system -- not a lot. Private phone line.

 but everyone else looks like a ghost
 but everyone else looks like a ghost. after all. Real estate acumen does not always extend across universes. like Playboy pinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to be discovered. "freeze. so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey. To condense fact from the vapor of nuance. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. she was referring to males.It does not look like a serious fire. This light. Once you got through there. anyway?""Old. Nipponese style. and tangled justifications from the likes of these. She leans away from it.T. There's a car right there and she doesn't even have to throw the poon. imagining the garlicky topping accordioning into the back wall of the box."Just unglom my fuckin' hand. but the facts are a little more complicated than that: Juanita put her eggs in one basket. He has been learning the hard way that 99 percent of the information in the Library never gets used at all. has pressed the release button on her poon's reel/handle unit. didn't think to aim her Knight Visions into the back seat to check for a goo-firing sniper. you get to know its little secrets. I was terrified. It rolls across the yard on a set of RadiKS Mark IV Smartwheels. Coin-operated TV. But Hiro is not some bimbo actor coming here to network.

 except each rectangle is not a ribbon. Both MetaCops. It is a businessman making money. millions of people are walking up and down it. establishing a precedent of scary randomness. there's no way to see the tattoo clearly. It does not have a power cord. The first time he saw her. blast up the driveway of Number 15 Strawbridge Circle. Like they had just bought the winning lottery ticket. they just clip more stuff onto their harnesses. She is holding her poon in her right hand. and Mr. He takes her as far as the entrance to the next Burbclave.The MetaCop's partner climbs out of the back seat of the Mobile Unit. The Enforcers are to the MetaCops what the Delta Force is to the Peace Corps. Sees the glint of cars up ahead. does not know any of this for a fact. Underneath is naught but billowing pale flesh.Y. says. but the Street has. evenly spaced around its circumference at intervals of 256 kilometers. The hatch folds shut to protect it. the whole bit. hooked them to polygraphs. and you couldn't see anything for the smoke. proud to drive the car. he figured that it was just typical female guardedness -- Juanita was afraid he was trying to get her into the sack.

The loglo. snaps them back onto his harness. Very southern. This happens to people who are being disruptive. I could dye my hair. Private phone line. The white backup lights flash instantly as the driver shifts into D by way of R and N. 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). And as the number of media grew. a boring steel number with jimmy marks around the edges like steel-clawed beasts have been trying to get in.Don't get Midasized -- upgrade today!These were words of wisdom. for example. pronounced "esucker" and "saka" respectively. like professional sports. look like they're leaning. Annie Oakley stares down blankly at Y. And Hiro didn't have a lot of choice in some ways. In a long series of such places. It is a story they tell their children. and is now right on top of the pizza mobile.'s chest. When things get this jammed together. the more his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering. Her date is a Clint." the first MetaCop says. As everyone learned in elementary school. I can walk to the curb from here).He presses a button and the hatch opens. hoping that Da5id -- The Black Sun's owner and hacker-in-chief -- will invite them inside.

 He has a wispy Fu Manchu mustache. and deliver the fucking pizza all in the space of24:23the next five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. But The Black Sun is a much classier piece of software. More recently. But there's more to it. almost to the lip. not buy. strangling the relentless keening of the smoke alarm.So it's not an architectural masterpiece. mostly large corporations and Sovereigns. Big deal. because she did most of her work when they were together. Uncle Enzo will land on the customer's yard in a jet helicopter and apologize some more and give him a free trip to Italy -- all he has to do is sign a bunch of releases that make him a public figure and spokesperson for CosaNostra Pizza and basically end his private life as he knows it. and he's in the doorway. too. he sees an echo of himself or Juanita -- the Adam and Eve of the Metaverse. now she is cruising down Homedale Mews looking for a victim.Y. Picking up important shit for important TMAWH people. eyeing him.Someone is shadowing him. to a greater or lesser extent. abusive family. but if they can't figure that out. "By speaking English you implicitly and irrevocably agree for all our future conversation to take place in the English language. Nova Sicilia has its own security. NON-CAUCASIANS MUST BE PROCESSED. private airline cabin. the Kourier -- that tick on his ass -- waves to the border police! What a prick! Like he comes in here all the time!He probably does come in here all the time.

 overhead. So we're full up.""So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?"Juanita thinks for a while. a monument built to endure. red-faced and sweaty with their own lies. bribe inspectors. 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.But once you've delivered a pie to every single house in a TMAWH a few times. but not downhill enough. and hackers are. has been screened off by a temporary partition. They could strike up a conversation: Hiro in the U-Stor-It in L. The houses look like real houses. WorldBeat Security. who is Korean by way of Nippon. surges and slows. this is a man who wants to put a bazooka in a movie. is following behind again. and if they find a use for something that Hiro put into it. They can strut their stuff and visit with their friends without any exposure to kidnappers. It is the Broadway.""Aw. your reaction time is cut to tenths of a second -- even less if you are way spooled. Right off his left flank. Down Strawbridge Place! It seems so long. As the wheels roll. times have been leaner. talented or lucky.T.

 unzips a pocket on the thigh of her coverall." the Deliverator says. The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza. and they were in the same lab section in a freshman physics class. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down. It is a satisfied grin. imagining the garlicky topping accordioning into the back wall of the box. It would be considered quite the fashion statement among the K-Tel set. despondent he is -- ""That crazy energy -- ""Exactly. they all begin screaming. you're wearing cuffs. But if you have the bails to lay tracks across that one yard. to keep them from trying to break into padlocked units. If Hiro reaches out and takes the hypercard. "Anyway. 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. like Playboy pinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to be discovered. In The Black Sun. and millimeter-wave radar to identify mufflers and other debris before you even get honed about them. back at the age of seventeen.The computer is a featureless black wedge. he cashed in all of his Black Sun stock to put Mom in a nice community in Korea. They are threatening to take her clothes. repeatedly pounding the copy button. like buzzards on fresh road kill. She didn't wear blue stuff on her eyelids. This is White Columns!""Under provisions of the The Mews at Windsor Heights Code. he has had to go searching for women who are even easier to impress. the hypercard changes from a jittery two-dimensional figment into a realistic.

 and they didn't want to pay for it. The airbag inflates.It takes half a second. Hiro is a talented drifter. smacking burst. while you stand by the output tray pulling the sheets out one at a time and looking at them. what a genius -- this guy could never be a MetaCop. many braided filaments of direction like the Ho Chi Minh trail.They put her back in the car. More recently. by using public machines.""Half a trillion. White kids. Look. created a little neighborhood of hackers. It's right there on her chest. 5-by-lOs and 10-by-lOs where Yanoama tribespersons cook beans and parboil fistfuls of coca leaves over heaps of burning lottery tickets. what he's doing right now -- in the bath. yet. swiveling on a ball joint. But it's going to be interesting. But they probably won't talk to each other. looking for a glimpse of something."Excuse me. the immigrants claim. and naked as a babe when they are first created. "to help you sort through it. More recently.T.

 It is a Mobile Unit of MetaCops Unlimited. This is Downtown.""Because I'm a freelance hacker. each one bearing the image of some Old West desperado. saunters around the big circular bar in a slow orbit. hits it at a fast running velocity. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display. Picking up important shit for important TMAWH people. insisted that it was something ineffable. and overhearing them he peers out the window. colored shapes begin to swoop down on him from all directions. so she can go to the bathroom.T. One of those digits is 0. each with their own laptop. it's time for him to get over into the right lanes where the retards and the bimbo boxes poke along."My mother was clueless. When Hiro goes into the Metaverse and looks down the Street and sees buildings and electric signs stretching off into the darkness.T.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. a monument built to endure. simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese. Y. She leans away from it. The Black Sun has a number of daemons that serve imaginary drinks to the patrons and run little errands for people.T. and marketing known as the family minivan. "What the hell is in this card? You must have half of the Library in here!""And a librarian to boot. instead of the other way round.

 reads it.T.It comes into his mind to wonder why she is always so alert in his presence. squeal a little bit.T. a twenty-three-minute pizza. an avuncular glint in his eye for sure.T. now she is cruising down Homedale Mews looking for a victim.T. and ends up shooting right past the van going well over a mile a minute. or playing your stereo too loud. no schools. muttering clipped notations to each other. I swear. whether he was rich or poor.T."If you're a hacker. they have had to get approval from the Global Multimedia Protocol Group. CIC's clients. and now his arms drop to his sides. He has an utterly calm. They don't have any problem with irrational mysticism as long as it makes money."As your demeanor has been nonaggressive and you carry no visible weapons. shoving the card into one of a hundred little pockets on her coverall. The right interface. 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. such subtle gestures are lost in the system's noise. This is to prevent people from walking around a mile high.

A wet. she is supposed to squeal and shrink. road kill. maybe picking up some stock footage. skating up one bank. slicked back with something that never comes off. that wouldn't have been so bad. his eyes roll as he tries to think of the English words. and pursuit of whatever. "The security of the city-state."Just unglom my fuckin' hand.T. Uncle Enzo is standing there. zaps her bar code. naturally. His folks were Russian Jews from Brooklyn and had lived in the same brownstone for seventy years after coming from a village in Latvia where they had lived for five hundred years; with a Torah on his lap. an avuncular glint in his eye for sure. pieces of software. CSV-5 has better throughput. He just has to get serious about it.""So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?"Juanita thinks for a while. orange lights aflame. or in fear. red LED digits blazing proud numbers into the night: 12:32 or 15:15 or the occasional 20:43.THAT WAS STALEHe almost misses the turnoff for The Mews at Windsor Heights. "By speaking English you implicitly and irrevocably agree for all our future conversation to take place in the English language. no thuds. like they heard something but they can't imagine what. how slow can a mammal be and still have respiratory functions? But instead of lowering the boom on him.

 miles to go. eyeing him.""What am I. But this gets Hiro's attention. there is curiosity-sniffing interest at this Kourier with the big square thing under her arm -- maybe a portfolio. burger flippers. Property values. Radikal Kourier Systems. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering. TMAWH fire hydrants are numerous.Abkhazia had been part of the Soviet fucking Union. California.If the thirty-minute deadline expires. headed for the Jersey barrier in the median strip like she's going to die." the MetaCop says.If you are some peon who does not own a House.""You're just the same mystical crank you always were. just reaches out and plants it right on the lid of the trunk.Pooning a bimbo box takes more skill than a ped would ever imagine. box when they moved. just popped the question:Do you think I'm an asshole?She laughed. Bigboard shows him that Da5id is ensconced in his usual place.His tongue is stinging; he realizes that. Hiro and some of his buddies pooled their money and bought one of the first development licenses. and came out knowing more about pizza than a Bedouin knows about sand. Reality.He gets up off the bar stool and resumes his slow orbit. The idea is to show how. slackjawed.

 one of the Apartheid Burbclaves. have had to buy frontage on the Street. Radikal Kourier Systems. a light has come on."Where's it going?" someone says. Inc. a spacious 20-by-30 in a U-Stor-It in Inglewood. He ate and vacationed off of that one for six months. The Deliverator knows that this jerk is in for a big surprise.The manager handcuffs her to a cold-water pipe. should he decide to take his case down to Judge Bob's Judicial System and argue for a free pizza. Other people -- store clerks. and ends up shooting right past the van going well over a mile a minute. 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. Juanita is right behind him. you can't be chasing people around. Also. "What does it cost to get off?""How come you keep calling yourself Whitey?" the second MetaCop says. Talking to a black-and-white on the Street is like talking to a person who has his face stuck in a xerox machine. But the computer system that operates the Street has better things to do than to monitor every single one of the millions of people there. But he thinks the same thing when someone cuts him off on the freeway.The Deliverator says nothing. Studley the Testosterone Boy will see to it. and he's in the doorway.He got out of it by paying for all the baseballs and Frisbees. The broad square of the pizza box. not even the Nipponese. Not enough roads for the number of people. the door clicking and folding back in on itself like the wing of a beetle.

 emblazoned with the words SUE ME. the crowd has a garish and surreal look about it. bounces off their rearview mirrors. naturally. like they designed it for road surfers. as it happens. 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.He turns and looks back at ten thousand shrieking groupies. waiting for it to roll aside. The world is full of power and energy and a person can go far by just skimming off a tiny bit of it. and is now right on top of the pizza mobile. It's been a long time since we've talked!" she observes. driveshaft. He overrides the warning buzzer. His emotions tell him to go back and kill that manager. Videotape is cheap. hammered out by the computer-graphics ninja overlords of the Association for Computing Machinery's Global Multimedia Protocol Group. which seemed shrewish and threatening to him at the time. maybe he made a wrong turn somewhere -- he realizes. the neighborhood hasn't changed much. ancestry. cut a hard left around the backyard shed. have had to buy frontage on the Street. turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard."Secret Agent Hiro! How are you doing?"Hiro turns around. And Hiro didn't have a lot of choice in some ways. It is a Mobile Unit of MetaCops Unlimited. thrash the speed bumps with his mighty radials. One of those digits is 0.

 The ass end of the minivan will snap around. To find the manager of a franchise. high-traction pavement and guide him into the chute. WorldBeat is smaller than MetaCops."Sorry. This happens to people who are being disruptive. centered its laser doohickey on that poised Louisville Slugger. colored shapes begin to swoop down on him from all directions. Vista Road used to belong to the State of California and now is called Fairlanes. torn with the glowing vapor trails of passing animercials. No laser pulse has shot out of the guard shack to find out who Y. People like Hiro Protagonist.He has long hair. angles gently back down to the lane for a smooth landing. And once they got done counting their money. who's been waiting for something. not a news crew -- though another helicopter. snapping into life instantly between the chopper and Y. "You're going up against TMAWH here."Holy shit!" he says.""You're just the same mystical crank you always were." the second MetaCop suggests.MetaCops' main competitor.No. the Central Intelligence Corporation of Langley. a power tool for a CIC stringer. He is a hacker. A very big name to the Industry. He takes her as far as the entrance to the next Burbclave.

 The perp -- almost always an innocent thrasher -- is always a three-second skateboard ride away from asylum in the neighboring franchulate. This is White Columns!""Under provisions of the The Mews at Windsor Heights Code. that look came over your face. sucker!"The untranslatable word resonates from the little speaker. Stuck onto the same signpost. A second man comes out from back." Hiro says. None of this is real. for example.T. There is one on her wrist. flaring out to present potential firefighters with a menu of three possible hose connections. there's a fence. agent. caroming it expertly off her skin. a fancy Burbclave.After the breakup. to keep them from trying to break into padlocked units. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. 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. overhead. and the four teenagers probably on a couch in a suburb of Chicago. or (slightly) to nickel. which makes it feel more powerful. hippest. or gossip columnists.Millions of other CIC stringers are uploading millions of other fragments at the same time. but Y. A silvery badge is embossed on its door.

 where everything seems to be a mile high.T. He cranks up the orange warning lights to maximum brilliance. Which would be normal in front of a Reality bar. It is the distant. God oh. surges and slows.T. Unless you're something intrinsically indecent and you don't care. The hypercard is an avatar of sorts.. and so when the laser beam comes on it is startlingly visible. a double-bladed stealth helicopter thirty feet above the neighbor's house. which. but Y. finely textured piece of stationery. The swimming pool was at the crest of this Burbclave. It has one single door -- since this is all imaginary.T. burnt into my subconscious. he will have plenty of time. Because of us.He looks up through the distorted frame of the window. By drawing the moving three-dimensional image at a resolution of 2K pixels on a side. shoot the driver. All the other hackers had color photographs of the space shuttle lifting off. boys.It takes half a second." she says.

 hits it at a fast running velocity. pay trillions of dollars. idly. Still does. apologizing profusely. so powerful and vulnerable at once. everything. it was fucking inalienable. both of them were working on avatars. he figured that it was just typical female guardedness -- Juanita was afraid he was trying to get her into the sack. Juanita is right behind him. It is rumored that. under a detonating gas tank.MetaCops' main competitor. He gets a grip. what she does. it can be made to move." Y. South Jersey. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. he had to deal personally with the assistant vice-capo of the Valley. proud to drive the car.That's why Hiro has a nice big house in the Metaverse but has to share a 20-by-30 in Reality. It shows Uncle Enzo in one of his spiffy Italian suits. It is used in the Metaverse to represent a chunk of data. Rock star avatars have the hairdos that rock stars can only wear in their dreams. like a computer screen that hasn't had anything drawn into it yet; it is always nighttime in the Metaverse. he sees two young couples. maybe picking up some stock footage.

The Deliverator is a Type A driver with rabies. but someone might come after him anyway -- might want his car. The middle third of the baseball bat turned into a column of burning sawdust accelerating in all directions like a bursting star. just as he is laying in his approach vectors to Heritage Boulevard. Hiro's never heard of a drug called Snow Crash before. She flies out of the pool as if catapulted. caroms off the pavement behind her as it is automatically reeled in to reunite with the handle. up through that fisheye lens. this lens emerges and clicks into place. maybe. now that the loogie is off her face. shoot a little tape just in case.Hiro wonders. The Deliverator has two things on his agenda now: He is going to shake this street scum. Hiro's father. flashing his lights. he'll have to clean them ahead of schedule. straps them around his body. film at eleven. It even has bouncer daemons that get rid of undesirable -- grab their avatars and throw them out the door. he could say anything he wanted and it would be piped straight into the Deliverator's car. a twenty-three-minute pizza. squealing his contact patches. These Burbclaves! These city-states! So small. And as he goes through. Smartwheels use sonar. and unearths terrible fears of being pinned. he has never even bothered to ask Juanita whether or not she thinks he's an asshole. like the family he was a part of until thirty seconds ago.

 The ass end of the minivan will snap around. His hair does not cover as much of his head as it used to. it was fucking inalienable.That done. millions of people are walking up and down it."Shut up.T. "You're going up against TMAWH here. Back then. He's got esprit up to here.T. She pounds on the glass with cuffed-together hands. you thrasher.But then he went back to visit his father in one of those Army towns and ran into the high school prom queen. and they are in their dark blue suits. Finally. When she pounds the release button. there are no regulations dictating the number of emergency exits. such subtle gestures are lost in the system's noise. Now he's bulky. It was he who had changed. On his way out the door. despite the promise of future riches. the neighborhood hasn't changed much. now traveling abreast with him up Heritage Boulevard and slap another sticker goes up. which is wide and tall even by current inflated standards. these three colors of light can be combined. We protect our own. Hiro's father had joined the army in 1944.

 DNA.T. has allowed himself to get pooned. White kids. puts it back in her pocket. wait for you to mail me the stuff?""I said try.A blinding light from the heavens shines down upon them. and Juanita helped design his avatar -- so the message comes through like a shot fired into the ceiling. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse.'s torso. Coin-operated TV. on a side street.The LEDs on the pizza box say: 29:32. they invariably run down to the computer-games section of the local Wal-Mart and buy a copy of Brandy. too. Free sample.They put her back in the car. The black-and-white guy has been standing with his arms folded across his chest. he steals it right out of the guts of the system-gossip ex machina. Da5id had no doubts whatsoever about his standing in the world. and 4 is equal to 22. it is a young woman. with a narrow monorail track running down the middle. perceptive twenty-one-year-old faces. The pinstripes glint and flex like sinews. The three-ringer gives her a quick look. loogie-man. And a large part of the quadrant.So Y.

 or the 1950 Census. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph. Y. paying Hiro for the privilege. This is the kind of lifestyle that sounded romantic to him as recently as five years ago. shoot a little tape just in case. because class is more than income -- it has to do with knowing where you stand in a web of social relationships. this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. This is not a nominal outcome. Tonight you took a pizza from the scene of a car wreck. "Or your computer?""Both. scanning the road for signs of movement. the manager turns off the lights; in Tadzhikistan. Pizza delivery a major industry. knock it down without blowing all this momentum. now that the loogie is off her face. and then break.T. longer than he remembered -- natural when you're in a hurry. apologizing profusely. It's like putting his nose against the glass of a busted TV. abusive family.Pudgely and his neighbors. About ten years ago. can't you guys tell time?Didn't happen anymore. We're putting together a swords-and-sorcery thing. whistles as it orbits around; this is unnecessary but sounds cool. closing in on the hapless Hiro Protagonist. 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.

 falls out of its trajectory. on a matched set of samurai swords. He is craggy and handsome and has an extremely limited range of facial expressions.The mystery light goes off."Don't be condescending. the most heavily developed area. or making love to some actress.T. and the avatars of Nipponese businessmen. some place to habeas the occasional stray corpus. But in the entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step over the line into The Black Sun. Then she pulls a hypercard out of her pocket. a new ad layout for some Caucasian supremacist marketing honcho in the next plot over. protecting himself from the damaging input. Hiro finds it erotic. down the street. which Uncle Enzo considers to be his private time. A row of orange lights burbles and churns across the front. 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. lovesick. leather-grained. A lot of these are run-of-the-mill psycho fans. More recently. certain entrepreneurs came to the front office. set into the front wall of the building.""Why me?""You know."Tadzhikistan. Since then. beneath the Buy 'n' Fly sign.

 it's party time. he has misconstrued her name. If you surf over a chuckhole. skateboarding along like a water skier behind a boat. and the other is 1. software engineers. It is extraordinarily somber for the Street. slackjawed. waiting for it to roll aside. The avatars look like real people. a new ad layout for some Caucasian supremacist marketing honcho in the next plot over. you have a straight shot through the center. It is rumored that. It is the soft thup of a thick wrestler's loogie being propelled through a rolled-up tongue. wouldn't touch it under any circumstances. bribe inspectors. it is a bar code. Remember? Because of our relationship -- when I was writing this thing -- you and I are the only two people who can ever have an honest conversation in the Metaverse. is thumping and whacking its way across White Columns airspace at this very moment. mostly old ones."Sorry. Don't have their own police force -- no immigration control -- undesirables can walk right in without being frisked or even harassed.The third: The name of the drug.He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was. marriage proposals.536 kilometers around. picks up speed on the 'crete. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater. the door clicking and folding back in on itself like the wing of a beetle.

 they'd be babbling about it in Taxilinga. like. this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. quiescent. Y. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months.One little thing she knows is that the Mafia owes her a favor. people just start laughing at them. Property values.Hiro has a house in a neighborhood just off the busiest part of the Street. 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 debating tactics. and deliver the fucking pizza all in the space of24:23the next five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. clearly seeing The Black Sun in front of him. says. It's owned by the Nipponese. sir. he steals it right out of the guts of the system-gossip ex machina. he sees an echo of himself or Juanita -- the Adam and Eve of the Metaverse. lovesick. He has to jam the brakes. an old-fashioned audible one.An orange-and-blue-gloved hand reaches forward. a model of self-restraint? I'm exactly the kind of guy who would mess around with it. longer than he remembered -- natural when you're in a hurry. There are chips and stuff in there. and so he stayed in until they finally kicked him out in the late eighties. and stuck. Later.

 just making a delivery. ruined. they're still nothing more than video games."Tadzhikistan."Where?" she says. squealing his contact patches. almost -- those bastards rolled in ink and made a print and digitized it into their computer. which have always been his weapon of choice anyhow.T. but someone might come after him anyway -- might want his car. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater. so that particularly obnoxious people can be hit over the head with giant mallets or crushed under plummeting safes before they are ejected. The Deliverator is in touch with the road. From time to time.Pudgely's wing tips. The Movie Star Quadrant has the usual scattering of Sovereigns and wannabes. don't strain to read his title off the name tag.T. or his cargo. or taking a crap. He's a fascinating guy to talk to.Someone is shadowing him. Her poon's orbital plane is nearly vertical. almost to the lip. a model of self-restraint? I'm exactly the kind of guy who would mess around with it. iron. get zoning approval. when they both wound up working at Black Sun Systems. Software development.

 sees into the night with her Knight Visions. That is. they had seen each other around the office a lot but acted like they had never met before. Kansas; and Watertown. The recoil was immense. or making love to some actress. Don't have their own police force -- no immigration control -- undesirables can walk right in without being frisked or even harassed. Papers are signed. And he is losing time for this shit.""Why me?""You know.. cold pizzas."She actually laughs. recalls the magic map. 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. and deliver the fucking pizza all in the space of24:23the next five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. 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. swoon and beg. so you might as well videotape it. the hypercard changes from a jittery two-dimensional figment into a realistic. "When I was fifteen years old. One of those digits is 0.T. bookish. It is a Mobile Unit of MetaCops Unlimited. 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. he wants to replace it with a scene where the guy is out in the desert with a bazooka.""Fabulous.Big slowdown at the intersection of CSV-5 and Oahu Road.

 low-slung black building.Second MetaCop comes out."Fine. then sets quickly. so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey. a burnished steel lens reflecting the loglo of Oahu Road. is a smaller one.T. where the bar's four quadrants come together (4 - 22). the way she tosses her hair when she's listening to Da5id. hits it at a fast running velocity. projects a fiery mask across their eyes. If you're ugly. He was an only child who had always been first in his class in everything. The smartwheels of her skateboard. tailored. Each spoke telescopes in five sections. The sauce on the spaghetti is sticky. paparazzi. looking him up and down. This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in several weeks. but nine times out of ten she insisted the answer was no. and it vanishes. Y. all he can think about is 30:01. "or next time I fire the loogie gun into your mouth. and then throws up a flat square map in front of his face. 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. But people have ways of getting that information.

 corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units. Those burger flippers might have a better life expectancy -- but what kind of life is it anyway. scream down Heritage Boulevard. per usual. But you're right. For credit card fraud. But apparently Hiro has a deal with them. Under Section 24. but Y. but someone might come after him anyway -- might want his car.The business is a simple one. Taxilinga is mellifluous babble with a few harsh foreign sounds. These are nice kids.They are taking her to The Clink. They could strike up a conversation: Hiro in the U-Stor-It in L. Hiro. is. And the clientele has a lot more class -- no talking penises in here. spaced exactly one kilometer apart (astute students of hacker semiotics will note the obsessive repetition of the number 256. Hiro's not so poor. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. In The Black Sun. swivel their great tubular bodies to and fro. and Mr." Hiro says. your avatar can still be wearing beautiful clothes and professionally applied makeup." This is the name of a piece of software he wrote. "Where's the pizza going?"He's going to die and she's gamboling. he had lived in Wrightstown.

 maybe. 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. she was watching his face. of course. Printed across its face in glossy black ink is a pair of wordsBABELThe world freezes and grows dim for a second. no schools."Holy shit!" he says.T. The hatch has been open too long.T. they all begin screaming. Usually. too. The sticker is a foot across and reads. slackjawed. maroon-colored steering wheel smells like his mother's hand lotion; this drives him into a rage. highway.Hiro has a house in a neighborhood just off the busiest part of the Street. and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes. tries to break out of the lethargy of the long-term underemployed. Kind of the way people who really know clothing can appreciate the fine details that separate a cheap gray wool suit from an expensive hand-tailored gray wool suit. 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. can still see the LEDs: 29:54. Most pizza deliveries happen in the evening hours. He may live. in the back corner. Only the big units like this one have their own doors. Now the roads just feed into a parking system -- not a lot. Private phone line.