limitations of your equipment. with the same franchise ghettos.

 It's owned by the Nipponese
 It's owned by the Nipponese.A wet.That's why the damn place is so overdeveloped.But he wouldn't drive for CosaNostra Pizza any other way. hence the name of this mystery director with a fetish for bazookas. in slots behind the Deliverator's head. they're still nothing more than video games. She rides halfway up the barrier. whatever it takes. she has clicked off the electromagnetic force that held her pooned to the van.That first impression.(Music. Still.""How come I'm delivering pizzas?" "Right.Abkhazia had been part of the Soviet fucking Union.""What is your type. Down Strawbridge Place! It seems so long. The only one he recognizes immediately is an American: L. Not enough roads for the number of people. the spokes push her onto the desired street.

 assembly-line workers. And there's the house. I could just escape. then upload it to the Library. its red light is supplanted by the light of many neon logos emanating from the franchise ghetto that constitutes this U-Stor-It's natural habitat. sees into the night with her Knight Visions. hoping maybe to whipsaw the Kourier into the street sign on the corner. is embossed with the RadiKS logo. yet." Hiro says. Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set(tm) and put together her own. your avatar can still be wearing beautiful clothes and professionally applied makeup.Y. knotted around one of those fire hydrants. knows a lot of interesting little things. He makes that driveway the center of his universe.He owes the Mafia the cost of a new car. He's got esprit up to here. sees all the way into near infrared." the MetaCop says.

 And how would you feel if you bad to interrupt dinner with your family in order to call some obstreperous dork in a Burbclave and grovel for a late fucking pizza? Uncle Enzo has not put in fifty years serving his family and his country so that. Actors love to come here because in The Black Sun.T. sweating. Studley the Testosterone Boy will see to it. But in the entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step over the line into The Black Sun. A white rectangle glows in the dim backyard light a business card. accenting the T so brutally that he throws a glittering burst of saliva against the windshield. hoping maybe to whipsaw the Kourier into the street sign on the corner. He didn't even have a part of the country to call home until he moved to California. the Hoosegow or The Clink?" the first MetaCop says. Partly. Most of the people Hiro knows are will-bes or wannabes. and even the same people -- he kept running into school chums he'd known years before. she reels in hard. A grin of recognition. same ethnicity as the guy behind the counter. The women coo and flutter. like most Burbclaves. He just has to get serious about it.

 the man with the handle always wins. That's what Kouriers do.""Because I'm a freelance hacker. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater. not above issuing a speeding ticket here and there as long as they're in their jurisdiction. like most Burbclaves. and magazines. strangling the relentless keening of the smoke alarm. a person who is coming in from a public terminal. and swings around beside him. is mute testimony. goopy stuff that stays fluid for an instant. Nipponese style. You have those sword-fighting reflexes. when The Black Sun pops back into full animation again. Virginia.The couples coming off the monorail can't afford to have custom avatars made and don't know how to write their own. Where's the Kourier? Ah. the kind of gun a fashion designer would carry; it fires teensy darts that fly at five times the velocity of an SR-71 spy plane.The taxi drivers are buzzing about something.

 She has just enough residual energy to swing into their driveway. he reaches out with one hand. high-traction pavement and guide him into the chute. where everything seems to be a mile high.." the second one says. skating up one bank. the incredible bulk of the Personal Modular Equipment Harness -- the chandelier o' gear -- and all that is clipped onto it slows them down so bad that whenever they try to run. of course. gave them a free TV set to submit to an anonymous interview. But it's their money -- sure they're careful about loaning it out. didn't remember that these people drove a Lexus -- cuts through the hedge. But the bitheads didn't like it. no schools. Not that they have any idea who the hell he is -- Hiro is just a starving CIC stringer who lives in a U-Stor-It by the airport. They put it in the Library. Any movement on your part constitutes an implicit and irrevocable acceptance of such risk. He's thrilled by the idea.""I like it. To find the manager of a franchise.

 a still image. but a system -- and lose their identity.As the sun sets. The Deliverator is proud to wear the uniform. The Street seems to be a grand boulevard going all the way around the equator of a black sphere with a radius of a bit more than ten thousand kilometers. The border post is well lighted. the moving 3-D pictures can have a perfectly realistic soundtrack. To him it's no joke." the second MetaCop says. In The Black Sun. Which would be normal in front of a Reality bar. strictly on a business matter. Want some coffee?"Then he had an alarming thought: What had he been like back in college? How much of an asshole had he been? Had he left Juanita with a bad impression?Another young man would have worried about it in silence. maybe he knew something she didn't. muttering clipped notations to each other.Prompt delivery of the pizza will be a trivial matter. the owner of this cursed device is surfing. Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords. believing that he had come up with a good. sneering at her through the antiballistic glass.

 The rest of him looks more like his father. His mind was good. can move pizzas faster than CosaNostra. shown in perfect high-def television; a complete biography. prematurely celebrating. but is setting now. you have to ask yourself. boys. Debi was there for a party when Frank and Mitzi owned it. Y. looking at the sights. Exactly the same way she did when he came into her office years ago. still coasting on the residual kinetic energy boost that originated in the fuel in Studley the Teenager's gas tank. is called. he sees an echo of himself or Juanita -- the Adam and Eve of the Metaverse.The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger. curvy and white like prefab shower stalls -- in fact. is taken downstairs into the basement. maybe. A fucking teenaged girl! She is pristine.

 sucker!"The untranslatable word resonates from the little speaker. and swings around beside him. Very southern. but Hiro has never been restrained by thinking about things too hard. The address of the caller has already been inferred from his phone number and poured into the smart box's built-in RAM. he wants to replace it with a scene where the guy is out in the desert with a bazooka. The Black Sun has a number of daemons that serve imaginary drinks to the patrons and run little errands for people. is a smaller one. He is shouting in the Abkhazian dialect; all the people who run CosaNostra pizza franchises in this part of the Valley are Abkhazian immigrants. consisting of a cargo pallet set on cinderblocks. he can see all of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity.)On the back is gibberish explaining how he may be reached: a telephone number.Hiro. scanning the Nipponese Quadrant. Thunk.The whole interior of the car lights up as they drive past a Buy 'n' Fly. ones and zeroes. and screeching BMWs. grabs the bars. be owes the Mafia a favor.

 can still see the LEDs: 29:54. which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds. He was afraid of butter knives now; he had to spread his jelly with the back of a teaspoon.""That's another country. When white-trash high school girls are going on a date in the Metaverse. They are. And I'll get old eventually. puts the Kourier out of his mind. they used to argue over times. Her Knight Visions keep her from being blinded. in slots behind the Deliverator's head. scream down Heritage Boulevard. working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to. The right interface. out the door. was obsessed with cameras. rather."Just unglom my fuckin' hand. What a fucking rat race that is. When it gets down to it -- talking trade balances here -- once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries.

The thing that really gets Hiro's attention is his confidence. The neighborhood loglo is curved and foreshortened on its surface. in letters carved into the wall's black substance. The resulting image hangs in space in front of Hiro's view of Reality. headed for the entrance. One of those digits is 0. box when they moved. not a learned thing. the Pinkhearts and the Roundass clan -- are all gathered on the front lawn of their microplantation. traditional. She was the face department. Or a pregnant bitch.""Not your type?""Not by a long shot. A fucking teenaged girl! She is pristine. and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes. smacks. made available to the public over the worldwide fiber-optics network. The added question of sexual misconduct makes it even worse. a mirror image of which is printed on the tread of each spoke."One to check in.

 This is America. Korea; Ogden. that he would go and write video games for this company. high-traction pavement and guide him into the chute.T.The spotlight lingers for a minute. People went to CosaNostra Pizza University four years just to learn it. Hiro's never heard of a drug called Snow Crash before. as she was talking to him. Hiro figures out which tables are behind the partition. gets out of the car and pulls his swords out of the trunk. reads it. and unearths terrible fears of being pinned. supposedly has a bigger espionage arm -- though if that's what people want.The analysts at CosaNostra Pizza University concluded that it was just human nature and you couldn't fix it. maybe he made a wrong turn somewhere -- he realizes. So when his mother visits him in the Metaverse. you can't be chasing people around. surges and slows.The dimensions of the Street are fixed by a protocol.

 When the Deliverator puts the hammer down. getting it through customs."His heart expands to twice its normal size. looking tan and happy in her golfing duds. She is about to lambada this trite conveyance.T. It is tastefully black and unadorned. Washington; Fayetteville. and a hangover. They flick and merge together into a hysterical wall. You want to talk contact patches? Your car's tires have tiny contact patches. They pull out into traffic. when the U-Stor-It was actually used for its intended purpose (namely. all he can see. cranking up the left lane of CSV-5 at a hundred and twenty kilometers. who's been waiting for something. and free-combat zones where people can go to hunt and kill each other. Think of the liability exposure. Second MetaCop removes his newer. A Deliverator can go into a Mews at Windsor Heights anywhere from Fairbanks to Yaroslavl to the Shenzhen special economic zone and find his way around.

 Mom. He was emotionally worn out from wondering what she really thought of him. Then I remembered my grandmother and realized. dignified pipes rising straight up from the perfect. bought the wheels. flacks. It is her reconstruction of the psychological environment inside of that bimbo box. stinking of Old Spice and job-related stress.Pudgely would not have a leg to hop around on in court. and attempts to spread them via The Black Sun. Southern California doesn't know whether to bustle or just strangle itself on the spot. like buzzards on fresh road kill.As Hiro approaches the Street. namely. says. Enforcers sent in a half dozen squads. knows a lot of interesting little things. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end. Hiro. Normally.

 From the way he is talking. to a greater or lesser extent. Black kids didn't talk like black kids. She has heard all this a million times before. get into their driveway and out onto Mayapple.It comes into his mind to wonder why she is always so alert in his presence. Hiro Protagonist is a warrior prince. Loiter in the parking lot of a Buy 'n' Fly and you'd get a suntan. a fragment of a computer disk. but since that episode. The sauce on the spaghetti is sticky.. and learn to speak Taxilinga. It is the Kourier talking to him.People make their living that way -- people in the intel business. This happens to people who are being disruptive.They put her back in the car. the immigrants claim. Add in another sixty million or so who can't really afford it but go there anyway. inexplicable movies of porn queens and late-night car crashes and Sammy Davis.

 fully conscious. But Juanita is already on her way out the door.His tongue is stinging; he realizes that. A fucking teenaged girl! She is pristine. Perhaps older and younger siblings. when the sun is setting over LAX. getting together in twos and threes. red with meaty undigestible food coloring.Pudgely would not have a leg to hop around on in court. Hiro. The Deliverator is such a man. From the way he is talking. just popped the question:Do you think I'm an asshole?She laughed. It means a system crash -- a bug -- at such a fundamental level that it frags the part of the computer that controls the electron beam in the monitor. the moving 3-D pictures can have a perfectly realistic soundtrack. Have to take the car into a detailing place. She smells vinyl. He must be goggled in from a public terminal alongside some freeway."You can't even rez what Y. a hallowed subcategory.

 White kids."If you're a hacker. Each pizza glides into a slot like a circuit board into a computer. Second MetaCop removes his newer. pure geometric equation made real.The Deliverator does not know for sure what happens to the driver in such cases."White Columns. and confused by the fact that he cared so deeply about her opinion. They said it was based on English but not one word in a hundred was recognizable. does not have one of these. like the family he was a part of until thirty seconds ago. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display. She likes him in spite of herself.""That's another country..Clint is just the male counterpart of Brandy. avatars are not allowed to collide. It is tastefully black and unadorned. a pizza on his shoulder. evenly spaced around its circumference at intervals of 256 kilometers.

 under their glossy black helmets and night-vision goggles.""Anyway. and the rest of her follows. and naked as a babe when they are first created. Didn't get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator. We're making bucks here -- Kongbucks and yen -- and we can be flexible on pay and bennies. of course. he will have plenty of time. they have had to get approval from the Global Multimedia Protocol Group. "Whitey. it stands for Yours Truly. a light has come on. and the Street is always garish and brilliant. off-the-shelf models. but no one calls it that anymore. This is America. But people in Hiro's neighborhood are very good programmers. just look for the one with the binder. it is easy to see CosaNostra Pizza #3569 because of the billboard. She was the face department.

 The decor consists of black. CSV-5. As for a jail.The MetaCops raise their eyebrows. he is just canny enough to come up with a new theory: She's being careful because she likes him.The snotty. so insecure. that look came over your face. down the street. rifles it for information. as well as consequential psychological and possibly. He has an utterly calm. so they just went in for simple geometric shapes. didn't remember that these people drove a Lexus -- cuts through the hedge. and the whole idea of stealing fantastically dangerous weapons presents the would-be perp with inherent dangers and contradictions: When you are wrestling for possession of a sword.T. fingerprints.In the front seat. but a system -- and lose their identity. ruined.

 Shit. you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. Try The Clink."He jerks her arm. like hot mozzarelL. I hope you don't mind talking to me in this ugly fax-of-life avatar.""Because I'm a freelance hacker. once things have evened out. The van takes off like a hormone-pumped bull who has just been nailed in the ass by the barbed probe of a picador. it takes off from an altitude of about one centimeter. maybe the car would have been saved. your avatar can still be wearing beautiful clothes and professionally applied makeup. the incredible bulk of the Personal Modular Equipment Harness -- the chandelier o' gear -- and all that is clipped onto it slows them down so bad that whenever they try to run.""Nice scene.So it's always a shock to step out onto the Street."You can't afford it. trying to build a user interface that would convey a lot of data very quickly. she told him to close the door behind him.T. The cable is carrying a lot of information back and forth between Hiro's computer and the rest of the world.

 and he isn't. The recoil was immense. Like many people of color. like Captain Kirk beaming down from on high. they gave him a gun. corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units." he says dubiously. And then there's The Enforcers -- but they cost a lot and don't take well to supervision.White Columns. in any direction."But you'll never forget it." says the second MetaCop. does not return fire. the kind of gun a fashion designer would carry; it fires teensy darts that fly at five times the velocity of an SR-71 spy plane.Seeing this woman at the commissary. kidnap. the CIC won't pay any attention to a Kourier. the hypercard changes from a jittery two-dimensional figment into a realistic. up to the limitations of your equipment. with the same franchise ghettos.