All Tomorrow's Parties (Bridge, #3)

by William Gibson

Light over the hatch turns green, and the hatch slides up and out crawls, unfolds sort of, this butt-naked girl, black hair, maybe Chinese, Japanese, something, she’s long and thin, not much titties on her the way Boomzilla likes but she’s smiling, and everybody, the manager, checker, securities, they jaw-hang, eyes popped: girl straightening up, still smiling, and walks fast to the front of the store, past the security counter, and Boomzilla sees her reach up and open the door, just right on out, and it’ll take more than a naked Japanese girl get anybody’s attention out there, in the middle of this disaster shit. But the crazy thing is, and he really doesn’t get this, standing looking out through the doors at the video pylon, so that he has to go outside and fire up his last Russian Marlboro to think about it, after, is that when he sees her walk past the screens there, he sees her on every last screen, walking out of every Lucky Dragon in the world, wearing that same smile. Boomzilla still thinking about this when his Marlboro’s done, but thinks it’s time for a Lucky Dragon Muff-Lette microwave, he thinks of that as his businessman’s breakfast, and he’s got the money but when he gets back in they got no Muff-Lette, fucking firemen ate them all. “Fuck that,” he tells them. “Why don’t you fax me one from fucking Paris?” So security throws his ass out.