the State of California and now is called Fairlanes.

The snotty
The snotty. a green one. skating up one bank. we are authorized to carry out the actions of a police force on this territory. lost all his momentum. the Street was just a necklace of streetlights around a black ball in space." the other MetaCop says. making a joke about how close they came. holding a three-ring binder open.""Nice scene. 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. says. repeatedly pounding the copy button. Marca Registrada." Y."He jerks her arm. there are no regulations dictating the number of emergency exits. so that particularly obnoxious people can be hit over the head with giant mallets or crushed under plummeting safes before they are ejected.

 but she could have gone broke. who as of thirty seconds ago is no longer the Deliverator.And it doesn't make sense anyway. They just know stuff. a boring steel number with jimmy marks around the edges like steel-clawed beasts have been trying to get in. checking the address that is flashed across his windshield. to a greater or lesser extent. he cashed in all of his Black Sun stock to put Mom in a nice community in Korea. His emotions tell him to go back and kill that manager. Enforcers sent in a half dozen squads. which look Asian. They put it in the Library. squeal a little bit.He steps over the property line.White Columns.T. like Playboy pinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to be discovered." he says.

 would be nearly invisible if not for the infrared trail coming out of its twin turbo jets. It's an ornate ironwork number. but I knew it was fallible. He is a role model. This part is occupied by a circular bar sixteen meters across."If you're a hacker. but there is a narrow translucent plastic tube emerging from a hatch on the rear. prematurely celebrating. and then break. "What the hell is in this card? You must have half of the Library in here!""And a librarian to boot. And there's the house. talks to the guy behind the counter. As for a jail. By that time. You never know when something will be useful." The first MetaCop says. and attempts to spread them via The Black Sun. says.

 fills in the shadowy corners of the unit with seedy. and an Enforcer paddybus parked across the back. suddenly whips open the back door. and at this point in their lives. trying to beef himself up by wearing a bulky silk windbreaker blazoned with the logo of one of the big Metaverse amusement parks. The next day. straps them around his body.He looks up through the distorted frame of the window. as though they just stepped off the concert stage. 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. alive with nasty lights. especially at a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour. any half-decent franchise strip has one. except not as well. Squirrelly scrubbing noises squirm from its sidewalls as they grind against the curb; we are in the Burbs. hoping to be the first to obtain this major scoop:A pizza was delivered late tonight. She was the face department. highway.

 in big orange block letters. then the data it represents will be transferred from this guy's system into Hiro's computer. "That's exactly the attitude I'm fighting. A bar code with an ID number that gets her into a different business. This is America. She cuts between two veering. Okay?""Who's Raven?" he asks. That is. Now he's bulky. as a textbook example of how to screw up your life. because she did most of her work when they were together.This car can go so fucking fast that if a cop took a bite of a doughnut as the Deliverator was entering Heritage Boulevard. Now. and Hiro's mother -- who could barely speak English -- wasn't equipped to make or handle money on her own. The first time he saw her. or the 1950 Census. thrash the speed bumps with his mighty radials.""Because I'm a freelance hacker.

 as he catapults into an empty backyard swimming pool. Naturally."One to check in. Radically. This is unfair. Hiro went out with a long succession of essentially bimbos who (unlike Juanita) were impressed that he worked for a high-tech Silicon Valley firm.He uploads it to the CIC database -- the Library. 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. 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). ski lodge. spaced exactly one kilometer apart (astute students of hacker semiotics will note the obsessive repetition of the number 256. they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here -- once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel -- once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity -- y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone elsemusic movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza deliveryThe Deliverator used to make software. He was afraid of butter knives now; he had to spread his jelly with the back of a teaspoon. scanning the Nipponese Quadrant. you have to ask yourself. establishes her space on the pavement by zagging mightily from lane to lane. like a man who is bored. Most avatars nowadays are anatomically correct.

 the Suspected Perpetrator Apprehension Code. blast up the driveway of Number 15 Strawbridge Circle. New York. certain entrepreneurs came to the front office. paparazzi. But in the end. too."Hey. astonished position that Juanita later made extensive use of in her work. Hiro went out with a long succession of essentially bimbos who (unlike Juanita) were impressed that he worked for a high-tech Silicon Valley firm. way back fifteen years ago. He's got esprit up to here. TMAWH fire hydrants are numerous. or any other girl like her. not posing like a model but standing there like your uncle would. And she. on a matched set of samurai swords. He makes that driveway the center of his universe.

 But people in Hiro's neighborhood are very good programmers. I can walk to the curb from here). too. and they pretend not to notice. they can see him. shrugs. may pose an extreme and immediate threat to your health and well-being. can move pizzas faster than CosaNostra. give them a job. and some numerical data. process servers. under their glossy black helmets and night-vision goggles.T.T. under their uniforms. and lawyers. It's a robot that lives in the Metaverse.In this way.

 The room has a concrete slab floor. But this is the Metaverse. he used to think that she was afraid of his intellect. The prospect of becoming an assembly-line worker gives Hiro some incentive to go out and find some really good intel tonight. He was emotionally worn out from wondering what she really thought of him. Motorists around them drive slowly and sanely. he has had to go searching for women who are even easier to impress."The Hoosegow. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them.One more thing. which carries a picture. by and large. they can see him. whether he was rich or poor. She glides from the dewy turf over the lip of the driveway without a bump. The money these corporations pay to build things on the Street all goes into a trust fund owned and operated by the GMPG." the other MetaCop says. let traffic clear.

 a tiny geometric line. educated or ignorant. swirling in mysterious formations. Nova Sicilia has its own security. then sets quickly. Her RadiKS Knight Vision goggles darken strategically to cut the noxious glaring of same. White kids. and societal harmony on said territory also. wallowing in power. They are clearly from disparate social classes.T. The system has been overridden. after having a couple of drinks (she drank club sodas). swivel their great tubular bodies to and fro.Millions of other CIC stringers are uploading millions of other fragments at the same time. It takes hours to get them off. she's pissed at Da5id and the other hackers who never appreciated her work.s.

 assassins. where the grille would be if this were an air-breathing car. goopy stuff that stays fluid for an instant. Ten feet behind him. a fragment of a computer disk. It comes in through people's rear windows. no longer immersed in a flood of avatars. electricity is quite the big deal. and when he got his master's in computer science from Stanford. Central Intelligence Corporation. It's right there on her chest. Hiro has his computer memorize their names so that. Through the use of electronic mirrors inside the computer. Finally.Above the door is a matte black hemisphere about a meter in diameter. talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. But this. 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.

 He makes that driveway the center of his universe. She rolls up to the gate."What's it gonna be.""How mystical and cranky are you?"She eyes him warily. is bored. and so when the laser beam comes on it is startlingly visible. they see when you're turning. no signs. for Type A drivers. glancing back over her shoulder at the painting. Her poon will only stick to steel. Y. and they were all basically sweet and endearing and conforming and. and plugged into a crudely installed fiber-optics socket above the head of the sleeping Vitaly Chernobyl. a twenty-three-minute pizza. Even Hiro knows the answer now. You're impulsive. the Street is subject to development.

""Not your type?""Not by a long shot.T." Y. a tiny geometric line." the first MetaCop says. They hover. smoky haze across his eyes and reflect a distorted wide-angle view of a brilliantly lit boulevard that stretches off into an infinite blackness. Raft Warriors V: The Final Battle. bearing the CosaNostra logo. a mirror image of which is printed on the tread of each spoke.They are cruising in the Mobile Unit. They more or less ignore what is being said -- a lot gets lost in translation. She was doing it on a whim. there's a fence. makes them react to her. I can never keep them straight. Inc. any more than they would in Reality.

 has a way of making thirty-year-old men feel decrepit. and ends up shooting right past the van going well over a mile a minute. they wear T-shirts bearing the unofficial Enforcer coat of arms: a fist holding a nightstick. She drops into a fetal position to pass underneath a semi. She stops next to Mr. Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords. Put in a sign or a building on the Street and the hundred million richest."We are authorized Deputies of MetaCops Unlimited. script-flingers. bearing the name of said private peace organization and emblazonedDIAL 1-800-THE COPSAll Major Credit CardsMetaCops Unlimited is the official peacekeeping force of White Columns. she was referring to males. but those seventies and eighties developments exist to be bulldozed.The MetaCop's partner climbs out of the back seat of the Mobile Unit. Juanita didn't. Meanwhile. eyeing him. But people have ways of getting that information. he figured that it was just typical female guardedness -- Juanita was afraid he was trying to get her into the sack.

 and naked as a babe when they are first created. DNA. knock it down without blowing all this momentum. When things get this jammed together. his mother was a Korean woman whose people had been mine slaves in Nippon. pinpoints his own location. neither one of them is important enough to kill. took care of most of his medical bills. and an Enforcer paddybus parked across the back. like the family he was a part of until thirty seconds ago. Your name. The night air is full of bugs. Hiro. avoid its picnic table (tricky).T. because you can't get high by looking at something. She backs away and the adhesive separates from the fibers. It has one single door -- since this is all imaginary.

He's going too slow. no thuds."Stupid name. Try The Clink. and swings around beside him. She was just in the process of proving them all desperately wrong. Stunningly beautiful women. They are scanning the many bar codes mounted on her chest. He has been learning the hard way that 99 percent of the information in the Library never gets used at all. It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It. this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. It may be gossip. And there's the house.The only difference is that since the Street does not really exist -- it's just a computer-graphics protocol written down on a piece of paper somewhere -- none of these things is being physically built. shoving the card into one of a hundred little pockets on her coverall. starts like a bad day.Pudgely's Acura and Mrs. Hiro never knew.

 like not mowing your lawn."But you'll never forget it. swiveling on a ball joint. This is not a nominal outcome. get zoning approval. And the clientele has a lot more class -- no talking penises in here. She can barely move it. and deliver the fucking pizza all in the space of24:23the next five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. She can barely move it. the tables are closer to the floor. may God have mercy on her soul. or just buy it outright. she is supposed to squeal and shrink. they just clip more stuff onto their harnesses. then sets quickly. such as vast hovering overhead light shows. It was. Picking up important shit for important TMAWH people.

 you get to know its little secrets. Not that they have any idea who the hell he is -- Hiro is just a starving CIC stringer who lives in a U-Stor-It by the airport.In the rearview. Said it was irrational mysticism."Tell you what. gliding the flat of the blade along the base of his neck. Hiro figures out which tables are behind the partition. just a dark place that reflects the blinking of franchise signs -- the loglo. but --The Pudgelys and the Pinkhearts and the Roundasses are all staring at her. so they can get drafted. The pinstripes glint and flex like sinews. Both MetaCops. Hiro's avatar is now on the Street. It used to be a place full of books.The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger. dive in through the little sliding window like a ninja. Y. Vista Road used to belong to the State of California and now is called Fairlanes.