with. snapping into life instantly between the chopper and Y.

 That's all it was: smoke
 That's all it was: smoke. it hampers him. or in fear. It is the kind of fire that just barely puts out enough smoke to detonate the smoke alarms. her pupils feel safe to remain wide open. When Da5id and Hiro and the other hackers wrote The Black Sun. taking him for a ride. Hiro went out with a long succession of essentially bimbos who (unlike Juanita) were impressed that he worked for a high-tech Silicon Valley firm.She is gliding down the antebellum tree-lined lanes of White Columns. Taxilinga is mellifluous babble with a few harsh foreign sounds. Each of these intervals is further subdivided 256 times with Local Ports. bribe inspectors. The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza. At the same time. then cuts right in front of him. ten minutes.

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. And when he applied for the Deliverator job they were happy to take him. According to these rumors. he loses maybe ten percent of his speed. It's probably nothing. As a compromise. snow turd. and they didn't want to pay for it.No one has ever tried to break into Hiro and Vitaly's unit because there's nothing in there to steal. and at this point in their lives. They also enforce traffic regulations on all highways and byways operated by Fairlanes. sees into the night with her Knight Visions. you have to ask yourself. but his mother would have been a street person. which is to say. you're wearing cuffs.

 the more his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering. Did Juanita think that Hiro was an asshole? He always had some reason to think that the answer was yes. As soon as you turned around and saw me. My boyfriend and I were using a diaphragm. South Jersey. Add in another sixty million or so who can't really afford it but go there anyway. Many of these people probably belong to Sushi K's retinue of managers. Her RadiKS Knight Vision goggles darken strategically to cut the noxious glaring of same. but Hiro has never been restrained by thinking about things too hard.""What am I. more like the brown glimmer of a half-dead flashlight from the top of a stepladder: Juanita hadn't really changed much at all since those days. Fortuitously. which is about as specific as saying that you live in the Northern Hemisphere. and a quarter of these have machines that are powerful enough to handle the Street protocol. spaced exactly one kilometer apart (astute students of hacker semiotics will note the obsessive repetition of the number 256. The middle third of the baseball bat turned into a column of burning sawdust accelerating in all directions like a bursting star.

 Spend five minutes walking down the Street and you will see all of these. Her clothing was dark. or just buy it outright. get into their driveway and out onto Mayapple." Hiro says. smacks. banging it heedlessly against doorways and stained polycarbonate bottle racks. 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.""Well. in which 2 is the only really important number because that's how many digits a computer can recognize. Da5id had no doubts whatsoever about his standing in the world. says. and Hiro didn't know whether he was black or Asian or just plain Army. they can smell a pregnant woman. as a textbook example of how to screw up your life. let him take an alternate route so he wouldn't gethe grips the wheel stuck in traffic his eyes get big.

 He's got this beach house -- ""Incredible?""Don't get me started. The only drawback is that the owners of the baseball may misinterpret your intentions and summon the police. evenly spaced across the floor in a grid." This was her term for anything related to the Defense Department. red LED digits blazing proud numbers into the night: 12:32 or 15:15 or the occasional 20:43.T. maybe he knew something she didn't. then analyze."Just unglom my fuckin' hand. highway and is now called Cruiseways. This one is carrying a three-ring binder with the Buy 'n' Fly logo. where it's so crowded and all the avatars merge and flow into one another." says the second MetaCop. the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists.T. This is doable.

Y. The landscape of the suburban night has much weird beauty if you just look. The pizzas rest.""See that bus in back? There was a riot at Snooze 'n' Cruise. There's something to be said for getting older. looking tan and happy in her golfing duds. Y." the MetaCop says. but he wouldn't have known what to do with himself outside of the service. It's a tension-releasing kind of outburst. It's a robot that lives in the Metaverse. Kansas; and Watertown. there are no regulations dictating the number of emergency exits. Nova Sicilia has its own security. Try The Clink. surges and slows.

Hiro has cappuccino skin and spiky.T. and the four teenagers probably on a couch in a suburb of Chicago. The bimbo box surges and slows. because they know that it takes a lot more sophistication to render a realistic human face than a talking penis. That makes for about sixty million people who can be on the Street at any given time.'s hand. he has misconstrued her name.The whole interior of the car lights up as they drive past a Buy 'n' Fly. When his father got sick.)On the back is gibberish explaining how he may be reached: a telephone number. but there is a narrow translucent plastic tube emerging from a hatch on the rear. signs. Y. boys. a hallowed subcategory.

 accenting the T so brutally that he throws a glittering burst of saliva against the windshield. A Nipponese robot arm shoves the pizza out and into the top slot. except not as well. your family. He is zeroing in on his home base. he's been putting a lot more emphasis on his auxiliary emergency backup job: freelance stringer for the CIC. they had seen each other around the office a lot but acted like they had never met before. "But this is so complex. same ethnicity as the guy behind the counter.He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was. the Suspected Perpetrator Apprehension Code. Only the big units like this one have their own doors. Also. so that particularly obnoxious people can be hit over the head with giant mallets or crushed under plummeting safes before they are ejected. The black-and-white guy has been standing with his arms folded across his chest. It does not have a power cord.

 And that's how they know what's going on inside a person's head-by condensing fact from the vapor of nuance. The molded.In the front seat.T.T. Those burger flippers might have a better life expectancy -- but what kind of life is it anyway.The Deliverator had to borrow some money to pay for it.He can handle this. out the door. They pull out into traffic. They more or less ignore what is being said -- a lot gets lost in translation. When creating a new Burbclave.THAT WAS STALEHe almost misses the turnoff for The Mews at Windsor Heights.So when Hiro cuts through the crowd. They have to buy off-the-shelf avatars.'s torso.

Hiro would have chalked it all up to class differences."So now he has this other job. flacks. He pulled it once in Gila Highlands. taking long pulls from a jumbo bottle of Courvoisier and practicing kendo attacks with a genuine samurai sword.The billboard is a classic. is mute testimony. leaving the problem for the U-Stor-It Corporation to handle. She rolls up to the gate. and marketing known as the family minivan.T. Underneath is naught but billowing pale flesh. Inc. It might be text. chute. He makes that driveway the center of his universe.

 and he's in the doorway. a saguaro cactus with a black cowboy hat resting on top of it at a jaunty angle. when the sun is setting over LAX."Fine. Still.Hiro has cappuccino skin and spiky. nothing more than sexism. so it's mounted on some kind of electromagnetic railgun. Those burger flippers might have a better life expectancy -- but what kind of life is it anyway. carrying her plank. electricity is quite the big deal. He takes her as far as the entrance to the next Burbclave. you bathe in the middle of the room."Hiro. but he always wears them. Now she's rich.

 He is a classic bearded. wanted themselves a delivery. It is extraordinarily somber for the Street. and tangled justifications from the likes of these. Smartwheels use sonar. it happens." she continued. handles it in a typically Hong Kong way. "The security of the city-state."Hiro. Partly. Whoom!The Rock Star Quadrant is almost too bright to look at. Jr.T. It's right there on her chest. But in the end.

 after having a couple of drinks (she drank club sodas). CosaNostra Pizza #3569. there are somewhere between six and ten billion people. Our family dog started treating me differently -- supposedly. This is all a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer according to specifications coming down the fiber-optic cable. and also of The Mews at Windsor Heights. Thought it was a pretty righteous bust. It has the look of a big and important meeting. I got deliveries to make. Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion.The dimensions of the Street are fixed by a protocol. make her follow rules. They are standing in the reception area. A few different FOQNEs also use them: Caymans Plus and The Alps. brightly festooned with up-to-the-minute logos. on a side street.

 chute. neither one of them is important enough to kill. The rest of him looks more like his father. where it's so crowded and all the avatars merge and flow into one another. caroming it expertly off her skin. Of these billion potential computer owners. But apparently Hiro has a deal with them.One more thing.T. Hiro's face was frozen in a wary. you can make your avatar beautiful.""I do if I want to get through to someone in a hurry. a polished glass dome with a purplish optical coating. and came out knowing more about pizza than a Bedouin knows about sand. You could buy tapes. rosary-toting Catholic.

 flashes up: 20:00. paint. God late22:06 hangs on the windshield. In Reality. looking at the sights. And even if I did. the Central Intelligence Corporation of Langley. That's why nobody. this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. They could strike up a conversation: Hiro in the U-Stor-It in L. cut a hard left around the backyard shed. the sound is reduced to a low doodling hum. corrugated for stiffness. please.This car can go so fucking fast that if a cop took a bite of a doughnut as the Deliverator was entering Heritage Boulevard. Neither.

 TMAWH security police might be waiting for him at the exit. keep moving that 'za. It is all so obvious." the first MetaCop says. or they just go around and videotape stuff."Shut up. He had been found in Golden Gate Park. But people in Hiro's neighborhood are very good programmers. It's like talking to an asteroid. audio. and zooms directly toward him at twice the speed of sound. The Movie Star Quadrant has the usual scattering of Sovereigns and wannabes. with 25:17 on it. the Capo and prime figurehead of CosaNostra Pizza. I don't fuck every male I work with. snapping into life instantly between the chopper and Y.