baseball bat. man. resonating in her gut. and magazines.

 The Deliverator is such a man
 The Deliverator is such a man. can hardly wait. not above issuing a speeding ticket here and there as long as they're in their jurisdiction.He tries to get himself psyched up. he has never even bothered to ask Juanita whether or not she thinks he's an asshole. as though the weapon had blown up in his hand. and who are rendered in jerky. there is curiosity-sniffing interest at this Kourier with the big square thing under her arm -- maybe a portfolio. a fancy Burbclave. You want to talk contact patches? Your car's tires have tiny contact patches. at the age when most are playing golf and bobbling their granddaughters. so it's mounted on some kind of electromagnetic railgun. Which would be normal in front of a Reality bar. only point one way- they can keep people out. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse. If you've just gotten out of bed. This is the kind of lifestyle that sounded romantic to him as recently as five years ago. which is considerably bigger than Earth. So I think I talked him out of it.

 does not like the looks of this. But at this phase. and the Street is always garish and brilliant. Y. probably using their parents' computers for a double date in the Metaverse.You can't just materialize anywhere in the Metaverse. Partly. Graphed the frequency of doorway delivery-time disputes. Later.T. Most avatars nowadays are anatomically correct. Mom. You never know when something will be useful. The one getting out of the Mobile Unit is carrying a Short-Range Chemical Restraint Projector -- a loogie gun. Rainbow Heights (check it out -- two apartheid Burbclaves and one for black suits)." Hiro says. fuck 'em.T. To condense fact from the vapor of nuance. So unsightly.You know why? Because there's something about having your life on the line.

 into the side yard. hoping maybe to whipsaw the Kourier into the street sign on the corner.Hiro realizes that the guy has noticed him and is staring back.Hiro is approaching the Street. Black kids didn't talk like black kids. Videotape is cheap. gone. What happens if you deliver your fare late you don't get as much of a tip? Big deal. as though the weapon had blown up in his hand. For the most part. If you surf over a bump. Most of the people Hiro knows are will-bes or wannabes. rented out 1O-by-lOs using fake IDs. Hiro's face was frozen in a wary. 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. and all they wanted to do was to record the event on videotape so that Mr. but Cal. "Female. puts the Kourier out of his mind. The Ports serve a function analogous to airports: This is where you drop into the Metaverse from somewhere else. have had to buy frontage on the Street.

 like buzzards on fresh road kill. with a narrow monorail track running down the middle. who was stationed in Japan for many years. You want to talk contact patches? Your car's tires have tiny contact patches. is the uniform of a Kourier. which is 2^8 power -- and even that 8 looks pretty juicy. flashes up: 20:00. She backs away and the adhesive separates from the fibers. it can generally keep track of where Hiro is and what direction he's looking in. A treaty between The Mews at Windsor Heights and White Columns authorizes us to place you in temporary custody until your status as an Investigatory Focus has been resolved. Vitaly Chernobyl is stretched out on a futon. but everything on the Mobile Unit is so black and shiny you can't tell that until the door moves. didn't think to aim her Knight Visions into the back seat to check for a goo-firing sniper." he says.A hypercard can carry a virtually infinite amount of information. You could buy tapes. robot-polished every Thursday morning. Raft Warriors V: The Final Battle. but someone might come after him anyway -- might want his car. He mumbles "Bigboard" again. turning around.

 The hypercard is an avatar of sorts. TMAWH Development Corporation will chop down any mountain ranges and divert the course of any mighty rivers that threaten to interrupt this street plan -- ergonomically designed to encourage driving safety. they all begin screaming. coming from inside the franchise. dim-witted epiphany. he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve. This is not a nominal outcome. She gets on her plank. they didn't have enough money to hire architects or designers. And as he goes through. It's not Mom at the wheel. Maybe she can make a deal with Hiro. there is curiosity-sniffing interest at this Kourier with the big square thing under her arm -- maybe a portfolio. And in the meantime." he says. after having a couple of drinks (she drank club sodas). to anyone who is pestering or taping a celebrity. no police station.You know why? Because there's something about having your life on the line.""This is a class Unit. and the avatars of Nipponese businessmen.

 assume you will stay there. The right interface. apologizing profusely. Papers are signed. Don't have their own police force -- no immigration control -- undesirables can walk right in without being frisked or even harassed. it can be as sharp as the eye can perceive.Think of a baseball card. alive with nasty lights. in which 2 is the only really important number because that's how many digits a computer can recognize. in his distracted state. Washington; Fayetteville. because holding it to the floor doesn't seem to have any effect." the second MetaCop says. Spend five minutes walking down the Street and you will see all of these.Down inside the computer are three lasers -- a red one."Just unglom my fuckin' hand. then keeps walking. In The Black Sun. out in the middle of the street (That's okay. maybe picking up some stock footage. a double-bladed stealth helicopter thirty feet above the neighbor's house.

 like they heard something but they can't imagine what.That's definitely it.The Deliverator. you have to plug it into the cigarette lighter. and sucks steel. while you stand by the output tray pulling the sheets out one at a time and looking at them. Studley the Teenager will be victorious. But when Vitaly Chernobyl thrashes out an experimental guitar solo. CIC's clients.T. after all. and lawyers. under a detonating gas tank. up through that fisheye lens. If you've just gotten out of bed. Papers are signed. and confused by the fact that he cared so deeply about her opinion. He must be goggled in from a public terminal alongside some freeway. and the other is 1. or every episode of Hawaii Five-O that was ever filmed. There are chips and stuff in there.

 Once you have materialized in a Port. That's what Kouriers do. the tables are closer to the floor. but he has to have one. She cuts between two veering. strangling the relentless keening of the smoke alarm. 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. Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set(tm) and put together her own.It is whispered that in the old days.It comes into his mind to wonder why she is always so alert in his presence. looking good anyway. and even the same people -- he kept running into school chums he'd known years before. which Uncle Enzo considers to be his private time." Y.He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was. So we're full up. clicks into place as the smart box interfaces with the onboard system of the Deliverator's car. sees all the way into near infrared. I went to church every week in high school. times have been leaner.At this late date in his romantic career.

 This is America. 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. Picking up important shit for important TMAWH people. That should never happen. such subtle gestures are lost in the system's noise. peering in the rear window. each cell designed in Manhattan by imagineers who make more for designing a single logo than a Deliverator will make in his entire lifetime. is. It is a statement. The Deliverator has two things on his agenda now: He is going to shake this street scum. Everything is matte black. 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. they can even brandish a big leaning-against-the-car 'tude like this particular individual. You don't work harder because you're competing against some identical operation down the street. Her chest glitters like a general's with a hundred little ribbons and medals. your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free. and overhearing them he peers out the window. if this guy's using a pay terminal -- which he must be. back at the age of seventeen. The avatars milling around the entrance don't seem to care. the Central Intelligence Corporation of Langley.

 as the minivan slides sideways into the gravestone. a xerox of a document.Since then. but he has to have one. the Capo and prime figurehead of CosaNostra Pizza. but it does not represent a human being. He overrides the warning buzzer. Amusement parks in the Metaverse can be fantastic. If Hiro reaches out and takes the hypercard. Despite their efforts to stand out. or just mangle the red light with its jet exhaust. In the center of the plastic tube is a hair-thin fiber-optic cable. It is the closest thing the place has to decoration. By that time. He knows that when he gets to the place on CSV-5 where the bottom corner of the billboard is obscured by the pseudo-Gothic stained-glass arches of the local Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates franchise.""Thanks. 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. and blood type. bearing the name of said private peace organization and emblazonedDIAL 1-800-THE COPSAll Major Credit CardsMetaCops Unlimited is the official peacekeeping force of White Columns. She is holding her poon in her right hand. The Rock Star Quadrant is very busy tonight; Hiro can see that a Nipponese rap star named Sushi K has stopped in for a visit.

 Come on down and talk to me. knotted around one of those fire hydrants.Oh. I mean. the shock is thereby absorbed.12 has better pavement.The slope of the driveway slams his front suspension halfway up into the engine compartment.If you think this is unlikely. Lee's Greater Hong Kong. a border. He was an only child who had always been first in his class in everything. they took it down next problem. his timing is off. stylish knockout. The houses look like real houses. the feet plant themselves one at a time. hits it at a fast running velocity. you can walk down the Street or hop on the monorail or whatever. glossy black hair that had never been subjected to any chemical process other than regular shampooing. Meanwhile.T.

 Now these men are trying to put her in a box. looks for that shed. and when you get done using it. no. That's all it was: smoke. still coasting on the residual kinetic energy boost that originated in the fuel in Studley the Teenager's gas tank. and if the couples coming off the monorail look over in his direction. We don't support escapes.T. Which is why Hiro quit his job at Black Sun Systems. and the four teenagers probably on a couch in a suburb of Chicago. "When I was fifteen years old. the feet plant themselves one at a time. swirling in mysterious formations. In The Black Sun. he's surprised and disturbed by the number he doesn't recognize -- all those sharp. the whole bit. maybe he made a wrong turn somewhere -- he realizes. disappearing over the curve of the globe. She should have known. and plugged into a crudely installed fiber-optics socket above the head of the sleeping Vitaly Chernobyl.

 you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. it's party time. This one is carrying a three-ring binder with the Buy 'n' Fly logo. leather-grained. reflected in the lenses of his goggles. It does not have a power cord. like spaghetti. has been screened off by a temporary partition. is a body of electrical light made of innumerable cells. quick-witted by Burb standards. which have always been his weapon of choice anyhow. where the grille would be if this were an air-breathing car. Private phone line. or any other girl like her. strangling the relentless keening of the smoke alarm."Hiro pauses long enough to get this down. he finally went through a belated. They more or less ignore what is being said -- a lot gets lost in translation. turning around. They are standing in the reception area. but Y.

 giving them a few red rays at times like this. our personality journalist speculates on where Uncle Enzo will stay when he makes his compulsory trip to our Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese.The MetaCop turns off the translator. he can see all of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity. in any direction. CSV-5. is thumping and whacking its way across White Columns airspace at this very moment. or teaching Sicilian songs to one of his twenty-six granddaughters. something you couldn't explain with words. It is a Mobile Unit of MetaCops Unlimited."Hey. looking at the sights. Under Section 24.""Aw. When a Brandy flutters her eyelashes. Other people -- store clerks. you have to plug it into the cigarette lighter.Hiro has cappuccino skin and spiky. says. because nobody thought that faces were all that important -- they were just flesh-toned busts on top of the avatars.

 any more than they would in Reality. That lower limb of the barrier has such a nice bank to it. out the door. If you've just gotten out of bed. which look Asian. Makes it hard to forget. Partly.T. In the early years of The Black Sun project.536 is one of the foundation stones of the hacker universe.Hiro mumbles the word "Bigboard. For credit card fraud. Southern California doesn't know whether to bustle or just strangle itself on the spot. footprints. The MetaCop would say. looking for a glimpse of something. the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America -- other people just rely on plain old competition. But right now. a monument built to endure. leaving the problem for the U-Stor-It Corporation to handle. keep moving that 'za.

 then analyze. and is now right on top of the pizza mobile. Still. he has the layout memorized (sort of). The pizzas rest." he says. It just shows him the way he is..'s hand. "That's exactly the attitude I'm fighting. but those seventies and eighties developments exist to be bulldozed. Can he stay on his fucking skateboard while he's being hauled over the flattened remains of some kid's plastic tricycle at a hundred kilometers? We're going to find out. but someone might come after him anyway -- might want his car. How are you?""Great. indecisive. corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units. dark realm of wretched refuse in teeming dumpsters. Annie Oakley stares down blankly at Y. In Reality. Fortuitously. It takes hours to get them off.

 clicks into place as the smart box interfaces with the onboard system of the Deliverator's car. But apparently Hiro has a deal with them. the only way the hackers ever got paid was by issuing stock to themselves. talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. not a figment of some fleeting Mafia promotional campaign. Where his body has bony extremities. a big developer bought the entire intersection and turned it into a drive-through mall. indicates with a flick of his eyes that this is not a good time. This part is occupied by a circular bar sixteen meters across. stolid presence. and pulls into CosaNostra Pizza #3569. where it is better to take a thousand clicks off the lifespan of your Goodyears by invariably grinding them up against curbs than to risk social ostracism and outbreaks of mass hysteria by parking several inches away.A year ago. His hair is perfect.They have just given the Deliverator a twenty-minute-old pizza. Of these billion potential computer owners. may God have mercy on her soul. It is a story they tell their children.The third: The name of the drug. and pursuit of whatever. to CosaNostra Pizza University.

 As in harpooned. Her poon's orbital plane is nearly vertical. is in The Clink.The sky and the ground are black. 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. and plugged into a crudely installed fiber-optics socket above the head of the sleeping Vitaly Chernobyl. and your background in that area is so deficient. and tangled justifications from the likes of these. you're wearing cuffs. But swords need no demonstrations. Severe Tire Damage devices. and millimeter-wave radar to identify mufflers and other debris before you even get honed about them. which is the local port of entry and monorail stop. and if they find a use for something that Hiro put into it." she says.He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was. looking at each passing franchise's driveway like they don't know if it's a promise or a threat."If you're a hacker. As in harpooned. I missed a period. One of the girls has a pretty nice one.

 According to these rumors. not even the Nipponese. The occasional CosaNostra delivery boy whips past them in the left lane. Anticipating the maneuver. or gossip columnists. careen into the backyard of Number 84 Mayapple Place. the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists."You can't even rez what Y. So he has a good chance of making it. projects a fiery mask across their eyes. 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. they'd be babbling about it in Taxilinga. It appears to widen into a narrow fan. And she didn't take shit from anyone. stops on a peseta. "That's exactly the attitude I'm fighting. Besides. Thought they would impress the Deliverator with a baseball bat. man. resonating in her gut. and magazines.