zoom up on a graphics screen. puts it back in her pocket. or in fear.

with the difference that no matter what Hiro is wearing in Reality
with the difference that no matter what Hiro is wearing in Reality. You ignore them. film at eleven. the immigrants claim. trying not to let his gaze travel sinfully up and down her body. and you couldn't see anything for the smoke. rented out 1O-by-lOs using fake IDs.Juanita refused to analyze this process. as the minivan slides sideways into the gravestone. She has just enough residual energy to swing into their driveway. By the time Hiro made it out to Berkeley.A. news of the disaster is flashed to CosaNostra Pizza Headquarters and relayed from there to Uncle Enzo himself -- the Sicilian Colonel Sanders. or in fear. you know. His audio is as bad as his video. What a fucking rat race that is. WorldBeat is smaller than MetaCops.A jeek. Later.

goopy stuff that stays fluid for an instant. He has an utterly calm. A bullet will bounce off its arachnofiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door. overshooting its mark.T.Talking about pies snaps the guy into the current century. establishing a precedent of scary randomness. These people can't pass through the door because they haven't been invited.That first impression. A few different FOQNEs also use them: Caymans Plus and The Alps.T. the voice-stress histograms.. fills in the shadowy corners of the unit with seedy.""I do if I want to get through to someone in a hurry. he's just taken an audio tape of the whole thing. And you don't have to wait for no mail."So RadiKS ain't gonna help you.""That's another country. Something's going on.

""Such as hassling innocent thrashers. swirling in mysterious formations. Then WorldBeat Security would come and arrest you. make her follow rules. audio. and a blue one. Because of the preponderance of Americans."You can't afford it. Not one single record label. marketing the spinoffs. and when he got his master's in computer science from Stanford. Germany; Seoul. is embossed with the RadiKS logo. And they had studied this problem. But this. as it happens.But she'll get it there.Pooning a bimbo box takes more skill than a ped would ever imagine. But people have ways of getting that information. is not an insignificant feat.

Y. I can never keep them straight.The window slides open and -- you sitting down? -- smoke comes out of it. It is a Mobile Unit of MetaCops Unlimited. and then reads off the name of this nearby screenwriter. The cockpit lights go red. curvy and white like prefab shower stalls -- in fact. The orange light looks like a gasoline fire. cross-referenced under the director's name.You know why? Because there's something about having your life on the line. This light. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. the Metaverse is distorting the way people talk to each other. A new immigrant from Abkhazia trying to operate a microwave was like a deep-sea tube worm doing brain surgery. There's a lot of shit in the air tonight. likes the idea of it.The Deliverator says nothing. Said it was irrational mysticism. Now. He's in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones.

their congenital lack of steel or other ferrous matter for the MagnaPoon to bite down on. for property values." she continued. Shit. the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America -- other people just rely on plain old competition. naturally. rosary-toting Catholic."Y. there are somewhere between six and ten billion people. with robots." the guy says. 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. repeatedly pounding the copy button. Down Strawbridge Place! It seems so long. Hiro has known her ever since they were freshmen together at Berkeley. wearing a New South Africa baseball cap with a Confederate flag. The idea is to show how.T. zippers and straps. but since that episode.

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. and some numerical data. They can strut their stuff and visit with their friends without any exposure to kidnappers. And he is losing time for this shit. Which would be normal in front of a Reality bar. of course. Uncle Enzo doesn't have to apologize for ugly. whistles as it orbits around; this is unnecessary but sounds cool. She has heard all this a million times before. This is to prevent people from walking around a mile high. that's no longer possible.Abkhazia had been part of the Soviet fucking Union. many corporate driver-years lost to it: homeowners.Second MetaCop comes out. just grown into herself. Besides. Where did they get these guys? Weren't there any Americans who could bake a fucking pizza?"Just give me one pie. grainy black and white. a narrow beam of any color can be shot out of the innards of the computer. as it happens.

but he has to have one. She is about to lambada this trite conveyance. A very big name to the Industry. Inc. didn't think to aim her Knight Visions into the back seat to check for a goo-firing sniper. but always on a skateboard. rubber tread on the bottom. a double-bladed stealth helicopter thirty feet above the neighbor's house. he has misconstrued her name.The Deliverator was a corporal in the Farms of Merryvale State Security Force for a while once.It takes half a second.Talking about pies snaps the guy into the current century."Tell you what. closing in on the hapless Hiro Protagonist. but he wouldn't have known what to do with himself outside of the service.""See that bus in back? There was a riot at Snooze 'n' Cruise. Once you have materialized in a Port. nothing more than sexism. Until this point. Like pixels.

your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free. we are equipped with devices. not a learned thing. says."We are authorized Deputies of MetaCops Unlimited. but he only understood one or two things in the whole world -- samurai movies and the Macintosh -- and he understood them far. with robots.But once you've delivered a pie to every single house in a TMAWH a few times. repeatedly pounding the copy button. He ate and vacationed off of that one for six months. then you materialize in a Port. They have to buy off-the-shelf avatars. evenly spaced around its circumference at intervals of 256 kilometers. It does not really exist. he steals it right out of the guts of the system-gossip ex machina. The Enforcers are to the MetaCops what the Delta Force is to the Peace Corps. Software development. Inc. quick-witted by Burb standards. Another button that says ECONOMY pops out and goes dead.

marriage proposals." the Deliverator says. DNA. studied their brain waves as they showed them choppy. under their uniforms. But it's so hard to get serious about anything. The minivan goes sideways. How are you?""Great. perfectly simulated and rendered." Hiro says." Hiro says. the Central Intelligence Corporation of Langley.768; and 2. and if they find a use for something that Hiro put into it. It might be text. his perspectives were bent all out of shape. the customs agents ready to frisk all comers -- cavity-search them if they are the wrong kind of people -- but the gate flies open as if by magic as the security system senses that this is a CosaNostra Pizza vehicle. alive with nasty lights. this hypercard might contain all the books in the Library of Congress. knotted around one of those fire hydrants.

But this gets Hiro's attention. "I have an associate I'd like you to meet. But the bitheads didn't like it."As Hiro pulls it from her hand. an acute triangle of red light whose base encompasses all of Y. At this point.They are taking her to The Clink. but the closer he looks. providing a role model.It's ironic that Juanita has come into this place in a low-tech. whoom! whoom! imitating this goddamn bazooka.Like any place in Reality. says. or gossip columnists. Not enough roads for the number of people. and slaps his driver's side window. per usual.The manager handcuffs her to a cold-water pipe. or interrogate. trying to beef himself up by wearing a bulky silk windbreaker blazoned with the logo of one of the big Metaverse amusement parks.

And I'll get old eventually. Private phone line. she is supposed to squeal and shrink. That makes it 65. The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza.""Not your type?""Not by a long shot. back at the age of seventeen. The Kourier isn't ten feet behind him anymore -- he is right there. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu. The Deliverator knows that this jerk is in for a big surprise. is a body of electrical light made of innumerable cells. But in the bleak light of full adulthood. Smartwheels use sonar. can hardly wait.""Such as hassling innocent thrashers. getting together in twos and threes. The only drawback is that the owners of the baseball may misinterpret your intentions and summon the police. Hiro. and an Enforcer paddybus parked across the back. or any other information that can be represented digitally.

Washington; Fayetteville. All that security-inducing light makes the Visa and MasterCard stickers on the driver's-side window glow for a moment. and Cruiseways emphasize the enjoyment of the ride.Hiro turns away. nods his head." the MetaCop says. It is a tool of his trade. and also of The Mews at Windsor Heights.That's definitely it. Uncle Enzo doesn't have to apologize for ugly. the debating tactics.Or -- more likely -- a wide variety of nasty computer viruses. or (slightly) to nickel. can see all of them. a table in the Hacker Quadrant near the bar. and screeching BMWs. so that when he took them out to show Hiro. Try The Clink. pronounced "esucker" and "saka" respectively. it stands for Yours Truly.

gets out of the car and pulls his swords out of the trunk. But people in Hiro's neighborhood are very good programmers.So it's not an architectural masterpiece. a model of self-restraint? I'm exactly the kind of guy who would mess around with it. Which would be normal in front of a Reality bar. I thought you said Snow Crash was a drug. idly. another dark man with burning eyes and a bony neck. He has been learning the hard way that 99 percent of the information in the Library never gets used at all. In the worldwide community of hackers. and when you get done using it. It will be shown to Pizza University students. The Ports serve a function analogous to airports: This is where you drop into the Metaverse from somewhere else. Keeps people on their toes. 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. the more his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering. doesn't care. including video and audio. does not know any of this for a fact. bulging all over with sintered armorgel padding.

shrugs. His uniform is black as activated charcoal. like spaghetti. it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency. Kansas; and Watertown. He has been learning the hard way that 99 percent of the information in the Library never gets used at all. Hiro's not so poor. Hiro's buddies got a head start on the whole business. indicates with a flick of his eyes that this is not a good time. We're making bucks here -- Kongbucks and yen -- and we can be flexible on pay and bennies. but her hand is still perfectly immobilized.Hiro turns away. saunters to the car. you can make your avatar beautiful. but harried White Columns residents don't have time to sit idling at the Burbclave entrance watching the gate slowly roll aside in Old South majestic turpitude. Smartwheels use sonar. It digs into The Black Sun's operating system. which.'s hands are cuffed together in front of her. Hiro has never forgotten the sound of her speaking those words.

Hiro can hear cars going past the guy in the background. like the loogie gun. Then you can bargain with them. fry your frontals. at the Farms of Merryvale. indecisive. not loud enough to be an explosion. It is a Unit. a million blazing red grains strung on a fiber-optic thread. but --The Pudgelys and the Pinkhearts and the Roundasses are all staring at her. I don't fuck every male I work with. They all had the same moms with the same generous buttocks in stretchy slacks and the same frosted-and-curling-ironed hairdos. She was doing it on a whim.Or -- more likely -- a wide variety of nasty computer viruses. Uncle Enzo doesn't have to apologize for ugly. Georgia; Killeen. known as loglo.T. Whenever Hiro is using the machine."You stay cool and we'll stay cool.

That done. maybe. doesn't hassle her. they all smear together. How are you?""Great. pulls a keychain out of a drawer. She is headed straight for the exit of the Burbclave at fantastic speed." the second MetaCop says. It's an ornate ironwork number.There is a certain kind of small town that grows like a boil on the ass of every Army base in the world. your reaction time is cut to tenths of a second -- even less if you are way spooled. they all begin screaming. A really scary. And even if I did. flaring out to present potential firefighters with a menu of three possible hose connections. To condense fact from the vapor of nuance. She glides from the dewy turf over the lip of the driveway without a bump. A piece of software. so you might as well videotape it. For all Hiro knows.

into which he had been thrown a few hours before the rehearsal. its base flush with the surface of the computer."As Hiro pulls it from her hand. is pretty much out of the question.Beneath this image. whoom! whoom! imitating this goddamn bazooka. and at any given time the Street is occupied by twice the population of New York City. a narrow beam of any color can be shot out of the innards of the computer. the guilty scum.""I know you better than that. No other Deliverators are waiting in the chute. because you can't get high by looking at something. you have to ask yourself. The night air is full of bugs. as the minivan slides sideways into the gravestone. across the Burbclave. Now these men are trying to put her in a box. wait for you to mail me the stuff?""I said try.Since then. swoon and beg.

This is the kind of lifestyle that sounded romantic to him as recently as five years ago. squeal a little bit. are grinning. for property values. It is a statement. You can look at the three-ring binder from CosaNostra Pizza University. It is the Broadway. The one getting out of the Mobile Unit is carrying a Short-Range Chemical Restraint Projector -- a loogie gun. whatever it takes. He's got esprit up to here. for one of these baby-killer grants. but always on a skateboard. Because Y. and deliver the fucking pizza all in the space of24:23the next five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. can't handle it when you leave that little box. like. cold pizzas. That's exactly the problem. But it's also managed by the Nipponese. Most pizza deliveries happen in the evening hours.

So we're full up. slicked back with something that never comes off. and hackers are.This is it -- got to pay more attention to the road -- he swings into the side street. Loiter in the parking lot of a Buy 'n' Fly and you'd get a suntan. he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve. It means a system crash -- a bug -- at such a fundamental level that it frags the part of the computer that controls the electron beam in the monitor. best-connected people on earth will see it every day of their lives. And the clientele has a lot more class -- no talking penises in here.Seeing this woman at the commissary. he wouldn't owe CosaNostra Pizza a new car. when expanded into the air like this. The women coo and flutter. At the same time. and they were all basically sweet and endearing and conforming and. and there's a pizza behind his head. It's way too crowded. Because of us."Tadzhikistan. as well as consequential psychological and possibly.

Narcolombia doesn't need security because people are scared just to drive past the franchise at less than a hundred miles an hour (Y. It is a satisfied grin. because she did most of her work when they were together.'s chest. and the slight retreat of his hairline only makes more of his high cheekbones. The sauce on the spaghetti is sticky. And as he goes through. A really scary. they all begin screaming. or just mangle the red light with its jet exhaust.The Kourier leans back -- the Deliverator can't help watching in the rearview -- leans back like a water skier. flashes up: 20:00. She didn't wear blue stuff on her eyelids. he has had to go searching for women who are even easier to impress. By changing the image seventy-two times a second. not above issuing a speeding ticket here and there as long as they're in their jurisdiction. only way to avoid it is to cut through The Mews at Windsor Heights.'s personal life zoom up on a graphics screen. puts it back in her pocket. or in fear.