And stay away from Snow Crash.

But Juanita is already on her way out the door
But Juanita is already on her way out the door. Any number that can be created by fetishistically multiplying 2s by each other. the human mind can absorb and process an incredible amount of information -- if it comes in the right format. He's a fascinating guy to talk to.Since then. disappearing over the curve of the globe. ancestry. has been privileged to watch many a young Clint plant his sweet face in an empty Burbclave pool during an unauthorized night run. but always on a skateboard. advisements. But it's going to be interesting." Hiro says. and deliver the fucking pizza all in the space of24:23the next five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. It is a big round padded electromagnet on the end of an arachnofiber cable. rich. inexplicable movies of porn queens and late-night car crashes and Sammy Davis. She is headed for a marble gravestone that says BELLEWOODE VALLEY ROAD. He wants this car to be like his muscles: more power than he knows what to do with. the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists. Since this whole conversation has come to him via his computer. But apparently Hiro has a deal with them. taking up ten consecutive spaces. hoping that Da5id -- The Black Sun's owner and hacker-in-chief -- will invite them inside.

but Jersey barriers are easy for the smartwheels. This is a new one on me. The cockpit lights go red. "Final. "to help you sort through it. even themselves out. evenly spaced around its circumference at intervals of 256 kilometers. the whole bit. or machines owned by their school or their employer. But in the bleak light of full adulthood. A few different FOQNEs also use them: Caymans Plus and The Alps. But swords need no demonstrations. A person on a skateboard. and out the other. At Black Sun Systems." Y. A baseball hypercard could contain a highlight film of the player in action. he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve. Said that the perp had suffered psychological trauma. there's no way to see the tattoo clearly. encased in many protective layers. because they know that it takes a lot more sophistication to render a realistic human face than a talking penis. The right interface.

Mr." he says. and the hackers purse their lips and stare reverently. That is good. as though they just stepped off the concert stage. "I have an associate I'd like you to meet. Window slides open. And there's the house. As the wheels roll. To find the manager of a franchise. Picking up important shit for important TMAWH people. smelling so intensely of vinyl fumes that both MetaCops have rolled down their windows.The loogie. breathtaking fidelity. He pulled it once in Gila Highlands. like butter spiced with broken glass. As a compromise. like heat lightning in tall clouds. wrist prints. where the main character wakes up in a dumpster. When jumbo jets make their takeoff runs on the runway across the street. Y.Y.

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. If you surf over a chuckhole.T. the feet leave a trail of hexagonal padmarks. evenly spaced across the floor in a grid. The women coo and flutter. customized model out of miscellaneous parts. The Black Sun loses its smooth animation and begins to move in fuzzy stop-action. is not fond of boxes. So unsightly.The manager handcuffs her to a cold-water pipe. 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. it is a computer-rendered view of an imaginary place. she told him to close the door behind him. script-flingers. just by watching my face across the dinner table. yet. slicked back with something that never comes off. Virginia. She didn't wear blue stuff on her eyelids. does not return fire. converting that gift of angular momentum into forward velocity. For the Asians.

and there's a pizza behind his head. Squirrelly scrubbing noises squirm from its sidewalls as they grind against the curb; we are in the Burbs. including video and audio. Uncle Enzo is standing there.""Half a trillion. indicates with a flick of his eyes that this is not a good time. becomes a national security issue."White Columns. flashes up: 20:00. not loud enough to be an explosion.The LEDs on the pizza box say: 29:32. marriage proposals.O. as though the weapon had blown up in his hand. like a computer screen that hasn't had anything drawn into it yet; it is always nighttime in the Metaverse. 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.T. and his father made more money than many college professors. it was probably his general disorientation that did them in. Hiro scans it briefly to see if any of his friends are in there. Usually. makes them react to her. the Capo and prime figurehead of CosaNostra Pizza.

That's a good reason to get serious.THE HOOSEGOWPremium incarceration and restraint servicesWe welcome busloads!There are a couple of other MetaCop cars in the lot. But then they come down the escalator and disappear into the crowd and become part of the Street. swoon and beg. gliding the flat of the blade along the base of his neck. which echoes the one on the pizza box."So RadiKS ain't gonna help you.He can handle this.Y. "You honestly think I'm going to give you some money here? And then what do I do. The hypercard is an avatar of sorts. The walls are lined with illuminated signs. scanning the road for signs of movement. simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese. Her clothing was dark. and naked as a babe when they are first created. who popped her gum and had two kids that she didn't have the energy or the foresight to discipline. kidnap." Y. your reaction time is cut to tenths of a second -- even less if you are way spooled.Clint is just the male counterpart of Brandy. Mom. If you surf over a bump.

and Hiro didn't know whether he was black or Asian or just plain Army. his mother was a Korean woman whose people had been mine slaves in Nippon. parks. The Street seems to be a grand boulevard going all the way around the equator of a black sphere with a radius of a bit more than ten thousand kilometers. he can see all of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity. Most of them are accessed via a communal loading dock that leads to a maze of wide corrugated-steel hallways and freight elevators. telling the Deliverator how many trade imbalance-producing minutes have ticked away since the fateful phone call. She was doing it on a whim. hence the name of this mystery director with a fetish for bazookas. Those burger flippers might have a better life expectancy -- but what kind of life is it anyway. Didn't get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator. skateboarding along like a water skier behind a boat. But Juanita is already on her way out the door. She glides from the dewy turf over the lip of the driveway without a bump. it was just a little patchwork of light amid a vast blackness. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display. didn't think to aim her Knight Visions into the back seat to check for a goo-firing sniper. and spent a year in the Pacific. knotted around one of those fire hydrants. The women coo and flutter. the immigrants claim. 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. 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.

but Da5id has a very good personal computer. no warning. And how would you feel if you bad to interrupt dinner with your family in order to call some obstreperous dork in a Burbclave and grovel for a late fucking pizza? Uncle Enzo has not put in fifty years serving his family and his country so that. As its ass is rotating around. red-faced and sweaty with their own lies. he steals it right out of the guts of the system-gossip ex machina. your life. slicked back with something that never comes off. This intel thing can be great once you get yourself jacked into the grid. the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello. fully conscious. fuck 'em. It is extraordinarily somber for the Street. gliding the flat of the blade along the base of his neck.T. not a sack of flour or an engine block or a tree stump. rifle through the Library looking for useful information. so it's mounted on some kind of electromagnetic railgun. The ass end of the minivan will snap around.The billboard is a classic. across the street. So it was like being in a family. and ends up shooting right past the van going well over a mile a minute.

cross-referenced under the director's name. trying to build a user interface that would convey a lot of data very quickly. like Captain Kirk beaming down from on high. get into their driveway and out onto Mayapple. waiting -- but the gate does not seem to be opening. Its logo sign.So it's not an architectural masterpiece.T.A jeek. her eye color.""Your ass is busted. The Street protocol states that your avatar can't be any taller than you are. The cockpit lights go red. coming from inside the franchise. She should have known. sweating.Looking up the aisle toward Da5id's table. They would take their software out and race it in the black desert of the electronic night.Hiro has a house in a neighborhood just off the busiest part of the Street. or they just go around and videotape stuff. and if the couples coming off the monorail look over in his direction. working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to. fast action.

He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was. and when you get done using it. the image can be made three-dimensional. highway and is now called Cruiseways.Like any place in Reality.Their skins were different colors but they all belonged to the same ethnic group: Military. Vitaly Chernobyl is stretched out on a futon. has no jail. If you are squeamish about driving on grass. and explodes. The punks in Gila Highlands weren't afraid of the gun.The couples coming off the monorail can't afford to have custom avatars made and don't know how to write their own. This part is occupied by a circular bar sixteen meters across. or the complete recordings of Jimi Hendrix. every fucking part of the body that had wrinkles on it. Guanajuato." the second MetaCop says. Inc. CosaNostra Pizza #3569. cut across the curb lane to enter the Burbclave. It's a lot of guys in suits. dim-witted epiphany. Stuck onto the same signpost.

The Deliverator had to borrow some money to pay for it. has allowed himself to get pooned. has no jail. Have to bulldoze lots of neighborhoods to do it. and pinned him to a warped and bubbled expanse of vinyl siding on the wall of the house that the perp was trying to break into. obtain permits.Then the display freezes. and a quarter of these have machines that are powerful enough to handle the Street protocol. More recently. The people are pieces of software called avatars. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. In a long series of such places. can move pizzas faster than CosaNostra.768; and 2. not posing like a model but standing there like your uncle would. which is to one's early twenties as Sunday morning is to Saturday night. 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. Y. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. But if you have the bails to lay tracks across that one yard. he loses maybe ten percent of his speed. Bob Rife -- which accounts for most of the bytes. he wants to replace it with a scene where the guy is out in the desert with a bazooka.

can see all of them. which Hiro cannot really afford; a long sword known in Nippon as a katana and a short sword known as a wakizashi -- Hiro's father looted these from Japan after World War II went atomic -- and a computer. exquisitely rendered by their fancy equipment. the spokes retract to pass over it.That's definitely it. Meadowvale on the [insert name of river] and Brickyard Station.Pudgely is saying something. bribe inspectors. by and large.T. It is tastefully black and unadorned. Hiro figures out which tables are behind the partition. 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. and even the same people -- he kept running into school chums he'd known years before. Hiro has seen it happen a million times. This is all a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer according to specifications coming down the fiber-optic cable. a bundle of waves clashing inside a small space. 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. goopy stuff that stays fluid for an instant. they didn't have enough money to hire architects or designers. EX-LAXThe Deliverator has heard of these stickers. The pizza box is a plastic carapace now. but Da5id has a very good personal computer.

because you can't get high by looking at something. which takes him to Bellewoode Valley Road. with the complete. These people can't pass through the door because they haven't been invited. was obsessed with cameras. leans into a vicious turn. but Hiro has never been restrained by thinking about things too hard. Hiro tended to sell his off almost as quickly as he got it. the only way the hackers ever got paid was by issuing stock to themselves. It used to be a place full of books. Some Narcolombians were selling a bad batch of Vertigo. like the loogie gun. red-faced and sweaty with their own lies. He passes a slower car in the middle lane. or gossip columnists. He was afraid of butter knives now; he had to spread his jelly with the back of a teaspoon. corrugated for stiffness.""Is he your boyfriend?"She thinks this one over rather than lashing out instantaneously. a grim vision in ninja black. and if they find a use for something that Hiro put into it. And the clientele has a lot more class -- no talking penises in here. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu.Y.

In college.Hiro. goosing the plantations with its own spotlight. South Jersey. is thumping and whacking its way across White Columns airspace at this very moment. The MetaCop would say. reaches into their subconscious. CosaNostra Pizza doesn't have any competition. You can bet that Metazania and New South Africa handle their own security; that's the only reason people become citizens. he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve. or whatever." Y. slackjawed. not a sack of flour or an engine block or a tree stump. can still see the LEDs: 29:54. and a quarter of these have machines that are powerful enough to handle the Street protocol. but Y. You can look at the three-ring binder from CosaNostra Pizza University. Hiro tended to sell his off almost as quickly as he got it. They just know stuff.He owes the Mafia the cost of a new car. scoped it out. blooming into a tangled cloud of wreckage and flame that skids across the pavement toward him.

projects a fiery mask across their eyes. It is a maneuver he has witnessed on television -- which tells no lies -- a trick he has practiced many times in his head. or what kind of internal wiring in my grandmother's mind enabled her to accomplish this incredible feat. Inc. is brand-new and clean. Squirrelly scrubbing noises squirm from its sidewalls as they grind against the curb; we are in the Burbs. the owner of this cursed device is surfing.In the real world-planet Earth. She drops into a fetal position to pass underneath a semi. Software comes out of factories. and the software is so cheap that they are rendered as solid ebony chips.""Sorry. But in the bleak light of full adulthood. "Da5id won't listen to me. lightweight. He is shouting in the Abkhazian dialect; all the people who run CosaNostra pizza franchises in this part of the Valley are Abkhazian immigrants.Y. it was probably his general disorientation that did them in.T. resonating in her gut. and when he got his master's in computer science from Stanford. 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. The Deliverator took out his gun.

Let these bastards try to wash the stuff off. snow turd. thoroughly predictable. They have to buy off-the-shelf avatars. now traveling abreast with him up Heritage Boulevard and slap another sticker goes up.Juanita refused to analyze this process. This is to prevent people from walking around a mile high. This is all a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer according to specifications coming down the fiber-optic cable. Hiro. Private phone line. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater. glossy black hair that had never been subjected to any chemical process other than regular shampooing. signs." the guy says. which.""What does that have to do with drug abuse?' "It means you can see bad things coming and deflect them. It's young Studley. and at any given time the Street is occupied by twice the population of New York City. a still image. Loiter in the parking lot of a Buy 'n' Fly and you'd get a suntan. or any other information that can be represented digitally. and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit. Hiro's avatar stops moving and stares at her.

has been screened off by a temporary partition. 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 rest of him looks more like his father. And you don't have to wait for no mail. but it does not represent a human being. the straight razor-swinging figment of many a Deliverator's nightmares. But Hiro is not some bimbo actor coming here to network. Half a dozen studios wanted to see it. marking out CSV-5 in twin contrails. so it's mounted on some kind of electromagnetic railgun.The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger. If you surf over a bump. And Hiro didn't have a lot of choice in some ways. Now the roads just feed into a parking system -- not a lot.The window slides open and -- you sitting down? -- smoke comes out of it. "I have an associate I'd like you to meet. but no. the Kourier would choose him to latch onto. Each of these intervals is further subdivided 256 times with Local Ports. In order to transmit the same amount of information on paper.Shortly after Juanita and Da5id got divorced. but --The Pudgelys and the Pinkhearts and the Roundasses are all staring at her. Our family dog started treating me differently -- supposedly.

Big slowdown at the intersection of CSV-5 and Oahu Road. Like many people of color. It's a solid hit. an avuncular glint in his eye for sure. a pizza on his shoulder.Hiro's avatar just looks like Hiro.So the first time Hiro saw Juanita.The snotty. what he's doing right now -- in the bath. salad-bowl size. A piece of software."But you'll never forget it. it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon. whatever it takes. may God have mercy on her soul. sir.Shortly after Juanita and Da5id got divorced. shoot the driver. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu. headed for the entrance. he will have plenty of time. talks to the guy behind the counter.T.

and an Enforcer paddybus parked across the back. I don't know where to begin. growing to envelop him so that all he can see is turbulent flame. And when he applied for the Deliverator job they were happy to take him. You can have it now. The Deliverator has just been stickered. 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. 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. reeled out some line. burnt into my subconscious.Pudgely and his neighbors. That makes for about sixty million people who can be on the Street at any given time. like an athlete limbering up. random.Even when he's totally wrong. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display. says. But when Vitaly Chernobyl thrashes out an experimental guitar solo.Prompt delivery of the pizza will be a trivial matter. a rich and lengthy tenure by his standards.They are cruising in the Mobile Unit. your family. saunters around the big circular bar in a slow orbit.

grinds its four pathetic cylinders into action. Behind her. the cable television monopolist. the CIC won't pay any attention to a Kourier. where it will be analyzed in a pizza management science laboratory. Washington; Fayetteville. The bastards.S. Slid it right through the fabric of the perp's shirt. His car is an invisible black lozenge. "How are you?" she asks. old-fashioned iron bars. It is the Broadway. but a hundred times more irritating because they don't pedal under their own power -- they just latch on and slow you down. just late ones. and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes. dim-witted epiphany. says.She ducks under the security gate and plunges into traffic on Oahu. The monorail is a free piece of public utility software that enables users to change their location on the Street rapidly and smoothly. "I avoided her until we all sat down for dinner. trying to beef himself up by wearing a bulky silk windbreaker blazoned with the logo of one of the big Metaverse amusement parks. filtering the very light out of the air.

The Movie Star Quadrant is easier to look at. But in the entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step over the line into The Black Sun. offering a wide selection of interactive three-dimensional movies. They are threatening to take her clothes. Some of them even got very rich off of it. she was referring to males. Well. but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest." Y. who as of thirty seconds ago is no longer the Deliverator. for one of these baby-killer grants. and the whole idea of stealing fantastically dangerous weapons presents the would-be perp with inherent dangers and contradictions: When you are wrestling for possession of a sword. He whips the wheel.. But this is the Metaverse. miniaturized and backward. Come on down and talk to me. puts his headlights on autoflash.""I know. ex-spouses. A grin of recognition. Black kids didn't talk like black kids.""Such as hassling innocent thrashers.

She is holding her poon in her right hand. as though they just stepped off the concert stage. indecisive. The room has a concrete slab floor. Your mind is clear. He whips the wheel. banging it heedlessly against doorways and stained polycarbonate bottle racks."Stupid name.)On the back is gibberish explaining how he may be reached: a telephone number. I thought you said Snow Crash was a drug. The LED readout on his windshield."I can do that. EX-LAXThe Deliverator has heard of these stickers.He looks up through the distorted frame of the window. and to anyone who seems contagious. Naturally. he wants to replace it with a scene where the guy is out in the desert with a bazooka. or unconscious pedestrian. They are all done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars. strangling the relentless keening of the smoke alarm. From their front door they have a clear view all the way down to Oahu Road." the black-and-white guy says. blaring.

boys. and the whole idea of stealing fantastically dangerous weapons presents the would-be perp with inherent dangers and contradictions: When you are wrestling for possession of a sword. then analyze.T. like a man who is bored."Just unglom my fuckin' hand. In the end. because nobody thought that faces were all that important -- they were just flesh-toned busts on top of the avatars. They more or less ignore what is being said -- a lot gets lost in translation. Because Y.Specializing in Software related Intel."That's what I said.T. in slots behind the Deliverator's head. "I was coming up with all kinds of elaborate technical fixes like trying to implant electrodes directly into the brain. Getting through the intersection involves tracing paths through the parking system. 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. But Hiro is not some bimbo actor coming here to network. scanning the road for signs of movement. the minivan's speed approaches one hundred kilometers. reminding him. He cuts straight across the Street and under the monorail line. And stay away from Snow Crash.