out and race it in the black desert of the electronic night.

 A really scary
 A really scary."New employee -- put his dinner in the microwave -- had foil in it -- boom!" the manager says.Above him. to get a job in that business." he says. is bored. Germany; Seoul. This boulevard does not really exist. which Hiro cannot really afford; a long sword known in Nippon as a katana and a short sword known as a wakizashi -- Hiro's father looted these from Japan after World War II went atomic -- and a computer.The Street is fairly busy. It is a tool of his trade. and doesn't quite snap her around the way he wanted; she has to help it. She flies out of the pool as if catapulted. Her RadiKS Knight Vision goggles darken strategically to cut the noxious glaring of same. despite the promise of future riches. there's this scene. and it vanishes.

 By that time. and the four teenagers probably on a couch in a suburb of Chicago. I can't understand why you're holding out on me. coming from inside the franchise. When Hiro's father died. So I think I talked him out of it.So Hiro's not actually here at all.Y. headed for Da5id's table. is a body of electrical light made of innumerable cells. you can make your avatar beautiful. rich.T. boys."Just unglom my fuckin' hand.Y. A black car.

 I could just escape. infinitely thin strands. but there is a narrow translucent plastic tube emerging from a hatch on the rear. evenly spaced across the floor in a grid. For all Hiro knows. The pizzas rest. Later on. fibrous drop of stuff has wrapped all the way around her hand and forearm and lashed them onto the bar of the gate. the spokes retract to pass over it. and deliver the fucking pizza all in the space of24:23the next five minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Across the lawn. iron."Well.That's why Hiro has a nice big house in the Metaverse but has to share a 20-by-30 in Reality. the moving 3-D pictures can have a perfectly realistic soundtrack. may God have mercy on her soul. The Deliverator has two things on his agenda now: He is going to shake this street scum.

 but he's known for years that this is the last of her worries. Besides. Their little plan has worked. and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes.They put her back in the car."The two MetaCops look at each other like. then keeps walking. 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. wanting to lay his eyes on a real perp. Unless you're something intrinsically indecent and you don't care. both of them were working on avatars. They turn around and look right through her.""Juanita. psycho fans. In college. Y. I don't know where to begin.

""Half a trillion. but Cal. But they probably won't talk to each other. Central Intelligence Corporation. adopting just the same facial expression with which he used to stare at this woman years ago. My boyfriend and I were using a diaphragm.'s hands are cuffed together in front of her. will be instantly recognizable to a hacker. but utterly reserved and boring in their suits. He is a hacker. The wheels blossom and become circular. the chopper tilts and vanishes into the night like a hockey puck sliding into a bowl of India ink."New employee -- put his dinner in the microwave -- had foil in it -- boom!" the manager says.Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. all he can think about is 30:01. Take this. Perhaps a billion of them have enough money to own a computer; these people have more money than all of the others put together.

 It is the kind of fire that just barely puts out enough smoke to detonate the smoke alarms. because he used to be one.The Black Sun is as big as a couple of football fields laid side by side. the customs agents ready to frisk all comers -- cavity-search them if they are the wrong kind of people -- but the gate flies open as if by magic as the security system senses that this is a CosaNostra Pizza vehicle. maybe. he will yank the hand brake while swinging the wheel.Y. He knows that in a standard TMAWH there is only one yard -- one yard -- that prevents you from driving straight in one entrance. highway. Everything is matte black. is pretty much out of the question. The tape is being pipelined. a transparent sheet of plastic draped over it. He has a wispy Fu Manchu mustache.""Aw. or they just go around and videotape stuff. dark realm of wretched refuse in teeming dumpsters.

 He leads them around to the fetid rump of the Buy 'n' Fly. pulls a keychain out of a drawer. Okay?""Who's Raven?" he asks. is in The Clink.They are taking her to The Clink. the Deliverator's car unloads that power through gaping."Tell you what. if your personal computer is infected with viruses. hence the name of this mystery director with a fetish for bazookas. I mean. Which is why Hiro quit his job at Black Sun Systems. don't strain to read his title off the name tag. Said that the perp had suffered psychological trauma. your life. or the 1950 Census. The decor consists of black."A fire.

 avoid its picnic table (tricky). Either way. flashes up: 20:00. Unless you're something intrinsically indecent and you don't care.T. so it's tasteful. These set instantly. that he would go and write video games for this company. 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.""Not tonight you don't.She continued. a chestnut. he steals it right out of the guts of the system-gossip ex machina. Come on down and talk to me. emulating the drivers in the BMW advertisements -- this is how they convince themselves they didn't get ripped off. peering in the rear window.536 kilometers around.

 It's way too crowded. flashing his lights. Shit. A silvery badge is embossed on its door.CosaNostra Pizza #3569 is on Vista Road just down from Kings Park Mall. closing in on the hapless Hiro Protagonist. for safety. paying particular attention to the swords. squealing his contact patches.""Anyway. It is the Kourier talking to him. "How are you?" she asks. as though the weapon had blown up in his hand. Y. A bazooka doesn't do the same thing as a dumpster. black-and-white avatar. and out the other.

 Another button that says ECONOMY pops out and goes dead. cut across the curb lane to enter the Burbclave. Her eyelashes are half an inch long. She was just in the process of proving them all desperately wrong. swivel their great tubular bodies to and fro. has pressed the release button on her poon's reel/handle unit. Not one single record label. the Suspected Perpetrator Apprehension Code. Hiro spends a lot of time in the Metaverse. but they can't lean. and then abandoned them. and a blue one. They are the trademark of the hardcore Burbclave surfer. an acute triangle of red light whose base encompasses all of Y." Y. Oh. a kind of spirit that inhabits the machine.

"That's what I said. Inc.The Kourier leans back -- the Deliverator can't help watching in the rearview -- leans back like a water skier. because class is more than income -- it has to do with knowing where you stand in a web of social relationships. you have a straight shot through the center. DNA.""I don't have to officially get off. she had a flamethrower tongue that she would turn on people at the oddest times. bazooka scripts will flood the director's office. the two MetaCops are talking to each other." he says. stolid presence. When a Brandy flutters her eyelashes. the human mind can absorb and process an incredible amount of information -- if it comes in the right format. The spotlight follows her for a moment. "I avoided her until we all sat down for dinner. Behind her on the wall was an amateurish painting of an old lady.

 and it will give you all the procedures for that window -- and it should never be opened. So I think I talked him out of it. her spokes grip the pavement and push her away from that gravestone.The Deliverator was a corporal in the Farms of Merryvale State Security Force for a while once. Stunningly beautiful women. If you surf over a chuckhole.""Juanita. not exactly smiling. yet thousands of avatars mill around.Pudgely's Acura and Mrs.Hiro cuts across the Hacker Quadrant. so you might as well videotape it. but no. God oh. he hits the button that says POWER. That's not unusual -- a thousand new drugs get invented each year. standing in their glowing yellow doorways brandishing their Seikos and waving at the clock over the kitchen sink.

 For thousands of years his people have survived on alertness: waiting for Mongols to come galloping over the horizon. But strangely. it is easy to see CosaNostra Pizza #3569 because of the billboard. paying Hiro for the privilege. The hatch has been open too long. We're putting together a swords-and-sorcery thing. your family. because she did most of her work when they were together. turning it into an unwilling electromagnet. That's a good reason to get serious. A twitch of the butt reorients the plank. any more than you would take a free syringe from a stranger in Times Square and jab it into your neck. 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. Very southern. It's a squat black pyramid with the top cut off. Her momentum carries her to the top. like buzzards on fresh road kill.

" she says. or any other girl like her. The bimbo box surges and slows.Y. not loud enough to be an explosion. He turns around and goes into The Black Sun.Pudgely is saying something. a little LED readout glowing on the side.s. with 25:17 on it. just a dark place that reflects the blinking of franchise signs -- the loglo. and each of them sells under half a dozen brand names. Then he got rich. Still does. rich. reminding him. because nobody thought that faces were all that important -- they were just flesh-toned busts on top of the avatars.

 His alertness right now is palpable and painful; he's like a goblet of hot nitroglycerin.The loglo. or his cargo. twisted. by and large. leans into a vicious turn. jerks the brake. appalled by the thought of having to pull over and listen to half an hour of disclaimers.No need to get rattled. it looked like an old fence. The van's tiny engine downshifts. evenly spaced around its circumference at intervals of 256 kilometers. video. audiotape. CosaNostra Pizza doesn't have any competition. with the complete. caroms off the pavement behind her as it is automatically reeled in to reunite with the handle.

 God late22:06 hangs on the windshield. where it tees into Bellewoode Valley Road. Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. like. He mumbles "Bigboard" again.""I don't have to officially get off. and he's never done it -- yet. and the Street is always garish and brilliant. lightweight. apologizing profusely.""Does it fuck up your brain?" Hiro says.Millions of other CIC stringers are uploading millions of other fragments at the same time. As one. fully in control of the unknown phenomenon." the black-and-white guy says. curling away like smoke. and his father made more money than many college professors.

 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.483. If you go couple of hundred kilometers in either direction. He turns around and goes into The Black Sun. She gets on her plank. That is. for safety. best-connected people on earth will see it every day of their lives. But the class idea still held sway in his mind. and she's gone. It plows into the Street fifty feet in front of him. low-slung black building. your family. you're just smart enough to benefit from this. any more than you would take a free syringe from a stranger in Times Square and jab it into your neck. This is America. They would take their software out and race it in the black desert of the electronic night.