Y.T. suddenly wakes up. She hadn't realized that she was asleep. Something about the thwop of the rotor blades must have lulled1 her. She must be tired as shit, is what it really is.
"What the fuck is going on with my comm net?" L. Bob Rife2 is squalling.
"No one answers," the Russian pilot says. "Not Raft, not LA, not Khyooston."
"Get me LAX on the phone, then," Rife says. "I want to take the jet to Houston. We'll get our butts3 over to the campus and find out what's going on."
The pilot messes around on his control panel. "Problem," he says.
"What?"
The pilot just shakes his head forlornly. "Someone is messing with the skyphone. We're being jammed."
"I might be able to get a line," the President says. Rife just gives him a look like, right, a-hole.
"Anybody got a fucking quarter?" Rife hollers. Frank and Tony are startled for a minute. "We're gonna have to touch down at the first pay phone we see and make a goddamn phone call." He laughs. "Can you believe that? Me, using a telephone?"
A second later, Y.T. looks out the window and is blown away to see actual land down there, and a two-lane highway winding5 its way down a warm sandy coastline. It's California.
The chopper slows, cuts in closer to land, begins following the highway. Most of it is free of plastic and neon lights, but before long they home in on a short bit of franchise6 ghetto7, built on both sides of the road in a place where it has cut away from the beach some distance.
The chopper sets down in the parking lot of a Buy 'n' Fly. Fortunately, the lot's mostly empty, they don't cut any heads off. A couple of youths are playing video games inside, and they barely look up at the astonishing sight of the chopper. She's glad; Y.T. is totally embarrassed to be seen with this dull assortment8 of old farts. The chopper just sits there, idling, while L. Bob Rife jumps out and runs over to the pay phone bolted to the front wall.
These guys were stupid enough to put her in the seat right next to the fire extinguisher. No reason not to take advantage of that fact. She jerks it out of its bracket, pulling out the safety pin in virtually the same motion, and squeezes the trigger, aiming it right into Tony's face.
Nothing happens.
"Fuck!" she shouts, and throws it at him, or rather pushes it toward him. He's just leaning forward, grabbing at her wrist, and the impact of the extinguisher hitting his face is enough to put a major dent4 in his 'tude. Gives her enough time to swing her legs out of the chopper.
Everything's getting fucked up. One of her pockets is zipped open, and as she's half-falling, half-rolling out of the chopper, the fire-extinguisher bracket catches in that pocket and holds her. By the time she's gotten free of that, Tony's back, now on his hands and knees, reaching out for her arm.
That she manages to avoid. She's running out freely into the parking lot. At the back, she's hemmed9 in by the Buy 'n' Fly, along the sides by the tall border fence that separates this place from a NeoAquarian Temple on one side and a Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong franchulate on the other. The only way to escape is out onto the road -- on the other side of the chopper. But the pilot and Frank and Tony have already jumped out and are blocking her exit out onto the road.
NeoAquarian Temple isn't going to help her. If she begs and pleads, they might just include her in their mantras next week. But Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong is another story. She runs to the fence and starts trying to climb it. Eight feet of chain link with razor ribbon on top. But her clothing should stop the razor ribbon. Mostly.
She gets about halfway10 up. Then, pudgy but strong arms are around her waist. She's out of luck. L. Bob Rife lifts her right off the fence, both arms and both legs kicking the air uselessly. He backs up a couple of steps and starts carrying her back toward the chopper.
She looks back at the Hong Kong franchise. It was a close thing.
Someone's in the parking lot. A Kourier, cruising in off the highway, just kind of chilling out and taking it real easy.
"Hey!" she screams. She reaches up and punches the lapel switch on her coverall, turning it bright blue and orange. "Hey! I'm a Kourier! My name's Y.T.! These maniac11 scum guys kidnapped me!"
"Wow," the Kourier says. "What a drag." Then he asks her something. But she can't hear it because the helicopter is whirling up its blades.
"They're taking me to LAX!" she screams at the top of her lungs. Then Rife slams her into the chopper face first. The chopper lifts off, tracked precisely12 by an audience of antennas13 on the roof of Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong.
In the parking lot, the Kourier watches the chopper taking off. It's really cool to watch, and it has a lot of bumping guns on it.
But those dudes inside of the chopper were harshing that chick major.
The Kourier pulls his personal phone out of its holster, jacks14 into RadiKS Central Command, and punches a big red button. He calls a Code.
Twenty-five hundred Kouriers are massed on the reinforced-concrete banks of the L.A. River. Down in the bottom trench15 of the river, Vitaly Chernobyl and the Meltdowns are just hitting the really good part of their next major hit single, "Control Rod Jam." A number of the Kouriers are taking advantage of this sound track to style up and down the banks of the river, only Vitaly, live, can get their adrenaline pumping hard enough to enable them to skate a sharp bank at eighty miles per hour plus without doing a wilson into the crete.
And then the dark mass of Meltdown fans turns into a gyrating, orange-red galaxy16 as twenty-five hundred new stars appear. It's a mind-blowing sight, and at first they think it's a new visual effect put together by Vitaly and his imageers. It is like a mass flicking17 of Bics, except brighter and more organized; each Kourier looks down on his or her belt to see that a red light is flashing on their personal telephone. Looks like some poor skater called in a Code.
收听单词发音 |
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lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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rife
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| adj.(指坏事情)充斥的，流行的，普遍的 | |
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3
butts
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| 笑柄( butt的名词复数 )； （武器或工具的）粗大的一端； 屁股； 烟蒂 | |
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dent
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| n.凹痕，凹坑；初步进展 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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franchise
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| n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权 | |
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ghetto
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| n.少数民族聚居区，贫民区 | |
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assortment
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| n.分类，各色俱备之物，聚集 | |
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hemmed
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| 缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围 | |
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halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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antennas
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| [生] 触角，触须（antenna的复数形式） | |
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jacks
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| n.抓子游戏；千斤顶( jack的名词复数 )；（电）插孔；[电子学]插座；放弃 | |
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trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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galaxy
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| n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物) | |
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17
flicking
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的现在分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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