SNOW CRASH

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commerical developments and high-tech labs and amusement parks sprawl off into the darkness. Downtown is before them, as high and bright as the aurora borealis rising from the black water of the Bering Sea.

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The first poon smacks into the belly of the chopper as they are coming in low over the Valley. Y.T. feels it rather than hears it; she knows that sweet impact so well that she can sense it like one of those supersensitive seismo-thingies that detects earthquakes on the other side of the planet. Then half a dozen other poons strike in quick succession, and she has to force herself not to lean over and look out the window. Of course. The chopper’s belly is a solid wall of Soviet steel. It’ll hold poons like glue. If they lust keep flying low enough to poon-which they have to, to keep the chopper under the Mafia’s radar.

She can hear the radio crackling up front. “Take it up, Sasha, you’re picking up some parasites.”

She looks out the window. The other chopper, the little aluminum corporate number, is flying alongside them, a little bit higher in the air, and all the people inside of it are peering out the windows, watching the pavement underneath them. Except for Raven. Raven is still goggled into the Metaverse.

Shit. The pilot’s pulling the chopper to a higher altitude.

“Okay, Sasha. You lost ‘em,” the radio says. “But you still got a couple of them poon things hanging off your belly, so make sure you don’t snag ‘em on anything. The cables are stronger than steel.”

That’s all Y.T. needs. She opens the door and jumps out of the chopper.

At least that’s how it looks to the people inside. Actually she grabs a handhold on her way down and ends up dangling from the swinging, open door, looking inward toward the belly of the chopper. A couple of poons are stuck to it; thirty feet below, she can see the handles dangling on the ends of their lines, fluttering in the airstream. Looking into the Open door she can’t hear Rife

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