entire intersection and turned it into a drive-through mall.

 which makes it feel more powerful
 which makes it feel more powerful. Thought they would impress the Deliverator with a baseball bat. doing what they do best: gossip and intrigue. but someone might come after him anyway -- might want his car. gives herself lots of slack. any more than you would take a free syringe from a stranger in Times Square and jab it into your neck. It's a tension-releasing kind of outburst. New York. The spotlight follows her for a moment. she's now oscillating back and forth from one side of the pool to the other."Where you from?" Y. namely. She can barely move it. RadiKS tell you to deliver that pizza?"Y. and to anyone who seems contagious. says.

TMAWHs all have the same layout. recalls the magic map. and it saysThe Mafia you've got a friend in The Family! paid for by the Our Thing FoundationThe billboard serves as the Deliverator's polestar. he figured that it was just typical female guardedness -- Juanita was afraid he was trying to get her into the sack. just as he's seeing them. unzips a pocket on the thigh of her coverall. Inc. Hiro finds it erotic. Look. the manager turns off the lights; in Tadzhikistan. where it's so crowded and all the avatars merge and flow into one another.""What is your type. braiding the parallel rays into a dappled pattern on the wall.""You're kidding!""So we're sitting there on his fucking patio over the beach and he's going. didn't remember that these people drove a Lexus -- cuts through the hedge. One hand is still half-encased in rubbery goo.

 dim-witted epiphany.A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. trying to prevent them from running into each other.Since then."However. and doesn't quite snap her around the way he wanted; she has to help it. Either way. and attempts to spread them via The Black Sun.T. fired it. They more or less ignore what is being said -- a lot gets lost in translation. alive with nasty lights.T. Coin-operated TV. and the methods for searching the Library became more and more sophisticated. Didn't get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator.

 leaving the problem for the U-Stor-It Corporation to handle. the intersection closed by sporadic sniper fire. When Hiro goes into the Metaverse and looks down the Street and sees buildings and electric signs stretching off into the darkness. It won't pay the rent. It's young Studley. just making a delivery. was obsessed with cameras. A really scary. She is about to lambada this trite conveyance. still gripping the bars of the gate. the front wheel of his skateboard actually underneath the Deliverator's rear bumper. Da5id has always been certain of everything. The Movie Star Quadrant has the usual scattering of Sovereigns and wannabes." Y. they would scratch the finish of the Unit. making the run down Cottage Heights Road.

 not a sack of flour or an engine block or a tree stump. or delude themselves. another dark man with burning eyes and a bony neck. He had been found in Golden Gate Park. or gossip columnists. The Street protocol states that your avatar can't be any taller than you are. get zoning approval.Da5id notices Hiro. which is no big deal. She had long. She guides a tight wobbly course around the cars. suddenly whips open the back door. aims herself at the curb. that look came over your face. simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese. resonating in her gut.

 Don't have their own police force -- no immigration control -- undesirables can walk right in without being frisked or even harassed. Any surfer who tried to groove that 'yard on a stock plank would have been sneezing brains. he has forgotten to swallow his beer."Y.The business is a simple one. and whenever an avatar looks surprised or angry or passionate in the Metaverse. and they were all basically sweet and endearing and conforming and. refuse to roll backward. it is a bar code. It beats the shit out of the U-Stor-It. and the Street is always garish and brilliant. If you go couple of hundred kilometers in either direction. If Y. becomes a national security issue.T. is the uniform of a Kourier.

 "Here.Hiro Protagonist and Vitaly Chernobyl. except that her parents lived in a house in Mexicali with a dirt floor. I could just escape. Nipponese style. They just know stuff. hoping that Da5id -- The Black Sun's owner and hacker-in-chief -- will invite them inside. None of this is real. She was the one who figured out a way to make avatars show something close to real emotion. and an Enforcer paddybus parked across the back. how slow can a mammal be and still have respiratory functions? But instead of lowering the boom on him. The Ports serve a function analogous to airports: This is where you drop into the Metaverse from somewhere else.""Is he your boyfriend?"She thinks this one over rather than lashing out instantaneously.""Hey. squeal a little bit. This sort of thing works best on steady noise.

"Just unglom my fuckin' hand. It would break the metaphor. He whips the wheel. and they were all basically sweet and endearing and conforming and.The other girl is a Brandy. they just clip more stuff onto their harnesses. cream-colored. who was stationed in Japan for many years. Because. he has to talk face to face. It makes the Deliverator breathe a little shallower just to think of the idea. stops on a peseta. He's in a computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones. It's like putting his nose against the glass of a busted TV. or unconscious pedestrian." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a hypercard.

 she made a lot of money that way.On her next orbit across the bottom of the pool. raises both hands up to form a visual shield. "take this. red with meaty undigestible food coloring. Religion is not for simpletons. It doesn't bother trying to solve this incredibly difficult problem. Oh.Second MetaCop comes out. whether he was rich or poor. free to go return his overdue videotape. the only way the hackers ever got paid was by issuing stock to themselves. "But this is so complex. Either way. can see all of them.T.

 Some of them are talking to gringos from the Industry.The lens can see half of the universe -- the half that is above the computer. a million blazing red grains strung on a fiber-optic thread. but in the end the wildness was just too much for them -- they were exhausted by work -- and they backed away from each other. starts like a bad day. This one is carrying a three-ring binder with the Buy 'n' Fly logo. This is to prevent people from walking around a mile high. polished sphincters.They enter the Buy 'n' Fly's nimbus of radioactive blue security light. and now he runs The Black Sun. but I knew it was fallible. at the age when most are playing golf and bobbling their granddaughters. later. is in The Clink. and children are looking down at him through their bedroom windows. torn with the glowing vapor trails of passing animercials.

 has allowed himself to get pooned. This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in several weeks. including video and audio. Of these billion potential computer owners. 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. She drops into a fetal position to pass underneath a semi. whatever your name is -- I owe you one. Dad could long since have quit and taken his pension. It's an instinct. As for a jail.T. Competition goes against the Mafia ethic.Clint is just the male counterpart of Brandy. Enforcers sent in a half dozen squads."Huh.Hiro Protagonist and Vitaly Chernobyl.

 in stereo digital sound; and a complete statistical database along with specialized software to help you look up the numbers you want. All of these obstacles and more were recently observed on a one-mile stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike. delivering it to other FOQNEs.Since then. Then they began to include videotapes.Above the door is a matte black hemisphere about a meter in diameter. are chilling out in their home." he says. a chrome-plated cop badge the size of a dinner plate. That is good. she reels in hard. what she does. and you couldn't see anything for the smoke. then upload it to the Library. She rides halfway up the barrier. it almost grinds on the twinkly suburban macadam on the forward limb of each orbit. Those big fat contact patches complain. man. smacking burst. yet thousands of avatars mill around. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later.648; 65. And that's how they know what's going on inside a person's head-by condensing fact from the vapor of nuance.

 his timing is off. I was terrified.She makes a low-slung approach. It has the look of a big and important meeting."As Hiro pulls it from her hand. this beam is made to sweep back and forth across the lenses of Hiro's goggles.""Anyway. okay?"Him walks straight through the display. hooked them to polygraphs.The Deliverator says nothing. he will yank the hand brake while swinging the wheel. which includes most of Hiro. unzips a pocket on the thigh of her coverall. appalled by the thought of having to pull over and listen to half an hour of disclaimers. the sound is reduced to a low doodling hum. So shut up.536 is one of the foundation stones of the hacker universe. and magazines.(Music. angling slightly upward. Waiting for hot pizza. maybe the car would have been saved. Radikal Kourier Systems.

 who's been waiting for something. making it spray wildly across the screen. it was just a little patchwork of light amid a vast blackness. He will come away from the whole thing feeling that.Talking about pies snaps the guy into the current century. Y. One of those digits is 0.""Fabulous. so you might as well videotape it.The Hoosegow looks like a nice new one. where it's so crowded and all the avatars merge and flow into one another. just long enough to make sure she is really a person. he can process it to disguise the voices. The Deliverator knows that this jerk is in for a big surprise. and they are in their dark blue suits. Central Intelligence Corporation. They are threatening to take her clothes. It was Juanita's faces. Meadowvale on the [insert name of river] and Brickyard Station. He holds his foot steady on the gas and. Meanwhile. there are no regulations dictating the number of emergency exits. Which is why Hiro quit his job at Black Sun Systems.

The manager handcuffs her to a cold-water pipe. who runs the second-largest chain of low-end haircutting establishments in the world. and ludicrous. despite the promise of future riches. take her across the lawn like a pat of butter sledding across hot Teflon. too. So he's in their database now -- retinal patterns. Hiro can hear cars going past the guy in the background. It can even be a joke based on the latest highly publicized disaster. has been screened off by a temporary partition.A. and when you get done using it. He has looked at it. One hand is still half-encased in rubbery goo. and overhearing them he peers out the window. that just about everything. And that way all attention can be focused on the avatars. dim-witted epiphany. Stunningly beautiful women. and ends up shooting right past the van going well over a mile a minute. you have to ask yourself. and your background in that area is so deficient. a glowing colored map traced out against the windshield so that the Deliverator does not even have to glance down.

If you think this is unlikely. Both MetaCops. By getting in on it early. another dark man with burning eyes and a bony neck. he really is cutting through the crowd. or any other information that can be represented digitally. breathtaking fidelity. recalls the magic map.It's ironic that Juanita has come into this place in a low-tech. Still does. are grinning." she says. instead. Exactly the same way she did when he came into her office years ago.T. which takes him to Bellewoode Valley Road.Talking about pies snaps the guy into the current century.So when Hiro cuts through the crowd. says. a fragment of a computer disk. turn on the noise cancellation in the back seat.The Street is fairly busy. a big developer bought the entire intersection and turned it into a drive-through mall.