SNOW CRASH

most of all Bruce Lee. Hiro can feel his anal sphincter contracting to the size of a pore.

“He’s asking how much we cost,” Eliot says. “It’s a joke, see, because they know they can come over and have our asses for free.”

“Oh, hilarious!” Fisheye says. While Hiro and Eliot literally freeze their asses, he’s still snuggled up under the canopy, that bastard.

“Poonmissile, like?” Bruce Lee says, pointing to one of the antiship missiles on the deck. “Bugs? Motorolas?”

“Poonmissile is a Harpoon antiship missile, real expensive,” Eliot says. “A bug is a microchip. Motorola would be one brand, like Ford or Chevy. Bruce Lee deals in a lot of electronics-you know, typical Asian pirate dude.”

“He’d give us a Harpoon missile for you guys?” Fisheye says.

“No! He’s being sarcastic, shithead!” Eliot says. “Tell him we want a boat with an outboard motor,” Fisheye says.

“Want one zode, one kicker, fillerup,” Eliot says.

Suddenly Bruce Lee gets real serious and actually considers it. “Scope clause, chomsayen? Gauge and gag.”

“He’ll consider it if they can come and check out the merchandise first,” Eliot says. “They want to check out how tight we are, and whether we are capable of suppressing our gag reflex. These are all terms from the Raft brothel industry.”

“Ombwas scope like twelves to me, hahaha.”

“Us homeboys look like we have twelve-gauge assholes,” Eliot says, “i.e., that we are all stretched out and worthless.”

Fisheye speaks up on his own. “No, no, four-tens, totally!”

The entire deck of the pirate ship titters with excitement.

“No way,” Bruce Lee says.

“These ombwas,” Fisheye says, “still got cherries up in there!” The whole deck erupts in rude, screaming laughter. One of the pirates scrambles up to balance on the railing, gyrates one fist in the air, and hollers: “ba ka na zu ma lay ga no mala aria ma na p0 no a ab zu … ” By that point all the other pirates have stopped laughing, gotten serious looks on their faces, and joined in, bellowing their own private streams of babble, rattling the air with a profound hoarse ulu]ation.