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L.A."
"I am profoundly embarrassed to reveal that these fans are not exactly
ghetto homeboys, as I must have carelessly led you to believe. They are
thrashers. Skateboarders who like both rap music and heavy metal."
"Ah. This is fine, then," Sushi K says. But his tone of voice suggests
that it's not really fine at all.
"But there are representatives of the Crips here," Hiro says, thinking
very, very fast even by his standards, "and if your performance is well
received, as I'm quite certain it will be, they will spread the word
throughout their community."
Sushi K rolls down the window. The decibel level quintuples in an
instant. He stares at the crowd, five thousand potential market shares,
young people with funkiness on their minds. They've never heard any music
before that wasn't perfect. It's either studio-perfect digital sound from
their CD players or performance-perfect fuzz-grunge from the best people in
the business, the groups that have come to L.A. to make a name for
themselves and have actually survived the gladiatorial combat environment of
the clubs. Sushi K's face lights up with a combination of joy and terror.
Now he actually has to go up there and do it. In front of the seething
biomass.
Hiro goes out and paves the way for him. That's easy enough. Then he
bails. He's done his bit. No point in wasting time on this puny Sushi K
thing when Raven is out there, representing a much larger source of income.
So he wanders back out toward the periphery.
"Yo! Dude with the swords," someone says.
Hiro turns around, sees a green-jacketed Enforcer motioning to him.
It's the short, powerful guy with the headset, the guy in charge of the
security detail.
"Squeaky," he says, extending his hand.
"Hiro," Hiro says, shaking it, and handing over his business card. No
particular reason to be coy with these guys. "What can I do for you,
Squeaky?"
Squeaky reads the card. He has a kind of exaggerated politeness that is
kind of like a military man. He's calm, mature, role-modelesque, like a high
school football coach. "You in charge of this thing?"
"To the extent anyone is."
"Mr. Protagonist, we got a call a few minutes ago from a friend of
yours named Y.T."
"What's wrong? Is she okay?"
"Oh, yes, sir, she's just fine. But you know that bug you were talking
to earlier?"
Hiro's never heard the term "bug" used this way, but he reckons that
Squeaky is referring to the gargoyle, Lagos.
"Yeah."
"Well, there's a situation involving that gentleman that Y.T. sort of
tipped us off to. We thought you might want to have a look."
"What's going on?"
"Uh. why don't you come with me. You know, some things are easier to
show than to explain verbally."
As Squeaky turns, Sushi K's first rap song begins. His voice sounds
tight and tense.
I'm Sushi K and I'm here to say
I like to rap in a different way
Look out Number One in every city
Sushi K rap has all most pretty
My special talking of remarkable words
Is not the stereotyped bucktooth nerd
My hair is big as a galaxy
Cause I attain greater technology
Hiro follows Squeaky away from the crowd, into the dimly lit area on
the edge of the shantytown. Up above them on the overpass embankment, he can
dimly make out phosphorescent shapes - green-jacketed Enforcers orbiting
some strange attractor.
"Watch your step," Squeaky says as they begin to climb up the
embankment. "It's slippery in places."
I like to rap about sweetened romance
My fond ambition is of your pants
So here is of special remarkable way
Of this fellow raps named Sushi K
The Nipponese talking phenomenon
Like samurai sword his sharpened tongue
Who raps the East Asia and the Pacific
Prosperity Sphere, to be specific
It's a typical loose slope of dirt and stones that looks like it would
wash away in the first rainfall. Sage and cactus and tumbleweeds here and
there, all looking scraggly and half-dead from air pollution.
It's hard to see anything clearly, because Sushi K is jumping around
down below them on the stage, the brilliant orange rays of his sunburst
hairdo are sweeping back and forth across the embankment at a speed that
seems to be supersonic, washing grainy, gritty light over the weeds and the
rocks and throwing everything into weird, discolored, high-contrast freeze
frames.
Sarariman on subway listen
For Sushi K like nuclear fission
Fire-breathing lizard Gojiro
He my always big-time hero
His mutant rap burn down whole block
Start investing now Sushi K stock
It on Nikkei stock exchange
Waxes; other rappers wane
Best investment, make my day
Corporation Sushi K
Squeaky is walking straight uphill, paralleling a fresh motorcycle
track that has cut deeply into the loose yellow soil. It consists of a deep,
wide track with a narrower one that runs parallel, a couple of feet to the
right.
The track gets deeper the farther up they go. Deeper and darker. It
looks less and less like a motorcycle rut in loose dirt and more like a
drainage ditch for some sinister black effluent.
Coming to America now
Rappers trying to start a row
Say "Stay in Japan, please, listen!
We can't handle competition!"
U.S. rappers booing and hissin'
Ask for rap protectionism
They afraid of Sushi K
Cause their audience go away
He got chill financial backin'
Give those U.S. rappers a smackin'
Sushi K concert machine
Fast efficient super clean
Run like clockwork in a watch
Kick old rappers in the crotch
One of The Enforcers up the hill is carrying a flashlight. As he moves,
it sweeps across the ground at a flat angle, briefly illuminating the ground
like a searchlight. For an instant, the light shines into the motorcycle
rut, and Hiro perceives that it has become a river of bright red, oxygenated
blood.
He learn English total immersion
English/Japanese be mergin'
Into super combination
So can have fans in every nation
Hong Kong they speak English, too
Yearn of rappers just like you
Anglophones who live down under
Sooner later start to wonder
When they get they own rap star
Tired of rappers from afar
Lagos is lying on the ground, sprawled across the tire track. He has
been slit open like a salmon, with a single smooth-edged cut that begins at
his anus and runs up his belly, through the middle of his sternum, all the
way up to the point of his jaw. It's not just a superficial slash. It
appears to go all the way to his spine in some places. The black nylon
straps that hold his computer system to his body have been neatly cut where
they cross the midline, and half of the stuff has fallen off into the dust.
So I will get big radio traffic
When you look at demographic
Sushi K research statistic
Make big future look ballistic
Speed of Sushi K growth stock
Put U.S. rappers into shock
Jason Breckinridge wears a terracotta blazer. It is the color of
Sicily. Jason Breckinridge has never been to Sicily. He may get to go there
someday, as a premium. In order to get the free cruise to Sicily, Jason has
to accumulate 10,000 Goombata. Points.
He begins this quest in a favorable position. By opening up his own
Nova Sicilia franchise, he started out with an automatic 3,333 points in the
Goombata Point bank. Add to that a one-time-only Citizenship Bonus of 500
points and the balance is starting to look pretty good. The number is stored
in the big computer in Brooklyn.
Jason grew up in the western suburbs of Chicago, one of the most highly
franchised regions in the country. He attended the University of Illinois
business school, racking up a GPA of 2.9567, and did a senior thesis called
"The Interaction of the Ethnographic, Financial, and Paramilitary Dimensions
of Competition in Certain Markets." This was a case study of turf struggle
between Nova Sicilia and Narcolombia franchises in his old neighborhood in
Aurora.
Enrique Cortazar ran the failing Narcolombia franchise upon which Jason
had hinged his argument. Jason interviewed him several times over the phone,
briefly, but never saw Mr. Cortazar face to face.
Mr. Cortazar celebrated Jason's graduation by firebombing the
Breckinridges' Omni Horizon van in a parking lot and then firing eleven
clips of automatic rifle ammunition through the front wall of their house.
Fortunately, Mr. Caruso, who ran the local string of Nova Sicilia
franchulates that was in the process of beating the pants off of Enrique
Cortazar, got wind of these attacks before they happened, probably by
intercepting signal intelligence from Mr. Cortazar's fleet of poorly secured
cellular phones and CB radios. He was able to warn Jason's family in time,
so that when all of those bullets flew through their house in the middle of
the night, they were enjoying complimentary champagne in an Old Sicilia Inn
five miles down Highway 96.
Naturally, when the B-school held its end-of-the-year job fair, Jason
made a point of swinging by the Nova Sicilia booth to thank Mr. Caruso for
saving everyone in his family from certain death.
"Hey, y'know, it was just, like a neighbor kinda thing, y'know, Jasie
boy?" Mr. Caruso said, whacking Jason across the shoulder blades and
squeezing his deltoids, which were the size of cantaloupes. Jason did not
hit the steroids as hard as he had when he was fifteen, but he was still in
great shape.
Mr. Caruso was from New York. He had one of the most popular booths at
the job fair. It was being held in a big exhibition space in the Union. The
hall had been done up with an imaginary street pattern. Two "highways"
divided it up into quadrants, and all the franchise companies and
nationalities had their booths along the highways. Burbclaves and other
companies had booths hidden among the suburban "streets" within the
quadrants. Mr. Caruso's Nova Sicilia booth was right at the intersection of
the two highways. Dozens of scrubby B-school grads were lined up there
waiting to interview, but Mr. Caruso noticed Jason standing in line and went
right up and plucked him out of line and grabbed his deltoids. All the other
B-school grads stared at Jason enviously. That made Jason feel good, really
special. That was the feeling he got about Nova Sicilia: personalized
attention.
"Well, I was going to interview here, of course, and at Mr. Lee's
Greater Hong Kong, because I'm real interested in high tech," Jason said, in
response to Mr. Caruso's fatherly questioning.
Mr. Caruso gave him an especially hard squeeze. His voice said that he
was painfully surprised, but that he didn't necessarily think any less of
Jason for it, not yet anyway. "Hong Kong? What would a smart white kid like
you want with a fuckin' Nip operation?"
"Well, technically they're not Nips - which is short for Niponese,"
Jason said. "Hong Kong is a predominantly Catonese - "
"They're all Nips," Mr. Caruso said, "and y'know why I say that? Not
because I'm a fuckin' racist, because I'm not. Because to them - to those
people, y'know, the Nips - we're all foreign devils. That's what they call
us. Foreign devils. How d'ya like that?"
Jason just laughed appreciatively.
"After all the good things we did for them. But here in America, Jasie
boy, we're all foreign devils, ain't we? We all came from someplace - 'cept
for the fuckin' Indians. You ain't gonna interview over at the Lakota
Nation, are ya?"
"No, sir, Mr. Caruso," Jason said.
"Good thinkin'. I agree with that. I'm gettin' away from my main point,
which is that since we all have our own unique ethnic and cultural
identities, we have to get a job with an organization that uniquely respects
and seeks to preserve those distinctive identities - forging them together
into a functionin' whole, y'know?"
"Yes, I see your point, Mr. Caruso," Jason said.
By this point, Mr. Caruso had led him some distance away and was
strolling with him down one of the metaphorical Highways o' Opportunity.
"Now, can you think of some business organizations that fill that fuckin'
bill, Jasie boy?"
"Well ..."
"Not fuckin' Hong Kong. That's for white people who want to be Japs but
can't, didja know that? You don't wanta be a Jap, do ya?"
"Ha ha. No, sir, Mr. Caruso."
"Y'know what I heard?" Mr. Caruso let go of Jason, turned, and stood
close to him, chest to chest, his cigar zinging past Jason's ear like a
flaming arrow as he gesticulated. This was a confidential portion of the
chat, a little anecdote between the two men. "In Japan, if you screw up? You
gotta cut off one a your fingers. Chop. Just like that. Honest to God. You
don't believe me?"
"I believe you. But that's not all of Japan, sir. Just in the Yakuza.
The Japanese Mafia."
Mr. Caruso threw back his head and laughed, put his arm around Jason's
shoulders again. "Y'know, I like you, Jason, I really do," he said. "The
Japanese Mafia. Tell me something, Jason, you ever hear anyone describe our
thing as 'The Sicilian Yakuza'? Huh?"
Jason laughed. "No, sir."
"Y'know why that is? Y'know?" Mr. Caruso had come to the serious,
meaningful part of his speech.
"Why is that, sir?"
Mr. Caruso wheeled Jason around so that both of them were staring down
the length of the highway to the tall effigy of Uncle Enzo, standing above
the intersection like the Statue of Liberty.
"Cause there's only one, son. Only one. And you could be a part of it."
"But it's so competitive - "
"What? Listen to this! You got a three-point grade average! You're
gonna kick butt, son!"
Mr. Caruso, like any other franchisee, had access to Turfnet, the
multiple listing service that Nova Sicilia used to keep track of what it
called "opportunity zones." He took Jason back to the booth-right past all
of those poor dorks waiting in line, Jason really liked that-and signed onto
the network. All Jason had to do was pick out a region.
"I have an uncle who owns a car dealership in southern California,"
Jason said, "and I know that's a rapidly expanding area, and - "
"Plenty of opportunity zones!" Mr. Caruso said, pounding away on the
keyboard with a flourish. He wheeled the monitor around to show Jason a map
of the L.A. area blazing with red splotches that represented unclaimed turf
sectors. "Take your pick, Jasie boy!"
Now Jason Breckinridge is the manager of Nova Sicilia #5328 in the
Valley. He puts on his smart terracotta blazer every morning and drives to
work in his Oldsmobile. Lots of young entrepreneurs would be driving BMWs or
Acuras, but the organization of which Jason is now a part puts a premium on
tradition and family values and does not go in for flashy foreign imports.
"If an American car is good enough for Uncle Enzo... "
Jason's blazer has the Mafia logo embroidered on the breast pocket. A
letter "G" is worked into the logo, signifying Gambino, which is the
division that handles accounts for the L.A. Basin. His name is written
underneath: "Jason (The Iron Pumper) Breckinridge." That is the nickname
that he and Mr. Caruso came up with a year ago at the job fair in Illinois.
Everyone gets to have a nickname, it is a tradition and a mark of pride, and
they like you to pick something that says something about you.
As manager of a local office, Jason's job is to portion work out to
local contractors. Every morning, he parks his Oldsmobile out front and goes
into the office, ducking quickly into the armored doorway to foil possible
Narcolombian snipers. This does not prevent them from taking occasional
potshots at the big Uncle Enzo that rises up above the franchise, but those
signs can take an amazing amount of abuse before they start looking seedy.
Safely inside, Jason signs onto Turfnet. A job list scrolls
automatically onto the screen. All Jason has to do is find contractors to
handle all of those jobs before he goes home that night, or else he has to
take care of them himself. One way or another, they have to get done. The
great majority of the jobs are simple deliveries, which he portions out to
Kouriers. Then there are collections from delinquent borrowers and from
franchisees who depend on Nova Sicilia for their plant security. If it's a
first notice, Jason likes to drop by in person, just to show the flag, to
emphasize that his organization takes a personal, one-to-one, hands-on,
micromanaged approach to debt-related issues. If it's a second or third
notice, he usually writes a contract with Deadbeaters International, a
high-impact collection agency with whose work he has always been very happy.
Then there is the occasional Code H. Jason hates to deal with Code Hs, views
them as symptoms of a breakdown in the system of mutual trust that makes
society work. But usually these are handled directly from the regional
level, and all Jason has to do is aftermath management and spin control.
This morning, Jason is looking especially crisp, his Oldsmobile freshly
waxed and polished. Before he goes inside, he plucks a couple of burger
wrappers off the parking lot, snipers be damned. He has heard that Uncle
Enzo is in the area, and you never knew when he might pull his fleet of
limousines and war wagons into a neighborhood franchise and pop in to shake
hands with the rank and file. Yes, Jason is going to be working late
tonight, burning the oil until he receives word that Uncle Enzo's plane is
safely out of the area.
He signs onto Turfnet. A list of jobs scrolls up as usual, not a very
long list. Interfranchise activity is way down today, as all the local
managers gird, polish, and inspect for the possible arrival of Uncle Enzo.
But one of the jobs scrolls up in red letters, a priority job.
Priority jobs are a little unusual. A symptom of bad morale and general
slipshoddity. Every job should be a priority job. But every so often, there
is something that absolutely can't be delayed or screwed up. A local manager
like Jason can't order up a priority job; it has to come from a higher
echelon.
Usually, a priority job is a Code H. But Jason notes with relief that
this one is a simple delivery. Certain documents are to be hand carried from
his office to Nova Sicilia #4649, which is south of downtown.
Way south. Compton. A war zone, longtime stronghold of Narcolombians
and Rastafarian gunslingers.
Compton. Why the hell would an office in Compton need a personally
signed copy of his financial records? They should be spending all of their
time doing Code Hs on the competition, out there.
As a matter of fact, there is a very active Young Mafia group on a
certain block in Compton that has just succeeded in driving away all of the
Narcolombians and turning the whole area into a Mafia Watch neighborhood.
Old ladies are walking the streets again. Children are waiting for
schoolbuses and playing hopscotch on sidewalks that recently were stained
with blood. It's a fine example; if it can be done on this block, it can be
done anywhere.
As a matter of fact, Uncle Enzo is coming to congratulate them in
person.
This afternoon.
And #4649 is going to be his temporary headquarters.
The implications are stunning.
Jason has been given a priority job to deliver his records to the very
franchise where Uncle Enzo will be taking his espresso this afternoon!
Uncle Enzo is interested in him.
Mr. Caruso claimed he had connections higher up, but could they really
go this high?
Jason sits back in his color-coordinated earth-tone swivel chair to
consider the very real possibility that in a few days, he's going to be
managing a whole region - or even better.
One thing's for sure - this is not a delivery to be entrusted to any
Kourier, any punk on a skateboard. Jason is going to trundle his Oldsmobile
into Compton personally to drop this stuff off.
He's there an hour ahead of schedule. He was shooting for half an hour
early, but once he gets a load of Compton - he's heard stories about the
place, of course, but my God - he starts driving like a maniac. Cheap, nasty
franchises all tend to adopt logos with a lot of bright, hideous yellow in
them, and so Alameda Street is clearly marked out before him, a gout of
radioactive urine ejected south from the dead center of L.A. Jason aims
himself right down the middle, ignoring lane markings and red lights, and
puts the hammer down.
Most of the franchises are yellow-logoed, wrong-side-of-the-tracks
operations like Uptown, Narcolombia, Caymans Plus, Metazania, and The Clink.
But standing out like rocky islands in this swamp are the Nova Sicilia
franchulates - beachheads for the Mafia's effort to outduel the
overwhelmingly strong Narcolombia.
Shitty lots that even The Clink wouldn't buy always tend to get picked
up by economy-minded three-ringers who have just shelled out a million yen
for a Narcolombia license and who need some real estate, any real estate,
that they can throw a fence around and extraterritorialize. These local
franchulates send most of their gross to Medellin in franchising fees and
keep barely enough to pay overhead.
Some of them try to scam, to sneak a few bills into their pocket when
they think the security camera isn't watching, and run down the street to
the nearest Caymans Plus or The Alps franchulate, which hover in these areas
like flies on road kill. But these people rapidly find out that in
Narcolombia, just about everything is a capital offense, and there is no
judicial system to speak of, just flying justice squads that have the right
to blow into your franchulate any time of day or night and fax your records
back to the notoriously picky computer in Medellin. Nothing sucks more than
being hauled in front of a firing squad against the back wall of the
business that you built with your own two hands.
Uncle Enzo reckons that with the Mafia's emphasis on loyalty and
traditional family values, they can sign up a lot of these entrepreneurs -
before they become Narcolombian citizens.
And that explains the billboards that Jason sees with growing frequency
as he drives into Compton. The smiling face of Uncle Enzo seems to beam down
from every comer. Typically, he's got his arm around the shoulders of a
young wholesome-looking black kid, and there's a catch phrase above: THE
MAFIA - YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND IN THE FAMILY! and RELAX - YOU ARE ENTERING A
MAFIA WATCH NEIGHBORHOOD! and UNCLE ENZO FORGIVES AND FORGETS.
This last one usually accompanies a picture of Uncle Enzo with his arm
around some teenager's shoulders, giving him a stern avuncular talking-to.
It is an allusion to the fact that the Colombians and Jamaicans kill just
about everyone.
NO WAY, JOSE! Uncle Enzo holding up one hand to stop an Uzi-toting
Hispanic scumbag; behind him stands a pan-ethnic phalanx of kids and
grannies, resolutely gripping baseball bats and frying pans.
Oh, sure, the Narcolombians still have a lock on coca leaves, but now
that Nippon Pharmaceuticals has its big cocaine-synthesis facility in
Mexicali nearly complete, that will cease to be a factor. The Mafia is
betting that any smart youngster going into the business these days will
take note of these billboards and think twice. Why end up suffocating on
your own entrails out in back of some Buy 'n' Fly when you can put on a
crisp terracotta blazer instead and become part of a jovial familia?
Especially now that they have black, Hispanic, and Asian capos who will
respect your cultural identity? In the long term, Jason is bullish on the
Mob.
His black Oldsmobile is a fucking bullseye in a place like this. It's
the worst thing he has ever seen, Compton. Lepers roasting dogs on spits
over tubs of flaming kerosene. Street people pushing wheelbarrows piled high
with dripping clots of million- and billion-dollar bills that they have
raked up out of storm sewers. Road kills - enormous road kills - road kills
so big that they could only be human beings, smeared out into chunky swaths
a block long. Burning roadblocks across major avenues. No franchises
anywhere. The Oldsmobile keeps popping. Jason can't think of what it is
until he realizes that people are shooting at him. Good thing he let his
uncle talk him into springing for full armor! When he figures that one out,
he actually gets psyched. This is the real thing, man! He's driving around
in his Olds and the bastards are shooting at him, and it just don't matter!
Every street for three blocks around the franchise is blocked off by
Mafia war wagons. Men lurk on top of burned tenements carrying six-foot-long
rifles and wearing black windbreakers with MAFIA across the back in
five-inch fluorescent letters.
This is it, man, this is the real shit.
Pulling up to the checkpoint, he notes that his Olds is now straddling
a portable claymore mine. If he's the wrong guy, it'll turn the car into a
steel doughnut. But he's not the wrong guy. He's the right guy. He's got a
priority job, a heap of documents on the seat next to him, wrapped up tight
and pretty.
He rolls the window down and a top-echelon Mafia guardsman nails him
with the retinal scanner. None of this ID card nonsense. They know who he is
in a microsecond. He sits back against his whiplash arrestor, turns the
rear-view mirror to face himself, checks his hairstyle. It's not half bad.
"Bud," the guard says, "you ain't on the list."
"Yes, I am," Jason says. "This is a priority delivery. Got the papers
right here."
He hands a hard copy of the Turfnet job order to the guard, who looks
at it, grunts, and goes into his war wagon, which is richly festooned with
antennas.
There is a very, very long wait.
A man is approaching on foot, walking across the emptiness between the
Mafia franchise and the perimeter. The vacant lot is a wilderness of charred
bricks and twisted electrical conduit, but this gentleman is walking across
it like Christ on the Sea of Galilee. His suit is perfectly black. So is his
hair. He doesn't have any guards with him. The perimeter security is that
good.
Jason notices that all the guards at this checkpoint are standing a
little straighter, adjusting their ties, shooting their cuffs. Jason wants
to climb out of his bulletpocked Oldsmobile to show proper respect to
whoever this guy is, but he can't get the door open because a big guard is
standing right there, using the roof as a mirror.
All too quickly, he's there.
"Is this him?" he says to a guard.
The guard looks at Jason for a couple of seconds, as though he can't
quite believe it, then looks at the important man in the black suit and
nods.
The man in the black suit nods back, tugs on his cuffs a little bit,
squints around him for a few moments, looking at the snipers up on the
roofs, looking everywhere but at Jason. Then he steps forward one pace. One
of his eyes is made of glass and doesn't point in the same direction as the
other one. Jason thinks he's looking elsewhere. But he's looking at Jason
with his good eye. Or maybe he isn't. Jason can't tell which eye is the real
one. He shudders and stiffens like a puppy in a deep freeze.
"Jason Breckinridge," the man says.
"The Iron Pumper," Jason reminds him.
"Shut up. For the rest of this conversation, you don't say anything.
When I tell you what you did wrong, you don't say you're sorry, because I
already know you're sorry. And when you drive outta here alive, you don't
thank me for being alive. And you don't even say goodbye to me."
Jason nods.
"I don't even want you to nod, that's how much you annoy me. Just
freeze and shut up. Okay, here we go. We gave you a priority job this
morning. It was real easy. All you had to do was read the fucking job sheet.
But you didn't read it. You just took it upon yourself to make the fuckin'
delivery on your own. Which the job sheet explicitly tells you not to do."
Jason's eyes flick in the direction of the bundle of documents on the
seat.
"That's crap," the man says. "We don't want your fucking documents. We
don't care about you and your fucking franchise out in the middle a nowhere.
All we wanted was the Kourier. The job sheet said that this delivery was
supposed to be made by one particular Kourier who works your area, name of
Y.T. Uncle Enzo happens to like Y.T. He wants to meet her. Now, because you
screwed up, Uncle Enzo don't get his wish. Oh, what a terrible outcome. What
an embarrassment. What an incredible fuckup, is what it is. It's too late to
save your franchise, Jason The Iron Pumper, but it might not be too late to
keep the sewer rats from eating your nipples for dinner."
"This wasn't done with a sword," Hiro says. He is beyond astonishment
as he stands and stares at Lagos's corpse. All the emotions will probably
come piling in on him later, when he goes home and tries to sleep. For now,
the thinking part of his brain seems cut loose from his body, as if he has
just ingested a great deal of drugs, and he's just as cool as Squeaky.
"Oh, yeah? How can you tell?" Squeaky says.
"Swords make quick cuts, all the way through. Like, you cut off a head
or an arm. A person who's been killed with a sword doesn't look like this."
"Really? Have you killed a lot of people with swords, Mr. Protagonist?"
"Yes. In the Metaverse."
They stand for a while longer, looking at it.
"This doesn't look like a speed move. This looks like a strength move,"
Squeaky says.
"Raven looks strong enough."
"That he does."
"But I don't think he was carrying a weapon. The Crips frisked him
earlier, and he was clean."
"Well, then he must have borrowed one," Squeaky says. "This bug was all
over the place, you know. We were keeping an eye on him, because we were
afraid he was going to piss Raven off. He kept going around looking for a
vantage point."
"He's loaded with surveillance gear," Hiro says. "The higher he gets,
the better it works."
"So he ended up here on this embankment. And apparently the perpetrator
knew where he was."
"The dust," Hiro says. "Watch the lasers."
Down below, Sushi K pirouettes spastically as a beer bottle caroms off
his forehead. A bundle of lasers sweeps across the embankment, clearly
visible in the fine dust being drawn out of it by the wind.
"This guy - this bug - was using lasers. As soon as he came up here - "
"They betrayed his position," Squeaky says.
"And then Raven came after him."
"Well, we're not saying it's him," Squeaky says. "But I need to know if
this character" - he nods at the corpse - "might have done anything that
would have made Raven feel threatened."
"What is this, group therapy? Who cares if Raven felt threatened?"
"I do," Squeaky says with great finality.
"Lagos was just a gargoyle. A big hoover for intel. I don't think he
did wet operations - and if he did, he wouldn't do it in that get-up."
"So why do you think Raven was feeling so jumpy?"
"I guess he doesn't like being under surveillance," Hiro says.
"Yeah." Squeaky says. "You should remember that."
Then Squeaky puts one hand over his ear, the better to hear voices on
his headset radio.
"Did Y.T. see this happen?" Hiro says.
"No," Squeaky mumbles, a few seconds later. "But she saw him leaving
the scene. She's following him."
"Why would she want to do that!?"
"I guess you told her to, or something."
"I didn't think she'd take off after him."
"Well, she doesn't know that he killed the guy," Squeaky says. "She
just phoned in a sighting - he's riding his Harley into Chinatown." And he
begins running up the embankment. A couple of Enforcers' cars are parked on
the shoulder of the highway up there, waiting.
Hiro tags along. His legs are in incredible shape from sword fighting,
and he manages to catch up to Squeaky by the time he reaches his car. When
the driver undoes the electric door locks, Hiro scoots into the back seat as
Squeaky is going into the front. Squeaky turns around and gives him a tired
look.
"I'll behave," Hiro says.
"Just one thing - "
"I know. Don't fuck around with Raven."
"That's right."
Squeaky holds his glare for another second and then turns around,
motions the driver to drive. He impatiently rips ten feet of hard copy out
of the dashboard printer and begins sifting through it.
On this long strip of paper, Hiro glimpses multiple renditions of the
important Crip, the guy with the goatee whom Raven was dealing with earlier.
On the printout, he is labeled as "T-Bone Murphy."
There's also a picture of Raven. It's an action shot, not a mug shot.
It is terrible output. It has been caught through some kind of
light-amplifying optics that wash out the color and make everything
incredibly grainy and low contrast. It looks like some image processing has
been done to make it sharper; this also makes it grainier. The license plate
is just an oblate blur, overwhelmed by the glow of the taillight. It is
heeled over sharply, the sidecar wheel several inches off the ground. But
the rider doesn't have any visible neck; his head, or rather the dark
splotch that is there, just keeps getting wider until it merges into his
shoulders. Definitely Raven.
"How come you have pictures of T-bone Murphy in there?" Hiro says.
"He's chasing him," Squeaky says.
"Who's chasing whom?"
"Well, your friend Y.T. ain't no Edward R. Murrow. But as far as we can
tell from her reports, they've been sighted in the same area, trying to kill
each other," Squeaky says. He's speaking with the slow, distant tones of
someone who is getting live updates over his headphones.
"They were doing some kind of a deal earlier," Hiro says.
"Then I ain't hardly surprised they're trying to kill each other now."
Once they get to a certain part of town, following the T-Bone and Raven
show becomes a matter of connect-the-ambulances. Every couple of blocks
there is a cluster of cops and medics, lights sparkling, radios coughing.
All they have to do is go from one to the next.
At the first one, there is a dead Crip lying on the pavement. A
six-foot-wide blood slick runs from his body, diagonally down the street to
a storm drain. The ambulance people are standing around, smoking and
drinking coffee from go cups, waiting for The Enforcers to get finished
measuring and photographing so that they can haul the corpse to the morgue.
There are no IV lines set up, no bits of medical trash strewn around the
area, no open doc boxes; they didn't even try.
They proceed around a couple of comers to the next constellation of
flashing lights. Here, the ambulance drivers are inflating a cast around the
leg of a MetaCop.
"Run over by the motorcycle," Squeaky says, shaking his head with the
traditional Enforcer's disdain for their pathetic junior relations, the
MetaCops.
Finally, he patches the radio feed into the dashboard so they can all
hear it.
The motorcyclist's trail is now cold and it sounds like most of the
local cops are dealing with aftermath problems. But a citizen has just
called in to complain that a man on a motorcycle, and several other persons,
are trashing a field of hops on her block.
"Three blocks from here," Squeaky says to the driver.
"Hops?" Hiro says.
"I know the place. Local microbrewery," Squeaky says. "They grow their
own hops. Contract it out to some urban gardeners. Chinese peasants who do
the grunt work for 'em."
When they arrive, the first authority figures on the scene, it is
obvious why Raven decided to let himself get chased into a hop field: It is
great cover. The hops are heavy, flowering vines that grow on trellises
lashed together out of long bamboo poles. The trellises are eight feet high;
you can't see a thing.
They all get out of the car.
"T-Bone?" Squeaky hollers.
They hear someone yelling in English from the middle of the of the
field. "Over here!" But he isn't responding to Squeaky.
They walk into the hop field. Carefully. There is an enveloping smell,
a resiny odor not unlike marijuana, the sharp smell that comes off an
expensive beer. Squeaky motions for Hiro to stay behind him.
In other circumstances, Hiro would do so. He is half Japanese, and
under certain circumstances, totally respectful of authority.
This is not one of those circumstances. If Raven comes anywhere near
Hiro, Hiro is going to be talking to him with his katana. And if it comes to
that, Hiro doesn't want Squeaky anywhere near him, because he could lose a
limb on the backswing.
"Yo, T-Bone!" Squeaky yells. "It's The Enforcers, and we're pissed! Get
the fuck out of there, man. Let's go home!"
T-Bone, or Hiro assumes it is T-Bone, responds only by firing a short
burst from a machine pistol. The muzzle flash lights up the hop vines like a
strobe light. Hiro aims one shoulder at the ground, buries himself in soft
earth and foliage for a few seconds.
"Fuck!" T-Bone says. It is a disappointed fuck, but a fuck with a heavy
undertone of overwhelming frustration and not a little fear.
Hiro gets up into a conservative squat, looks around. Squeaky and the
other Enforcer are nowhere to be seen.
Hiro forces his way through one of the trellises and into a row that is
closer to the action.
The other Enforcer - the driver - is in the same row, about ten meters
away, his back turned to Hiro. He glances over his shoulder in Hiro's
direction, then looks in the other direction and sees someone else - Hiro
can't quite see who, because The Enforcer is in the way.
"What the fuck," The Enforcer says.
Then he jumps a little, as though startled, and something happens to
the back of his jacket.
"Who is it?" Hiro says.
The Enforcer doesn't say anything. He is trying to turn back around,
but something prevents it. Something is shaking the vines around him.
The Enforcer shudders, careens sideways from foot to foot. "Got to get
loose," he says, speaking loudly to no one in particular. He breaks into a
trot, running away from Hiro. The other person who was in the row is gone
now. The Enforcer is running in a strange stiff upright gait with his arms
down to his sides. His bright green windbreaker isn't hanging correctly.
Hiro runs after him. The Enforcer is trotting toward the end of the
row, where the lights of the street are visible.
The Enforcer exits the field a couple of seconds ahead of him, and,
when Hiro gets to the curb, is in the middle of the road, illuminated mostly
by flashing blue light from a giant overhead video screen. He is turning
around and around with strange little stomping footsteps, not keeping his
balance very well. He is saying, "Aaah, aaah" in a low, calm voice that
gurgles as though he badly needs to clear his throat.
As The Enforcer revolves, Hiro perceives that he has been impaled on an
eight-foot-long bamboo spear. Half sticks out the front, half out the back.
The back half is dark with blood and black fecal clumps, the front half is
greenish-yellow and clean. The Enforcer can only see the front half and his
hands are playing up and down it, trying to verify what his eyes are seeing.
Then the back half whacks into a parked car, spraying a narrow fan of head
cheese across the waxed and polished trunk lid. The car's alarm goes off.
The Enforcer hears the sound and turns around to see what it is.
When Hiro last sees him, he is running down the center of the pulsating
neon street toward the center of Chinatown, wailing a terrible, random song
that clashes with the bleating of the car alarm. Hiro feels even at this
moment that something has been torn open in the world and that he is
dangling above the gap, staring into a place where he does not want to be.
Lost in the biomass.
Hiro draws his katana.
"Squeaky!" Hiro hollers. "He's throwing spears! He's pretty good at it!
Your driver is hit!"
"Got it!" Squeaky hollers.
Hiro goes back into the closest row. He hears a sound off to the right
and uses the katana to cut his way through into that row. This is not a nice
place to be at the moment, but it is safer than standing in the street under
the plutonic light of the video screen.
Down the row is a man. Hiro recognizes him by the strange shape of his
head, which just gets wider until it reaches his shoulders. He is holding a
freshly cut bamboo pole in one hand, torn from the trellis.
Raven strokes one end of it with his other hand, and a chunk falls off.
Something flickers in that hand, the blade of a knife apparently. He has
just cut off the end of the pole at an acute angle to make it into a spear.
He throws it fluidly. The motion is calm and beautiful. The spear
disappears because it is coming straight at Hiro.
Hiro does not have time to adopt the proper stance, but this is fine
since he has already adopted it. Whenever he has a katana in his hands he
adopts it automatically, otherwise he fears that he may lose his balance and
carelessly lop off one of his extremities. Feet parallel and pointed
straight ahead, right foot in front of the left foot, katana held down at
groin level like an extension of the phallus. Hiro raises the tip and slaps
at the spear with the side of the blade, diverting it just enough; it goes
into a slow sideways spin, the point missing Hiro just barely and entangling
itself in a vine on Hiro's right. The butt end swings around and gets hung
up on the left, tearing out a number of vines as it comes to a stop. It is
heavy, and traveling very fast.
Raven is gone.
Mental note: Whether or not Raven intended to take on a bunch of Crips
and Enforcers singlehandedly tonight, he didn't even bother to pack a gun.
Another burst of gunfire sounds from several rows over.
Hiro has been standing here for rather a long time, thinking about what
just happened. He cuts through the next row of vines and heads in the
direction of the muzzle flash, running his mouth: "Don't shoot this way,
T-Bone, I'm on your side, man."
"Motherfucker threw a stick into my chest, man!" T-Bone complains.
When you're wearing armor, getting hit by a spear just isn't such a big
deal anymore.
"Maybe you should just forget it," Hiro says. He is having to cut his
way through a lot of rows to reach T-Bone, but as long as T-Bone keeps
talking, Hiro can find him.
"I'm a Crip. We don't forget nothing." T-Bone says. "Is that you?"
"No," Hiro says. "I'm not there yet."
A very brief burst of gunfire, rapidly cut off. Suddenly, no one is
talking. Hiro cuts his way into the next row and almost steps on T-Bone's
hand, which has been amputated at the wrist. Its finger is still tangled in
the trigger guard of a MAC-11.
The remainder of T-Bone is two rows away. Hiro stops and watches
through the vines.
Raven is one of the largest men Hiro has seen outside of a professional
sporting event. T-Bone is backing away from him down the row. Raven, moving
with long confident strides, catches up with T-Bone and swings one hand up
into T-Bone's body; Hiro doesn't have to see the knife to know it is there.
It looks as though T-Bone is going to get out of this with nothing
worse than a sewn-on hand and some rehab work, because you can't stab a
person to death that way, not if he is wearing armor.
T-Bone screams.
He is bouncing up and down on Raven's hand. The knife has gone all the
way through the bulletproof fabric and now Raven is trying to gut T-Bone the
same way he did Lagos. But his knife - whatever the hell it is - won't cut
through the fabric that way. It is sharp enough to penetrate - which should
be impossible - but not sharp enough to slash.
Raven pulls it out, drops to one knee, and swings his knife hand around
in a long ellipse between T-Bone's thighs. Then he jumps over T-Bone's
collapsing body and runs.
Hiro gets the sense that T-Bone is a dead man, so he follows Raven. His
intention is not to hunt the man down, but rather to maintain a very clear
picture of where he is.
He has to cut through a number of rows. He rapidly loses Raven. He
considers running as fast as he can in the opposite direction.
Then he hears the deep, lung-stretching rumble of a motorcycle engine.
Hiro runs for the nearest street exit, just hoping to catch a glimpse.
He does, though it is a quick one, not a hell of a lot better than the
"I am profoundly embarrassed to reveal that these fans are not exactly
ghetto homeboys, as I must have carelessly led you to believe. They are
thrashers. Skateboarders who like both rap music and heavy metal."
"Ah. This is fine, then," Sushi K says. But his tone of voice suggests
that it's not really fine at all.
"But there are representatives of the Crips here," Hiro says, thinking
very, very fast even by his standards, "and if your performance is well
received, as I'm quite certain it will be, they will spread the word
throughout their community."
Sushi K rolls down the window. The decibel level quintuples in an
instant. He stares at the crowd, five thousand potential market shares,
young people with funkiness on their minds. They've never heard any music
before that wasn't perfect. It's either studio-perfect digital sound from
their CD players or performance-perfect fuzz-grunge from the best people in
the business, the groups that have come to L.A. to make a name for
themselves and have actually survived the gladiatorial combat environment of
the clubs. Sushi K's face lights up with a combination of joy and terror.
Now he actually has to go up there and do it. In front of the seething
biomass.
Hiro goes out and paves the way for him. That's easy enough. Then he
bails. He's done his bit. No point in wasting time on this puny Sushi K
thing when Raven is out there, representing a much larger source of income.
So he wanders back out toward the periphery.
"Yo! Dude with the swords," someone says.
Hiro turns around, sees a green-jacketed Enforcer motioning to him.
It's the short, powerful guy with the headset, the guy in charge of the
security detail.
"Squeaky," he says, extending his hand.
"Hiro," Hiro says, shaking it, and handing over his business card. No
particular reason to be coy with these guys. "What can I do for you,
Squeaky?"
Squeaky reads the card. He has a kind of exaggerated politeness that is
kind of like a military man. He's calm, mature, role-modelesque, like a high
school football coach. "You in charge of this thing?"
"To the extent anyone is."
"Mr. Protagonist, we got a call a few minutes ago from a friend of
yours named Y.T."
"What's wrong? Is she okay?"
"Oh, yes, sir, she's just fine. But you know that bug you were talking
to earlier?"
Hiro's never heard the term "bug" used this way, but he reckons that
Squeaky is referring to the gargoyle, Lagos.
"Yeah."
"Well, there's a situation involving that gentleman that Y.T. sort of
tipped us off to. We thought you might want to have a look."
"What's going on?"
"Uh. why don't you come with me. You know, some things are easier to
show than to explain verbally."
As Squeaky turns, Sushi K's first rap song begins. His voice sounds
tight and tense.
I'm Sushi K and I'm here to say
I like to rap in a different way
Look out Number One in every city
Sushi K rap has all most pretty
My special talking of remarkable words
Is not the stereotyped bucktooth nerd
My hair is big as a galaxy
Cause I attain greater technology
Hiro follows Squeaky away from the crowd, into the dimly lit area on
the edge of the shantytown. Up above them on the overpass embankment, he can
dimly make out phosphorescent shapes - green-jacketed Enforcers orbiting
some strange attractor.
"Watch your step," Squeaky says as they begin to climb up the
embankment. "It's slippery in places."
I like to rap about sweetened romance
My fond ambition is of your pants
So here is of special remarkable way
Of this fellow raps named Sushi K
The Nipponese talking phenomenon
Like samurai sword his sharpened tongue
Who raps the East Asia and the Pacific
Prosperity Sphere, to be specific
It's a typical loose slope of dirt and stones that looks like it would
wash away in the first rainfall. Sage and cactus and tumbleweeds here and
there, all looking scraggly and half-dead from air pollution.
It's hard to see anything clearly, because Sushi K is jumping around
down below them on the stage, the brilliant orange rays of his sunburst
hairdo are sweeping back and forth across the embankment at a speed that
seems to be supersonic, washing grainy, gritty light over the weeds and the
rocks and throwing everything into weird, discolored, high-contrast freeze
frames.
Sarariman on subway listen
For Sushi K like nuclear fission
Fire-breathing lizard Gojiro
He my always big-time hero
His mutant rap burn down whole block
Start investing now Sushi K stock
It on Nikkei stock exchange
Waxes; other rappers wane
Best investment, make my day
Corporation Sushi K
Squeaky is walking straight uphill, paralleling a fresh motorcycle
track that has cut deeply into the loose yellow soil. It consists of a deep,
wide track with a narrower one that runs parallel, a couple of feet to the
right.
The track gets deeper the farther up they go. Deeper and darker. It
looks less and less like a motorcycle rut in loose dirt and more like a
drainage ditch for some sinister black effluent.
Coming to America now
Rappers trying to start a row
Say "Stay in Japan, please, listen!
We can't handle competition!"
U.S. rappers booing and hissin'
Ask for rap protectionism
They afraid of Sushi K
Cause their audience go away
He got chill financial backin'
Give those U.S. rappers a smackin'
Sushi K concert machine
Fast efficient super clean
Run like clockwork in a watch
Kick old rappers in the crotch
One of The Enforcers up the hill is carrying a flashlight. As he moves,
it sweeps across the ground at a flat angle, briefly illuminating the ground
like a searchlight. For an instant, the light shines into the motorcycle
rut, and Hiro perceives that it has become a river of bright red, oxygenated
blood.
He learn English total immersion
English/Japanese be mergin'
Into super combination
So can have fans in every nation
Hong Kong they speak English, too
Yearn of rappers just like you
Anglophones who live down under
Sooner later start to wonder
When they get they own rap star
Tired of rappers from afar
Lagos is lying on the ground, sprawled across the tire track. He has
been slit open like a salmon, with a single smooth-edged cut that begins at
his anus and runs up his belly, through the middle of his sternum, all the
way up to the point of his jaw. It's not just a superficial slash. It
appears to go all the way to his spine in some places. The black nylon
straps that hold his computer system to his body have been neatly cut where
they cross the midline, and half of the stuff has fallen off into the dust.
So I will get big radio traffic
When you look at demographic
Sushi K research statistic
Make big future look ballistic
Speed of Sushi K growth stock
Put U.S. rappers into shock
Jason Breckinridge wears a terracotta blazer. It is the color of
Sicily. Jason Breckinridge has never been to Sicily. He may get to go there
someday, as a premium. In order to get the free cruise to Sicily, Jason has
to accumulate 10,000 Goombata. Points.
He begins this quest in a favorable position. By opening up his own
Nova Sicilia franchise, he started out with an automatic 3,333 points in the
Goombata Point bank. Add to that a one-time-only Citizenship Bonus of 500
points and the balance is starting to look pretty good. The number is stored
in the big computer in Brooklyn.
Jason grew up in the western suburbs of Chicago, one of the most highly
franchised regions in the country. He attended the University of Illinois
business school, racking up a GPA of 2.9567, and did a senior thesis called
"The Interaction of the Ethnographic, Financial, and Paramilitary Dimensions
of Competition in Certain Markets." This was a case study of turf struggle
between Nova Sicilia and Narcolombia franchises in his old neighborhood in
Aurora.
Enrique Cortazar ran the failing Narcolombia franchise upon which Jason
had hinged his argument. Jason interviewed him several times over the phone,
briefly, but never saw Mr. Cortazar face to face.
Mr. Cortazar celebrated Jason's graduation by firebombing the
Breckinridges' Omni Horizon van in a parking lot and then firing eleven
clips of automatic rifle ammunition through the front wall of their house.
Fortunately, Mr. Caruso, who ran the local string of Nova Sicilia
franchulates that was in the process of beating the pants off of Enrique
Cortazar, got wind of these attacks before they happened, probably by
intercepting signal intelligence from Mr. Cortazar's fleet of poorly secured
cellular phones and CB radios. He was able to warn Jason's family in time,
so that when all of those bullets flew through their house in the middle of
the night, they were enjoying complimentary champagne in an Old Sicilia Inn
five miles down Highway 96.
Naturally, when the B-school held its end-of-the-year job fair, Jason
made a point of swinging by the Nova Sicilia booth to thank Mr. Caruso for
saving everyone in his family from certain death.
"Hey, y'know, it was just, like a neighbor kinda thing, y'know, Jasie
boy?" Mr. Caruso said, whacking Jason across the shoulder blades and
squeezing his deltoids, which were the size of cantaloupes. Jason did not
hit the steroids as hard as he had when he was fifteen, but he was still in
great shape.
Mr. Caruso was from New York. He had one of the most popular booths at
the job fair. It was being held in a big exhibition space in the Union. The
hall had been done up with an imaginary street pattern. Two "highways"
divided it up into quadrants, and all the franchise companies and
nationalities had their booths along the highways. Burbclaves and other
companies had booths hidden among the suburban "streets" within the
quadrants. Mr. Caruso's Nova Sicilia booth was right at the intersection of
the two highways. Dozens of scrubby B-school grads were lined up there
waiting to interview, but Mr. Caruso noticed Jason standing in line and went
right up and plucked him out of line and grabbed his deltoids. All the other
B-school grads stared at Jason enviously. That made Jason feel good, really
special. That was the feeling he got about Nova Sicilia: personalized
attention.
"Well, I was going to interview here, of course, and at Mr. Lee's
Greater Hong Kong, because I'm real interested in high tech," Jason said, in
response to Mr. Caruso's fatherly questioning.
Mr. Caruso gave him an especially hard squeeze. His voice said that he
was painfully surprised, but that he didn't necessarily think any less of
Jason for it, not yet anyway. "Hong Kong? What would a smart white kid like
you want with a fuckin' Nip operation?"
"Well, technically they're not Nips - which is short for Niponese,"
Jason said. "Hong Kong is a predominantly Catonese - "
"They're all Nips," Mr. Caruso said, "and y'know why I say that? Not
because I'm a fuckin' racist, because I'm not. Because to them - to those
people, y'know, the Nips - we're all foreign devils. That's what they call
us. Foreign devils. How d'ya like that?"
Jason just laughed appreciatively.
"After all the good things we did for them. But here in America, Jasie
boy, we're all foreign devils, ain't we? We all came from someplace - 'cept
for the fuckin' Indians. You ain't gonna interview over at the Lakota
Nation, are ya?"
"No, sir, Mr. Caruso," Jason said.
"Good thinkin'. I agree with that. I'm gettin' away from my main point,
which is that since we all have our own unique ethnic and cultural
identities, we have to get a job with an organization that uniquely respects
and seeks to preserve those distinctive identities - forging them together
into a functionin' whole, y'know?"
"Yes, I see your point, Mr. Caruso," Jason said.
By this point, Mr. Caruso had led him some distance away and was
strolling with him down one of the metaphorical Highways o' Opportunity.
"Now, can you think of some business organizations that fill that fuckin'
bill, Jasie boy?"
"Well ..."
"Not fuckin' Hong Kong. That's for white people who want to be Japs but
can't, didja know that? You don't wanta be a Jap, do ya?"
"Ha ha. No, sir, Mr. Caruso."
"Y'know what I heard?" Mr. Caruso let go of Jason, turned, and stood
close to him, chest to chest, his cigar zinging past Jason's ear like a
flaming arrow as he gesticulated. This was a confidential portion of the
chat, a little anecdote between the two men. "In Japan, if you screw up? You
gotta cut off one a your fingers. Chop. Just like that. Honest to God. You
don't believe me?"
"I believe you. But that's not all of Japan, sir. Just in the Yakuza.
The Japanese Mafia."
Mr. Caruso threw back his head and laughed, put his arm around Jason's
shoulders again. "Y'know, I like you, Jason, I really do," he said. "The
Japanese Mafia. Tell me something, Jason, you ever hear anyone describe our
thing as 'The Sicilian Yakuza'? Huh?"
Jason laughed. "No, sir."
"Y'know why that is? Y'know?" Mr. Caruso had come to the serious,
meaningful part of his speech.
"Why is that, sir?"
Mr. Caruso wheeled Jason around so that both of them were staring down
the length of the highway to the tall effigy of Uncle Enzo, standing above
the intersection like the Statue of Liberty.
"Cause there's only one, son. Only one. And you could be a part of it."
"But it's so competitive - "
"What? Listen to this! You got a three-point grade average! You're
gonna kick butt, son!"
Mr. Caruso, like any other franchisee, had access to Turfnet, the
multiple listing service that Nova Sicilia used to keep track of what it
called "opportunity zones." He took Jason back to the booth-right past all
of those poor dorks waiting in line, Jason really liked that-and signed onto
the network. All Jason had to do was pick out a region.
"I have an uncle who owns a car dealership in southern California,"
Jason said, "and I know that's a rapidly expanding area, and - "
"Plenty of opportunity zones!" Mr. Caruso said, pounding away on the
keyboard with a flourish. He wheeled the monitor around to show Jason a map
of the L.A. area blazing with red splotches that represented unclaimed turf
sectors. "Take your pick, Jasie boy!"
Now Jason Breckinridge is the manager of Nova Sicilia #5328 in the
Valley. He puts on his smart terracotta blazer every morning and drives to
work in his Oldsmobile. Lots of young entrepreneurs would be driving BMWs or
Acuras, but the organization of which Jason is now a part puts a premium on
tradition and family values and does not go in for flashy foreign imports.
"If an American car is good enough for Uncle Enzo... "
Jason's blazer has the Mafia logo embroidered on the breast pocket. A
letter "G" is worked into the logo, signifying Gambino, which is the
division that handles accounts for the L.A. Basin. His name is written
underneath: "Jason (The Iron Pumper) Breckinridge." That is the nickname
that he and Mr. Caruso came up with a year ago at the job fair in Illinois.
Everyone gets to have a nickname, it is a tradition and a mark of pride, and
they like you to pick something that says something about you.
As manager of a local office, Jason's job is to portion work out to
local contractors. Every morning, he parks his Oldsmobile out front and goes
into the office, ducking quickly into the armored doorway to foil possible
Narcolombian snipers. This does not prevent them from taking occasional
potshots at the big Uncle Enzo that rises up above the franchise, but those
signs can take an amazing amount of abuse before they start looking seedy.
Safely inside, Jason signs onto Turfnet. A job list scrolls
automatically onto the screen. All Jason has to do is find contractors to
handle all of those jobs before he goes home that night, or else he has to
take care of them himself. One way or another, they have to get done. The
great majority of the jobs are simple deliveries, which he portions out to
Kouriers. Then there are collections from delinquent borrowers and from
franchisees who depend on Nova Sicilia for their plant security. If it's a
first notice, Jason likes to drop by in person, just to show the flag, to
emphasize that his organization takes a personal, one-to-one, hands-on,
micromanaged approach to debt-related issues. If it's a second or third
notice, he usually writes a contract with Deadbeaters International, a
high-impact collection agency with whose work he has always been very happy.
Then there is the occasional Code H. Jason hates to deal with Code Hs, views
them as symptoms of a breakdown in the system of mutual trust that makes
society work. But usually these are handled directly from the regional
level, and all Jason has to do is aftermath management and spin control.
This morning, Jason is looking especially crisp, his Oldsmobile freshly
waxed and polished. Before he goes inside, he plucks a couple of burger
wrappers off the parking lot, snipers be damned. He has heard that Uncle
Enzo is in the area, and you never knew when he might pull his fleet of
limousines and war wagons into a neighborhood franchise and pop in to shake
hands with the rank and file. Yes, Jason is going to be working late
tonight, burning the oil until he receives word that Uncle Enzo's plane is
safely out of the area.
He signs onto Turfnet. A list of jobs scrolls up as usual, not a very
long list. Interfranchise activity is way down today, as all the local
managers gird, polish, and inspect for the possible arrival of Uncle Enzo.
But one of the jobs scrolls up in red letters, a priority job.
Priority jobs are a little unusual. A symptom of bad morale and general
slipshoddity. Every job should be a priority job. But every so often, there
is something that absolutely can't be delayed or screwed up. A local manager
like Jason can't order up a priority job; it has to come from a higher
echelon.
Usually, a priority job is a Code H. But Jason notes with relief that
this one is a simple delivery. Certain documents are to be hand carried from
his office to Nova Sicilia #4649, which is south of downtown.
Way south. Compton. A war zone, longtime stronghold of Narcolombians
and Rastafarian gunslingers.
Compton. Why the hell would an office in Compton need a personally
signed copy of his financial records? They should be spending all of their
time doing Code Hs on the competition, out there.
As a matter of fact, there is a very active Young Mafia group on a
certain block in Compton that has just succeeded in driving away all of the
Narcolombians and turning the whole area into a Mafia Watch neighborhood.
Old ladies are walking the streets again. Children are waiting for
schoolbuses and playing hopscotch on sidewalks that recently were stained
with blood. It's a fine example; if it can be done on this block, it can be
done anywhere.
As a matter of fact, Uncle Enzo is coming to congratulate them in
person.
This afternoon.
And #4649 is going to be his temporary headquarters.
The implications are stunning.
Jason has been given a priority job to deliver his records to the very
franchise where Uncle Enzo will be taking his espresso this afternoon!
Uncle Enzo is interested in him.
Mr. Caruso claimed he had connections higher up, but could they really
go this high?
Jason sits back in his color-coordinated earth-tone swivel chair to
consider the very real possibility that in a few days, he's going to be
managing a whole region - or even better.
One thing's for sure - this is not a delivery to be entrusted to any
Kourier, any punk on a skateboard. Jason is going to trundle his Oldsmobile
into Compton personally to drop this stuff off.
He's there an hour ahead of schedule. He was shooting for half an hour
early, but once he gets a load of Compton - he's heard stories about the
place, of course, but my God - he starts driving like a maniac. Cheap, nasty
franchises all tend to adopt logos with a lot of bright, hideous yellow in
them, and so Alameda Street is clearly marked out before him, a gout of
radioactive urine ejected south from the dead center of L.A. Jason aims
himself right down the middle, ignoring lane markings and red lights, and
puts the hammer down.
Most of the franchises are yellow-logoed, wrong-side-of-the-tracks
operations like Uptown, Narcolombia, Caymans Plus, Metazania, and The Clink.
But standing out like rocky islands in this swamp are the Nova Sicilia
franchulates - beachheads for the Mafia's effort to outduel the
overwhelmingly strong Narcolombia.
Shitty lots that even The Clink wouldn't buy always tend to get picked
up by economy-minded three-ringers who have just shelled out a million yen
for a Narcolombia license and who need some real estate, any real estate,
that they can throw a fence around and extraterritorialize. These local
franchulates send most of their gross to Medellin in franchising fees and
keep barely enough to pay overhead.
Some of them try to scam, to sneak a few bills into their pocket when
they think the security camera isn't watching, and run down the street to
the nearest Caymans Plus or The Alps franchulate, which hover in these areas
like flies on road kill. But these people rapidly find out that in
Narcolombia, just about everything is a capital offense, and there is no
judicial system to speak of, just flying justice squads that have the right
to blow into your franchulate any time of day or night and fax your records
back to the notoriously picky computer in Medellin. Nothing sucks more than
being hauled in front of a firing squad against the back wall of the
business that you built with your own two hands.
Uncle Enzo reckons that with the Mafia's emphasis on loyalty and
traditional family values, they can sign up a lot of these entrepreneurs -
before they become Narcolombian citizens.
And that explains the billboards that Jason sees with growing frequency
as he drives into Compton. The smiling face of Uncle Enzo seems to beam down
from every comer. Typically, he's got his arm around the shoulders of a
young wholesome-looking black kid, and there's a catch phrase above: THE
MAFIA - YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND IN THE FAMILY! and RELAX - YOU ARE ENTERING A
MAFIA WATCH NEIGHBORHOOD! and UNCLE ENZO FORGIVES AND FORGETS.
This last one usually accompanies a picture of Uncle Enzo with his arm
around some teenager's shoulders, giving him a stern avuncular talking-to.
It is an allusion to the fact that the Colombians and Jamaicans kill just
about everyone.
NO WAY, JOSE! Uncle Enzo holding up one hand to stop an Uzi-toting
Hispanic scumbag; behind him stands a pan-ethnic phalanx of kids and
grannies, resolutely gripping baseball bats and frying pans.
Oh, sure, the Narcolombians still have a lock on coca leaves, but now
that Nippon Pharmaceuticals has its big cocaine-synthesis facility in
Mexicali nearly complete, that will cease to be a factor. The Mafia is
betting that any smart youngster going into the business these days will
take note of these billboards and think twice. Why end up suffocating on
your own entrails out in back of some Buy 'n' Fly when you can put on a
crisp terracotta blazer instead and become part of a jovial familia?
Especially now that they have black, Hispanic, and Asian capos who will
respect your cultural identity? In the long term, Jason is bullish on the
Mob.
His black Oldsmobile is a fucking bullseye in a place like this. It's
the worst thing he has ever seen, Compton. Lepers roasting dogs on spits
over tubs of flaming kerosene. Street people pushing wheelbarrows piled high
with dripping clots of million- and billion-dollar bills that they have
raked up out of storm sewers. Road kills - enormous road kills - road kills
so big that they could only be human beings, smeared out into chunky swaths
a block long. Burning roadblocks across major avenues. No franchises
anywhere. The Oldsmobile keeps popping. Jason can't think of what it is
until he realizes that people are shooting at him. Good thing he let his
uncle talk him into springing for full armor! When he figures that one out,
he actually gets psyched. This is the real thing, man! He's driving around
in his Olds and the bastards are shooting at him, and it just don't matter!
Every street for three blocks around the franchise is blocked off by
Mafia war wagons. Men lurk on top of burned tenements carrying six-foot-long
rifles and wearing black windbreakers with MAFIA across the back in
five-inch fluorescent letters.
This is it, man, this is the real shit.
Pulling up to the checkpoint, he notes that his Olds is now straddling
a portable claymore mine. If he's the wrong guy, it'll turn the car into a
steel doughnut. But he's not the wrong guy. He's the right guy. He's got a
priority job, a heap of documents on the seat next to him, wrapped up tight
and pretty.
He rolls the window down and a top-echelon Mafia guardsman nails him
with the retinal scanner. None of this ID card nonsense. They know who he is
in a microsecond. He sits back against his whiplash arrestor, turns the
rear-view mirror to face himself, checks his hairstyle. It's not half bad.
"Bud," the guard says, "you ain't on the list."
"Yes, I am," Jason says. "This is a priority delivery. Got the papers
right here."
He hands a hard copy of the Turfnet job order to the guard, who looks
at it, grunts, and goes into his war wagon, which is richly festooned with
antennas.
There is a very, very long wait.
A man is approaching on foot, walking across the emptiness between the
Mafia franchise and the perimeter. The vacant lot is a wilderness of charred
bricks and twisted electrical conduit, but this gentleman is walking across
it like Christ on the Sea of Galilee. His suit is perfectly black. So is his
hair. He doesn't have any guards with him. The perimeter security is that
good.
Jason notices that all the guards at this checkpoint are standing a
little straighter, adjusting their ties, shooting their cuffs. Jason wants
to climb out of his bulletpocked Oldsmobile to show proper respect to
whoever this guy is, but he can't get the door open because a big guard is
standing right there, using the roof as a mirror.
All too quickly, he's there.
"Is this him?" he says to a guard.
The guard looks at Jason for a couple of seconds, as though he can't
quite believe it, then looks at the important man in the black suit and
nods.
The man in the black suit nods back, tugs on his cuffs a little bit,
squints around him for a few moments, looking at the snipers up on the
roofs, looking everywhere but at Jason. Then he steps forward one pace. One
of his eyes is made of glass and doesn't point in the same direction as the
other one. Jason thinks he's looking elsewhere. But he's looking at Jason
with his good eye. Or maybe he isn't. Jason can't tell which eye is the real
one. He shudders and stiffens like a puppy in a deep freeze.
"Jason Breckinridge," the man says.
"The Iron Pumper," Jason reminds him.
"Shut up. For the rest of this conversation, you don't say anything.
When I tell you what you did wrong, you don't say you're sorry, because I
already know you're sorry. And when you drive outta here alive, you don't
thank me for being alive. And you don't even say goodbye to me."
Jason nods.
"I don't even want you to nod, that's how much you annoy me. Just
freeze and shut up. Okay, here we go. We gave you a priority job this
morning. It was real easy. All you had to do was read the fucking job sheet.
But you didn't read it. You just took it upon yourself to make the fuckin'
delivery on your own. Which the job sheet explicitly tells you not to do."
Jason's eyes flick in the direction of the bundle of documents on the
seat.
"That's crap," the man says. "We don't want your fucking documents. We
don't care about you and your fucking franchise out in the middle a nowhere.
All we wanted was the Kourier. The job sheet said that this delivery was
supposed to be made by one particular Kourier who works your area, name of
Y.T. Uncle Enzo happens to like Y.T. He wants to meet her. Now, because you
screwed up, Uncle Enzo don't get his wish. Oh, what a terrible outcome. What
an embarrassment. What an incredible fuckup, is what it is. It's too late to
save your franchise, Jason The Iron Pumper, but it might not be too late to
keep the sewer rats from eating your nipples for dinner."
"This wasn't done with a sword," Hiro says. He is beyond astonishment
as he stands and stares at Lagos's corpse. All the emotions will probably
come piling in on him later, when he goes home and tries to sleep. For now,
the thinking part of his brain seems cut loose from his body, as if he has
just ingested a great deal of drugs, and he's just as cool as Squeaky.
"Oh, yeah? How can you tell?" Squeaky says.
"Swords make quick cuts, all the way through. Like, you cut off a head
or an arm. A person who's been killed with a sword doesn't look like this."
"Really? Have you killed a lot of people with swords, Mr. Protagonist?"
"Yes. In the Metaverse."
They stand for a while longer, looking at it.
"This doesn't look like a speed move. This looks like a strength move,"
Squeaky says.
"Raven looks strong enough."
"That he does."
"But I don't think he was carrying a weapon. The Crips frisked him
earlier, and he was clean."
"Well, then he must have borrowed one," Squeaky says. "This bug was all
over the place, you know. We were keeping an eye on him, because we were
afraid he was going to piss Raven off. He kept going around looking for a
vantage point."
"He's loaded with surveillance gear," Hiro says. "The higher he gets,
the better it works."
"So he ended up here on this embankment. And apparently the perpetrator
knew where he was."
"The dust," Hiro says. "Watch the lasers."
Down below, Sushi K pirouettes spastically as a beer bottle caroms off
his forehead. A bundle of lasers sweeps across the embankment, clearly
visible in the fine dust being drawn out of it by the wind.
"This guy - this bug - was using lasers. As soon as he came up here - "
"They betrayed his position," Squeaky says.
"And then Raven came after him."
"Well, we're not saying it's him," Squeaky says. "But I need to know if
this character" - he nods at the corpse - "might have done anything that
would have made Raven feel threatened."
"What is this, group therapy? Who cares if Raven felt threatened?"
"I do," Squeaky says with great finality.
"Lagos was just a gargoyle. A big hoover for intel. I don't think he
did wet operations - and if he did, he wouldn't do it in that get-up."
"So why do you think Raven was feeling so jumpy?"
"I guess he doesn't like being under surveillance," Hiro says.
"Yeah." Squeaky says. "You should remember that."
Then Squeaky puts one hand over his ear, the better to hear voices on
his headset radio.
"Did Y.T. see this happen?" Hiro says.
"No," Squeaky mumbles, a few seconds later. "But she saw him leaving
the scene. She's following him."
"Why would she want to do that!?"
"I guess you told her to, or something."
"I didn't think she'd take off after him."
"Well, she doesn't know that he killed the guy," Squeaky says. "She
just phoned in a sighting - he's riding his Harley into Chinatown." And he
begins running up the embankment. A couple of Enforcers' cars are parked on
the shoulder of the highway up there, waiting.
Hiro tags along. His legs are in incredible shape from sword fighting,
and he manages to catch up to Squeaky by the time he reaches his car. When
the driver undoes the electric door locks, Hiro scoots into the back seat as
Squeaky is going into the front. Squeaky turns around and gives him a tired
look.
"I'll behave," Hiro says.
"Just one thing - "
"I know. Don't fuck around with Raven."
"That's right."
Squeaky holds his glare for another second and then turns around,
motions the driver to drive. He impatiently rips ten feet of hard copy out
of the dashboard printer and begins sifting through it.
On this long strip of paper, Hiro glimpses multiple renditions of the
important Crip, the guy with the goatee whom Raven was dealing with earlier.
On the printout, he is labeled as "T-Bone Murphy."
There's also a picture of Raven. It's an action shot, not a mug shot.
It is terrible output. It has been caught through some kind of
light-amplifying optics that wash out the color and make everything
incredibly grainy and low contrast. It looks like some image processing has
been done to make it sharper; this also makes it grainier. The license plate
is just an oblate blur, overwhelmed by the glow of the taillight. It is
heeled over sharply, the sidecar wheel several inches off the ground. But
the rider doesn't have any visible neck; his head, or rather the dark
splotch that is there, just keeps getting wider until it merges into his
shoulders. Definitely Raven.
"How come you have pictures of T-bone Murphy in there?" Hiro says.
"He's chasing him," Squeaky says.
"Who's chasing whom?"
"Well, your friend Y.T. ain't no Edward R. Murrow. But as far as we can
tell from her reports, they've been sighted in the same area, trying to kill
each other," Squeaky says. He's speaking with the slow, distant tones of
someone who is getting live updates over his headphones.
"They were doing some kind of a deal earlier," Hiro says.
"Then I ain't hardly surprised they're trying to kill each other now."
Once they get to a certain part of town, following the T-Bone and Raven
show becomes a matter of connect-the-ambulances. Every couple of blocks
there is a cluster of cops and medics, lights sparkling, radios coughing.
All they have to do is go from one to the next.
At the first one, there is a dead Crip lying on the pavement. A
six-foot-wide blood slick runs from his body, diagonally down the street to
a storm drain. The ambulance people are standing around, smoking and
drinking coffee from go cups, waiting for The Enforcers to get finished
measuring and photographing so that they can haul the corpse to the morgue.
There are no IV lines set up, no bits of medical trash strewn around the
area, no open doc boxes; they didn't even try.
They proceed around a couple of comers to the next constellation of
flashing lights. Here, the ambulance drivers are inflating a cast around the
leg of a MetaCop.
"Run over by the motorcycle," Squeaky says, shaking his head with the
traditional Enforcer's disdain for their pathetic junior relations, the
MetaCops.
Finally, he patches the radio feed into the dashboard so they can all
hear it.
The motorcyclist's trail is now cold and it sounds like most of the
local cops are dealing with aftermath problems. But a citizen has just
called in to complain that a man on a motorcycle, and several other persons,
are trashing a field of hops on her block.
"Three blocks from here," Squeaky says to the driver.
"Hops?" Hiro says.
"I know the place. Local microbrewery," Squeaky says. "They grow their
own hops. Contract it out to some urban gardeners. Chinese peasants who do
the grunt work for 'em."
When they arrive, the first authority figures on the scene, it is
obvious why Raven decided to let himself get chased into a hop field: It is
great cover. The hops are heavy, flowering vines that grow on trellises
lashed together out of long bamboo poles. The trellises are eight feet high;
you can't see a thing.
They all get out of the car.
"T-Bone?" Squeaky hollers.
They hear someone yelling in English from the middle of the of the
field. "Over here!" But he isn't responding to Squeaky.
They walk into the hop field. Carefully. There is an enveloping smell,
a resiny odor not unlike marijuana, the sharp smell that comes off an
expensive beer. Squeaky motions for Hiro to stay behind him.
In other circumstances, Hiro would do so. He is half Japanese, and
under certain circumstances, totally respectful of authority.
This is not one of those circumstances. If Raven comes anywhere near
Hiro, Hiro is going to be talking to him with his katana. And if it comes to
that, Hiro doesn't want Squeaky anywhere near him, because he could lose a
limb on the backswing.
"Yo, T-Bone!" Squeaky yells. "It's The Enforcers, and we're pissed! Get
the fuck out of there, man. Let's go home!"
T-Bone, or Hiro assumes it is T-Bone, responds only by firing a short
burst from a machine pistol. The muzzle flash lights up the hop vines like a
strobe light. Hiro aims one shoulder at the ground, buries himself in soft
earth and foliage for a few seconds.
"Fuck!" T-Bone says. It is a disappointed fuck, but a fuck with a heavy
undertone of overwhelming frustration and not a little fear.
Hiro gets up into a conservative squat, looks around. Squeaky and the
other Enforcer are nowhere to be seen.
Hiro forces his way through one of the trellises and into a row that is
closer to the action.
The other Enforcer - the driver - is in the same row, about ten meters
away, his back turned to Hiro. He glances over his shoulder in Hiro's
direction, then looks in the other direction and sees someone else - Hiro
can't quite see who, because The Enforcer is in the way.
"What the fuck," The Enforcer says.
Then he jumps a little, as though startled, and something happens to
the back of his jacket.
"Who is it?" Hiro says.
The Enforcer doesn't say anything. He is trying to turn back around,
but something prevents it. Something is shaking the vines around him.
The Enforcer shudders, careens sideways from foot to foot. "Got to get
loose," he says, speaking loudly to no one in particular. He breaks into a
trot, running away from Hiro. The other person who was in the row is gone
now. The Enforcer is running in a strange stiff upright gait with his arms
down to his sides. His bright green windbreaker isn't hanging correctly.
Hiro runs after him. The Enforcer is trotting toward the end of the
row, where the lights of the street are visible.
The Enforcer exits the field a couple of seconds ahead of him, and,
when Hiro gets to the curb, is in the middle of the road, illuminated mostly
by flashing blue light from a giant overhead video screen. He is turning
around and around with strange little stomping footsteps, not keeping his
balance very well. He is saying, "Aaah, aaah" in a low, calm voice that
gurgles as though he badly needs to clear his throat.
As The Enforcer revolves, Hiro perceives that he has been impaled on an
eight-foot-long bamboo spear. Half sticks out the front, half out the back.
The back half is dark with blood and black fecal clumps, the front half is
greenish-yellow and clean. The Enforcer can only see the front half and his
hands are playing up and down it, trying to verify what his eyes are seeing.
Then the back half whacks into a parked car, spraying a narrow fan of head
cheese across the waxed and polished trunk lid. The car's alarm goes off.
The Enforcer hears the sound and turns around to see what it is.
When Hiro last sees him, he is running down the center of the pulsating
neon street toward the center of Chinatown, wailing a terrible, random song
that clashes with the bleating of the car alarm. Hiro feels even at this
moment that something has been torn open in the world and that he is
dangling above the gap, staring into a place where he does not want to be.
Lost in the biomass.
Hiro draws his katana.
"Squeaky!" Hiro hollers. "He's throwing spears! He's pretty good at it!
Your driver is hit!"
"Got it!" Squeaky hollers.
Hiro goes back into the closest row. He hears a sound off to the right
and uses the katana to cut his way through into that row. This is not a nice
place to be at the moment, but it is safer than standing in the street under
the plutonic light of the video screen.
Down the row is a man. Hiro recognizes him by the strange shape of his
head, which just gets wider until it reaches his shoulders. He is holding a
freshly cut bamboo pole in one hand, torn from the trellis.
Raven strokes one end of it with his other hand, and a chunk falls off.
Something flickers in that hand, the blade of a knife apparently. He has
just cut off the end of the pole at an acute angle to make it into a spear.
He throws it fluidly. The motion is calm and beautiful. The spear
disappears because it is coming straight at Hiro.
Hiro does not have time to adopt the proper stance, but this is fine
since he has already adopted it. Whenever he has a katana in his hands he
adopts it automatically, otherwise he fears that he may lose his balance and
carelessly lop off one of his extremities. Feet parallel and pointed
straight ahead, right foot in front of the left foot, katana held down at
groin level like an extension of the phallus. Hiro raises the tip and slaps
at the spear with the side of the blade, diverting it just enough; it goes
into a slow sideways spin, the point missing Hiro just barely and entangling
itself in a vine on Hiro's right. The butt end swings around and gets hung
up on the left, tearing out a number of vines as it comes to a stop. It is
heavy, and traveling very fast.
Raven is gone.
Mental note: Whether or not Raven intended to take on a bunch of Crips
and Enforcers singlehandedly tonight, he didn't even bother to pack a gun.
Another burst of gunfire sounds from several rows over.
Hiro has been standing here for rather a long time, thinking about what
just happened. He cuts through the next row of vines and heads in the
direction of the muzzle flash, running his mouth: "Don't shoot this way,
T-Bone, I'm on your side, man."
"Motherfucker threw a stick into my chest, man!" T-Bone complains.
When you're wearing armor, getting hit by a spear just isn't such a big
deal anymore.
"Maybe you should just forget it," Hiro says. He is having to cut his
way through a lot of rows to reach T-Bone, but as long as T-Bone keeps
talking, Hiro can find him.
"I'm a Crip. We don't forget nothing." T-Bone says. "Is that you?"
"No," Hiro says. "I'm not there yet."
A very brief burst of gunfire, rapidly cut off. Suddenly, no one is
talking. Hiro cuts his way into the next row and almost steps on T-Bone's
hand, which has been amputated at the wrist. Its finger is still tangled in
the trigger guard of a MAC-11.
The remainder of T-Bone is two rows away. Hiro stops and watches
through the vines.
Raven is one of the largest men Hiro has seen outside of a professional
sporting event. T-Bone is backing away from him down the row. Raven, moving
with long confident strides, catches up with T-Bone and swings one hand up
into T-Bone's body; Hiro doesn't have to see the knife to know it is there.
It looks as though T-Bone is going to get out of this with nothing
worse than a sewn-on hand and some rehab work, because you can't stab a
person to death that way, not if he is wearing armor.
T-Bone screams.
He is bouncing up and down on Raven's hand. The knife has gone all the
way through the bulletproof fabric and now Raven is trying to gut T-Bone the
same way he did Lagos. But his knife - whatever the hell it is - won't cut
through the fabric that way. It is sharp enough to penetrate - which should
be impossible - but not sharp enough to slash.
Raven pulls it out, drops to one knee, and swings his knife hand around
in a long ellipse between T-Bone's thighs. Then he jumps over T-Bone's
collapsing body and runs.
Hiro gets the sense that T-Bone is a dead man, so he follows Raven. His
intention is not to hunt the man down, but rather to maintain a very clear
picture of where he is.
He has to cut through a number of rows. He rapidly loses Raven. He
considers running as fast as he can in the opposite direction.
Then he hears the deep, lung-stretching rumble of a motorcycle engine.
Hiro runs for the nearest street exit, just hoping to catch a glimpse.
He does, though it is a quick one, not a hell of a lot better than the