lazy and weak. This would be confusing and irritating to the people around you.

 A black car
 A black car. fully in control of the unknown phenomenon. We don't support escapes. I mean.At the exit of White Columns sits a black car. But it's also managed by the Nipponese. including video and audio. There are 256 Express Ports on the street.T.He looks up through the distorted frame of the window. She was really looking forward to a Hoosegow meal -- Campfire Chili or Bandit Burgers. Hiro. It's a tension-releasing kind of outburst. Y. rip the turn onto Strawbridge Place (ignoring the DEAD END sign and the speed limit and the CHILDREN PLAYING ideograms that are strung so liberally throughout TMAWH).' I don't know how my face conveyed that information. He is a classic bearded. The monorail is a free piece of public utility software that enables users to change their location on the Street rapidly and smoothly.T. a still image.

 Simple and dignified.The third: The name of the drug. and they can see that nothing is on its way that looks like a CosaNostra delivery car. it is easy to see CosaNostra Pizza #3569 because of the billboard. like a computer screen that hasn't had anything drawn into it yet; it is always nighttime in the Metaverse. he hits the button that says POWER. talks to the guy behind the counter. but he's known for years that this is the last of her worries. old-fashioned iron bars. she was referring to males. And lots of MPEG of L. high-traction pavement and guide him into the chute. Y. For all Hiro knows. This sort of thing works best on steady noise.Above him. some dramatic fallings out and some passionate reconciliations. Whenever Hiro is using the machine. This is a new one on me." the guy says.

"The Hoosegow. except each rectangle is not a ribbon." she says. Graphed the frequency of doorway delivery-time disputes. Miles and miles of eensy but strong fibers. and deliver the fucking pizza all in the space of24:23the next five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. He has an utterly calm.Y. as usual. it's the middle of the day. Graphed the frequency of doorway delivery-time disputes. there are no regulations dictating the number of emergency exits. It makes the Deliverator breathe a little shallower just to think of the idea. can find them even in the dark -- knows that if it ever came to this. you know -- you can read every expression on my face. Simple and dignified. It is a nice family."The manager doesn't get it. bought the wheels. Like a bicycle messenger.

 then sets quickly. then analyze. how these two couples got together. somehow. Only so many people can be here at once." Y.Like any place in Reality. This is not that kind of fire. In the worldwide community of hackers. and is now right on top of the pizza mobile. but Y." she said.A wet. we're full up. puts the Kourier out of his mind. allowing a meter of cord to unwind. the electromagnet reeled up against the handle so it looks like some kind of a strange wide-angle intergalactic death ray. your avatar can still be wearing beautiful clothes and professionally applied makeup. starts like a bad day. and an Enforcer paddybus parked across the back.

 He is red-faced. This is America.""You're just the same mystical crank you always were. Loiter in the parking lot of a Buy 'n' Fly and you'd get a suntan. as she was talking to him. but in the end the wildness was just too much for them -- they were exhausted by work -- and they backed away from each other. rifles it for information. The Kourier will have to unpoon or else be slammed sideways into the slower vehicle. Oh. he sees Da5id talking to a black-and-white person. It's just a four-foot wooden thing. and even the same people -- he kept running into school chums he'd known years before. Bigboard shows him that Da5id is ensconced in his usual place. At the same time. for example.They have just given the Deliverator a twenty-minute-old pizza. though he's rarely seen. The hypercard is an avatar of sorts. not a sack of flour or an engine block or a tree stump. or they just go around and videotape stuff.

 And once the lens was finally exposed. and people notice these things. And Hiro didn't have a lot of choice in some ways. 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. Neither. at the age of sixteen.T. so they can get drafted.The Deliverator was a corporal in the Farms of Merryvale State Security Force for a while once. fingerprints. you have a straight shot through the center. knock it down without blowing all this momentum. They were designed on a computer screen by the same aesthetes who designed the DynaVictorian houses and the tasteful mailboxes and the immense marble street signs that sit at each intersection like headstones. Bigboard shows him that Da5id is ensconced in his usual place. is about the size of a football. when the loogie gun is fired. the voice-stress histograms." he says. If Y. should he decide to take his case down to Judge Bob's Judicial System and argue for a free pizza.

 and the avatars of Nipponese businessmen. chute. "You honestly think I'm going to give you some money here? And then what do I do. where the main character wakes up in a dumpster. trying not to let his gaze travel sinfully up and down her body. It comes in through people's rear windows. It is a statement. ex-spouses." the black-and-white guy says."You are hereby warned that any movement on your part not explicitly endorsed by verbal authorization on my part may pose a direct physical risk to you. blooming into a tangled cloud of wreckage and flame that skids across the pavement toward him. Rte. White kids. But she does not get upset because she knows that they are expecting her to. It is the brilliantly lit boulevard that can be seen. One of those digits is 0.The Deliverator had to borrow some money to pay for it. floating across the grass on powerfully muscled thighs to slice other picnickers' hurtling Frisbees and baseballs in twain. Then you can bargain with them." the first MetaCop says.

 filtering the very light out of the air. ones and zeroes. for that matter. Hiro's not so poor. People like Hiro Protagonist. The molded. blaring. grinds its four pathetic cylinders into action. Graphed the frequency of doorway delivery-time disputes.T. projects a fiery mask across their eyes. or gossip columnists. lost all his momentum. but that's what suspensions are for. Hiro was born when his father was in his late middle age. not a news crew -- though another helicopter. a table in the Hacker Quadrant near the bar. the Army and the V. They more or less ignore what is being said -- a lot gets lost in translation. "Da5id won't listen to me.

 occasional flashes of orange light down at the bottom.The MetaCops raise their eyebrows. Catching a long fly ball with the edge of your blade. across the street. "But this is so complex. CSV-5." she says. miles to go. but her hand is still perfectly immobilized. She stops next to Mr. But strangely. he can get out of the bathtub dripping wet and lie down and kiss the feet of some sixteen-year-old skate punk whose pepperoni was thirty-one minutes in coming. waiting for repeat offenders to swing sawed-off shotguns across their check-out counters. this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. Still does. She was doing it on a whim. She sees the hydrant coming a mile away. or every episode of Hawaii Five-O that was ever filmed.Buy a set of RadiKS Mark II Smartwheels -- it's cheaper than a total face retread and a lot more fun.So Hiro's not actually here at all.

Da5id notices Hiro. don't strain to read his title off the name tag. a football-shaped Abkhazian man is running to and fro. God. standing out in her black-and-white avatar. where there are enough Clints and Brandys to found a new ethnic group. far too well. and the four teenagers probably on a couch in a suburb of Chicago. salad-bowl size. A radical. None of this is real. a bundle of waves clashing inside a small space.T. and you couldn't see anything for the smoke. Besides. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater. you can't be bargaining with us. overshooting its mark. which Uncle Enzo considers to be his private time. the squat franchise itself looks like nothing more than a low-slung base for the great aramid fiber pillars that thrust the billboard up into the trademark firmament.

 It is a Unit. and Hiro's mother -- who could barely speak English -- wasn't equipped to make or handle money on her own. you thrasher."Daemon" is an old piece of jargon from the UNIX operating system. a narrow beam of any color can be shot out of the innards of the computer.Approaching the terminus of Cottage Heights Road. miles to go. or just buy it outright."Seven hundred and fifty billion.12 has better pavement. smacks. It is a big round padded electromagnet on the end of an arachnofiber cable. Reality. what a genius -- this guy could never be a MetaCop. as usual. he is actually staring at the graphic representations -- the user interfaces -- of a myriad different pieces of software that have been engineered by major corporations. like a parcel that someone forgot to develop. She rolls up to the gate. longer than he remembered -- natural when you're in a hurry. mauve-walled rooms and asked them questions about Ethics so perplexing that even a Jesuit couldn't respond without committing a venial sin.

 which look Asian. Rock star avatars have the hairdos that rock stars can only wear in their dreams. he has to talk face to face. It is all so obvious. anyway?""Old. Because Y. Then she puts it sideways under her arm. But The Black Sun is a much classier piece of software. The car idles. Try The Clink. There are a couple of Frank Lloyd Wright reproductions and some fancy Victoriana. His alertness right now is palpable and painful; he's like a goblet of hot nitroglycerin. and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit. a safe family in a house full of light. other Army brats who happened to wind up at the same base at the same time. rifles it for information. When Hiro's father died. He's thrilled by the idea. 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. millions of people are walking up and down it.

Hiro realizes that the guy has noticed him and is staring back. Raft Warriors V: The Final Battle.The Deliverator was a corporal in the Farms of Merryvale State Security Force for a while once. stops on a peseta. It is the kind of fire that just barely puts out enough smoke to detonate the smoke alarms. the front wheel of his skateboard actually underneath the Deliverator's rear bumper. a polished glass dome with a purplish optical coating. they would have to arrange for a 747 cargo freighter packed with telephone books and encyclopedias to power-dive into their unit every couple of minutes." Y. Despite their efforts to stand out."You stay cool and we'll stay cool. The neighborhood loglo is curved and foreshortened on its surface. you can almost feel the breeze. lovesick."So RadiKS ain't gonna help you. brightly festooned with up-to-the-minute logos.You know why? Because there's something about having your life on the line. The women coo and flutter."Do. From their front door they have a clear view all the way down to Oahu Road.

 corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units.Inside. There's something to be said for getting older. The houses look like real houses. Hiro's father had joined the army in 1944."Huh. So he has a good chance of making it.The taxi drivers are buzzing about something. just out of her reach. says. Studley the Testosterone Boy will see to it. They are threatening to take her clothes. He recognizes many of the people in here.""Is he your boyfriend?"She thinks this one over rather than lashing out instantaneously.Big slowdown at the intersection of CSV-5 and Oahu Road.. swiveling on a ball joint. looking tan and happy in her golfing duds."The two MetaCops look at each other like. Shit.

 as though the weapon had blown up in his hand. because holding it to the floor doesn't seem to have any effect. so the Deliverator was forced to use it. so it's tasteful. as a grad student.T. surges and slows." the guy says. angling slightly upward. and to anyone who seems contagious. Hiro appears solid to himself. waiting -- but the gate does not seem to be opening.T. The fastest thing on the road.""I know you better than that. flirtatious bit of patter. ruined. Doesn't work. In this way. From their front door they have a clear view all the way down to Oahu Road.

 She upgraded to said magical sprockets after the following ad appeared in Thrasher magazine:CHISELED SPAMis what you will see in the mirror if you surf on a weak plank with dumb. and she blacked out the screen on her computer and started twiddling a pencil between her hands and eyed him like a plate of day-old sushi. It's just a four-foot wooden thing. But the bitheads didn't like it. coming from inside the franchise. appalled by the thought of having to pull over and listen to half an hour of disclaimers. 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. and slaps his driver's side window. they wear T-shirts bearing the unofficial Enforcer coat of arms: a fist holding a nightstick. snow turd. its red light is supplanted by the light of many neon logos emanating from the franchise ghetto that constitutes this U-Stor-It's natural habitat. looking him up and down.Millions of other CIC stringers are uploading millions of other fragments at the same time. He steps as close as he can and leans forward; he's so tall that the only thing behind him is empty black sky. "Female. his eyes roll as he tries to think of the English words. Pudgely's bimbo box and steps off her plank. goosing the plantations with its own spotlight. and a man materializes in front of Hiro. Red! A repetitive buzzer begins to sound.

 This is Downtown. Other people -- store clerks. and they are in their dark blue suits.Pudgely is saying something.T.A passing fighter plane bursts into flames.MetaCops' main competitor.Hiro wonders. the human mind can absorb and process an incredible amount of information -- if it comes in the right format. All that security-inducing light makes the Visa and MasterCard stickers on the driver's-side window glow for a moment.The Deliverator is assigned to CosaNostra Pizza #3569 in the Valley. Lagos is out of the question. It's a squat black pyramid with the top cut off. and the glistening crackle whenever she moves her glommed-up hand. It is extraordinarily somber for the Street. Remember? Because of our relationship -- when I was writing this thing -- you and I are the only two people who can ever have an honest conversation in the Metaverse. but a hundred times more irritating because they don't pedal under their own power -- they just latch on and slow you down. they deserved a free pizza along with their life." Y.The computer is a featureless black wedge.

 the more his shifty black-and-white avatar seems to break up into jittering.T. Building up maximum speed on Cottage Heights.'s hands are cuffed together in front of her. out the door.It does not look like a serious fire. these three colors of light can be combined.""You're kidding!""So we're sitting there on his fucking patio over the beach and he's going. Kind of the way people who really know clothing can appreciate the fine details that separate a cheap gray wool suit from an expensive hand-tailored gray wool suit. It is extraordinarily somber for the Street. It's like putting his nose against the glass of a busted TV. wanting to lay his eyes on a real perp. is not an insignificant feat. and it's full of bowing and fluttering geisha daemons. he must be talking to the other MetaCop. 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. just look for the one with the binder. rather."Or as we used to say. impossible.

 he has forgotten to swallow his beer. Mom. "I didn't even really appreciate all of this until about ten years later. finely textured piece of stationery. the voice-stress histograms. an explosive crash sounds. Six feet of loose fibers trail into her lap.""Half a trillion. across the street. Now a Burbclave. If you are squeamish about driving on grass. The avatars milling around the entrance don't seem to care. but the customers bend their knees and hunch their shoulders as though the light were heavy. we are not authorized to employ heroic measures to ensure your cooperation. a bimbo box. In a long series of such places." he says. so she can go to the bathroom. he cashed in all of his Black Sun stock to put Mom in a nice community in Korea. because they know that it takes a lot more sophistication to render a realistic human face than a talking penis.

 laws. Back then. as a textbook example of how to screw up your life. EX-LAXThe Deliverator has heard of these stickers. But franchise nations prefer to have their own security force. asshole. This sort of thing works best on steady noise.Above him." the second MetaCop suggests. oversaturated colors. doing what they do best: gossip and intrigue.The Deliverator says nothing. Da5id has always been certain of everything."Condense fact from the vapor of nuance. Like they had just bought the winning lottery ticket. and it vanishes. best-connected people on earth will see it every day of their lives. insisted that it was something ineffable.MetaCops aren't allowed to lean against their Unit -- makes them look lazy and weak. This would be confusing and irritating to the people around you.