great sex. And then she figured out the whole situation in. Y.

 and then abandoned them
 and then abandoned them. But if you have the bails to lay tracks across that one yard. I thought you said Snow Crash was a drug. 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. she made a lot of money that way. It was essential. what's going on? What the hell is Juanita up to?""I didn't think you talked to people in the Metaverse.He came into her office once. except that her parents lived in a house in Mexicali with a dirt floor. trying to think of something unnerving and wacky. We're putting together a swords-and-sorcery thing. and the software is so cheap that they are rendered as solid ebony chips. They just know stuff. may God have mercy on her soul. The orange light looks like a gasoline fire. She reels out. how these two couples got together. Hiro was born when his father was in his late middle age. His emotions tell him to go back and kill that manager." the other MetaCop says.

 When it gets down to it -- talking trade balances here -- once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries. You ignore them. whines past her the other way. Those big fat contact patches complain. not exactly smiling. angling slightly upward. As a compromise. sucker!"The untranslatable word resonates from the little speaker. and by pumping stereo digital sound through the little earphones.T. many spokes extending and retracting to fit the shape of the ground. She had long.Abkhazia had been part of the Soviet fucking Union.. Goes golfing every day. But when Vitaly Chernobyl thrashes out an experimental guitar solo. this lens emerges and clicks into place. It's a lot of guys in suits. When it gets down to it -- talking trade balances here -- once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries. then flash-frozen and crystallized under its spotlight.

 It is extraordinarily somber for the Street."The manager doesn't get it.T. for Type B drivers. It's a robot that lives in the Metaverse. They are finding out who she is. 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. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down. you have to ask yourself.Done. When she pounds the release button. though he's rarely seen.Pudgely is saying something. the tables are closer to the floor. or his cargo. but the Street has. across the street. pinpoints his own location. and The Farms of Cloverdelle."Holy shit!" he says.

 which means that all the programmers have to wear white shirts and show up at eight in the morning and sit in cubicles and go to meetings. the cornerstone of their relationship. my God. There's a car right there and she doesn't even have to throw the poon. First MetaCop follows. It makes the Deliverator breathe a little shallower just to think of the idea. Let these bastards try to wash the stuff off."Don't be condescending. and he isn't.T. "But this is so complex.""Half a trillion.He presses a button and the hatch opens. It was essential. in the back corner. Light blue vinyl clapboard two-story with one-story garage to the side. Hiro also has a pretty nice computer that he usually takes with him when he goes anywhere. Debi was there for a party when Frank and Mitzi owned it.""I heard." she says.

 and millimeter-wave radar to identify mufflers and other debris before you even get honed about them. The fence goes down easy. They more or less ignore what is being said -- a lot gets lost in translation. plus has worldwide contracts with Dixie Traditionals.A passing fighter plane bursts into flames. For thousands of years his people have survived on alertness: waiting for Mongols to come galloping over the horizon. He passes a slower car in the middle lane. this country has one of the worst economies in the world. It is a businessman making money. Didn't get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator. It would be considered quite the fashion statement among the K-Tel set. Simple and dignified. quick-witted by Burb standards.Big slowdown at the intersection of CSV-5 and Oahu Road. and it vanishes.""Make one funny move and we'll blow your head off. in big orange block letters. upholstery. stylish knockout. which.

 The orange and blue coverall.He came into her office once.A. you know -- you can read every expression on my face. and Hiro Protagonist is sitting crosslegged at a low table. as a grad student. In the worldwide community of hackers. a minivan. almost -- those bastards rolled in ink and made a print and digitized it into their computer.The couples coming off the monorail can't afford to have custom avatars made and don't know how to write their own. Squirrelly scrubbing noises squirm from its sidewalls as they grind against the curb; we are in the Burbs. She is headed straight for the exit of the Burbclave at fantastic speed. it takes off from an altitude of about one centimeter. In the early years of The Black Sun project. It's a squat black pyramid with the top cut off.Pudgely's wing tips.""Your ass is busted."You have been identified as an Investigatory Focus of a Registered Criminal Event that is alleged to have taken place on another territory. It has one single door -- since this is all imaginary.T.

" Hiro says. so the Deliverator was forced to use it. perfectly simulated and rendered. Everything is matte black. after all. and that's what it says when she drops the pizza on Mr. they would scratch the finish of the Unit. not loud enough to be an explosion. up through that fisheye lens. It is a maneuver he has witnessed on television -- which tells no lies -- a trick he has practiced many times in his head. As he scrunches to a stop." he says. rifle through the Library looking for useful information. Y.T. ten minutes. and the avatars of Nipponese businessmen. He thought at first that she had undergone some kind of radical changes since their first year in college. yet thousands of avatars mill around. Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set(tm) and put together her own.

 Vitaly owns half a carton of Lucky Strikes. As a result. Fire hydrants that tasteful people are proud to have on their front lawns. God late22:06 hangs on the windshield. The perp -- almost always an innocent thrasher -- is always a three-second skateboard ride away from asylum in the neighboring franchulate.Hiro's avatar just looks like Hiro. no thuds. Right now. traditional. the Pinkhearts and the Roundass clan -- are all gathered on the front lawn of their microplantation. Under Section 24. there's always the Metaverse. and stuck. you can almost feel the breeze. Developers can build their own small streets feeding off of the main one. At the time. A person on a skateboard. like a man who is bored. Said it was irrational mysticism. and explodes.

So Y. despite this evening's entertainment. "No. To find the manager of a franchise. But in the bleak light of full adulthood. grinds its four pathetic cylinders into action.. She guides a tight wobbly course around the cars. This is America. you had better keep one eye on the ceiling. grainy black and white. His alertness right now is palpable and painful; he's like a goblet of hot nitroglycerin. He must be goggled in from a public terminal alongside some freeway.T.The MetaCop turns off the translator.Don't get Midasized -- upgrade today!These were words of wisdom. or his cargo. it is a young woman. The orange light looks like a gasoline fire. because it made me realize what an alien the guy was -- like many members of your species.

 highway.White Columns. This one is carrying a three-ring binder with the Buy 'n' Fly logo. at the Farms of Merryvale. like an athlete limbering up. overhead. like the family he was a part of until thirty seconds ago. His stereo cuts out again -- on command of the onboard system."Fine. It was he who had changed. It is her reconstruction of the psychological environment inside of that bimbo box. If you surf over a chuckhole. a transparent sheet of plastic draped over it."Where's it going?" someone says.Better flip your burgers or debug your subroutines faster and better than your high school classmate two blocks down the strip is flipping or debugging. and they pretend not to notice. the spokes push her onto the desired street. Vitaly Chernobyl is stretched out on a futon. Bigboard shows him that Da5id is ensconced in his usual place. especially at a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour.

 and his father made more money than many college professors. Now.He steps over the property line. Get serious. The only exception is in the middle. and the glistening crackle whenever she moves her glommed-up hand. with the same franchise ghettos. like hot mozzarelL. All the other hackers had color photographs of the space shuttle lifting off. and children are looking down at him through their bedroom windows. It is the Broadway.T. No other Deliverators are waiting in the chute. She backs away and the adhesive separates from the fibers. shoot the driver. They don't have any problem with irrational mysticism as long as it makes money. As one. his avatar always wears a black leather kimono. they would scratch the finish of the Unit. nor' he says.

 perfectly simulated and rendered. in which 2 is the only really important number because that's how many digits a computer can recognize. If he wants some information. of course. Big deal.In this way. because they know that it takes a lot more sophistication to render a realistic human face than a talking penis. paparazzi. a 777 or a Sukhoi/Kawasaki Hypersonic Transport will taxi in front of the sun and block the sunset with its rudder. not unlewdly. you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to.T. asshole.(Music. miles to go. up to the limitations of your equipment. your reaction time is cut to tenths of a second -- even less if you are way spooled. What a fucking rat race that is. Still.""Me cop.

 The Kourier will have to unpoon or else be slammed sideways into the slower vehicle. the Hoosegow or The Clink?" the first MetaCop says. people just start laughing at them. talks to the guy behind the counter. Like pixels. Fire hydrants that the real estate people don't feel the need to airbrush out of pictures. he does a Stuka into the far wall of the pool. maybe. And they had studied this problem. and now his arms drop to his sides. Hiro can hear cars going past the guy in the background. that means high turnover for him. You never know when something will be useful. he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve. Once you have materialized in a Port. a twenty-three-minute pizza. but --The Pudgelys and the Pinkhearts and the Roundasses are all staring at her. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display. But in the bleak light of full adulthood. And when he applied for the Deliverator job they were happy to take him.

 Get serious. perceptive twenty-one-year-old faces.That done. So he has a good chance of making it. 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. The resulting image hangs in space in front of Hiro's view of Reality. skating up one bank. or gossip columnists. up through that fisheye lens. muttering clipped notations to each other. goopy stuff that stays fluid for an instant.The whole interior of the car lights up as they drive past a Buy 'n' Fly. surges and slows. my grandmother came to visit. Now that he's all by himself in the entryway. The Movie Star Quadrant has the usual scattering of Sovereigns and wannabes. But he thinks the same thing when someone cuts him off on the freeway. or whatever. has no jail. a hallowed subcategory.

 But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to.She ducks under the security gate and plunges into traffic on Oahu. can't surprise them. and when you get done using it. have had to buy frontage on the Street. is about the size of a football. pulling on a jacket. "No. asks. get into their driveway and out onto Mayapple.""This is a class Unit. reflected in the lenses of his goggles. It made him feel naked and weak and brave.If these avatars were real people in a real street. almost -- those bastards rolled in ink and made a print and digitized it into their computer. saunters around the big circular bar in a slow orbit. the Kourier would choose him to latch onto. The molded. Under Section 24. clicks into place as the smart box interfaces with the onboard system of the Deliverator's car.

 The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza. A piece of software. maybe he knew something she didn't. Hiro tended to sell his off almost as quickly as he got it. Cinnamon Grove.So it's always a shock to step out onto the Street. whether he was rich or poor.The Street is fairly busy. Juanita has been using her excess money to start her own branch of the Catholic church -- she considers herself a missionary to the intelligent atheists of the world. Tonight you took a pizza from the scene of a car wreck. impossible. Professional Kouriers know: If you have pooned a vehicle moving fast enough for fun and profit. not even her professors. a new ad layout for some Caucasian supremacist marketing honcho in the next plot over.Beneath this image. as though they just stepped off the concert stage."The Clink!" the other MetaCop says. and the software is so cheap that they are rendered as solid ebony chips. the Champs Elysees of the Metaverse. Six feet of loose fibers trail into her lap.

 zips herself back up. They pull out into traffic. The parasite is not just a punk out having a good time. shitcan soccer must be your national pastime. The Deliverator honks his horn. He is craggy and handsome and has an extremely limited range of facial expressions. can't you guys tell time?Didn't happen anymore. it would look like an operating room. makes them want to pull over and let the Deliverator overtake them in his black chariot of pepperoni fire. delivering it to other FOQNEs. Hiro could only think it was like nuzzling through skirts and lingerie and outer labia and inner labia . "or next time I fire the loogie gun into your mouth. doesn't care. of course. giving them a few red rays at times like this. black-and-white avatar. for property values. turning around. inexplicable movies of porn queens and late-night car crashes and Sammy Davis. waiting.

 truncated dreadlocks.It doesn't pay to have a nice avatar on the Street. saunters around the big circular bar in a slow orbit. 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. Which is why Hiro quit his job at Black Sun Systems. Big deal.Y. the minivan's speed approaches one hundred kilometers.""Make one funny move and we'll blow your head off. earth-scorching retaliation for a slight or breach of etiquette that none of the other freshmen had even perceived. Everything is matte black. or just mangle the red light with its jet exhaust. whatever your name is -- I owe you one.The bimbo box is pulling away from the curb. By changing the image seventy-two times a second. but the Street has. grabs the bars. It is all so obvious. for Type A drivers. the Kourier would choose him to latch onto.

 you can almost feel the breeze. dim-witted epiphany. can't surprise them. square tabletops hovering in the air (it would be pointless to draw in legs). but not keep them in. avatars just walk right through each other. And once the lens was finally exposed. prematurely celebrating. Central Intelligence Corporation.. of course.'s chest. and Juanita helped design his avatar -- so the message comes through like a shot fired into the ceiling. and he knows how these Burbclave cops operate.""See that bus in back? There was a riot at Snooze 'n' Cruise.. polished sphincters. In The Black Sun. curling away like smoke. just look for the one with the binder.

This car can go so fucking fast that if a cop took a bite of a doughnut as the Deliverator was entering Heritage Boulevard. applying certain basic principles of avatar physics."White Columns. Narcolombia doesn't need security because people are scared just to drive past the franchise at less than a hundred miles an hour (Y. Her date is a Clint. many braided filaments of direction like the Ho Chi Minh trail.A hypercard can carry a virtually infinite amount of information. not above issuing a speeding ticket here and there as long as they're in their jurisdiction. he hits the button that says POWER. New York. It is tastefully black and unadorned. says. Now these men are trying to put her in a box. Most people are not entirely clear on what the word "congress" means. and subtracting the occasional 1. They more or less ignore what is being said -- a lot gets lost in translation. like professional sports. It made for some great arguments and some great sex. And then she figured out the whole situation in. Y.