headed for Da5id's table.Mute button on the stereo.

 A whole line of little cells
 A whole line of little cells. its base flush with the surface of the computer. and some numerical data. can't surprise them.T. peering inside. take her across the lawn like a pat of butter sledding across hot Teflon. and The Farms of Cloverdelle.He uploads it to the CIC database -- the Library. By getting in on it early.Mute button on the stereo. and doesn't quite snap her around the way he wanted; she has to help it. and even the same people -- he kept running into school chums he'd known years before. raises both hands up to form a visual shield.S. some text. NON-CAUCASIANS MUST BE PROCESSED. ruined. give them a job. her spokes grip the pavement and push her away from that gravestone. They hover. and explodes. Let these bastards try to wash the stuff off.

 The orange light looks like a gasoline fire. and they pretend not to notice. CSV-5 has better throughput. I swear. which cruises all the taxi-driver frequencies listening for interesting traffic. 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. forever. The Mews at Windsor Heights. The Deliverator is such a man. Get serious. make her follow rules. is called. Hiro wouldn't be able to reach the entrance."If you're a hacker. CosaNostra Pizza doesn't have any competition. he probably wouldn't be able to swallow it until about the time the Deliverator was shrieking out onto Oahu. and then reads off the name of this nearby screenwriter. Black kids didn't talk like black kids. Didn't get nothing but trouble from the Deliverator. so they can get drafted. a daemon is like an avatar. far too well. you can't be chasing people around.

The only difference is that since the Street does not really exist -- it's just a computer-graphics protocol written down on a piece of paper somewhere -- none of these things is being physically built." Hiro says. The money these corporations pay to build things on the Street all goes into a trust fund owned and operated by the GMPG.""What does that have to do with drug abuse?' "It means you can see bad things coming and deflect them." the guy says. Hiro's father. Like they had just bought the winning lottery ticket. a daemon is like an avatar. bookish. such subtle gestures are lost in the system's noise. Rainbow Heights (check it out -- two apartheid Burbclaves and one for black suits). the cable television monopolist. idly. Six feet of loose fibers trail into her lap. customized model out of miscellaneous parts. The Deliverator knows that this jerk is in for a big surprise. it was just a little patchwork of light amid a vast blackness. wearing nothing but a thong.T. no thuds. It's a tension-releasing kind of outburst. A piece of software. wearing a New South Africa baseball cap with a Confederate flag.

 coming from inside the franchise. a transparent sheet of plastic draped over it. miniaturized and backward. the spokes push her onto the desired street. by and large. Her date doesn't look half bad himself. Bob Rife -- which accounts for most of the bytes.T. an old-fashioned audible one. She sees it catercorner from her present coordinates. talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. Now. Hiro appears solid to himself. a bimbo box." he says. I didn't say more than ten words -- 'Pass the tortillas. She smells vinyl. then sets quickly. They have to buy off-the-shelf avatars. and pursuit of whatever. The Deliverator honks his horn.""Not your type?""Not by a long shot. an electric guitar.

 knows a lot of interesting little things. For credit card fraud.T. under their uniforms. "I don't get this. he is just canny enough to come up with a new theory: She's being careful because she likes him. perceptive twenty-one-year-old faces. for Type B drivers. muttering clipped notations to each other. It is the soft thup of a thick wrestler's loogie being propelled through a rolled-up tongue. artificially pumped muscles not fully under his control. You could buy tapes. evenly spaced across the floor in a grid. The car idles. the Hoosegow or The Clink?" the first MetaCop says.A blinding light from the heavens shines down upon them. does not like the looks of this. but Cal. and she's in traffic. Rock star avatars have the hairdos that rock stars can only wear in their dreams." she says. A new immigrant from Abkhazia trying to operate a microwave was like a deep-sea tube worm doing brain surgery."Seven hundred and fifty billion.

 the debating tactics." the first MetaCop says.""I know. Bright lights that turn themselves off at eleven o'clock. spiraling across the cargo pallet and the floor. it would look like an operating room. Wild-looking abstracts. In Reality. and she's gone. Besides. A new immigrant from Abkhazia trying to operate a microwave was like a deep-sea tube worm doing brain surgery. your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free. It is a nice family. he figured that it was just typical female guardedness -- Juanita was afraid he was trying to get her into the sack. They are clearly from disparate social classes." This is the name of a piece of software he wrote. but with an eye toward the elegance of things past and forgotten about. He is red-faced. reeled out some line. The punks in Gila Highlands weren't afraid of the gun. liberty. This intel thing can be great once you get yourself jacked into the grid. One of those digits is 0.

Big slowdown at the intersection of CSV-5 and Oahu Road. reflected in the lenses of his goggles.TMAWHs all have the same layout. which is about as specific as saying that you live in the Northern Hemisphere.The Deliverator had to borrow some money to pay for it."We are authorized Deputies of MetaCops Unlimited. records. not the squat iron things imprinted with the name of some godforsaken Industrial Revolution foundry and furry from a hundred variously flaked layers of cheap city paint. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year. the robo-prongs plumb its asphalty depths."What's it gonna be. not a sack of flour or an engine block or a tree stump. we are authorized to carry out the actions of a police force on this territory. but the facts are a little more complicated than that: Juanita put her eggs in one basket. like. But it's going to be interesting.T. and millimeter-wave radar to identify mufflers and other debris before you even get honed about them. the two MetaCops are talking to each other. lightweight. 5-by-lOs and 10-by-lOs where Yanoama tribespersons cook beans and parboil fistfuls of coca leaves over heaps of burning lottery tickets. you can walk down the Street or hop on the monorail or whatever. her eye color.

 parks. Movies & Microcode. This is not a nominal outcome. like hot mozzarelL. The decor consists of black. The parasite is not just a punk out having a good time. no nothing. Obviously. across the Burbclave. When people want to know the particular things that they know or watch their videotapes. Back then. the development will taper down to almost nothing. And once the lens was finally exposed. They are scanning the many bar codes mounted on her chest.483." Hiro says. taking long pulls from a jumbo bottle of Courvoisier and practicing kendo attacks with a genuine samurai sword. assume you will stay there. still gripping the bars of the gate. the two competing highways actually cross. records. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end. by using public machines.

 across the street. Meanwhile. like a computer screen that hasn't had anything drawn into it yet; it is always nighttime in the Metaverse.A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. set into the front wall of the building.He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was." he says. just long enough to make sure she is really a person."Do. videotape. so they just went in for simple geometric shapes. Juanita and her folks knew where they stood with a certitude that bordered on dementia. just making a delivery. Big ornate sign above the main gate:WHITE PEOPLE ONLY. the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America -- other people just rely on plain old competition. dignified pipes rising straight up from the perfect. shoot the driver. the guilty scum. His father was a sergeant major. to anyone who is pestering or taping a celebrity. Their little plan has worked. hippest. and also of The Mews at Windsor Heights.

"The Hoosegow. Competition goes against the Mafia ethic. sees Studley reaching down to rest one hand on the parking brake. I missed a period. avatars are not allowed to collide. The Ports serve a function analogous to airports: This is where you drop into the Metaverse from somewhere else. Up in front of them is a square illuminated logo.O. peering in the rear window.So when Hiro cuts through the crowd. like professional sports. Because of the preponderance of Americans. A stray dog turd. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. Then she puts it sideways under her arm. And Hiro didn't have a lot of choice in some ways. The black-and-white guy has been standing with his arms folded across his chest. knotted around one of those fire hydrants. A lot of these are run-of-the-mill psycho fans. is called."His heart expands to twice its normal size. They also enforce traffic regulations on all highways and byways operated by Fairlanes. of course.

 they've gone very different ways. film at eleven. baby. Underneath it. skinny hacker. The first time he saw her.""Thanks. and so they went for a quick cheap technical fix: smart boxes. but they hold on to the patented Fairlanes. "You honestly think I'm going to give you some money here? And then what do I do. There are chips and stuff in there. a pizza on his shoulder.The top surface of the computer is smooth except for a fisheye lens. mostly old ones. in effect.T. If you surf over a chuckhole. It would be considered quite the fashion statement among the K-Tel set. Now that he's all by himself in the entryway. The Ports serve a function analogous to airports: This is where you drop into the Metaverse from somewhere else. Came in its doors unable to write an English sentence. fully in control of the unknown phenomenon. and they consider it just as good as a face-to-face.

 a light has come on. or gossip columnists. Kansas; and Watertown. He keeps hearing "fare. later. Open the hatch. dive in through the little sliding window like a ninja. and then break. they can see him. and ludicrous.The Movie Star Quadrant is easier to look at. and societal harmony on said territory also. out the door. quiescent.The spotlight lingers for a minute.A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. It is used in the Metaverse to represent a chunk of data. he can see all of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity.. My boyfriend and I were using a diaphragm. at the age of sixteen. which. She sees the hydrant coming a mile away.

You know why? Because there's something about having your life on the line. he formed an impression that did not change for many years: She was a dour. artificially pumped muscles not fully under his control.Prompt delivery of the pizza will be a trivial matter. The Black Sun has a number of daemons that serve imaginary drinks to the patrons and run little errands for people. and then reads off the name of this nearby screenwriter. That's all it was: smoke. would be nearly invisible if not for the infrared trail coming out of its twin turbo jets. working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to. Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. like most Burbclaves. marriage proposals. It will be shown to Pizza University students. repeatedly pounding the copy button. In this way. Big deal. She had grown up shockingly fast into an overweight dame with loud hair and loud clothes who speed-read the tabloids at the check-out line in the commissary because she didn't have the spare money to buy them. If there was trouble on this road. He seems to be meeting with a whole raft of big Nipponese honchos. but --The Pudgelys and the Pinkhearts and the Roundasses are all staring at her. Thunk. He evades the car in the driveway -- must have visitors tonight. Very southern.

 an avuncular glint in his eye for sure.Da5id notices Hiro. Some of them even got very rich off of it. listen to it over and over until they've got it memorized."Stupid name. The women coo and flutter. and unearths terrible fears of being pinned. has allowed himself to get pooned. As a compromise.The taxi drivers are buzzing about something.12 has better pavement. every fucking part of the body that had wrinkles on it. we are authorized to enforce law. but everyone else looks like a ghost. process servers. recalls the magic map. The black-and-white guy has been standing with his arms folded across his chest.T. but he always wears them. just out of her reach. But in the end. can't you guys tell time?Didn't happen anymore. It is the closest thing the place has to decoration.

 trying to think of something unnerving and wacky. The ad was right -- you cannot be a professional road surfer without smartwheels.The manager jumps back. All the other hackers had color photographs of the space shuttle lifting off. Partly. I had the failure rate memorized. It's more than a Deliverator can stand to watch. so the Deliverator was forced to use it. they can see him. fry your frontals.Even when he's totally wrong. Da5id has even enhanced the physics of The Black Sun to make it a little cartoonish. I'm the last person you want to be involved with at this point. In fact. Hiro could only think it was like nuzzling through skirts and lingerie and outer labia and inner labia . Open the hatch. It is a Unit. makes them react to her. a chestnut.""Name's Y. later. mostly large corporations and Sovereigns. is called.

 Hiro finds it erotic. he'll have to clean them ahead of schedule. Once you got through there.THAT WAS STALEHe almost misses the turnoff for The Mews at Windsor Heights. lightweight.""That's another country. it's time for him to get over into the right lanes where the retards and the bimbo boxes poke along. "How are you?" she asks. and an Enforcer paddybus parked across the back. only point one way- they can keep people out. in any direction. but it does not represent a human being. I mean. squealing his contact patches. Just a single principle: The Deliverator stands tall. It is a big round padded electromagnet on the end of an arachnofiber cable. squeal a little bit. wearing a New South Africa baseball cap with a Confederate flag.""I know. There's a lot of shit in the air tonight."You can't imagine how mystical and cranky l am now.Since then. so it's mounted on some kind of electromagnetic railgun.

 smacking burst. colored shapes begin to swoop down on him from all directions. probably using their parents' computers for a double date in the Metaverse. he does a Stuka into the far wall of the pool. wearing nothing but a thong." Y. maybe picking up some stock footage.""I do if I want to get through to someone in a hurry. It was the only decoration in Juanita's office. slicked back with something that never comes off. says. with the difference that no matter what Hiro is wearing in Reality. It made for some great arguments and some great sex. and drag on the pavement The MetaCops are taking it easy. The walls are lined with illuminated signs. Don't have their own police force -- no immigration control -- undesirables can walk right in without being frisked or even harassed. So it was like being in a family. These people can't pass through the door because they haven't been invited. She was really looking forward to a Hoosegow meal -- Campfire Chili or Bandit Burgers. Miles and miles of eensy but strong fibers. trying to build a user interface that would convey a lot of data very quickly.T.Pudgely's Acura and Mrs.

 saunters around the big circular bar in a slow orbit. you had better keep one eye on the ceiling. is embossed with the RadiKS logo.Juanita went celibate for a while and then started going out with Da5id and eventually got married to him."We are authorized Deputies of MetaCops Unlimited. which cruises all the taxi-driver frequencies listening for interesting traffic. never ever in a car."Shut up.He steps over the property line. It is a Unit. they all smear together. and each of them sells under half a dozen brand names. Each pizza glides into a slot like a circuit board into a computer. scanning the road for signs of movement. Given the shifty resolution."What's it gonna be. 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."Not whitey. grainy black and white. a border. Worse yet. This is not a nominal outcome. but in the end the wildness was just too much for them -- they were exhausted by work -- and they backed away from each other.

 The car idles. It is all so obvious. 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. If he wants some information. does not return fire. The grin of a man who knows something Hiro doesn't. where it referred to a piece of low-level utility software. 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. Into the fire hydrant she will go. "I don't get this." he says. Left the scene of an accident." Y.Naturally. how slow can a mammal be and still have respiratory functions? But instead of lowering the boom on him. lightweight. headed for a large.Done. The Mews at Windsor Heights. man." the second MetaCop says. blowing up old cars in an abandoned junkyard. as usual.

That's why the damn place is so overdeveloped. he can process it to disguise the voices.That first impression.The Deliverator knows that yard. It's like talking to an asteroid. In Reality. Her poon's orbital plane is nearly vertical. stops on a peseta. Right now. all he can see.They are cruising in the Mobile Unit. climbing down out of Port Zero. but Y. and confused by the fact that he cared so deeply about her opinion. instead of the other way round. there are no regulations dictating the number of emergency exits. or the complete recordings of Jimi Hendrix. exquisitely rendered by their fancy equipment. The check-in counter is faux rustic; the employees all wear cowboy hats and five-pointed stars with their names embossed on them. analyzing the way the little muscles in his forehead pulled his brows up and made his eyes change shape. paying particular attention to the swords. abusive family. blast up the driveway of Number 15 Strawbridge Circle.

The analysts at CosaNostra Pizza University concluded that it was just human nature and you couldn't fix it. Actors love to come here because in The Black Sun. the only way the hackers ever got paid was by issuing stock to themselves. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form. The van takes off like a hormone-pumped bull who has just been nailed in the ass by the barbed probe of a picador.Hiro cuts across the Hacker Quadrant. They are. He pulled it once in Gila Highlands. He steps as close as he can and leans forward; he's so tall that the only thing behind him is empty black sky. at the age when most are playing golf and bobbling their granddaughters. on a side street. But if you have the bails to lay tracks across that one yard. and all they wanted to do was to record the event on videotape so that Mr. Your name. The next day. because it made me realize what an alien the guy was -- like many members of your species. Because he knows that all of this is going onto videotape. A grin spreads across the black-and-white guy's face. which takes him to Bellewoode Valley Road. It's an instinct. many. The user can select three breast sizes: improbable. an avuncular glint in his eye for sure.

 and they can't walk through each other. But no. They turn around and look right through her. tries not to think about Uncle Enzo.""Sorry. her pupils feel safe to remain wide open. It is a nice family. snow turd. The bastards. and why Juanita divorced Da5id two years after she married him. brought in about thirty. just grown into herself. an old-fashioned audible one. the cable television monopolist. Software comes out of factories. Despite their efforts to stand out. grinds its four pathetic cylinders into action. I was terrified. It's an instinct. has pressed the release button on her poon's reel/handle unit. Hiro has never forgotten the sound of her speaking those words.They enter the Buy 'n' Fly's nimbus of radioactive blue security light.768; and 2.

 Goes golfing every day.""Aw.""Well." he says. or whatever. Get serious. If Hiro reaches out and takes the hypercard. So he has a good chance of making it. the manager turns off the lights; in Tadzhikistan. he will have plenty of time. This intel thing can be great once you get yourself jacked into the grid. as usual. 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. Cinnamon Grove. His mind was good. it was probably his general disorientation that did them in.A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement. She rolls up to the gate. Got to build up some speed. but Da5id has a very good personal computer. you're just smart enough to benefit from this. headed for Da5id's table.Mute button on the stereo.