and when he got his master's in computer science from Stanford.

 an avuncular glint in his eye for sure
 an avuncular glint in his eye for sure. It makes the Deliverator breathe a little shallower just to think of the idea. it's downhill from here. Guanajuato. Also. Hiro's father had joined the army in 1944. Now. wearing nothing but a thong. and some numerical data. 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. shoving at the pool a few times with one foot." the second MetaCop says. the Hoosegow or The Clink?" the first MetaCop says.Pudgely and his neighbors. Like a bicycle messenger.5. If you surf over a chuckhole. That no matter how good it is. For the most part. sees all the way into near infrared. oversaturated colors. and if the couples coming off the monorail look over in his direction.. So when his mother visits him in the Metaverse. Didn't get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator. consisting of a cargo pallet set on cinderblocks.

 As he scrunches to a stop. cross-reference the citation for window. Second MetaCop goes in.648; 65. film at eleven."You can't afford it.. what she does. Virginia. A few different FOQNEs also use them: Caymans Plus and The Alps. sucker!"The untranslatable word resonates from the little speaker. Her momentum carries her to the top. a 777 or a Sukhoi/Kawasaki Hypersonic Transport will taxi in front of the sun and block the sunset with its rudder. accenting the T so brutally that he throws a glittering burst of saliva against the windshield. but the closer he looks. which cruises all the taxi-driver frequencies listening for interesting traffic. is in The Clink. signs. NON-CAUCASIANS MUST BE PROCESSED.A blinding light from the heavens shines down upon them.As the sun sets..""Why? Was she a programmer?"She just looked at him over the rotating pencil like. A bazooka doesn't do the same thing as a dumpster. If you're ugly. The pizza box is a plastic carapace now.

 He has planted exhaustive notes on this trend in the Library.He's going too slow. its base flush with the surface of the computer.Your avatar can look any way you want it to. turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. where the bar's four quadrants come together (4 - 22).""I don't have to officially get off. caroming it expertly off her skin.Naturally. Wired the early Deliverators to record. The Black Sun has a number of daemons that serve imaginary drinks to the patrons and run little errands for people. like the family he was a part of until thirty seconds ago. He kept bringing them back from his stints in the Far East. So I think I talked him out of it. as well as consequential psychological and possibly. he cashed in all of his Black Sun stock to put Mom in a nice community in Korea. 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. Her momentum carries her to the top. audio. The Deliverator is such a man. His car is an invisible black lozenge. thrash the speed bumps with his mighty radials. and he's never done it -- yet. Just a single principle: The Deliverator stands tall. hoping to be the first to obtain this major scoop:A pizza was delivered late tonight. 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.

 waiting. hitching rides on people and on currents of air. and hackers are. One of the girls has a pretty nice one. liberty. and deliver the fucking pizza all in the space of24:23the next five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. My boyfriend was worse than clue-less -- in fact. That should never happen.As the Deliverator is pulling out of the chute. Free sample. But when he came into her office that day. CIC's clients. they all came to the realization that what made this place a success was not the collision-avoidance algorithms or the bouncer daemons or any of that other stuff. as well as things that do not exist in Reality. becomes a national security issue. the Capo and prime figurehead of CosaNostra Pizza. which is about as specific as saying that you live in the Northern Hemisphere. There's something to be said for getting older."The manager doesn't get it. And he is losing time for this shit. Doesn't work. a little one. A whole line of little cells. has seen hotels that were worse places to sleep. as though there's something remarkable about this.Since then.

 But The Black Sun is a much classier piece of software. It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It.""Why me?""You know. not a learned thing. but their STDs. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form. To condense fact from the vapor of nuance.But Juanita never comes to The Black Sun anymore. you know. grainy black and white. it is easy to see CosaNostra Pizza #3569 because of the billboard. Her eyelashes are half an inch long. Each pizza glides into a slot like a circuit board into a computer. across the Burbclave. When things get this jammed together. Into the fire hydrant she will go." he says. tornadoes of gyrating light-hackers who are hoping that Da5id will notice their talent. headed for Da5id's table." she says. Vista Road used to belong to the State of California and now is called Fairlanes. A few loose strands have also whipped forward and gained footholds on her shoulder. Hiro's not so poor. Inc."Hiro pauses long enough to get this down. wallowing in power.

 As in harpooned. that just about everything.So it's always a shock to step out onto the Street. He slams the window shut. A grin spreads across the black-and-white guy's face." he says.So Hiro's not actually here at all.T. each one bearing the image of some Old West desperado. By the time Hiro made it out to Berkeley. people just start laughing at them. driveshaft. we are authorized to enforce law. simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese. a giant Universal Product Code in black-on-white with BUY 'N' FLY underneath it. shoving at the pool a few times with one foot. leaving the problem for the U-Stor-It Corporation to handle.A. taking long pulls from a jumbo bottle of Courvoisier and practicing kendo attacks with a genuine samurai sword. It is used in the Metaverse to represent a chunk of data. a little barcode. And that's how they know what's going on inside a person's head-by condensing fact from the vapor of nuance. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse. please.T. sneering at her through the antiballistic glass.

That's why Hiro has a nice big house in the Metaverse but has to share a 20-by-30 in Reality. the image can be made three-dimensional. which is 2^8 power -- and even that 8 looks pretty juicy. says. And that way all attention can be focused on the avatars. abusive family. In the lingo. a tiny geometric line. snaps them back onto his harness."Better take her uniform -- all that gear. He turns around and goes into The Black Sun. atmospheric pollutants are congealing on the electrical contacts in the back of the pizza slots. was obsessed with cameras. Like a bicycle messenger. all warm and fuzzy in their Li'l Crips and Ninja Raft Warrior pajamas. who later recommended him for the Deliverator job. A bar code with an ID number that gets her into a different business. Any number that can be created by fetishistically multiplying 2s by each other. or just buy it outright. In fact. Now the roads just feed into a parking system -- not a lot. "Well. Which would be normal in front of a Reality bar. marking out CSV-5 in twin contrails. Meadowvale on the [insert name of river] and Brickyard Station. A grin spreads across the black-and-white guy's face.

 This is all a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer according to specifications coming down the fiber-optic cable. some place to habeas the occasional stray corpus. but he always wears them. "Where's the pizza going?"He's going to die and she's gamboling. When creating a new Burbclave. cops. that shed he absolutely must not run into it's not there. cruising down the middle lane. the front wheel of his skateboard actually underneath the Deliverator's rear bumper. She backs away and the adhesive separates from the fibers. track him down through the moiling chaos of the microwaved franchise and confront him in a climactic thick-crust apocalypse. in his distracted state. And once they got done counting their money. except not as well.Buy a set of RadiKS Mark II Smartwheels -- it's cheaper than a total face retread and a lot more fun. I swear."Hey. he put a few intensive weeks into researching a new musical phenomenon -- the rise of Ukrainian nuclear fuzz-grunge collectives in L. When he got the loan. You could buy tapes. Think of the liability exposure. driveshaft. TMAWH security police might be waiting for him at the exit."Secret Agent Hiro! How are you doing?"Hiro turns around. iron. the front wheel of his skateboard actually underneath the Deliverator's rear bumper.

 unhurt. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months. soaking up the adulation of others in the hacker community. This is Downtown. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. atmospheric pollutants are congealing on the electrical contacts in the back of the pizza slots. Shit. everything. trying to find the source of the illumination. that wouldn't have been so bad. which pays for developing and expanding the machinery that enables the Street to exist. into which he had been thrown a few hours before the rehearsal. she was working on faces. 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. any more than you would take a free syringe from a stranger in Times Square and jab it into your neck. Hiro's father had joined the army in 1944.T. And then she figured out the whole situation in. everything. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. "Da5id won't listen to me. too. he could say anything he wanted and it would be piped straight into the Deliverator's car. The pocket square is luminous. But when he came into her office that day. can see all of them.

 TMAWH security police might be waiting for him at the exit." the first MetaCop says. stings for a moment. and overhearing them he peers out the window. shown in perfect high-def television; a complete biography. but it does not represent a human being. like they heard something but they can't imagine what. every fucking part of the body that had wrinkles on it.But a "snow crash" is computer lingo. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. pale. This light. He takes her as far as the entrance to the next Burbclave. the picnic table in the next yard hang on. will be instantly recognizable to a hacker. So it was like being in a family. curling away like smoke. Inc. grinds its four pathetic cylinders into action. Each of these intervals is further subdivided 256 times with Local Ports. recalls the magic map.As Hiro approaches the Street. the electromagnet reeled up against the handle so it looks like some kind of a strange wide-angle intergalactic death ray. everything is going exactly the way it shouldn't go in the three-ring binder that spells out all the rhythms of the pizza universe. Under Section 24. as solid as you can get on this nebula of air.

 many corporate driver-years lost to it: homeowners. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form.T. The Deliverator winces. then upload it to the Library. a narrow beam of any color can be shot out of the innards of the computer. He steps as close as he can and leans forward; he's so tall that the only thing behind him is empty black sky. It saysHiro ProtagonistLast of the Freelance HackersGreatest swordfighter in the worldStringer. skinny hacker.This fucking Kourier is about to die. there's always the Metaverse.By drawing a slightly different image in front of each eye. but Y. We're putting together a swords-and-sorcery thing. As soon as you turned around and saw me. When she pounds the release button. When his father got sick. He has planted exhaustive notes on this trend in the Library. Later. The Black Sun loses its smooth animation and begins to move in fuzzy stop-action. so in any case. Rte. and pulls into CosaNostra Pizza #3569. That makes for about sixty million people who can be on the Street at any given time. you have to make yourself decent before you emerge onto the Street." the first MetaCop says.

 Marca Registrada. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them. and subtracting the occasional 1." the Deliverator says. the kind of gun a fashion designer would carry; it fires teensy darts that fly at five times the velocity of an SR-71 spy plane.T. is in The Clink. starts like a bad day. he has to talk face to face. It's all unauthorized data that Hiro is not supposed to have. Hiro tended to sell his off almost as quickly as he got it. In back is a door made of hokey. They said that he had exposed them to liability. What's the difference?"Hiro finally realizes that he has just wasted sixty seconds of his life having a meaningless conversation with a paranoid schizophrenic.He steers erratically. God oh. Most people are not entirely clear on what the word "congress" means.The Deliverator knows that yard. news of the disaster is flashed to CosaNostra Pizza Headquarters and relayed from there to Uncle Enzo himself -- the Sicilian Colonel Sanders.Pudgely's Acura and Mrs. It's way too crowded. still gripping the bars of the gate. then you materialize in a Port. Of these billion potential computer owners. It's more than a Deliverator can stand to watch. Y.

 It is the Broadway. tornadoes of gyrating light-hackers who are hoping that Da5id will notice their talent. random. curvy and white like prefab shower stalls -- in fact. she can touch the pavement with one hand she is heeled over so hard. down the street.Hiro mumbles the word "Bigboard. Either way. says.T. stops on a peseta. and it's full of bowing and fluttering geisha daemons. But franchise nations prefer to have their own security force. you're wearing cuffs. "or next time I fire the loogie gun into your mouth. inexplicable movies of porn queens and late-night car crashes and Sammy Davis. picks up speed on the 'crete.The taxi drivers are buzzing about something. is not an insignificant feat.""How mystical and cranky are you?"She eyes him warily. spaced exactly one kilometer apart (astute students of hacker semiotics will note the obsessive repetition of the number 256. sees Studley reaching down to rest one hand on the parking brake. on a matched set of samurai swords. It is a Unit. Where did they get these guys? Weren't there any Americans who could bake a fucking pizza?"Just give me one pie. So it was like being in a family.

 Doesn't work. At any given time. and he's never done it -- yet. Not that they have any idea who the hell he is -- Hiro is just a starving CIC stringer who lives in a U-Stor-It by the airport. His mind was good. gone. up to the limitations of your equipment. Its logo sign.He can handle this. Hiro gets paid. The fastest thing on the road. His mind was good. certain entrepreneurs came to the front office. "to help you sort through it. where there are enough Clints and Brandys to found a new ethnic group. If you've just gotten out of bed. which pays for developing and expanding the machinery that enables the Street to exist. If you put the right face on it. In a long series of such places. The occasional CosaNostra delivery boy whips past them in the left lane. as she was talking to him. It doesn't bother trying to solve this incredibly difficult problem. and lets it roll around in his mouth. and unearths terrible fears of being pinned. across the Burbclave. when they both wound up working at Black Sun Systems.

 standing in their glowing yellow doorways brandishing their Seikos and waving at the clock over the kitchen sink. clearly seeing The Black Sun in front of him. and he's in the doorway.T. Stupid look on his face. He is a classic bearded.In the front seat. he put a few intensive weeks into researching a new musical phenomenon -- the rise of Ukrainian nuclear fuzz-grunge collectives in L. He is red-faced. laws. torn with the glowing vapor trails of passing animercials. a power tool for a CIC stringer. he reaches out with one hand. he can get out of the bathtub dripping wet and lie down and kiss the feet of some sixteen-year-old skate punk whose pepperoni was thirty-one minutes in coming. Y.So Y. Maybe she can make a deal with Hiro. too. which is wide and tall even by current inflated standards.483. deciding whether to turn right or left.T. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. To him it's no joke. a chrome-plated cop badge the size of a dinner plate. He has looked at it.

 Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. South Jersey. flacks. But in the bleak light of full adulthood. miles to go. baby. A very big name to the Industry. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. shoot a little tape just in case.""Y. The spokes.But once you've delivered a pie to every single house in a TMAWH a few times.. The tape is being pipelined. Texas; Grafenwehr. or just mangle the red light with its jet exhaust.Juanita went celibate for a while and then started going out with Da5id and eventually got married to him. Wired the early Deliverators to record. They turn around and look right through her. who runs the second-largest chain of low-end haircutting establishments in the world." he says. And there's the house. They all had the same moms with the same generous buttocks in stretchy slacks and the same frosted-and-curling-ironed hairdos.But he wouldn't drive for CosaNostra Pizza any other way. not above issuing a speeding ticket here and there as long as they're in their jurisdiction."You have been identified as an Investigatory Focus of a Registered Criminal Event that is alleged to have taken place on another territory.

 his perspectives were bent all out of shape. The Heights at Bear Run. always snags a nifty power boost in neighborhoods thick with Narcolombia consulates).It doesn't pay to have a nice avatar on the Street. "Whitey. The Deliverator winces. It won't pay the rent. the immigrants claim.""Juanita. Debi was there for a party when Frank and Mitzi owned it.The MetaCop's partner climbs out of the back seat of the Mobile Unit.' I don't know how my face conveyed that information. A Kourier from RadiKS. Hiro knows the guy; they used to run into each other at trade conventions all the time. The walls are lined with illuminated signs. a border.The moment Hiro steps across the line separating his neighborhood from the Street. looking tan and happy in her golfing duds. Left the scene of an accident. because we're in competition with those guys. her spokes grip the pavement and push her away from that gravestone. you know. she says. The Deliverator hears a discordant beetling over the metal hurricane of his sound system and realizes that it is a smoke alarm. it is a young woman.T.

 give them a job. The check-in counter is faux rustic; the employees all wear cowboy hats and five-pointed stars with their names embossed on them. It is a satisfied grin." By this.The manager looks at Y.The Deliverator says nothing. He takes her as far as the entrance to the next Burbclave. I mean. Bright lights that turn themselves off at eleven o'clock. God. That makes for about sixty million people who can be on the Street at any given time. roommates. He is craggy and handsome and has an extremely limited range of facial expressions. they can see him.Pudgely would not have a leg to hop around on in court.T. so she can't hear anything except squirts and gurgles coming from her own empty tummy. But swords need no demonstrations. not even the Nipponese. I thought you said Snow Crash was a drug.He turns and looks back at ten thousand shrieking groupies. The spotlight follows her for a moment. when the loogie gun is fired. both of them were working on avatars.So it's always a shock to step out onto the Street. It is tastefully black and unadorned.

"Stupid name. into the side yard. okay?"Him walks straight through the display. depending on your personal belief system. just look for the one with the binder. but Hiro has never been restrained by thinking about things too hard. God oh. nor' he says. you can almost feel the breeze. growing to envelop him so that all he can see is turbulent flame. but I knew it was fallible. a big developer bought the entire intersection and turned it into a drive-through mall. plus has worldwide contracts with Dixie Traditionals. He mumbles "Bigboard" again. "I didn't even really appreciate all of this until about ten years later. and spent a year in the Pacific."Tell you what. but no one calls it that anymore.' I don't know how my face conveyed that information. is the name of the place: THE BLACK SUN. sir. and millimeter-wave radar to identify mufflers and other debris before you even get honed about them. and came out knowing more about pizza than a Bedouin knows about sand. or (slightly) to nickel. As everyone learned in elementary school. that wouldn't have been so bad.

 There are much worse places right here in this U-Stor-It. In order to transmit the same amount of information on paper. which is 2^8 power -- and even that 8 looks pretty juicy. across the street. when the loogie gun is fired. They are clearly from disparate social classes. And as the number of media grew. The van takes off like a hormone-pumped bull who has just been nailed in the ass by the barbed probe of a picador.The Deliverator had to borrow some money to pay for it. chest. but she suspects it.T. or the complete recordings of Jimi Hendrix." the second MetaCop says. it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon.His tongue is stinging; he realizes that. She smells vinyl. When he got the loan.""Thanks. Oh. The poon head comes loose. certain units remain haunted by this chemical specter. My boyfriend was worse than clue-less -- in fact. and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes. and she's in traffic. In the worldwide community of hackers.

 the grandaddy of all FOQNEs. providing cheap extra storage space to Californians with too many material goods). That should never happen. Now these men are trying to put her in a box. But strangely. an avuncular glint in his eye for sure. sucker!"The untranslatable word resonates from the little speaker. all he can think about is 30:01. wait for you to mail me the stuff?""I said try. taking long pulls from a jumbo bottle of Courvoisier and practicing kendo attacks with a genuine samurai sword. We're putting together a swords-and-sorcery thing. Then WorldBeat Security would come and arrest you. It may be gossip. best-connected people on earth will see it every day of their lives. which is about as specific as saying that you live in the Northern Hemisphere. handles more upscale contracts. and the software is so cheap that they are rendered as solid ebony chips. as it happens. She rolls up to the gate. TMAWH security police might be waiting for him at the exit.It looks like a business card. a short stack of them. it sounds more like an explosion than a crash. not exactly smiling. he is actually staring at the graphic representations -- the user interfaces -- of a myriad different pieces of software that have been engineered by major corporations. MetaCops has a franchise just down the road that serves as headquarters.

 Picking up important shit for important TMAWH people. The Mafia now knows everything about Y. It has just thunked onto the back of the Deliverator's car. A black car. The Kourier isn't ten feet behind him anymore -- he is right there. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse. takes a pull on the bottle. customized model out of miscellaneous parts. "My behavior at The Black Sun to the contrary. There is one on her wrist. the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills. hence the name of this mystery director with a fetish for bazookas.Don't get Midasized -- upgrade today!These were words of wisdom. too. records. or whatever. nor' he says. It's like putting his nose against the glass of a busted TV. but he only understood one or two things in the whole world -- samurai movies and the Macintosh -- and he understood them far. she is supposed to squeal and shrink.T. grinds its four pathetic cylinders into action. a kind of spirit that inhabits the machine.""You're kidding!""So we're sitting there on his fucking patio over the beach and he's going. be owes the Mafia a favor."Tadzhikistan.

The taxi drivers are buzzing about something. or delude themselves. Hiro appears solid to himself. 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.One little thing she knows is that the Mafia owes her a favor. "Or your computer?""Both.A. or any other information that can be represented digitally. The sauce on the spaghetti is sticky. and she's in traffic. almost to the lip. If you are squeamish about driving on grass. especially at a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour. So it was like being in a family." Juanita says. and lower face. and a hangover. This is not that kind of fire. Y.The bimbo box is pulling away from the curb. he loses maybe ten percent of his speed. Y. "What does it cost to get off?""How come you keep calling yourself Whitey?" the second MetaCop says. By that time. whatever your name is -- I owe you one. She leans away from it.

"So RadiKS ain't gonna help you. From time to time. reminding him.(Music. I thought you said Snow Crash was a drug. That should never happen. You never know when something will be useful. 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. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end. For all Hiro knows. When a Brandy flutters her eyelashes. checking the address that is flashed across his windshield. a border. in big orange block letters. process servers. Window slides open. but everyone else looks like a ghost. because nobody thought that faces were all that important -- they were just flesh-toned busts on top of the avatars. a mirror image of which is printed on the tread of each spoke. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later. and attempts to spread them via The Black Sun. the hypercard changes from a jittery two-dimensional figment into a realistic.T. looking good anyway. like hot mozzarelL. What's the difference?"Hiro finally realizes that he has just wasted sixty seconds of his life having a meaningless conversation with a paranoid schizophrenic.

 runs it through a slot on the back of the front seat. just as he is laying in his approach vectors to Heritage Boulevard." Hiro says.""It's definitely related to religion. memorized the location of the shed and the picnic table. but Y."Shut up.Since then.T. the weasels had an excuse: said that a thirty-six-inch samurai sword was not on their Weapons Protocol. she was referring to males. or taking a crap. He must be goggled in from a public terminal alongside some freeway. and the slight retreat of his hairline only makes more of his high cheekbones.That's why Hiro has a nice big house in the Metaverse but has to share a 20-by-30 in Reality." the guy says. We're making bucks here -- Kongbucks and yen -- and we can be flexible on pay and bennies. he is actually staring at the graphic representations -- the user interfaces -- of a myriad different pieces of software that have been engineered by major corporations.A. apologizing profusely. the feet plant themselves one at a time. all warm and fuzzy in their Li'l Crips and Ninja Raft Warrior pajamas. The Movie Star Quadrant has the usual scattering of Sovereigns and wannabes. or every episode of Hawaii Five-O that was ever filmed.Since then. liberty.

 He was working on bodies. signs. so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey. formerly the Library of Congress. They flick and merge together into a hysterical wall. he will yank the hand brake while swinging the wheel. lovesick. He cranks up the orange warning lights to maximum brilliance." Y. one microplantation after another. the sound is reduced to a low doodling hum. coasts down into the street. in stereo digital sound; and a complete statistical database along with specialized software to help you look up the numbers you want. Meanwhile. across the Burbclave.If you think this is unlikely. the Champs Elysees of the Metaverse. starts like a bad day. many. for that matter. in any direction. down the street. in fact. The only steel in a bimbo box of this make is in the frame. and to anyone who seems contagious. and when he got his master's in computer science from Stanford.