Snow Crash (34 page)

46

“Where'd they go?” Hiro says.

Everyone's already looking for the float, as though they all noticed at once that it was missing. Finally they see it, a quarter mile behind them, dead in the water. The bigwigs and the bodyguards are standing up now, all looking in the same direction. The speedboat is circling around to retrieve it.

“They must have figured out a way to detach the tow cable,” Hiro says.

“Not likely,” the man with the glass eye says. “It was attached to the bottom, under the water. And it's a steel cable, so there's no way they could cut it.”

Hiro sees another small craft bobbing on the water, about halfway between the Russians and the speedboat that was towing them. It's not obvious, because it's tiny, close to the water, done up in dull natural colors. It's a one-man kayak. Carrying a long-haired man.

“Shit,” Livio says. “Where the hell did he come from?”

The kayaker looks behind himself for a few moments, reading the waves, then suddenly turns back around and begins to paddle hard, accelerating, glancing back every few strokes. A big wave is coming, and just as it swells up underneath the kayak, he's matching its speed. The kayak stays on top of the wave and shoots forward like a missile, riding the swell, suddenly going twice as fast as anything else on the water.

Digging at the wave with one end of his paddle, the kayaker makes a few crude changes in his direction. Then he parks the paddle athwart the kayak, reaches down inside, and hauls out a small dark object, a tube about four feet long, which he hoists up to one shoulder.

He and the speedboat shoot past each other going in opposite directions, separated by a gap of only about twenty feet. Then the speedboat blows up.

The
Kowloon
has overshot the site of all this action by a few thousand yards. It's pulling around into as tight a turn as a vessel of this size can handle, trying to throw a one-eighty so it can go back and deal with the Russians and, somewhat more problematically, with Raven.

Raven is paddling back toward his buddies.

“He's such an asshole,” Livio says. “What's he going to do, tow them out to the Raft behind his fucking kayak?”

“This gives me the creeps,” the man with the glass eye says. “Make sure we got some guys up there with Stingers. They must have a chopper coming or something.”

“No other ships on the radar,” says one of the other soldiers, coming in from the bridge. “Just us and them. And no choppers either.”

“You know Raven carries a nuke, right?” Hiro says.

“So I heard. But that kayak's not big enough. It's tiny. I can't believe you'd go out to sea in something like that.”

A mountain is growing out of the sea. A bubble of black water that keeps rising and broadening. Well behind the bobbing raft, a black tower has appeared, jutting vertically out of the water, a pair of wings sprouting from its top. The tower keeps getting taller, the wings getting higher out of the water, as before and aft, the mountain rises and shapes itself. Red stars and a few numbers. But no one has to read the numbers to know it's a submarine. A nuclear-missile submarine.

Then it stops. So close to the Russians on their little raft that Gurov and friends can practically jump onto it. Raven paddles toward them, cutting through the waves like a glass knife.

“Fuck me,” the man with the glass eye says. He is utterly astounded. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. Uncle Enzo's gonna be pissed.”

“You couldn't of known,” Livio says. “Should we shoot at 'em?”

Before the man with the glass eye can make a policy decision, the deck gun on the top of the nukesub opens up. The first shell misses them by just a few yards.

“Okay, we got a rapidly evolving situation. Hiro, you come with me.”

The crew of the
Kowloon
has already sized up the situation and placed their bets on the nuclear submarine. They are running up and down the rails, dropping large fiberglass capsules into the water. The capsules break open to reveal bright orange folds, which blossom into life rafts.

Once the deck gunners on the nukesub figure out how to hit the
Kowloon
, the situation begins to evolve even more rapidly. The
Kowloon
can't decide whether to sink, burn, or simply disintegrate, so it does all three at once. By that time, most of the people who were on it have made their way onto a life raft. They all bob on the water, zip themselves into orange survival suits, and watch the nukesub.

Raven is the last person to go belowdecks on the submarine. He spends a minute or two removing some gear from his kayak: a few items in bags, and one eight-foot spear with a translucent, leaf-shaped head. Before he disappears into the hatch, he turns toward the wreckage of the
Kowloon
and holds the harpoon up over his head, a gesture of triumph and a promise all at once. Then he's gone. A couple of minutes later, the submarine is gone, too.

“That guy gives me the creeps,” the man with the glass eye says.

47

Once it starts coming clear to her, again, that these people are all twisted freaks, she starts to notice other things about them. For example, the whole time, no one ever looks her in the eye. Especially the men. No sex at all in these guys, they've got it pushed so far down inside of them. She can understand why they don't look at the fat babushkas. But she's a fifteen-year-old American chick, and she is used to getting the occasional look. Not here.

Until she looks up from her big vat of fish one day and finds that she is looking into some guy's chest. And when she follows his chest upward to his neck, and his neck all the way up to his face, she sees dark eyes staring right back at her, right over the top of the counter.

He's got something written on his forehead: POOR IMPULSE CONTROL. Which is kind of scary. Sexy, too. It gives him a certain measure of romance that none of these other people have. She was expecting the Raft to be dark and dangerous, and instead it's just like working where her mother works. This guy is the first person she's seen around this place who really looks like he belongs on the Raft.

And he's got the look down, too. Incredibly rank style. Although he has a long wispy mustache that doesn't do much for his face. Doesn't bring out his features well at all.

“Do you take the nasty stuff? One fish head or two?” she says, dangling the ladle picturesquely. She always talks trash to people because none of them can understand what she's saying.

“I'll take whatever you're offering,” the guy says. In English. Sort of a crisp accent.

“I'm not offering anything,” she says, “but if you want to stand there and browse, that's cool.”

He stands there and browses for a while. Long enough that people farther back in line stand up on tiptoe to see what the problem is. But when they see that the problem is this particular individual, they get down off their toes real fast, hunch down, sort of blend in to the mass of fishy-smelling wool.

“What's for dessert today?” the guy asks. “Got anything sweet for me?”

“We don't believe in dessert,” Y.T. says. “It's a fucking sin, remember?”

“Depends on your cultural orientation.”

“Oh, yeah? What culture are you oriented to?”

“I am an Aleut.”

“Oh, I've never heard of that.”

“That's because we've been fucked over,” the big scary Aleut says, “worse than any other people in history.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Y.T. says. “So, uh, do you want me to serve up some fish, or are you gonna stay hungry?”

The big Aleut stares at her for a while. Then he jerks his head sideways and says, “Come on. Let's get the fuck out of here.”

“What, and skip out on this cool job?”

He grins ridiculously. “I can find you a better job.”

“In this job, do I get to leave my clothes on?”

“Come on. We're going now,” he says, those eyes burning into her. She tries to ignore a sudden warm tense feeling down between her legs.

She starts following him down the cafeteria line, heading for a gap where she can exit into the dining area. The head babushka bitch comes stomping out from in back, hollers at her in some incomprehensible language.

Y.T. turns to look back. She feels a pair of big hands sliding up her sides, coming up into her armpits, and she pulls her arms to her sides, trying to stop it. But it's no good, the hands come all the way up and keep lifting, keep rising into the air, bringing her with them. The big guy hoists her right up over the counter like she's a three-year-old and sets her down next to him.

Y.T. turns back around to see the head babushka bitch, but she is frozen in a mixture of surprise, fear, and sexual outrage. But in the end, fear wins out, she averts her eyes, turns away, and goes to replace Y.T. at vat position number nine.

“Thanks for the lift,” Y.T. says, her voice wowing and fluttering ridiculously. “Uh, didn't you want to eat something?”

“I was thinking of going out anyway,” he says.

“Going out? Where do you go out on the Raft?”

“Come on, I'll show you.”

He leads her down passageways and up steep steel stairways and out onto the deck. It's getting close to twilight, the control tower of the
Enterprise
looms hard and black against a deep gray sky that's getting dark and gloomy so fast that it seems darker, now, than it will at midnight. But for now, none of the lights are on and that's all there is, black steel and slate sky.

She follows him down the deck of the ship to the stern. From here it's a thirty-foot drop to the water, they are looking out across the prosperous, clean white neighborhood of the Russian people, separated from the squalid dark tangle of the Raft per se by a wide canal patrolled by gun-toting blackrobes. There's no stairway or rope ladder here, but there is a thick rope hanging from the railing. The big Aleut guy hauls up a chunk of rope and drapes it under one arm and over one leg in a quick motion. Then he throws one arm around Y.T.'s waist, gathering her in the crook of his arm, leans back, and falls off the ship.

She absolutely refuses to scream. She feels the rope stop his body, feels his arm squeeze her so tight she chokes for a moment, and then she's hanging there, hanging in the crook of his arm.

She's got her arms down to her side, defiant. But just for the hell of it, she leans into him, wraps her arms around his neck, puts her head on his shoulder, and hangs on tight. He rappels them down the rope, and soon they are standing on the sanitized, prosperous Russian version of the Raft.

“What's your name anyway?” she says.

“Dmitri Ravinoff,” he says. “Better known as Raven.”

Oh, shit.

The connections between boats are tangled and unpredictable. To get from point A to point B, you have to wander all over the place. But Raven knows where he's going. Occasionally, he reaches out, grabs her hand, but he doesn't yank her around even though she's going a lot slower than he is. Every so often, he looks back at her with a grin, like, I could hurt you, but I won't.

They come to a place where the Russian neighborhood is joined to the rest of the Raft by a wide plank bridge guarded by Uzi dudes. Raven ignores them, takes Y.T.'s hand again, and walks right across the bridge with her. Y.T. hardly has time to think through the implications of this before it hits her, she looks around, sees all these gaunt Asians, staring back at her like she's a five-course meal, and realizes: I'm on the Raft. Actually on the Raft.

“These are Hong Kong Vietnamese,” Raven says. “Started out in Vietnam, came to Hong Kong as boat people after the war there—so they've been living on sampans for a couple of generations now. Don't be scared, this isn't dangerous for you.”

“I don't think I can find my way back here,” Y.T. says.

“Relax,” he says. “I've never lost a girlfriend.”

“Have you ever
had
a girlfriend?”

Raven throws back his head and laughs. “A lot, in the old days. Not as many in the past few years.”

“Oh, yeah? The old days? Is that when you got your tattoo?”

“Yeah. I'm an alcoholic. Used to get in a lot of trouble. Been sober for eight years.”

“Then how come everyone's scared of you?”

Raven turns to her, smiles broadly, shrugs. “Oh, because I'm an incredibly ruthless, efficient, cold-blooded killer, you know.”

Y.T. laughs. So does Raven.

“What's your job?” Y.T. asks.

“I'm a harpooner,” he says.

“Like in
Moby Dick
?” Y.T. likes this idea. She read that book in school. Most of the people in her class, even the power tools, thought that the book was totally entrenched. But she liked all the stuff about harpooning.

“Nah. Compared to me, those Moby Dicksters were faggots.”

“What kind of stuff do you harpoon?”

“You name it.”

From there on out, she just looks at him. Or at inanimate objects. Because otherwise she wouldn't see anything except thousands of dark eyes staring back at her. In that way, it's a big change from being a slop-slinger for the repressed.

Part of it is just because she's so different. But part of it is that there's no privacy on the Raft, you make your way around by hopping from one boat to the next. But each boat is home to about three dozen people, so it's like you are constantly walking through people's living rooms. And bathrooms. And bedrooms. Naturally, they look.

They tromp across a makeshift platform built on oil drums. A couple of Vietnamese dudes are there arguing or haggling over something, looks like a slab of fish. The one who's turned toward them sees them coming. His eyes flicker across Y.T. without pausing, fix on Raven, and go wide. He steps back. The guy he's talking to, who has his back to them, turns around and literally jumps into the air, letting out a suppressed grunt. Both of them back well out of Raven's path.

And then she figures out something important: These people aren't looking at her. They're not even giving her a second glance. They're all looking at Raven. And it's not just a case of celebrity watching or something like that. All of these Raft dudes, these tough scary homeboys of the sea, are scared shitless of this guy.

And she's on a date with him.

And it's just started.

Suddenly, walking through another Vietnamese living room, Y.T. has a flashback to the most excruciating conversation she ever had, which was a year ago when her mother tried to give her advice on what to do if a boy got fresh with her. Yeah, Mom, right. I'll keep that in mind. Yeah, I'll be sure to remember that. Y.T. knew that advice was worthless, and this goes to show she was right.