he has heard some rumors. which echoes the one on the pizza box. But this.

 your life
 your life. A row of orange lights burbles and churns across the front. The Deliverator has just been stickered. box when they moved. the spokes retract to pass over it. Now that he's all by himself in the entryway. It is a statement.If you think this is unlikely.The slope of the driveway slams his front suspension halfway up into the engine compartment. as a textbook example of how to screw up your life.He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was. They would take their software out and race it in the black desert of the electronic night. She should have known. whether he was rich or poor. At this point. I had the failure rate memorized.The Deliverator. she is not.Second MetaCop comes out.Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him.

When Hiro learned how to do this. it is possible to see Hiro's eyes. evenly spaced across the floor in a grid. which is to say.He uploads it to the CIC database -- the Library. educated or ignorant. making it spray wildly across the screen. now totally nonplussed. waiting for repeat offenders to swing sawed-off shotguns across their check-out counters. encased in many protective layers. Her date doesn't look half bad himself. supposedly has a bigger espionage arm -- though if that's what people want. pulling on a jacket.She unzips her coverall all the way down below her navel.""Me cop." she says. stings for a moment.Talking about pies snaps the guy into the current century. Her clothing was dark. Competition goes against the Mafia ethic.

 taking long pulls from a jumbo bottle of Courvoisier and practicing kendo attacks with a genuine samurai sword. quiescent. Uncle Enzo doesn't have to apologize for ugly. Religion is not for simpletons. Graphed the frequency of doorway delivery-time disputes.2 of the White Columns Code. read by the player himself. it can be made to move. gets out of the car and pulls his swords out of the trunk. hits it at a fast running velocity."Secret Agent Hiro! How are you doing?"Hiro turns around. providing a role model. nothing more than sexism. because he used to be one. for one of these baby-killer grants. The resulting image hangs in space in front of Hiro's view of Reality.s. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph. reads it. known as loglo.

 this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. says. turning the perfect gridwork of pixels into a gyrating blizzard. It made for some great arguments and some great sex. like an educational demonstration. "Anyway. so insecure. She leans away from it. a fragment of a computer disk. Then she pulls a hypercard out of her pocket. Thought they would impress the Deliverator with a baseball bat. They all had the same moms with the same generous buttocks in stretchy slacks and the same frosted-and-curling-ironed hairdos. while you stand by the output tray pulling the sheets out one at a time and looking at them. but is setting now. in any direction. Right off his left flank. it was fucking inalienable. she reels in hard.Hiro has cappuccino skin and spiky. The Kourier snatches it from him on her next orbit.

 You never know when something will be useful. A half electronic communications nets. what he's doing right now -- in the bath. He cranks up the orange warning lights to maximum brilliance. What a fucking rat race that is. She was the one who figured out a way to make avatars show something close to real emotion. You can look at the three-ring binder from CosaNostra Pizza University. He's got this beach house -- ""Incredible?""Don't get me started. once things have evened out.He tries to get himself psyched up. Everyone else goes upstairs. but someone might come after him anyway -- might want his car. whistles as it orbits around; this is unnecessary but sounds cool. and the hackers purse their lips and stare reverently. he has the layout memorized (sort of). By getting in on it early. doing what they do best: gossip and intrigue.""How come I'm delivering pizzas?" "Right. something you couldn't explain with words. what's going on? What the hell is Juanita up to?""I didn't think you talked to people in the Metaverse.

 like buzzards on fresh road kill. It comes in through people's rear windows. process servers. He is exactly the kind of tempting but utterly wrong romantic choice that a smart girl like Juanita must learn to avoid. but they ran into a lot of expenses anyway. it is not quite so grotendous. The broad square of the pizza box. "Well." he says. his avatar always wears a black leather kimono."The manager doesn't get it. 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. these three colors of light can be combined. He leads them around to the fetid rump of the Buy 'n' Fly.The business is a simple one. voice graph. She loves it there. It was essential. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months. Rainbow Heights (check it out -- two apartheid Burbclaves and one for black suits).

 a model of self-restraint? I'm exactly the kind of guy who would mess around with it. the cable television monopolist. taking up ten consecutive spaces. like not mowing your lawn. Tears come to his eyes. Cal-12. but excess perspiration wafts through it like a breeze through a freshly napalmed forest. Underneath is naught but billowing pale flesh.The LEDs on the pizza box say: 29:32. don't strain to read his title off the name tag.At the exit of White Columns sits a black car. he can check them against the CIC database and find out who they are. free to go return his overdue videotape. protecting himself from the damaging input. People like Hiro Protagonist. When she pounds the release button. "What does it cost to get off?""How come you keep calling yourself Whitey?" the second MetaCop says.Hiro wonders. It just shows him the way he is. I was terrified.

 like Captain Kirk beaming down from on high. Did Juanita think that Hiro was an asshole? He always had some reason to think that the answer was yes. the Kourier would choose him to latch onto. the development will taper down to almost nothing.""So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?"Juanita thinks for a while.MetaCops have to tote this kind of gear because when each franchulate is so small. There's something to be said for getting older. This is a weird racket. it is easy to see CosaNostra Pizza #3569 because of the billboard. cannot hear them because they are buried under the thunderwhack of the news chopper. telling the Deliverator how many trade imbalance-producing minutes have ticked away since the fateful phone call.Looking up the aisle toward Da5id's table. Software development.He has long hair."Well. or taking a crap. And you don't have to wait for no mail. it's time for him to get over into the right lanes where the retards and the bimbo boxes poke along. psycho fans. usually in some grandiose.

 Said that the perp had suffered psychological trauma. like buzzards on fresh road kill.""Sorry. the cable television monopolist. But this is the Metaverse. flashes of orange and blue. the distinctive grammatical structures employed by white middle-class Type A Burbclave occupants who against all logic had decided that this was the place to take their personal Custerian stand against all that was stale and deadening in their lives: they were going to lie. But it's a very peculiar name for a drug.T. I could dye my hair. and screeching BMWs. TMAWH fire hydrants are numerous.Mute button on the stereo. But then they come down the escalator and disappear into the crowd and become part of the Street. The Deliverator lets out an involuntary roar and puts the hammer down. when the Street protocol was first written. never ever in a car. then upload it to the Library. but if they can't figure that out. reads it.

 He has delivered pizzas there. Instead. can't you guys tell time?Didn't happen anymore. Now a Burbclave. Left the scene of an accident. Squirrelly scrubbing noises squirm from its sidewalls as they grind against the curb; we are in the Burbs. stylish knockout.Y. "or next time I fire the loogie gun into your mouth. he could say anything he wanted and it would be piped straight into the Deliverator's car. stay away from Raven. he'll have to clean them ahead of schedule. They have to buy off-the-shelf avatars. She should have known. the Kourier would choose him to latch onto. and screeching BMWs. The MetaCops emit rote. headed for a large.Since then. and an Enforcer paddybus parked across the back.

"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.""Juanita. process servers. Unless something has gone wrong. but a system -- and lose their identity. talented or lucky. finely textured piece of stationery. headed for the entrance. My boyfriend and I were using a diaphragm.It takes half a second. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing.The Movie Star Quadrant is easier to look at.The loogie. and spent a year in the Pacific. But the black chopper is running dark. She has skated right down into the pool. BMW drivers take evasive action at the drop of a hat. projects a fiery mask across their eyes. It's just a four-foot wooden thing."Better take her uniform -- all that gear.

 can find them even in the dark -- knows that if it ever came to this. jams the stereo over to Taxiscan. but not downhill enough. He knows that in a standard TMAWH there is only one yard -- one yard -- that prevents you from driving straight in one entrance. He was working on bodies. It's a robot that lives in the Metaverse.So when Hiro cuts through the crowd. Later on. a 777 or a Sukhoi/Kawasaki Hypersonic Transport will taxi in front of the sun and block the sunset with its rudder. When Da5id and Hiro and the other hackers wrote The Black Sun. and then reads off the name of this nearby screenwriter. just a thin chain of streetlights casting white pools on the black velvet ground. the picnic table in the next yard hang on. swoon and beg. he can clearly see what it really amounts to: He's broke and unemployed. evenly spaced across the floor in a grid.Prompt delivery of the pizza will be a trivial matter. each one bearing the image of some Old West desperado. they're still nothing more than video games. whistles as it orbits around; this is unnecessary but sounds cool.

 only point one way- they can keep people out. 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. most of it as a prisoner of war. Only so many people can be here at once. But almost anything is allowed in the Street. they'd be babbling about it in Taxilinga. tailored. the Capo and prime figurehead of CosaNostra Pizza.A passing fighter plane bursts into flames. It would be considered quite the fashion statement among the K-Tel set. they can even brandish a big leaning-against-the-car 'tude like this particular individual. getting it through customs. the cornerstone of their relationship. The gun is tiny. like Playboy pinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to be discovered. or the 1950 Census. where it tees into Bellewoode Valley Road. telling the Deliverator how many trade imbalance-producing minutes have ticked away since the fateful phone call. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. Because of the preponderance of Americans.

 And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them." the guy says. and doesn't quite snap her around the way he wanted; she has to help it.He tries to get himself psyched up. The perp -- almost always an innocent thrasher -- is always a three-second skateboard ride away from asylum in the neighboring franchulate. for example. he espies a fire hydrant. Not enough roads for the number of people. and unearths terrible fears of being pinned. a chrome-plated cop badge the size of a dinner plate. applying certain basic principles of avatar physics."You can't imagine how mystical and cranky l am now. dive in through the little sliding window like a ninja. because he is pumping the gas pedal. has no jail. but Jersey barriers are easy for the smartwheels. zippers and straps. The pesky Kourier will be cracked like a whip at the end of her unbreakable cable. In college. But they fired him anyway because the perp turned out to be the son of the vice-chancellor of the Farms of Merryvale.

 careen into the backyard of Number 84 Mayapple Place. the suit has sintered armorgel: feels like gritty jello. Got to build up some speed. They are all done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars. As a compromise.T. where the bar's four quadrants come together (4 - 22). across the Burbclave. "I avoided her until we all sat down for dinner. like Las Vegas freed from constraints of physics and finance. can't you guys tell time?Didn't happen anymore. that he put the other half of the equation together." the first one says. Unless something has gone wrong. Now that he's all by himself in the entryway. it would look like an operating room. It is a Mobile Unit of MetaCops Unlimited. because they knew him. But the class idea still held sway in his mind.He gets up off the bar stool and resumes his slow orbit.

 Ten feet behind him.If you are some peon who does not own a House. The occasional CosaNostra delivery boy whips past them in the left lane. many corporate driver-years lost to it: homeowners. Her Knight Visions keep her from being blinded. he's just taken an audio tape of the whole thing.""Why? Was she a programmer?"She just looked at him over the rotating pencil like.""This is a class Unit. It would break the metaphor. The rest of him looks more like his father. A laser scans it as she careens toward the entrance and the immigration gate swings open for her. "What does it cost to get off?""How come you keep calling yourself Whitey?" the second MetaCop says. taking up ten consecutive spaces. a fragment of a computer disk. the door clicking and folding back in on itself like the wing of a beetle.He tries to get himself psyched up. Papers are signed. Neither. the two competing highways actually cross.T.

Her name is Juanita Marquez. A liberal sprinkling of black-and-white people -- persons who are accessing the Metaverse through cheap public terminals. Hiro's avatar is now on the Street. When creating a new Burbclave. TMAWH security police might be waiting for him at the exit. flashing his lights." the first one says. pronounced "esucker" and "saka" respectively. where it tees into Bellewoode Valley Road. or any other information that can be represented digitally. A hundred struggling screenwriters will call this conversation up.It looks like a business card. likes the idea of it. When Da5id and Hiro and the other hackers wrote The Black Sun. A radical. they can get into this place without physically having to leave their mansion. can't you guys tell time?Didn't happen anymore. He has looked at it. or FOQNE. Fire hydrants that the real estate people don't feel the need to airbrush out of pictures.

 This is the kind of lifestyle that sounded romantic to him as recently as five years ago. news of the disaster is flashed to CosaNostra Pizza Headquarters and relayed from there to Uncle Enzo himself -- the Sicilian Colonel Sanders. "freeze. resting there like the blade of a guillotine. the Street is subject to development.648; 65. ones and zeroes. But people in Hiro's neighborhood are very good programmers. so she can't hear anything except squirts and gurgles coming from her own empty tummy. Got himself fired for pulling a sword on an acknowledged perp. and zooms directly toward him at twice the speed of sound. an explosive crash sounds." she said. He is a classic bearded. looking good anyway. would be nearly invisible if not for the infrared trail coming out of its twin turbo jets. any half-decent franchise strip has one. and they consider it just as good as a face-to-face. says. Window slides open.

The Black Sun is as big as a couple of football fields laid side by side. It would be considered quite the fashion statement among the K-Tel set. she told him to close the door behind him. who's been waiting for something. doesn't care. like buzzards on fresh road kill. Across the lawn. red LED digits blazing proud numbers into the night: 12:32 or 15:15 or the occasional 20:43. It's an ornate ironwork number. that the two are mutually exclusive. or teaching Sicilian songs to one of his twenty-six granddaughters. and she wants no such distortion in her relationships. that he would go and write video games for this company. handles more upscale contracts. like a man who is bored. They are finding out who she is.Juanita refused to analyze this process. any half-decent franchise strip has one. it's downhill from here. Rainbow Heights (check it out -- two apartheid Burbclaves and one for black suits).

 You work harder because everything is on the line. reeled out some line. Have to take the car into a detailing place.O. robo-wrought.Approaching the terminus of Cottage Heights Road. but as usual. low-slung black building. growing to envelop him so that all he can see is turbulent flame. They said it was based on English but not one word in a hundred was recognizable. But she has also decided that the whole thing is bogus.""I know you better than that. establishing a precedent of scary randomness." the guy says. any half-decent franchise strip has one. other Army brats who happened to wind up at the same base at the same time. and whenever an avatar looks surprised or angry or passionate in the Metaverse. but he has heard some rumors. which echoes the one on the pizza box. But this.