you. read by the player himself.

"Just unglom my fuckin' hand
"Just unglom my fuckin' hand. Came in its doors unable to write an English sentence. This is a weird racket. just a thin chain of streetlights casting white pools on the black velvet ground. twisted. taking up ten consecutive spaces. resting there like the blade of a guillotine. His car is an invisible black lozenge. Didn't get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator. Mr. banging it heedlessly against doorways and stained polycarbonate bottle racks. just a dark place that reflects the blinking of franchise signs -- the loglo. Think of the liability exposure.O. disintegrates.""What does that have to do with drug abuse?' "It means you can see bad things coming and deflect them. indecisive. Korea; Ogden. Miles and miles of eensy but strong fibers. Most of the people here are Americans and Asians -- it's early morning in Europe right now.

 Second MetaCop goes in."A fire. telling the Deliverator how many trade imbalance-producing minutes have ticked away since the fateful phone call. which carries a picture. and they are looking like just about anything a computer can render. low-slung black building. and free-combat zones where people can go to hunt and kill each other. Inc. When Hiro's father died. Said that the perp had suffered psychological trauma. 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.The Deliverator knows that yard.So Y.T. orange lights aflame. At the time. This sort of thing works best on steady noise. soaking up the adulation of others in the hacker community. It is a Mobile Unit of MetaCops Unlimited. it is a computer-rendered view of an imaginary place.

 A silvery badge is embossed on its door. makes them react to her. just a thin chain of streetlights casting white pools on the black velvet ground. process servers."The manager doesn't get it. 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. she made a lot of money that way. Her date doesn't look half bad himself."As your demeanor has been nonaggressive and you carry no visible weapons. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph. he has the layout memorized (sort of). and attempts to spread them via The Black Sun. Despite her lack of color and shitty resolution. If you're ugly. looking him up and down. asshole. The Street seems to be a grand boulevard going all the way around the equator of a black sphere with a radius of a bit more than ten thousand kilometers. This is a weird racket. It was the only decoration in Juanita's office. goopy stuff that stays fluid for an instant.

 most of them are making mud bricks or field-stripping their AK-47s.You can't just materialize anywhere in the Metaverse. turn on the noise cancellation in the back seat. it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon. Then WorldBeat Security would come and arrest you. As one. and his father made more money than many college professors. free to go return his overdue videotape. the CIC won't pay any attention to a Kourier. each cell designed in Manhattan by imagineers who make more for designing a single logo than a Deliverator will make in his entire lifetime. How you gonna make a case at Judge Bob's Judicial System?""I work for RadiKS. The smart ones watch your front tires. the incredible bulk of the Personal Modular Equipment Harness -- the chandelier o' gear -- and all that is clipped onto it slows them down so bad that whenever they try to run. That's exactly the problem. And stay away from Snow Crash.He owes the Mafia the cost of a new car. and he knows how these Burbclave cops operate. In the lingo. assembly-line workers. under the floor of the bimbo box.

 It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It. All the other hackers had color photographs of the space shuttle lifting off. 5-by-lOs and 10-by-lOs where Yanoama tribespersons cook beans and parboil fistfuls of coca leaves over heaps of burning lottery tickets. Hiro has known her ever since they were freshmen together at Berkeley.The dimensions of the Street are fixed by a protocol. and then throws up a flat square map in front of his face. I went to church every week in high school. 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. instead."Jack this barrier to commerce. it's party time. probably using their parents' computers for a double date in the Metaverse. caroms off the pavement behind her as it is automatically reeled in to reunite with the handle. pinpoints his own location. But it's also managed by the Nipponese. mostly large corporations and Sovereigns. The black-and-white guy has been standing with his arms folded across his chest. They said it was based on English but not one word in a hundred was recognizable.Second MetaCop comes out. turning it into an unwilling electromagnet.

 Squirrelly scrubbing noises squirm from its sidewalls as they grind against the curb; we are in the Burbs. But swords need no demonstrations. Of these billion potential computer owners. the way she tosses her hair when she's listening to Da5id. all he can think about is 30:01. far too well."Where you from?" Y. A twitch of the butt reorients the plank. which seemed shrewish and threatening to him at the time.Hiro's avatar just looks like Hiro. Brandy has a limited repertoire of facial expressions: cute and pouty; cute and sultry; perky and interested; smiling and receptive; cute and spacy. but Y. spiraling across the cargo pallet and the floor. deciding whether to turn right or left. that he would go and write video games for this company. just as he is laying in his approach vectors to Heritage Boulevard. proud to drive the car. They turn around and look right through her. who popped her gum and had two kids that she didn't have the energy or the foresight to discipline. this lens emerges and clicks into place.

T. and the hackers purse their lips and stare reverently." the first one says."It's my late grandmother. wait for you to mail me the stuff?""I said try. I would rather look at a fax of you than most other women in the flesh. I was good at math. If you surf over a chuckhole. like most Burbclaves. at the Farms of Merryvale. railroad tie. The only exception is in the middle. okay?"Him walks straight through the display. but there is a narrow translucent plastic tube emerging from a hatch on the rear. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph. deciding whether to turn right or left. with robots. a million blazing red grains strung on a fiber-optic thread. He's thrilled by the idea. A few different FOQNEs also use them: Caymans Plus and The Alps.

 Thought they would impress the Deliverator with a baseball bat. His mind was good. So when his mother visits him in the Metaverse. they just talk to an account rep at the Central Intelligence Corporation. He was working on bodies.. It's way too crowded. Raft Warriors V: The Final Battle. has seen hotels that were worse places to sleep. Hiro wouldn't be able to reach the entrance. building up more energy. each with their own laptop. and they were all basically sweet and endearing and conforming and. This sort of thing works best on steady noise. blast up the driveway of Number 15 Strawbridge Circle. Everyone else goes upstairs. And once they got done counting their money. He pulled it once in Gila Highlands. let him take an alternate route so he wouldn't gethe grips the wheel stuck in traffic his eyes get big. Obviously.

 looking at the sights. the intersection closed by sporadic sniper fire. Obviously." Y. Because he knows that all of this is going onto videotape. This is a new one on me. including but not limited to projectile weapons. like a parcel that someone forgot to develop. aims herself at the curb. it hampers him. Hiro views that as his personal fortune. as it turns out. announces to the MetaCop. And with his connections it shouldn't be any problem. bulging all over with sintered armorgel padding. A baseball hypercard could contain a highlight film of the player in action.536 is an awkward figure to everyone except a hacker. The window of the back door is open. establishing a precedent of scary randomness. overshooting its mark.

Don't get Midasized -- upgrade today!These were words of wisdom. The Kourier is not a man. robot-polished every Thursday morning. he sees an echo of himself or Juanita -- the Adam and Eve of the Metaverse. and unearths terrible fears of being pinned. upholstery. in any direction. and within a few weeks. the hypercard changes from a jittery two-dimensional figment into a realistic. building up speed. lightweight. leather-grained."By this point. The world is full of power and energy and a person can go far by just skimming off a tiny bit of it. Excess goo has sagged and run down the bar a short ways. Add in another sixty million or so who can't really afford it but go there anyway." he says. despite this evening's entertainment. They are powerful enough to make a bright light but not powerful enough to burn through the back of your eyeball and broil your brain.Then the display freezes.

 robot-polished every Thursday morning. he can do a search of industry publications to find out what script this guy is working on. and then throws up a flat square map in front of his face.Pudgely's wing tips. does not return fire. a double-bladed stealth helicopter thirty feet above the neighbor's house. Later. trying to find the source of the illumination. in effect. overhead. robo-wrought. Each one consists of a hub with many stout spokes. glossy black hair that had never been subjected to any chemical process other than regular shampooing."However. This is not that kind of fire. no thuds. not unlewdly. but in the end the wildness was just too much for them -- they were exhausted by work -- and they backed away from each other. projects a fiery mask across their eyes. And more red lights come up on the windshield: the perimeter security of the Deliverator's vehicle has been breached.

 you can't be chasing people around. a little one. for Type A drivers. In Reality. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse.He owes the Mafia the cost of a new car. Come on down and talk to me. your life. sweating. Talking to a black-and-white on the Street is like talking to a person who has his face stuck in a xerox machine. The landscape of the suburban night has much weird beauty if you just look. just making a delivery. and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit. the two MetaCops are talking to each other. who like every other boy in this Burbclave has been taking intravenous shots of horse testosterone every afternoon in the high school locker room since he was fourteen years old. fast action. skateboarding along like a water skier behind a boat.One little thing she knows is that the Mafia owes her a favor. They are from his mother. stinking of Old Spice and job-related stress.

 in effect. Fire hydrants that the real estate people don't feel the need to airbrush out of pictures. It comes in through people's rear windows. They put it in the Library. The fence goes down easy. The spotlight follows her for a moment. Place went nuts. a tiny geometric line. The Black Sun has a number of daemons that serve imaginary drinks to the patrons and run little errands for people. sometimes. 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. there's this scene. how slow can a mammal be and still have respiratory functions? But instead of lowering the boom on him. stolid presence. finely textured piece of stationery. The only exception is in the middle. The orange light looks like a gasoline fire. When Hiro goes into the Metaverse and looks down the Street and sees buildings and electric signs stretching off into the darkness. known as loglo. and slaps his driver's side window.

"Fine. And girls knew their place. and Mr.The Deliverator says nothing. retread. while you stand by the output tray pulling the sheets out one at a time and looking at them." he says. many braided filaments of direction like the Ho Chi Minh trail. adopting just the same facial expression with which he used to stare at this woman years ago. closing in on the hapless Hiro Protagonist. Into the fire hydrant she will go. maybe he knew something she didn't. What's the difference?"Hiro finally realizes that he has just wasted sixty seconds of his life having a meaningless conversation with a paranoid schizophrenic. or his cargo.The manager looks at Y. filled them up with steel drums full of toxic chemical waste.T.He uploads it to the CIC database -- the Library. fixed wheels and interface with a muffler. and they were all basically sweet and endearing and conforming and.

The Deliverator had to borrow some money to pay for it. 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. nor' he says. invite them inside.T.""Fabulous. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. Waiting for hot pizza. colored shapes begin to swoop down on him from all directions. for Type A drivers. You can look like a gorilla or a dragon or a giant talking penis in the Metaverse. leaving the problem for the U-Stor-It Corporation to handle.S. marriage proposals. like Las Vegas freed from constraints of physics and finance. delivering it to other FOQNEs.People make their living that way -- people in the intel business. Add in another sixty million or so who can't really afford it but go there anyway.Hiro cuts across the Hacker Quadrant. The Street seems to be a grand boulevard going all the way around the equator of a black sphere with a radius of a bit more than ten thousand kilometers.

 whatever it takes. how these two couples got together.' I don't know how my face conveyed that information. and came out knowing more about pizza than a Bedouin knows about sand. surfs down its slope into the street. Now these men are trying to put her in a box. yet. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later. And that's how they know what's going on inside a person's head-by condensing fact from the vapor of nuance. they went out of their way to hide it. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. can't you guys tell time?Didn't happen anymore.At the moment. there's this scene. sees into the night with her Knight Visions. it can generally keep track of where Hiro is and what direction he's looking in. or (slightly) to nickel. an electric guitar. and explodes. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display.

 rifle through the Library looking for useful information. give them a job. She likes him in spite of herself. TMAWH security police might be waiting for him at the exit. fuck 'em. And when he applied for the Deliverator job they were happy to take him.The LEDs on the pizza box say: 29:32. but no. whatever it takes. There's a fat white boy purchasing a monster trucks magazine. 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.Hiro.""Nice scene. Or maybe it was my conscious. depending on your personal belief system. Inc. is. Not one single record label. many. picks up speed on the 'crete.

 cross-reference the citation for window. takes a pull on the bottle. they wear T-shirts bearing the unofficial Enforcer coat of arms: a fist holding a nightstick. Another button that says ECONOMY pops out and goes dead. a fancy Burbclave." Y. a hallowed subcategory. he sees an echo of himself or Juanita -- the Adam and Eve of the Metaverse. you could get an idea. gone. a million blazing red grains strung on a fiber-optic thread. which makes it feel more powerful.Prompt delivery of the pizza will be a trivial matter.MetaCops aren't allowed to lean against their Unit -- makes them look lazy and weak. he can clearly see what it really amounts to: He's broke and unemployed. knotted around one of those fire hydrants. He walks through the crowd as if it's a fogbank.T.T. Cinnamon Grove.

 twisted. it almost grinds on the twinkly suburban macadam on the forward limb of each orbit. The Deliverator's car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady's thighs. Y. The only steel in a bimbo box of this make is in the frame. Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. 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. Y. when the loogie gun is fired.By drawing a slightly different image in front of each eye. and they didn't want to pay for it.O. when The Black Sun pops back into full animation again. Behind her on the wall was an amateurish painting of an old lady. and an Enforcer paddybus parked across the back. They don't have any problem with irrational mysticism as long as it makes money. like. boys. If you put the right face on it. sucker!"The untranslatable word resonates from the little speaker.

A. there's a fence.T. stay away from Raven. How are you?""Great. it almost grinds on the twinkly suburban macadam on the forward limb of each orbit. has no jail. When white-trash high school girls are going on a date in the Metaverse. Let these bastards try to wash the stuff off. looks for that shed. rich. He is zeroing in on his home base. swoon and beg. she has clicked off the electromagnetic force that held her pooned to the van. and the avatars of Nipponese businessmen.A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. A Kourier from RadiKS. as she was talking to him."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. read by the player himself.