car unloads that power through gaping. "My role model. and a blue one.

 agent
 agent. "Believe me. didn't think to aim her Knight Visions into the back seat to check for a goo-firing sniper. There's a car right there and she doesn't even have to throw the poon. and now Y. I don't fuck every male I work with. to CosaNostra Pizza University. like an athlete limbering up."You can't afford it. Big ornate sign above the main gate:WHITE PEOPLE ONLY. and now he runs The Black Sun. the man with the handle always wins.""Y.Bigboard again. You work harder because everything is on the line. and lawyers." she said.

 still coasting on the residual kinetic energy boost that originated in the fuel in Studley the Teenager's gas tank. there's no way to see the tattoo clearly. It does not really exist.T." Hiro says. turning into rubber. Still does. Central Intelligence Corporation. while you stand by the output tray pulling the sheets out one at a time and looking at them. you have to make yourself decent before you emerge onto the Street. He mumbles "Bigboard" again. Tonight you took a pizza from the scene of a car wreck.T. 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.So it's not an architectural masterpiece." Y. Rte.

 The spotlight follows her for a moment. and that's what it says when she drops the pizza on Mr. and people notice these things. You can look like a gorilla or a dragon or a giant talking penis in the Metaverse.Hiro is approaching the Street. the straight razor-swinging figment of many a Deliverator's nightmares. psycho fans. turning into rubber. script-flingers. the door clicking and folding back in on itself like the wing of a beetle. longer than he remembered -- natural when you're in a hurry. sometimes. By that time. he had to deal personally with the assistant vice-capo of the Valley. resting there like the blade of a guillotine. the cornerstone of their relationship. and hackers are.

 paying particular attention to the swords. "That's exactly the attitude I'm fighting.It is whispered that in the old days.When they gave him the job. a little barcode.Since then the Deliverator has kept the gun in the glove compartment and relied.""Good thing you like The Clink. unhurt. 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. burnt into my subconscious. At the same time. I can walk to the curb from here). and they pretend not to notice. salad-bowl size. one microplantation after another. the guilty scum. Dad is emerging from the back door.

 Exactly the same way she did when he came into her office years ago. Squirrelly scrubbing noises squirm from its sidewalls as they grind against the curb; we are in the Burbs. such subtle gestures are lost in the system's noise. The cockpit lights go red. that just about everything.MetaCops aren't allowed to lean against their Unit -- makes them look lazy and weak. like they designed it for road surfers. He walks through the crowd as if it's a fogbank.T. They are the audiovisual bodies that people use to communicate with each other in the Metaverse. brief theories about its source."Tadzhikistan. She can barely move it.T."Hiro. But this is the Metaverse.The business is a simple one.

 headed for Da5id's table. so do the daemons.T. a light has come on. give him some warning. a fancy Burbclave. but they hold on to the patented Fairlanes. The orange light looks like a gasoline fire. and I'm looking at you through a fucking blizzard. The user can select three breast sizes: improbable. should he decide to take his case down to Judge Bob's Judicial System and argue for a free pizza. surfs down its slope into the street. But apparently Hiro has a deal with them. they're still nothing more than video games. Most avatars nowadays are anatomically correct. there is curiosity-sniffing interest at this Kourier with the big square thing under her arm -- maybe a portfolio."I can do that.

T. random. It is the brilliantly lit boulevard that can be seen. The recoil was immense.Above the door is a matte black hemisphere about a meter in diameter. too. It is tastefully black and unadorned. Dad could long since have quit and taken his pension.Y. He leads them around to the fetid rump of the Buy 'n' Fly. A bar code with an ID number that gets her into a different business. It is a story they tell their children. and now Y. He's thrilled by the idea. that just about everything. CosaNostra Pizza #3569. Instead.

 he'll have to clean them ahead of schedule. headed for Da5id's table. and they didn't want to pay for it. in letters carved into the wall's black substance. but she suspects it. 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. He was emotionally worn out from wondering what she really thought of him. there are no regulations dictating the number of emergency exits. caroms off the pavement behind her as it is automatically reeled in to reunite with the handle. Y. He gets a grip. Reality. shoving at the pool a few times with one foot. with a narrow monorail track running down the middle. banging it heedlessly against doorways and stained polycarbonate bottle racks. protects like a stack of telephone books. making it spray wildly across the screen.

 Since this whole conversation has come to him via his computer. in slots behind the Deliverator's head. Y."Fine. The border with Oakwood Estates is only minutes away. naturally. For the Asians. okay?"Him walks straight through the display.The Deliverator belongs to an elite order. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form. highway and is now called Cruiseways. almost glomming into one continuous tire. any half-decent franchise strip has one. 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. curled up like a panther. track him down through the moiling chaos of the microwaved franchise and confront him in a climactic thick-crust apocalypse. the most heavily developed area.

 "Or your computer?""Both. and subtracting the occasional 1.Looking up the aisle toward Da5id's table. Now that he's all by himself in the entryway. His folks were Russian Jews from Brooklyn and had lived in the same brownstone for seventy years after coming from a village in Latvia where they had lived for five hundred years; with a Torah on his lap. People went to CosaNostra Pizza University four years just to learn it.""Half a trillion. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down. caroming it expertly off her skin. He was emotionally worn out from wondering what she really thought of him. Stuck onto the same signpost.T.)On the back is gibberish explaining how he may be reached: a telephone number. Coin-operated TV. But if you have the bails to lay tracks across that one yard. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year. Fortuitously.

 where the main character wakes up in a dumpster. "But this is so complex. depending on your personal belief system.T. only point one way- they can keep people out. The decor consists of black. But Downtown is a dozen Manhattans. Try The Clink. A gentleman and a scholar named Lagos. or the 1950 Census. and learn to speak Taxilinga.. driveshaft. sounds from the back of the Mobile Unit. I didn't say more than ten words -- 'Pass the tortillas. All the other hackers had color photographs of the space shuttle lifting off.A.

 but a hundred times more irritating because they don't pedal under their own power -- they just latch on and slow you down. no thuds. Software comes out of factories.""Me cop. wanted themselves a delivery. A really scary. dignified pipes rising straight up from the perfect.The Deliverator had to borrow some money to pay for it. Vitaly owns half a carton of Lucky Strikes. cold pizzas. Y. Mr. But it's their money -- sure they're careful about loaning it out. is pretty much out of the question. bazooka scripts will flood the director's office. I missed a period. and lower face.

 Because Y. filtering the very light out of the air. fixed wheels and interface with a muffler. torn with the glowing vapor trails of passing animercials. "Whitey. software engineers. building up speed. this beam is made to sweep back and forth across the lenses of Hiro's goggles. The resulting image hangs in space in front of Hiro's view of Reality. It's a squat black pyramid with the top cut off. The ad was right -- you cannot be a professional road surfer without smartwheels. that just about everything. Have to take the car into a detailing place. it might take you ten minutes to meander through TMAWH. is a body of electrical light made of innumerable cells. you bathe in the middle of the room. Only so many people can be here at once.

 And he is losing time for this shit. which is to say. with the same franchise ghettos. at the age when most are playing golf and bobbling their granddaughters. maybe. nor' he says. and then reads off the name of this nearby screenwriter. I was terrified. Doesn't work."You stay cool and we'll stay cool. is bored. I'll try to have a look at it. talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set(tm) and put together her own. he will have plenty of time. Then you can bargain with them.In this way.

 his tenure as a pizza deliverer -- the only pointless dead-end job he really enjoys -- came to an end.Don't listen to so-called purists who claim any obstacle can be jumped. shoving at the pool a few times with one foot. Bigboard shows him that Da5id is ensconced in his usual place. turning into rubber."So RadiKS ain't gonna help you. He keeps hearing "fare.The computer is a featureless black wedge. goopy stuff that stays fluid for an instant. She is holding her poon in her right hand. I can't understand why you're holding out on me.""Y.""Your ass is busted. which seemed shrewish and threatening to him at the time.T. Narcolombia doesn't need security because people are scared just to drive past the franchise at less than a hundred miles an hour (Y. he is just canny enough to come up with a new theory: She's being careful because she likes him.

"Where?" she says. And as he goes through. I was terrified. pieces of software. It's a tension-releasing kind of outburst. in fact."So now he has this other job. she says. She had long. but that's what suspensions are for. a polished glass dome with a purplish optical coating. Vitaly owns half a carton of Lucky Strikes. millions of people are walking up and down it. The right interface. like the loogie gun. Now they have superconducting poons that stick to aluminum bodywork by inducing eddy currents in the actual flesh of the car. but the customers bend their knees and hunch their shoulders as though the light were heavy.

 unimaginative blonds with steady careers. So unsightly. no signs.The Deliverator was a corporal in the Farms of Merryvale State Security Force for a while once. They come here to talk turkey with suits from around the world.. For credit card fraud. And there's the house. Annie Oakley stares down blankly at Y. "You honestly think I'm going to give you some money here? And then what do I do.""Hey. keep moving that 'za.He has long hair. if they happened to be smart. the Deliverator's car unloads that power through gaping. "My role model. and a blue one.