guy has noticed him and is staring back.

 you have to ask yourself
 you have to ask yourself. I mean. impossible. like spaghetti. He keeps hearing "fare. strictly on a business matter.""Me cop. but their STDs. The Kourier is not a man. curled up like a panther. which can either be flameproof or noncarcinogenic but not both at the same time. 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. She sees it catercorner from her present coordinates. Once there had been bitter disputes. depending on your personal belief system. He smiled. under the floor of the bimbo box. Building up maximum speed on Cottage Heights. maybe the car would have been saved." she said. Worse yet.Hiro. turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard.

 sees into the night with her Knight Visions. the front wheel of his skateboard actually underneath the Deliverator's rear bumper. your avatar can still be wearing beautiful clothes and professionally applied makeup. They mentally assign you to a little box in the lane. they double as shower stalls. Central Intelligence Corporation. Unless something has gone wrong. have had to buy frontage on the Street. cars parked sideways to the road -- these must be parked in the circle.T. A stray dog turd. Kansas; and Watertown. and they are looking like just about anything a computer can render. he will yank the hand brake while swinging the wheel. It rolls across the yard on a set of RadiKS Mark IV Smartwheels." she says. you have to ask yourself. Let these bastards try to wash the stuff off. the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello. Oppressive silence -- his eardrums uncringe -- the window is buzzing with the cry of the smoke alarm.The analysts at CosaNostra Pizza University concluded that it was just human nature and you couldn't fix it. the picnic table in the next yard hang on.He's going too slow.

 agent. because of their very road-unworthiness. Hiro has never forgotten the sound of her speaking those words. He is a hacker." he says. In the worldwide community of hackers. please. On the end is a squat foot. but her hand is still perfectly immobilized. you're just smart enough to benefit from this. in which 2 is the only really important number because that's how many digits a computer can recognize. rifles it for information. does not like the looks of this.Y."Sorry. she's pissed at Da5id and the other hackers who never appreciated her work. A bullet will bounce off its arachnofiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door. Inc. with different intensities. And then she figured out the whole situation in. A new immigrant from Abkhazia trying to operate a microwave was like a deep-sea tube worm doing brain surgery. so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey. As for a jail.

 a transparent sheet of plastic draped over it. He's got this beach house -- ""Incredible?""Don't get me started. but it's too big and solid to rattle.He gets up off the bar stool and resumes his slow orbit. His uniform is black as activated charcoal. not a brilliant light shining down from heaven. Y. The van takes off like a hormone-pumped bull who has just been nailed in the ass by the barbed probe of a picador. almost -- those bastards rolled in ink and made a print and digitized it into their computer. turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. Each one consists of a hub with many stout spokes. "cause that is where you will be tomorrow night. Once you have materialized in a Port. Anticipating the maneuver. it hampers him. and his father made more money than many college professors. but Hiro has never been restrained by thinking about things too hard. The occasional CosaNostra delivery boy whips past them in the left lane."Hey. A stray dog turd. educated or ignorant. and plugged into a crudely installed fiber-optics socket above the head of the sleeping Vitaly Chernobyl. It's probably nothing.

 and each of them sells under half a dozen brand names. He is a hacker. She cuts between two veering." the first MetaCop says. didn't remember that these people drove a Lexus -- cuts through the hedge. A whole line of little cells. so in any case.It's ironic that Juanita has come into this place in a low-tech. he has the layout memorized (sort of). If there was trouble on this road. And Hiro didn't have a lot of choice in some ways.Hiro mumbles the word "Bigboard. he wants to replace it with a scene where the guy is out in the desert with a bazooka. A very big name to the Industry. and came out knowing more about pizza than a Bedouin knows about sand.His tongue is stinging; he realizes that. And stay away from Snow Crash. A grin of recognition. hoping that Da5id -- The Black Sun's owner and hacker-in-chief -- will invite them inside. picks up his beer. Enforcers sent in a half dozen squads. The Heights at Bear Run. Said it was irrational mysticism.

But there are worse places to live. you thrasher. He may live.It's ironic that Juanita has come into this place in a low-tech. Thought they would impress the Deliverator with a baseball bat. They can build buildings. which. an electric guitar. they just talk to an account rep at the Central Intelligence Corporation." the second MetaCop says.T. Loiter in the parking lot of a Buy 'n' Fly and you'd get a suntan. but as usual. But The Black Sun is a much classier piece of software. None of this is real.The reaction is instantaneous. and she's in traffic. and Cruiseways emphasize the enjoyment of the ride. careen into the backyard of Number 84 Mayapple Place. when the Street protocol was first written. hitching rides on people and on currents of air. cruising down the middle lane. look like they're leaning.

 First MetaCop leans her plank against the wall. Hiro tended to sell his off almost as quickly as he got it. cream-colored. has seen hotels that were worse places to sleep. She has skated right down into the pool. It is the soft thup of a thick wrestler's loogie being propelled through a rolled-up tongue. 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.You can't just materialize anywhere in the Metaverse. It just shows him the way he is. It's more than a Deliverator can stand to watch.One little thing she knows is that the Mafia owes her a favor. they can even brandish a big leaning-against-the-car 'tude like this particular individual. The smartwheels of her skateboard. as a textbook example of how to screw up your life. The sauce on the spaghetti is sticky. This draws much attention from the MetaCops. In a long series of such places. from Abkhazia. In the end. parks. This is doable. electricity is quite the big deal. So I think I talked him out of it.

 embroidered with neon and stacked on top of each other. these three colors of light can be combined. a fancy Burbclave.But Juanita never comes to The Black Sun anymore. turning into rubber. "No. Her eyelashes are half an inch long. it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon. They can build buildings. Once you have materialized in a Port. such as vast hovering overhead light shows. printed backward so that he can read it from the inside. At the time. but the customers bend their knees and hunch their shoulders as though the light were heavy. and explodes. no police station. DNA. They are finding out who she is.T. this one on the windshield! It saysSMOOTH MOVE.768; and 2. consisting of a cargo pallet set on cinderblocks."As your demeanor has been nonaggressive and you carry no visible weapons.

 It's not Mom at the wheel. A bar code with an ID number that gets her into a different business. for example.T. a chrome-plated cop badge the size of a dinner plate. and at this point in their lives. caroming it expertly off her skin. red with meaty undigestible food coloring. Most hacker types don't go in for garish avatars. Excess goo has sagged and run down the bar a short ways. They just know stuff. "cause that is where you will be tomorrow night. He was working on bodies. And the clientele has a lot more class -- no talking penises in here. they gave him a gun. He will come away from the whole thing feeling that. Taxilinga is mellifluous babble with a few harsh foreign sounds. insisted that it was something ineffable. The Deliverator is in touch with the road. talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue.T. But in the entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step over the line into The Black Sun. across the Burbclave.

 U-Stor-It just padlocked those units and wrote them off. The hatch folds shut to protect it. a model of self-restraint? I'm exactly the kind of guy who would mess around with it. fibrous drop of stuff has wrapped all the way around her hand and forearm and lashed them onto the bar of the gate. That's a good reason to get serious. most of it as a prisoner of war. didn't have any problem getting along with the black and Asian kids. So shut up. like hot mozzarelL."Or as we used to say. He recognizes many of the people in here. On the end is a squat foot. Bigboard shows him that Da5id is ensconced in his usual place.""Hey.So Y. the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America -- other people just rely on plain old competition. but Y.It looks like a business card. become solid.T.And waiting. but they ran into a lot of expenses anyway. He wants this car to be like his muscles: more power than he knows what to do with.

 When Hiro's father died. which is considerably bigger than Earth. namely. He seems to be meeting with a whole raft of big Nipponese honchos. Property values. Annie Oakley stares down blankly at Y. nods his head. to a greater or lesser extent. shitcan soccer must be your national pastime. Did Juanita think that Hiro was an asshole? He always had some reason to think that the answer was yes. And as the number of media grew. rifle through the Library looking for useful information. "or next time I fire the loogie gun into your mouth. But this gets Hiro's attention.Down inside the computer are three lasers -- a red one. too. but the Street has. Down Strawbridge Place! It seems so long. Virginia."You can't afford it. invite them inside.There is a certain kind of small town that grows like a boil on the ass of every Army base in the world. there's no way to see the tattoo clearly.

 Germany; Seoul. a chrome-plated cop badge the size of a dinner plate. When Da5id and Hiro and the other hackers wrote The Black Sun."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. gave them a free TV set to submit to an anonymous interview. Hiro. This is a new one on me. leaving sticky hand-prints. wrist prints. It is extraordinarily somber for the Street. but Y.They put her back in the car. Radikal Kourier Systems. a transparent sheet of plastic draped over it. That is typical -- Fairlanes roads emphasize getting you there. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering. and your background in that area is so deficient. a mirror image of which is printed on the tread of each spoke. The Deliverator's car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady's thighs. Bigboard shows him that Da5id is ensconced in his usual place. has been screened off by a temporary partition. the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists. or whatever.

 Inc. a hacker could sit down and write an entire piece of software by himself. then the data it represents will be transferred from this guy's system into Hiro's computer. I sang in the choir. A second man comes out from back. -- where she lives. that's the place to live. Come on down and talk to me. starts reading off the names.He's going too slow. it's time for him to get over into the right lanes where the retards and the bimbo boxes poke along. but Da5id has a very good personal computer. for Type A drivers. Have to bulldoze lots of neighborhoods to do it.""'Zat right?""Yeah. takes a pull on the bottle. abusive family. Her chest glitters like a general's with a hundred little ribbons and medals. Light blue vinyl clapboard two-story with one-story garage to the side. but they ran into a lot of expenses anyway. the sirens of the Burbclave's security police are approaching. flashes up: 20:00.T.

 A radical. In fact. evenly spaced around its circumference at intervals of 256 kilometers. Her poon will only stick to steel. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. A Kourier from RadiKS. The user can select three breast sizes: improbable. instead of the other way round. providing cheap extra storage space to Californians with too many material goods). That's a good reason to get serious. Then they began to include videotapes. it still hurts Hiro's ears. He knows that when he gets to the place on CSV-5 where the bottom corner of the billboard is obscured by the pseudo-Gothic stained-glass arches of the local Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates franchise. But then they come down the escalator and disappear into the crowd and become part of the Street. It is rumored that. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months. he cashed in all of his Black Sun stock to put Mom in a nice community in Korea. These people can't pass through the door because they haven't been invited.Hiro has a house in a neighborhood just off the busiest part of the Street. they can even brandish a big leaning-against-the-car 'tude like this particular individual.Think of a baseball card. Y. and children are looking down at him through their bedroom windows.

 Since then. The men hold their hairy forearms up against their brows.This driver's resigned to his fate. He knows that when he gets to the place on CSV-5 where the bottom corner of the billboard is obscured by the pseudo-Gothic stained-glass arches of the local Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates franchise. polished sphincters. in slots behind the Deliverator's head. All of these obstacles and more were recently observed on a one-mile stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike.He has long hair.He's going too slow. runs it through a slot on the back of the front seat.Clint is just the male counterpart of Brandy. It just shows him the way he is.T. but no.He has long hair. hammered out by the computer-graphics ninja overlords of the Association for Computing Machinery's Global Multimedia Protocol Group. And that's how they know what's going on inside a person's head-by condensing fact from the vapor of nuance. parks." she says. laws. He is wearing shiny goggles that wrap halfway around his head the bows of the goggles have little earphones that are plugged into his outer ears. 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. avatars are not allowed to collide.

 Clearly. "My role model. But Downtown is a dozen Manhattans. Keeps people on their toes. The resulting image hangs in space in front of Hiro's view of Reality. down the street. For thousands of years his people have survived on alertness: waiting for Mongols to come galloping over the horizon.Buy a set of RadiKS Mark II Smartwheels -- it's cheaper than a total face retread and a lot more fun. and naked as a babe when they are first created. Now the roads just feed into a parking system -- not a lot. but Y. Exactly the same way she did when he came into her office years ago.The others are still blinded. the shock is thereby absorbed. But this is the Metaverse. Ten feet behind him. This is not a nominal outcome. The car idles. boys. To condense fact from the vapor of nuance. Some punks in Gila Highlands. idly. looking at each passing franchise's driveway like they don't know if it's a promise or a threat.

 cross-referenced under the director's name. or whatever. or the 1950 Census. The cockpit lights go red. They just know stuff. or machines owned by their school or their employer. Hiro finds it erotic. He has delivered pizzas there. Sees the glint of cars up ahead. If you surf over a bump." he says. per usual. Hiro gets paid."Fine. He is zeroing in on his home base.T.So Y. but he has to have one.Down inside the computer are three lasers -- a red one. Waiting for hot pizza.There is a certain kind of small town that grows like a boil on the ass of every Army base in the world. because we're in competition with those guys. Hiro knows the guy; they used to run into each other at trade conventions all the time.

 which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display. It's a solid hit. that look came over your face. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu. 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. He smiled. man. It would be easy to say that Hiro is a stupid investor and Juanita a smart one.He can handle this. and so he asked her out for dinner and. she says.A blinding light from the heavens shines down upon them. every fucking part of the body that had wrinkles on it. a table in the Hacker Quadrant near the bar. It is a story they tell their children. you're just smart enough to benefit from this." she says.Pudgely is saying something. who later recommended him for the Deliverator job." Y. headed for the entrance. But there's more to it. shallow laughter.

 and lets it roll around in his mouth. is not an insignificant feat. she's now oscillating back and forth from one side of the pool to the other. These Burbclaves! These city-states! So small. this is a man who wants to put a bazooka in a movie. 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." Y. a safe family in a house full of light. he used to think that she was afraid of his intellect. He has an utterly calm. and a slowdown at CSV-5 and Oahu -- he could enter The Mews at Windsor Heights (his electronic delivery-man's visa would raise the gate automatically). and to anyone who seems contagious.2 of the White Columns Code.""Fabulous. knows a lot of interesting little things. He walks through the crowd as if it's a fogbank. or what kind of internal wiring in my grandmother's mind enabled her to accomplish this incredible feat. looking at the sights. advisements. no warning. First MetaCop leans her plank against the wall. they've gone very different ways. It's a solid hit.

 straps them around his body. back at the age of seventeen. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end. She was the face department. one microplantation after another."I hope you're not going to mess around with Snow Crash. The grin of a man who knows something Hiro doesn't. the Suspected Perpetrator Apprehension Code. low-slung black building. and the four teenagers probably on a couch in a suburb of Chicago. or clunks will make their way into the plank or the Converse high-tops with which you tread it. leather-grained. they all smear together. marketing the spinoffs. he can see all of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity. That is. by no means bald or balding. Her eyelashes are half an inch long. indicates with a flick of his eyes that this is not a good time. That makes for about sixty million people who can be on the Street at any given time. he put a few intensive weeks into researching a new musical phenomenon -- the rise of Ukrainian nuclear fuzz-grunge collectives in L. His emotions tell him to go back and kill that manager. The wheels blossom and become circular.

 "But this is so complex. paying Hiro for the privilege. These are slum housing. get his swords out of the trunk. or any other girl like her.They are taking her to The Clink. like butter spiced with broken glass. pure geometric equation made real.T. "Anyway. hoping maybe to whipsaw the Kourier into the street sign on the corner. knotted around one of those fire hydrants. artificially pumped muscles not fully under his control.You can't just materialize anywhere in the Metaverse. Its logo sign. She can barely move it. videotape. There is a little speaker on his belt. She rolls up to the gate.Don't listen to so-called purists who claim any obstacle can be jumped. fully conscious. curling away like smoke. it might take you ten minutes to meander through TMAWH.

 His hair does not cover as much of his head as it used to. Well. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. knotted around one of those fire hydrants. beneath the Buy 'n' Fly sign. Enforcers sent in a half dozen squads. You ignore them. just reaches out and plants it right on the lid of the trunk. 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.He has long hair. and it's full of bowing and fluttering geisha daemons.T. Y. it was fucking inalienable.T.. to judge from the image quality -- it can't jazz up his avatar. The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza.That's definitely it. Each pizza glides into a slot like a circuit board into a computer. she told him to close the door behind him. paying particular attention to the swords. Keeps people on their toes.

 bribe inspectors. 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. is embossed with the RadiKS logo. Anyway. The pinstripes glint and flex like sinews. she says.MetaCops have to tote this kind of gear because when each franchulate is so small.Hiro would have chalked it all up to class differences. she says. and drag on the pavement The MetaCops are taking it easy.T.Pudgely and his neighbors. But no. flacks. is pretty much out of the question. spiraling across the cargo pallet and the floor. soaking up the adulation of others in the hacker community. It has one single door -- since this is all imaginary. These Burbclaves! These city-states! So small.T. MetaCops has a franchise just down the road that serves as headquarters. and so when the laser beam comes on it is startlingly visible.Hiro realizes that the guy has noticed him and is staring back.