four teenagers probably on a couch in a suburb of Chicago.

Underneath it
Underneath it. or making love to some actress. And they had studied this problem. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display. New Jersey; Tacoma. No brightness or creativity involved -- but no cooperation either. who later recommended him for the Deliverator job. And the clientele has a lot more class -- no talking penises in here. they deserved a free pizza along with their life. I'm the last person you want to be involved with at this point. your family.""What is your type.. and the hackers purse their lips and stare reverently. You're impulsive. can't handle it when you leave that little box. abusive family. The Mafia now knows everything about Y. Since this whole conversation has come to him via his computer. Ten feet behind him. the way she tosses her hair when she's listening to Da5id. closing in on the hapless Hiro Protagonist.She makes a low-slung approach.

CosaNostra Pizza doesn't have any competition. Second MetaCop goes in.T. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form. but her hand is still perfectly immobilized. It is a satisfied grin. the chopper tilts and vanishes into the night like a hockey puck sliding into a bowl of India ink. is not an insignificant feat. Unless you're something intrinsically indecent and you don't care. The only drawback is that the owners of the baseball may misinterpret your intentions and summon the police. The spokes. He steps as close as he can and leans forward; he's so tall that the only thing behind him is empty black sky. a giant Universal Product Code in black-on-white with BUY 'N' FLY underneath it. The houses look like real houses. he has had to go searching for women who are even easier to impress. by no means bald or balding. they all smear together. a monument built to endure. have had to buy frontage on the Street. Most avatars nowadays are anatomically correct."Huh. 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.T.

just making a delivery. this country has one of the worst economies in the world. "Whitey. studied their brain waves as they showed them choppy. And as he goes through.2 of the White Columns Code.Juanita refused to analyze this process. "Well. or making love to some actress. More recently. It's like talking to an asteroid. resonating in her gut. filtering the very light out of the air. But apparently Hiro has a deal with them. Then she puts it sideways under her arm. coming from inside the franchise. does not know any of this for a fact. was nothing more than that -- the gut reaction of a post-adolescent Army brat who had been on his own for about three weeks. bearing the CosaNostra logo. For all Hiro knows. square tabletops hovering in the air (it would be pointless to draw in legs). EX-LAXThe Deliverator has heard of these stickers. On the end is a squat foot.

because we're in competition with those guys. watching him look at the painting. truncated dreadlocks. It's more than a Deliverator can stand to watch. still gripping the bars of the gate. Some of them even got very rich off of it. stinking of Old Spice and job-related stress. Despite her lack of color and shitty resolution. Slid it right through the fabric of the perp's shirt. except that her parents lived in a house in Mexicali with a dirt floor. He has been learning the hard way that 99 percent of the information in the Library never gets used at all. It doesn't bother trying to solve this incredibly difficult problem. He whips the wheel. Developers can build their own small streets feeding off of the main one. Fairlanes. It's a squat black pyramid with the top cut off.The analysts at CosaNostra Pizza University concluded that it was just human nature and you couldn't fix it. She is holding her poon in her right hand. This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in several weeks. This is all a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer according to specifications coming down the fiber-optic cable. The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza. CosaNostra Pizza doesn't have any competition. a boring steel number with jimmy marks around the edges like steel-clawed beasts have been trying to get in.

certain units remain haunted by this chemical specter. these three colors of light can be combined. and they didn't want to pay for it. then sets quickly. At the same time."Where?" she says. 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. Take this. The hatch has been open too long. can see all of them. a spacious 20-by-30 in a U-Stor-It in Inglewood.Hiro turns away. He was emotionally worn out from wondering what she really thought of him. and marketing known as the family minivan. Hundreds of pages about Y. It even has bouncer daemons that get rid of undesirable -- grab their avatars and throw them out the door." he says. like Las Vegas freed from constraints of physics and finance. You can look like a gorilla or a dragon or a giant talking penis in the Metaverse. A few different FOQNEs also use them: Caymans Plus and The Alps. film at eleven." she continued."His heart expands to twice its normal size.

the spokes of the smartwheels see it coming and retract in the right way so that she glides from street to lawn without a hitch. building up speed. The ad was right -- you cannot be a professional road surfer without smartwheels. Now he's bulky. It is tastefully black and unadorned. the debating tactics. maybe. they didn't have enough money to hire architects or designers. She didn't wear blue stuff on her eyelids. It is tastefully black and unadorned. Got to build up some speed. The airbag inflates. "or next time I fire the loogie gun into your mouth. But they fired him anyway because the perp turned out to be the son of the vice-chancellor of the Farms of Merryvale. NON-CAUCASIANS MUST BE PROCESSED.T."He jerks her arm. God oh. his timing is off. "No. banging it heedlessly against doorways and stained polycarbonate bottle racks. now that the loogie is off her face. There is one on her wrist.

driveshaft. where the main character wakes up in a dumpster. growing to envelop him so that all he can see is turbulent flame." he says.The Deliverator holds the horn button down. Given the shifty resolution. early. growing to envelop him so that all he can see is turbulent flame. Hiro gets paid. like spaghetti. is thumping and whacking its way across White Columns airspace at this very moment. it sounds more like an explosion than a crash. "My behavior at The Black Sun to the contrary. All that security-inducing light makes the Visa and MasterCard stickers on the driver's-side window glow for a moment.A. Its main competition used to be a U. prepares for a breathtaking nighttime escape run across TMAWH territory. atmospheric pollutants are congealing on the electrical contacts in the back of the pizza slots. evenly spaced across the floor in a grid. unzips a pocket on the thigh of her coverall. a pizza on his shoulder. maybe. she has no problem with that kind of thing.

Hiro's father. quiescent. but Da5id has a very good personal computer. There are 256 Express Ports on the street. The white backup lights flash instantly as the driver shifts into D by way of R and N.So Y. like most Burbclaves. into which he had been thrown a few hours before the rehearsal.. Window slides open. wanting to lay his eyes on a real perp. Now. believing that he had come up with a good.Oh. A fucking teenaged girl! She is pristine.'s torso." the black-and-white guy says. Hiro's not so poor. to CosaNostra Pizza University. But franchise nations prefer to have their own security force.Hiro would have chalked it all up to class differences. the same strip joints. It saysHiro ProtagonistLast of the Freelance HackersGreatest swordfighter in the worldStringer.

indicates with a flick of his eyes that this is not a good time. grabs the bars. Meanwhile. square tabletops hovering in the air (it would be pointless to draw in legs). robo-wrought. just as he is laying in his approach vectors to Heritage Boulevard. Spend five minutes walking down the Street and you will see all of these. God oh. no police station. most of it as a prisoner of war. the cornerstone of their relationship. pulls a keychain out of a drawer. the spokes push her onto the desired street. he wants to replace it with a scene where the guy is out in the desert with a bazooka. It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It. there's no way to see the tattoo clearly. it was just a little patchwork of light amid a vast blackness. The white backup lights flash instantly as the driver shifts into D by way of R and N. When jumbo jets make their takeoff runs on the runway across the street. The Deliverator saw a real fire once. and Hiro's mother -- who could barely speak English -- wasn't equipped to make or handle money on her own. but his mother would have been a street person. Picking up important shit for important TMAWH people.

But he thinks the same thing when someone cuts him off on the freeway. then feels cold and hot at the same time.Don't listen to so-called purists who claim any obstacle can be jumped.536 is one of the foundation stones of the hacker universe. But Juanita is already on her way out the door. like Playboy pinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to be discovered. who was stationed in Japan for many years. They are brass. As its ass is rotating around..The LEDs on the pizza box say: 29:32. getting it through customs. some dramatic fallings out and some passionate reconciliations. In this way. many spokes extending and retracting to fit the shape of the ground. bounces off their rearview mirrors.Hiro. but the customers bend their knees and hunch their shoulders as though the light were heavy. Second MetaCop removes his newer. Our family dog started treating me differently -- supposedly. Y. She is headed straight for the exit of the Burbclave at fantastic speed. who as of thirty seconds ago is no longer the Deliverator.

Motorists around them drive slowly and sanely. When Hiro's father died. His hair does not cover as much of his head as it used to. resting there like the blade of a guillotine."But you'll never forget it.He has long hair. They are threatening to take her clothes. she was referring to males. and 4 is equal to 22.T. It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It. glinting majesty of their Personal Portable Equipment Suite hanging on their Personal Modular Equipment Harness. taking up ten consecutive spaces.He cuts off a bimbo box -- a family minivan -- veers past the Buy 'n' Fly that is next door. It is tastefully black and unadorned. It made him feel naked and weak and brave. they can smell a pregnant woman.He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was. Hiro has known her ever since they were freshmen together at Berkeley. Now he's bulky. Bob Rife -- which accounts for most of the bytes. Hiro Protagonist is a warrior prince. he will yank the hand brake while swinging the wheel.

Now. blooming into a tangled cloud of wreckage and flame that skids across the pavement toward him. Said that the perp had suffered psychological trauma. where the main character wakes up in a dumpster.That's why the damn place is so overdeveloped.His tongue is stinging; he realizes that. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. paint.T. At the time. Once you have materialized in a Port. hooked them to polygraphs. A black car."Don't be condescending. and the other is 1. Because of the preponderance of Americans. They put it in the Library. Anticipating the maneuver.Millions of other CIC stringers are uploading millions of other fragments at the same time. they double as shower stalls. like they designed it for road surfers. file a class-action suit. There's a fat white boy purchasing a monster trucks magazine.

They are clearly from disparate social classes. scream down Heritage Boulevard. but the Street has.TMAWHs all have the same layout. Underneath is naught but billowing pale flesh. I would rather look at a fax of you than most other women in the flesh. skinny hacker. they didn't have enough money to hire architects or designers. At Black Sun Systems.Pudgely's wing tips.T. she has no problem with that kind of thing.Big slowdown at the intersection of CSV-5 and Oahu Road.In the real world-planet Earth. you're just smart enough to benefit from this. so they can get drafted. the Suspected Perpetrator Apprehension Code. She was the face department. They put it in the Library. But this is the Metaverse. "What do you think?""Wait a minute. Usually. and so he asked her out for dinner and.

starts reading off the names. There's something to be said for getting older. The Deliverator's car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady's thighs.The analysts at CosaNostra Pizza University concluded that it was just human nature and you couldn't fix it. in letters carved into the wall's black substance.The manager handcuffs her to a cold-water pipe."White Columns. Many of these people probably belong to Sushi K's retinue of managers.'s hands are cuffed together in front of her. cruising down the middle lane. he has the layout memorized (sort of). and-this is a mark of distinction and luxury -- a roll-up steel door that faces northwest. printed backward so that he can read it from the inside. "I was coming up with all kinds of elaborate technical fixes like trying to implant electrodes directly into the brain." This is the name of a piece of software he wrote. they can smell a pregnant woman. Her RadiKS Knight Vision goggles darken strategically to cut the noxious glaring of same.T. It's a lot of guys in suits. She flies out of the pool as if catapulted.The Deliverator is a Type A driver with rabies. cream-colored." Hiro says.

The Deliverator saw a real fire once. this one on the windshield! It saysSMOOTH MOVE. Tears come to his eyes. cannot hear them because they are buried under the thunderwhack of the news chopper. They could strike up a conversation: Hiro in the U-Stor-It in L. The broad square of the pizza box.You know why? Because there's something about having your life on the line. too. "What did you say?""You want to try some Snow Crash?"He has a crisp accent that Hiro can't quite place. And lots of MPEG of L.""I don't have to officially get off. devoted to the fantasy of stabbing some particular actress to death; they can't even get close in Reality."Don't be condescending." The first MetaCop says. Inc. a light has come on.The whole interior of the car lights up as they drive past a Buy 'n' Fly. The punks in Gila Highlands weren't afraid of the gun. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end. He's got this beach house -- ""Incredible?""Don't get me started. quick-witted by Burb standards. He is shouting in the Abkhazian dialect; all the people who run CosaNostra pizza franchises in this part of the Valley are Abkhazian immigrants. it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency.

bearing the CosaNostra logo. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. sir. This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in several weeks. which Uncle Enzo considers to be his private time. And in that instant he becomes solid and visible to all the avatars milling outside. they can get into this place without physically having to leave their mansion. It's owned by the Nipponese. On his way out the door. For thousands of years his people have survived on alertness: waiting for Mongols to come galloping over the horizon. He had been found in Golden Gate Park."That's what I said. handles it in a typically Hong Kong way. the more his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering. It's a squat black pyramid with the top cut off. His uniform is black as activated charcoal. loogie-man.They enter the Buy 'n' Fly's nimbus of radioactive blue security light. At the time.The Deliverator.""I know. "The security of the city-state. she is supposed to squeal and shrink.

A stray dog turd. says. was nothing more than that -- the gut reaction of a post-adolescent Army brat who had been on his own for about three weeks.'s hands are cuffed together in front of her. The minivan goes sideways. and even the same people -- he kept running into school chums he'd known years before. learn-while-you-drive. the shock is thereby absorbed. I had the failure rate memorized. which is no big deal. avatars just walk right through each other. giving him a quick overview of who's here and whom they're talking to."Where?" she says. Because of the preponderance of Americans."She actually laughs. Still. the sound is reduced to a low doodling hum. and lawyers. she just gave a simple answer: "No. but those seventies and eighties developments exist to be bulldozed. It is the brilliantly lit boulevard that can be seen.Hiro is approaching the Street. flashes of orange and blue.

caroming it expertly off her skin. Unlike Da5id. "What is Snow Crash?""It's a drug. they wear T-shirts bearing the unofficial Enforcer coat of arms: a fist holding a nightstick. "Where's the pizza going?"He's going to die and she's gamboling.T. But you're right. make her follow rules. Light blue vinyl clapboard two-story with one-story garage to the side. Hiro Protagonist is a warrior prince. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu. they all begin screaming. robot-polished every Thursday morning."You have been identified as an Investigatory Focus of a Registered Criminal Event that is alleged to have taken place on another territory. 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. so she can go to the bathroom. 5-by-lOs and 10-by-lOs where Yanoama tribespersons cook beans and parboil fistfuls of coca leaves over heaps of burning lottery tickets.That done. but I knew it was fallible. zaps her bar code. cars parked sideways to the road -- these must be parked in the circle. but I knew it was fallible. He ate and vacationed off of that one for six months.

alive with nasty lights.)On the back is gibberish explaining how he may be reached: a telephone number. but Y. slicked back with something that never comes off."As your demeanor has been nonaggressive and you carry no visible weapons. But this is the Metaverse. It takes hours to get them off. maybe picking up some stock footage. and stuck.T.By way of answering his question. and they consider it just as good as a face-to-face.This fucking Kourier is about to die. The airbag inflates. Now these men are trying to put her in a box. She should have known. perhaps to the very students who will replace this man when he gets fired.. who recognizes it more readily than his own mother's date of birth: It happens to be a power of 2^16 power to be exact -- and even the exponent 16 is equal to 2. which runs straight to the exit of the Burbclave. not unlewdly. that means high turnover for him. says.

and we can use a hacker with your skills. Most hacker types don't go in for garish avatars. Like many people of color. Jr.It looks like a business card. because we're in competition with those guys. They can strut their stuff and visit with their friends without any exposure to kidnappers. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display. Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords. the tables are closer to the floor. They are the trademark of the hardcore Burbclave surfer. Juanita is right behind him. "You're going up against TMAWH here. stylish knockout. If you go couple of hundred kilometers in either direction. She flies out of the pool as if catapulted. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu. he figured that it was just typical female guardedness -- Juanita was afraid he was trying to get her into the sack. She sees the hydrant coming a mile away.""Is he your boyfriend?"She thinks this one over rather than lashing out instantaneously. it takes off from an altitude of about one centimeter. psycho fans. flaring out to present potential firefighters with a menu of three possible hose connections.

Vitaly owns half a carton of Lucky Strikes. process servers.It takes half a second. but --The Pudgelys and the Pinkhearts and the Roundasses are all staring at her. and they can see that nothing is on its way that looks like a CosaNostra delivery car. c'mon.""You're kidding!""So we're sitting there on his fucking patio over the beach and he's going. when the Street protocol was first written. as solid as you can get on this nebula of air. It made for some great arguments and some great sex. sneering at her through the antiballistic glass. Hiro's face was frozen in a wary. but --The Pudgelys and the Pinkhearts and the Roundasses are all staring at her. The Deliverator honks his horn. has seen hotels that were worse places to sleep. but they ran into a lot of expenses anyway. a little barcode.CosaNostra Pizza #3569 is on Vista Road just down from Kings Park Mall. And stay away from Snow Crash.When he saw her again after an absence of several years -- a period spent mostly in Japan. The bimbo box surges and slows. and is now right on top of the pizza mobile."Seven hundred and fifty billion.

T. that he put the other half of the equation together. which is the way people like it. shit happens. Still. it sounds more like an explosion than a crash.T. believing that he had come up with a good. she has no problem with that kind of thing. Sent psychologists out to these people's houses. a pizza on his shoulder. I went to church every week in high school. reflected in the lenses of his goggles."I can do that. he has to talk face to face. some place to habeas the occasional stray corpus. whether he was rich or poor. skating up one bank. like Playboy pinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to be discovered.12 has better pavement. Pickett's Plantation. A gentleman and a scholar named Lagos. Hiro's avatar is now on the Street.

They are cruising in the Mobile Unit.T.. but someone might come after him anyway -- might want his car. the manager turns off the lights; in Tadzhikistan. Like pixels.Oddity the first: The guy knows Hiro's name.T. The pesky Kourier will be cracked like a whip at the end of her unbreakable cable." he says. The grin of a man who knows something Hiro doesn't. like a man who is bored. watching him look at the painting. So he has a good chance of making it. Then you can bargain with them. people just start laughing at them. Keeps people on their toes. "take this. curling away like smoke. one microplantation after another.Bigboard again. says. and the four teenagers probably on a couch in a suburb of Chicago.