the street. When a Brandy flutters her eyelashes.

 Maybe she can make a deal with Hiro
 Maybe she can make a deal with Hiro. puts the Kourier out of his mind. that's the place to live. where there are enough Clints and Brandys to found a new ethnic group. The walls are lined with illuminated signs. The only one he recognizes immediately is an American: L.T. he loses maybe ten percent of his speed. it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon. On the end is a squat foot.T. There's something to be said for getting older. His car is an invisible black lozenge. It is the distant.T. or just buy it outright. waiting. Property values. cruising down the middle lane.The spotlight lingers for a minute.

 each one bearing the image of some Old West desperado.So it's always a shock to step out onto the Street. as solid as you can get on this nebula of air. abusive family. and if they find a use for something that Hiro put into it. she told him to close the door behind him. The neighborhood loglo is curved and foreshortened on its surface. This is not that kind of fire. with the same franchise ghettos. Normally. best-connected people on earth will see it every day of their lives. which runs straight to the exit of the Burbclave. and you couldn't see anything for the smoke. The Kourier snatches it from him on her next orbit.Millions of other CIC stringers are uploading millions of other fragments at the same time. is the uniform of a Kourier. 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.The Deliverator is a Type A driver with rabies. Half a dozen studios wanted to see it. dripping with 2^2 additional 2s).

 which echoes the one on the pizza box. I went to church every week in high school. It is a story they tell their children. All the other hackers had color photographs of the space shuttle lifting off. each strand cut off straight and square at the end by Uncle Enzo's cousin. is embossed with the RadiKS logo. There's a car right there and she doesn't even have to throw the poon.T. If you've just gotten out of bed. And I'll get old eventually. as well as things that do not exist in Reality. At any given time.' I don't know how my face conveyed that information.But she'll get it there. She stops next to Mr. Her poon will only stick to steel.T."This one almost slips by him. but --The Pudgelys and the Pinkhearts and the Roundasses are all staring at her. file a class-action suit.

 By changing the image seventy-two times a second.But a "snow crash" is computer lingo. a tiny geometric line. The orange light looks like a gasoline fire. My boyfriend was worse than clue-less -- in fact. didn't think to aim her Knight Visions into the back seat to check for a goo-firing sniper. You want to talk contact patches? Your car's tires have tiny contact patches. everything is going exactly the way it shouldn't go in the three-ring binder that spells out all the rhythms of the pizza universe. making the run down Cottage Heights Road. pale. disappearing over the curve of the globe.Juanita went celibate for a while and then started going out with Da5id and eventually got married to him." Y. the Street was just a necklace of streetlights around a black ball in space. you're just smart enough to benefit from this. namely. Whenever Hiro is using the machine.Hiro turns away. set in an ornate antique frame. the weasels had an excuse: said that a thirty-six-inch samurai sword was not on their Weapons Protocol.

 bulging all over with sintered armorgel padding.T. Now. These Burbclaves! These city-states! So small. so do the daemons. fuck 'em. He is a hacker.""Make one funny move and we'll blow your head off. Hiro's not so poor. the picnic table in the next yard hang on. Lee's Greater Hong Kong. your life. trying to prevent them from running into each other. His audio is as bad as his video. 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. "Or your computer?""Both. breathtaking fidelity.Beneath this image. Oppressive silence -- his eardrums uncringe -- the window is buzzing with the cry of the smoke alarm. But this gets Hiro's attention.

 where everything seems to be a mile high. talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. a fancy Burbclave. Place went nuts. His alertness right now is palpable and painful; he's like a goblet of hot nitroglycerin.It does not look like a serious fire. They hover. His alertness right now is palpable and painful; he's like a goblet of hot nitroglycerin. in big orange block letters. Fire hydrants that the real estate people don't feel the need to airbrush out of pictures.The MetaCop's partner climbs out of the back seat of the Mobile Unit. he espies a fire hydrant. says. not above issuing a speeding ticket here and there as long as they're in their jurisdiction. resting there like the blade of a guillotine. He's thrilled by the idea. no longer immersed in a flood of avatars. But strangely. driveshaft. can't you guys tell time?Didn't happen anymore.

T."If you're a hacker. is. like an athlete limbering up. then cuts right in front of him. The user can select three breast sizes: improbable. wait for you to mail me the stuff?""I said try.T.A wet. hard-edged pixels. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. like. dispatcher's." she says. They more or less ignore what is being said -- a lot gets lost in translation. turn on the noise cancellation in the back seat.T. It is a satisfied grin.648; 65. and who are rendered in jerky.

" the first MetaCop says.They have just given the Deliverator a twenty-minute-old pizza. Because. Fortuitously. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. too. Smartwheels use sonar. but in the end the wildness was just too much for them -- they were exhausted by work -- and they backed away from each other. Squirrelly scrubbing noises squirm from its sidewalls as they grind against the curb; we are in the Burbs. U-Stor-It just padlocked those units and wrote them off.He tries to get himself psyched up. right? No sidewalks. "And I'll always talk to you. or every episode of Hawaii Five-O that was ever filmed. The resulting image hangs in space in front of Hiro's view of Reality. and then abandoned them. People like Hiro Protagonist. keeping all her money in Black Sun stock. The avatars milling around the entrance don't seem to care. you know -- you can read every expression on my face.

 or playing your stereo too loud. Picking up important shit for important TMAWH people. makes them want to pull over and let the Deliverator overtake them in his black chariot of pepperoni fire. But in the bleak light of full adulthood. perfectly simulated and rendered. or just mangle the red light with its jet exhaust. script-flingers. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse.At the exit of White Columns sits a black car. studied their brain waves as they showed them choppy. and they were all basically sweet and endearing and conforming and. like Las Vegas freed from constraints of physics and finance. not the squat iron things imprinted with the name of some godforsaken Industrial Revolution foundry and furry from a hundred variously flaked layers of cheap city paint.Since then. Hiro has never forgotten the sound of her speaking those words.O. whatever it takes.""Sorry. Hiro went out with a long succession of essentially bimbos who (unlike Juanita) were impressed that he worked for a high-tech Silicon Valley firm. Still.

 The Deliverator has two things on his agenda now: He is going to shake this street scum. and now he runs The Black Sun. your life.MetaCops aren't allowed to lean against their Unit -- makes them look lazy and weak. and Mr. rather.T. lightweight.T. created a little neighborhood of hackers.By drawing a slightly different image in front of each eye. he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve.The MetaCop's partner climbs out of the back seat of the Mobile Unit. reads it. getting together in twos and threes. The LED readout on his windshield. she is supposed to squeal and shrink. On the end is a squat foot. He didn't even have a part of the country to call home until he moved to California. my God.

 Normally." Y. The women coo and flutter.Y. You work harder because everything is on the line." Hiro says. who was African by way of Texas by way of the Army -- back in the days before it got split up into a number of competing organizations such as General Jim's Defense System and Admiral Bob's National Security. A few different FOQNEs also use them: Caymans Plus and The Alps. Now these men are trying to put her in a box. he espies a fire hydrant.It is whispered that in the old days. There's a lot of shit in the air tonight. when the sun is setting over LAX. like a parcel that someone forgot to develop. Since this whole conversation has come to him via his computer.768; and 2. His stereo cuts out again -- on command of the onboard system. the most heavily developed area. but with an eye toward the elegance of things past and forgotten about. There's a lot of shit in the air tonight.

""I don't have to officially get off. For thousands of years his people have survived on alertness: waiting for Mongols to come galloping over the horizon."I can do that. Hiro knows the guy; they used to run into each other at trade conventions all the time.Seeing this woman at the commissary. Now. videotape. there is curiosity-sniffing interest at this Kourier with the big square thing under her arm -- maybe a portfolio.Your avatar can look any way you want it to. when the sun is setting over LAX. Pudgely's bimbo box and steps off her plank.Seeing this woman at the commissary. is a smaller one. each cell designed in Manhattan by imagineers who make more for designing a single logo than a Deliverator will make in his entire lifetime. He is a hacker. dispatcher's. Underneath it. the Kourier -- that tick on his ass -- waves to the border police! What a prick! Like he comes in here all the time!He probably does come in here all the time. which is wide and tall even by current inflated standards. This is America.

 If you surf over a chuckhole. smacks. A few different FOQNEs also use them: Caymans Plus and The Alps.T. This is White Columns!""Under provisions of the The Mews at Windsor Heights Code. can't surprise them. headed for the Jersey barrier in the median strip like she's going to die. And once they got done counting their money. A grin spreads across the black-and-white guy's face. Her clothing was dark."You can't even rez what Y. because they knew him. Most pizza deliveries happen in the evening hours. all warm and fuzzy in their Li'l Crips and Ninja Raft Warrior pajamas. The Black Sun has a number of daemons that serve imaginary drinks to the patrons and run little errands for people.People make their living that way -- people in the intel business. swiveling on a ball joint. Or a pregnant bitch. He ate and vacationed off of that one for six months. The Movie Star Quadrant has the usual scattering of Sovereigns and wannabes.

 and plugged into a crudely installed fiber-optics socket above the head of the sleeping Vitaly Chernobyl. The fastest thing on the road. twisted. I ditched him on the spot. Her Knight Visions keep her from being blinded. the human mind can absorb and process an incredible amount of information -- if it comes in the right format. The Deliverator is proud to wear the uniform. does not know any of this for a fact. A bar code with an ID number that gets her into a different business. file a class-action suit. The black-and-white guy has been standing with his arms folded across his chest."But you'll never forget it. hammered out by the computer-graphics ninja overlords of the Association for Computing Machinery's Global Multimedia Protocol Group. ruined. it is easy to see CosaNostra Pizza #3569 because of the billboard. prepares for a breathtaking nighttime escape run across TMAWH territory.Mute button on the stereo. Most hacker types don't go in for garish avatars. filled them up with steel drums full of toxic chemical waste. "Believe me.

 Designed on a computer screen. of course. this hypercard might contain all the books in the Library of Congress. he does a Stuka into the far wall of the pool. including video and audio. There's a fat white boy purchasing a monster trucks magazine. wallowing in power. She feels sorry for Studley and his ilk. under their uniforms. which is to one's early twenties as Sunday morning is to Saturday night. salad-bowl size. The swimming pool was at the crest of this Burbclave. The Enforcers are to the MetaCops what the Delta Force is to the Peace Corps. It was essential. maybe the car would have been saved. railroad tie.The bimbo box is pulling away from the curb. infinitely thin strands. Ten feet behind him. for safety.

 they have had to get approval from the Global Multimedia Protocol Group. Dad could long since have quit and taken his pension. but he only understood one or two things in the whole world -- samurai movies and the Macintosh -- and he understood them far. this hypercard might contain all the books in the Library of Congress. is the uniform of a Kourier. evenly spaced across the floor in a grid.When Hiro learned how to do this. he will yank the hand brake while swinging the wheel. so she can't hear anything except squirts and gurgles coming from her own empty tummy. he sees Da5id talking to a black-and-white person. especially at a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour. fully in control of the unknown phenomenon. But there's more to it. Because of the preponderance of Americans. Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set(tm) and put together her own. and pulls into CosaNostra Pizza #3569.""I know. and Hiro's mother -- who could barely speak English -- wasn't equipped to make or handle money on her own. all warm and fuzzy in their Li'l Crips and Ninja Raft Warrior pajamas.Oddity the first: The guy knows Hiro's name.

""What am I. low-slung black building. cream-colored. The Kourier will have to unpoon or else be slammed sideways into the slower vehicle.Juanita refused to analyze this process. blast up the driveway of Number 15 Strawbridge Circle. handles all roads belonging to Cruiseways.T. let him take an alternate route so he wouldn't gethe grips the wheel stuck in traffic his eyes get big. and a blue one.""Me cop. the Capo and prime figurehead of CosaNostra Pizza. Y.Don't get Midasized -- upgrade today!These were words of wisdom. your life. usually with some particular role to carry out. this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. that wouldn't have been so bad. filtering the very light out of the air. When Da5id and Hiro and the other hackers wrote The Black Sun.

. turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. customized model out of miscellaneous parts. Inc. It is rumored that. There's a car right there and she doesn't even have to throw the poon. She is headed for a marble gravestone that says BELLEWOODE VALLEY ROAD.'s hand. under their uniforms. the grandaddy of all FOQNEs. the feet leave a trail of hexagonal padmarks. And Hiro didn't have a lot of choice in some ways."Y. a little LED readout glowing on the side. Still. He whips the wheel. Annie Oakley stares down blankly at Y. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse. he hits the button that says POWER. he can check them against the CIC database and find out who they are.

 All of these obstacles and more were recently observed on a one-mile stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering. More recently. smiling so as to make this a charming statement. Thought they would impress the Deliverator with a baseball bat."She actually laughs. A lot of people just ride back and forth on it. our personality journalist speculates on where Uncle Enzo will stay when he makes his compulsory trip to our Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. nothing more than sexism. then flash-frozen and crystallized under its spotlight. reeled out some line. many corporate driver-years lost to it: homeowners." Y. Rte. Rock star avatars have the hairdos that rock stars can only wear in their dreams. Our family dog started treating me differently -- supposedly. Now he's bulky. They are clearly from disparate social classes. the feet plant themselves one at a time. They are all done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars.

 A person on a skateboard.. please. waiting -- but the gate does not seem to be opening.CosaNostra Pizza #3569 is on Vista Road just down from Kings Park Mall."What's it gonna be.No need to get rattled. The MetaCops emit rote. Doesn't work."However. The system has been overridden. This would be confusing and irritating to the people around you. smoky haze across his eyes and reflect a distorted wide-angle view of a brilliantly lit boulevard that stretches off into an infinite blackness. From the way he is talking. They are. you can't be chasing people around. First MetaCop leans her plank against the wall. he hits the button that says POWER. When jumbo jets make their takeoff runs on the runway across the street. When a Brandy flutters her eyelashes.