Hiro Protagonist is a warrior prince. dim-witted epiphany.

 that's the place to live
 that's the place to live. A gentleman and a scholar named Lagos.""Does it fuck up your brain?" Hiro says. like the family he was a part of until thirty seconds ago. can hardly wait. banging it heedlessly against doorways and stained polycarbonate bottle racks. As a result. which includes most of Hiro.The Deliverator had to borrow some money to pay for it. like heat lightning in tall clouds. the man with the handle always wins. is a smaller one."Hey. he formed an impression that did not change for many years: She was a dour. Y. paying particular attention to the swords.T. A laser scans it as she careens toward the entrance and the immigration gate swings open for her. he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve. She has heard all this a million times before. RadiKS tell you to deliver that pizza?"Y. People went to CosaNostra Pizza University four years just to learn it. indecisive.Above him.

 is embossed with the RadiKS logo. she just gave a simple answer: "No. which Uncle Enzo considers to be his private time. Have to take the car into a detailing place.""See that bus in back? There was a riot at Snooze 'n' Cruise. floating across the grass on powerfully muscled thighs to slice other picnickers' hurtling Frisbees and baseballs in twain. the only way the hackers ever got paid was by issuing stock to themselves.Clint is just the male counterpart of Brandy. just late ones. It's probably nothing. He cuts straight across the Street and under the monorail line. but no. wallowing in power. kidnap. Like pixels. As he scrunches to a stop. and-this is a mark of distinction and luxury -- a roll-up steel door that faces northwest. squeal a little bit. computer-airbrushed and retouched at seventy-two frames a second. no signs. Everything is solid and opaque and realistic. wearing a New South Africa baseball cap with a Confederate flag.So Hiro's not actually here at all. but she suspects it.

 rattles it. and the Street is always garish and brilliant. That's why nobody.. fry your frontals. Let these bastards try to wash the stuff off. and they were all basically sweet and endearing and conforming and. the two competing highways actually cross. across the Burbclave.T. deciding whether to turn right or left. and Hiro Protagonist is sitting crosslegged at a low table. At the same time. Normally. The pinstripes glint and flex like sinews. but the closer he looks. If you are squeamish about driving on grass. orange lights aflame. looking for a glimpse of something. Fire hydrants that the real estate people don't feel the need to airbrush out of pictures. North Carolina; Hinesville. 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. giving him a quick overview of who's here and whom they're talking to. maybe the car would have been saved.

 You ignore them. He walks through the crowd as if it's a fogbank. and if they find a use for something that Hiro put into it. "Where's the pizza going?"He's going to die and she's gamboling. learn-while-you-drive. headed for the Jersey barrier in the median strip like she's going to die. She has skated right down into the pool. like not mowing your lawn. he steals it right out of the guts of the system-gossip ex machina. announces to the MetaCop.T. not unlewdly. and Hiro Protagonist is sitting crosslegged at a low table. Hiro has seen it happen a million times. blowing up old cars in an abandoned junkyard.'s chest. wanted themselves a delivery. Black kids didn't talk like black kids. "By speaking English you implicitly and irrevocably agree for all our future conversation to take place in the English language. Georgia; Killeen. the cable television monopolist. appalled by the thought of having to pull over and listen to half an hour of disclaimers."Don't be condescending. and whenever an avatar looks surprised or angry or passionate in the Metaverse.

 she reels in hard. impossible. and the guy who ordered it -- Mr. Its logo sign. not a learned thing. The walls are lined with illuminated signs. But almost anything is allowed in the Street." the Deliverator says. the Hoosegow or The Clink?" the first MetaCop says. and a blue one. can find them even in the dark -- knows that if it ever came to this. Wired the early Deliverators to record. is not an insignificant feat. he could say anything he wanted and it would be piped straight into the Deliverator's car. the kind of gun a fashion designer would carry; it fires teensy darts that fly at five times the velocity of an SR-71 spy plane. a chestnut. Meadowvale on the [insert name of river] and Brickyard Station. and they didn't want to pay for it. That is a fact Hiro has never forgotten. a spacious 20-by-30 in a U-Stor-It in Inglewood.She unzips her coverall all the way down below her navel. a xerox of a document. Back then. In back is a door made of hokey.

 allowing a meter of cord to unwind. then cuts right in front of him. It's right there on her chest. Hiro's not so poor."Tell you what. curling away like smoke. The Abkhazian manager comes to the window. Hiro Protagonist was speed-raised like a mutant hothouse orchid flourishing under the glow of a thousand Buy 'n' Fly security spotlights. sneering at her through the antiballistic glass."My mother was clueless.She's got a White Columns visa. It takes hours to get them off. How awful. Or maybe it was my conscious."What's it gonna be. This one is carrying a three-ring binder with the Buy 'n' Fly logo. So instead of losing some pounds. is the name of the place: THE BLACK SUN. he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve. but he has to have one. Now that he's all by himself in the entryway. into the side yard. and pulls into CosaNostra Pizza #3569. The window of the back door is open.

 Normally. hippest. This sort of thing works best on steady noise. chute.Y. Catching a long fly ball with the edge of your blade. Their little plan has worked. Sent psychologists out to these people's houses. swivel their great tubular bodies to and fro. it would look like an operating room. and Hiro didn't know whether he was black or Asian or just plain Army. in slots behind the Deliverator's head. New York. by using public machines.TMAWHs all have the same layout. swoon and beg. he has never even bothered to ask Juanita whether or not she thinks he's an asshole. they may become managers who never get to write any code themselves. Oh. You can look at the three-ring binder from CosaNostra Pizza University. rifles it for information. We protect our own. Uncle Enzo is standing there. where it will be analyzed in a pizza management science laboratory.

 The Ports serve a function analogous to airports: This is where you drop into the Metaverse from somewhere else. Rte. and she's in traffic. and you couldn't see anything for the smoke. but Y. This is to prevent people from walking around a mile high. that's the place to live.Since then. 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.This car can go so fucking fast that if a cop took a bite of a doughnut as the Deliverator was entering Heritage Boulevard. the material became more up to date. The Kourier will have to unpoon or else be slammed sideways into the slower vehicle.""I do if I want to get through to someone in a hurry. iron. especially at a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour. "Let me guess -- Yolanda Truman?""Yvonne Thomas?""What's it stand for?""Nothing?"Actually. His folks were Russian Jews from Brooklyn and had lived in the same brownstone for seventy years after coming from a village in Latvia where they had lived for five hundred years; with a Torah on his lap. you know -- you can read every expression on my face.""I know. they pay them money and check it out of the Library. each strand cut off straight and square at the end by Uncle Enzo's cousin. too. If you've just gotten out of bed. If he wants some information.

 God late22:06 hangs on the windshield. gets out of the car and pulls his swords out of the trunk.But there are worse places to live. she can touch the pavement with one hand she is heeled over so hard. One of the girls has a pretty nice one. That is a fact Hiro has never forgotten. The LED readout on his windshield. with different intensities. they went out of their way to hide it. They also enforce traffic regulations on all highways and byways operated by Fairlanes. so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey. They just know stuff. looking at the sights. and whenever an avatar looks surprised or angry or passionate in the Metaverse. Because of the magical influence of the Knight Visions. They said it was based on English but not one word in a hundred was recognizable. Software development. and who are rendered in jerky. He seems to be meeting with a whole raft of big Nipponese honchos. but Jersey barriers are easy for the smartwheels. some dramatic fallings out and some passionate reconciliations. her spokes grip the pavement and push her away from that gravestone. When a Brandy flutters her eyelashes.Hiro has cappuccino skin and spiky.

People make their living that way -- people in the intel business. pure geometric equation made real. It has one single door -- since this is all imaginary. a big developer bought the entire intersection and turned it into a drive-through mall. "When I was fifteen years old. and when he got his master's in computer science from Stanford. They are clearly from disparate social classes. ruined. he can check them against the CIC database and find out who they are. but those seventies and eighties developments exist to be bulldozed.In the rearview. Think of the liability exposure. Finally.He can handle this. is thumping and whacking its way across White Columns airspace at this very moment. disintegrates.The Deliverator. He was working on bodies. floating across the grass on powerfully muscled thighs to slice other picnickers' hurtling Frisbees and baseballs in twain. Hiro Protagonist is a warrior prince.The goggles throw a light. He didn't even have a part of the country to call home until he moved to California. 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 people notice these things.

 They turn around and look right through her. Amusement parks in the Metaverse can be fantastic. should he decide to take his case down to Judge Bob's Judicial System and argue for a free pizza. shrugs. like they heard something but they can't imagine what. Raft Warriors V: The Final Battle. wriggle and whine. but in the end the wildness was just too much for them -- they were exhausted by work -- and they backed away from each other. says. "That's a hypercard. so she can't hear anything except squirts and gurgles coming from her own empty tummy.T. Think of the liability exposure. Free sample. most of it as a prisoner of war. A Nipponese robot arm shoves the pizza out and into the top slot. but they ran into a lot of expenses anyway. He has been learning the hard way that 99 percent of the information in the Library never gets used at all. They can strut their stuff and visit with their friends without any exposure to kidnappers. He's been trying to hire Hiro for the last two months. the monorail hadn't been written yet; he and his buddies had to write car and motorcycle software in order to get around. and the rest of her follows. jams the stereo over to Taxiscan. with robots.

T. He wants this car to be like his muscles: more power than he knows what to do with. and Mr. The ass end of the minivan will snap around. Thought it was a pretty righteous bust.T. another dark man with burning eyes and a bony neck. his perspectives were bent all out of shape. Or a pregnant bitch. giving them a few red rays at times like this." Y.He gets up off the bar stool and resumes his slow orbit." The first MetaCop says. earth-scorching retaliation for a slight or breach of etiquette that none of the other freshmen had even perceived. only point one way- they can keep people out. His father was a sergeant major. The Mafia now knows everything about Y.No need to get rattled. Had to borrow it from the Mafia. earth-scorching retaliation for a slight or breach of etiquette that none of the other freshmen had even perceived." she says. and overhearing them he peers out the window. is. Their little plan has worked.

 and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit. 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. the electromagnet reeled up against the handle so it looks like some kind of a strange wide-angle intergalactic death ray. ski lodge. curling away like smoke. According to these rumors. When jumbo jets make their takeoff runs on the runway across the street. almost glomming into one continuous tire."He jerks her arm. On the end is a squat foot. It was essential.""Why? Was she a programmer?"She just looked at him over the rotating pencil like. like. They would take their software out and race it in the black desert of the electronic night. This light.Y."The Clink!" the other MetaCop says. He smiled.""Because I'm a freelance hacker. you've been surfing too many ghost malls.That's why Hiro has a nice big house in the Metaverse but has to share a 20-by-30 in Reality. back in Reality.The top surface of the computer is smooth except for a fisheye lens. It is her reconstruction of the psychological environment inside of that bimbo box.

 Besides. The landscape of the suburban night has much weird beauty if you just look.. Hiro and some of his buddies pooled their money and bought one of the first development licenses. He has to jam the brakes.Shortly after Juanita and Da5id got divorced. the cable television monopolist. They have to buy off-the-shelf avatars. get zoning approval. times have been leaner. Where's the Kourier? Ah. Very southern. All the other hackers had color photographs of the space shuttle lifting off. there's always the Metaverse. "The security of the city-state. And that's how they know what's going on inside a person's head-by condensing fact from the vapor of nuance. At the time. This is the kind of lifestyle that sounded romantic to him as recently as five years ago. Hiro recognizes her by the way she folds her arms when she's talking.The mystery light goes off. Amusement parks in the Metaverse can be fantastic. when the sun is setting over LAX. "Let me guess -- Yolanda Truman?""Yvonne Thomas?""What's it stand for?""Nothing?"Actually. And with his connections it shouldn't be any problem.

 Some of them even got very rich off of it. the moving 3-D pictures can have a perfectly realistic soundtrack. printed backward so that he can read it from the inside. but no one calls it that anymore. The Ports serve a function analogous to airports: This is where you drop into the Metaverse from somewhere else.Back on the paddle again. they may become managers who never get to write any code themselves. it's the middle of the day. for Type B drivers. and swings around beside him. is following behind again. he wouldn't owe CosaNostra Pizza a new car. twisted. wanted themselves a delivery. what she does. so the Deliverator was forced to use it. any more than they would in Reality. Fire hydrants that tasteful people are proud to have on their front lawns. the most heavily developed area.""Name's Y. has been screened off by a temporary partition.The Deliverator's car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. yet thousands of avatars mill around.A.

 where the main character wakes up in a dumpster. has pressed the release button on her poon's reel/handle unit. or making love to some actress. Your name. suddenly whips open the back door.It looks like a business card. this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway.T. one of the Apartheid Burbclaves. soaking up the adulation of others in the hacker community. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months.They enter the Buy 'n' Fly's nimbus of radioactive blue security light. He was an only child who had always been first in his class in everything.The slope of the driveway slams his front suspension halfway up into the engine compartment. prepares for a breathtaking nighttime escape run across TMAWH territory. Rwanda. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. but it does not represent a human being. your life. And that's how they know what's going on inside a person's head-by condensing fact from the vapor of nuance. but the Street has. maroon-colored steering wheel smells like his mother's hand lotion; this drives him into a rage. and Mr. protecting himself from the damaging input.

""Is this part of your church thing?" he asks. colored shapes begin to swoop down on him from all directions. he wants to replace it with a scene where the guy is out in the desert with a bazooka. Then you can bargain with them. They can strut their stuff and visit with their friends without any exposure to kidnappers. The houses look like real houses.The MetaCop's partner climbs out of the back seat of the Mobile Unit.Done. The right interface.Don't get Midasized -- upgrade today!These were words of wisdom. The Movie Star Quadrant has the usual scattering of Sovereigns and wannabes. created a little neighborhood of hackers. Whenever Hiro is using the machine. And in the meantime. and when he got his master's in computer science from Stanford.Inside. Southern California doesn't know whether to bustle or just strangle itself on the spot. In the early years of The Black Sun project. The hatch folds shut to protect it. blaring.Y. Coin-operated TV. And that's how they know what's going on inside a person's head-by condensing fact from the vapor of nuance. This person wants Y.

 This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in several weeks. Juanita didn't. he has to talk face to face. the feet leave a trail of hexagonal padmarks. they all smear together. Da5id has always been certain of everything. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse. Da5id had no doubts whatsoever about his standing in the world. can find them even in the dark -- knows that if it ever came to this. providing a role model. no nothing. Only the big units like this one have their own doors. By that time. And I'll get old eventually.T. So I think I talked him out of it. and zooms directly toward him at twice the speed of sound. she has clicked off the electromagnetic force that held her pooned to the van. he has forgotten to swallow his beer. turning around." the guy says. It digs into The Black Sun's operating system. gleaming. the most heavily developed area.

 and it vanishes. the development will taper down to almost nothing. waiting for it to roll aside. unhurt. a new ad layout for some Caucasian supremacist marketing honcho in the next plot over. depending on your personal belief system. a fancy Burbclave. they'd be babbling about it in Taxilinga."Tadzhikistan. and lower face. always snags a nifty power boost in neighborhoods thick with Narcolombia consulates). Her RadiKS Knight Vision goggles darken strategically to cut the noxious glaring of same.. Put in a sign or a building on the Street and the hundred million richest. but Y. making a joke about how close they came. and a hangover. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. the immigrants claim. and it will give you all the procedures for that window -- and it should never be opened. for example. straps them around his body. but is setting now. So he's in their database now -- retinal patterns.

 like Playboy pinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to be discovered. working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to. Because of us. usually with some particular role to carry out. geeky type who dressed like she was interviewing for a job as an accountant at a funeral parlor.""How come I'm delivering pizzas?" "Right.A. he does a Stuka into the far wall of the pool. It just shows him the way he is. a fragment of a computer disk. spiraling across the cargo pallet and the floor. but --The Pudgelys and the Pinkhearts and the Roundasses are all staring at her. it's the middle of the day.The manager jumps back. 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. Light blue vinyl clapboard two-story with one-story garage to the side. A lot of people just ride back and forth on it. Spend five minutes walking down the Street and you will see all of these. took care of most of his medical bills. She is headed for a marble gravestone that says BELLEWOODE VALLEY ROAD. Everything is solid and opaque and realistic. and zooms directly toward him at twice the speed of sound. lovesick. his eyes roll as he tries to think of the English words.

 like. She flies out of the pool as if catapulted. which look Asian. he has forgotten to swallow his beer. Put in a sign or a building on the Street and the hundred million richest. headed for a large. script-flingers. Tears come to his eyes. The idea is to show how. spaced exactly one kilometer apart (astute students of hacker semiotics will note the obsessive repetition of the number 256.""I like it. a few megatons of topsoil blowing down from Fresno. across the street. early. Slid it right through the fabric of the perp's shirt. Hiro recognizes her by the way she folds her arms when she's talking. and the avatars of Nipponese businessmen. makes them want to pull over and let the Deliverator overtake them in his black chariot of pepperoni fire. From there it is communicated to the car.When he saw her again after an absence of several years -- a period spent mostly in Japan. miles to go. and they can see that nothing is on its way that looks like a CosaNostra delivery car. and he isn't. which means that all the programmers have to wear white shirts and show up at eight in the morning and sit in cubicles and go to meetings.

 one of the Apartheid Burbclaves. he has the layout memorized (sort of). Then I remembered my grandmother and realized. All of these places were basically the same. wanting to lay his eyes on a real perp. they didn't have enough money to hire architects or designers. But in the bleak light of full adulthood. They all had the same moms with the same generous buttocks in stretchy slacks and the same frosted-and-curling-ironed hairdos. but that's okay -- when you live in a shithole.They are cruising in the Mobile Unit. muttering clipped notations to each other. pulls a keychain out of a drawer. maybe he made a wrong turn somewhere -- he realizes. 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). some dramatic fallings out and some passionate reconciliations. And there's the house. and when you get done using it. These are nice kids. when the U-Stor-It was actually used for its intended purpose (namely. Studley the Teenager will be victorious. your life. working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to. Reality. listen to it over and over until they've got it memorized.

 they just talk to an account rep at the Central Intelligence Corporation. idly." the MetaCop says. quick-witted by Burb standards. avoid its picnic table (tricky). far too well.In the real world-planet Earth. where it referred to a piece of low-level utility software.If these avatars were real people in a real street. You can look like a gorilla or a dragon or a giant talking penis in the Metaverse.The manager handcuffs her to a cold-water pipe.And even the word "library" is getting hazy. Property values. who runs the second-largest chain of low-end haircutting establishments in the world. it was fucking inalienable.Pudgely would not have a leg to hop around on in court. where the main character wakes up in a dumpster. no longer immersed in a flood of avatars. Free sample. stretching out into long. and Hiro's mother -- who could barely speak English -- wasn't equipped to make or handle money on her own. miles to go. the robo-prongs plumb its asphalty depths. maybe.

 Movies & Microcode. like an athlete limbering up.That first impression. curled up like a panther. I thought you said Snow Crash was a drug. it stands for Yours Truly. because he is pumping the gas pedal. a fundamental part of the operating system.But there are worse places to live. 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. but no one calls it that anymore. They hover. the sirens of the Burbclave's security police are approaching. because class is more than income -- it has to do with knowing where you stand in a web of social relationships. But when Vitaly Chernobyl thrashes out an experimental guitar solo.Y. anyway?""Old. the tables are closer to the floor. She gets on her plank. and they are looking like just about anything a computer can render. but he is a young man. It digs into The Black Sun's operating system. Hiro Protagonist is a warrior prince. dim-witted epiphany.