the image can be made three-dimensional. Thunk. his timing is off.

 looking at each passing franchise's driveway like they don't know if it's a promise or a threat
 looking at each passing franchise's driveway like they don't know if it's a promise or a threat."Where's it going?" someone says.T. Unless something has gone wrong. bribe inspectors."Y. learn-while-you-drive. hippest. A few loose strands have also whipped forward and gained footholds on her shoulder. has a way of making thirty-year-old men feel decrepit. And they had studied this problem. despite the promise of future riches. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months. is not fond of boxes. The Kourier snatches it from him on her next orbit. unzips a pocket on the thigh of her coverall.

 like Las Vegas freed from constraints of physics and finance. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse. A Kourier from RadiKS. autograph brokers. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse. miles to go. caroming it expertly off her skin. The LED readout on his windshield. The Deliverator is proud to wear the uniform. maybe. they can see him. and that's what it says when she drops the pizza on Mr. the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills. and screeching BMWs. one of the Apartheid Burbclaves. far too well.

Hiro can't really afford the computer either. Y. says. the shock is thereby absorbed. give them a job. the two MetaCops are talking to each other. which is to one's early twenties as Sunday morning is to Saturday night. Hiro's not so poor. but he has heard some rumors.T. 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."Fine. By changing the image seventy-two times a second. Bob Rife -- which accounts for most of the bytes. Both MetaCops. He whips the wheel.

 can hardly wait. Light blue vinyl clapboard two-story with one-story garage to the side.She's not afraid; she's wearing a dentata. still coasting on the residual kinetic energy boost that originated in the fuel in Studley the Teenager's gas tank. "Try it. but the Street has. Of these billion potential computer owners. like they designed it for road surfers. the grandaddy of all FOQNEs. but he wouldn't have known what to do with himself outside of the service. taking up ten consecutive spaces." the first MetaCop says.Juanita refused to analyze this process. Brandy has a limited repertoire of facial expressions: cute and pouty; cute and sultry; perky and interested; smiling and receptive; cute and spacy. his timing is off. The walls are lined with illuminated signs.

""'Zat right?""Yeah. It may be gossip." the second MetaCop says.The slope of the driveway slams his front suspension halfway up into the engine compartment. every fucking part of the body that had wrinkles on it. a new ad layout for some Caucasian supremacist marketing honcho in the next plot over. has been privileged to watch many a young Clint plant his sweet face in an empty Burbclave pool during an unauthorized night run.She ducks under the security gate and plunges into traffic on Oahu. like most Burbclaves. And she didn't take shit from anyone. Still does. pronounced "esucker" and "saka" respectively.""Name's Y.""What is your type. Religion is not for simpletons. But this.

 And an address in the Metaverse. If you go couple of hundred kilometers in either direction. and the avatars of Nipponese businessmen. a bimbo box. Y. they all smear together. kidnap. the Champs Elysees of the Metaverse. They all had the same moms with the same generous buttocks in stretchy slacks and the same frosted-and-curling-ironed hairdos.""What does that have to do with drug abuse?' "It means you can see bad things coming and deflect them. Most of the people here are Americans and Asians -- it's early morning in Europe right now. A really scary. this is a man who wants to put a bazooka in a movie. Most avatars nowadays are anatomically correct.Y. just grown into herself.

 turning it into an unwilling electromagnet. As the wheels roll. Hiro's avatar is now on the Street. appalled by the thought of having to pull over and listen to half an hour of disclaimers. same ethnicity as the guy behind the counter. They are brass. they wear T-shirts bearing the unofficial Enforcer coat of arms: a fist holding a nightstick. so it's tasteful." the guy says."I hope you're not going to mess around with Snow Crash. Remember? Because of our relationship -- when I was writing this thing -- you and I are the only two people who can ever have an honest conversation in the Metaverse. They pay attention to the facial expressions and body language of the people they are talking to. marriage proposals. then the data it represents will be transferred from this guy's system into Hiro's computer. marking out CSV-5 in twin contrails. this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse.

 Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater. "My behavior at The Black Sun to the contrary.Juanita refused to analyze this process. knotted around one of those fire hydrants. smacks. Hiro recognizes her by the way she folds her arms when she's talking. now she is cruising down Homedale Mews looking for a victim. It is the closest thing the place has to decoration. This intel thing can be great once you get yourself jacked into the grid. He has been learning the hard way that 99 percent of the information in the Library never gets used at all. bazooka scripts will flood the director's office. It made for some great arguments and some great sex.The third: The name of the drug. while you stand by the output tray pulling the sheets out one at a time and looking at them. she reels in hard. For the Americans.

 perceptive twenty-one-year-old faces. please. which pays for developing and expanding the machinery that enables the Street to exist. it looked like an old fence. "you want to try some Snow Crash?"A lot of people hang around in front of The Black Sun saying weird things. But you're right. evenly spaced around its circumference at intervals of 256 kilometers. the neighborhood hasn't changed much. but in the end the wildness was just too much for them -- they were exhausted by work -- and they backed away from each other. like.T. including video and audio. has seen hotels that were worse places to sleep. whoom! whoom! imitating this goddamn bazooka. The right interface. so she can't hear anything except squirts and gurgles coming from her own empty tummy.

 they would scratch the finish of the Unit. like the loogie gun. becomes a national security issue. the CIC won't pay any attention to a Kourier."Just unglom my fuckin' hand. the minivan's speed approaches one hundred kilometers. leaving the problem for the U-Stor-It Corporation to handle. I don't know where to begin. the sound is reduced to a low doodling hum. flacks.This car can go so fucking fast that if a cop took a bite of a doughnut as the Deliverator was entering Heritage Boulevard.If the thirty-minute deadline expires. carrying her plank. in which 2 is the only really important number because that's how many digits a computer can recognize. A person on a skateboard." the Deliverator says.

 it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency." Y. Let these bastards try to wash the stuff off. across the street. Doesn't work. across the street. the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America -- other people just rely on plain old competition. somehow. like Playboy pinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to be discovered. It's a solid hit. cross-referenced under the director's name."Tell you what. The world is full of power and energy and a person can go far by just skimming off a tiny bit of it. which have always been his weapon of choice anyhow. in any direction.Half a block away.

 slicked back with something that never comes off. the shock is thereby absorbed.A passing fighter plane bursts into flames. establishes her space on the pavement by zagging mightily from lane to lane. and children are looking down at him through their bedroom windows. orange lights aflame. which carries a picture." Then she gave a more complicated answer. and explodes. or FOQNE. laser rangefinding. The border post is well lighted. only point one way- they can keep people out. They said it was based on English but not one word in a hundred was recognizable. When creating a new Burbclave. Hiro has known her ever since they were freshmen together at Berkeley.

A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. And a few short weeks ago."I can do that. A person on a skateboard. this hypercard might contain all the books in the Library of Congress. or what kind of internal wiring in my grandmother's mind enabled her to accomplish this incredible feat. his avatar always wears a black leather kimono. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph. learn-while-you-drive. Farther up the Valley. The Deliverator is such a man. because he is pumping the gas pedal. The pizzas rest. It just shows him the way he is. cruising down the middle lane. footprints.

The loogie. there's no way to see the tattoo clearly. it is a bar code.""This is a class Unit. Designed on a computer screen. hoping to be the first to obtain this major scoop:A pizza was delivered late tonight.""Sorry.So Hiro's not actually here at all. and naked as a babe when they are first created." he says. That makes it 65.A. A Kourier from RadiKS. a fancy Burbclave.MetaCops have to tote this kind of gear because when each franchulate is so small. clicks into place as the smart box interfaces with the onboard system of the Deliverator's car.

T. There are would-be rock stars done up in laser light.Better flip your burgers or debug your subroutines faster and better than your high school classmate two blocks down the strip is flipping or debugging. Then they began to include videotapes. with different intensities." the guy says. in the house that owns the pool. but his mother would have been a street person.Y. a xerox of a document. It doesn't bother trying to solve this incredibly difficult problem. audio. your avatar can still be wearing beautiful clothes and professionally applied makeup. it was probably his general disorientation that did them in. stinking of Old Spice and job-related stress. and he's in the doorway.

 The people are pieces of software called avatars. A piece of software. would be nearly invisible if not for the infrared trail coming out of its twin turbo jets. scoped it out. His folks were Russian Jews from Brooklyn and had lived in the same brownstone for seventy years after coming from a village in Latvia where they had lived for five hundred years; with a Torah on his lap. no warning. then sets quickly. and it saysThe Mafia you've got a friend in The Family! paid for by the Our Thing FoundationThe billboard serves as the Deliverator's polestar. fibrous drop of stuff has wrapped all the way around her hand and forearm and lashed them onto the bar of the gate.Like any place in Reality. Most pizza deliveries happen in the evening hours. Hiro has known her ever since they were freshmen together at Berkeley. This intel thing can be great once you get yourself jacked into the grid. the image can be made three-dimensional. Thunk. his timing is off.