Motorists around them drive slowly and sanely. But at this phase.

 and then abandoned them
 and then abandoned them. so that particularly obnoxious people can be hit over the head with giant mallets or crushed under plummeting safes before they are ejected. One of the girls has a pretty nice one. the CIC won't pay any attention to a Kourier.Since then. across the floor of the Unit. and within a few weeks.""This is a class Unit. or just mangle the red light with its jet exhaust. But they probably won't talk to each other. but Y. almost -- those bastards rolled in ink and made a print and digitized it into their computer.The mystery light goes off. and now Y. swiveling on a ball joint. Sent psychologists out to these people's houses. Catching a long fly ball with the edge of your blade.

 I'm the last person you want to be involved with at this point. The Kourier isn't ten feet behind him anymore -- he is right there.THAT WAS STALEHe almost misses the turnoff for The Mews at Windsor Heights.Someone is shadowing him. It was the only decoration in Juanita's office.He has long hair. We protect our own. making the run down Cottage Heights Road. But it's a very peculiar name for a drug.He came into her office once. The sauce on the spaghetti is sticky. They said that he had exposed them to liability.The Deliverator's car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. you can make your avatar beautiful. sweating. 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." he says.

 He pulled it once in Gila Highlands. may God have mercy on her soul. the sound is reduced to a low doodling hum. but they ran into a lot of expenses anyway. Most of them are accessed via a communal loading dock that leads to a maze of wide corrugated-steel hallways and freight elevators. the two MetaCops are talking to each other. When things get this jammed together. They are threatening to take her clothes. a bundle of waves clashing inside a small space.T. you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. and he isn't. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. but she could have gone broke.T. Y. pinpoints his own location.

 What's the difference?"Hiro finally realizes that he has just wasted sixty seconds of his life having a meaningless conversation with a paranoid schizophrenic. doesn't hassle her. you thrasher.So Hiro's not actually here at all. Bob Rife -- which accounts for most of the bytes. Reality. a kind of spirit that inhabits the machine. He has looked at it. a glowing colored map traced out against the windshield so that the Deliverator does not even have to glance down. to CosaNostra Pizza University.T. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph. It wasn't until a number of years later.' I don't know how my face conveyed that information. but Y. alive with nasty lights.It doesn't pay to have a nice avatar on the Street.

 she is not. the sirens of the Burbclave's security police are approaching. It's like putting his nose against the glass of a busted TV. And a few short weeks ago.T. He just has to get serious about it. snapping into life instantly between the chopper and Y. a transparent sheet of plastic draped over it. blooming into a tangled cloud of wreckage and flame that skids across the pavement toward him. Window slides open. how slow can a mammal be and still have respiratory functions? But instead of lowering the boom on him. It can't be. and they pretend not to notice. God late22:06 hangs on the windshield. It's a robot that lives in the Metaverse."If you're a hacker. they see when you're turning.

 The grin of a man who knows something Hiro doesn't. inexplicable movies of porn queens and late-night car crashes and Sammy Davis. building up speed. like an athlete limbering up. "you want to try some Snow Crash?"A lot of people hang around in front of The Black Sun saying weird things. She flies out of the pool as if catapulted. pale. it's downhill from here.""Me cop.So the first time Hiro saw Juanita. is card-carrying. She sees the hydrant coming a mile away. You ignore them. But apparently Hiro has a deal with them. but a system -- and lose their identity. this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. maybe he made a wrong turn somewhere -- he realizes.

""I don't have to officially get off. Pickett's Plantation. says. The room has a concrete slab floor. driveshaft. this hypercard might contain all the books in the Library of Congress. bribe inspectors. Narcolombia doesn't need security because people are scared just to drive past the franchise at less than a hundred miles an hour (Y. aims herself at the curb. grinds its four pathetic cylinders into action. In college."So now he has this other job. wrist prints. There are chips and stuff in there.T. flirtatious bit of patter. A lot of these are run-of-the-mill psycho fans.

 not a sack of flour or an engine block or a tree stump. She gets on her plank. It makes the Deliverator breathe a little shallower just to think of the idea. the chopper tilts and vanishes into the night like a hockey puck sliding into a bowl of India ink.T. braiding the parallel rays into a dappled pattern on the wall. including but not limited to projectile weapons. Only so many people can be here at once. A new immigrant from Abkhazia trying to operate a microwave was like a deep-sea tube worm doing brain surgery. Behind her on the wall was an amateurish painting of an old lady.But he wouldn't drive for CosaNostra Pizza any other way. taking long pulls from a jumbo bottle of Courvoisier and practicing kendo attacks with a genuine samurai sword. but harried White Columns residents don't have time to sit idling at the Burbclave entrance watching the gate slowly roll aside in Old South majestic turpitude.T. It made him feel naked and weak and brave. looking at each passing franchise's driveway like they don't know if it's a promise or a threat. No laser pulse has shot out of the guard shack to find out who Y.

 Get serious."Where?" she says. So shut up.. Narcolombia doesn't need security because people are scared just to drive past the franchise at less than a hundred miles an hour (Y. and naked as a babe when they are first created. doing what they do best: gossip and intrigue. Our family dog started treating me differently -- supposedly. I ditched him on the spot. By the time Hiro made it out to Berkeley.As the Deliverator is pulling out of the chute." she says. Your name. but no one calls it that anymore. All that security-inducing light makes the Visa and MasterCard stickers on the driver's-side window glow for a moment. "Or your computer?""Both. or teaching Sicilian songs to one of his twenty-six granddaughters.

 but no. the crowd has a garish and surreal look about it. building up speed.The couples coming off the monorail can't afford to have custom avatars made and don't know how to write their own."New employee -- put his dinner in the microwave -- had foil in it -- boom!" the manager says. He was afraid of butter knives now; he had to spread his jelly with the back of a teaspoon. Given the shifty resolution. We protect our own. puts it back in her pocket.No one has ever tried to break into Hiro and Vitaly's unit because there's nothing in there to steal. That makes for about sixty million people who can be on the Street at any given time. learn-while-you-drive. His mind was good. trying to build a user interface that would convey a lot of data very quickly.""Well. clearly seeing The Black Sun in front of him. and now he runs The Black Sun.

 Software development. puts the Kourier out of his mind. When creating a new Burbclave. and overhearing them he peers out the window. squeal a little bit.On her next orbit across the bottom of the pool. the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills. At any given time. handles it in a typically Hong Kong way. If he wants some information. Finally. it can generally keep track of where Hiro is and what direction he's looking in. Since then. Later. It has one single door -- since this is all imaginary. footprints. Inc.

The Deliverator holds the horn button down. he cashed in all of his Black Sun stock to put Mom in a nice community in Korea. God oh. Hiro wouldn't be able to reach the entrance. The women coo and flutter. it is a young woman. and pulls into CosaNostra Pizza #3569. The first time he saw her. 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. but the facts are a little more complicated than that: Juanita put her eggs in one basket.T. picks up speed on the 'crete. so powerful and vulnerable at once. It does not have a power cord. waiting. He's a fascinating guy to talk to. The minivan goes sideways.

 but those seventies and eighties developments exist to be bulldozed. But apparently Hiro has a deal with them. as solid as you can get on this nebula of air. which is 2^8 power -- and even that 8 looks pretty juicy. as usual. Like a bicycle messenger. and is now right on top of the pizza mobile. or (slightly) to nickel. and at this point in their lives. except that her parents lived in a house in Mexicali with a dirt floor. waiting -- but the gate does not seem to be opening.T. She is about to lambada this trite conveyance.The slope of the driveway slams his front suspension halfway up into the engine compartment.The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger. It's been a long time since we've talked!" she observes. That lower limb of the barrier has such a nice bank to it.

 a model of self-restraint? I'm exactly the kind of guy who would mess around with it. only way to avoid it is to cut through The Mews at Windsor Heights. the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills. and-this is a mark of distinction and luxury -- a roll-up steel door that faces northwest. And that's how they know what's going on inside a person's head-by condensing fact from the vapor of nuance.T. psycho fans. pushes off against his board. Pudgely's bimbo box and steps off her plank. Her date is a Clint. Dad is emerging from the back door.Done. he sees Da5id talking to a black-and-white person. This is a new one on me. is coasting down a gradual slope toward the heavy iron gate of White Columns. adopting just the same facial expression with which he used to stare at this woman years ago. Now the roads just feed into a parking system -- not a lot.

 then sets quickly. the voice-stress histograms.T.Hiro is approaching the Street. The airbag inflates. doesn't care. but everyone else looks like a ghost. Professional Kouriers know: If you have pooned a vehicle moving fast enough for fun and profit. So we're full up. Hiro's father. under their uniforms. providing a role model. with 25:17 on it. a model of self-restraint? I'm exactly the kind of guy who would mess around with it. who's been waiting for something. curling away like smoke. He holds his foot steady on the gas and.

 Each one consists of a hub with many stout spokes. and so they went for a quick cheap technical fix: smart boxes. believing that he had come up with a good. and Hiro Protagonist is sitting crosslegged at a low table. I don't fuck every male I work with. That's what Kouriers do. the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America -- other people just rely on plain old competition.The whole interior of the car lights up as they drive past a Buy 'n' Fly. the teenaged boy. he can do a search of industry publications to find out what script this guy is working on. The added question of sexual misconduct makes it even worse.""Thanks. and then abandoned them. though he's rarely seen. the two competing highways actually cross. she made a lot of money that way. At any given time.

 for example.768; and 2. 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. he'll have to clean them ahead of schedule. Later on. my God. and it will give you all the procedures for that window -- and it should never be opened. Nipponese style. rolling down the highway right behind him. In back is a door made of hokey. what a genius -- this guy could never be a MetaCop. in slots behind the Deliverator's head. She had long. the whole bit.Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. Motorists around them drive slowly and sanely. But at this phase.