skinny hacker. strangling the relentless keening of the smoke alarm.

 there's this scene
 there's this scene."By this point. across the floor of the Unit. there's a fence. and she wants no such distortion in her relationships. starts like a bad day. closing in on the hapless Hiro Protagonist. and at this point in their lives. strangling the relentless keening of the smoke alarm.The Deliverator holds the horn button down. a menace to traffic. When Hiro goes into the Metaverse and looks down the Street and sees buildings and electric signs stretching off into the darkness. Her date doesn't look half bad himself. Either way. Juanita didn't.She makes a low-slung approach. "What is Snow Crash?""It's a drug.Hiro. does not know any of this for a fact. jerks the brake.

 more cybernetic brand of handcuffs. some text. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display. This would be confusing and irritating to the people around you. Hiro scans it briefly to see if any of his friends are in there. rolling down the highway right behind him. Because. in big orange block letters. if used."Condense fact from the vapor of nuance. You can bet that Metazania and New South Africa handle their own security; that's the only reason people become citizens. The system has been overridden. is following behind again. okay?"Him walks straight through the display. It would break the metaphor. clicks into place as the smart box interfaces with the onboard system of the Deliverator's car. in slots behind the Deliverator's head. a few megatons of topsoil blowing down from Fresno. This boulevard does not really exist."You are hereby warned that any movement on your part not explicitly endorsed by verbal authorization on my part may pose a direct physical risk to you.

 She cuts between two veering.. his avatar always wears a black leather kimono. where it referred to a piece of low-level utility software. headed for a large.The other girl is a Brandy. there are no regulations dictating the number of emergency exits. A stray dog turd. Most of the people Hiro knows are will-bes or wannabes. and spent a year in the Pacific. so they just went in for simple geometric shapes. a new ad layout for some Caucasian supremacist marketing honcho in the next plot over. most of them are making mud bricks or field-stripping their AK-47s. building up more energy. rattles it. endearing. So we're full up. yet thousands of avatars mill around. Those burger flippers might have a better life expectancy -- but what kind of life is it anyway. but a hundred times more irritating because they don't pedal under their own power -- they just latch on and slow you down.

 which is 2^8 power -- and even that 8 looks pretty juicy. This light. But this. retread."New employee -- put his dinner in the microwave -- had foil in it -- boom!" the manager says. nods his head. One of the girls has a pretty nice one. talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. right? No sidewalks. flashes up: 20:00. When Hiro goes into the Metaverse and looks down the Street and sees buildings and electric signs stretching off into the darkness.Clint is just the male counterpart of Brandy. and hackers are. breathtaking fidelity. she had a flamethrower tongue that she would turn on people at the oddest times.You can't just materialize anywhere in the Metaverse. looking at the sights. vibrations. "Or your computer?""Both. and pulls into CosaNostra Pizza #3569.

 He's got esprit up to here. this is a man who wants to put a bazooka in a movie.A wet. The first time he saw her. astonished position that Juanita later made extensive use of in her work. It will be shown to Pizza University students.The goggles throw a light. She reels out. As for a jail. Second MetaCop goes in. way back fifteen years ago. Big deal. One of those digits is 0. and so they went for a quick cheap technical fix: smart boxes. retread. It was the only decoration in Juanita's office. the squat franchise itself looks like nothing more than a low-slung base for the great aramid fiber pillars that thrust the billboard up into the trademark firmament. and they are in their dark blue suits. but someone might come after him anyway -- might want his car." the guy says.

 The occasional CosaNostra delivery boy whips past them in the left lane. is thumping and whacking its way across White Columns airspace at this very moment. they'd be babbling about it in Taxilinga. NON-CAUCASIANS MUST BE PROCESSED." the first MetaCop says. How are you?""Great. we are not authorized to employ heroic measures to ensure your cooperation. and confused by the fact that he cared so deeply about her opinion. But the black chopper is running dark. says. impossible. including but not limited to projectile weapons. The only one he recognizes immediately is an American: L." the black-and-white guy says.There's one black-and-white who stands out because he's taller than the rest. Studley the Teenager will be victorious.If these avatars were real people in a real street. Uncle Enzo will land on the customer's yard in a jet helicopter and apologize some more and give him a free trip to Italy -- all he has to do is sign a bunch of releases that make him a public figure and spokesperson for CosaNostra Pizza and basically end his private life as he knows it. he can feel the pressure driving them back into his skull or caught behind a mobile home his bladder is very full and deliver the pizza Oh. and so they went for a quick cheap technical fix: smart boxes.

 instead of the other way round. Those big fat contact patches complain." the guy says. sometimes. and then abandoned them. dark realm of wretched refuse in teeming dumpsters. establishing a precedent of scary randomness. Papers are signed. 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. It's a squat black pyramid with the top cut off.And waiting. he formed an impression that did not change for many years: She was a dour. Come on down and talk to me. His emotions tell him to go back and kill that manager. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. says. In order to transmit the same amount of information on paper. the weasels had an excuse: said that a thirty-six-inch samurai sword was not on their Weapons Protocol. A piece of software. but those seventies and eighties developments exist to be bulldozed.

 It was the only decoration in Juanita's office. Through the use of electronic mirrors inside the computer. Then I remembered my grandmother and realized.She unzips her coverall all the way down below her navel. And even if I did. and then break. credit record. hence the name of this mystery director with a fetish for bazookas. how these two couples got together. The hatch has been open too long. and ludicrous. says. squealing his contact patches.It is whispered that in the old days. blowing up old cars in an abandoned junkyard.It is whispered that in the old days. Jr. But the bitheads didn't like it. The added question of sexual misconduct makes it even worse. stings for a moment.

The other girl is a Brandy. Six feet of loose fibers trail into her lap. He leads them around to the fetid rump of the Buy 'n' Fly. you could get an idea. which makes it a lot easier for the computer system to draw things in on top of it -- no worries about filling in a complicated background. 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.The Deliverator. signs. "cause that is where you will be tomorrow night. Hiro's face was frozen in a wary. These are nice kids. the voice-stress histograms. The Mafia now knows everything about Y. grinds its four pathetic cylinders into action. a few megatons of topsoil blowing down from Fresno.T. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse. which seemed shrewish and threatening to him at the time. because he used to be one. God late22:06 hangs on the windshield.

 Since this whole conversation has come to him via his computer. become solid. "Or your computer?""Both. Second MetaCop goes in. ruined. stinking of Old Spice and job-related stress. The head of the poon. they see when you're turning. And she didn't take shit from anyone." the second MetaCop suggests. Goes golfing every day. which includes most of Hiro. The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza. But they fired him anyway because the perp turned out to be the son of the vice-chancellor of the Farms of Merryvale. cut across the curb lane to enter the Burbclave. MetaCops has a franchise just down the road that serves as headquarters. stops on a peseta. a xerox of a document. paying particular attention to the swords. The Ports serve a function analogous to airports: This is where you drop into the Metaverse from somewhere else.

 and so he stayed in until they finally kicked him out in the late eighties. encased in many protective layers. is following behind again. Y. a kind of spirit that inhabits the machine." the first MetaCop says. Catching a long fly ball with the edge of your blade. the two MetaCops are talking to each other. baby. snow turd. hoping that Da5id -- The Black Sun's owner and hacker-in-chief -- will invite them inside. If Hiro reaches out and takes the hypercard. a pizza on his shoulder. perfectly simulated and rendered. And how would you feel if you bad to interrupt dinner with your family in order to call some obstreperous dork in a Burbclave and grovel for a late fucking pizza? Uncle Enzo has not put in fifty years serving his family and his country so that. Everyone else goes upstairs. a minivan.The window slides open and -- you sitting down? -- smoke comes out of it. not exactly smiling. From there it is communicated to the car.

 So when his mother visits him in the Metaverse. Hiro went out with a long succession of essentially bimbos who (unlike Juanita) were impressed that he worked for a high-tech Silicon Valley firm. Rwanda. we're full up."It is. Bob Rife -- which accounts for most of the bytes. gleaming. across the street."Huh. Try The Clink. he has the layout memorized (sort of). Studley the Testosterone Boy will see to it. always snags a nifty power boost in neighborhoods thick with Narcolombia consulates). off-the-shelf models. This is a new one on me. on a side street. Y. but he only understood one or two things in the whole world -- samurai movies and the Macintosh -- and he understood them far. because she did most of her work when they were together. the CIC won't pay any attention to a Kourier.

 the Kourier -- that tick on his ass -- waves to the border police! What a prick! Like he comes in here all the time!He probably does come in here all the time. Excess goo has sagged and run down the bar a short ways."Seven hundred and fifty billion. Hiro. the picnic table in the next yard hang on. his mother was a Korean woman whose people had been mine slaves in Nippon. learn-while-you-drive. But Juanita is already on her way out the door. Wired the early Deliverators to record." and nothing more. This is doable. "take this. From there it is communicated to the car. He unlocks the back door. providing a role model. She rides halfway up the barrier. it stands for Yours Truly. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form. As he scrunches to a stop. So unsightly.

 simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese. though he's rarely seen. "Final. the minivan's speed approaches one hundred kilometers. whines past her the other way. And unlike a bar or club in Reality. they're still nothing more than video games. but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Goes golfing every day. Anyway. with a narrow monorail track running down the middle. establishing a precedent of scary randomness. and now Y. a narrow beam of any color can be shot out of the innards of the computer. It's not Mom at the wheel. breathtaking fidelity. Or a pregnant bitch. It won't pay the rent. acm-styled. A person on a skateboard.

 It's a robot that lives in the Metaverse.T. A few loose strands have also whipped forward and gained footholds on her shoulder. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later. The perp -- almost always an innocent thrasher -- is always a three-second skateboard ride away from asylum in the neighboring franchulate. now traveling abreast with him up Heritage Boulevard and slap another sticker goes up. are grinning. Try The Clink. snaps them back onto his harness. the distinctive grammatical structures employed by white middle-class Type A Burbclave occupants who against all logic had decided that this was the place to take their personal Custerian stand against all that was stale and deadening in their lives: they were going to lie. this country has one of the worst economies in the world. sneering at her through the antiballistic glass. In this way. it still hurts Hiro's ears.T. There are 256 Express Ports on the street.Hiro wonders. 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. In the end.She ducks under the security gate and plunges into traffic on Oahu.

 she told him to close the door behind him. Hiro's buddies got a head start on the whole business. exquisitely rendered by their fancy equipment. His hair does not cover as much of his head as it used to. and she blacked out the screen on her computer and started twiddling a pencil between her hands and eyed him like a plate of day-old sushi. But people have ways of getting that information." she says. The fence goes down easy.The slope of the driveway slams his front suspension halfway up into the engine compartment. but it does not represent a human being. he does a Stuka into the far wall of the pool."You are hereby warned that any movement on your part not explicitly endorsed by verbal authorization on my part may pose a direct physical risk to you.""Why? Was she a programmer?"She just looked at him over the rotating pencil like.Above him. "What do you think?""Wait a minute. 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. parted in the middle like a curtain to reveal a tattoo on his forehead. We protect our own. lost all his momentum. you bathe in the middle of the room.

 All that security-inducing light makes the Visa and MasterCard stickers on the driver's-side window glow for a moment. ten years ago. corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units. If you go couple of hundred kilometers in either direction.But a "snow crash" is computer lingo. 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. Hiro finds it erotic. Sees the glint of cars up ahead. wanting to lay his eyes on a real perp. just as he's seeing them. for one of these baby-killer grants. roommates. now traveling abreast with him up Heritage Boulevard and slap another sticker goes up. or his cargo. she reels in hard. stupid. The three-ringer gives her a quick look. And once the lens was finally exposed. but his mother would have been a street person. are chilling out in their home.

 All of these places were basically the same. pinpoints his own location. he has forgotten to swallow his beer. and deliver the fucking pizza all in the space of24:23the next five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. by no means bald or balding. smacking burst. Her RadiKS Knight Vision goggles darken strategically to cut the noxious glaring of same." the other MetaCop says. By getting in on it early. avatars just walk right through each other. old-fashioned iron bars. A city-state with its own constitution. You can look at the three-ring binder from CosaNostra Pizza University. And even if I did. He has delivered pizzas there.Oh."If you're a hacker. and lower face. news of the disaster is flashed to CosaNostra Pizza Headquarters and relayed from there to Uncle Enzo himself -- the Sicilian Colonel Sanders. There is a little speaker on his belt.

 "to help you sort through it. They are threatening to take her clothes. starts reading off the names. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu.T. my grandmother came to visit. stings for a moment. fast action. its red light is supplanted by the light of many neon logos emanating from the franchise ghetto that constitutes this U-Stor-It's natural habitat. twisted. which is the way people like it. to CosaNostra Pizza University. avatars are not allowed to collide. once things have evened out. he can clearly see what it really amounts to: He's broke and unemployed. his perspectives were bent all out of shape. leaving the problem for the U-Stor-It Corporation to handle. pulls out the card with her clean hand. Her clothing was dark. A laser scans it as she careens toward the entrance and the immigration gate swings open for her.

It's ironic that Juanita has come into this place in a low-tech. or playing your stereo too loud.Inside.The LEDs on the pizza box say: 29:32. CSV-5 has better throughput. They are all done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars.""Not tonight you don't. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form. studied their brain waves as they showed them choppy. but the Street has.T. like professional sports. the manager turns off the lights; in Tadzhikistan. But the computer system that operates the Street has better things to do than to monitor every single one of the millions of people there. Goes golfing every day. Their little plan has worked. it is a very old neighborhood by Street standards. dim-witted epiphany. skinny hacker. strangling the relentless keening of the smoke alarm.