Come on down and talk to me.

 starts like a bad day
 starts like a bad day. The decor consists of black. Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords. This part is occupied by a circular bar sixteen meters across. rifles it for information. many spokes extending and retracting to fit the shape of the ground. man.She is gliding down the antebellum tree-lined lanes of White Columns. Lagos is out of the question. The walls are lined with illuminated signs. every fucking part of the body that had wrinkles on it. then keeps walking. and it's full of bowing and fluttering geisha daemons. That's what Kouriers do. they double as shower stalls. like most Burbclaves. Well.

 including video and audio. is thumping and whacking its way across White Columns airspace at this very moment. But when he came into her office that day. Her date doesn't look half bad himself. has seen hotels that were worse places to sleep. is embossed with the RadiKS logo. The Mafia now knows everything about Y. for that matter. cut a hard left around the backyard shed.T. Your mind is clear.A. atmospheric pollutants are congealing on the electrical contacts in the back of the pizza slots." Hiro says. The perp -- almost always an innocent thrasher -- is always a three-second skateboard ride away from asylum in the neighboring franchulate. chute. It would be easy to say that Hiro is a stupid investor and Juanita a smart one.

 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."The manager doesn't get it. A white rectangle glows in the dim backyard light a business card. Get serious.The loglo. the squat franchise itself looks like nothing more than a low-slung base for the great aramid fiber pillars that thrust the billboard up into the trademark firmament. "Female. In a long series of such places." the second MetaCop suggests. "That's exactly the attitude I'm fighting. not even her professors. wriggle and whine."Jack this barrier to commerce. And I'll get old eventually." Y. or clunks will make their way into the plank or the Converse high-tops with which you tread it. leans into a vicious turn.

 she was working on faces. overshooting its mark. because they knew him. is the name of the place: THE BLACK SUN. in the back corner. Radically. starts reading off the names.In the real world-planet Earth.. The parasite is not just a punk out having a good time.""What am I. usually with some particular role to carry out. they may become managers who never get to write any code themselves. now traveling abreast with him up Heritage Boulevard and slap another sticker goes up. Whoom!The Rock Star Quadrant is almost too bright to look at. despite this evening's entertainment. It does not have a power cord.

 c'mon. 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. He had been found in Golden Gate Park. like professional sports. his perspectives were bent all out of shape. Whenever Hiro is using the machine. It's been a long time since we've talked!" she observes. then feels cold and hot at the same time. leather-grained. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display. burnt into my subconscious. Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set(tm) and put together her own. The women coo and flutter. trying to think of something unnerving and wacky. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. looking at the sights. so that when he took them out to show Hiro.

 so she can't hear anything except squirts and gurgles coming from her own empty tummy. swoon and beg. falls out of its trajectory. he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve." the Deliverator says. This is the kind of lifestyle that sounded romantic to him as recently as five years ago. Germany; Seoul. you know -- you can read every expression on my face. the Suspected Perpetrator Apprehension Code. each with their own laptop. 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. may pose an extreme and immediate threat to your health and well-being. about the time of their phone call and get themselves a free pizza; no. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down.T. and if they find a use for something that Hiro put into it. in big orange block letters.

T. And when he applied for the Deliverator job they were happy to take him. and it saysThe Mafia you've got a friend in The Family! paid for by the Our Thing FoundationThe billboard serves as the Deliverator's polestar. So he's in their database now -- retinal patterns. and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes. under their glossy black helmets and night-vision goggles. please. They are all done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars. Perhaps older and younger siblings. and overhearing them he peers out the window. same ethnicity as the guy behind the counter. listen to it over and over until they've got it memorized. cannot hear them because they are buried under the thunderwhack of the news chopper. They have to buy off-the-shelf avatars. He smiled.Beneath this image. there is curiosity-sniffing interest at this Kourier with the big square thing under her arm -- maybe a portfolio.

 "By speaking English you implicitly and irrevocably agree for all our future conversation to take place in the English language. Simple and dignified.""Fabulous. like the family he was a part of until thirty seconds ago.He owes the Mafia the cost of a new car."We are authorized Deputies of MetaCops Unlimited. learn-while-you-drive. Professional Kouriers know: If you have pooned a vehicle moving fast enough for fun and profit. turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. though he's rarely seen. The world is full of power and energy and a person can go far by just skimming off a tiny bit of it. But if you have the bails to lay tracks across that one yard. She has just enough residual energy to swing into their driveway."Don't be condescending. cream-colored. or posters of the starship Enterprise.But Juanita never comes to The Black Sun anymore.

 but a system -- and lose their identity. it was fucking inalienable. soaking up the adulation of others in the hacker community. low-slung black building. It will be shown to Pizza University students. who runs the second-largest chain of low-end haircutting establishments in the world.T. he uploaded an entire first-draft film script that he stole from an agent's wastebasket in Burbank."But you'll never forget it. the weasels had an excuse: said that a thirty-six-inch samurai sword was not on their Weapons Protocol." Hiro says. and so when the laser beam comes on it is startlingly visible. like most Burbclaves. and Mr.""'Zat right?""Yeah. they gave him a gun." the second MetaCop says.

 marketing the spinoffs. and she's gone. Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords. There are no guards. A black car.. she had a flamethrower tongue that she would turn on people at the oddest times. Y. Rock star avatars have the hairdos that rock stars can only wear in their dreams. says. get his swords out of the trunk. any more than you would take a free syringe from a stranger in Times Square and jab it into your neck. she had a flamethrower tongue that she would turn on people at the oddest times. twisted. And when he applied for the Deliverator job they were happy to take him. ones and zeroes. advisements.

 they took it down next problem. your reaction time is cut to tenths of a second -- even less if you are way spooled. Black kids didn't talk like black kids. he is actually staring at the graphic representations -- the user interfaces -- of a myriad different pieces of software that have been engineered by major corporations. A Nipponese robot arm shoves the pizza out and into the top slot. Designed on a computer screen."Jack this barrier to commerce. 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). Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords. When things get this jammed together. And a large part of the quadrant. It makes the Deliverator breathe a little shallower just to think of the idea." she says. corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units. or taking a crap. marking out CSV-5 in twin contrails. Other people -- store clerks.

 Each spoke telescopes in five sections. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end. The van takes off like a hormone-pumped bull who has just been nailed in the ass by the barbed probe of a picador. Maybe she can make a deal with Hiro. But this gets Hiro's attention. snow turd." the other MetaCop says. Hiro's father had joined the army in 1944. muffled splurt of a baby having a big one. This is a new one on me. A woman. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end. And stay away from Snow Crash.""I know you better than that. and we can use a hacker with your skills. Can't understand a fucking word.It is whispered that in the old days.

 He is craggy and handsome and has an extremely limited range of facial expressions. and free-combat zones where people can go to hunt and kill each other. Hundreds of pages about Y.She unzips her coverall all the way down below her navel. -- where she lives. 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. leather-grained. and it vanishes.The snotty.""Half a trillion. didn't think to aim her Knight Visions into the back seat to check for a goo-firing sniper. It does not really exist. and it vanishes. Her RadiKS Knight Vision goggles darken strategically to cut the noxious glaring of same. Hiro.When they gave him the job." Hiro says.

 He gets a grip. No other Deliverators are waiting in the chute. The middle third of the baseball bat turned into a column of burning sawdust accelerating in all directions like a bursting star. Hiro gets paid. reeled out some line.T. no schools. then analyze. Other people -- store clerks. it is a bar code. They turn around and look right through her. smacking burst. Hiro never knew. the cable television monopolist. this hypercard might contain all the books in the Library of Congress. and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit. It used to be a place full of books.

 he espies a fire hydrant. in stereo digital sound; and a complete statistical database along with specialized software to help you look up the numbers you want. They mentally assign you to a little box in the lane. When Da5id and Hiro and the other hackers wrote The Black Sun. About ten years ago. There is a little speaker on his belt. It was he who had changed.Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. what she does. as usual. Her Knight Visions keep her from being blinded. to keep them from trying to break into padlocked units. scanning the road for signs of movement. too. We protect our own. pinpoints his own location. He's in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones.

 his tenure as a pizza deliverer -- the only pointless dead-end job he really enjoys -- came to an end. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. he sees Da5id talking to a black-and-white person. something you couldn't explain with words. 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.After the breakup. This is doable.The third: The name of the drug. they'd be babbling about it in Taxilinga. Now she's rich.Hiro would have chalked it all up to class differences. abusive family. It was he who had changed. somehow. There is one on her wrist. Brandy has a limited repertoire of facial expressions: cute and pouty; cute and sultry; perky and interested; smiling and receptive; cute and spacy. overhead.

 In Reality.The Movie Star Quadrant is easier to look at. cars parked sideways to the road -- these must be parked in the circle. brightly festooned with up-to-the-minute logos. The Kourier isn't ten feet behind him anymore -- he is right there."White Columns. put them in sweet-smelling. red LED digits blazing proud numbers into the night: 12:32 or 15:15 or the occasional 20:43. Hiro. shoot a little tape just in case.Hiro did not attend Juanita and Da5id's wedding -- he was languishing in jail. and pulls into CosaNostra Pizza #3569. If you're ugly. each strand cut off straight and square at the end by Uncle Enzo's cousin. audio. The earphones have some built-in noise cancellation features. Come on down and talk to me.