home. Bob Rife -- which accounts for most of the bytes.

 bazooka scripts will flood the director's office
 bazooka scripts will flood the director's office. didn't remember that these people drove a Lexus -- cuts through the hedge. but the Street has. The decor consists of black. almost to the lip. "What the hell is in this card? You must have half of the Library in here!""And a librarian to boot. bearing the CosaNostra logo.O. says. I can never keep them straight. and free-combat zones where people can go to hunt and kill each other.He has long hair. and at any given time the Street is occupied by twice the population of New York City. he can see all of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity. which makes it a lot easier for the computer system to draw things in on top of it -- no worries about filling in a complicated background. but not downhill enough.""Aw. Like pixels. It was essential. and blood type.

 his computer has just taken a major hit; all of its circuits are busy processing a huge bolus of data -- the contents of the hypercard -- and don't have time to redraw the image of The Black Sun in its full. including but not limited to projectile weapons. Nipponese style. As for a jail.A Kourier has to establish space on the pavement."As your demeanor has been nonaggressive and you carry no visible weapons. At any given time. These are slum housing. is thumping and whacking its way across White Columns airspace at this very moment. prematurely celebrating. Either way. His father was a sergeant major.""Y. and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes. lase your lobes.He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was.Then the display freezes. turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. no schools. Underneath it.

 Some Narcolombians were selling a bad batch of Vertigo. "cause that is where you will be tomorrow night. when The Black Sun pops back into full animation again.The Deliverator knows that yard.. the moving 3-D pictures can have a perfectly realistic soundtrack. for Type A drivers. the teenaged boy. have had to buy frontage on the Street. your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free. But no. This intel thing can be great once you get yourself jacked into the grid. The Abkhazian manager comes to the window. as he catapults into an empty backyard swimming pool. careen into the backyard of Number 84 Mayapple Place. is called. shitcan soccer must be your national pastime." he says. "to help you sort through it. put them in sweet-smelling.

" Y. Exactly the same way she did when he came into her office years ago. Nova Sicilia has its own security. centered its laser doohickey on that poised Louisville Slugger.The Deliverator is a Type A driver with rabies. a double-bladed stealth helicopter thirty feet above the neighbor's house. old-fashioned iron bars. On his way out the door. and all they wanted to do was to record the event on videotape so that Mr.""Half a trillion. not a sack of flour or an engine block or a tree stump. Right off his left flank. burbling out of nowhere. The recoil was immense. But in the bleak light of full adulthood. the crowd has a garish and surreal look about it. Some of them even got very rich off of it.Down inside the computer are three lasers -- a red one. so that when he took them out to show Hiro. simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese.

. Oh. a transparent sheet of plastic draped over it. You can look like a gorilla or a dragon or a giant talking penis in the Metaverse. Because Y."Where you from?" Y. each one bearing the image of some Old West desperado. Now. and then reads off the name of this nearby screenwriter. He will come away from the whole thing feeling that. is the name of the place: THE BLACK SUN. yet thousands of avatars mill around. like heat lightning in tall clouds. Hiro owns a couple of nice Nipponese swords. or his cargo. and explodes. And you don't have to wait for no mail. but everyone else looks like a ghost. just long enough to make sure she is really a person. Uncle Enzo doesn't have to apologize for ugly.

 the hypercard changes from a jittery two-dimensional figment into a realistic. and is now right on top of the pizza mobile. Now that he's all by himself in the entryway. She was just in the process of proving them all desperately wrong. takes a pull on the bottle. but there is a narrow translucent plastic tube emerging from a hatch on the rear. The MetaCop is right; RadiKS did not tell her to deliver that pizza.T.Hiro did not attend Juanita and Da5id's wedding -- he was languishing in jail. You can bet that Metazania and New South Africa handle their own security; that's the only reason people become citizens.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.The Hoosegow looks like a nice new one. for that matter.""This is a class Unit. She likes him in spite of herself.He cuts off a bimbo box -- a family minivan -- veers past the Buy 'n' Fly that is next door. He wants this car to be like his muscles: more power than he knows what to do with.T. getting it through customs. Religion is not for simpletons.

 the door clicking and folding back in on itself like the wing of a beetle. bulging all over with sintered armorgel padding. They are all done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars.T. coasts down into the street. It has the look of a big and important meeting. "to help you sort through it. says. Not one single record label. avatars are not allowed to collide. Picking up important shit for important TMAWH people."You stay cool and we'll stay cool. she can touch the pavement with one hand she is heeled over so hard. turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. A person on a skateboard. You're impulsive. Until this point. working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to. will be instantly recognizable to a hacker. each strand cut off straight and square at the end by Uncle Enzo's cousin.

" he says. an acute triangle of red light whose base encompasses all of Y. a pizza on his shoulder. many spokes extending and retracting to fit the shape of the ground. about the time of their phone call and get themselves a free pizza; no. Hiro scans it briefly to see if any of his friends are in there.T. the two competing highways actually cross."Don't be condescending. where it referred to a piece of low-level utility software.The Kourier leans back -- the Deliverator can't help watching in the rearview -- leans back like a water skier. fry your frontals. devoted to the fantasy of stabbing some particular actress to death; they can't even get close in Reality. up through that fisheye lens. fully in control of the unknown phenomenon. but is setting now. he steals it right out of the guts of the system-gossip ex machina. Obviously.Pudgely's wing tips. Hiro can hear cars going past the guy in the background.

 wearing a New South Africa baseball cap with a Confederate flag." the Deliverator says. as he catapults into an empty backyard swimming pool." the first one says. In this way. he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve. you thrasher.T. I can walk to the curb from here)." Hiro says.If the thirty-minute deadline expires. and he's in the doorway.His tongue is stinging; he realizes that.One little thing she knows is that the Mafia owes her a favor. The orange light looks like a gasoline fire. news of the disaster is flashed to CosaNostra Pizza Headquarters and relayed from there to Uncle Enzo himself -- the Sicilian Colonel Sanders. you thrasher. he formed an impression that did not change for many years: She was a dour. not above issuing a speeding ticket here and there as long as they're in their jurisdiction.The taxi drivers are buzzing about something.

 the cable television monopolist. talks to the guy behind the counter. you've been surfing too many ghost malls. Because he knows that all of this is going onto videotape. when the Street protocol was first written. they invariably run down to the computer-games section of the local Wal-Mart and buy a copy of Brandy."Daemon" is an old piece of jargon from the UNIX operating system. who was stationed in Japan for many years. the CIC won't pay any attention to a Kourier. This one is carrying a three-ring binder with the Buy 'n' Fly logo. rubber tread on the bottom. is mute testimony. random. let him take an alternate route so he wouldn't gethe grips the wheel stuck in traffic his eyes get big. you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. Like pixels. low-slung black building. a power tool for a CIC stringer. who runs the second-largest chain of low-end haircutting establishments in the world. how these two couples got together.

 a model of self-restraint? I'm exactly the kind of guy who would mess around with it. boys. tries to break out of the lethargy of the long-term underemployed. You have those sword-fighting reflexes. because holding it to the floor doesn't seem to have any effect. are chilling out in their home.Y.T. sees into the night with her Knight Visions. a deadly obstacle to uncertain young bicyclists. hooked them to polygraphs. no nothing. is embossed with the RadiKS logo. The sauce on the spaghetti is sticky. no warning. The Street seems to be a grand boulevard going all the way around the equator of a black sphere with a radius of a bit more than ten thousand kilometers.MetaCops have to tote this kind of gear because when each franchulate is so small. Its logo sign. A half electronic communications nets. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year.

 "No. The Deliverator hears a discordant beetling over the metal hurricane of his sound system and realizes that it is a smoke alarm. Behind her on the wall was an amateurish painting of an old lady. can still see the LEDs: 29:54. highway and is now called Cruiseways. Light blue vinyl clapboard two-story with one-story garage to the side. Take this. skating up one bank. the way she tosses her hair when she's listening to Da5id. As in harpooned. he will have plenty of time. With the shortcut through TMAWH. and that's what it says when she drops the pizza on Mr. they see when you're turning. But when he came into her office that day. They are powerful enough to make a bright light but not powerful enough to burn through the back of your eyeball and broil your brain. was nothing more than that -- the gut reaction of a post-adolescent Army brat who had been on his own for about three weeks. As its ass is rotating around. 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. as though the weapon had blown up in his hand.

 The Deliverator took out his gun. which computes and projects the optimal route on a heads-up display. a little barcode. The system has been overridden. Despite her lack of color and shitty resolution. there's this scene." The first MetaCop says. to a greater or lesser extent. That's all it was: smoke. there's a fence. his tenure as a pizza deliverer -- the only pointless dead-end job he really enjoys -- came to an end."So RadiKS ain't gonna help you. The pizzas rest. studied their brain waves as they showed them choppy. so it's tasteful. He holds his foot steady on the gas and. then sets quickly. handles more upscale contracts."What's it gonna be. but there is a narrow translucent plastic tube emerging from a hatch on the rear.

 shitcan soccer must be your national pastime. unzips a pocket on the thigh of her coverall. They are clearly from disparate social classes. it stands for Yours Truly.A jeek. in any direction. not posing like a model but standing there like your uncle would. If you've just gotten out of bed. doing what they do best: gossip and intrigue. No other Deliverators are waiting in the chute. way back fifteen years ago.She's not afraid; she's wearing a dentata. rolling down the highway right behind him. By changing the image seventy-two times a second.T. wanted themselves a delivery.So it's not an architectural masterpiece. into which he had been thrown a few hours before the rehearsal.s. Radikal Kourier Systems.

 Underneath is naught but billowing pale flesh. repeatedly pounding the copy button. and magazines. Came in its doors unable to write an English sentence. which takes him to Bellewoode Valley Road. but they ran into a lot of expenses anyway. The Black Sun has a number of daemons that serve imaginary drinks to the patrons and run little errands for people. corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units. 5 Oglethorpe Circle." he says. they can even brandish a big leaning-against-the-car 'tude like this particular individual. and drag on the pavement The MetaCops are taking it easy. Vista Road used to belong to the State of California and now is called Fairlanes. they used to argue over times. blowing up old cars in an abandoned junkyard." he says. This draws much attention from the MetaCops. I swear. the Kourier -- that tick on his ass -- waves to the border police! What a prick! Like he comes in here all the time!He probably does come in here all the time. a polished glass dome with a purplish optical coating.

 Obviously. but it's too big and solid to rattle. He whips the wheel.The Deliverator holds the horn button down. Right off his left flank. insisted that it was something ineffable. gets out of the car and pulls his swords out of the trunk. roommates. Y. Besides. 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. which is attached to a handle with a power reel in it. like a computer screen that hasn't had anything drawn into it yet; it is always nighttime in the Metaverse. they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here -- once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel -- once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity -- y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone elsemusic movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza deliveryThe Deliverator used to make software. for that matter. unimaginative blonds with steady careers. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year. curling away like smoke. My boyfriend was worse than clue-less -- in fact."Hiro.

 my God. but since that episode. The grin of a man who knows something Hiro doesn't."If you're a hacker.Like any place in Reality. who like every other boy in this Burbclave has been taking intravenous shots of horse testosterone every afternoon in the high school locker room since he was fourteen years old. stretching out into long. The hatch has been open too long.She is gliding down the antebellum tree-lined lanes of White Columns. a hallowed subcategory."The two MetaCops look at each other like. reminding him. People went to CosaNostra Pizza University four years just to learn it. because we're in competition with those guys. how slow can a mammal be and still have respiratory functions? But instead of lowering the boom on him. Lee's Greater Hong Kong. to judge from the image quality -- it can't jazz up his avatar. they just talk to an account rep at the Central Intelligence Corporation. Now that he's all by himself in the entryway."Jack this barrier to commerce.

 glinting majesty of their Personal Portable Equipment Suite hanging on their Personal Modular Equipment Harness. 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. They put it in the Library. Get serious. she had a flamethrower tongue that she would turn on people at the oddest times. is not an insignificant feat. rolling down the highway right behind him. except not as well. but those seventies and eighties developments exist to be bulldozed. curvy and white like prefab shower stalls -- in fact. He was an only child who had always been first in his class in everything. on a matched set of samurai swords. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. and spent a year in the Pacific. As its ass is rotating around. His emotions tell him to go back and kill that manager. has a visa to everywhere. he can see all of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity. and the whole idea of stealing fantastically dangerous weapons presents the would-be perp with inherent dangers and contradictions: When you are wrestling for possession of a sword. you know -- you can read every expression on my face.

 getting it through customs. and it will give you all the procedures for that window -- and it should never be opened. His stereo cuts out again -- on command of the onboard system.Her name is Juanita Marquez. A second man comes out from back."Condense fact from the vapor of nuance.So the first time Hiro saw Juanita. the Street is subject to development.The manager talks to the MetaCop. is the name of the place: THE BLACK SUN. the debating tactics.Hiro would have chalked it all up to class differences. because he is pumping the gas pedal. His emotions tell him to go back and kill that manager. Most avatars nowadays are anatomically correct. kidnap. who was African by way of Texas by way of the Army -- back in the days before it got split up into a number of competing organizations such as General Jim's Defense System and Admiral Bob's National Security. Juanita has been using her excess money to start her own branch of the Catholic church -- she considers herself a missionary to the intelligent atheists of the world."The two MetaCops look at each other like. and it saysThe Mafia you've got a friend in The Family! paid for by the Our Thing FoundationThe billboard serves as the Deliverator's polestar.

 "You're going up against TMAWH here. video. a twenty-three-minute pizza. so she can't hear anything except squirts and gurgles coming from her own empty tummy. But when Vitaly Chernobyl thrashes out an experimental guitar solo. shrugs. as the minivan slides sideways into the gravestone. Meanwhile. Put in a sign or a building on the Street and the hundred million richest. just as he is laying in his approach vectors to Heritage Boulevard. Hiro could only think it was like nuzzling through skirts and lingerie and outer labia and inner labia . And more red lights come up on the windshield: the perimeter security of the Deliverator's vehicle has been breached.""I don't have to officially get off. an explosive crash sounds. Her poon will only stick to steel. when did they put up a fence?This is no time to put on the brakes. so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey.Or -- more likely -- a wide variety of nasty computer viruses. are chilling out in their home. Bob Rife -- which accounts for most of the bytes.