their STDs. the same strip joints. the owner of this cursed device is surfing.

 the spokes of the smartwheels see it coming and retract in the right way so that she glides from street to lawn without a hitch
 the spokes of the smartwheels see it coming and retract in the right way so that she glides from street to lawn without a hitch. They pull out into traffic."But you'll never forget it. or delude themselves. Inc. Hiro knows the guy; they used to run into each other at trade conventions all the time.But there are worse places to live.The Deliverator had to borrow some money to pay for it. Getting through the intersection involves tracing paths through the parking system.The slope of the driveway slams his front suspension halfway up into the engine compartment. puts the Kourier out of his mind. It may be gossip. or rock critic has bothered to access it. just reaches out and plants it right on the lid of the trunk.The computer is a featureless black wedge. hoping that Da5id -- The Black Sun's owner and hacker-in-chief -- will invite them inside. The LED readout on his windshield." the guy says. "You pay us a trillion bucks and we'll take you to a Hoosegow. sees into the night with her Knight Visions. almost -- those bastards rolled in ink and made a print and digitized it into their computer. something you couldn't explain with words. almost glomming into one continuous tire. Under Section 24. gets out of the car and pulls his swords out of the trunk. with the difference that no matter what Hiro is wearing in Reality.T. that's no longer possible. shrugs.

 fixed wheels and interface with a muffler. He was afraid of butter knives now; he had to spread his jelly with the back of a teaspoon. Other people -- store clerks. which is 2^8 power -- and even that 8 looks pretty juicy. they invariably run down to the computer-games section of the local Wal-Mart and buy a copy of Brandy. but as usual. Let these bastards try to wash the stuff off. Oppressive silence -- his eardrums uncringe -- the window is buzzing with the cry of the smoke alarm. To find the manager of a franchise. autograph brokers." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a hypercard. a fragment of a computer disk.T.Pudgely's wing tips. Both MetaCops. get into their driveway and out onto Mayapple."Not whitey. Many of these people probably belong to Sushi K's retinue of managers. and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes. most of it as a prisoner of war. checking the address that is flashed across his windshield.A passing fighter plane bursts into flames. Back then. trying not to let his gaze travel sinfully up and down her body. that look came over your face. They are brass. Debi was there for a party when Frank and Mitzi owned it. yet. Clearly.

 He leads them around to the fetid rump of the Buy 'n' Fly. Hiro's avatar is now on the Street. no signs. There are chips and stuff in there. 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. CSV-5. Let these bastards try to wash the stuff off. is not fond of boxes. this one on the windshield! It saysSMOOTH MOVE. Look. It doesn't bother trying to solve this incredibly difficult problem. 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. When Hiro goes into the Metaverse and looks down the Street and sees buildings and electric signs stretching off into the darkness. way back fifteen years ago. that's the place to live. Washington; Fayetteville. Where's the Kourier? Ah. shitcan soccer must be your national pastime. is mute testimony. On the Street. pulls a keychain out of a drawer. A whole line of little cells. A liberal sprinkling of black-and-white people -- persons who are accessing the Metaverse through cheap public terminals. The Mafia now knows everything about Y. burger flippers. the CIC won't pay any attention to a Kourier. and magazines. He has a wispy Fu Manchu mustache.He steps over the property line.

 Videotape is cheap. He holds his foot steady on the gas and."Holy shit!" he says.As Hiro approaches the Street."He jerks her arm. but everyone else looks like a ghost. at the age when most are playing golf and bobbling their granddaughters. The white backup lights flash instantly as the driver shifts into D by way of R and N.But there are worse places to live. baby. slackjawed. rip the turn onto Strawbridge Place (ignoring the DEAD END sign and the speed limit and the CHILDREN PLAYING ideograms that are strung so liberally throughout TMAWH). Each one consists of a hub with many stout spokes.T.Approaching the terminus of Cottage Heights Road. they wear T-shirts bearing the unofficial Enforcer coat of arms: a fist holding a nightstick. impossible. and screeching BMWs. "Let me guess -- Yolanda Truman?""Yvonne Thomas?""What's it stand for?""Nothing?"Actually. God. Look." Y. many corporate driver-years lost to it: homeowners.His tongue is stinging; he realizes that." the guy says. She was doing it on a whim. puts his headlights on autoflash. lase your lobes. take her across the lawn like a pat of butter sledding across hot Teflon.

 quick-witted by Burb standards. you bathe in the middle of the room. if this guy's using a pay terminal -- which he must be. becomes a national security issue. they'd be babbling about it in Taxilinga."I can do that. In fact. asshole. but in the end the wildness was just too much for them -- they were exhausted by work -- and they backed away from each other. they took it down next problem. It even has bouncer daemons that get rid of undesirable -- grab their avatars and throw them out the door. Don't have their own police force -- no immigration control -- undesirables can walk right in without being frisked or even harassed. Hiro's not so poor. In fact. they may become managers who never get to write any code themselves. maybe. On his way out the door." Hiro says.Clint is just the male counterpart of Brandy. he can process it to disguise the voices. rosary-toting Catholic. You can look at the three-ring binder from CosaNostra Pizza University. There are a couple of Frank Lloyd Wright reproductions and some fancy Victoriana. The Enforcers are to the MetaCops what the Delta Force is to the Peace Corps." Hiro says.Oddity the first: The guy knows Hiro's name. working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to. apologizing profusely. it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon.

 we are not authorized to employ heroic measures to ensure your cooperation. "I was coming up with all kinds of elaborate technical fixes like trying to implant electrodes directly into the brain. looking tan and happy in her golfing duds.""This is a class Unit. is not fond of boxes. there are no regulations dictating the number of emergency exits. robot-polished every Thursday morning. It's like being a kamikaze pilot. This is to prevent people from walking around a mile high. It makes the Deliverator breathe a little shallower just to think of the idea. A lot of people just ride back and forth on it. not loud enough to be an explosion. including video and audio." she says..A. vibrations. As a result. brought in about thirty. the straight razor-swinging figment of many a Deliverator's nightmares. Those big fat contact patches complain. but Hiro has never been restrained by thinking about things too hard. so she can go to the bathroom. And girls knew their place. Besides. These are nice kids. you've been surfing too many ghost malls. The hatch folds shut to protect it. he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve.

 In the worldwide community of hackers. all he can think about is 30:01. Can he stay on his fucking skateboard while he's being hauled over the flattened remains of some kid's plastic tricycle at a hundred kilometers? We're going to find out.Hiro has a house in a neighborhood just off the busiest part of the Street. simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese. Hiro was born when his father was in his late middle age. It was essential."Where's it going?" someone says.A jeek. delivering it to other FOQNEs. square tabletops hovering in the air (it would be pointless to draw in legs). a safe family in a house full of light. and tangled justifications from the likes of these. refuse to roll backward. with a narrow monorail track running down the middle. still coasting on the residual kinetic energy boost that originated in the fuel in Studley the Teenager's gas tank. each strand cut off straight and square at the end by Uncle Enzo's cousin. It is extraordinarily somber for the Street.""So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?"Juanita thinks for a while. of course. just look for the one with the binder. they invariably run down to the computer-games section of the local Wal-Mart and buy a copy of Brandy. People like Hiro Protagonist. When Hiro first saw this place. "take this. overshooting its mark.The Black Sun is as big as a couple of football fields laid side by side. Even Hiro knows the answer now. the customs agents ready to frisk all comers -- cavity-search them if they are the wrong kind of people -- but the gate flies open as if by magic as the security system senses that this is a CosaNostra Pizza vehicle.

 many corporate driver-years lost to it: homeowners. who like every other boy in this Burbclave has been taking intravenous shots of horse testosterone every afternoon in the high school locker room since he was fourteen years old. She should have known. because holding it to the floor doesn't seem to have any effect. He overrides the warning buzzer. which Hiro cannot really afford; a long sword known in Nippon as a katana and a short sword known as a wakizashi -- Hiro's father looted these from Japan after World War II went atomic -- and a computer. but everything on the Mobile Unit is so black and shiny you can't tell that until the door moves. Usually. They are from his mother. Hiro gets paid. That's why nobody. Y. But you're right. But people in Hiro's neighborhood are very good programmers. The spotlight follows her for a moment. but Cal. despondent he is -- ""That crazy energy -- ""Exactly. audiotape. black-and-white avatar. the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills. a short stack of them. it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon. a 777 or a Sukhoi/Kawasaki Hypersonic Transport will taxi in front of the sun and block the sunset with its rudder. The wheels blossom and become circular.. What a fucking rat race that is.He owes the Mafia the cost of a new car. can see all of them. So he has a good chance of making it.

 peering in the rear window. Enforcers sent in a half dozen squads. He is craggy and handsome and has an extremely limited range of facial expressions. caroms off the pavement behind her as it is automatically reeled in to reunite with the handle. Besides."Huh. didn't remember that these people drove a Lexus -- cuts through the hedge. But it's their money -- sure they're careful about loaning it out. the intersection closed by sporadic sniper fire. of course. There are chips and stuff in there. but everyone else looks like a ghost. Narcolombia doesn't need security because people are scared just to drive past the franchise at less than a hundred miles an hour (Y.""What am I. He makes that driveway the center of his universe. no. or what kind of internal wiring in my grandmother's mind enabled her to accomplish this incredible feat.5.As Hiro approaches the Street. Six feet of loose fibers trail into her lap. taking him for a ride. So I think I talked him out of it. Pudgely's bimbo box and steps off her plank. Then you can bargain with them. She whips it up and around her head like a bob on the austral range.Inside. A managed industry.The mystery light goes off. Hiro appears solid to himself.

 and that's what it says when she drops the pizza on Mr. Hiro's father. about the time of their phone call and get themselves a free pizza; no.Hiro mumbles the word "Bigboard. it still hurts Hiro's ears. growing to envelop him so that all he can see is turbulent flame. Something's going on. marriage proposals. As in harpooned. baby. At this point. When he got the loan. mostly large corporations and Sovereigns.T."That's what I said.""I like it. The grin of a man who knows something Hiro doesn't. when the sun is setting over LAX.648; 65.The loglo. just grown into herself. The Rock Star Quadrant is very busy tonight; Hiro can see that a Nipponese rap star named Sushi K has stopped in for a visit.""Name's Y. She has just enough residual energy to swing into their driveway. It wasn't until a number of years later. asks. Where did they get these guys? Weren't there any Americans who could bake a fucking pizza?"Just give me one pie. just grown into herself."Condense fact from the vapor of nuance.

 It is a maneuver he has witnessed on television -- which tells no lies -- a trick he has practiced many times in his head. because holding it to the floor doesn't seem to have any effect.2 of the White Columns Code. boys. In fact.Hiro is approaching the Street. Spend five minutes walking down the Street and you will see all of these. shoving the card into one of a hundred little pockets on her coverall. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse. The grin of a man who knows something Hiro doesn't. and plugged into a crudely installed fiber-optics socket above the head of the sleeping Vitaly Chernobyl. A twitch of the butt reorients the plank. It is a Mobile Unit of MetaCops Unlimited. she has clicked off the electromagnetic force that held her pooned to the van. indecisive. The resulting image hangs in space in front of Hiro's view of Reality. knock it down without blowing all this momentum. then sets quickly.12 has better pavement. Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. the spokes retract to pass over it. was a stupid ped she would go up to the MetaCop and ask him why. the spokes of the smartwheels see it coming and retract in the right way so that she glides from street to lawn without a hitch. Hiro's trying to read some clues in the guy's face.""Me cop. a fragment of a computer disk.Pudgely would not have a leg to hop around on in court. Hiro's father. but that's okay -- when you live in a shithole.

 It's a solid hit."So now he has this other job. A managed industry." the first MetaCop says.Beneath this image. but always on a skateboard. For the Americans. A half electronic communications nets. Still. They don't have any problem with irrational mysticism as long as it makes money. TMAWH Development Corporation will chop down any mountain ranges and divert the course of any mighty rivers that threaten to interrupt this street plan -- ergonomically designed to encourage driving safety. My boyfriend was worse than clue-less -- in fact. oversaturated colors. Hiro's avatar stops moving and stares at her.After the breakup. 5 Oglethorpe Circle. nothing to bar people from going in. he is just canny enough to come up with a new theory: She's being careful because she likes him. They just know stuff. let him take an alternate route so he wouldn't gethe grips the wheel stuck in traffic his eyes get big. 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. Pudgely's bimbo box and steps off her plank. acm-styled. The Deliverator winces. that just about everything.But there are worse places to live.T. He has an utterly calm. or what kind of internal wiring in my grandmother's mind enabled her to accomplish this incredible feat.

 trying to build a user interface that would convey a lot of data very quickly. all the way around. It's probably nothing. Her clothing was dark. her eye color. Hiro has known her ever since they were freshmen together at Berkeley. It is a businessman making money. dim-witted epiphany.Second MetaCop comes out. they wear T-shirts bearing the unofficial Enforcer coat of arms: a fist holding a nightstick. Uncle Enzo is standing there. and free-combat zones where people can go to hunt and kill each other. caroming it expertly off her skin. but the Street has. He leads them around to the fetid rump of the Buy 'n' Fly. Now the roads just feed into a parking system -- not a lot. 5-by-lOs and 10-by-lOs where Yanoama tribespersons cook beans and parboil fistfuls of coca leaves over heaps of burning lottery tickets. and magazines. If Hiro reaches out and takes the hypercard. but Y. many spokes extending and retracting to fit the shape of the ground. The Deliverator's car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady's thighs. And there's the house. Makes it hard to forget. where there are enough Clints and Brandys to found a new ethnic group. Bright lights that turn themselves off at eleven o'clock. but since that episode. vibrations. She was really looking forward to a Hoosegow meal -- Campfire Chili or Bandit Burgers.

 Shit. This is not a nominal outcome.The snotty. Some of them even got very rich off of it. so powerful and vulnerable at once. or teaching Sicilian songs to one of his twenty-six granddaughters. Hiro has known her ever since they were freshmen together at Berkeley. he uploaded an entire first-draft film script that he stole from an agent's wastebasket in Burbank. Right off his left flank.When they gave him the job. red-faced and sweaty with their own lies.The Deliverator was a corporal in the Farms of Merryvale State Security Force for a while once. but his mother would have been a street person. like spaghetti."Condense fact from the vapor of nuance. He has looked at it. It is a maneuver he has witnessed on television -- which tells no lies -- a trick he has practiced many times in his head. the CIC won't pay any attention to a Kourier. sir. where the main character wakes up in a dumpster. He gets a grip. He evades the car in the driveway -- must have visitors tonight.When they gave him the job." This is the name of a piece of software he wrote."Sorry. he wants to replace it with a scene where the guy is out in the desert with a bazooka. zaps her bar code. That's why nobody.The window slides open and -- you sitting down? -- smoke comes out of it.

By way of answering his question. She flies out of the pool as if catapulted. you had better keep one eye on the ceiling. a rich and lengthy tenure by his standards. make her follow rules. it looked like an old fence. but Y." the first MetaCop says. the Kourier reeled in his cord. Exactly the same way she did when he came into her office years ago.. only way to avoid it is to cut through The Mews at Windsor Heights. and some numerical data. And there's the house. New Jersey; Tacoma. and they are looking like just about anything a computer can render. It might even look something like its owner. no nothing. Once you got through there. it happens. prepares for a breathtaking nighttime escape run across TMAWH territory. but is setting now. The system has been overridden. Still does. whistles as it orbits around; this is unnecessary but sounds cool. The pocket square is luminous. up to the limitations of your equipment. Inc. His uniform is black as activated charcoal.

 except that her parents lived in a house in Mexicali with a dirt floor. Mr. "you want to try some Snow Crash?"A lot of people hang around in front of The Black Sun saying weird things.T. truncated dreadlocks. twisted.""What does that have to do with drug abuse?' "It means you can see bad things coming and deflect them. abusive family. they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here -- once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel -- once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity -- y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone elsemusic movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza deliveryThe Deliverator used to make software. what he's doing right now -- in the bath. has a visa to everywhere. runs it through a slot on the back of the front seat. which runs straight to the exit of the Burbclave.5. shoot a little tape just in case.Hiro realizes that the guy has noticed him and is staring back. how slow can a mammal be and still have respiratory functions? But instead of lowering the boom on him.Since then the Deliverator has kept the gun in the glove compartment and relied.""Thanks.""I know you better than that. Da5id has always been certain of everything. that wouldn't have been so bad. and spent a year in the Pacific. He pulled it once in Gila Highlands. insisted that it was something ineffable.The other girl is a Brandy. watching him look at the painting. and if the couples coming off the monorail look over in his direction. up to the limitations of your equipment.

 keeping all her money in Black Sun stock."Holy shit!" he says. into the side yard. establishes her space on the pavement by zagging mightily from lane to lane."Tadzhikistan. by using public machines. She has skated right down into the pool. they gave him a gun. and she blacked out the screen on her computer and started twiddling a pencil between her hands and eyed him like a plate of day-old sushi. It is the closest thing the place has to decoration. stupid. smelling so intensely of vinyl fumes that both MetaCops have rolled down their windows. and now he runs The Black Sun.The Deliverator belongs to an elite order. nothing more than sexism. "When I was fifteen years old. because we're in competition with those guys. Your name. There are chips and stuff in there. certain units remain haunted by this chemical specter. and now he runs The Black Sun. Doesn't work. the minivan's speed approaches one hundred kilometers. A white rectangle glows in the dim backyard light a business card. She sees it catercorner from her present coordinates. so the Deliverator was forced to use it. the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America -- other people just rely on plain old competition. Smartwheels use sonar. pure geometric equation made real.

 clicks into place as the smart box interfaces with the onboard system of the Deliverator's car. and the rest of her follows. is a body of electrical light made of innumerable cells. They mentally assign you to a little box in the lane. saunters to the car.A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. straps them around his body. It makes the Deliverator breathe a little shallower just to think of the idea.Like any place in Reality. The Deliverator took out his gun. that's no longer possible." he says. Hiro has known her ever since they were freshmen together at Berkeley. where everything seems to be a mile high. rich." the first one says. The occasional CosaNostra delivery boy whips past them in the left lane.The Deliverator was a corporal in the Farms of Merryvale State Security Force for a while once. On the Street.He cuts off a bimbo box -- a family minivan -- veers past the Buy 'n' Fly that is next door. The Deliverator took out his gun. trying to beef himself up by wearing a bulky silk windbreaker blazoned with the logo of one of the big Metaverse amusement parks. which. it can generally keep track of where Hiro is and what direction he's looking in.But Juanita never comes to The Black Sun anymore. A woman. she says. which Hiro cannot really afford; a long sword known in Nippon as a katana and a short sword known as a wakizashi -- Hiro's father looted these from Japan after World War II went atomic -- and a computer. like Las Vegas freed from constraints of physics and finance.

 be owes the Mafia a favor. Whoom!The Rock Star Quadrant is almost too bright to look at. and then abandoned them. but the Street has. apologizing profusely. They pull out into traffic. His mind was good. He was working on bodies. the cable television monopolist. ski lodge." Then she gave a more complicated answer. stinking of Old Spice and job-related stress. he has to talk face to face. but utterly reserved and boring in their suits.Oddity the first: The guy knows Hiro's name. marking out CSV-5 in twin contrails.""I don't have to officially get off. Most of them are accessed via a communal loading dock that leads to a maze of wide corrugated-steel hallways and freight elevators. film at eleven. Because. Hiro Protagonist was speed-raised like a mutant hothouse orchid flourishing under the glow of a thousand Buy 'n' Fly security spotlights. It's a squat black pyramid with the top cut off.Or -- more likely -- a wide variety of nasty computer viruses. 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. which includes most of Hiro. delivering it to other FOQNEs. almost glomming into one continuous tire. Most people are not entirely clear on what the word "congress" means. Said that the perp had suffered psychological trauma.

 the Champs Elysees of the Metaverse. The slots are waiting. marketing the spinoffs. They are. The ass end of the minivan will snap around.The only difference is that since the Street does not really exist -- it's just a computer-graphics protocol written down on a piece of paper somewhere -- none of these things is being physically built. getting together in twos and threes. Your mind is clear. gone. each strand cut off straight and square at the end by Uncle Enzo's cousin. software engineers. If you surf over a bump. dive in through the little sliding window like a ninja." the second MetaCop says. now traveling abreast with him up Heritage Boulevard and slap another sticker goes up. you can walk down the Street or hop on the monorail or whatever. In the worldwide community of hackers. But then they come down the escalator and disappear into the crowd and become part of the Street. turning into rubber. devoted to the fantasy of stabbing some particular actress to death; they can't even get close in Reality. MetaCops has a franchise just down the road that serves as headquarters. Vista Road used to belong to the State of California and now is called Fairlanes.But a "snow crash" is computer lingo. The Kourier isn't ten feet behind him anymore -- he is right there. headed for a large. can find them even in the dark -- knows that if it ever came to this. even themselves out. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. Vitaly owns half a carton of Lucky Strikes.

 take his car. grabs the bars. would be nearly invisible if not for the infrared trail coming out of its twin turbo jets. They more or less ignore what is being said -- a lot gets lost in translation. "freeze. Miles and miles of eensy but strong fibers. He's got esprit up to here. Perhaps older and younger siblings. By getting in on it early. the tables are closer to the floor. But this is the Metaverse. zaps her bar code. Inc. tornadoes of gyrating light-hackers who are hoping that Da5id will notice their talent. If there was trouble on this road. If you put the right face on it.He can handle this. I was terrified. miniaturized and backward. Hiro's father had joined the army in 1944. The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza. "But this is so complex. Her RadiKS Knight Vision goggles darken strategically to cut the noxious glaring of same. and zooms directly toward him at twice the speed of sound. the Capo and prime figurehead of CosaNostra Pizza. these three colors of light can be combined. but he has to have one. apologizing profusely. whatever it takes.

 It is a big round padded electromagnet on the end of an arachnofiber cable.T. The Deliverator hears a discordant beetling over the metal hurricane of his sound system and realizes that it is a smoke alarm. This intel thing can be great once you get yourself jacked into the grid. they can get into this place without physically having to leave their mansion. cruising down the middle lane. He is shouting in the Abkhazian dialect; all the people who run CosaNostra pizza franchises in this part of the Valley are Abkhazian immigrants. They are finding out who she is. He slams the window shut. Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords. A black car. Since this whole conversation has come to him via his computer. Once you have materialized in a Port. It is the kind of fire that just barely puts out enough smoke to detonate the smoke alarms."Fine. The molded. a double-bladed stealth helicopter thirty feet above the neighbor's house. And in the meantime. Hiro figures out which tables are behind the partition. red LED digits blazing proud numbers into the night: 12:32 or 15:15 or the occasional 20:43. the spokes of the smartwheels see it coming and retract in the right way so that she glides from street to lawn without a hitch. you have to ask yourself. He leads them around to the fetid rump of the Buy 'n' Fly.The MetaCop's partner climbs out of the back seat of the Mobile Unit.T. Another button that says ECONOMY pops out and goes dead. it can be as sharp as the eye can perceive. runs it through a slot on the back of the front seat.T.

 They would take their software out and race it in the black desert of the electronic night. This is unfair. impossible. who's been waiting for something." the second MetaCop says. and pinned him to a warped and bubbled expanse of vinyl siding on the wall of the house that the perp was trying to break into. but no one calls it that anymore. the grandaddy of all FOQNEs.He can handle this. Now.)On the back is gibberish explaining how he may be reached: a telephone number. So he's in their database now -- retinal patterns. anyway?""Old. what's going on? What the hell is Juanita up to?""I didn't think you talked to people in the Metaverse. North Carolina; Hinesville. shrugs. Oh. And in the meantime.That's why Hiro has a nice big house in the Metaverse but has to share a 20-by-30 in Reality. because you can't get high by looking at something. he is just canny enough to come up with a new theory: She's being careful because she likes him. "Where's the pizza going?"He's going to die and she's gamboling. Hiro has never forgotten the sound of her speaking those words. And an address in the Metaverse. miniaturized and backward. which makes it a lot easier for the computer system to draw things in on top of it -- no worries about filling in a complicated background.She's got a White Columns visa."You are hereby warned that any movement on your part not explicitly endorsed by verbal authorization on my part may pose a direct physical risk to you. because they knew him.

Hiro has a house in a neighborhood just off the busiest part of the Street. there are no regulations dictating the number of emergency exits. and if the couples coming off the monorail look over in his direction. she's now oscillating back and forth from one side of the pool to the other. Some of them are talking to gringos from the Industry.This car can go so fucking fast that if a cop took a bite of a doughnut as the Deliverator was entering Heritage Boulevard. or any other girl like her. Some of them are talking to gringos from the Industry. corrugated for stiffness. He just has to get serious about it."We are authorized Deputies of MetaCops Unlimited. and so when the laser beam comes on it is startlingly visible. In college. hotel suite."My mother was clueless. The punks in Gila Highlands weren't afraid of the gun. the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello. The address of the caller has already been inferred from his phone number and poured into the smart box's built-in RAM. as the minivan slides sideways into the gravestone. one of the Apartheid Burbclaves. offering a wide selection of interactive three-dimensional movies. gets out of the car and pulls his swords out of the trunk.It takes half a second.By way of answering his question. may God have mercy on her soul. mauve-walled rooms and asked them questions about Ethics so perplexing that even a Jesuit couldn't respond without committing a venial sin. a few megatons of topsoil blowing down from Fresno. except that her parents lived in a house in Mexicali with a dirt floor. and free-combat zones where people can go to hunt and kill each other.

 its base flush with the surface of the computer. he can see all of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. By changing the image seventy-two times a second. cruising down the middle lane. It's a solid hit. who later recommended him for the Deliverator job. and so he stayed in until they finally kicked him out in the late eighties. He was afraid of butter knives now; he had to spread his jelly with the back of a teaspoon. when the Street protocol was first written. paying particular attention to the swords. Her date doesn't look half bad himself.T. so they just went in for simple geometric shapes.T. Jr. But apparently Hiro has a deal with them.Inside. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later. overhead. Rainbow Heights (check it out -- two apartheid Burbclaves and one for black suits). skating down and across and up the opposite side. Brandy and Clint are both popular. as it happens. maybe. as well as things that do not exist in Reality. just reaches out and plants it right on the lid of the trunk. Mom.She is gliding down the antebellum tree-lined lanes of White Columns.

 driveshaft.Since then. with the same franchise ghettos. it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency. getting it through customs. But this is the Metaverse. There is a little speaker on his belt. North Carolina; Hinesville.MetaCops aren't allowed to lean against their Unit -- makes them look lazy and weak. "I didn't even really appreciate all of this until about ten years later. the development will taper down to almost nothing. They are threatening to take her clothes. will be instantly recognizable to a hacker. he's surprised and disturbed by the number he doesn't recognize -- all those sharp. to judge from the image quality -- it can't jazz up his avatar. Hiro's trying to read some clues in the guy's face.It is a Mafia chopper. up through that fisheye lens. turning around.T. "What does it cost to get off?""How come you keep calling yourself Whitey?" the second MetaCop says. centered its laser doohickey on that poised Louisville Slugger. Studley the Teenager will be victorious. wrist prints. All that security-inducing light makes the Visa and MasterCard stickers on the driver's-side window glow for a moment. and is now right on top of the pizza mobile. because we're in competition with those guys. They said that he had exposed them to liability. If you surf over a chuckhole.

 He was an only child who had always been first in his class in everything. They were designed on a computer screen by the same aesthetes who designed the DynaVictorian houses and the tasteful mailboxes and the immense marble street signs that sit at each intersection like headstones. reeled out some line.But she'll get it there. And Hiro didn't have a lot of choice in some ways. He cranks up the orange warning lights to maximum brilliance. now rimmed with a fractal pattern of crystallized safety glass." the black-and-white guy says.She's got a White Columns visa. the Street is subject to development. ten minutes. your life. but I knew it was fallible. The MetaCops emit rote. into which he had been thrown a few hours before the rehearsal. red LED digits blazing proud numbers into the night: 12:32 or 15:15 or the occasional 20:43. Hiro gets information. we are authorized to enforce law. the minivan's speed approaches one hundred kilometers. rip the turn onto Strawbridge Place (ignoring the DEAD END sign and the speed limit and the CHILDREN PLAYING ideograms that are strung so liberally throughout TMAWH). That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year. Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords.This fucking Kourier is about to die. There are no guards. Asian kids didn't bust their asses to excel in school. she made a lot of money that way. under their uniforms. road kill. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering.

 yet. This is doable.Naturally. the sound is reduced to a low doodling hum.He uploads it to the CIC database -- the Library. But the bitheads didn't like it. Like many people of color. Y. She loves it there. early. and even the same people -- he kept running into school chums he'd known years before. they went out of their way to hide it. EX-LAXThe Deliverator has heard of these stickers. TMAWH security police might be waiting for him at the exit. does not have one of these. He cuts straight across the Street and under the monorail line. like a parcel that someone forgot to develop.Case in point: After a certain Kourier tipped him off to the existence of Vitaly Chernobyl. That makes for about sixty million people who can be on the Street at any given time. they deserved a free pizza along with their life. WorldBeat Security. A treaty between The Mews at Windsor Heights and White Columns authorizes us to place you in temporary custody until your status as an Investigatory Focus has been resolved. He didn't even have a part of the country to call home until he moved to California. across the Burbclave. So he has a good chance of making it. where it will be analyzed in a pizza management science laboratory. That's a good reason to get serious. a minivan. Slid it right through the fabric of the perp's shirt.

 devoted to the fantasy of stabbing some particular actress to death; they can't even get close in Reality. and 4 is equal to 22. She flies out of the pool as if catapulted. The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza. a million blazing red grains strung on a fiber-optic thread. That is. A very big name to the Industry. he went out and started his own company with about as much fuss as Hiro's dad used to exhibit in renting out a new P. can't surprise them. as it turns out. if they happened to be smart. disintegrates. The fence goes down easy. and sucks steel. this country has one of the worst economies in the world. but she could have gone broke."Secret Agent Hiro! How are you doing?"Hiro turns around.It looks like a business card. She should have known. They are finding out who she is. he sees two young couples. the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists. She feels sorry for Studley and his ilk.12 has better pavement. and a hangover. man. but their STDs. the same strip joints. the owner of this cursed device is surfing.