They are approaching the waterfront. Dozens of long, skinny, single-story warehouses run parallel down toward the water. They all share the same access road at this end. Smaller roads run between them, down toward where the piers used to be. Abandoned tractor-trailers are scattered around from place to place.
Ng pulls his van off the access road, into a little nook that is partly concealed between an old red-brick power station and a stack of rusted-out shipping containers. He gets it turned around so it’s pointed out of here, kind of like he is expecting to leave rapidly.
“There’s money in the storage compartment in front of you,” Ng says.
Y.T. opens the glove compartment, as anyone else would call it, and finds a thick bundle of worn-out, dirty, trillion-dollar bills. Ed Meeses.
“Jeez, couldn’t you get any Gippers? This is kind of bulky.”
“This is more the kind of thing that a Kourier would pay with.”
“Because we’re all pond scum, right?”
“No comment.”
“What is this, a quadrillion dollars?”
“One-and-a-half quadrillion. Inflation, you know.”
“What do I do?”
“Fourth warehouse on the left,” Ng says. “When you get the tube, throw it up in the air.”
“Then what?”
“Everything else will be taken care of.”
Y.T. has her doubts about that. But if she gets in trouble, well, she can always whip out those dog tags.
While Y.T. climbs down out of the van with her skateboard, Ng makes new sounds with his mouth. She hears a gliding and clunking noise resonating through the frame of the van, machinery coming to life. Turning back to look, she sees that a steel cocoon on the roof of the van has opened up. There is a miniature helicopter underneath it, all folded up. Its rotor blades spread themselves apart, like a butterfly unfolding. Its name is painted on its side: WHIRLWIND REAPER.
Chapter Thirty-Two
It’s pretty obvious which warehouse we are looking for here. Fourth one on the left, the road that runs down toward the waterfront is blocked off by several shipping containers—the big steel boxes you see on the backs of eighteen-wheelers. They are arranged in a herringbone pattern, so that in order to get past them you have to slalom back and forth half a dozen times, passing through a narrow mazelike channel between high walls of steel. Guys with guns are perched on top, looking down at Y.T. as she guides her plank through the obstacle course. By the time she makes it out into the clear, she’s been heavily checked out.
There is the occasional light-bulb-on-a-wire strung around, and even a couple of strings of Christmas-tree lights. These are switched on, just to make her feel a little more welcome. She can’t see anything, just lights making colored halos amid a generalized cloud of dust and fog. In front of her, access to the waterfront is blocked off by another maze of shipping containers. One of them has a graffiti sign: THE UKOD SEZ: TRY SOME COUNTDOWN TODAY!
“What’s the UKOD?” she says, just to break the ice a little.
“Undisputed King of the Ozone Destroyers,” says a man’s voice. He is just in the act of jumping down from the loading dock of the warehouse to her left. Back inside the warehouse, Y.T. can see electric lights and glowing cigarettes. “That’s what we call Emilio.”
“Oh, right,” Y.T. says. “The Freon guy. I’m not here for Chill.”
“Well,” says the guy, a tall rangy dude in his forties, much too skinny to be forty years old. He yanks the butt of a cigarette from his mouth and throws it away like a dart. “What’ll it be, then?”
“What does Snow Crash cost?”
“One point seven five Gippers,” the guy says.
“I thought it was one point five,” Y.T. says.
The guy shakes his head. “Inflation, you know. Still, it’s a bargain. Hell, that plank you’re on is probably worth a hundred Gippers.”
“You can’t even buy these for dollars,” Y.T. says, getting her back up. “Look, all I’ve got is one-and-a-half quadrillion dollars.” She pulls the bundle out of her pocket.
The guy laughs, shakes his head, hollers back to his colleagues inside the warehouse. “You guys, we got a chick here who wants to pay in Meeses.”
“Better get rid of ’em fast, honey,” says a sharper, nastier voice, “or get yourself a wheelbarrow.”
It’s an even older guy with a bald head, curly hair on the sides, and a paunch. He’s standing up on the loading dock.
“If you’re not going to take it, just say so,” Y.T. says. All of this chatter has nothing to do with business.
“We don’t get chicks back here very often,” the fat bald old guy says. Y.T. knows that this must be the UKOD himself. “So we’ll give you a discount for being spunky. Turn around.”
“Fuck you,” Y.T. says. She’s not going to turn around for this guy.
Everyone within earshot laughs. “Okay, do it,” the UKOD says.
The tall skinny guy goes back over to the loading dock and hauls an aluminum briefcase down, sets it on top of a steel drum in the middle of the road so that it’s at about waist height. “Pay first,” he says.
She hands him the Meeses. He examines the bundle, sneers, throws it back into the warehouse with a sudden backhand motion. All the guys inside laugh some more.
He opens up the briefcase, revealing the little computer keyboard. He shoves his ID card into the slot, types on it for a couple of seconds.
He unsnaps a tube from the top of the briefcase, places it into the socket in the bottom part. The machine draws it inside, does something, spits it back out.
He hands the tube to Y.T. The red numbers on top are counting down from ten.
“When it gets down to one, hold it up to your nose and start inhaling,” the guy says.
She’s already backing away from him.
“You got a problem, little girl?” he says.
“Not yet,” she says. Then she throws the tube up in the air as hard as she can.
The chop of the rotor blades comes out of nowhere. The Whirlwind Reaper blurs over their heads; everyone crouches for an instant as surprise buckles their knees. The tube does not come back to earth.