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 Chinese 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 banging 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 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 bell 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 folk-dance 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.
