"Нейл Стефенсон. Snow Crash (Снежная лавина, англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

blade of the sword glitters painfully under the killer security lights of
the Buy 'n' Fly.
How sweet!
It would be an understatement to say that the hookah boys are
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SNOW CRASH
taken aback. But they are not scared so much as they are confused.
Almost undoubtedly, most of them have guns. So why is this guy trying to
bother them with a sword?
She remembers that one of the multiple professions on Him's business
card is Greatest sword fighter in the world. Can he really take out a whole
clan of armed jeeks?
The manager's hand clenches her upper arm-like this is really going to
stop her. She reaches across her body with the other hand and lets him have
it with a brief squirt of Liquid Knuckles. He makes a muffled, distant
grunt, his head snaps back, he lets go of her arm and staggers back wildly
until he sprawls against another taxi, jamming the heels of both hands into
his eye sockets.
Wait a Sec. There's nobody in that particular taxi. But she can see a
two-foot-long macrame keychain dangling from the ignition.
She tosses her plank through the window of the taxi, dives in after it
(she's small, opening the door is optional), climbs in behind the driver's
seat, sinking into a deep nest of wooden beads and air fresheners, grinds
the motor, and takes off. Backward. Headed for the rear parking lot. The car
was pointed outward, in taxicab style, ready for a quick getaway, which
would be fine if she were by herself-but there is Hiro to think of. The
radio is screaming, alive with hollered bursts of Taxilinga. She backs all
the way around behind the Buy 'n' Fly. The back lot is strangely quiet and
empty.
She shifts into drive and blasts back the way she came. The jeeks
haven't quite had time to react, were expecting her to come out the other
way. She screams it to a halt right next to Hiro, who has already had the
presence of mind to put his sword back in its scabbard. He dives in the
passenger-side window. Then she stops paying attention to him. She's got
other stuff to look at, such as whether she's going to get broadsided as she
pulls out onto the road.
She doesn't get broadsided, though a car has to squeal around her. She
guns it out onto the highway. It responds as only an ancient taxicab will.
The only problem being that half a dozen other ancient taxicabs are now
following them.
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Something is pressing against Y.T.'s left thigh. She looks down. It is
a remarkably huge revolver in a net bag hanging on the door paneL
She has to find someplace to pull into. If she could fmd a Nova Siciia
franchulate, that would do it-the Mafia owes her one. Or a New South Africa,
which she hates. But the New South Africans hate jeeks even more.
Scratch that, Hiro is black, or at least part black. Can't take him
into New South Africa. And because Y.T. is a Cauc, they can't go to
Metazania.