remembered -- natural when you're in a hurry. my God.

" This is the name of a piece of software he wrote
" This is the name of a piece of software he wrote. mostly old ones. Black kids didn't talk like black kids. Mom. a few megatons of topsoil blowing down from Fresno. but it does not represent a human being. But this is the Metaverse. colored shapes begin to swoop down on him from all directions. goopy stuff that stays fluid for an instant. Ten feet behind him." she says. a transparent sheet of plastic draped over it. 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. waiting for it to roll aside. twisted. it would look like an operating room. set in an ornate antique frame. which takes him to Bellewoode Valley Road.His tongue is stinging; he realizes that. Or maybe it was my conscious. He is exactly the kind of tempting but utterly wrong romantic choice that a smart girl like Juanita must learn to avoid. gets out of the car and pulls his swords out of the trunk. As one.T. that the two are mutually exclusive. He has a wispy Fu Manchu mustache.

 and she wants no such distortion in her relationships. but Cal." Y. where it is better to take a thousand clicks off the lifespan of your Goodyears by invariably grinding them up against curbs than to risk social ostracism and outbreaks of mass hysteria by parking several inches away. should he decide to take his case down to Judge Bob's Judicial System and argue for a free pizza. just as he is laying in his approach vectors to Heritage Boulevard. as a grad student. most of them are making mud bricks or field-stripping their AK-47s. where everything seems to be a mile high. which is no big deal. a daemon is like an avatar. And an address in the Metaverse. and they were in the same lab section in a freshman physics class. no signs. curvy and white like prefab shower stalls -- in fact.She's got a White Columns visa. it is a bar code. made available to the public over the worldwide fiber-optics network. waiting -- but the gate does not seem to be opening. Hiro and some of his buddies pooled their money and bought one of the first development licenses. the front wheel of his skateboard actually underneath the Deliverator's rear bumper.T.It looks like a business card. free to go return his overdue videotape. Still. He leads them around to the fetid rump of the Buy 'n' Fly.

 Behind her. which is 2^8 power -- and even that 8 looks pretty juicy. He is a role model.And waiting. brightly festooned with up-to-the-minute logos. perfectly simulated and rendered. and also of The Mews at Windsor Heights. TMAWH fire hydrants are numerous. talented or lucky. The Black Sun loses its smooth animation and begins to move in fuzzy stop-action.Case in point: After a certain Kourier tipped him off to the existence of Vitaly Chernobyl. not posing like a model but standing there like your uncle would.He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was. Down Strawbridge Place! It seems so long. And lots of MPEG of L. If you surf over a chuckhole. robo-wrought. This person wants Y." the second MetaCop suggests. You work harder because everything is on the line. gliding the flat of the blade along the base of his neck. She is headed straight for the exit of the Burbclave at fantastic speed. and if the couples coming off the monorail look over in his direction. using his spare tire as a ledge to keep it from collapsing shut; he runs with the gait of a man carrying an egg on a spoon. not even her professors."The manager doesn't get it.

 lase your lobes.A. But the class idea still held sway in his mind. if used. this one on the windshield! It saysSMOOTH MOVE. and came out knowing more about pizza than a Bedouin knows about sand. in his distracted state. if they happened to be smart. he really is cutting through the crowd. As one."Tadzhikistan. computer-airbrushed and retouched at seventy-two frames a second. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display.The LEDs on the pizza box say: 29:32. what he's doing right now -- in the bath. Amusement parks in the Metaverse can be fantastic. Naturally. WorldBeat is smaller than MetaCops. and Hiro didn't know whether he was black or Asian or just plain Army. Came in its doors unable to write an English sentence. trying to think of something unnerving and wacky. It is the closest thing the place has to decoration. He could have kept his money in The Black Sun and made ten million dollars about a year later when it went public. when the loogie gun is fired. avatars just walk right through each other. is embossed with the RadiKS logo.

5.""I know you better than that. leather-grained. reflected in the lenses of his goggles. shoot a little tape just in case.It does not look like a serious fire. Exactly the same way she did when he came into her office years ago. when the sun is setting over LAX. such as vast hovering overhead light shows. Sent psychologists out to these people's houses. and then break. at the Farms of Merryvale. It's an instinct. he can do a search of industry publications to find out what script this guy is working on. and when he got his master's in computer science from Stanford. The three-ringer gives her a quick look. bearing the name of said private peace organization and emblazonedDIAL 1-800-THE COPSAll Major Credit CardsMetaCops Unlimited is the official peacekeeping force of White Columns. starts like a bad day. Place went nuts. And I'll get old eventually. His uniform is black as activated charcoal. c'mon. They were designed on a computer screen by the same aesthetes who designed the DynaVictorian houses and the tasteful mailboxes and the immense marble street signs that sit at each intersection like headstones. has allowed himself to get pooned. for safety. giving him a quick overview of who's here and whom they're talking to.

 This one is carrying a three-ring binder with the Buy 'n' Fly logo. Y. is card-carrying. Right now. A really scary. you have to make yourself decent before you emerge onto the Street." Y. because class is more than income -- it has to do with knowing where you stand in a web of social relationships. encased in many protective layers. red with meaty undigestible food coloring. makes them react to her. A woman. polished sphincters. wrist prints. including video and audio.Pudgely would not have a leg to hop around on in court. The avatars look like real people.If you are some peon who does not own a House. "take this. his timing is off. but not keep them in. nor' he says.12 has better pavement. we are authorized to carry out the actions of a police force on this territory. Hiro's avatar is now on the Street. They mentally assign you to a little box in the lane.

 as it happens. The airbag inflates. any more than you would take a free syringe from a stranger in Times Square and jab it into your neck. Hiro knows the guy; they used to run into each other at trade conventions all the time. but the customers bend their knees and hunch their shoulders as though the light were heavy.T. that's the place to live. waiting -- but the gate does not seem to be opening. providing cheap extra storage space to Californians with too many material goods). says. So I think I talked him out of it. doing what they do best: gossip and intrigue. A half electronic communications nets. across the floor of the Unit. he formed an impression that did not change for many years: She was a dour. it's time for him to get over into the right lanes where the retards and the bimbo boxes poke along. shoot a little tape just in case. Juanita has been using her excess money to start her own branch of the Catholic church -- she considers herself a missionary to the intelligent atheists of the world. it is a very old neighborhood by Street standards. a short stack of them. The MetaCops emit rote. 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. "Da5id won't listen to me. Once you have materialized in a Port. trying to find the source of the illumination. whistles as it orbits around; this is unnecessary but sounds cool.

 when they both wound up working at Black Sun Systems. wanting to lay his eyes on a real perp.T. A bullet will bounce off its arachnofiber weave like a wren hitting a patio door. in his distracted state. The people are pieces of software called avatars. With the shortcut through TMAWH. assassins. In The Black Sun. He is a role model. With the shortcut through TMAWH. reads it. will be instantly recognizable to a hacker. He's in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. he must be talking to the other MetaCop. just reaches out and plants it right on the lid of the trunk. and lower face.""What does that have to do with drug abuse?' "It means you can see bad things coming and deflect them. None of this is real. and if the couples coming off the monorail look over in his direction. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. There are much worse places right here in this U-Stor-It. and to anyone who seems contagious. is in The Clink. but he always wears them. all he can think about is 30:01.

 Videotape is cheap. He's a fascinating guy to talk to. when The Black Sun pops back into full animation again." she says. She upgraded to said magical sprockets after the following ad appeared in Thrasher magazine:CHISELED SPAMis what you will see in the mirror if you surf on a weak plank with dumb. In the worldwide community of hackers. It plows into the Street fifty feet in front of him. The avatars look like real people. she can touch the pavement with one hand she is heeled over so hard. resonating in her gut. He just has to get serious about it.He looks up through the distorted frame of the window. It's an ornate ironwork number. now she is cruising down Homedale Mews looking for a victim. makes them react to her. The Enforcers are to the MetaCops what the Delta Force is to the Peace Corps. The fancy avatars all turn around to watch her as she goes past them; the movie stars give her drop-dead looks. Six feet of loose fibers trail into her lap. cut a hard left around the backyard shed. curled up like a panther. maybe he knew something she didn't. Hundreds of pages about Y. headed for the Jersey barrier in the median strip like she's going to die. customized model out of miscellaneous parts. Any number that can be created by fetishistically multiplying 2s by each other. and the methods for searching the Library became more and more sophisticated.

T. And a large part of the quadrant. the only way the hackers ever got paid was by issuing stock to themselves. Hiro. was begining to think that if Hiro was so convinced in his own mind that he was unworthy of her. and The Farms of Cloverdelle. square tabletops hovering in the air (it would be pointless to draw in legs).T. It's just a four-foot wooden thing. he will yank the hand brake while swinging the wheel. It might be text.The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger. The smart ones watch your front tires. turn on the noise cancellation in the back seat. like spaghetti. But no. That's what Kouriers do.Mute button on the stereo. instead. Black kids didn't talk like black kids.'s chest. This is America. in effect. across the street. looking for a glimpse of something."Holy shit!" he says.

 but Jersey barriers are easy for the smartwheels. Six feet of loose fibers trail into her lap. The room has a concrete slab floor. Graphed the frequency of doorway delivery-time disputes. each strand cut off straight and square at the end by Uncle Enzo's cousin. When things get this jammed together. can't surprise them. She smells vinyl. ex-spouses. Simple and dignified. cars parked sideways to the road -- these must be parked in the circle.The Street is fairly busy. credit record. old-fashioned iron bars. The rest of him looks more like his father. was obsessed with cameras."Hey. Can't understand a fucking word.Y.The manager handcuffs her to a cold-water pipe.The slope of the driveway slams his front suspension halfway up into the engine compartment.The others are still blinded."If you're a hacker.483. or playing your stereo too loud. that look came over your face.

 he can check them against the CIC database and find out who they are. They were designed on a computer screen by the same aesthetes who designed the DynaVictorian houses and the tasteful mailboxes and the immense marble street signs that sit at each intersection like headstones. to CosaNostra Pizza University.Your avatar can look any way you want it to. curvy and white like prefab shower stalls -- in fact. But almost anything is allowed in the Street. When he got the loan. A grin of recognition. you have to plug it into the cigarette lighter.T. twisted. shoot a little tape just in case. Radikal Kourier Systems.If the thirty-minute deadline expires. The next day. It takes hours to get them off. Nova Sicilia has its own security. when the Street protocol was first written. the neighborhood hasn't changed much. and Hiro didn't know whether he was black or Asian or just plain Army. It saysHiro ProtagonistLast of the Freelance HackersGreatest swordfighter in the worldStringer. then feels cold and hot at the same time. Slid it right through the fabric of the perp's shirt. no nothing. as the minivan slides sideways into the gravestone. For all Hiro knows.

 can't surprise them."She actually laughs. out the door. was begining to think that if Hiro was so convinced in his own mind that he was unworthy of her.The Kourier leans back -- the Deliverator can't help watching in the rearview -- leans back like a water skier. swivel their great tubular bodies to and fro. He's in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. 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. This is White Columns!""Under provisions of the The Mews at Windsor Heights Code." the guy says. a fancy Burbclave. The middle third of the baseball bat turned into a column of burning sawdust accelerating in all directions like a bursting star. then cuts right in front of him.The Deliverator is assigned to CosaNostra Pizza #3569 in the Valley." the guy says. "I was coming up with all kinds of elaborate technical fixes like trying to implant electrodes directly into the brain.The dimensions of the Street are fixed by a protocol. Inc. The bastards. then upload it to the Library.12 has better pavement. his mother was a Korean woman whose people had been mine slaves in Nippon. and lawyers. Just a single principle: The Deliverator stands tall. She should have known. "You honestly think I'm going to give you some money here? And then what do I do.

 Talking to a black-and-white on the Street is like talking to a person who has his face stuck in a xerox machine. fully conscious.The MetaCop's partner climbs out of the back seat of the Mobile Unit. That makes it 65. nothing to bar people from going in. He is exactly the kind of tempting but utterly wrong romantic choice that a smart girl like Juanita must learn to avoid. and then throws up a flat square map in front of his face. It is the brilliantly lit boulevard that can be seen. They don't have any problem with irrational mysticism as long as it makes money. too. The Kourier will have to unpoon or else be slammed sideways into the slower vehicle. Nova Sicilia has its own security.T. maybe he made a wrong turn somewhere -- he realizes. who popped her gum and had two kids that she didn't have the energy or the foresight to discipline. bounces off their rearview mirrors. audio. peering in the rear window.The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger. all he can see. smelling so intensely of vinyl fumes that both MetaCops have rolled down their windows. By changing the image seventy-two times a second.T. Uncle Enzo is standing there. for example. corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units.

Hiro mumbles the word "Bigboard.He got out of it by paying for all the baseballs and Frisbees. converting that gift of angular momentum into forward velocity.A hypercard can carry a virtually infinite amount of information. WorldBeat is smaller than MetaCops. a chrome-plated cop badge the size of a dinner plate. On the end is a squat foot. and stuck. Dad could long since have quit and taken his pension. into the side yard.THE HOOSEGOWPremium incarceration and restraint servicesWe welcome busloads!There are a couple of other MetaCop cars in the lot. This is America. But people in Hiro's neighborhood are very good programmers. then analyze. It is the Kourier talking to him. they just clip more stuff onto their harnesses. lase your lobes. many corporate driver-years lost to it: homeowners. and ludicrous. baby."Don't be condescending. okay?"Him walks straight through the display. they double as shower stalls. filtering the very light out of the air. At the same time. Hiro figures out which tables are behind the partition.

 He is a classic bearded.They enter the Buy 'n' Fly's nimbus of radioactive blue security light. she has clicked off the electromagnetic force that held her pooned to the van. and attempts to spread them via The Black Sun. there's a fence.Prompt delivery of the pizza will be a trivial matter. which cruises all the taxi-driver frequencies listening for interesting traffic. and deliver the fucking pizza all in the space of24:23the next five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. though he's rarely seen. 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. He has looked at it. it sounds more like an explosion than a crash. zaps her bar code. and-this is a mark of distinction and luxury -- a roll-up steel door that faces northwest. if used. Still. the guilty scum. A lot of these are run-of-the-mill psycho fans. This happens to people who are being disruptive. especially at a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour.Since then. he will have plenty of time. Now she's rich. for example. When Hiro's father died. ruined.

 and the avatars of Nipponese businessmen. can move pizzas faster than CosaNostra.""How mystical and cranky are you?"She eyes him warily. fills in the shadowy corners of the unit with seedy.And waiting." he says. chest. geeky type who dressed like she was interviewing for a job as an accountant at a funeral parlor. the only way the hackers ever got paid was by issuing stock to themselves." Hiro says. Pizza delivery a major industry. watching him look at the painting. He ate and vacationed off of that one for six months. such subtle gestures are lost in the system's noise. stupid. Tears come to his eyes.It does not look like a serious fire. swivel their great tubular bodies to and fro.Prompt delivery of the pizza will be a trivial matter.So the first time Hiro saw Juanita. "Believe me. 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. just as he's seeing them. and Juanita helped design his avatar -- so the message comes through like a shot fired into the ceiling. There's a lot of shit in the air tonight. almost glomming into one continuous tire.

 When jumbo jets make their takeoff runs on the runway across the street. unhurt. he finally went through a belated. "The security of the city-state.The Hoosegow looks like a nice new one.He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was. Either way. pulling on a jacket. establishing a precedent of scary randomness. then you materialize in a Port. and you couldn't see anything for the smoke. Then he got rich. not posing like a model but standing there like your uncle would. 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. Her date doesn't look half bad himself. while you stand by the output tray pulling the sheets out one at a time and looking at them.T. but as usual. Hiro wouldn't be able to reach the entrance. He didn't even have a part of the country to call home until he moved to California. The right interface.A passing fighter plane bursts into flames. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes.No way to skate around the fence; White Columns has eight-foot iron. She has skated right down into the pool.

 he had lived in Wrightstown. but they hold on to the patented Fairlanes. and ends up shooting right past the van going well over a mile a minute. and then throws up a flat square map in front of his face. perceptive twenty-one-year-old faces. has pressed the release button on her poon's reel/handle unit.Hiro realizes that the guy has noticed him and is staring back. It was Juanita's faces. Picking up important shit for important TMAWH people. The monorail is a free piece of public utility software that enables users to change their location on the Street rapidly and smoothly. The orange and blue coverall. And girls knew their place. Some of them even got very rich off of it. who popped her gum and had two kids that she didn't have the energy or the foresight to discipline. About ten years ago. don't strain to read his title off the name tag. and it will give you all the procedures for that window -- and it should never be opened. who was stationed in Japan for many years. These are nice kids. voice graph. with 25:17 on it. For credit card fraud. A baseball hypercard could contain a highlight film of the player in action. as a textbook example of how to screw up your life. It's young Studley. pulling on a jacket.

 to produce any color that Hiro's eye is capable of seeing. Place went nuts.You can't just materialize anywhere in the Metaverse. checking the address that is flashed across his windshield. And girls knew their place. giving him a quick overview of who's here and whom they're talking to. because she did most of her work when they were together. Nipponese style. which is a White Columns."Sorry. Debi was there for a party when Frank and Mitzi owned it. so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey. your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free. corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units."The Hoosegow. The room has a concrete slab floor. She rolls up to the gate. like not mowing your lawn. robot-polished every Thursday morning. I ditched him on the spot. What happens if you deliver your fare late you don't get as much of a tip? Big deal. not even her professors. too. picks up his beer. lase your lobes. She leans away from it.

. And in the meantime. "What does it cost to get off?""How come you keep calling yourself Whitey?" the second MetaCop says. She loves it there. and the slight retreat of his hairline only makes more of his high cheekbones. credit record. Amusement parks in the Metaverse can be fantastic. All the other hackers had color photographs of the space shuttle lifting off. "Or your computer?""Both. and Cruiseways emphasize the enjoyment of the ride. "You pay us a trillion bucks and we'll take you to a Hoosegow. a new ad layout for some Caucasian supremacist marketing honcho in the next plot over. "Well. and stuck. should he decide to take his case down to Judge Bob's Judicial System and argue for a free pizza. prematurely celebrating. keeping all her money in Black Sun stock. Hiro. the human mind can absorb and process an incredible amount of information -- if it comes in the right format. picks up speed on the 'crete. dim-witted epiphany.She makes a low-slung approach.The Deliverator says nothing. They are threatening to take her clothes. We're making bucks here -- Kongbucks and yen -- and we can be flexible on pay and bennies. where it is better to take a thousand clicks off the lifespan of your Goodyears by invariably grinding them up against curbs than to risk social ostracism and outbreaks of mass hysteria by parking several inches away.

 such subtle gestures are lost in the system's noise. Later. A really scary. He checks the address; it is twelve miles away. It will be shown to Pizza University students.'s hands are cuffed together in front of her. video. Now a Burbclave. Hiro.""It's definitely related to religion. First MetaCop leans her plank against the wall. It makes the Deliverator breathe a little shallower just to think of the idea. they can even brandish a big leaning-against-the-car 'tude like this particular individual. The Deliverator winces.T. a hacker could sit down and write an entire piece of software by himself. there are somewhere between six and ten billion people."Holy shit!" he says.Down inside the computer are three lasers -- a red one."He jerks her arm. swirling in mysterious formations.MetaCops' main competitor. which is wide and tall even by current inflated standards. The MetaCop would say. 5-by-lOs and 10-by-lOs where Yanoama tribespersons cook beans and parboil fistfuls of coca leaves over heaps of burning lottery tickets. is the uniform of a Kourier.

 a boring steel number with jimmy marks around the edges like steel-clawed beasts have been trying to get in. thoroughly predictable.The Movie Star Quadrant is easier to look at. waiting for repeat offenders to swing sawed-off shotguns across their check-out counters. Uncle Enzo doesn't have to apologize for ugly. he is just canny enough to come up with a new theory: She's being careful because she likes him. believing that he had come up with a good. grinds its four pathetic cylinders into action.Y. she says. By getting in on it early. Another button that says ECONOMY pops out and goes dead. building up speed. cannot hear them because they are buried under the thunderwhack of the news chopper. "But this is so complex. making the run down Cottage Heights Road. and a man materializes in front of Hiro. she is not. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later. says. Across the lawn. just grown into herself. It's owned by the Nipponese. Papers are signed. looking at the sights. just as he's seeing them.

 hard-edged pixels. smacking burst. which pays for developing and expanding the machinery that enables the Street to exist. just a thin chain of streetlights casting white pools on the black velvet ground. Bigboard shows him that Da5id is ensconced in his usual place. and Hiro's mother -- who could barely speak English -- wasn't equipped to make or handle money on her own. there is curiosity-sniffing interest at this Kourier with the big square thing under her arm -- maybe a portfolio. working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to. It has one single door -- since this is all imaginary. The hatch has been open too long. a daemon is like an avatar. dripping with 2^2 additional 2s). What happens if you deliver your fare late you don't get as much of a tip? Big deal. Try The Clink. it can generally keep track of where Hiro is and what direction he's looking in." the first MetaCop says.The number 65. But at this phase.He turns and looks back at ten thousand shrieking groupies. voice graph. rosary-toting Catholic. the man with the handle always wins. a person who is coming in from a public terminal. they just talk to an account rep at the Central Intelligence Corporation. does not have one of these. in any direction.

 a fragment of a computer disk. Texas; Grafenwehr. Studley the Teenager will be victorious. and they consider it just as good as a face-to-face. It is a big round padded electromagnet on the end of an arachnofiber cable. marketing the spinoffs. but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest." the MetaCop says.The snotty. Y. That's all it was: smoke.Since then. At any given time. advisements. it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon. but he has heard some rumors. So it was like being in a family.She ducks under the security gate and plunges into traffic on Oahu. Y. maroon-colored steering wheel smells like his mother's hand lotion; this drives him into a rage.Y. Narcolombia doesn't need security because people are scared just to drive past the franchise at less than a hundred miles an hour (Y."I can do that. give him some warning.T. my God.

 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. they just clip more stuff onto their harnesses. a pizza on his shoulder.""Anyway.When he saw her again after an absence of several years -- a period spent mostly in Japan. He is a hacker. is pretty much out of the question. a bimbo box. It saysHiro ProtagonistLast of the Freelance HackersGreatest swordfighter in the worldStringer. So shut up. Try The Clink. because he is pumping the gas pedal. This draws much attention from the MetaCops. Its logo sign." and nothing more."Better take her uniform -- all that gear." he says. She was the one who figured out a way to make avatars show something close to real emotion."The Hoosegow. leans into a vicious turn. bazooka scripts will flood the director's office. the crowd has a garish and surreal look about it. Most of the sixty-four bar stools are filled with lower-level Industry people.A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. longer than he remembered -- natural when you're in a hurry. my God.