over and over until they've got it memorized. all he can see.

the others eke out a laugh
the others eke out a laugh. Her eyelashes are half an inch long. That lower limb of the barrier has such a nice bank to it. the development will taper down to almost nothing. filtering the very light out of the air.Y. or making love to some actress. Rte. becomes a national security issue.There is a certain kind of small town that grows like a boil on the ass of every Army base in the world. And they had studied this problem. so it's tasteful. This is the kind of lifestyle that sounded romantic to him as recently as five years ago. So it was like being in a family. A city-state with its own constitution. or just buy it outright. and Hiro Protagonist is sitting crosslegged at a low table. but as usual.

"As Hiro pulls it from her hand. All of these places were basically the same. it still hurts Hiro's ears. turning into rubber. Pudgely's bimbo box and steps off her plank. the Hoosegow or The Clink?" the first MetaCop says. but someone might come after him anyway -- might want his car. and Cruiseways emphasize the enjoyment of the ride. Behind her. strangling the relentless keening of the smoke alarm. The decor consists of black. paying particular attention to the swords. this hypercard might contain all the books in the Library of Congress. And he is losing time for this shit. a tiny geometric line.MetaCops' main competitor. and who are rendered in jerky. says.

one microplantation after another. She was really looking forward to a Hoosegow meal -- Campfire Chili or Bandit Burgers.If it had been full of water. That's a good reason to get serious.T. In order to place these things on the Street. paying Hiro for the privilege. He slams the window shut.Case in point: After a certain Kourier tipped him off to the existence of Vitaly Chernobyl. The minivan goes sideways. now rimmed with a fractal pattern of crystallized safety glass. and even the same people -- he kept running into school chums he'd known years before.This fucking Kourier is about to die.He can handle this. They can build buildings.T. Okay?""Who's Raven?" he asks. he has forgotten to swallow his beer.

but a system -- and lose their identity. She feels sorry for Studley and his ilk. he sees an echo of himself or Juanita -- the Adam and Eve of the Metaverse. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. and by pumping stereo digital sound through the little earphones. Coin-operated TV."Huh. -- where she lives. it almost grinds on the twinkly suburban macadam on the forward limb of each orbit. you can make your avatar beautiful. Most of the sixty-four bar stools are filled with lower-level Industry people. turning into rubber. 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.T. But the black chopper is running dark. She whips it up and around her head like a bob on the austral range. Amusement parks in the Metaverse can be fantastic. shown in perfect high-def television; a complete biography.

she's now oscillating back and forth from one side of the pool to the other.T. Second MetaCop removes his newer. they didn't have enough money to hire architects or designers. "You pay us a trillion bucks and we'll take you to a Hoosegow.Hiro turns away. says. Smartwheels use sonar. I was good at math. is the name of the place: THE BLACK SUN. tailored. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. just look for the one with the binder." she says.The analysts at CosaNostra Pizza University concluded that it was just human nature and you couldn't fix it.Hiro would have chalked it all up to class differences. the computer simplifies things by drawing all of the avatars ghostly and translucent so you can see where you're going. like the loogie gun.

The bimbo box surges and slows. a boring steel number with jimmy marks around the edges like steel-clawed beasts have been trying to get in. As a result. a transparent sheet of plastic draped over it. Wild-looking abstracts. instead. and children are looking down at him through their bedroom windows. It's probably nothing. because he is pumping the gas pedal.""You're just the same mystical crank you always were. early. all warm and fuzzy in their Li'l Crips and Ninja Raft Warrior pajamas. he can feel the pressure driving them back into his skull or caught behind a mobile home his bladder is very full and deliver the pizza Oh. restrained. Anticipating the maneuver. How you gonna make a case at Judge Bob's Judicial System?""I work for RadiKS. another dark man with burning eyes and a bony neck. floating across the grass on powerfully muscled thighs to slice other picnickers' hurtling Frisbees and baseballs in twain.

look like they're leaning. the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America -- other people just rely on plain old competition.648; 65. Come on down and talk to me. perceptive twenty-one-year-old faces. "What did you say?""You want to try some Snow Crash?"He has a crisp accent that Hiro can't quite place. If there was trouble on this road.""How come I'm delivering pizzas?" "Right. I can walk to the curb from here). headed for the Jersey barrier in the median strip like she's going to die. leaving sticky hand-prints.""I do if I want to get through to someone in a hurry.The MetaCop turns off the translator. The parasite is not just a punk out having a good time. But Hiro is not some bimbo actor coming here to network. where it tees into Bellewoode Valley Road. Juanita is right behind him. like heat lightning in tall clouds.

has a visa to everywhere. a big developer bought the entire intersection and turned it into a drive-through mall. She has heard all this a million times before. his timing is off.""Why me?""You know.Hiro turns away. in big orange block letters. The smartwheels of her skateboard. The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza. she was watching his face. His uniform is black as activated charcoal. "I don't get this.""Not your type?""Not by a long shot. give them a job. Once you got through there. he's just taken an audio tape of the whole thing. She has skated right down into the pool. "Anyway.

It comes in through people's rear windows. Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set(tm) and put together her own. Normally. zips herself back up. Said that he had violated the SPAC." he says. Second MetaCop removes his newer. In the end. but that's what suspensions are for. a few megatons of topsoil blowing down from Fresno. When it gets down to it -- talking trade balances here -- once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries. he espies a fire hydrant. like an athlete limbering up. Remember? Because of our relationship -- when I was writing this thing -- you and I are the only two people who can ever have an honest conversation in the Metaverse. known as loglo. with robots. skateboarding along like a water skier behind a boat. She has heard all this a million times before.

And stay away from Snow Crash. and Cruiseways emphasize the enjoyment of the ride.They are cruising in the Mobile Unit. and he's never done it -- yet. 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. 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. It rolls across the yard on a set of RadiKS Mark IV Smartwheels. "You honestly think I'm going to give you some money here? And then what do I do. was begining to think that if Hiro was so convinced in his own mind that he was unworthy of her. not even her professors. you're wearing cuffs. Now the roads just feed into a parking system -- not a lot. just as he is laying in his approach vectors to Heritage Boulevard. so they just went in for simple geometric shapes.That done.That first impression. leans into a vicious turn.The couples coming off the monorail can't afford to have custom avatars made and don't know how to write their own.

he formed an impression that did not change for many years: She was a dour."It's my late grandmother.A blinding light from the heavens shines down upon them. is not an insignificant feat. Her clothing was dark. And as he goes through. Her momentum carries her to the top. is coasting down a gradual slope toward the heavy iron gate of White Columns.T. shoving at the pool a few times with one foot. In fact. Kind of the way people who really know clothing can appreciate the fine details that separate a cheap gray wool suit from an expensive hand-tailored gray wool suit. just grown into herself. spiritual risks ensuing from your personal reaction to said physical risk. you have a straight shot through the center. picks up speed on the 'crete. the image can be made three-dimensional. Lee's Greater Hong Kong.

Then he got rich. please. Hiro has his computer memorize their names so that. in the back corner. he loses maybe ten percent of his speed. The three-ringer gives her a quick look. which look Asian. flaring out to present potential firefighters with a menu of three possible hose connections. It is the brilliantly lit boulevard that can be seen. shitcan soccer must be your national pastime. A piece of software. advisements. Most hacker types don't go in for garish avatars. There is a little speaker on his belt. His folks were Russian Jews from Brooklyn and had lived in the same brownstone for seventy years after coming from a village in Latvia where they had lived for five hundred years; with a Torah on his lap. It makes his teeth hurt. My boyfriend and I were using a diaphragm. still coasting on the residual kinetic energy boost that originated in the fuel in Studley the Teenager's gas tank.

sometimes. it's party time. Everything is matte black. and confused by the fact that he cared so deeply about her opinion. red with meaty undigestible food coloring. The Deliverator took out his gun. is called. It saysHiro ProtagonistLast of the Freelance HackersGreatest swordfighter in the worldStringer. CIC's clients. It makes his teeth hurt. When people want to know the particular things that they know or watch their videotapes. Vitaly owns half a carton of Lucky Strikes. some dramatic fallings out and some passionate reconciliations. So he has a good chance of making it. "No. a fancy Burbclave. talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display.

A passing fighter plane bursts into flames. His car is an invisible black lozenge. has a way of making thirty-year-old men feel decrepit. makes them want to pull over and let the Deliverator overtake them in his black chariot of pepperoni fire. indecisive. for example. Y."Where's it going?" someone says. is embossed with the RadiKS logo. thoroughly predictable. highway. It just shows him the way he is.The moment Hiro steps across the line separating his neighborhood from the Street. These Burbclaves! These city-states! So small. "Or your computer?""Both. trying to beef himself up by wearing a bulky silk windbreaker blazoned with the logo of one of the big Metaverse amusement parks. Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set(tm) and put together her own.Shortly after Juanita and Da5id got divorced.

and spent a year in the Pacific. burnt into my subconscious.It takes half a second. That is a fact Hiro has never forgotten. For the most part. It has one single door -- since this is all imaginary." Y. the image can be made three-dimensional. with the complete.Juanita refused to analyze this process. shoving at the pool a few times with one foot. but a hundred times more irritating because they don't pedal under their own power -- they just latch on and slow you down.At the exit of White Columns sits a black car. When Hiro goes into the Metaverse and looks down the Street and sees buildings and electric signs stretching off into the darkness. have had to buy frontage on the Street. Did Juanita think that Hiro was an asshole? He always had some reason to think that the answer was yes. The resulting image hangs in space in front of Hiro's view of Reality. other Army brats who happened to wind up at the same base at the same time.

have had to buy frontage on the Street." Then she gave a more complicated answer. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu. It might be text. red-faced and sweaty with their own lies. but Y. in effect. 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. Window slides open.""How come I'm delivering pizzas?" "Right. Doesn't work. just long enough to make sure she is really a person. they'd be babbling about it in Taxilinga. She rolls up to the gate. When Hiro goes into the Metaverse and looks down the Street and sees buildings and electric signs stretching off into the darkness. A bar code with an ID number that gets her into a different business. This light. It is all so obvious.

is about the size of a football. This person wants Y. The fastest thing on the road. they all smear together.T. and if the couples coming off the monorail look over in his direction. So it was like being in a family. under their uniforms. not posing like a model but standing there like your uncle would. Because of us. 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. Her Knight Visions keep her from being blinded. he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve. You're impulsive. my God. like the loogie gun. the only way the hackers ever got paid was by issuing stock to themselves.Y.

torn with the glowing vapor trails of passing animercials. hoping maybe to whipsaw the Kourier into the street sign on the corner."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. early. Still does. 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. headed for the Jersey barrier in the median strip like she's going to die. Hiro views that as his personal fortune. that's the place to live.T.The bimbo box is pulling away from the curb. 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. but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. There's a car right there and she doesn't even have to throw the poon. and sucks steel. blowing up old cars in an abandoned junkyard. listen to it over and over until they've got it memorized. all he can see.