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“If you can obtain a copy of this namshub,” Ng says, “what effect would it have?”

“If we could transmit the namshub of Enki to all of the en on the Raft, they would relay it to all of the Raft people. It would jam their mother-tongue neurons and prevent Rife from programming them with new me,” Him says. “But we really need to get this done before the Raft breaks up-before the Refus all come ashore. Rife talks to his en through a central transmitter on the Enterprise, which I take to be a fairly short-range, line-of-sight type of thing. Pretty soon he’ll use this system to distribute a big me that will cause all the Refus to come ashore as a unified army with coordinated marching orders. In other words, the Raft will break up, and after that it won’t be possible to reach all of these people anymore with a single transmission. So we have to do it as soon as possible.”

“Mr. Rife will be most unhappy,” Ng predicts. “He will try to retaliate by unleashing Snow Crash against the technological priesthood.”

“I know that,” Hiro says, “but I can only worry about one thing at a time. I could use a little help here.”

“Easier said than done,” Ng says. “To reach the Core, one must fly over the Raft or drive a small boat through its midst. Rife has a million people there with rifles and missile launchers. Even high-tech weapons systems cannot defeat organized small-arms fire on a massive scale.”

“Get some choppers out to this vicinity, then,” Hiro says. “Something. Anything. If I can get my hands on the namshub of Enki and infect everyone on the Raft with it, then you can approach safely.”

“We’ll see what we can come up with,” Uncle Enzo says.

“Fine,” Hiro says. “Now, what about Reason?”

Ng mumbles something and a card appears in his hand. “Here’s a new version of the system software,” he says. “It should be a little less buggy.”

“A little less?”

“No piece of software is ever bug free,” Ng says.

Uncle Enzo says, “I guess there’s a little bit of Asherah in all

of us.”

58

Him finds his own way out and takes the elevator all the way back down to the Street. When he exits the neon skyscraper, a blackand-white girl is sitting on his motorcycle, messing with the controls.

“Where are you?” she says.

“I’m on the Raft, too. Hey, we just made twenty-five million dollars.”

He is sure that just this one time, Y.T. is going to be impressed by something that he says. But she’s not.

“That’ll buy me a really happening funeral when they mail me home in a piece of Tupperware,” she says.

“Why would that happen?”

“I’m in trouble,” she admits—for the first time in her life. “I think my boyfriend is going to kill me.”

“Who’s your boyfriend?”

“Raven.”

If avatars could turn pale and woozy and have to sit down on the sidewalk, Hiro’s would. “Now I know why he has POOR IMPULSE CONTROL tattooed across his forehead.”

“This is great. I was hoping to get alittle cooperation or at least maybe some advice,” she says.

“If you think he’s going to kill you, you’re wrong, because if you were right, you’d be dead,” Hiro says.

“Depends on your assumptions,” she says. She goes on to tell him a highly entertaining story about a dentata.

“I’m going to try to help you,” l1iro says, “but I’m not necessarily the safest guy on the Raft to hang out with, either.”

“Did you hook up with your girlfriend yet?”

“No. But I have high hopes for that. Assuming I can stay alive.”

“High hopes for what?”

“Our relationship.”

“Why?” she asks. “What’s changed between then and now?”

This is one of these utterly simple and obvious questions that

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