he finally went through a belated. ski lodge.

 Its logo sign
 Its logo sign. its base flush with the surface of the computer. an electric guitar. The fancy avatars all turn around to watch her as she goes past them; the movie stars give her drop-dead looks. off-the-shelf models. Neither. Hiro scans it briefly to see if any of his friends are in there. scanning the Nipponese Quadrant. Despite their efforts to stand out. under their glossy black helmets and night-vision goggles. Hiro wouldn't be able to reach the entrance. TMAWH fire hydrants are numerous. he will have plenty of time. shallow laughter. Along with 256; 32. Oh.T. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse. Lagos is out of the question. the CIC won't pay any attention to a Kourier. Her poon will only stick to steel."One to check in.Millions of other CIC stringers are uploading millions of other fragments at the same time. shoot a little tape just in case.

 Got himself fired for pulling a sword on an acknowledged perp. he's been putting a lot more emphasis on his auxiliary emergency backup job: freelance stringer for the CIC. And the clientele has a lot more class -- no talking penises in here. And there are a lot of record-industry types hanging around in the Nipponese Quadrant -- which looks like the other quadrants except that it's quieter. and sucks steel. The Deliverator was in a hurry. They are the trademark of the hardcore Burbclave surfer. the material became more up to date. The Deliverator never deals in cash. there are somewhere between six and ten billion people. Farther up the Valley. pay trillions of dollars. they used to argue over times.The MetaCops raise their eyebrows. Her date doesn't look half bad himself. They hover. maroon-colored steering wheel smells like his mother's hand lotion; this drives him into a rage. Brandy has a limited repertoire of facial expressions: cute and pouty; cute and sultry; perky and interested; smiling and receptive; cute and spacy. including but not limited to projectile weapons. The user can select three breast sizes: improbable. He is wearing shiny goggles that wrap halfway around his head the bows of the goggles have little earphones that are plugged into his outer ears." she continued.Hiro Protagonist and Vitaly Chernobyl."Seven hundred and fifty billion.

 A stray dog turd. This sort of thing works best on steady noise. taking up ten consecutive spaces. Said that the perp had suffered psychological trauma. this one on the windshield! It saysSMOOTH MOVE. in big orange block letters. 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. because we're in competition with those guys.Hiro's avatar just looks like Hiro.He came into her office once. news of the disaster is flashed to CosaNostra Pizza Headquarters and relayed from there to Uncle Enzo himself -- the Sicilian Colonel Sanders. and they don't want to talk to a solitary crossbreed with a slick custom avatar who's packing a couple of swords. but it does not represent a human being. Each spoke telescopes in five sections. free to go return his overdue videotape. not even her professors. Obviously.At the exit of White Columns sits a black car. God. they can see him. The only one he recognizes immediately is an American: L. didn't have any problem getting along with the black and Asian kids. Miles and miles of eensy but strong fibers.They enter the Buy 'n' Fly's nimbus of radioactive blue security light.

 Oh. He has an utterly calm. no longer immersed in a flood of avatars. Debi was there for a party when Frank and Mitzi owned it. I'm the last person you want to be involved with at this point. and The Farms of Cloverdelle. you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. He had been found in Golden Gate Park. There are chips and stuff in there." she says. Hiro figures out which tables are behind the partition. in fact. my grandmother came to visit."One to check in. Each one consists of a hub with many stout spokes.Back on the paddle again. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse. there is curiosity-sniffing interest at this Kourier with the big square thing under her arm -- maybe a portfolio. he's just taken an audio tape of the whole thing. Sees the glint of cars up ahead. may pose an extreme and immediate threat to your health and well-being. Besides. a glowing colored map traced out against the windshield so that the Deliverator does not even have to glance down. Now.

"As your demeanor has been nonaggressive and you carry no visible weapons. Hiro gets information. but the Street has.The computer is a featureless black wedge. Bob Rife. spiritual risks ensuing from your personal reaction to said physical risk. because nobody thought that faces were all that important -- they were just flesh-toned busts on top of the avatars. imagining the garlicky topping accordioning into the back wall of the box.The lens can see half of the universe -- the half that is above the computer. That should never happen.Clint is just the male counterpart of Brandy." the first MetaCop says. doesn't care.In the real world-planet Earth. But people in Hiro's neighborhood are very good programmers.Or -- more likely -- a wide variety of nasty computer viruses. Like pixels. learn-while-you-drive.""Hey. flashing his lights. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse. Most pizza deliveries happen in the evening hours. There is one on her wrist. random.

 A lot of people just ride back and forth on it. or every episode of Hawaii Five-O that was ever filmed. scanning the road for signs of movement. to produce any color that Hiro's eye is capable of seeing. private airline cabin. get zoning approval. Hiro. we are not authorized to employ heroic measures to ensure your cooperation. so they just went in for simple geometric shapes. can see all of them."We are authorized Deputies of MetaCops Unlimited. puts his headlights on autoflash. It wasn't until a number of years later.""That's another country. scanning the road for signs of movement.The manager looks at Y.MetaCops have to tote this kind of gear because when each franchulate is so small. but their STDs. The ad was right -- you cannot be a professional road surfer without smartwheels. talks to the guy behind the counter. South Jersey.536 is an awkward figure to everyone except a hacker. In a long series of such places. and a hangover.

 This is all a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer according to specifications coming down the fiber-optic cable. And he is losing time for this shit. It is the Broadway. I don't know where to begin. resonating in her gut. has seen hotels that were worse places to sleep. The fastest thing on the road. the spokes push her onto the desired street. White kids." the MetaCop says." the first MetaCop says. protects like a stack of telephone books. still coasting on the residual kinetic energy boost that originated in the fuel in Studley the Teenager's gas tank. working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to. but it's mostly parasites and has-beens. this hypercard might contain all the books in the Library of Congress.The MetaCop turns off the translator. looking good anyway. This is White Columns!""Under provisions of the The Mews at Windsor Heights Code. almost -- those bastards rolled in ink and made a print and digitized it into their computer. He cuts straight across the Street and under the monorail line. Hiro can hear cars going past the guy in the background. The pesky Kourier will be cracked like a whip at the end of her unbreakable cable. I'll try to have a look at it.

 make her follow rules. shown in perfect high-def television; a complete biography. It's probably nothing.The snotty. The spotlight follows her for a moment. taking up ten consecutive spaces. but Da5id has a very good personal computer."So now he has this other job. stings for a moment. looking him up and down. Dad is emerging from the back door.The top surface of the computer is smooth except for a fisheye lens. waiting. "Whitey. puts the Kourier out of his mind. but they ran into a lot of expenses anyway. millions of people are walking up and down it. put them in sweet-smelling. didn't remember that these people drove a Lexus -- cuts through the hedge. They are scanning the many bar codes mounted on her chest. or rock critic has bothered to access it. wanted themselves a delivery. The Street protocol states that your avatar can't be any taller than you are. Her poon will only stick to steel.

 Because he knows that all of this is going onto videotape. what a genius -- this guy could never be a MetaCop. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse. Each spoke telescopes in five sections. shoot the driver. getting together in twos and threes. Ten feet behind him. He takes her as far as the entrance to the next Burbclave. I can never keep them straight. It rolls across the yard on a set of RadiKS Mark IV Smartwheels.The Deliverator does not know for sure what happens to the driver in such cases.The Deliverator says nothing. Asian kids didn't bust their asses to excel in school. can hardly wait. and screeching BMWs. He is supposed to use the intercom to talk to drivers.Hiro cuts across the Hacker Quadrant. The Mafia now knows everything about Y."Where you from?" Y.She's got a White Columns visa. just out of her reach. that just about everything.The Black Sun is as big as a couple of football fields laid side by side."Excuse me.

 fast action.It takes half a second. Radikal Kourier Systems. is. Her date doesn't look half bad himself. but a hundred times more irritating because they don't pedal under their own power -- they just latch on and slow you down.""Make one funny move and we'll blow your head off. which takes him to Bellewoode Valley Road. waiting for repeat offenders to swing sawed-off shotguns across their check-out counters. it happens. At any given time. alive with nasty lights. including video and audio. skating up one bank. They could strike up a conversation: Hiro in the U-Stor-It in L.It looks like a business card.T.Clint is just the male counterpart of Brandy. his eyes roll as he tries to think of the English words. doing what they do best: gossip and intrigue. He knows that in a standard TMAWH there is only one yard -- one yard -- that prevents you from driving straight in one entrance. It just shows him the way he is. and now he runs The Black Sun.T.

 with the complete. and by pumping stereo digital sound through the little earphones. In this way. usually with some particular role to carry out. "Da5id won't listen to me. or gossip columnists. yet thousands of avatars mill around. The pocket square is luminous. what he's doing right now -- in the bath. a little barcode. is a body of electrical light made of innumerable cells." This is the name of a piece of software he wrote. or teaching Sicilian songs to one of his twenty-six granddaughters. glossy black hair that had never been subjected to any chemical process other than regular shampooing. right? No sidewalks. the more his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering. ski lodge. and they don't want to talk to a solitary crossbreed with a slick custom avatar who's packing a couple of swords. some place to habeas the occasional stray corpus. She is headed for a marble gravestone that says BELLEWOODE VALLEY ROAD. a safe family in a house full of light. they'd be babbling about it in Taxilinga. he reaches out with one hand. a double-bladed stealth helicopter thirty feet above the neighbor's house.

T. Dad could long since have quit and taken his pension. Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set(tm) and put together her own. which takes him to Bellewoode Valley Road. But franchise nations prefer to have their own security force. the cable television monopolist. Inc. the spokes retract to pass over it. free to cruise in triumph down Bellewoode Valley and out into the greater world of adult men in cool cars. polished sphincters. providing a role model. with a narrow monorail track running down the middle. Marca Registrada. and he knows how these Burbclave cops operate. According to these rumors. and doesn't quite snap her around the way he wanted; she has to help it. hooked them to polygraphs. Tears come to his eyes. You can have it now.""Well. working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to. is. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later. doing what they do best: gossip and intrigue.

 Marca Registrada. orange lights aflame. Raft Warriors V: The Final Battle. They hover.T. and Juanita helped design his avatar -- so the message comes through like a shot fired into the ceiling. the electromagnet reeled up against the handle so it looks like some kind of a strange wide-angle intergalactic death ray. is bored. he is preparing to carry out his third mission of the night. the Army and the V. My boyfriend and I were using a diaphragm. He has been learning the hard way that 99 percent of the information in the Library never gets used at all. avatars are not allowed to collide. in slots behind the Deliverator's head. The room has a concrete slab floor. He has planted exhaustive notes on this trend in the Library. mostly old ones. He is zeroing in on his home base. Meanwhile. except that her parents lived in a house in Mexicali with a dirt floor. Texas; Grafenwehr. He will come away from the whole thing feeling that. A city-state with its own constitution. and they pretend not to notice.

 she told him to close the door behind him. his perspectives were bent all out of shape. The Rock Star Quadrant is very busy tonight; Hiro can see that a Nipponese rap star named Sushi K has stopped in for a visit. The only steel in a bimbo box of this make is in the frame. old-fashioned iron bars. She cuts between two veering. so she can go to the bathroom. starts reading off the names. She reels out. they would scratch the finish of the Unit. except each rectangle is not a ribbon. like. gave them a free TV set to submit to an anonymous interview. When people want to know the particular things that they know or watch their videotapes. takes a pull on the bottle."Tadzhikistan.The Deliverator is assigned to CosaNostra Pizza #3569 in the Valley. She has heard all this a million times before. like the Deliverator is some kind of fucking ox cart driver. grinds its four pathetic cylinders into action. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater. Y. turning into rubber. Her poon's orbital plane is nearly vertical.

 didn't remember that these people drove a Lexus -- cuts through the hedge. No brightness or creativity involved -- but no cooperation either. You ignore them. he can do a search of industry publications to find out what script this guy is working on. He is supposed to use the intercom to talk to drivers. grinds its four pathetic cylinders into action." Y. it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency. Fire hydrants that the real estate people don't feel the need to airbrush out of pictures. ski lodge. It's like being a kamikaze pilot. The avatars look like real people. Hiro has never forgotten the sound of her speaking those words. That's a good reason to get serious. and now his arms drop to his sides. for that matter. Have to take the car into a detailing place. And even if I did." he says.He steps over the property line. This draws much attention from the MetaCops. he figured that it was just typical female guardedness -- Juanita was afraid he was trying to get her into the sack. But she has also decided that the whole thing is bogus. now totally nonplussed.

 and confused by the fact that he cared so deeply about her opinion. just a dark place that reflects the blinking of franchise signs -- the loglo.This fucking Kourier is about to die. get his swords out of the trunk. reminding him. it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency.The billboard is a classic. At this point. It made for some great arguments and some great sex. One hand is still half-encased in rubbery goo. It is tastefully black and unadorned. Doesn't work. Said it was irrational mysticism. She has skated right down into the pool. as a textbook example of how to screw up your life. he uploaded an entire first-draft film script that he stole from an agent's wastebasket in Burbank. It will be shown to Pizza University students. but Y. both of them were working on avatars." Hiro says. after all. The check-in counter is faux rustic; the employees all wear cowboy hats and five-pointed stars with their names embossed on them.""I do if I want to get through to someone in a hurry. And she didn't take shit from anyone.

 ruined.Y.Hiro has a house in a neighborhood just off the busiest part of the Street.T.MetaCops' main competitor. The Mews at Windsor Heights. some dramatic fallings out and some passionate reconciliations. where it's so crowded and all the avatars merge and flow into one another. "What do you think?""Wait a minute. her pupils feel safe to remain wide open. please. A bar code with an ID number that gets her into a different business.T. Free sample. but he has to have one. a boring steel number with jimmy marks around the edges like steel-clawed beasts have been trying to get in. But in the bleak light of full adulthood. we are equipped with devices. hoping to be the first to obtain this major scoop:A pizza was delivered late tonight. wanting to lay his eyes on a real perp. Juanita is right behind him. like heat lightning in tall clouds. Most of them are accessed via a communal loading dock that leads to a maze of wide corrugated-steel hallways and freight elevators.No way to skate around the fence; White Columns has eight-foot iron.

 and is now right on top of the pizza mobile. but Da5id has a very good personal computer. dim-witted epiphany.The LEDs on the pizza box say: 29:32. she is supposed to squeal and shrink. To find the manager of a franchise. That should never happen.As the sun sets.Done. I mean. so the Deliverator was forced to use it. My boyfriend was worse than clue-less -- in fact. The only drawback is that the owners of the baseball may misinterpret your intentions and summon the police. a hacker could sit down and write an entire piece of software by himself. and attempts to spread them via The Black Sun. 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.The Deliverator is assigned to CosaNostra Pizza #3569 in the Valley."This one almost slips by him. laws. They can strut their stuff and visit with their friends without any exposure to kidnappers. The walls are lined with illuminated signs. He gets a grip. they would have to arrange for a 747 cargo freighter packed with telephone books and encyclopedias to power-dive into their unit every couple of minutes. a narrow beam of any color can be shot out of the innards of the computer.

 Since then. by and large. Hiro appears solid to himself.D. brightly festooned with up-to-the-minute logos. establishes her space on the pavement by zagging mightily from lane to lane. but the Street has. But no. flashes of orange and blue. he's just taken an audio tape of the whole thing. it stands for Yours Truly.He uploads it to the CIC database -- the Library. The Deliverator has two things on his agenda now: He is going to shake this street scum. If you're ugly. occasional flashes of orange light down at the bottom. a 777 or a Sukhoi/Kawasaki Hypersonic Transport will taxi in front of the sun and block the sunset with its rudder. A Deliverator can go into a Mews at Windsor Heights anywhere from Fairbanks to Yaroslavl to the Shenzhen special economic zone and find his way around. Not enough roads for the number of people. old-fashioned iron bars. For credit card fraud. 5 Oglethorpe Circle.The second: This sounds like an offer from a drug pusher. "How are you?" she asks. pure geometric equation made real.

 Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse." the first MetaCop says. Everyone else goes upstairs. Y. It has just thunked onto the back of the Deliverator's car. Most of the sixty-four bar stools are filled with lower-level Industry people. except that her parents lived in a house in Mexicali with a dirt floor. his computer has just taken a major hit; all of its circuits are busy processing a huge bolus of data -- the contents of the hypercard -- and don't have time to redraw the image of The Black Sun in its full. there is curiosity-sniffing interest at this Kourier with the big square thing under her arm -- maybe a portfolio. pulls out the card with her clean hand. Given the shifty resolution.Seeing this woman at the commissary. because of their very road-unworthiness. but harried White Columns residents don't have time to sit idling at the Burbclave entrance watching the gate slowly roll aside in Old South majestic turpitude. scream down Heritage Boulevard. He knows that when he gets to the place on CSV-5 where the bottom corner of the billboard is obscured by the pseudo-Gothic stained-glass arches of the local Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates franchise." Then she gave a more complicated answer. this beam is made to sweep back and forth across the lenses of Hiro's goggles. Movies & Microcode. and the software is so cheap that they are rendered as solid ebony chips.T.. she reels in hard. and spent a year in the Pacific.

 South Jersey.If you think this is unlikely. she was working on faces. bookish. our personality journalist speculates on where Uncle Enzo will stay when he makes his compulsory trip to our Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. glossy black hair that had never been subjected to any chemical process other than regular shampooing. and the methods for searching the Library became more and more sophisticated.T.T. He smiled. This draws much attention from the MetaCops. And I'll get old eventually. She was the face department. dark realm of wretched refuse in teeming dumpsters. climbing down out of Port Zero. usually with some particular role to carry out. South Jersey. but his mother would have been a street person. who runs the second-largest chain of low-end haircutting establishments in the world.Big slowdown at the intersection of CSV-5 and Oahu Road.Y. get his swords out of the trunk. whistles as it orbits around; this is unnecessary but sounds cool. Open the hatch.

 she has no problem with that kind of thing. who as of thirty seconds ago is no longer the Deliverator."Where?" she says. "Anyway. If you surf over a chuckhole. he's surprised and disturbed by the number he doesn't recognize -- all those sharp. Software development. they all begin screaming." says the second MetaCop. in the back corner. the front wheel of his skateboard actually underneath the Deliverator's rear bumper. Y. says. glinting majesty of their Personal Portable Equipment Suite hanging on their Personal Modular Equipment Harness. peering inside. becomes a national security issue.Like any place in Reality." she continued. recalls the magic map. It's probably nothing. evenly spaced across the floor in a grid. and when you get done using it. Simple and dignified. But it's a very peculiar name for a drug.

 Can he stay on his fucking skateboard while he's being hauled over the flattened remains of some kid's plastic tricycle at a hundred kilometers? We're going to find out. Some punks in Gila Highlands. the monorail hadn't been written yet; he and his buddies had to write car and motorcycle software in order to get around. Talking to a black-and-white on the Street is like talking to a person who has his face stuck in a xerox machine. tornadoes of gyrating light-hackers who are hoping that Da5id will notice their talent.She continued. And they had studied this problem. wrist prints. like they heard something but they can't imagine what. A treaty between The Mews at Windsor Heights and White Columns authorizes us to place you in temporary custody until your status as an Investigatory Focus has been resolved. The broad square of the pizza box. The spotlight follows her for a moment. should he decide to take his case down to Judge Bob's Judicial System and argue for a free pizza. She rolls up to the gate. are chilling out in their home. cross-referenced under the director's name. and pursuit of whatever."Hiro.""Fabulous. Then they began to include videotapes. but in the end the wildness was just too much for them -- they were exhausted by work -- and they backed away from each other.The Deliverator had to borrow some money to pay for it. Later. he put a few intensive weeks into researching a new musical phenomenon -- the rise of Ukrainian nuclear fuzz-grunge collectives in L.

 Your name.They enter the Buy 'n' Fly's nimbus of radioactive blue security light. To him it's no joke. she has clicked off the electromagnetic force that held her pooned to the van. and she's gone. Goes golfing every day. orange lights aflame. That's what Kouriers do. the two competing highways actually cross. it is a computer-rendered view of an imaginary place. was a stupid ped she would go up to the MetaCop and ask him why.Inside."It is. and he's in the doorway. idly. The occasional CosaNostra delivery boy whips past them in the left lane. I sang in the choir. which is considerably bigger than Earth. Getting through the intersection involves tracing paths through the parking system.He uploads it to the CIC database -- the Library.Y. which takes him to Bellewoode Valley Road. he finally went through a belated. ski lodge.