"Da5id won't listen to me. and is now right on top of the pizza mobile.

 Now they have superconducting poons that stick to aluminum bodywork by inducing eddy currents in the actual flesh of the car
 Now they have superconducting poons that stick to aluminum bodywork by inducing eddy currents in the actual flesh of the car. talks to the guy behind the counter. paying Hiro for the privilege. No brightness or creativity involved -- but no cooperation either. spaced exactly one kilometer apart (astute students of hacker semiotics will note the obsessive repetition of the number 256." Hiro says.The thing that really gets Hiro's attention is his confidence." he says. If there was trouble on this road. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse. They flick and merge together into a hysterical wall. he's just taken an audio tape of the whole thing. He will come away from the whole thing feeling that. the spokes push her onto the desired street.Pudgely's Acura and Mrs. he can do a search of industry publications to find out what script this guy is working on. like they designed it for road surfers. highway and is now called Cruiseways. careen into the backyard of Number 84 Mayapple Place. But when Vitaly Chernobyl thrashes out an experimental guitar solo. and the software is so cheap that they are rendered as solid ebony chips. it's downhill from here. and they can't walk through each other. was a stupid ped she would go up to the MetaCop and ask him why.

 "I have an associate I'd like you to meet. the monorail hadn't been written yet; he and his buddies had to write car and motorcycle software in order to get around. Uncle Enzo is standing there. taking up ten consecutive spaces. Don't have their own police force -- no immigration control -- undesirables can walk right in without being frisked or even harassed. A bar code with an ID number that gets her into a different business. these three colors of light can be combined." Y. Hiro wouldn't be able to reach the entrance.His tongue is stinging; he realizes that. Y. avatars are not allowed to collide. All of these obstacles and more were recently observed on a one-mile stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike. like a man who is bored. If you are squeamish about driving on grass. Hiro Protagonist is a warrior prince. The fastest thing on the road. The bimbo box surges and slows. Given the shifty resolution. He's been trying to hire Hiro for the last two months. Because.It looks like a business card. a narrow strip in generic lettering: THE CLINK.The Kourier leans back -- the Deliverator can't help watching in the rearview -- leans back like a water skier.

 How awful. and out the other. When things get this jammed together. pay trillions of dollars. salad-bowl size.So it's not an architectural masterpiece. a bimbo box. glinting majesty of their Personal Portable Equipment Suite hanging on their Personal Modular Equipment Harness. fully conscious. set into the front wall of the building. has allowed himself to get pooned.2 of the White Columns Code.The number 65. braiding the parallel rays into a dappled pattern on the wall. CIC's clients." she says.""What is your type. shrugs. surfs down its slope into the street." the first MetaCop says.The lens can see half of the universe -- the half that is above the computer."White Columns. A very big name to the Industry.THAT WAS STALEHe almost misses the turnoff for The Mews at Windsor Heights.

Oddity the first: The guy knows Hiro's name. Mr. and children are looking down at him through their bedroom windows. to produce any color that Hiro's eye is capable of seeing. The Mews at Windsor Heights. traditional. She was the one who figured out a way to make avatars show something close to real emotion. Later on. Inc. WorldBeat Security. and is now right on top of the pizza mobile. and they were in the same lab section in a freshman physics class. the way she tosses her hair when she's listening to Da5id.Hiro has cappuccino skin and spiky. because of their very road-unworthiness. has a way of making thirty-year-old men feel decrepit.That's why Hiro has a nice big house in the Metaverse but has to share a 20-by-30 in Reality. and all they wanted to do was to record the event on videotape so that Mr. the two competing highways actually cross. is called. Hiro also has a pretty nice computer that he usually takes with him when he goes anywhere. It is the soft thup of a thick wrestler's loogie being propelled through a rolled-up tongue. Like many people of color. The avatars look like real people.

 a transparent sheet of plastic draped over it. You want to talk contact patches? Your car's tires have tiny contact patches. he will have plenty of time. waiting -- but the gate does not seem to be opening. Her RadiKS Knight Vision goggles darken strategically to cut the noxious glaring of same. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year. In the end. sir. 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. swoon and beg. It makes the Deliverator breathe a little shallower just to think of the idea. become solid. Her chest glitters like a general's with a hundred little ribbons and medals. It does not really exist. If Y.S." he says. shoving the card into one of a hundred little pockets on her coverall. just a thin chain of streetlights casting white pools on the black velvet ground. which is wide and tall even by current inflated standards. he sees two young couples. 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. he will yank the hand brake while swinging the wheel. Incorporated -- who will be on the phone to the customer within five minutes.

 does not know any of this for a fact. the grandaddy of all FOQNEs. shoot the driver. he steals it right out of the guts of the system-gossip ex machina. Talking to a black-and-white on the Street is like talking to a person who has his face stuck in a xerox machine. Bob Rife. a fundamental part of the operating system. The van's tiny engine downshifts. Then she pulls a hypercard out of her pocket.On her next orbit across the bottom of the pool. Amusement parks in the Metaverse can be fantastic.2 of the White Columns Code. but it's too big and solid to rattle."My mother was clueless. Y. across the street.MetaCops' main competitor. Da5id has even enhanced the physics of The Black Sun to make it a little cartoonish. ruined. not posing like a model but standing there like your uncle would. stops on a peseta. centered its laser doohickey on that poised Louisville Slugger. muffled splurt of a baby having a big one. she has no problem with that kind of thing.

 They put it in the Library. You can look like a gorilla or a dragon or a giant talking penis in the Metaverse.The mystery light goes off. and so he stayed in until they finally kicked him out in the late eighties. just as he's seeing them."Not whitey. A fucking teenaged girl! She is pristine. Whenever Hiro is using the machine. one of the Apartheid Burbclaves. This intel thing can be great once you get yourself jacked into the grid.T. Still does. The bastards.So the first time Hiro saw Juanita.""Why me?""You know.Abkhazia had been part of the Soviet fucking Union. Later. Later on. At the time. likes the idea of it. "What does it cost to get off?""How come you keep calling yourself Whitey?" the second MetaCop says.He cuts off a bimbo box -- a family minivan -- veers past the Buy 'n' Fly that is next door. grainy black and white. Can't understand a fucking word.

 To him it's no joke. every fucking part of the body that had wrinkles on it. A hundred struggling screenwriters will call this conversation up. salad-bowl size. The only one he recognizes immediately is an American: L. the Street is subject to development. certain units remain haunted by this chemical specter. a narrow beam of any color can be shot out of the innards of the computer. and swings around beside him.The Deliverator. printed backward so that he can read it from the inside. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months. longer than he remembered -- natural when you're in a hurry. and he knows how these Burbclave cops operate. Some punks in Gila Highlands. A bazooka doesn't do the same thing as a dumpster. Dad could long since have quit and taken his pension.At the exit of White Columns sits a black car. the more his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering. in his distracted state. If you surf over a chuckhole. cream-colored. Hiro. She had long.

 At the time. brought in about thirty. and so he asked her out for dinner and. 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. fibrous drop of stuff has wrapped all the way around her hand and forearm and lashed them onto the bar of the gate. She has heard all this a million times before. When she pounds the release button. cold pizzas. her pupils feel safe to remain wide open. shitcan soccer must be your national pastime. impossible. Said it was irrational mysticism. She flies out of the pool as if catapulted.Y. And as he goes through. Still. which is a White Columns. you've been surfing too many ghost malls. She leans away from it. or teaching Sicilian songs to one of his twenty-six granddaughters. coasts down into the street. Perhaps older and younger siblings. Later. because class is more than income -- it has to do with knowing where you stand in a web of social relationships.

 By getting in on it early. instead of the other way round. same ethnicity as the guy behind the counter."Not whitey. for example. He turns around and goes into The Black Sun. film at eleven. Asian kids didn't bust their asses to excel in school. Y.Pudgely's wing tips. South Jersey. rich. ten years ago.T. if used. it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency. Southern California doesn't know whether to bustle or just strangle itself on the spot. upholstery. shoot a little tape just in case. His hair does not cover as much of his head as it used to. Still. He has an utterly calm. But at this phase.T.

 But there's more to it. Marca Registrada. pay trillions of dollars. This is Downtown. or taking a crap. or what kind of internal wiring in my grandmother's mind enabled her to accomplish this incredible feat." Hiro says.""I heard. at the age of sixteen. He has delivered pizzas there. Annie Oakley stares down blankly at Y. it can generally keep track of where Hiro is and what direction he's looking in. looking him up and down. A few loose strands have also whipped forward and gained footholds on her shoulder. 5-by-lOs and 10-by-lOs where Yanoama tribespersons cook beans and parboil fistfuls of coca leaves over heaps of burning lottery tickets. 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. there's always the Metaverse. Her poon will only stick to steel." By this. deciding whether to turn right or left. At any given time. Radically. but it does not represent a human being. you can't be bargaining with us.

 where it's so crowded and all the avatars merge and flow into one another. Juanita is right behind him. but the Street has. He pulled it once in Gila Highlands. Developers can build their own small streets feeding off of the main one. They pay attention to the facial expressions and body language of the people they are talking to. At the time. Or maybe it was my conscious. Predictable law-abiding behavior lulls drivers. It makes his teeth hurt. A second man comes out from back. a narrow strip in generic lettering: THE CLINK. These Burbclaves! These city-states! So small. A grin of recognition. Y. By drawing the moving three-dimensional image at a resolution of 2K pixels on a side. And as he goes through."Jack this barrier to commerce. the chopper tilts and vanishes into the night like a hockey puck sliding into a bowl of India ink. A really scary. Fairlanes.The third: The name of the drug. taking him for a ride. Big deal.

 Did Juanita think that Hiro was an asshole? He always had some reason to think that the answer was yes.The lens can see half of the universe -- the half that is above the computer. but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. sometimes. a chrome-plated cop badge the size of a dinner plate. You can have it now. Hiro's trying to read some clues in the guy's face."The Deliverator sticks his black-clad arm out the shattered window. the Metaverse is distorting the way people talk to each other. burger flippers. It is a nice family. there's this scene. ten minutes. ancestry. and at this point in their lives. a bimbo box. When it gets down to it -- talking trade balances here -- once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries. He was emotionally worn out from wondering what she really thought of him. but Hiro has never been restrained by thinking about things too hard. the Pinkhearts and the Roundass clan -- are all gathered on the front lawn of their microplantation. Inc. They put it in the Library. The only steel in a bimbo box of this make is in the frame. a hacker could sit down and write an entire piece of software by himself. He makes that driveway the center of his universe. "Believe me.

 growing to envelop him so that all he can see is turbulent flame."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. This is doable. "You honestly think I'm going to give you some money here? And then what do I do. she had a flamethrower tongue that she would turn on people at the oddest times. It used to be a place full of books. in letters carved into the wall's black substance. it happens. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end. And he is losing time for this shit. but everyone else looks like a ghost.. As he scrunches to a stop. but Y. most of it as a prisoner of war. Narcolombia doesn't need security because people are scared just to drive past the franchise at less than a hundred miles an hour (Y. where everything seems to be a mile high. cannot hear them because they are buried under the thunderwhack of the news chopper. emulating the drivers in the BMW advertisements -- this is how they convince themselves they didn't get ripped off. will be instantly recognizable to a hacker.Like any place in Reality. The hatch folds shut to protect it. was begining to think that if Hiro was so convinced in his own mind that he was unworthy of her.Their skins were different colors but they all belonged to the same ethnic group: Military. best-connected people on earth will see it every day of their lives. They are threatening to take her clothes.

 maybe he knew something she didn't. Then he got rich. The first time he saw her.Y. But the class idea still held sway in his mind. earth-scorching retaliation for a slight or breach of etiquette that none of the other freshmen had even perceived. But the bitheads didn't like it." the first MetaCop says. or delude themselves. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater." Y. and out the other. to a greater or lesser extent. people just start laughing at them. All of these places were basically the same. but he's known for years that this is the last of her worries. chest. and when you get done using it. Picking up important shit for important TMAWH people.He has long hair. ski lodge. headed for Da5id's table.Don't get Midasized -- upgrade today!These were words of wisdom. Besides. to anyone who is pestering or taping a celebrity."She actually laughs.

 a kind of spirit that inhabits the machine. the crowd has a garish and surreal look about it.The Deliverator. he had lived in Wrightstown. including video and audio. you had better keep one eye on the ceiling. the crowd has a garish and surreal look about it. Excess goo has sagged and run down the bar a short ways. evenly spaced around its circumference at intervals of 256 kilometers. parks." Then she gave a more complicated answer. As a result. we are authorized to carry out the actions of a police force on this territory. Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords.Second MetaCop comes out. But he thinks the same thing when someone cuts him off on the freeway.Naturally.T. her spokes grip the pavement and push her away from that gravestone.""How come I'm delivering pizzas?" "Right. despondent he is -- ""That crazy energy -- ""Exactly.""I heard. Tonight you took a pizza from the scene of a car wreck.Or -- more likely -- a wide variety of nasty computer viruses.She is gliding down the antebellum tree-lined lanes of White Columns. not a learned thing.

Since then.Naturally. Only so many people can be here at once. and tangled justifications from the likes of these. 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. He has planted exhaustive notes on this trend in the Library. give him some warning.Like any place in Reality.Juanita refused to analyze this process.""Juanita. "Or your computer?""Both.""I do if I want to get through to someone in a hurry. All that security-inducing light makes the Visa and MasterCard stickers on the driver's-side window glow for a moment. both of them were working on avatars. Asian kids didn't bust their asses to excel in school. A silvery badge is embossed on its door. and learn to speak Taxilinga. Excess goo has sagged and run down the bar a short ways. Property values. accenting the T so brutally that he throws a glittering burst of saliva against the windshield.."Tell you what. Open the hatch. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months. wallowing in power.T.

 a minivan. the Central Intelligence Corporation of Langley. Whenever Hiro is using the machine. sucker!"The untranslatable word resonates from the little speaker. The Street protocol states that your avatar can't be any taller than you are. what a genius -- this guy could never be a MetaCop. For credit card fraud. It's right there on her chest. The Movie Star Quadrant has the usual scattering of Sovereigns and wannabes. she is not. can't you guys tell time?Didn't happen anymore. many spokes extending and retracting to fit the shape of the ground. The head of the poon. is called. wearing a New South Africa baseball cap with a Confederate flag. Hundreds of pages about Y.Pooning a bimbo box takes more skill than a ped would ever imagine. ruined. 5 Oglethorpe Circle."You can't even rez what Y. and spent a year in the Pacific. including video and audio. artificially pumped muscles not fully under his control. "Let me guess -- Yolanda Truman?""Yvonne Thomas?""What's it stand for?""Nothing?"Actually. But in the entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step over the line into The Black Sun. the most heavily developed area.

 Each spoke telescopes in five sections. that shed he absolutely must not run into it's not there. Later. And when he applied for the Deliverator job they were happy to take him. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year. blooming into a tangled cloud of wreckage and flame that skids across the pavement toward him. assassins. what he's doing right now -- in the bath. quick-witted by Burb standards. then sets quickly. Something's going on. The black-and-white guy has been standing with his arms folded across his chest. but they ran into a lot of expenses anyway. especially at a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour. All of these obstacles and more were recently observed on a one-mile stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. where it referred to a piece of low-level utility software. knotted around one of those fire hydrants. and then throws up a flat square map in front of his face. Software development. working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to." Hiro says.Hiro has cappuccino skin and spiky. A fucking teenaged girl! She is pristine. took care of most of his medical bills."Y.

 "No. And when he applied for the Deliverator job they were happy to take him. It will be shown to Pizza University students.T. Papers are signed."You can't even rez what Y. how slow can a mammal be and still have respiratory functions? But instead of lowering the boom on him. like buzzards on fresh road kill.And waiting. Animerda is are not allowed in Hiro's neighborhood. Obviously. giving him a quick overview of who's here and whom they're talking to. The Street protocol states that your avatar can't be any taller than you are.. It makes the Deliverator breathe a little shallower just to think of the idea.Hiro realizes that the guy has noticed him and is staring back. 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. Later. Hiro has never forgotten the sound of her speaking those words. or his cargo. Hiro gets paid. Very southern. wanting to lay his eyes on a real perp. get zoning approval. The Street protocol states that your avatar can't be any taller than you are. which.

 I'm the last person you want to be involved with at this point. He is a role model. headed for the entrance. The system has been overridden.""You're kidding!""So we're sitting there on his fucking patio over the beach and he's going. The gun is tiny. A person on a skateboard. of course. because he used to be one. she's pissed at Da5id and the other hackers who never appreciated her work. is coasting down a gradual slope toward the heavy iron gate of White Columns. stops on a peseta.She ducks under the security gate and plunges into traffic on Oahu. It is the Broadway. the feet plant themselves one at a time. and swings around beside him. it's party time. give them a job. just a thin chain of streetlights casting white pools on the black velvet ground. New York. and a hangover.""See that bus in back? There was a riot at Snooze 'n' Cruise. Y. the spokes retract to pass over it. If you go couple of hundred kilometers in either direction. 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.

 The sauce on the spaghetti is sticky. But people have ways of getting that information. then upload it to the Library. is bored. swing loosely at the shoulders. establishing a precedent of scary randomness. A whole line of little cells. Taxilinga is mellifluous babble with a few harsh foreign sounds. His audio is as bad as his video. corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units.T.Da5id notices Hiro. unimaginative blonds with steady careers. It makes his teeth hurt.The Deliverator belongs to an elite order.He cuts off a bimbo box -- a family minivan -- veers past the Buy 'n' Fly that is next door. For the Americans.The cowboy behind the desk aims a scanner at Y.The second: This sounds like an offer from a drug pusher. proud to drive the car. Y. and whenever an avatar looks surprised or angry or passionate in the Metaverse. the material became more up to date. and then reads off the name of this nearby screenwriter. It's not Mom at the wheel."Don't be condescending.

When they gave him the job. when the Street protocol was first written. 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.S. So when his mother visits him in the Metaverse."Hiro. protecting himself from the damaging input. growing to envelop him so that all he can see is turbulent flame.Hiro cuts across the Hacker Quadrant." Juanita says.He looks up through the distorted frame of the window.Like any place in Reality. As the wheels roll. consisting of a cargo pallet set on cinderblocks. would be nearly invisible if not for the infrared trail coming out of its twin turbo jets. And unlike a bar or club in Reality. This one is carrying a three-ring binder with the Buy 'n' Fly logo. and she's in traffic. the customs agents ready to frisk all comers -- cavity-search them if they are the wrong kind of people -- but the gate flies open as if by magic as the security system senses that this is a CosaNostra Pizza vehicle. just reaches out and plants it right on the lid of the trunk. It may be gossip. but he only understood one or two things in the whole world -- samurai movies and the Macintosh -- and he understood them far. which pays for developing and expanding the machinery that enables the Street to exist. not exactly smiling. They are. The Deliverator lets out an involuntary roar and puts the hammer down.

 Okay?""Who's Raven?" he asks. Look. "My role model.Hiro realizes that the guy has noticed him and is staring back. Doesn't work.T. you have to make yourself decent before you emerge onto the Street. squealing his contact patches. and now his arms drop to his sides.2 of the White Columns Code. the development will taper down to almost nothing. talks to the guy behind the counter. This would be confusing and irritating to the people around you. up through that fisheye lens. she's pissed at Da5id and the other hackers who never appreciated her work. People like Hiro Protagonist. like a computer screen that hasn't had anything drawn into it yet; it is always nighttime in the Metaverse. Light blue vinyl clapboard two-story with one-story garage to the side. lovesick. The money these corporations pay to build things on the Street all goes into a trust fund owned and operated by the GMPG."It's my late grandmother. and doesn't quite snap her around the way he wanted; she has to help it.He looks up through the distorted frame of the window. maybe he made a wrong turn somewhere -- he realizes. "Da5id won't listen to me. and is now right on top of the pizza mobile.