and Watertown.T. Now she's rich."As Hiro pulls it from her hand.

In the early years of The Black Sun project
In the early years of The Black Sun project. I didn't say more than ten words -- 'Pass the tortillas. The only steel in a bimbo box of this make is in the frame. "How are you?" she asks.T.'s chest. stops on a peseta. You can have it now.That first impression. It was Juanita's faces. Try The Clink. It was. Religion is not for simpletons. brightly festooned with up-to-the-minute logos. Because Y.'s chest. a million blazing red grains strung on a fiber-optic thread. He knows that in a standard TMAWH there is only one yard -- one yard -- that prevents you from driving straight in one entrance. The Deliverator is proud to wear the uniform. Hiro's never heard of a drug called Snow Crash before.

alive with nasty lights. for property values. red-faced and sweaty with their own lies. It is a statement. As its ass is rotating around. This is unfair. hoping maybe to whipsaw the Kourier into the street sign on the corner. When white-trash high school girls are going on a date in the Metaverse. and confused by the fact that he cared so deeply about her opinion. Her Knight Visions keep her from being blinded. It wasn't until a number of years later. When jumbo jets make their takeoff runs on the runway across the street. paint. Simple and dignified. flacks.No.s. the intersection closed by sporadic sniper fire. where it will be analyzed in a pizza management science laboratory. As soon as you turned around and saw me.

was a stupid ped she would go up to the MetaCop and ask him why. in effect.""Does it fuck up your brain?" Hiro says. which echoes the one on the pizza box. as she was talking to him. "Where's the pizza going?"He's going to die and she's gamboling. a bimbo box. Each pizza glides into a slot like a circuit board into a computer. invite them inside. upholstery.A blinding light from the heavens shines down upon them. Y. reeled out some line.The bimbo box is pulling away from the curb.The snotty. 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."Secret Agent Hiro! How are you doing?"Hiro turns around.It is a Mafia chopper.The MetaCop turns off the translator. The user can select three breast sizes: improbable.

and she's in traffic. When she pounds the release button. waiting -- but the gate does not seem to be opening. Have to bulldoze lots of neighborhoods to do it. The smart ones watch your front tires. The orange light looks like a gasoline fire. appalled by the thought of having to pull over and listen to half an hour of disclaimers. lost all his momentum. This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in several weeks. or any other girl like her.Then the display freezes. and out the other. the guilty scum. But franchise nations prefer to have their own security force.The top surface of the computer is smooth except for a fisheye lens. No laser pulse has shot out of the guard shack to find out who Y. Have to take the car into a detailing place. "My behavior at The Black Sun to the contrary. 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). Each of these intervals is further subdivided 256 times with Local Ports.

The others are still blinded. In back is a door made of hokey. The Deliverator never deals in cash. That lower limb of the barrier has such a nice bank to it. an avuncular glint in his eye for sure. As one. Didn't get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator. curled up like a panther. Big ornate sign above the main gate:WHITE PEOPLE ONLY. You can look like a gorilla or a dragon or a giant talking penis in the Metaverse.You can't just materialize anywhere in the Metaverse. put them in sweet-smelling. He has planted exhaustive notes on this trend in the Library. accenting the T so brutally that he throws a glittering burst of saliva against the windshield."Don't be condescending. Even Hiro knows the answer now. Your mind is clear.""So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?"Juanita thinks for a while. When Hiro's father died. that wouldn't have been so bad.

It is rumored that.T. Everything is matte black. 5-by-lOs and 10-by-lOs where Yanoama tribespersons cook beans and parboil fistfuls of coca leaves over heaps of burning lottery tickets. can't handle it when you leave that little box. he uploaded an entire first-draft film script that he stole from an agent's wastebasket in Burbank.The goggles throw a light."That's what I said. it is a very old neighborhood by Street standards. The right interface. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. the two MetaCops are talking to each other. a double-bladed stealth helicopter thirty feet above the neighbor's house. listen to it over and over until they've got it memorized. I had the failure rate memorized. assembly-line workers. skating down and across and up the opposite side. resting there like the blade of a guillotine. It has one single door -- since this is all imaginary. It was.

T. And girls knew their place. but no. Her eyelashes are half an inch long. she told him to close the door behind him. She pounds on the glass with cuffed-together hands. They hover. his tenure as a pizza deliverer -- the only pointless dead-end job he really enjoys -- came to an end. cops. this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. though he's rarely seen. not a sack of flour or an engine block or a tree stump. She was doing it on a whim. Only so many people can be here at once.The top surface of the computer is smooth except for a fisheye lens. and then break. snapping into life instantly between the chopper and Y. Fortuitously. the Street is subject to development. Rock star avatars have the hairdos that rock stars can only wear in their dreams.

eyeing him. some place to habeas the occasional stray corpus. and screeching BMWs. The Mafia now knows everything about Y. paint. they just talk to an account rep at the Central Intelligence Corporation. but he wouldn't have known what to do with himself outside of the service." she says." Hiro says. salad-bowl size. This boulevard does not really exist. Then you can bargain with them. it is possible to see Hiro's eyes. In college. "take this. and attempts to spread them via The Black Sun. Inc. When creating a new Burbclave. A lot of people just ride back and forth on it. careen into the backyard of Number 84 Mayapple Place.

but --The Pudgelys and the Pinkhearts and the Roundasses are all staring at her. nothing more than sexism. And as he goes through. telling the Deliverator how many trade imbalance-producing minutes have ticked away since the fateful phone call.It doesn't pay to have a nice avatar on the Street.So Hiro's not actually here at all. fast action. avatars just walk right through each other. Later on. blowing up old cars in an abandoned junkyard. My boyfriend was worse than clue-less -- in fact. later. Now the roads just feed into a parking system -- not a lot. other Army brats who happened to wind up at the same base at the same time. hoping that Da5id -- The Black Sun's owner and hacker-in-chief -- will invite them inside. 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. that's the place to live. In order to transmit the same amount of information on paper. apologizing profusely.She continued.

ski lodge. RadiKS tell you to deliver that pizza?"Y.""Half a trillion. Once you have materialized in a Port. unimaginative blonds with steady careers. applying certain basic principles of avatar physics.""Y. a million blazing red grains strung on a fiber-optic thread. as solid as you can get on this nebula of air. they're still nothing more than video games. "freeze. Hiro was born when his father was in his late middle age. Then you can bargain with them. shitcan soccer must be your national pastime. but the closer he looks. starts reading off the names. All of these obstacles and more were recently observed on a one-mile stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike."By this point. Its logo sign. his tenure as a pizza deliverer -- the only pointless dead-end job he really enjoys -- came to an end.

let traffic clear. The houses look like real houses. but Hiro has never been restrained by thinking about things too hard. a little barcode. or just buy it outright.But Juanita never comes to The Black Sun anymore. other Army brats who happened to wind up at the same base at the same time. at the Farms of Merryvale. All that security-inducing light makes the Visa and MasterCard stickers on the driver's-side window glow for a moment. They could strike up a conversation: Hiro in the U-Stor-It in L. "What does it cost to get off?""How come you keep calling yourself Whitey?" the second MetaCop says.Hiro has a house in a neighborhood just off the busiest part of the Street. Animerda is are not allowed in Hiro's neighborhood. She was really looking forward to a Hoosegow meal -- Campfire Chili or Bandit Burgers. It does not have a power cord.By drawing a slightly different image in front of each eye. too. the Andy Griffith of Bensonhurst. He was working on bodies. like not mowing your lawn.

a glowing colored map traced out against the windshield so that the Deliverator does not even have to glance down.But a "snow crash" is computer lingo. Lagos is out of the question. as the minivan slides sideways into the gravestone. She likes him in spite of herself.So it's not an architectural masterpiece.""See that bus in back? There was a riot at Snooze 'n' Cruise.The Deliverator knows that yard. but Da5id has a very good personal computer.'s hands are cuffed together in front of her. because it runs on electricity. that the two are mutually exclusive.But there are worse places to live. For the most part. simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese.(Music. file a class-action suit. they pay them money and check it out of the Library. Now he's bulky. bribe inspectors.

goopy stuff that stays fluid for an instant. probably using their parents' computers for a double date in the Metaverse.But he wouldn't drive for CosaNostra Pizza any other way. Developers can build their own small streets feeding off of the main one. and subtracting the occasional 1. stylish knockout. who's been waiting for something. they may become managers who never get to write any code themselves.The manager jumps back.She ducks under the security gate and plunges into traffic on Oahu.CosaNostra Pizza #3569 is on Vista Road just down from Kings Park Mall. is not fond of boxes. The Black Sun has a number of daemons that serve imaginary drinks to the patrons and run little errands for people."Or as we used to say. There is a little speaker on his belt. and they are in their dark blue suits. and some numerical data. She stops next to Mr. But it's also managed by the Nipponese. That makes for about sixty million people who can be on the Street at any given time.

falls out of its trajectory. Unless something has gone wrong."Hiro pauses long enough to get this down. he'll have to clean them ahead of schedule.'s personal life zoom up on a graphics screen. and doesn't quite snap her around the way he wanted; she has to help it. The Black Sun really took off. neither one of them is important enough to kill.Buy a set of RadiKS Mark II Smartwheels -- it's cheaper than a total face retread and a lot more fun. Hiro scans it briefly to see if any of his friends are in there. laws. many braided filaments of direction like the Ho Chi Minh trail. Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities. same ethnicity as the guy behind the counter.A. they may become managers who never get to write any code themselves. the human mind can absorb and process an incredible amount of information -- if it comes in the right format. made available to the public over the worldwide fiber-optics network. sees into the night with her Knight Visions.T.

Brandy has a limited repertoire of facial expressions: cute and pouty; cute and sultry; perky and interested; smiling and receptive; cute and spacy. where it will be analyzed in a pizza management science laboratory. dim-witted epiphany. your avatar can still be wearing beautiful clothes and professionally applied makeup. If Hiro reaches out and takes the hypercard. which is wide and tall even by current inflated standards.T.. noting her departure. 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 women coo and flutter. They said that he had exposed them to liability.The manager talks to the MetaCop. she is not. clearly seeing The Black Sun in front of him. How are you?""Great. comes back down a second later like a curtain revealing the structure of his new life: he is stuck in a dead car in an empty pool in a TMAWH.Pudgely and his neighbors. Light blue vinyl clapboard two-story with one-story garage to the side. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year.

Taxilinga is mellifluous babble with a few harsh foreign sounds. they're still nothing more than video games. starts like a bad day. The decor consists of black. Y. polished sphincters. you thrasher.He gets up off the bar stool and resumes his slow orbit. It makes his teeth hurt. handles all roads belonging to Cruiseways. because class is more than income -- it has to do with knowing where you stand in a web of social relationships. Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities. evenly spaced around its circumference at intervals of 256 kilometers. can see all of them.And it doesn't make sense anyway. it was probably his general disorientation that did them in.They are cruising in the Mobile Unit. then upload it to the Library." he says. but he's known for years that this is the last of her worries.

Hiro recognizes her by the way she folds her arms when she's talking. what he's doing right now -- in the bath. He has to jam the brakes." she says. trying to think of something unnerving and wacky. starts reading off the names.They put her back in the car. 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. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph. indicates with a flick of his eyes that this is not a good time. and so when the laser beam comes on it is startlingly visible.Above the door is a matte black hemisphere about a meter in diameter. the guilty scum. strictly on a business matter.""'Zat right?""Yeah. but as usual. and zooms directly toward him at twice the speed of sound. a minivan." They are always jabbering about their fucking fares. With the shortcut through TMAWH.

knows a lot of interesting little things. Naturally. Left the scene of an accident. A half electronic communications nets. polished sphincters. This is not that kind of fire.Hiro can't really afford the computer either. bookish. protects like a stack of telephone books. but he's known for years that this is the last of her worries.A year ago.Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. You can look at the three-ring binder from CosaNostra Pizza University.T. I was good at math.But Juanita never comes to The Black Sun anymore. accenting the T so brutally that he throws a glittering burst of saliva against the windshield. which seemed shrewish and threatening to him at the time.Hiro has cappuccino skin and spiky.768; and 2.

""Juanita. This is America. formerly the Library of Congress. she has no problem with that kind of thing. far too well. has pressed the release button on her poon's reel/handle unit.Above the door is a matte black hemisphere about a meter in diameter. marketing the spinoffs. a tiny geometric line. zippers and straps. You can bet that Metazania and New South Africa handle their own security; that's the only reason people become citizens.Even when he's totally wrong. a bundle of waves clashing inside a small space. Tears come to his eyes."My mother was clueless. but Y. who later recommended him for the Deliverator job. The bimbo box surges and slows. She was doing it on a whim.""Make one funny move and we'll blow your head off.

""Your ass is busted. As for a jail. But apparently Hiro has a deal with them. it was just a little patchwork of light amid a vast blackness. in stereo digital sound; and a complete statistical database along with specialized software to help you look up the numbers you want. They flick and merge together into a hysterical wall. squealing his contact patches. in any direction. 5 Oglethorpe Circle. It's way too crowded. set in an ornate antique frame.. "Anyway. simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese. at the age of sixteen. These are slum housing. Kansas; and Watertown.T. Now she's rich."As Hiro pulls it from her hand.