'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.
There are four men in the life raft: Hiro Protagonist, self-employed stringer for the Central Intelligence Corporation, whose practice used to be limited to so-called "dry" operations, meaning that he sat around and soaked up information and then later spat it back into the Library, the CIC database, without ever actually doing anything. Now his practice has become formidably wet. Hiro is armed with two swords and a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, known colloquially as a nine, with two ammunition clips, each carrying eleven rounds.
Vic, unspecified last name. If there was still such a thing as income tax, then every year when Vic filled out his 1040 form he would put down, as his occupation, "sniper." In classic sniper style, Vic is reticent, unobtrusive. He is armed with a long, large-caliber rifle with a bulky mechanism mounted on its top, where a telescopic sight might be found if Vic were not at the leading edge of his profession. The exact nature of this device is not obvious, but Hiro presumes that it is an exquisitely precise sensor package with fine crosshairs superimposed on the middle. Vic may safely be presumed to be carrying additional small concealed weapons.
Eliot Chung. Eliot used to be the skipper of a boat called the Kowloon. At the moment, he is between jobs. Eliot grew up in Watts, and when he speaks English, he sounds like a black guy. Genetically speaking, he is entirely Chinese. He is fluent in both black and white English as well as Cantonese, Taxilinga, and some Vietnamese, Spanish, and Mandarin. Eliot is armed with a .44 Magnum revolver, which he carried on board the Kowloon "just for the halibut," i.e., he used it execute halibut before passengers hauled them on board. Halibut grow very large and can thrash so violently that they can easily kill the people who hook them; hence it is prudent to fire a number of shells through their heads before taking them on board. This is the only reason Eliot carries a weapon; the other defensive needs of the Kowloon were seen to by crew members who were specialists in that kind of thing.