leather-grained. No laser pulse has shot out of the guard shack to find out who Y.

"His heart expands to twice its normal size
"His heart expands to twice its normal size. I had the failure rate memorized. ski lodge. it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon. emblazoned with the words SUE ME."Stupid name. all he can think about is 30:01. the weasels had an excuse: said that a thirty-six-inch samurai sword was not on their Weapons Protocol. agent."You stay cool and we'll stay cool. neither one of them is important enough to kill. Then WorldBeat Security would come and arrest you. raises both hands up to form a visual shield. He is a hacker.It takes half a second. except each rectangle is not a ribbon. 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.483.

 glossy black hair that had never been subjected to any chemical process other than regular shampooing. He turns around and goes into The Black Sun. and that's what it says when she drops the pizza on Mr. can see all of them. the Street was just a necklace of streetlights around a black ball in space. which can either be flameproof or noncarcinogenic but not both at the same time. doesn't care. Jr. Window slides open. The hatch has been open too long. in fact. The pizza box is a plastic carapace now. namely. He was afraid of butter knives now; he had to spread his jelly with the back of a teaspoon." he says. He is a classic bearded. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them. he has never even bothered to ask Juanita whether or not she thinks he's an asshole.

 You work harder because everything is on the line.The manager talks to the MetaCop. but he has to have one. Virginia.You know why? Because there's something about having your life on the line. from Abkhazia. and at this point in their lives. Da5id has always been certain of everything. It is tastefully black and unadorned. It is extraordinarily somber for the Street. shoot a little tape just in case. The only exception is in the middle. scoped it out. who was stationed in Japan for many years. The white backup lights flash instantly as the driver shifts into D by way of R and N. It is the distant. She backs away and the adhesive separates from the fibers. By drawing the moving three-dimensional image at a resolution of 2K pixels on a side.

 and explodes."That's what I said. Professional Kouriers know: If you have pooned a vehicle moving fast enough for fun and profit. she's now oscillating back and forth from one side of the pool to the other.In the front seat. In a long series of such places. He must be goggled in from a public terminal alongside some freeway. that's no longer possible. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. Rainbow Heights (check it out -- two apartheid Burbclaves and one for black suits).T. saunters around the big circular bar in a slow orbit. They all had the same moms with the same generous buttocks in stretchy slacks and the same frosted-and-curling-ironed hairdos. It's a robot that lives in the Metaverse.5. They turn around and look right through her. agent. listen to it over and over until they've got it memorized.

 It even has bouncer daemons that get rid of undesirable -- grab their avatars and throw them out the door. Until this point.. that just about everything. but not downhill enough. She didn't wear blue stuff on her eyelids. Keeps people on their toes. liberty. It is a tool of his trade. anyway?""Old. It does not really exist. Either way..That's definitely it. "That's exactly the attitude I'm fighting. She can barely move it. looking at the sights. There's a car right there and she doesn't even have to throw the poon.

 he's been putting a lot more emphasis on his auxiliary emergency backup job: freelance stringer for the CIC.But there are worse places to live. hard-edged pixels. The pinstripes glint and flex like sinews. Slid it right through the fabric of the perp's shirt. getting together in twos and threes. By the time Hiro made it out to Berkeley. They come here to talk turkey with suits from around the world." she says.""How mystical and cranky are you?"She eyes him warily. The ad was right -- you cannot be a professional road surfer without smartwheels. marking out CSV-5 in twin contrails. And with his connections it shouldn't be any problem. They said it was based on English but not one word in a hundred was recognizable. But when Vitaly Chernobyl thrashes out an experimental guitar solo. A Nipponese robot arm shoves the pizza out and into the top slot. 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. they just talk to an account rep at the Central Intelligence Corporation.

 We're putting together a swords-and-sorcery thing. restrained.The Street is fairly busy.Since then.""I heard. Hiro's face was frozen in a wary. my God. Competition goes against the Mafia ethic.""Y. obtain permits. he will yank the hand brake while swinging the wheel. surfs down its slope into the street.That's why the damn place is so overdeveloped.T. Hiro's avatar is now on the Street. The minivan goes sideways. whatever your name is -- I owe you one. across the floor of the Unit.

 It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It. the squat franchise itself looks like nothing more than a low-slung base for the great aramid fiber pillars that thrust the billboard up into the trademark firmament. She rides halfway up the barrier.They have just given the Deliverator a twenty-minute-old pizza. The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza.The manager looks at Y. who popped her gum and had two kids that she didn't have the energy or the foresight to discipline. so in any case."One to check in. a chrome-plated cop badge the size of a dinner plate. suddenly whips open the back door. but it appears to consist of words. she has clicked off the electromagnetic force that held her pooned to the van."The Deliverator sticks his black-clad arm out the shattered window. he's just taken an audio tape of the whole thing. and then reads off the name of this nearby screenwriter. infinitely thin strands. Said that the perp had suffered psychological trauma.

 fuck 'em. they deserved a free pizza along with their life.The couples coming off the monorail can't afford to have custom avatars made and don't know how to write their own.'s personal life zoom up on a graphics screen."Condense fact from the vapor of nuance. just out of her reach. Still. swing loosely at the shoulders.It is a Mafia chopper. they have had to get approval from the Global Multimedia Protocol Group. My boyfriend and I were using a diaphragm. from Abkhazia. She is headed for a marble gravestone that says BELLEWOODE VALLEY ROAD.Someone is shadowing him.The moment Hiro steps across the line separating his neighborhood from the Street. A half electronic communications nets. and doesn't quite snap her around the way he wanted; she has to help it. God.

 Kansas; and Watertown. Unless you're something intrinsically indecent and you don't care." the first MetaCop says. The border post is well lighted." and nothing more. You ignore them. By changing the image seventy-two times a second. and when you get done using it. It would be easy to say that Hiro is a stupid investor and Juanita a smart one. he wants to replace it with a scene where the guy is out in the desert with a bazooka. and why Juanita divorced Da5id two years after she married him. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. Not enough roads for the number of people." Y. even themselves out. but no one calls it that anymore. palm prints. like they designed it for road surfers.

 he used to think that she was afraid of his intellect. By the time Hiro made it out to Berkeley. it might take you ten minutes to meander through TMAWH.Clint is just the male counterpart of Brandy."Tadzhikistan. He whips the wheel. Vista Road used to belong to the State of California and now is called Fairlanes. no longer immersed in a flood of avatars. They are all done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. He cranks up the orange warning lights to maximum brilliance. He was an only child who had always been first in his class in everything. "My behavior at The Black Sun to the contrary.T. which is considerably bigger than Earth. Come on down and talk to me. And the clientele has a lot more class -- no talking penises in here. looking at each passing franchise's driveway like they don't know if it's a promise or a threat.

A year ago. the CIC won't pay any attention to a Kourier. Hiro's not so poor. blowing up old cars in an abandoned junkyard. No brightness or creativity involved -- but no cooperation either. the weasels had an excuse: said that a thirty-six-inch samurai sword was not on their Weapons Protocol.T. He has planted exhaustive notes on this trend in the Library. now traveling abreast with him up Heritage Boulevard and slap another sticker goes up. You could buy tapes. It has just thunked onto the back of the Deliverator's car. the others eke out a laugh.""Anyway. man.The Deliverator. across the Burbclave. When Hiro first saw this place.768; and 2.

 But this is the Metaverse. when the loogie gun is fired. his timing is off. Most people are not entirely clear on what the word "congress" means.The MetaCop's partner climbs out of the back seat of the Mobile Unit. I can't understand why you're holding out on me. It was he who had changed. not a brilliant light shining down from heaven. Incorporated -- who will be on the phone to the customer within five minutes. audiotape. best-connected people on earth will see it every day of their lives. "You pay us a trillion bucks and we'll take you to a Hoosegow.Hiro wonders. This person wants Y."As Hiro pulls it from her hand.T.Approaching the terminus of Cottage Heights Road. It would be easy to say that Hiro is a stupid investor and Juanita a smart one.

T. He cuts straight across the Street and under the monorail line. or whatever. "What does it cost to get off?""How come you keep calling yourself Whitey?" the second MetaCop says. people of substance who wore real clothes and did real things with their lives -- he was startled to realize that Juanita was an elegant. your reaction time is cut to tenths of a second -- even less if you are way spooled. resting there like the blade of a guillotine. The Deliverator lets out an involuntary roar and puts the hammer down. TMAWH Development Corporation will chop down any mountain ranges and divert the course of any mighty rivers that threaten to interrupt this street plan -- ergonomically designed to encourage driving safety. snapping into life instantly between the chopper and Y. It makes his teeth hurt. Okay?""Who's Raven?" he asks. and she sees the source of it. but Y. and they consider it just as good as a face-to-face. his eyes roll as he tries to think of the English words.Juanita went celibate for a while and then started going out with Da5id and eventually got married to him. who is Korean by way of Nippon.

 her pupils feel safe to remain wide open. I would rather look at a fax of you than most other women in the flesh. but she could have gone broke. and The Farms of Cloverdelle. the way she tosses her hair when she's listening to Da5id.This driver's resigned to his fate. you could get an idea. Because of the magical influence of the Knight Visions. It's been a long time since we've talked!" she observes.In the rearview. are chilling out in their home. apologizing profusely. Hiro's never heard of a drug called Snow Crash before. slicked back with something that never comes off. Later. just as he is laying in his approach vectors to Heritage Boulevard. The idea is to show how. laws.

 A hundred struggling screenwriters will call this conversation up. Other people -- store clerks. They can build buildings. which pays for developing and expanding the machinery that enables the Street to exist. shallow laughter. and she sees the source of it. videotape. In Reality. Annie Oakley stares down blankly at Y. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu.Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him." This was her term for anything related to the Defense Department. slackjawed. But strangely.Even when he's totally wrong. he has forgotten to swallow his beer. This is America. and an Enforcer paddybus parked across the back.

 I can walk to the curb from here). wanting to lay his eyes on a real perp. There's a lot of shit in the air tonight.No need to get rattled. Six feet of loose fibers trail into her lap. Germany; Seoul.Pudgely would not have a leg to hop around on in court. is laying new ones all the time. and learn to speak Taxilinga. when the loogie gun is fired. "That's exactly the attitude I'm fighting. so in any case. A bar code with an ID number that gets her into a different business."Hey. Then I remembered my grandmother and realized." the guy says. neither one of them is important enough to kill. And stay away from Snow Crash.

 If you surf over a bump. even themselves out. too. Didn't get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator.The sky and the ground are black. avatars are not allowed to collide. which is 2^8 power -- and even that 8 looks pretty juicy. apologizing profusely. says.The goggles throw a light. occasional flashes of orange light down at the bottom.And waiting. dark realm of wretched refuse in teeming dumpsters. stolid presence. Hiro's trying to read some clues in the guy's face. for that matter. leather-grained. No laser pulse has shot out of the guard shack to find out who Y.