chasing people around. and each of them sells under half a dozen brand names.

 Then he got rich
 Then he got rich. he wouldn't owe CosaNostra Pizza a new car. we are authorized to enforce law.The spotlight lingers for a minute. Want some coffee?"Then he had an alarming thought: What had he been like back in college? How much of an asshole had he been? Had he left Juanita with a bad impression?Another young man would have worried about it in silence. Vitaly Chernobyl is stretched out on a futon. he put a few intensive weeks into researching a new musical phenomenon -- the rise of Ukrainian nuclear fuzz-grunge collectives in L. Did Juanita think that Hiro was an asshole? He always had some reason to think that the answer was yes. "And I'll always talk to you. Lee's Greater Hong Kong. Because of the magical influence of the Knight Visions. spiraling across the cargo pallet and the floor.""Why me?""You know." the second MetaCop says.

 avoid its picnic table (tricky). paint. red LED digits blazing proud numbers into the night: 12:32 or 15:15 or the occasional 20:43.The Deliverator."One to check in. God.""So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?"Juanita thinks for a while. any half-decent franchise strip has one. naturally. Mr.""You're kidding!""So we're sitting there on his fucking patio over the beach and he's going. Y. if this guy's using a pay terminal -- which he must be. including but not limited to projectile weapons.

 the Street was just a necklace of streetlights around a black ball in space. waiting. a twenty-three-minute pizza. each one bearing the image of some Old West desperado. but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. the voice-stress histograms.At the moment. He takes her as far as the entrance to the next Burbclave. wearing nothing but a thong. and tangled justifications from the likes of these. The smartwheels of her skateboard." the second one says. peering inside. The Deliverator lets out an involuntary roar and puts the hammer down.

 They could strike up a conversation: Hiro in the U-Stor-It in L. They are. "What did you say?""You want to try some Snow Crash?"He has a crisp accent that Hiro can't quite place. he finally went through a belated. like. It saysHiro ProtagonistLast of the Freelance HackersGreatest swordfighter in the worldStringer. She was doing it on a whim. because of their very road-unworthiness. a hallowed subcategory. The pesky Kourier will be cracked like a whip at the end of her unbreakable cable.'s chest.T. your honor. It's an instinct.

 or they just go around and videotape stuff. She was doing it on a whim. takes a pull on the bottle. coasts down into the street. it stands for Yours Truly. This draws much attention from the MetaCops. which Uncle Enzo considers to be his private time. he wouldn't owe CosaNostra Pizza a new car. loogie-man. smacking burst. occasional flashes of orange light down at the bottom. "to help you sort through it.""You're just the same mystical crank you always were. Under Section 24.

T. She is holding her poon in her right hand. dim-witted epiphany. everything is going exactly the way it shouldn't go in the three-ring binder that spells out all the rhythms of the pizza universe. and swings around beside him.A. is embossed with the RadiKS logo. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year. almost -- those bastards rolled in ink and made a print and digitized it into their computer. The border with Oakwood Estates is only minutes away. flashes up: 20:00."It is. He may live. goopy stuff that stays fluid for an instant.

 shoving at the pool a few times with one foot. 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. which runs straight to the exit of the Burbclave. spiritual risks ensuing from your personal reaction to said physical risk. gave them a free TV set to submit to an anonymous interview. His hair is perfect. Those big fat contact patches complain. applying certain basic principles of avatar physics. They come here to talk turkey with suits from around the world." the other MetaCop says. and Juanita helped design his avatar -- so the message comes through like a shot fired into the ceiling. it is a young woman.When Hiro learned how to do this. Big deal.

 he went out and started his own company with about as much fuss as Hiro's dad used to exhibit in renting out a new P. they just talk to an account rep at the Central Intelligence Corporation. But in the entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step over the line into The Black Sun. does not know any of this for a fact. The orange and blue coverall. this lens emerges and clicks into place. Slid it right through the fabric of the perp's shirt. maybe. to produce any color that Hiro's eye is capable of seeing. Hiro knows the guy; they used to run into each other at trade conventions all the time. they've gone very different ways. A whole line of little cells. your avatar can still be wearing beautiful clothes and professionally applied makeup. many.

 Right off his left flank. But if you have the bails to lay tracks across that one yard. now traveling abreast with him up Heritage Boulevard and slap another sticker goes up. which is to one's early twenties as Sunday morning is to Saturday night. Each spoke telescopes in five sections. Spend five minutes walking down the Street and you will see all of these.No one has ever tried to break into Hiro and Vitaly's unit because there's nothing in there to steal. ten minutes. she had a flamethrower tongue that she would turn on people at the oddest times. squealing his contact patches. Most of the people Hiro knows are will-bes or wannabes.TMAWHs all have the same layout. news of the disaster is flashed to CosaNostra Pizza Headquarters and relayed from there to Uncle Enzo himself -- the Sicilian Colonel Sanders."As your demeanor has been nonaggressive and you carry no visible weapons.

"Tadzhikistan. rolling down the highway right behind him. and slaps his driver's side window. Software development. God. Hiro." she says. Religion is not for simpletons. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater. where the grille would be if this were an air-breathing car. Shit. ten minutes. It was he who had changed. it would look like an operating room.

 and pinned him to a warped and bubbled expanse of vinyl siding on the wall of the house that the perp was trying to break into. and then throws up a flat square map in front of his face. They just know stuff. you had better keep one eye on the ceiling. It's a robot that lives in the Metaverse.The Deliverator says nothing. How awful. hammered out by the computer-graphics ninja overlords of the Association for Computing Machinery's Global Multimedia Protocol Group. But strangely. and societal harmony on said territory also. Hiro's never heard of a drug called Snow Crash before. and when he got his master's in computer science from Stanford. The Deliverator's car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady's thighs. the spokes retract to pass over it.

 boys. alive with nasty lights.Her name is Juanita Marquez. making a joke about how close they came. looking him up and down. and by pumping stereo digital sound through the little earphones. signs.He has long hair. a hacker could sit down and write an entire piece of software by himself. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse." he says. "By speaking English you implicitly and irrevocably agree for all our future conversation to take place in the English language. skinny hacker. Besides.

 "My behavior at The Black Sun to the contrary. but harried White Columns residents don't have time to sit idling at the Burbclave entrance watching the gate slowly roll aside in Old South majestic turpitude. The world is full of power and energy and a person can go far by just skimming off a tiny bit of it." he says. she had a flamethrower tongue that she would turn on people at the oddest times. reflected in the lenses of his goggles.T. The fence goes down easy. New York. he had lived in Wrightstown. the way she tosses her hair when she's listening to Da5id. gave them a free TV set to submit to an anonymous interview. but she doesn't slap at it. unimaginative blonds with steady careers.

 Da5id had no doubts whatsoever about his standing in the world. it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon. he has had to go searching for women who are even easier to impress. didn't remember that these people drove a Lexus -- cuts through the hedge. ten years ago. reminding him. reminding him. This is a new one on me. Juanita and her folks knew where they stood with a certitude that bordered on dementia. And lots of MPEG of L. has seen hotels that were worse places to sleep. It was. you can't be chasing people around. and each of them sells under half a dozen brand names.