SNOW CRASH

We would come back from a forty-eight-hour halibut opening-this was back in the old days when they had fishing regulations-and we’d put on our survival suits, stick beers into the pockets, and jump into the water and just float around drinking all night long. And one time we were doing this and I drank until I passed out. And when I woke up, it was the next day, or maybe a couple of days later, I don’t know. And I was floating in my survival suit out in the middle of the Cook Inlet, all alone. The other guys on my fishing boat had forgotten about me.”

Conveniently enough, Y.T. thinh

“Anyway, I floated fora couple of days. Got real thirsty. Ended up washing ashore on Kodiak Island. By this time, I was real sick with the DTs and everything else. But I washed up near a Russian Orthodox church and they found me, took me.in, and straightened me out. And that was when I saw that the Western, American lifestyle had come this close to killing me.”

Here comes the sermon.

“And I saw that we can only live through faith, living a simple lifestyle. No booze. No television. None of that stuff.”

“So what are we doing in this place?”

He shrugs. “This is an example of the bad places I used to hang out. But if you’re going to get decent food on the Raft, you have to come to a place like this.”

A waiter approaches the table. His eyes are big, his movements tentative. He’s not coming to take an order; he’s coming to deliver bad news.

“Sir, you are wanted on the radio. I’m sorry.”

“Who is it?” Raven says.

The waiter just looks around him like he can’t even speak the name in public. “It’s very important,” he says.

Raven heaves a big sigh, grabs one last piece of fish and pokes it into his mouth. He stands up, and before Y.T. can react, gives her a kiss on the cheek. “Honey, I got a job to do, or something. Just wait right here for me, okay?”

“Here?”

“Nobody will fuck with you,” Raven says, as much for the benefit of the waiter as for Y.T.

51

The Raft looks uncannily cheerful from a few miles away. A dozen searchlights, and at least that many lasers, are mounted on the towering superstructure of the Enterprise, waving back and forth against the clouds like a Hollywood premiere. Closer up, it doesn’t look so bright and crisp. The vast matted tangle of small boats radiates a murky cloud of yellow light that spoils the contrast.

A couple of patches of the Raft are burning. Not a nice cheery

bonfire type of thing, but a high burbling flame with black smoke sliding out of it, like you get from a large quantity of gasoline.

“Gang warfare, maybe,” Eliot theorizes.

“Energy source,” Hiro guesses.

“Entertainment,” Fisheye says. “They don’t have cable on the fucking Raft”

Before they really plunge into Hell, Eliot takes the lid off the fuel tank and slides the dipstick into there, checking the fuel supply. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t look especially happy.

“Turn off all the lights,” Eliot says when it seems they are still miles away. “Remember that we have already been sighted by several hundred or even several thousand people who are armed and hungry.”

Vic is already going around the boat shutting off lights via the simple expedient of a ball peen hammer. Fisheye just stands there and listens intently to Eliot, suddenly respectful. Eliot continues. “Take off all the bright orange clothing, even if it means we get cold. From now on, we lay down on the decks, expose ourselves as little as possible, and we don’t talk to each other unleás necessary. Vic, you stay midships with your rifle and wait for someone to hit us with a spotlight. Anyone hits us with a spotlight from any direction, you shoot it out That includes flashlights from small boats. Hiro, your job is gunwale patrol. You just keep going around the edges of this yacht, anywhere that a swimmer could climb up over the edge and slip on board, and when that happens, cut his arms off. Also, be on the lookout

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