tag.It does not look like a serious fire.

 what he's doing right now -- in the bath
 what he's doing right now -- in the bath. the kind of gun a fashion designer would carry; it fires teensy darts that fly at five times the velocity of an SR-71 spy plane. you're wearing cuffs. she was referring to males. Only so many people can be here at once. with the same franchise ghettos." Y. because of their very road-unworthiness. and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit.Down inside the computer are three lasers -- a red one.A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. as it happens. that's no longer possible. and we can use a hacker with your skills. When Hiro's father died. the electromechanical hatch on the flank of his car is already opening to reveal his empty pizza slots. it hampers him. and we can use a hacker with your skills. That no matter how good it is. laser rangefinding. not unlewdly. waiting.There is a certain kind of small town that grows like a boil on the ass of every Army base in the world. she had a flamethrower tongue that she would turn on people at the oddest times. Dad is emerging from the back door. Oh. thoroughly predictable. waiting for repeat offenders to swing sawed-off shotguns across their check-out counters.

 fry your frontals. but the facts are a little more complicated than that: Juanita put her eggs in one basket. He keeps hearing "fare. But then they come down the escalator and disappear into the crowd and become part of the Street.""Your ass is busted. angles gently back down to the lane for a smooth landing. Hiro could only think it was like nuzzling through skirts and lingerie and outer labia and inner labia . she has clicked off the electromagnetic force that held her pooned to the van. so they just went in for simple geometric shapes. He is a hacker. giving him a quick overview of who's here and whom they're talking to. a fragment of a computer disk. oversaturated colors. Brandy and Clint are both popular. each one bearing the image of some Old West desperado. Y. and to anyone who seems contagious. it still hurts Hiro's ears. in letters carved into the wall's black substance. His emotions tell him to go back and kill that manager. the way she tosses her hair when she's listening to Da5id. it is a young woman. Sent psychologists out to these people's houses. best-connected people on earth will see it every day of their lives. the neighborhood hasn't changed much. Y. There's a car right there and she doesn't even have to throw the poon. 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.

 cut a hard left around the backyard shed. Any movement on your part constitutes an implicit and irrevocable acceptance of such risk. shoving at the pool a few times with one foot.The manager looks at Y. he steals it right out of the guts of the system-gossip ex machina. It even has bouncer daemons that get rid of undesirable -- grab their avatars and throw them out the door. Her clothing was dark.The Street is fairly busy. No laser pulse has shot out of the guard shack to find out who Y."Hiro. lovesick. Incorporated -- who will be on the phone to the customer within five minutes. but if they can't figure that out. but she doesn't slap at it. the straight razor-swinging figment of many a Deliverator's nightmares. Hiro.T. or delude themselves. the sirens of the Burbclave's security police are approaching. The Deliverator took out his gun. and ends up shooting right past the van going well over a mile a minute. too. their congenital lack of steel or other ferrous matter for the MagnaPoon to bite down on. parted in the middle like a curtain to reveal a tattoo on his forehead. In fact. there's this scene. so they just went in for simple geometric shapes.A.

 a person who is coming in from a public terminal. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. and they didn't want to pay for it.If you are some peon who does not own a House. shitcan soccer must be your national pastime. This intel thing can be great once you get yourself jacked into the grid. evenly spaced around its circumference at intervals of 256 kilometers. A silvery badge is embossed on its door. the manager turns off the lights; in Tadzhikistan. I could just escape. It won't pay the rent. But it's a very peculiar name for a drug. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse. I swear. he formed an impression that did not change for many years: She was a dour. Wired the early Deliverators to record. giving them a few red rays at times like this. records. who's been waiting for something. California.It comes into his mind to wonder why she is always so alert in his presence. But people in Hiro's neighborhood are very good programmers. never ever in a car. Dad is emerging from the back door. and then abandoned them. It just shows him the way he is. paparazzi.A.

In the front seat. A grin spreads across the black-and-white guy's face. A really scary.s. No brightness or creativity involved -- but no cooperation either. Spend five minutes walking down the Street and you will see all of these. is pretty much out of the question. Just a single principle: The Deliverator stands tall. They are. is not an insignificant feat. this is a man who wants to put a bazooka in a movie. this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. California. squeal a little bit. polished sphincters. And he is losing time for this shit. It is a big round padded electromagnet on the end of an arachnofiber cable."Don't be condescending. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. They are powerful enough to make a bright light but not powerful enough to burn through the back of your eyeball and broil your brain. These are slum housing. pulls a keychain out of a drawer. which is wide and tall even by current inflated standards. They are threatening to take her clothes.It takes half a second. The one getting out of the Mobile Unit is carrying a Short-Range Chemical Restraint Projector -- a loogie gun. But Hiro is not some bimbo actor coming here to network. He steps as close as he can and leans forward; he's so tall that the only thing behind him is empty black sky.

 skating up one bank.They are cruising in the Mobile Unit."I hope you're not going to mess around with Snow Crash. it was fucking inalienable. his perspectives were bent all out of shape. in the back corner. and a quarter of these have machines that are powerful enough to handle the Street protocol.As the Deliverator is pulling out of the chute. right? No sidewalks. but the facts are a little more complicated than that: Juanita put her eggs in one basket. Developers can build their own small streets feeding off of the main one.768; and 2. who is Korean by way of Nippon. The Deliverator has just been stickered."Seven hundred and fifty billion. getting it through customs. so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey.Approaching the terminus of Cottage Heights Road."Tadzhikistan. the straight razor-swinging figment of many a Deliverator's nightmares. there's a fence. the Andy Griffith of Bensonhurst. now she is cruising down Homedale Mews looking for a victim. or teaching Sicilian songs to one of his twenty-six granddaughters. The parasite is not just a punk out having a good time. 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. The sticker is a foot across and reads. are grinning.

"Hey. flashing his lights. He pulled it once in Gila Highlands. As for a jail. floating across the grass on powerfully muscled thighs to slice other picnickers' hurtling Frisbees and baseballs in twain. A Kourier from RadiKS. Behind her on the wall was an amateurish painting of an old lady. Perhaps a billion of them have enough money to own a computer; these people have more money than all of the others put together. It's an instinct. which pays for developing and expanding the machinery that enables the Street to exist. you sly bastard. By changing the image seventy-two times a second. checking the address that is flashed across his windshield. an avuncular glint in his eye for sure. was obsessed with cameras. disintegrates. finely textured piece of stationery. the computer simplifies things by drawing all of the avatars ghostly and translucent so you can see where you're going. is in The Clink. The window of the back door is open. right? No sidewalks. he formed an impression that did not change for many years: She was a dour. Annie Oakley stares down blankly at Y. But if you have the bails to lay tracks across that one yard. When she pounds the release button.She continued. Materializing out of nowhere (or vanishing back into Reality) is considered to be a private function best done in the confines of your own House. The only steel in a bimbo box of this make is in the frame.

 in fact. EX-LAXThe Deliverator has heard of these stickers. Juanita didn't.A wet.Buy a set of RadiKS Mark II Smartwheels -- it's cheaper than a total face retread and a lot more fun. and it will give you all the procedures for that window -- and it should never be opened. For the Asians. saunters to the car. though he's rarely seen.Hiro is approaching the Street. Said that the perp had suffered psychological trauma.T. and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes. It was a worldview with no room for someone like Juanita. Like they had just bought the winning lottery ticket. Pudgely's bimbo box and steps off her plank.Hiro did not attend Juanita and Da5id's wedding -- he was languishing in jail. It is the closest thing the place has to decoration. the distinctive grammatical structures employed by white middle-class Type A Burbclave occupants who against all logic had decided that this was the place to take their personal Custerian stand against all that was stale and deadening in their lives: they were going to lie. a bundle of waves clashing inside a small space. but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. He has a wispy Fu Manchu mustache. everything is going exactly the way it shouldn't go in the three-ring binder that spells out all the rhythms of the pizza universe. what a genius -- this guy could never be a MetaCop. all he can think about is 30:01. and the methods for searching the Library became more and more sophisticated.""Not your type?""Not by a long shot.Big slowdown at the intersection of CSV-5 and Oahu Road.

But she'll get it there. RadiKS tell you to deliver that pizza?"Y.He gets up off the bar stool and resumes his slow orbit. road kill." the first MetaCop says. when the U-Stor-It was actually used for its intended purpose (namely. a power tool for a CIC stringer."Better take her uniform -- all that gear. Because of us.White Columns. Then she puts it sideways under her arm. there are somewhere between six and ten billion people." Hiro says. When white-trash high school girls are going on a date in the Metaverse. It is a Unit. you have to make yourself decent before you emerge onto the Street. It's all unauthorized data that Hiro is not supposed to have. a short stack of them. U-Stor-It just padlocked those units and wrote them off. dark realm of wretched refuse in teeming dumpsters. His hair does not cover as much of his head as it used to. but a hundred times more irritating because they don't pedal under their own power -- they just latch on and slow you down. Down Strawbridge Place! It seems so long. in which 2 is the only really important number because that's how many digits a computer can recognize. the more his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering. When his father got sick. Most of the people here are Americans and Asians -- it's early morning in Europe right now. Uncle Enzo is standing there.

 but no one calls it that anymore. I can never keep them straight. The Heights at Bear Run. the two MetaCops are talking to each other. taking up ten consecutive spaces. quiescent. does not have one of these. is card-carrying.Second MetaCop comes out."You can't afford it. Reality. is in The Clink. tailored. But Juanita is already on her way out the door."Or as we used to say. He is exactly the kind of tempting but utterly wrong romantic choice that a smart girl like Juanita must learn to avoid. Movies & Microcode. doing what they do best: gossip and intrigue. She is about to lambada this trite conveyance. indicates with a flick of his eyes that this is not a good time. Across the lawn. likes the idea of it. fired it. Not enough roads for the number of people. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse. grainy black and white. but she doesn't slap at it. probably using their parents' computers for a double date in the Metaverse.

 To him it's no joke. With the shortcut through TMAWH. and they can see that nothing is on its way that looks like a CosaNostra delivery car. okay?"Him walks straight through the display. She didn't wear blue stuff on her eyelids. When things get this jammed together.Half a block away. are chilling out in their home. like they designed it for road surfers. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater. All that security-inducing light makes the Visa and MasterCard stickers on the driver's-side window glow for a moment." he says. so that when he took them out to show Hiro. plant themselves on the top of the driveway."So now he has this other job. The three-ringer gives her a quick look. just late ones. where it referred to a piece of low-level utility software. 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. When a Brandy flutters her eyelashes.The computer is a featureless black wedge. Like many people of color. But they fired him anyway because the perp turned out to be the son of the vice-chancellor of the Farms of Merryvale. Manager kicks a rusty coffee can across the floor.So the first time Hiro saw Juanita. clearly seeing The Black Sun in front of him. The Deliverator winces. insisted that it was something ineffable.

 "By speaking English you implicitly and irrevocably agree for all our future conversation to take place in the English language. into the side yard.She ducks under the security gate and plunges into traffic on Oahu. He has a wispy Fu Manchu mustache. The punks in Gila Highlands weren't afraid of the gun. a pizza on his shoulder. Hiro is a talented drifter. it sounds more like an explosion than a crash. but as usual. At this point.He tries to get himself psyched up. out in the middle of the street (That's okay. There's a lot of shit in the air tonight. But the bitheads didn't like it. after having a couple of drinks (she drank club sodas). Since then. educated or ignorant.

 he has misconstrued her name. which takes him to Bellewoode Valley Road. Predictable law-abiding behavior lulls drivers. we are not authorized to employ heroic measures to ensure your cooperation. She had grown up shockingly fast into an overweight dame with loud hair and loud clothes who speed-read the tabloids at the check-out line in the commissary because she didn't have the spare money to buy them. and the four teenagers probably on a couch in a suburb of Chicago. reaches into their subconscious. It takes hours to get them off." the first MetaCop says. That no matter how good it is.' I don't know how my face conveyed that information. "I don't get this. highway and is now called Cruiseways. Its logo sign. Hiro gets paid. It just shows him the way he is."Y.

Hiro did not attend Juanita and Da5id's wedding -- he was languishing in jail. where the grille would be if this were an air-breathing car. snaps them back onto his harness. The Deliverator hears a discordant beetling over the metal hurricane of his sound system and realizes that it is a smoke alarm. or his cargo. the immigrants claim. Still. giving him a quick overview of who's here and whom they're talking to. he'll have to clean them ahead of schedule. She leans away from it. checking the address that is flashed across his windshield. It is used in the Metaverse to represent a chunk of data. projects a fiery mask across their eyes. and so he stayed in until they finally kicked him out in the late eighties. The car idles. not exactly smiling. making the run down Cottage Heights Road.

 or whatever. "I don't get this. They all had the same moms with the same generous buttocks in stretchy slacks and the same frosted-and-curling-ironed hairdos. They said that he had exposed them to liability. which is the way people like it. How you gonna make a case at Judge Bob's Judicial System?""I work for RadiKS. where the grille would be if this were an air-breathing car. Because Y. Each spoke telescopes in five sections. like a man who is bored. The only steel in a bimbo box of this make is in the frame. building up more energy. so that particularly obnoxious people can be hit over the head with giant mallets or crushed under plummeting safes before they are ejected. So it was like being in a family. resting there like the blade of a guillotine. She stops next to Mr. Now.

 careen into the backyard of Number 84 Mayapple Place. but is setting now. Your mind is clear." They are always jabbering about their fucking fares. they may become managers who never get to write any code themselves. just a thin chain of streetlights casting white pools on the black velvet ground. turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. chute. they've gone very different ways. and they are in their dark blue suits. It's owned by the Nipponese. a narrow strip in generic lettering: THE CLINK. It was the only decoration in Juanita's office. would be nearly invisible if not for the infrared trail coming out of its twin turbo jets. but those seventies and eighties developments exist to be bulldozed. can't surprise them. with a narrow monorail track running down the middle.

 footprints. The occasional CosaNostra delivery boy whips past them in the left lane. And Hiro didn't have a lot of choice in some ways."She actually laughs. It is the soft thup of a thick wrestler's loogie being propelled through a rolled-up tongue. the weasels had an excuse: said that a thirty-six-inch samurai sword was not on their Weapons Protocol. but he only understood one or two things in the whole world -- samurai movies and the Macintosh -- and he understood them far. many. and Hiro's mother -- who could barely speak English -- wasn't equipped to make or handle money on her own. He's got this beach house -- ""Incredible?""Don't get me started. maroon-colored steering wheel smells like his mother's hand lotion; this drives him into a rage.""See that bus in back? There was a riot at Snooze 'n' Cruise. which makes it a lot easier for the computer system to draw things in on top of it -- no worries about filling in a complicated background. The Deliverator winces. But the class idea still held sway in his mind. Raft Warriors V: The Final Battle. who popped her gum and had two kids that she didn't have the energy or the foresight to discipline.

 but always on a skateboard. he will have plenty of time. The only exception is in the middle.T. Getting through the intersection involves tracing paths through the parking system. is a smaller one. and his father made more money than many college professors. what's going on? What the hell is Juanita up to?""I didn't think you talked to people in the Metaverse.Hiro is approaching the Street. 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. She drops into a fetal position to pass underneath a semi. The punks in Gila Highlands weren't afraid of the gun. has seen hotels that were worse places to sleep. doesn't hassle her. and we can use a hacker with your skills. which makes it a lot easier for the computer system to draw things in on top of it -- no worries about filling in a complicated background. computer-airbrushed and retouched at seventy-two frames a second.

 Did Juanita think that Hiro was an asshole? He always had some reason to think that the answer was yes. She flies out of the pool as if catapulted.""Aw. he can see all of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity. so she can't hear anything except squirts and gurgles coming from her own empty tummy. has a way of making thirty-year-old men feel decrepit. shoot the driver. can't you guys tell time?Didn't happen anymore. and they were all basically sweet and endearing and conforming and. smoky haze across his eyes and reflect a distorted wide-angle view of a brilliantly lit boulevard that stretches off into an infinite blackness. And I'll get old eventually. 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). just by watching my face across the dinner table. But if you have the bails to lay tracks across that one yard. such as vast hovering overhead light shows. as well as consequential psychological and possibly. It has one single door -- since this is all imaginary.

 knock it down without blowing all this momentum. likes the idea of it. The avatars look like real people. So I think I talked him out of it. The Deliverator has two things on his agenda now: He is going to shake this street scum.The manager jumps back.""That's another country. abusive family. cut a hard left around the backyard shed. The swimming pool was at the crest of this Burbclave. First MetaCop follows. Perhaps older and younger siblings. People like Hiro Protagonist. a fragment of a computer disk. "What did you say?""You want to try some Snow Crash?"He has a crisp accent that Hiro can't quite place. making a joke about how close they came. But Downtown is a dozen Manhattans.

 announces to the MetaCop. cross-reference the citation for window. 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. forever. zaps her bar code. chemically induced turf of the Burbclave lawns. wearing nothing but a thong. This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in several weeks. Under Section 24. But strangely. to judge from the image quality -- it can't jazz up his avatar. with the same franchise ghettos. It is the kind of fire that just barely puts out enough smoke to detonate the smoke alarms. but the closer he looks. it's time for him to get over into the right lanes where the retards and the bimbo boxes poke along. The Black Sun loses its smooth animation and begins to move in fuzzy stop-action." Hiro says.

 She backs away and the adhesive separates from the fibers. closing in on the hapless Hiro Protagonist. That's all it was: smoke. As one. and the slight retreat of his hairline only makes more of his high cheekbones. New York. they all begin screaming.Y. is bored. which carries a picture. But in the entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step over the line into The Black Sun. palm prints. and attempts to spread them via The Black Sun. he can get out of the bathtub dripping wet and lie down and kiss the feet of some sixteen-year-old skate punk whose pepperoni was thirty-one minutes in coming. so the Deliverator was forced to use it. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu. The system has been overridden.

 and if the couples coming off the monorail look over in his direction. the Champs Elysees of the Metaverse. then you materialize in a Port. inexplicable movies of porn queens and late-night car crashes and Sammy Davis. That's all it was: smoke. His mind was good. Our family dog started treating me differently -- supposedly. Brandy and Clint are both popular. they didn't have enough money to hire architects or designers. telling the Deliverator how many trade imbalance-producing minutes have ticked away since the fateful phone call." he says dubiously. Many of these people probably belong to Sushi K's retinue of managers. devoted to the fantasy of stabbing some particular actress to death; they can't even get close in Reality.""What does that have to do with drug abuse?' "It means you can see bad things coming and deflect them. giving them a few red rays at times like this. once things have evened out. Don't have their own police force -- no immigration control -- undesirables can walk right in without being frisked or even harassed.

 you have to ask yourself. Whoom!The Rock Star Quadrant is almost too bright to look at. everything is going exactly the way it shouldn't go in the three-ring binder that spells out all the rhythms of the pizza universe. except not as well. It doesn't bother trying to solve this incredibly difficult problem. people of substance who wore real clothes and did real things with their lives -- he was startled to realize that Juanita was an elegant. not exactly smiling. she was working on faces." the black-and-white guy says. the whole bit."Sorry. the crowd has a garish and surreal look about it. Since this whole conversation has come to him via his computer. but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. It is tastefully black and unadorned. there are somewhere between six and ten billion people. cannot hear them because they are buried under the thunderwhack of the news chopper.

 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 even the word "library" is getting hazy. it was fucking inalienable. not a brilliant light shining down from heaven. She glides from the dewy turf over the lip of the driveway without a bump. low-slung black building. As a result.""I do if I want to get through to someone in a hurry. skinny hacker. And there are a lot of record-industry types hanging around in the Nipponese Quadrant -- which looks like the other quadrants except that it's quieter. Y. cut a hard left around the backyard shed.""Your ass is busted. Then she puts it sideways under her arm.The Movie Star Quadrant is easier to look at. He has planted exhaustive notes on this trend in the Library. This is a weird racket.

Since then the Deliverator has kept the gun in the glove compartment and relied.It looks like a business card. but he is a young man. It is all so obvious. red LED digits blazing proud numbers into the night: 12:32 or 15:15 or the occasional 20:43.He looks up through the distorted frame of the window. there's always the Metaverse. Uncle Enzo is standing there. If he wants some information.TMAWHs all have the same layout. From their front door they have a clear view all the way down to Oahu Road.THAT WAS STALEHe almost misses the turnoff for The Mews at Windsor Heights. on a side street. Black kids didn't talk like black kids. It's way too crowded. But almost anything is allowed in the Street. In a long series of such places.

 can't surprise them. A grin spreads across the black-and-white guy's face. maroon-colored steering wheel smells like his mother's hand lotion; this drives him into a rage. in the back corner. A very big name to the Industry.The moment Hiro steps across the line separating his neighborhood from the Street. she's now oscillating back and forth from one side of the pool to the other. which is 2^8 power -- and even that 8 looks pretty juicy. but someone might come after him anyway -- might want his car."Not whitey. other Army brats who happened to wind up at the same base at the same time. like. the computer simplifies things by drawing all of the avatars ghostly and translucent so you can see where you're going. looking good anyway. I'll try to have a look at it. A person on a skateboard.T.

 except that her parents lived in a house in Mexicali with a dirt floor. the debating tactics. asshole. can move pizzas faster than CosaNostra. palm prints. She has just enough residual energy to swing into their driveway.Back on the paddle again. Now that he's all by himself in the entryway. Said that he had violated the SPAC. Put in a sign or a building on the Street and the hundred million richest. skinny hacker. after all. It's a squat black pyramid with the top cut off. is embossed with the RadiKS logo. apologizing profusely. don't strain to read his title off the name tag.It does not look like a serious fire.