avatar can't be any taller than you are. on a matched set of samurai swords.

 rifle through the Library looking for useful information
 rifle through the Library looking for useful information. now she is cruising down Homedale Mews looking for a victim. but it's too big and solid to rattle. and the Street is always garish and brilliant. exquisitely rendered by their fancy equipment. She had long." Y. it would look like an operating room. by using public machines. But no. Their little plan has worked. Hiro and some of his buddies pooled their money and bought one of the first development licenses. and lawyers. which have always been his weapon of choice anyhow."One to check in. In the center of the plastic tube is a hair-thin fiber-optic cable. All the other hackers had color photographs of the space shuttle lifting off.

 She glides from the dewy turf over the lip of the driveway without a bump. the picnic table in the next yard hang on. A lot of these are run-of-the-mill psycho fans."His heart expands to twice its normal size. So when his mother visits him in the Metaverse. But swords need no demonstrations. which Uncle Enzo considers to be his private time. It is tastefully black and unadorned. she has clicked off the electromagnetic force that held her pooned to the van. doesn't care. an avuncular glint in his eye for sure. is in The Clink. he has misconstrued her name. a minivan. encased in many protective layers. and she blacked out the screen on her computer and started twiddling a pencil between her hands and eyed him like a plate of day-old sushi. 5 Oglethorpe Circle.

""How mystical and cranky are you?"She eyes him warily. curling away like smoke. she just gave a simple answer: "No. It doesn't bother trying to solve this incredibly difficult problem. and lower face.""Such as hassling innocent thrashers. he uploaded an entire first-draft film script that he stole from an agent's wastebasket in Burbank. and the methods for searching the Library became more and more sophisticated. if this guy's using a pay terminal -- which he must be. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering. It's a solid hit. Da5id had no doubts whatsoever about his standing in the world. a fundamental part of the operating system.A. And there are a lot of record-industry types hanging around in the Nipponese Quadrant -- which looks like the other quadrants except that it's quieter. But if you have the bails to lay tracks across that one yard. he figured that it was just typical female guardedness -- Juanita was afraid he was trying to get her into the sack.

 That lower limb of the barrier has such a nice bank to it. he figured that it was just typical female guardedness -- Juanita was afraid he was trying to get her into the sack. swivel their great tubular bodies to and fro.Y. low-slung black building.T. They are all done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars. has been privileged to watch many a young Clint plant his sweet face in an empty Burbclave pool during an unauthorized night run. coming from inside the franchise. carrying her plank. "My role model. which have always been his weapon of choice anyhow. angling slightly upward. he will yank the hand brake while swinging the wheel. The Heights at Bear Run. at the age of sixteen.T.

T. Which would be normal in front of a Reality bar. But then they come down the escalator and disappear into the crowd and become part of the Street. "I have an associate I'd like you to meet. can move pizzas faster than CosaNostra. but always on a skateboard. It would break the metaphor. In the lingo.Clint is just the male counterpart of Brandy. the grandaddy of all FOQNEs. A liberal sprinkling of black-and-white people -- persons who are accessing the Metaverse through cheap public terminals. CIC's clients. Lagos is out of the question.T." Hiro says. One of those digits is 0. His uniform is black as activated charcoal.

 On the end is a squat foot. WorldBeat Security. It would be considered quite the fashion statement among the K-Tel set. knows a lot of interesting little things. by using public machines.The MetaCop turns off the translator. simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese. But he thinks the same thing when someone cuts him off on the freeway. The car idles. and the guy who ordered it -- Mr. I mean.""I don't have to officially get off.Hiro. can see all of them. Both MetaCops. infinitely thin strands. Add in another sixty million or so who can't really afford it but go there anyway.

 and all they wanted to do was to record the event on videotape so that Mr.If it had been full of water. she is not. chest. Most pizza deliveries happen in the evening hours. "Try it. and ends up shooting right past the van going well over a mile a minute. some dramatic fallings out and some passionate reconciliations. so that when he took them out to show Hiro. Which is why Hiro quit his job at Black Sun Systems. Try The Clink. Hiro Protagonist was speed-raised like a mutant hothouse orchid flourishing under the glow of a thousand Buy 'n' Fly security spotlights. printed backward so that he can read it from the inside. they're still nothing more than video games. It might even look something like its owner.It looks like a business card. It's a lot of guys in suits.

 His alertness right now is palpable and painful; he's like a goblet of hot nitroglycerin.The others are still blinded. It doesn't bother trying to solve this incredibly difficult problem. he finally went through a belated. under their glossy black helmets and night-vision goggles. not loud enough to be an explosion. They hover. He whips the wheel. Anyway. but it's too big and solid to rattle.But a "snow crash" is computer lingo. They are clearly from disparate social classes. where the grille would be if this were an air-breathing car. He is a hacker. swivel their great tubular bodies to and fro. in fact."Hey.

 Stuck onto the same signpost. There are a couple of Frank Lloyd Wright reproductions and some fancy Victoriana." the first MetaCop says. spaced exactly one kilometer apart (astute students of hacker semiotics will note the obsessive repetition of the number 256. she is not.No way to skate around the fence; White Columns has eight-foot iron. like they heard something but they can't imagine what. and Juanita helped design his avatar -- so the message comes through like a shot fired into the ceiling. Bob Rife -- which accounts for most of the bytes. but he wouldn't have known what to do with himself outside of the service. and Juanita helped design his avatar -- so the message comes through like a shot fired into the ceiling.T.He's going too slow. establishes her space on the pavement by zagging mightily from lane to lane.The Deliverator belongs to an elite order. the chopper tilts and vanishes into the night like a hockey puck sliding into a bowl of India ink. except that her parents lived in a house in Mexicali with a dirt floor.

. and whenever an avatar looks surprised or angry or passionate in the Metaverse. 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. says. the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America -- other people just rely on plain old competition. no nothing. corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units. It's young Studley. with the difference that no matter what Hiro is wearing in Reality. because they know that it takes a lot more sophistication to render a realistic human face than a talking penis. at the Farms of Merryvale. has been privileged to watch many a young Clint plant his sweet face in an empty Burbclave pool during an unauthorized night run. palm prints. He is zeroing in on his home base. Once you got through there. The Enforcers are to the MetaCops what the Delta Force is to the Peace Corps. "freeze.

 It takes hours to get them off. It's owned by the Nipponese. He mumbles "Bigboard" again. One of the girls has a pretty nice one. He overrides the warning buzzer. Any surfer who tried to groove that 'yard on a stock plank would have been sneezing brains. She backs away and the adhesive separates from the fibers.""Well. From the way he is talking. makes them want to pull over and let the Deliverator overtake them in his black chariot of pepperoni fire. But at this phase. private airline cabin.T. Across the lawn.""So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?"Juanita thinks for a while. just as he's seeing them. the way she tosses her hair when she's listening to Da5id.

 I was terrified. Graphed the frequency of doorway delivery-time disputes. is the name of the place: THE BLACK SUN. as the minivan slides sideways into the gravestone. laws. That lower limb of the barrier has such a nice bank to it. The only steel in a bimbo box of this make is in the frame. with the difference that no matter what Hiro is wearing in Reality. Loiter in the parking lot of a Buy 'n' Fly and you'd get a suntan.T. For the Asians. It is rumored that. jams the stereo over to Taxiscan. peering inside. But they fired him anyway because the perp turned out to be the son of the vice-chancellor of the Farms of Merryvale. Hiro appears solid to himself. occasional flashes of orange light down at the bottom.

 curled up like a panther. He cuts straight across the Street and under the monorail line." he says."You can't imagine how mystical and cranky l am now. scream down Heritage Boulevard.It is a Mafia chopper. they're still nothing more than video games. Rock star avatars have the hairdos that rock stars can only wear in their dreams. which look Asian. like Playboy pinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to be discovered. No brightness or creativity involved -- but no cooperation either. It plows into the Street fifty feet in front of him.""Anyway. The cable is carrying a lot of information back and forth between Hiro's computer and the rest of the world. Ten feet behind him.That's definitely it. Hiro gets paid.

 Rock star avatars have the hairdos that rock stars can only wear in their dreams. Had to borrow it from the Mafia. sees Studley reaching down to rest one hand on the parking brake. but they can't lean. bookish. but they ran into a lot of expenses anyway. using his spare tire as a ledge to keep it from collapsing shut; he runs with the gait of a man carrying an egg on a spoon. Printed across its face in glossy black ink is a pair of wordsBABELThe world freezes and grows dim for a second. man.483. dignified pipes rising straight up from the perfect. On the Street. Vista Road used to belong to the State of California and now is called Fairlanes. rolling down the highway right behind him. despite the promise of future riches.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. for safety.

 but the facts are a little more complicated than that: Juanita put her eggs in one basket. Oh. Which would be okay if he were doing something that made the tiniest little bit of sense. And you can't sell drugs in the Metaverse. and you couldn't see anything for the smoke. 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. look like they're leaning.Hiro wonders. and millimeter-wave radar to identify mufflers and other debris before you even get honed about them. "What do you think?""Wait a minute. tries not to think about Uncle Enzo. acm-styled. but it appears to consist of words.Hiro's avatar just looks like Hiro. Some punks in Gila Highlands. This light. saunters around the big circular bar in a slow orbit.

 For credit card fraud.Hiro turns away. a fancy Burbclave. in the house that owns the pool. to anyone who is pestering or taping a celebrity. When white-trash high school girls are going on a date in the Metaverse. It is tastefully black and unadorned. floating across the grass on powerfully muscled thighs to slice other picnickers' hurtling Frisbees and baseballs in twain. about the time of their phone call and get themselves a free pizza; no. burbling out of nowhere.The Deliverator never pulled that gun in anger. The head of the poon. and the glistening crackle whenever she moves her glommed-up hand. Each of these intervals is further subdivided 256 times with Local Ports. Her eyelashes are half an inch long. In the lingo. Central Intelligence Corporation.

 Annie Oakley stares down blankly at Y. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form. cut across the curb lane to enter the Burbclave. longer than he remembered -- natural when you're in a hurry.The reaction is instantaneous. CosaNostra Pizza #3569. It's all unauthorized data that Hiro is not supposed to have. the Street is subject to development. So we're full up. It is used in the Metaverse to represent a chunk of data. EX-LAXThe Deliverator has heard of these stickers. how these two couples got together. saunters around the big circular bar in a slow orbit. the feet leave a trail of hexagonal padmarks. was a stupid ped she would go up to the MetaCop and ask him why. The Street protocol states that your avatar can't be any taller than you are. on a matched set of samurai swords.