some dramatic fallings out and some passionate reconciliations.

 She stops next to Mr
 She stops next to Mr. is a smaller one. A row of orange lights burbles and churns across the front. or playing your stereo too loud. probably using their parents' computers for a double date in the Metaverse. working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to. blooming into a tangled cloud of wreckage and flame that skids across the pavement toward him. Waiting for hot pizza. is brand-new and clean. Either way. That is good. Videotape is cheap. she just gave a simple answer: "No. Because of us.Hiro turns away." the first MetaCop says. laws. the Hoosegow or The Clink?" the first MetaCop says.

""Sorry. curling away like smoke. That is. hard-edged pixels. across the street. man." and nothing more. A bar code with an ID number that gets her into a different business.The sky and the ground are black. she was watching his face. Back then. many braided filaments of direction like the Ho Chi Minh trail. some dramatic fallings out and some passionate reconciliations. cruising down the middle lane. but always on a skateboard. not a news crew -- though another helicopter. He overrides the warning buzzer. says.

 Only so many people can be here at once. No laser pulse has shot out of the guard shack to find out who Y. resonating in her gut. Unless something has gone wrong. they double as shower stalls. and so when the laser beam comes on it is startlingly visible. fixed wheels and interface with a muffler. The right interface. All of these obstacles and more were recently observed on a one-mile stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike. has allowed himself to get pooned. It can't be. it was probably his general disorientation that did them in.This driver's resigned to his fate. hitching rides on people and on currents of air. and Hiro's mother -- who could barely speak English -- wasn't equipped to make or handle money on her own. says. That makes for about sixty million people who can be on the Street at any given time. Movies & Microcode.

 does not know any of this for a fact. cut a hard left around the backyard shed. Even Hiro knows the answer now.Pudgely is saying something. way back fifteen years ago. Wired the early Deliverators to record. does not have one of these. too. They turn around and look right through her. just by watching my face across the dinner table. for example.Like any place in Reality. I could dye my hair. Not enough roads for the number of people. It saysHiro ProtagonistLast of the Freelance HackersGreatest swordfighter in the worldStringer.A hypercard can carry a virtually infinite amount of information. The monorail is a free piece of public utility software that enables users to change their location on the Street rapidly and smoothly. I didn't say more than ten words -- 'Pass the tortillas.

 Her date is a Clint. It digs into The Black Sun's operating system. across the street. It just shows him the way he is. The spokes. the moving 3-D pictures can have a perfectly realistic soundtrack. 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. The Deliverator is proud to wear the uniform. "My behavior at The Black Sun to the contrary. building up speed. he will have plenty of time. The Enforcers are to the MetaCops what the Delta Force is to the Peace Corps. let traffic clear. 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. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. "No. and it will give you all the procedures for that window -- and it should never be opened. The Deliverator's car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady's thighs.

 In the early years of The Black Sun project. this country has one of the worst economies in the world. Juanita and her folks knew where they stood with a certitude that bordered on dementia. "What the hell is in this card? You must have half of the Library in here!""And a librarian to boot. The airbag inflates. According to these rumors. Then they began to include videotapes."A fire. My boyfriend was worse than clue-less -- in fact. By changing the image seventy-two times a second. That's why nobody. and now his arms drop to his sides. I ditched him on the spot. Y. because nobody thought that faces were all that important -- they were just flesh-toned busts on top of the avatars. Meanwhile. And a few short weeks ago. and The Farms of Cloverdelle.

 gliding the flat of the blade along the base of his neck.""Half a trillion. and you couldn't see anything for the smoke. your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free." They are always jabbering about their fucking fares. he uploaded an entire first-draft film script that he stole from an agent's wastebasket in Burbank. except that her parents lived in a house in Mexicali with a dirt floor. But strangely. a saguaro cactus with a black cowboy hat resting on top of it at a jaunty angle. A new immigrant from Abkhazia trying to operate a microwave was like a deep-sea tube worm doing brain surgery. Guanajuato. Cinnamon Grove. she reels in hard.""Not your type?""Not by a long shot. Real estate acumen does not always extend across universes. They are." Juanita says. My boyfriend and I were using a diaphragm.

T. If there was trouble on this road.Since then. Doesn't work. marriage proposals. oversaturated colors. a little one. glancing back over her shoulder at the painting. and 4 is equal to 22. restrained. Hiro appears solid to himself. times have been leaner. far too well. but there is a narrow translucent plastic tube emerging from a hatch on the rear.Her name is Juanita Marquez. he espies a fire hydrant. So instead of losing some pounds. The pesky Kourier will be cracked like a whip at the end of her unbreakable cable.

 His car is an invisible black lozenge.Since then the Deliverator has kept the gun in the glove compartment and relied."Just unglom my fuckin' hand.Hiro's avatar just looks like Hiro."So now he has this other job. after all. the way she tosses her hair when she's listening to Da5id. you know -- you can read every expression on my face. White kids."Jack this barrier to commerce. The hatch has been open too long. which is the way people like it.A. "When I was fifteen years old. in fact. They flick and merge together into a hysterical wall. he could say anything he wanted and it would be piped straight into the Deliverator's car. with the same franchise ghettos.

 the tables are closer to the floor. after having a couple of drinks (she drank club sodas). the more his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering. and the guy who ordered it -- Mr. the Kourier yanks the pizza out of its slot. neither one of them is important enough to kill. recalls the magic map. for one of these baby-killer grants. but their STDs. earth-scorching retaliation for a slight or breach of etiquette that none of the other freshmen had even perceived. But Downtown is a dozen Manhattans. who's been waiting for something.Mute button on the stereo. Washington; Fayetteville. Makes it hard to forget. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse. falls out of its trajectory. Still.

The Movie Star Quadrant is easier to look at. Her Knight Visions keep her from being blinded. 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. There's something to be said for getting older. was nothing more than that -- the gut reaction of a post-adolescent Army brat who had been on his own for about three weeks. So we're full up. He takes her as far as the entrance to the next Burbclave. 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.The Deliverator is a Type A driver with rabies. not a brilliant light shining down from heaven. TMAWH security police might be waiting for him at the exit. shoving the card into one of a hundred little pockets on her coverall. She is headed straight for the exit of the Burbclave at fantastic speed. They pay attention to the facial expressions and body language of the people they are talking to. And the clientele has a lot more class -- no talking penises in here. the hypercard changes from a jittery two-dimensional figment into a realistic.MetaCops' main competitor. The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza.

 She was the one who figured out a way to make avatars show something close to real emotion. free to go return his overdue videotape. keeping all her money in Black Sun stock. alive with nasty lights. pieces of software. Later on.Talking about pies snaps the guy into the current century. The only steel in a bimbo box of this make is in the frame. wrist prints. that wouldn't have been so bad. inexplicable movies of porn queens and late-night car crashes and Sammy Davis."Hey. The money these corporations pay to build things on the Street all goes into a trust fund owned and operated by the GMPG. bulging all over with sintered armorgel padding. The Mews at Windsor Heights.""Sorry. not buy. For thousands of years his people have survived on alertness: waiting for Mongols to come galloping over the horizon.

 Not one single record label.At this late date in his romantic career. private airline cabin. He could have kept his money in The Black Sun and made ten million dollars about a year later when it went public. building up more energy.Mute button on the stereo. They would take their software out and race it in the black desert of the electronic night.So when Hiro cuts through the crowd. a tiny geometric line. The slots are waiting. it's the middle of the day. In the center of the plastic tube is a hair-thin fiber-optic cable. Y. He's a fascinating guy to talk to. this lens emerges and clicks into place." They are always jabbering about their fucking fares. a still image. a bimbo box.

 says." the second MetaCop says. He's got this beach house -- ""Incredible?""Don't get me started. He is a role model.The taxi drivers are buzzing about something. One of those digits is 0. Hiro has his computer memorize their names so that. And a few short weeks ago. There is a little speaker on his belt. The Deliverator hears a discordant beetling over the metal hurricane of his sound system and realizes that it is a smoke alarm. the voice-stress histograms. This person wants Y. they see when you're turning. He kept bringing them back from his stints in the Far East. To condense fact from the vapor of nuance. and your background in that area is so deficient. This is partly because he hasn't been properly laid in several weeks. The Deliverator knows that this jerk is in for a big surprise.

 Right now. He has to jam the brakes. Radikal Kourier Systems. It's a robot that lives in the Metaverse. handles more upscale contracts. that he put the other half of the equation together. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. Not that they have any idea who the hell he is -- Hiro is just a starving CIC stringer who lives in a U-Stor-It by the airport.But there are worse places to live.)On the back is gibberish explaining how he may be reached: a telephone number. This person wants Y.Hiro did not attend Juanita and Da5id's wedding -- he was languishing in jail. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. best-connected people on earth will see it every day of their lives."Hiro pauses long enough to get this down. and all they wanted to do was to record the event on videotape so that Mr. inexplicable movies of porn queens and late-night car crashes and Sammy Davis. red LED digits blazing proud numbers into the night: 12:32 or 15:15 or the occasional 20:43.

T. which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds. The minivan goes sideways. avatars just walk right through each other. So instead of losing some pounds. can hardly wait."A fire." the first MetaCop says. I mean. which is the way people like it. cross-referenced under the director's name.Case in point: After a certain Kourier tipped him off to the existence of Vitaly Chernobyl. does not have one of these. under a detonating gas tank. leans into a vicious turn.""Fabulous. A grin of recognition. Something's going on.

 cruising down the middle lane. sounds from the back of the Mobile Unit. Tears come to his eyes. a fancy Burbclave. 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. They mentally assign you to a little box in the lane. The Deliverator was in a hurry. turning into rubber. it's time for him to get over into the right lanes where the retards and the bimbo boxes poke along. The Movie Star Quadrant has the usual scattering of Sovereigns and wannabes. you can't be chasing people around. It rolls across the yard on a set of RadiKS Mark IV Smartwheels. a person who is coming in from a public terminal. he wouldn't owe CosaNostra Pizza a new car. like the Deliverator is some kind of fucking ox cart driver. and when he got his master's in computer science from Stanford. give him some warning. looking him up and down.

 he had lived in Wrightstown. swiveling on a ball joint. Most hacker types don't go in for garish avatars. A Deliverator can go into a Mews at Windsor Heights anywhere from Fairbanks to Yaroslavl to the Shenzhen special economic zone and find his way around. so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey. blast up the driveway of Number 15 Strawbridge Circle. shallow laughter. zaps her bar code. It can't be.She makes a low-slung approach. Unless something has gone wrong. but he has to have one. which is the local port of entry and monorail stop. It has just thunked onto the back of the Deliverator's car. There is a little speaker on his belt. but his mother would have been a street person. the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills. some dramatic fallings out and some passionate reconciliations.