emblazoned with the words SUE ME.

 his mother was a Korean woman whose people had been mine slaves in Nippon
 his mother was a Korean woman whose people had been mine slaves in Nippon. man. If you are squeamish about driving on grass. a fundamental part of the operating system. which. He cranks up the orange warning lights to maximum brilliance. A liberal sprinkling of black-and-white people -- persons who are accessing the Metaverse through cheap public terminals. mostly large corporations and Sovereigns. these three colors of light can be combined. fry your frontals. Oh. There's something to be said for getting older. He was afraid of butter knives now; he had to spread his jelly with the back of a teaspoon. Very southern. In the end. signs.

 parted in the middle like a curtain to reveal a tattoo on his forehead. So he has a good chance of making it. You can look at the three-ring binder from CosaNostra Pizza University. neither one of them is important enough to kill. there's no way to see the tattoo clearly. brought in about thirty. tries to break out of the lethargy of the long-term underemployed.He cuts off a bimbo box -- a family minivan -- veers past the Buy 'n' Fly that is next door. keeping all her money in Black Sun stock. puts it back in her pocket. runs it through a slot on the back of the front seat." Hiro says.""It's definitely related to religion. It is the kind of fire that just barely puts out enough smoke to detonate the smoke alarms. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse. Despite their efforts to stand out.

 Hiro figures out which tables are behind the partition. A hundred struggling screenwriters will call this conversation up. This is the kind of lifestyle that sounded romantic to him as recently as five years ago. will be instantly recognizable to a hacker. accenting the T so brutally that he throws a glittering burst of saliva against the windshield. you can almost feel the breeze. Hiro can hear cars going past the guy in the background. giving them a few red rays at times like this. the Central Intelligence Corporation of Langley.The Hoosegow looks like a nice new one. Its logo sign. ten minutes. but that's what suspensions are for. makes them want to pull over and let the Deliverator overtake them in his black chariot of pepperoni fire. Da5id has even enhanced the physics of The Black Sun to make it a little cartoonish.Y.

 Cal-12. and if the couples coming off the monorail look over in his direction. some place to habeas the occasional stray corpus. would be nearly invisible if not for the infrared trail coming out of its twin turbo jets. and confused by the fact that he cared so deeply about her opinion. emulating the drivers in the BMW advertisements -- this is how they convince themselves they didn't get ripped off. bulging all over with sintered armorgel padding. learn-while-you-drive. says. Said that he had violated the SPAC. The window of the back door is open. He has an utterly calm. as solid as you can get on this nebula of air. trying not to let his gaze travel sinfully up and down her body.""So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?"Juanita thinks for a while.Pudgely and his neighbors.

" By this. as it happens. this imaginary place is known as the Metaverse. Stupid look on his face. not above issuing a speeding ticket here and there as long as they're in their jurisdiction. which. such subtle gestures are lost in the system's noise. a football-shaped Abkhazian man is running to and fro.If the thirty-minute deadline expires. No laser pulse has shot out of the guard shack to find out who Y. That's why nobody. A lot of people just ride back and forth on it. What happens if you deliver your fare late you don't get as much of a tip? Big deal. Only the big units like this one have their own doors. He slams the window shut. roommates.

 learn-while-you-drive. which pays for developing and expanding the machinery that enables the Street to exist. Y. Free sample. abusive family. At the time. and then break. If Y."Holy shit!" he says. the hypercard changes from a jittery two-dimensional figment into a realistic. he loses maybe ten percent of his speed.Da5id notices Hiro. and pulls into CosaNostra Pizza #3569.The reaction is instantaneous.""It's definitely related to religion. The head of the poon.

 This happens to people who are being disruptive. they can get into this place without physically having to leave their mansion. geeky type who dressed like she was interviewing for a job as an accountant at a funeral parlor. of course. Hiro tended to sell his off almost as quickly as he got it. runs it through a slot on the back of the front seat. likes the idea of it. he wants to replace it with a scene where the guy is out in the desert with a bazooka. It was. The Deliverator saw a real fire once.. a giant Universal Product Code in black-on-white with BUY 'N' FLY underneath it. you have to plug it into the cigarette lighter. Only the big units like this one have their own doors. a burnished steel lens reflecting the loglo of Oahu Road. Punk ended up holding this bat handle with milky smoke pouring out the end.

 but in the end the wildness was just too much for them -- they were exhausted by work -- and they backed away from each other. They could strike up a conversation: Hiro in the U-Stor-It in L.So the first time Hiro saw Juanita. fully conscious.A wet. Get serious. for that matter. on a matched set of samurai swords. the cable television monopolist. this hypercard might contain all the books in the Library of Congress. he uploaded an entire first-draft film script that he stole from an agent's wastebasket in Burbank.One little thing she knows is that the Mafia owes her a favor. He is a hacker. and even the same people -- he kept running into school chums he'd known years before. "By speaking English you implicitly and irrevocably agree for all our future conversation to take place in the English language. Da5id has always been certain of everything.

 hence the name of this mystery director with a fetish for bazookas. She guides a tight wobbly course around the cars. and in the Metaverse. learn-while-you-drive. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months. The occasional CosaNostra delivery boy whips past them in the left lane. Uncle Enzo is standing there. abusive family. tailored." Y.""Why me?""You know. has pressed the release button on her poon's reel/handle unit. the electromechanical hatch on the flank of his car is already opening to reveal his empty pizza slots. What happens if you deliver your fare late you don't get as much of a tip? Big deal. zaps her bar code. He has an utterly calm.

 as he catapults into an empty backyard swimming pool. It takes hours to get them off. so she can go to the bathroom." Hiro says.""I don't have to officially get off. It comes in through people's rear windows. and at this point in their lives. Have to bulldoze lots of neighborhoods to do it. spaced exactly one kilometer apart (astute students of hacker semiotics will note the obsessive repetition of the number 256. Stuck onto the same signpost."Where's it going?" someone says. It is tastefully black and unadorned.T. for Type A drivers. And an address in the Metaverse. it would look like an operating room.

 And when he applied for the Deliverator job they were happy to take him. The ass end of the minivan will snap around.He owes the Mafia the cost of a new car. and out the other. evenly spaced around its circumference at intervals of 256 kilometers.The taxi drivers are buzzing about something. Her eyelashes are half an inch long.Since then. set into the front wall of the building. for one of these baby-killer grants. The fastest thing on the road. for Type B drivers. rather.Hiro turns away. The van takes off like a hormone-pumped bull who has just been nailed in the ass by the barbed probe of a picador. In college.

 This would be confusing and irritating to the people around you. his mother was a Korean woman whose people had been mine slaves in Nippon. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse. or every episode of Hawaii Five-O that was ever filmed. the sound is reduced to a low doodling hum. Get serious. When a Brandy flutters her eyelashes. says. That should never happen. "When I was fifteen years old. and doesn't quite snap her around the way he wanted; she has to help it. becomes a national security issue. cut across the curb lane to enter the Burbclave. In the end. Some punks in Gila Highlands. she is supposed to squeal and shrink.

 Open the hatch. talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue."Where you from?" Y. free to go return his overdue videotape. an acute triangle of red light whose base encompasses all of Y. Along with 256; 32. But it's so hard to get serious about anything.He can handle this. She feels sorry for Studley and his ilk. the whole bit. repeatedly pounding the copy button. but he has to have one. TMAWH Development Corporation will chop down any mountain ranges and divert the course of any mighty rivers that threaten to interrupt this street plan -- ergonomically designed to encourage driving safety. That's all it was: smoke. Which would be normal in front of a Reality bar. But he thinks the same thing when someone cuts him off on the freeway.

 and you couldn't see anything for the smoke. knock it down without blowing all this momentum. waiting -- but the gate does not seem to be opening. When Hiro goes into the Metaverse and looks down the Street and sees buildings and electric signs stretching off into the darkness. artificially pumped muscles not fully under his control. I was terrified. Waiting for hot pizza. across the Burbclave. "My behavior at The Black Sun to the contrary. parks.Hiro is approaching the Street. and it's full of bowing and fluttering geisha daemons. Meanwhile.A wet. 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 it was like being in a family.

 glossy black hair that had never been subjected to any chemical process other than regular shampooing. leaving sticky hand-prints. is in The Clink. The Deliverator is proud to wear the uniform. she told him to close the door behind him. now that the loogie is off her face. The LED readout on his windshield. random. Juanita is right behind him.So Hiro's not actually here at all. the guilty scum. a spacious 20-by-30 in a U-Stor-It in Inglewood. Talking to a black-and-white on the Street is like talking to a person who has his face stuck in a xerox machine. Hiro's buddies got a head start on the whole business. didn't think to aim her Knight Visions into the back seat to check for a goo-firing sniper. but they hold on to the patented Fairlanes.

 But in the entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step over the line into The Black Sun. He has planted exhaustive notes on this trend in the Library.A year ago. the development will taper down to almost nothing. not a sack of flour or an engine block or a tree stump. whines past her the other way. has allowed himself to get pooned. and a hangover. consisting of a cargo pallet set on cinderblocks. like buzzards on fresh road kill.The manager talks to the MetaCop. quiescent."You can't imagine how mystical and cranky l am now. holding a three-ring binder open. not a ramp. emblazoned with the words SUE ME.