Idoru. Part 31

The rain was still coming down. Through the arcade's streaming window she could make out another arcade, across the street, one of the ones with the machines the silver b.a.l.l.s poured through. The neon and the rain and the silver b.a.l.l.s ran all together, and she wondered what Masahiko and Gomi Boy were talking about.

Gomi Boy had Masahiko's computer in a plaid plastic carry-bag with quilted pink International Biohazard symbols on the sides. It was sitting on the little table beside the can of Pocari Sweat. What was a Pocari? She imagined a kind of wild pig, with bristles, turned-up tusks, like she'd seen on the Nature Channel.

Gomi Boy sucked on his cigarette, making the end glow. He squinted through the smoke at Masahiko and said something. Masahiko shrugged. There was a fresh mini-can of microwaved 156 espresso in front of him, and Chia had another c.o.ke Lire. In Tokyo there was nowhere to sit down unless you bought something, and it was quicker to buy a drink than something to eat. And it cost less. Except she wasn't paying for these. Gomi Boy was, because he and Masahiko didn't want her to use Kelsey's cashcard.

Gomi Boy spoke again. "He wishes to talk with you," Masahiko said.

Chia bent over, unzipped her bag, found the ear-clips. She only had the two, so she handed one to Gomi Boy, put the other on herself, and hit power. He put his on. "I am from Walled City," he said. "You understand?"

"A MUD, right? Multi user domain."

"Not in the sense you mean, but approximately, yes. Why are you in Tokyo?"

"To gather information about Rez's plan to marry the idotu, Rei Toei."

Gomi Boy nodded. Being an otaku was about caring a lot about information; he understood being a fan. "Do you have dealings with the Combine?" Chia knew he had said Kombinat, and the translator had covered it. He meant that mafia government in Russia.

"No," Chia said.

"And you came to be at Masahiko's because. . .

"Mitsuko's the social secretary of the Tokyo chapter of the Lo/Rez group I belong to in Seattle."

"How many times did you port, from the restaurant?"

"Three times." The Silke-Marie KoIb outfit. The meeting. Zona Rosa. "I paid for presentation software, Mitsuko and I did the meeting, I linked home."

"You paid for the software with your cashcard?"

"Yes." She looked from Gomi Boy to Masahiko. Between and behind them, the rain. The endless racketing cascade of the little silver b.a.l.l.s, through the gla.s.s across the street. Players hunched there on integral stools, manipulating the flood of metal. Masahiko's expression told her nothing at all.

"Masahiko's computer maintains certain aspects of Walled City," Gomi Boy said. "Contingency plans were in place for its removal to safety. When it became obvious that both Masahiko's and his sister's user addresses were attracting unusual attention, I was sent to secure his machine. We frequently exchange hardware. I am a dealer in second-hand equipment. That is why I am called Gomi Boy. I have my own keys to Masahiko's room. His father knows I am allowed to enter. His t.i.ther does not care. I came and took the computer. Nearby is a small civic recreation area. The restaurant is visible from it. Seeing Oakland Overbombers, I crossed the street and spoke with them."

"Seeing what?"

"A skateboard group. They are named for the California soccer club. I asked them if there had been unusual activity. They told me they had seen a very large vehicle, an hour before .

-A Graceland.

"A Daihatsu Graceland. There are fewer here than in America, I think."

Chia nodded. Her stomach did that cold flip-thing again. She thought she might throw up.

Gomi Boy leaned sideways with his cigarette, which was short now, and mashed the lit end into a little chrome bowl that was fastened to the side of a game console. Chia wondered what this was actually used for, and why he did that, but she supposed he had to put it somewhere or it would burn his fingers. "The Graceland parked near the restaurant. Two men got out .

"What did they look like?'

"Gumi representatives."

"j.a.panese?"

"Yes. They went into the restaurant. The Graceland waited. After fifteen minutes, they returned, got into the Graceland, and left. Masahiko's father appeared. He looked in all directions, studying the street. He took his phone from his pocket and spoke with someone.

168 He went back into the restaurant." Gomi Boy looked at the carry-bag. "I did not want to remain in the recreation area with Masahiko's computer. I told the leader of the Overbombers I would give him a better telephone, later, if he would remain there and phone me if more activity occurred. The Overbombers do nothing anyway, so he agreed. I left. He phoned twenty minutes later to report a gray Honda van. The driver is j.a.panese, but the other three are foreigners. He thinks they are Russian."

"Why?"

"Because they are very large, and dress in a style he a.s.sociates with the Combine. They are still there."

"How do you know?"

"If they leave, he must call me. He wants his new phone."

"Can I port from here? I have to talk to Air Magellan right away about changing my reservations. I want to go home," And leave Maryalice's package in that trash cannister she could see behind Gomi Boy.

"You must not port," Masahiko said. "You must not use the cash-card. If you do, they will find you."

"But what else am I supposed to do?" she said, startled by her own voice, which sounded like someone else's. "I just want to go home!"

"Let me see the card," Gomi Boy said. It was in her parka, with her pa.s.sport and her ticket home. She took it out and handed it to him. He opened a pocket on his fatigue pants and took out a small rectangular device that seemed to be held together with multiple layers of fraying silver tape. He swiped Chia's card along a slot and peered into a peephole reader like the one on a fax-beeper. "This is nontransferable and cannot be used to obtain cash. It is also very easy to trace."

"My friend's pretty sure they've got the number anyway," Chia said, thinking of Zona.

Gomi Boy began to tap the edge of the cashcard on the rim of his can of Pocari Swear. 'There is a place where you can use this and not be traced," he said, Tap tap. "Where Masahiko could access Walled City." Tap tap. "Where you could phone home."

"Where's that?"

"A love hotel." Tap. "Do you know what that is?"

"No," Chia said. Tap.

160 Emerging from Le Chicle's pink mosaic gullet into the start of rain, Laney saw that the stilt-walking New Logic disciple was still at his post, his animated sandwich-board illuminated against the evening. As Blackwell held the door of a mini-limo for Arleigh, Laney looked back at the scrolling numerals and wondered how much the planet's combined weight of human nervous tissue had increased while they'd been in the bar.

Laney got in after her, noticing those Catalan suns again, the three of them, decreasing in size down her inner calf. Blackwell thunked the door behind him, then opened the front, should've-beeri driver's side door and seemed to pour himself into the car, a movement that simultaneously suggested the sliding of a ball of mercury and the settling of hundreds of pounds of liquid concrete. The car waddled and swayed as its shocks adjusted to accommodate his weight.

Laney saw how the brim of Blackwell's black-waxed hat drooped low in back, but not far enough to conceal a crisscrossing of fine red welts decorating the back of his neck,

Their driver, to judge by the back of his head, might have been the same one who'd driven them to Akihabara. He pulled out into the mirror-image traffic. The rain was running and pooling, tugging reflected neon out of the perpendicular and spreading it in wriggly lines across sidewalk and pavement.

Arleigh McCrae was wearing perfume, and it made Laney wish

2.

161.

23.Here at the Western World that Blackwell wasn't there, and that they were on their way somewhere other than wherever it was they were going now, and in another city, and that quite a lot of the last seven months of Laney's life hadn't happened at all, or had happened differently, or maybe even as far back as DatAmerica and the Frenchmen, but as it became more complicated, it became depressing.

"I'm not sure you're going to enjoy this place," she said.

"How's that?"

"You don't seem like the type."