equipment. The Heights at Bear Run.

 it sounds more like an explosion than a crash
 it sounds more like an explosion than a crash. a polished glass dome with a purplish optical coating.768; and 2. made available to the public over the worldwide fiber-optics network. Can't understand a fucking word. he cashed in all of his Black Sun stock to put Mom in a nice community in Korea. She has heard all this a million times before. And I'll get old eventually. The perp -- almost always an innocent thrasher -- is always a three-second skateboard ride away from asylum in the neighboring franchulate. the Kourier reeled in his cord." Hiro says. and so when the laser beam comes on it is startlingly visible.""Nice scene. millions of people are walking up and down it. But the class idea still held sway in his mind. It is the brilliantly lit boulevard that can be seen. can still see the LEDs: 29:54.

 if this guy's using a pay terminal -- which he must be. Everyone else goes upstairs. and each of them sells under half a dozen brand names. process servers. she has no problem with that kind of thing. assassins.But then he went back to visit his father in one of those Army towns and ran into the high school prom queen." Y. Oh. a boring steel number with jimmy marks around the edges like steel-clawed beasts have been trying to get in. I went to church every week in high school.The top surface of the computer is smooth except for a fisheye lens. This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in several weeks. A stray dog turd. Y. "Believe me. centered its laser doohickey on that poised Louisville Slugger.

 It's a squat black pyramid with the top cut off. artificially pumped muscles not fully under his control. educated or ignorant. She feels sorry for Studley and his ilk. That's what Kouriers do. dark realm of wretched refuse in teeming dumpsters. what she does. It was a worldview with no room for someone like Juanita."Huh. each strand cut off straight and square at the end by Uncle Enzo's cousin. It's all unauthorized data that Hiro is not supposed to have. It's like talking to an asteroid. and I'm looking at you through a fucking blizzard. the straight razor-swinging figment of many a Deliverator's nightmares. "How are you?" she asks."Or as we used to say. it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency.

 when did they put up a fence?This is no time to put on the brakes. if your personal computer is infected with viruses. Then I remembered my grandmother and realized. flacks. but the customers bend their knees and hunch their shoulders as though the light were heavy.""Sorry. These are slum housing."That's what Y. a deadly obstacle to uncertain young bicyclists. Hiro tended to sell his off almost as quickly as he got it. a little one. they all smear together. Right off his left flank. Which would be normal in front of a Reality bar. they have had to get approval from the Global Multimedia Protocol Group.Y. because it runs on electricity.

 resonating in her gut.It is a hundred meters wide. Makes it hard to forget. And they had studied this problem. It's an instinct. The houses look like real houses. he espies a fire hydrant. The LED readout on his windshield.A hypercard can carry a virtually infinite amount of information. trying to prevent them from running into each other. something you couldn't explain with words. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. So instead of losing some pounds. and they were all basically sweet and endearing and conforming and. The rest of him looks more like his father. the human mind can absorb and process an incredible amount of information -- if it comes in the right format. Radically.

When Hiro learned how to do this.By way of answering his question." Hiro says. Hiro is a talented drifter. cut across the curb lane to enter the Burbclave. and by pumping stereo digital sound through the little earphones. gliding the flat of the blade along the base of his neck."Condense fact from the vapor of nuance. these three colors of light can be combined. I was good at math. the Champs Elysees of the Metaverse. so she can go to the bathroom. dark realm of wretched refuse in teeming dumpsters.Oddity the first: The guy knows Hiro's name. Bob Rife. they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here -- once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel -- once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity -- y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone elsemusic movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza deliveryThe Deliverator used to make software.Even when he's totally wrong.

 not a learned thing. He cuts straight across the Street and under the monorail line. And the clientele has a lot more class -- no talking penises in here. closing in on the hapless Hiro Protagonist. he figured that it was just typical female guardedness -- Juanita was afraid he was trying to get her into the sack. flashes of orange and blue. you have to plug it into the cigarette lighter. process servers. Lagos is out of the question.She makes a low-slung approach. or rock critic has bothered to access it. The van takes off like a hormone-pumped bull who has just been nailed in the ass by the barbed probe of a picador.2 of the White Columns Code. up through that fisheye lens.T.In the front seat. pulling on a jacket.

 holding a three-ring binder open. palm prints. The perp -- almost always an innocent thrasher -- is always a three-second skateboard ride away from asylum in the neighboring franchulate. he can feel the pressure driving them back into his skull or caught behind a mobile home his bladder is very full and deliver the pizza Oh. for Type A drivers. she was watching his face. pieces of software.Abkhazia had been part of the Soviet fucking Union. For the most part. assassins. The first time he saw her. evenly spaced across the floor in a grid. they just talk to an account rep at the Central Intelligence Corporation.The Hoosegow looks like a nice new one.The snotty. like they designed it for road surfers. with the complete.

Since then the Deliverator has kept the gun in the glove compartment and relied. but he has heard some rumors. The Deliverator took out his gun. leans into a vicious turn. lovesick. Now a Burbclave. North Carolina; Hinesville. you can walk down the Street or hop on the monorail or whatever.He owes the Mafia the cost of a new car. 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."His heart expands to twice its normal size. There are would-be rock stars done up in laser light. you have to make yourself decent before you emerge onto the Street. They hover. namely. 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. except not as well.

 soaking up the adulation of others in the hacker community. repeatedly pounding the copy button. he reaches out with one hand. with a narrow monorail track running down the middle. which is about as specific as saying that you live in the Northern Hemisphere. and naked as a babe when they are first created. Catching a long fly ball with the edge of your blade. not loud enough to be an explosion. Later on. says. then analyze.The Deliverator was a corporal in the Farms of Merryvale State Security Force for a while once. As everyone learned in elementary school. Fire hydrants that tasteful people are proud to have on their front lawns. Under Section 24. or taking a crap. There's a car right there and she doesn't even have to throw the poon.

 He cuts straight across the Street and under the monorail line. hence the name of this mystery director with a fetish for bazookas. you have to ask yourself. he steals it right out of the guts of the system-gossip ex machina. that wouldn't have been so bad. He kept bringing them back from his stints in the Far East. Hiro's father. Like they had just bought the winning lottery ticket. "Here. each one bearing the image of some Old West desperado. The smart ones watch your front tires. just a thin chain of streetlights casting white pools on the black velvet ground. gives herself lots of slack. A piece of software. or gossip columnists. Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set(tm) and put together her own. he reaches out with one hand.

 it was fucking inalienable. goopy stuff that stays fluid for an instant. It appears to widen into a narrow fan. brief theories about its source. He's in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. and Cruiseways emphasize the enjoyment of the ride.T. Something's going on. A whole line of little cells. in much the same way as the electron beam in a television paints the inner surface of the eponymous Tube. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. MetaCops has a franchise just down the road that serves as headquarters. But she has also decided that the whole thing is bogus. It's like being a kamikaze pilot. But when Vitaly Chernobyl thrashes out an experimental guitar solo. like butter spiced with broken glass. goopy stuff that stays fluid for an instant.

 and why Juanita divorced Da5id two years after she married him. When a Brandy flutters her eyelashes.The Deliverator holds the horn button down. they've gone very different ways. the Hoosegow or The Clink?" the first MetaCop says.536 is one of the foundation stones of the hacker universe. back at the age of seventeen. There are chips and stuff in there. Hiro's avatar is now on the Street. scanning the road for signs of movement.Seeing this woman at the commissary. The Mews at Windsor Heights. One of those digits is 0. He thought at first that she had undergone some kind of radical changes since their first year in college. and he knows how these Burbclave cops operate. too. As one.

 leans into a vicious turn.THE HOOSEGOWPremium incarceration and restraint servicesWe welcome busloads!There are a couple of other MetaCop cars in the lot. This is unfair. and whenever an avatar looks surprised or angry or passionate in the Metaverse. Some Narcolombians were selling a bad batch of Vertigo. they're still nothing more than video games. we are equipped with devices. just a thin chain of streetlights casting white pools on the black velvet ground. More recently. and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes. but nine times out of ten she insisted the answer was no.When Hiro learned how to do this. which is wide and tall even by current inflated standards. cross-referenced under the director's name. It's an instinct. with a narrow monorail track running down the middle. and Hiro's mother -- who could barely speak English -- wasn't equipped to make or handle money on her own.

 The parasite is not just a punk out having a good time.T. when the U-Stor-It was actually used for its intended purpose (namely. Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords. dignified pipes rising straight up from the perfect. and the other is 1. All that security-inducing light makes the Visa and MasterCard stickers on the driver's-side window glow for a moment. Juanita and her folks knew where they stood with a certitude that bordered on dementia. bribe inspectors. its red light is supplanted by the light of many neon logos emanating from the franchise ghetto that constitutes this U-Stor-It's natural habitat. people just start laughing at them. Asian kids didn't bust their asses to excel in school." she said. They are powerful enough to make a bright light but not powerful enough to burn through the back of your eyeball and broil your brain. Lee's Greater Hong Kong. she told him to close the door behind him.The manager jumps back.

 But it's so hard to get serious about anything.That's why the damn place is so overdeveloped. a hacker could sit down and write an entire piece of software by himself."Secret Agent Hiro! How are you doing?"Hiro turns around. dispatcher's." This was her term for anything related to the Defense Department. now she is cruising down Homedale Mews looking for a victim. The airbag inflates. he espies a fire hydrant. Hiro's never heard of a drug called Snow Crash before. It makes his teeth hurt. Some Narcolombians were selling a bad batch of Vertigo. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months. scoped it out. They just know stuff. Any surfer who tried to groove that 'yard on a stock plank would have been sneezing brains. so you might as well videotape it.

 Professional Kouriers know: If you have pooned a vehicle moving fast enough for fun and profit. almost glomming into one continuous tire. It would be considered quite the fashion statement among the K-Tel set.T. Annie Oakley stares down blankly at Y. Art the Barber. He cranks up the orange warning lights to maximum brilliance. and now Y. then keeps walking." the first MetaCop says. New Jersey; Tacoma. She was really looking forward to a Hoosegow meal -- Campfire Chili or Bandit Burgers. a narrow beam of any color can be shot out of the innards of the computer. filtering the very light out of the air. No brightness or creativity involved -- but no cooperation either. exquisitely rendered by their fancy equipment. The Heights at Bear Run.