"Exactly what you would normally do at this juncture," the man says. "Go to Griffith Park and make the pickup."
"That"s it?"
"Yeah. Then make the delivery. But do us a favor and take I-5, okay?"
"That"s not the best way to do it-"
"Do it anyway."
"Okay."
"Now come on, we"ll give you an escort out of this h.e.l.lhole."
Sometimes, if the wind is going the right way, and you get into the pocket of air behind a speeding eighteen-wheeler, you don"t even have to poon it. The vacuum, like a mighty hoover, sucks you in. You can stay there all day. But if you screw up, you suddenly find yourself alone and powerless in the left lane of a highway with a convoy of semis right behind you. Just as bad, if you give in to its power, it will suck you right into its mudflaps, you will become axle dressing, and no one will ever know. This is called the Magic Hoover Poon. It reminds Y.T. of the way her life has been since the fateful night of the Hiro Protagonist pizza adventure.
Her poon cannot miss as she slingshots her way up the San Diego Freeway. She can get a solid yank off even the lightest, trashiest plastic-and-aluminum Chinese econ.o.box. People don"t f.u.c.k with her. She has established her s.p.a.ce on the pavement.
She is going to get so much business now. She will have to sub a lot of work out to Roadkill. And sometimes, just to make important business arrangements, they will have to check into a motel somewhere-which is exactly what real business people do. Lately, Y.T. has been trying to teach Roadkill how to give her a ma.s.sage. But Roadkill can never get past her shoulder blades before he loses it and starts being Mr. Macho. Which anyway is kind of sweet. And anyway, you take what you can get.
This is not the most direct route to Griffith Park by a longshot, but this is what the Mafia wants her to do: Take 405 all the way up into the Valley, and then approach from that direction, which is the direction she"d normally come from. They"re so paranoid. So professional.
LAX goes by on her left. On her right, she gets a glimpse of the U-Stor-It where that dweeb, her partner, is probably goggled into his computer. She weaves through complex traffic flows around Hughes Airport, which is now a private outpost of Mr. Lee"s Greater Hong Kong. Continues past the Santa Monica Airport, which just got bought out by Admiral Bob"s Global Security. Cuts through the middle of Fedland, where her mother goes to work every day.
Fedland used to be the VA Hospital and a bunch of other Federal buildings; now it has condensed into a kidney-shaped lozenge that wraps around 405. It has a barrier around it, a perimeter fence put up by stringing chain link fabric, concertina wire, heaps of rubble, and Jersey barriers from one building to the next. All of the buildings in Fedland are big and ugly. Human beings mill around their plinths, wearing wool clothing the color of damp granite. They are scrawny and dark underneath the white majesty of the buildings.
On the far side of the Fedland barrier, off to the right, she can see UCLA, which is now being jointly run by the j.a.panese and Mr. Lee"s Greater Hong Kong and a few big American corporations.
People say that over there to the left, in Pacific Palisades, is a big building above the ocean where the Central Intelligence Corporation has its West Coast headquarters. Soon-like maybe tomorrow-she"ll go up there, find that building, maybe just cruise past it and wave. She has great stuff to tell Hiro now. Great intel on Uncle Enzo. People would pay millions for it.
But in her heart, she"s already feeling the pangs of conscience. She knows that she cannot kiss and tell on the Mafia. Not because she"s afraid of them. Because they trust her. They were nice to her. And who knows, it might turn into something. A better career than she could get with CIC.
Not many cars are taking the off-ramp into Fedland. Her mother does it every morning, as do a bunch of other Feds. But all Feds go to work early and stay late. It"s a loyalty thing with them. The Feds have a fetish for loyalty-since they don"t make a lot of money or get a lot of respect, you have to prove you"re personally committed and that you don"t care about those trappings.
Case in point: Y.T. has been pooned onto the same cab all the way from LAX. It"s got an Arab in the back seat. His burnous flutters in the wind from the open window; the air conditioning doesn"t work, an L.A. cabbie doesn"t make enough money to buy Chill-Freon-on the underground market. This is typical: only the Feds would make a visitor take a dirty, un-air conditioned cab. Sure enough, the cab pulls onto the ramp marked UNITED STATES. Y.T. disengages and slaps her poon onto a Valley-bound delivery truck.
On top of the huge Federal Building, a bunch of Feds with walkie-talkies and dark gla.s.ses and FEDS windbreakers lurk, aiming long lenses into the windshields of the vehicles coming up Wilshire Boulevard If this were nighttime, she"d probably see a laser scanner playing over the bar-code license plate of the taxi as it veers onto the U.S. exit.
Y.T."s mom has told her all about these guys. They are the Executive Branch General Operational Command, EBGOC. The FBI, Federal Marshalls, Secret Service, and Special Forces all claim some separate ident.i.ty still, like the Army, Navy, and Air Force used to, but they"re all under the command of EBGOC, they all do the same things, and they are more or less interchangeable. Outside of Fedland, everyone just knows them as the Feds. EBGOC claims the right to go anywhere, anytime, within the original borders of the United States of America, without a warrant or even a good excuse. But they only really feel at home here, in Fedland, staring down the barrel of a telephoto lens, shotgun microphone, or sniper rifle. The longer the better.
Down below them, the taxicab with the Arab in the back slows down to sublight speed and winds its way down a twisting slalom course of Jersey barriers with .50-caliber machine gun nests strategically placed here and there. It comes to a stop in front of an STD device, straddling an open pit where EBGOC boys stand with dogs and high-powered spotlights to look up its skirt for bombs or NBCI (nuclear-biological-chemical-informational) agents in the undercarriage. Meanwhile, the driver gets out and pops the hood and trunk so that more Feds can inspect them; another Fed leans against the window next to the Arab and grills him through the window.
They say that in D.C., all the museums and the monuments have been concessioned out and turned into a tourist park that now generates about 10 percent of the Government"s revenue.
The Feds could run the concession themselves and probably keep more of the gross, but that"s not the point. It"s a philosophical thing. A back-to-basics thing. Government should govern. It"s not in the entertainment industry, is it? Leave entertaining to Industry weirdos-people who majored in tap dancing. Feds aren"t like that. Feds are serious people. Poli-sci majors. Student council presidents. Debate club chairpersons. The kinds of people who have the grit to wear a dark wool suit and a tightly b.u.t.toned collar even when the temperature has greenhoused up to a hundred and ten degrees and the humidity is thick enough to stall a jumbo jet. The kinds of people who feel most at home on the dark side of a one-way mirror.
Sometimes, to prove their manhood, boys of about Y.T."s age will drive to the eastern end of the Hollywood Hills, into Griffith Park, pick the road of their choosing, and simply drive through it. Making it through there unscathed is a lot like counting coup on a High Plains battlefield; simply having come that close to danger makes you more of a man.
By definition, all they ever see are the through streets. If you are driving into Griffith Park for some highjinks and you see a NO OUTLET sign, you know that it is time to shift your dad"s Accord into reverse and drive it backward all the way back home, revving the engine way past the end of the tachometer.
Naturally, as soon as Y.T. enters the park, following the road she was told to follow, she sees a NO OUTLET sign.
Y.T."s not the first Kourier to take a job like this, and so she has heard about the place she is going. It is a narrow canyon, accessed only by this one road, and down in the bottom of the canyon a new gang lives. Everyone calls them the Falabalas, because that"s how they talk to each other. They have their own language and it sounds like babble.
Right now, the important thing is not to think about how stupid this is. Making the right decision is, priority-wise, down there along with getting enough niacin and writing a thank-you letter to grandma for the nice pearl earrings. The only important thing is not to back down.
A row of machine-gun nests marks the border of Falabala territory. It seems like overkill to Y.T. But then she"s never been in a conflict with the Mafia, either. She plays it cool, idles toward the barrier at maybe ten miles an hour. This is where she"ll freak out and get scared if she"s going to. She is holding aloft a color-faxed RadiKS doc.u.ment, featuring the cybernetic radish logo, proclaiming that she really is here to pick up an important delivery, honest. It"ll never work with these guys.
But it does. A big gnarled-up coil of razor ribbon is pulled out of her way, just like that, and she glides through without slowing down. And that"s when she knows that it"s going to be fine. These people are just doing business here, just like anyone else.
She doesn"t have to skate far into the canyon. Thank G.o.d. She goes around a few turns, into kind of an open flat area surrounded by trees, and finds herself in what looks like an open-air insane asylum.
Or a Moonie festival or something.
A couple of dozen people are here. None of them have been taking care of themselves at all. They are all wearing the ragged remains of what used to be pretty decent clothing. Half a dozen of them are kneeling on the pavement with their hands clenched tightly together, mumbling to unseen ent.i.ties.
On the trunk lid of a dead car, they"ve set up an old junked computer terminal, just a dark monitor screen with a big spider-web crack in it, like someone bounced a coffee mug off the gla.s.s. A fat man with red suspenders dangling around his knees is sliding his hands up and down the keyboard, whacking the keys randomly, talking out loud in a meaningless babble. A couple of the others stand behind him, peeking over his shoulder and around his body, and sometimes they try to horn in on it, but he shoves them out of the way.
There"s also a crowd of people clapping their hands, swaying their bodies, and singing "The Happy Wanderer." They"re really into it, too. Y.T. hasn"t seen such childlike glee on anyone"s face since the first time she let Roadkill take her clothes off. But this is a different kind of childlike glee that does not look right on a bunch of thirty-something people with dirty hair.
And finally, there is a guy that Y.T. dubs the High Priest. He"s wearing a formerly white lab coat, bearing the logo of some company in the Bay Area. He"s sacked out in the back of a dead station wagon, but when Y.T. enters the area he jumps up and runs toward her in a way that she can"t help but find a little threatening. But compared to these others, he seems almost like a regular, healthy, fit, demented bush-dwelling psychotic.
"You"re here to pick up a suitcase, right?"
"I"m here to pick up something. I don"t know what it is," she says.
He goes over to one of the dead cars, unlocks the hood, pulls out an aluminum briefcase. It looks exactly like the one that Squeaky took out of the BMW last night. "Here"s your delivery," he says, striding toward her. She backs away from him instinctively.
"I understand, I understand," he says. "I"m a scary creep."
He puts it on the ground, puts his foot on it, gives it a shove. It slides across the pavement to Y.T., bouncing off the occasional rock.
"There"s no big hurry on this delivery," he says. "Would you like to stay and have a drink? We"ve got Kool-Aid."
"I"d love to," Y.T. says, "but my diabetes is acting up real bad."
"Well, then you can just stay and be a guest of our community. We have a lot of wonderful things to tell you about. Things that could really change your life."
"Do you have anything in writing? Something I could take with me?"
"Gee, I"m afraid we don"t. Why don"t you stay. You seem like a really nice person."
"Sorry, Jack, but you must be confusing me with a bimbo," Y.T. says. "Thanks for the suitcase. I"m out of here."
Y.T. starts digging at the pavement with one foot, building up speed as fast as she can. On her way out, she pa.s.ses by a young woman with a shaved head, dressed in the dirty and haggard remains of a Chanel knockoff. As Y.T. goes by her, she smiles vacantly, sticks out her hand, and waves. "Hi," she says. "ba ma zu na la amu pa go lu ne me a ba du."
"Yo," Y.T. says.
A couple of minutes later, she"s pooning her way up I-5, headed up into Valley-land. She"s a little freaked-out, her timing is off, she"s taking it easy. A tune keeps running through her head: "The Happy Wanderer." It"s driving her crazy.
A large black blur keeps pulling alongside her. It would be a tempting target, so large and ferrous, if it were going a little faster. But she can make better time than this barge, even when she"s taking it slow.
The driver"s side window of the black car rolls down. It"s the guy. Jason. He"s sticking his whole head out the window to look back at her, driving blind. The wind at fifty miles per hour does not ruffle his firmly gelled razor cut.
He smiles. He has an imploring look about him, the same look that Roadkill gets. He points suggestively at his rear quarter-panel.
What the h.e.l.l. The last time she pooned this guy, he took her exactly where she was going. Y.T. detaches from the Acura she"s been hitched to for the last half mile, swings it over to Jason"s fat Olds. And Jason takes her off the freeway and onto Victory Boulevard, headed for Van Nuys, which is exactly right.
But after a couple of miles, he swings the wheel sharply right and screeches into the parking lot of a ghost mall, which is wrong. Right now, nothing"s parked in the lot but an eighteen-wheeler, motor running, SALDUCCI BROS. MOVING & STORAGE painted on the sides.
"Come on," Jason says, getting out of his Oldsmobile. "You don"t want to waste any time."
"Screw you, a.s.shole," she says, reeling in her poon, looking back toward the boulevard for some promising westbound traffic. Whatever this guy has in mind, it is probably unprofessional.
"Young lady," says another voice, an older and more arresting sort of voice, "it"s fine if you don"t like Jason. But your pal, Uncle Enzo, needs your help."
A door on the back of the semi has opened up. A man in a black suit is standing there. Behind him, the interior of the semi is brightly lit up. Halogen light glares off the man"s slick hairdo.
Even with the backlighting, she can tell it is the man with the gla.s.s eye.
"What do you want?" she says.
"What I want," he says, looking her up and down, "and what I need are different things. Right now I"m working, see, which means that what I want is not important. What I need is for you to get into this truck along with your skateboard and that suitcase."
Then he adds, "Am I getting through to you?" He asks the question almost rhetorically, like he presumes the answer is no.
"He"s for real," Jason says, as though Y.T. must be hanging on his opinion.
"Well, there you have it," the man with the gla.s.s eye says. Y.T. is supposed to be on her way to a Reverend Wayne"s Pearly Gates franchise. If she screws up this delivery, that means she"s double-crossing G.o.d, who may or may not exist, and in any case who is capable of forgiveness. The Mafia definitely exists and hews to a higher standard of obedience.
She hands her stuff-the plank and the aluminum case-up to the man with the gla.s.s eye, then vaults up into the back of the semi, ignoring his proffered hand. He recoils, holds up his hand, looks at it to see if there"s something wrong with it. By the time her feet leave the ground, the truck is already moving. By the time the door is pulled shut behind her, they have already pulled onto the boulevard.
"Just gotta run a few tests on this delivery of yours," the man with the gla.s.s eye says.
"Ever think of introducing yourself?" Y.T. says.
"Nah," he says, "people always forget names. You can just think of me as that one guy, y"know?"
Y.T. is not really listening. She is checking out the inside of the truck. The trailer of this rig consists of a single long skinny room. Y.T. has just come in through its only entrance. At this end of the room, a couple of Mafia guys are lounging around, the way they always do.
Most of the room is taken up by electronics. Big electronics.
"Going to just do some computer stuff, y"know," he says, handing the briefcase over to a computer guy. Y.T. knows he"s a computer guy because he has long hair in a ponytail and he"s wearing jeans and he seems gentle.
"Hey, if anything happens to that, my a.s.s is gra.s.s," Y.T. says. She"s trying to sound tough and brave, but it"s a hollow act in these circ.u.mstances.
The man with the gla.s.s eye is, like, shocked. "What do you think I am, some kind of incredibly stupid d.i.c.khead?" he says. "s.h.i.t, that"s just what I need, trying to explain to Uncle Enzo how I managed to get his little bunny rabbit shot in the kneecaps."
"It"s a noninvasive procedure," the computer guy says in a placid, liquid voice. The computer guy rotates the case around in his hand a few times, just to get a feel for it. Then he slides it into a large open-ended cylinder that is resting on the top of a table. The walls of the cylinder are a couple of inches thick. Frost appears to be growing on this thing. Mystery gases continuously slide off of it, like teaspoons of milk dropped into turbulent water. The gases plunge out across the table and drop to the floor, where they make a little carpet of fog that flows and blooms around their shoes. When the computer guy has it in place, he yanks his hand back from the cold.
Then he puts on a pair of computer goggles.
That"s all there is to it. He just sits there for a few minutes. Y.T. is not a computer person, but she knows that somewhere behind the cabinets and doors in the back of this truck there is a big computer doing a lot of things right now.
"It"s like a CAT scanner," the man with the gla.s.s eye says, using the same hushed tone of voice as a sportscaster in a golfing tournament. "But it reads everything, you know," he says, rotating his hands impatiently in all-encompa.s.sing circles.
"How much does it cost?"
"I don"t know."
"What"s it called?"
"Doesn"t really have a name yet."
"Well, who makes it?"
"We made the G.o.dd.a.m.n thing," the man with the gla.s.s eye says. "Just, like in the last couple weeks."
"What for?"
"You"re asking too many questions. Look. You"re a cute kid. I mean, you"re a h.e.l.l of a chick. You"re a knockout. But don"t go thinking you"re too important at this stage."
At this stage. Hmm.
Hiro is in his 20-by-30 at the U-Stor-It. He is spending a little time in Reality, as per the suggestion of his partner. The door is open so that ocean breezes and jet exhaust can blow through. All the furniture-the futons, the cargo pallet, the experimental cinderblock furniture-has been pushed up against the walls. He is holding a one-meter-long piece of heavy rebar with tape wrapped around one end to make a handle. The rebar approximates a katana, but it is very much heavier. He calls it the redneck katana.
He is in the kendo stance, barefoot. He should be wearing voluminous ankle-length culottes and a heavy indigo tunic, which is the traditional uniform, but instead he is wearing jockey shorts. Sweat is running down his smoothly muscled cappuccino back and exploring his cleavage. Blisters the size of green grapes are forming on the ball of his left foot. Hiro"s heart and lungs are well developed, and he has been blessed with unusually quick reflexes, but he is not intrinsically strong, the way his father was. Even if he were intrinsically strong, working with the redneck katana would be very difficult.
He is full of adrenaline, his nerves are shot, and his mind is cluttered up with free-floating anxiety-floating around on an ocean of generalized terror.
He is shuffling back and forth down the thirty-foot axis of the room. From time to time he will accelerate, raise the redneck katana up over his head until it is pointed backward, then bring it swiftly down, snapping his wrists at the last moment so that it comes to a stop in midair. Then he says, "Next!"
Theoretically. In fact, the redneck katana is difficult to stop once it gets moving. But it"s good exercise. His forearms look like bundles of steel cables. Almost. Well, they will soon, anyway.
The Nipponese don"t go in for this nonsense about follow through. If you strike a man on the top of his head with a katana and do not make the effort to stop the blade, it will divide his skull and probably get hung up in his collarbone or his pelvis, and then you will be out there in the middle of the medieval battlefield with a foot on your late opponent"s face, trying to work the blade loose as his best friend comes running up to you with a certain vengeful gleam in his eye. So the plan is to snap the blade to a full stop just after the impact, maybe crease his brain-pan an inch or two, then whip it out and look for another samurai, hence: "Next!"
He has been thinking about what happened earlier tonight with Raven, which pretty much rules out sleep, and this is why he is practicing with the redneck katana at three in the morning.