SNOW CRASH

This statement is translated and moves like a wave through the some eight hundred and ninety-six Filipinos who have now converged on the area. It is greeted with the utmost shock. Intrude? Unthinkable! Nonsense! How dare you so insult us?

One of the gap-toothed guys, a miniature old man and probable World War II veteran, jumps onto the rocking zodiac, sticks to the floor like a gecko, wraps his arm around Hiro’s shoulders, and pokes a spliff into his mouth.

He looks like a solid guy. Hiro leans into him. “Compadre, who is the guy with the antenna? A friend of yours?”

“Nah,” the guy whispers, “he’s an asshole.” Then he puts his index finger dramatically to his lips and shushes.

54

It’s all in the eyes. Along with picking handcuffs, vaulting Jersey barriers, and fending off perverts, it is one of the quintessential Kourier skills: walking around in a place where you don’t belong without attracting suspicion. And you do it by not looking at anyone. Keep those eyes straight ahead no matter what, don’t open them too wide, don’t look tense. That, and the fact that she just came in here with a guy that everyone is scared of, gets her back through the containership to the reception area.

“I need to use a Street terminal,” she says to the reception guy. “Can you charge it to my room?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the reception guy says. He doesn’t have to ask which room She’s in. He’s all smiles, all respect. Not the kind of thing you get very often when you’re a Kourier.

She could really get to like this relationship with Raven, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s a homicidal mutant.

-55

Hiro ducks out of Tranny’s celebratory dinner rather early, drags Reason off the zodiac and onto the front porch of the houseboat, opens it up, and jacks his personal computer into its bios.