44
In Reality, Port Sherman is a surprisingly tiny little burg, really just a few square blocks. Until the Raft came along, it had a full-time population of a couple of thousand people. Now the population must be pushing fifty thousand. Hiro has to slow down a little bit here because the Refus are all sleeping on the street for the time being, an impediment to traffic.
That's okay, it saves his life. Because shortly after he gets into Port Sherman, the wheels on his motorcycle lock up—the spokes become rigid—and the ride gets very bumpy. A couple of seconds after that, the entire bike goes dead, becomes an inert chunk of metal. Not even the engine works. He looks down into the flat screen on top of the fuel tank, wanting to get a status report, but it's just showing snow. The bios has crashed. Asherah's possessed his bike.
So he abandons it in the middle of the street, starts walking toward the waterfront. Behind him, he can hear the Refus waking up, struggling out of their blankets and sleeping bags, converging over the fallen bike, trying to be the first to claim it.
He can hear a deep thumping in his chest, and for a minute he remembers Raven's motorcycle in L.A., how he felt it first and heard it later. But there are no motorcycles around here. The sound is coming from above. It's a chopper. The kind that flies.
Hiro can smell the seaweed rotting on the beach, he's so close. He comes around a corner and finds himself on the waterfront street, looking straight into the facade of the Spectrum 2000. On the other side is water.
The chopper's coming up the fjord, following it inland from the open sea, headed straight for the Spectrum 2000. It's a small one, an agile number with a lot of glass. Hiro can see the crosses painted all over it where the red stars used to be. It is brilliant and dazzling in the cool blue light of early morning because it's shedding a trail of stars, blue-white magnesium flares tumbling out of it every few seconds, landing in the water below, where they continue to burn, leaving an astral pathway marked out down the length of the harbor. They aren't there to look cool. They are there to confuse heat-seeking missiles.
From where he's standing, he can't see the roof of the hotel, because he's looking straight up at it. But he has the feeling that Gurov must be waiting there, on top of the tallest building in Port Sherman, waiting for a dawn evacuation to carry him away into the porcelain sky, carry him away to the Raft.
Question: Why is he being evacuated? And why are they worried about heat-seeking missiles? Hiro realizes, belatedly, that some heavy shit is going on.
If he still had the bike, he could ride it right up the fire stairs and find out what's happening. But he doesn't have the bike.
A deep thump sounds from the roof of a building on his right. It's an old building, one of the original pioneer structures from a hundred years ago. Hiro's knees buckle, his mouth comes open, shoulders hunch involuntarily, he looks toward the sound. And something catches his eye, something small and dark, darting away from the building and up into the air like a sparrow. But when it's a hundred yards out over the water, the sparrow catches fire, coughs out a great cloud of sticky yellow smoke, turns into a white fireball, and springs forward. It keeps getting faster and faster, tearing down the center of the harbor, until it passes all the way through the little chopper, in through the windshield and out the back. The chopper turns into a cloud of flame shedding dark bits of scrap metal, like a phoenix breaking out of its shell.
Apparently, Hiro's not the only guy in town who hates Gurov. Now Gurov has to come downstairs and get on a boat.
The lobby of the Spectrum 2000 is an armed camp, full of beards with guns. They're still putting their defense together; more soldiers are dragging themselves out of their coin lockers, pulling on their jackets, grabbing their guns. A swarthy guy, probably a Tatar sergeant left over from the Red Army, is running around the lobby in a modified Soviet Marines uniform, screaming at people, shoving them this way and that.
Gurov may be a holy man, but he can't walk on water. He'll have to come out to the waterfront street, make his way two blocks down to the gate that admits him to the secured pier, and get on board the Kodiak Queen, which is waiting for him, black smoke starting to cough out of its stacks, lights starting to come on. Just down the pier from the Kodiak Queen is the Kowloon, which is the big Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong boat.
Hiro turns his back on the Spectrum 2000 and starts running up and down the waterfront streets, scanning the logos until he sees the one he wants: Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong.
They don't want to let him in. He flashes his passport; the doors open. The guard is Chinese but speaks a bit of English. This is a measure of how weird things are in Port Sherman: they have a guard on the door. Usually, Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong is an open country, always looking for new citizens, even if they are the poorest Refus.
“Sorry,” the guard says in a reedy, insincere voice, “I did not know—” He points to Hiro's passport.
The franchulate is literally a breath of fresh air. It doesn't have that Third World ambience, doesn't smell like urine at all. Which means it must be the local headquarters, or close to it, because most of Hong Kong's Port Sherman real estate probably consists of nothing more than a gunman hogging a pay phone in a lobby. But this place is spacious, clean, and nice. A few hundred Refus stare at him through the windows, held at bay not by the mere plate glass but by the eloquent promise of the three Rat Thing hutches lined up against one wall. From the looks of it, two of those have just been moved in recently. Pays to beef up your security when the Raft is coming through.
Hiro proceeds to the counter. A man is talking on the phone in Cantonese, which means that he is, in fact, shouting. Hiro recognizes him as the Port Sherman proconsul. He is deeply involved in this little chat, but he has definitely noticed Hiro's swords, is watching him carefully.
“We are very busy,” the man says, hanging up.
“Now you are a lot busier,” Hiro says. “I would like to charter your boat, the Kowloon.”
“It's very expensive,” the man says.
“I just threw away a brand-new top-of-the-line motorcycle in the middle of the street because I didn't feel like pushing it half a block to the garage,” Hiro says. “I am on an expense account that would blow your mind.”
“It's broken.”
“I appreciate your politeness in not wanting to come out and just say no,” Hiro says, “but I happen to know that it is, in fact, not broken, and so I must consider your refusal equivalent to a no.”
“It's not available,” the man says. “Someone else is using it.”
“It has not yet left the pier,” Hiro says, “so you can cancel that engagement, using one of the excuses you have just given me, and then I will pay you more money.”
“We cannot do this,” the man says.
“Then I will go out into the street and inform the Refus that the Kowloon is leaving for L.A. in exactly one hour, and that they have enough room to take twenty Refus along with them, first come, first served,” Hiro says.
“No,” the man says.
“I will tell them to contact you personally.”
“Where do you want to go on the Kowloon?” the man says.
“The Raft.”
“Oh, well, why didn't you say so,” the man says. “That's where our other passenger is going.”
“You've got someone else who wants to go to the Raft?”
“That's what I said. Your passport, please.”
Hiro hands it over. The man shoves it into a slot. Hiro's name, personal data, and mug shots are digitally transferred into the franchulate's bios, and with a little bit of key-pounding, the man persuades it to spit out a laminated photo ID card.
“You get onto the pier with this,” he says. “It's good for six hours. You make your own deal with the other passenger. After that, I never want to see you again.”
“What if I need more consular services?”
“I can always go out and tell people,” the man says, “that a nigger with swords is out raping Chi
nese refugees.”
“Hmm. This isn't exactly the best service I've ever had at a Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong.”
“This is not a normal situation,” the man says. “Look out the window, asshole.”
Not much has apparently changed down at the waterfront. The Orthos have organized their defense in the lobby of the Spectrum 2000: furniture has been overturned, barricades set up. Inside the hotel itself, Hiro presumes furious activity is going on.
It's still not clear whom the Orthos are defending themselves against. Making his way through the waterfront area, Hiro doesn't see much: just more Chinese Refus in baggy clothes. It's just that some of them look a lot more alert than others. They have a whole different affect. Most of the Chinese have their eyes on the mud in front of their feet, and their minds on something else. But some of them are just strolling up and down the street, looking all around, alertly, and most of these people happen to be young men wearing bulky jackets. And haircuts that are from a whole other stylistic universe than what the others are sporting. There is evidence of styling gel.
The entrance to the rich people's pier is sandbagged, barbwired, and guarded. Hiro approaches slowly, his hands in plain sight, and shows his pass to the head guard, who is the only white person Hiro has seen in Port Sherman.
And that gets him onto the pier. Just like that. Like the Hong Kong franchulate, it's empty, quiet, and doesn't stink. It bobs up and down gently on the tide, in a way that Hiro finds relaxing. It's really just a train of rafts, plank platforms built over floating hunks of styrofoam, and if it weren't guarded it would probably end up getting dragged out and lashed onto the Raft.
Unlike a normal marina, it's not quiet and isolated. Usually, people moor their boats, lock them up, and leave. Here, at least one person is hanging out on each boat, drinking coffee, keeping their weapons in plain sight, watching Hiro very intently as he strolls up the pier. Every few seconds, the pier thunders with footsteps, and one or two Russians run past Hiro, making for the Kodiak Queen. They are all young men, all sailor/soldier types, and they're diving onto the Kodiak Queen as if it's the last boat out of Hell, being shouted at by officers, running to their stations, frantically attending to their sailor chores.
Things are a lot calmer on the Kowloon. It's guarded too, but most of the people appear to be waiters and stewards, wearing snappy uniforms with brass buttons and white gloves. Uniforms that are intended to be used indoors, in pleasant, climate-controlled dining rooms. A few crew members are visible from place to place, their black hair slicked back, clad in dark windbreakers to protect them from the cold and spray. Hiro can only see one man on the Kowloon who appears to be a passenger: a tall slender Caucasian in a dark suit, strolling around chatting into a portable telephone. Probably some Industry jerk who wants to go out for a day cruise, look at the Refus on the Raft while he's sitting in a dining room having a gourmet dinner.
Hiro's about halfway down the pier when all hell breaks loose on shore, in front of the Spectrum 2000. It starts with a long series of heavy machine-gun bursts that don't appear to do much damage, but do clear the street pretty fast. Ninety-nine percent of the Refus just evaporate. The others, the young men Hiro noticed, pull interesting high-tech weapons out of their jackets and disappear into doorways and buildings. Hiro picks up the pace a little, starts walking backward down the pier, trying to get some of the larger vessels in between him and the action so he doesn't get hit by a stray burst.
A fresh breeze comes off the water and down the pier. Passing by the Kowloon, it picks up the smell of bacon frying and coffee brewing, and Hiro can't help but meditate on the fact that his last meal was half of a cheap beer in a Kelley's Tap in a Snooze 'n' Cruise.
The scene in front of the Spectrum 2000 has devolved into a generalized roar of unbelievably loud white noise as all the people inside and outside of the hotel fire their weapons back and forth across the street.
Something touches his shoulder. Hiro turns to brush it away, sees that he's looking down at a short Chinese waitress who has come down the pier from the Kowloon. Having gotten his attention, she puts her hands back where they were originally, to wit, plastered over her ears.
“You Hiro Protagonist?” she mouths, basically inaudible over the ridiculous noise of the firefight.
Hiro nods. She nods back, steps away from him, jerks her head toward the Kowloon. With her hands plastered over her ears this way, it looks like some kind of a folkdance move.
Hiro follows her down the pier. Maybe they're going to let him charter the Kowloon after all. She ushers him onto the aluminum gangplank.
As he's walking across it, he looks up to one of the higher decks, where a couple of the crew members are hanging out in their dark windbreakers. One of them is leaning against a railing, watching the firefight through binoculars. Another one, an older one, approaches him, leans over to examine his back, slaps him a couple of times between the shoulder blades.
The guy drops his binoculars to see who's pounding him on the back. His eyes are not Chinese. The older guy says something to him, gestures at his throat. He's not Chinese, either.
The binocular guy nods, reaches up with one hand and presses a lapel switch. The next time he turns around, a word is written across his back in neon green electropigment: MAFIA.
The older guy turns away; his windbreaker says the same thing.
Hiro turns around in the middle of the gangplank. There are twenty crew members in plain sight all around him. Suddenly, their black windbreakers all say, MAFIA. Suddenly, they are all armed.
45
“I was planning to get in touch with Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong and file a complaint about their proconsul here in Port Sherman,” Hiro jokes. “He was very uncooperative this morning when I insisted on renting this boat out from under you.”
Hiro is sitting in the first-class dining room of the Kowloon. On the other side of the white linen tablecloth is the man Hiro had previously pegged as the Industry creep on vacation. He's impeccably dressed in a black suit, and he has a glass eye. He has not bothered to introduce himself, as though he's expecting Hiro to know who he is already.
The man does not seem amused by Hiro's story. He seems, rather, nonplussed. “So?”
“Don't see any reason to file a complaint now,” Hiro says.
“Why not?”
“Well, because now I understand his reluctance not to displace you guys.”
“How come? You got money, don't you?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Oh!” the man with the glass eye says, and allows himself sort of a forced smile. “Because we're the Mafia, you're saying.”
“Yeah,” Hiro says, feeling his face get hot. Nothing like making a total dickhead out of yourself. Nothing in the world like it, nosireebob.
Outside, the gun battle is just a dim roar. This dining room is insulated from noise, water, wind, and hot flying lead by a double layer of remarkably thick glass, and the space between the panes is full of something cool and gelatinous. The roar does not seem as steady as it used to be.
“Fucking machine guns,” the man says. “I hate 'em. Maybe one out of a thousand rounds actually hits something worth hitting. And they kill my ears. You want some coffee or something?”
“That'd be great.”
“We got a big buffet coming up soon. Bacon, eggs, fresh fruit you wouldn't believe.”
The guy that Hiro saw earlier, up on the deck, pounding Binocular Man on the back, sticks his head into the room.
“Excuse me, boss, but we're moving into, like, the third phase of our plan. Just thought you'd wanna know.”
“Thank you, Livio. Let me know when the Ivans make it to the pier.” The guy sips his coffee, notices Hiro looking confused. “See, we got a plan, and the plan is divided up into different phases.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“The first phase was immobilization. Taking out their chopper. Then we had Phase Two, which was making them think we were trying to kill them in the
hotel. I think that this phase succeeded wonderfully.”
“Me, too.”
“Thank you. Another important part of this phase was getting your ass in here, which is also done.”
“I'm part of this plan?”
The man with the glass eye smiles crisply. “If you were not part of this plan, you would be dead.”
“So you know I was coming to Port Sherman?”
“You know that chick Y.T.? The one you have been using to spy on us?”
“Yeah.” No point in denying it.
“Well, we have been using her to spy on you.”
“Why? Why the hell do you care about me?”
“That would be a tangent from our main conversation, which is about all the phases of the plan.”
“Okay. We just finished Phase Two.”
“Now, in Phase Three, which is ongoing, we allow them to think that they are making an incredible, heroic escape, running down the street toward the pier.”
“Phase Four!” shouts Livio, the lieutenant.
“Scusi,” the man with the glass eye says, scooting his chair back, folding his napkin back onto the table. He gets up and walks out of the dining room. Hiro follows him above deck.
A couple of dozen Russians are all trying to force their way through the gate onto the pier. Only a few of them can get through at once, and so they end up strung out over a couple of hundred feet, all running toward the safety of the Kodiak Queen.
But a dozen or so manage to stay together in a clump: a group of soldiers, forming a human shield around a smaller cluster of men in the center.
“Bigwigs,” the man with the glass eye says, shaking his head philosophically.
They all run crablike down the pier, bent down as far as they can go, firing the occasional covering burst of machine-gun fire back into Port Sherman.
The man with the glass eye is squinting against a cool, sudden breeze. He turns to Hiro with a hint of a grin. “Check this out,” he says, and presses a button on a little black box in his hand.