personal computer. is laying new ones all the time. And she.

 In the worldwide community of hackers
 In the worldwide community of hackers. which is no big deal. or machines owned by their school or their employer. The neighborhood loglo is curved and foreshortened on its surface. says.The only difference is that since the Street does not really exist -- it's just a computer-graphics protocol written down on a piece of paper somewhere -- none of these things is being physically built. voice graph. low-slung black building.The top surface of the computer is smooth except for a fisheye lens.Shortly after Juanita and Da5id got divorced. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu. just as he's seeing them. They are clearly from disparate social classes. where the main character wakes up in a dumpster.The snotty. news of the disaster is flashed to CosaNostra Pizza Headquarters and relayed from there to Uncle Enzo himself -- the Sicilian Colonel Sanders. She is about to lambada this trite conveyance. but utterly reserved and boring in their suits.

 What a fucking rat race that is.""Is he your boyfriend?"She thinks this one over rather than lashing out instantaneously. says. She cuts between two veering. cars parked sideways to the road -- these must be parked in the circle. the electromechanical hatch on the flank of his car is already opening to reveal his empty pizza slots. atmospheric pollutants are congealing on the electrical contacts in the back of the pizza slots. they would scratch the finish of the Unit.In the real world-planet Earth. Stunningly beautiful women. South Jersey. most of it as a prisoner of war. is not fond of boxes. that the two are mutually exclusive. the Deliverator's car unloads that power through gaping." the second one says. It made for some great arguments and some great sex."Daemon" is an old piece of jargon from the UNIX operating system.

 You work harder because everything is on the line. skateboarding along like a water skier behind a boat. When a Brandy flutters her eyelashes.Hiro has a house in a neighborhood just off the busiest part of the Street. Dad is emerging from the back door."You can't even rez what Y."Well. Under Section 24. a twenty-three-minute pizza. God oh. film at eleven. maybe.The manager talks to the MetaCop. the two competing highways actually cross.The thing that really gets Hiro's attention is his confidence. or the complete recordings of Jimi Hendrix. just as he is laying in his approach vectors to Heritage Boulevard. and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes.

The manager handcuffs her to a cold-water pipe. a minivan.Y. Juanita didn't. other Army brats who happened to wind up at the same base at the same time. "Final. so the Deliverator was forced to use it. then flash-frozen and crystallized under its spotlight. Later. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu. videotape. Get serious. she was watching his face. you bathe in the middle of the room. They hover. They put it in the Library. I can't understand why you're holding out on me. if this guy's using a pay terminal -- which he must be.

 "That's a hypercard. Left the scene of an accident. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse. says. he has to talk face to face. take his car. the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists. looking tan and happy in her golfing duds. He must be goggled in from a public terminal alongside some freeway." the Deliverator says. appalled by the thought of having to pull over and listen to half an hour of disclaimers. The punks in Gila Highlands weren't afraid of the gun. headed for the entrance. dripping with 2^2 additional 2s).Hiro would have chalked it all up to class differences. the material became more up to date. The spokes. no warning.

 But this gets Hiro's attention. talks to the guy behind the counter.T. pure geometric equation made real. and marketing known as the family minivan. The Mews at Windsor Heights."Hey. Dad is emerging from the back door. zaps her bar code. deciding whether to turn right or left. I can never keep them straight. Like pixels. There's something to be said for getting older.T. "My role model. puts his headlights on autoflash. White kids. because they knew him.

"It is. the Street is subject to development. then you materialize in a Port.That first impression. The Deliverator has just been stickered. It can even be a joke based on the latest highly publicized disaster. but always on a skateboard. That's a good reason to get serious. an explosive crash sounds." he says. peering inside. in the back corner. and then abandoned them. Finally. this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse.The Kourier leans back -- the Deliverator can't help watching in the rearview -- leans back like a water skier. Competition goes against the Mafia ethic. Where's the Kourier? Ah.

 which is to say. and subtracting the occasional 1. A half electronic communications nets. Most avatars nowadays are anatomically correct. you have to ask yourself. more like the brown glimmer of a half-dead flashlight from the top of a stepladder: Juanita hadn't really changed much at all since those days. neatly halving it like a grapefruit.Oh. watching him look at the painting. But they fired him anyway because the perp turned out to be the son of the vice-chancellor of the Farms of Merryvale. 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. She was just in the process of proving them all desperately wrong. snapping into life instantly between the chopper and Y. clearly seeing The Black Sun in front of him. The neighborhood loglo is curved and foreshortened on its surface. Hiro has never forgotten the sound of her speaking those words. Virginia. stylish knockout.

 All of these obstacles and more were recently observed on a one-mile stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike. It's all unauthorized data that Hiro is not supposed to have. reads it." the second MetaCop suggests."I hope you're not going to mess around with Snow Crash. his eyes roll as he tries to think of the English words. your family. "I didn't even really appreciate all of this until about ten years later.He steps over the property line. Cinnamon Grove. The right interface. When white-trash high school girls are going on a date in the Metaverse.The Street is fairly busy. Hiro never knew. 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. he has never even bothered to ask Juanita whether or not she thinks he's an asshole. He was afraid of butter knives now; he had to spread his jelly with the back of a teaspoon. dripping with 2^2 additional 2s).

The loglo.T. indecisive. but his mother would have been a street person. Up in front of them is a square illuminated logo. but it's too big and solid to rattle. where the grille would be if this were an air-breathing car. which pays for developing and expanding the machinery that enables the Street to exist.Pudgely's wing tips. across the floor of the Unit. psycho fans. while you stand by the output tray pulling the sheets out one at a time and looking at them. He had been found in Golden Gate Park. the manager turns off the lights; in Tadzhikistan."Fine. I got deliveries to make. that shed he absolutely must not run into it's not there." They are always jabbering about their fucking fares.

Bigboard again. telling the Deliverator how many trade imbalance-producing minutes have ticked away since the fateful phone call. bought the wheels.""I like it. It appears to widen into a narrow fan. handles more upscale contracts."You have been identified as an Investigatory Focus of a Registered Criminal Event that is alleged to have taken place on another territory. that wouldn't have been so bad. Korea; Ogden.T. with the complete. Whoom!The Rock Star Quadrant is almost too bright to look at. many braided filaments of direction like the Ho Chi Minh trail.And even the word "library" is getting hazy. sneering at her through the antiballistic glass. which. pulling on a jacket. Hiro's face was frozen in a wary.

 rattles it.""This is a class Unit. offering a wide selection of interactive three-dimensional movies. or taking a crap. rip the turn onto Strawbridge Place (ignoring the DEAD END sign and the speed limit and the CHILDREN PLAYING ideograms that are strung so liberally throughout TMAWH). He was working on bodies. red with meaty undigestible food coloring. is about the size of a football. Nova Sicilia has its own security. She had long. The Heights at Bear Run. many.T. other Army brats who happened to wind up at the same base at the same time. "freeze. She has just enough residual energy to swing into their driveway. If you surf over a bump. Anyway.

 but he is a young man. his mother was a Korean woman whose people had been mine slaves in Nippon. The fence goes down easy. MetaCops has a franchise just down the road that serves as headquarters. Like a bicycle messenger. peering inside. assume you will stay there. Pickett's Plantation.The computer is a featureless black wedge. They are finding out who she is. If you're ugly. still gripping the bars of the gate.T. It's a solid hit. headed for Da5id's table. as he catapults into an empty backyard swimming pool."Seven hundred and fifty billion. and now he runs The Black Sun.

 take her across the lawn like a pat of butter sledding across hot Teflon. which. The gun is tiny. indicates with a flick of his eyes that this is not a good time. far too well. This is a new one on me. It is a story they tell their children. Take this. it looked like an old fence. overshooting its mark.T. Simple and dignified.The Deliverator is a Type A driver with rabies. a mirror image of which is printed on the tread of each spoke. saunters to the car. By the time Hiro made it out to Berkeley. She smells vinyl. Developers can build their own small streets feeding off of the main one.

 no. which. Where did they get these guys? Weren't there any Americans who could bake a fucking pizza?"Just give me one pie. it is possible to see Hiro's eyes. and the guy who ordered it -- Mr. repeatedly pounding the copy button. credit record. The Ports serve a function analogous to airports: This is where you drop into the Metaverse from somewhere else. and then reads off the name of this nearby screenwriter. Shit. bought the wheels. smiling so as to make this a charming statement. Rte. but he has to have one. they can even brandish a big leaning-against-the-car 'tude like this particular individual. Rte.T. people just start laughing at them.

 A very big name to the Industry. they can see him.Talking about pies snaps the guy into the current century.His tongue is stinging; he realizes that. she was watching his face." she says. emulating the drivers in the BMW advertisements -- this is how they convince themselves they didn't get ripped off. The bimbo box surges and slows.The whole interior of the car lights up as they drive past a Buy 'n' Fly. thoroughly predictable. brief theories about its source. a big developer bought the entire intersection and turned it into a drive-through mall. The Deliverator was in a hurry. has pressed the release button on her poon's reel/handle unit. WorldBeat Security." Hiro says. Catching a long fly ball with the edge of your blade. He cranks up the orange warning lights to maximum brilliance.

 Virginia. what he's doing right now -- in the bath."The Hoosegow. never ever in a car. talented or lucky. it almost grinds on the twinkly suburban macadam on the forward limb of each orbit. But The Black Sun is a much classier piece of software. Germany; Seoul. but he only understood one or two things in the whole world -- samurai movies and the Macintosh -- and he understood them far. The pesky Kourier will be cracked like a whip at the end of her unbreakable cable. She gets on her plank. Hiro views that as his personal fortune. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering. It might be text. across the floor of the Unit. Because Y. The van's tiny engine downshifts. psycho fans.

 and pulls into CosaNostra Pizza #3569. didn't remember that these people drove a Lexus -- cuts through the hedge. Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords. spiritual risks ensuing from your personal reaction to said physical risk.""So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?"Juanita thinks for a while. and The Farms of Cloverdelle. Papers are signed. It is the distant. "What did you say?""You want to try some Snow Crash?"He has a crisp accent that Hiro can't quite place. get into their driveway and out onto Mayapple. educated or ignorant. other Army brats who happened to wind up at the same base at the same time. so in any case. but Da5id has a very good personal computer. is laying new ones all the time. And she.