropping large, fiberglass capsules into the water. The capsules break open to reveal bright orange folds, which blossom into life rafts.

Once the deck gunners on the nukesub figure out how to hit the Kowloon, the situation begins to evolve even more rapidly.

The Kowloon can’t decide whether to sink, burn, or simply disin.

tegrate, so it does all three at once. By that time, most of the people who were on it have made their way onto a life raft. They all bob on the water, zip themselves into orange survival suits, and watch the nukesub.

Raven is the last person to go belowdecks on the submarine. He spends a minute or two removing some gear from his kayak:

a few items in bags, and one eight-foot spear with a translucent, leaf-shaped head. Before he disappears into the hatch, he turns