Snow Crash

Worried that he only has 10 minutes to deliver the pizza, Hiro scans the “babble” on the taxi driver’s radio for traffic information. Rather than drive through one of the franchised neighborhoods known as Burbclaves, he decides to take a shortcut. His efforts are hindered by a professional courier riding a skateboard. The teenage girl has attached herself to the back of Hiro’s car to ride behind him, “like a water skier behind a boat” (14). He cannot shake her, and he crashes into “an empty backyard swimming pool” (16). The courier offers to finish the delivery, thereby saving Hiro’s life. She says that her name is YT. Knowing that he has lost his job, Hiro tries to escape the private security force while YT delivers the pizza.

Hiro lives with a roommate named Vitaly Chernobyl. They live in “a spacious 20-by-30 in a U-Stor-It in Inglewood, California” (19). Hiro is of Korean and Japanese descent on his mother’s side, while his father was a Black man and fought in World War II. Several weeks after the incident with the pizza, Hiro has been forced to return to computer hacking as he is unemployed. He works freelance, gathering information for the privatized version of the CIA, which is now known as the CIC. He uploads his information to a database, and each time someone accesses this information, he receives a small payment. Hiro spends his free time in the Metaverse, a “computer-generated universe that his computer is drawing onto his goggles and pumping into his earphones” (22). Hiro and his friends were early adopters of the Metaverse.

While delivering a pizza, YT attaches herself to an “erratically” driven minivan. The driver tries to shake her but only succeeds in catapulting her toward the racially exclusive, segregated Burbclave where she is headed. Inside, the white supremacists are delighted that their pizza may be late (and therefore free). They are disappointed when YT makes the delivery with a few seconds left on the timer. The Mafia keeps a close watch over her with a “double-bladed stealth helicopter” (28). They now know everything about YT, but now “the Mafia owes her a favor” (29).

In the Metaverse, Hiro studies the other users’ carefully constructed avatars. An avatar “can look any way you want it to, up to the limitations of your equipment” (30). Hiro turns down boring job offers from old associates because he does not want to “have to wear white shirts and show up at eight in the morning and sit in cubicles and go to meetings” (32). He visits a club that he helped design. Inside The Black Sun, a tall, mysterious man asks whether he wants “to try some Snow Crash” (34). Hiro has never heard of Snow Crash, but he suspects that it is a narcotic; the name intrigues him because Snow Crash is a computing term that refers to a system crash that makes the screen look like a blizzard. The man offers a free sample of Snow Crash, contained on a data card. Hiro refuses.

In Los Angeles, police forces have been privatized. Several Burbclaves employ MetaCops, though many have their own security forces. Some private police forces focus on espionage, while others are known for their violent tactics. MetaCops arrest YT and take her to one of the franchised prisons that they operate. YT offers the private cops a huge bribe to take her to a certain prison. However, this prison is full, so she is taken to the Clink. The Clink is a small basement in a gas station that has been turned into a holding cell. She is handcuffed to a pipe, but despite the MetaCops’s best efforts, she refuses to be intimidated. When they threaten to sexually assault her, she reveals that she is wearing a “dentata” which protects her from such assaults.

Hiro searches for gossip and information in The Black Sun. He sees his old partner, Da5id, who owns The Black Sun. Da5id is sharing a drink with Hiro’s former girlfriend, Juanita Marquez. Hiro and Juanita met at Berkley College during freshman year. He still pines for her, regretting that he took her for granted because he lacked maturity. Their burgeoning relationship was undermined by Hiro’s insecure tendencies. After they broke up, Juanita met and married Da5id though they soon divorced. Hiro did not attend their wedding because he was “languishing in jail” (47). Juanita also helped create The Black Sun. She made a fortune by selling her stock; Hiro sold too soon because he needed the money to pay for his mother’s retirement home after his father’s death. He still pays for her to live in “a nice community in Korea” (48). Even though he is impoverished, his mother’s happiness makes him feel rich.

In The Black Sun, Juanita warns Hiro about Snow Crash. Hiro believes that Juanita still has feelings for him because “he is exactly the kind of tempting but utterly wrong romantic choice that a smart girl like Juanita must learn to avoid” (51). She has plans to found a new branch of the Catholic Church using her millions, hoping to convert smart atheists. Juanita wants to tell Hiro something tangentially related to religion, but she believes that this information is too complex for him. Instead, she hands him a data storage unit (known as a hypercard). The hypercard is labeled “BABEL (Infopocalypse)” (52).

Hiro loads the hypercard into his computer. The data file is so big that he cannot render The Black Sun. Juanita warns Hiro to “stay away” from Snow Crash and Raven, the person who offered it to him. Da5id, she says, was not smart enough to appreciate the information she has given to Hiro. She leaves before answering his questions.

Hiro approaches Da5id, who is loading up a sample of Snow Crash. David is confident that he can handle anything, and he dismisses Hiro’s fears. A “ghostly and transparent” (55) avatar appears and whispers something in Da5id’s ear. Da5id tells Hiro that the avatar said something in a language he did not understand. As Hiro and Da5id walk up to a Japanese rapper named Sushi K, Hiro notices the bar’s bouncer daemons approaching him. Daemons are computer programs that perform functions in the Metaverse. As Hiro turns around, Da5id completely disintegrates into a “jittering cloud of bad digital karma” (57). Hiro and Da5id are thrown out of the bar by the bouncer daemons.

YT plots her escape from the Clink. She receives a phone call from her mother; she lies about her predicament and claims to be at a friend’s house. She then calls Roadkill, her boyfriend, and asks for help. However, Roadkill is too preoccupied with a “super-ultra-high-priority delivery” (59). Stuck, YT decides to call Hiro. After a brief checkup, Hiro goes to help YT, but he is delayed by a gang of taxi drivers. As Hiro prepares to battle them with a sword, YT steals a taxi, and they drive away together. Knowing that many of the Burbclaves are racially segregated, they head to Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong. There, Hiro is a “citizen,” and the white YT will be allowed inside. The armed taxi drivers are not allowed to enter Greater Hong Kong, where guns are outlawed.

Hiro enters the Metaverse, and he is confronted by a Japanese man who accuses Hiro of owning a set of samurai swords that he does not deserve. Hiro tells the man that he inherited the swords from his father, who won them in a duel with a Japanese officer in a Nagasaki prison camp. They fight, and Hiro wins. After dismembering the man’s digital avatar, Hiro disassembles his digital form and taunts the man. Unknown to the man, Hiro is “Number One” (65) on The Black Sun’s sword fight rankings.

Ng Security Industries Semi-Autonomous Guard Unit #A-367 is a robotic guard dog stationed in a yard in Greater Hong Kong. Noticing Hiro and YT jumping into its yard, it barks to alert other security robots. The dog barks at the “strangers,” still pursuing Hiro and YT and attacking the invaders who are neither citizens nor guests. The dog—known as Rat Thing—disarms the taxi drivers, who retreat while throwing a grenade at YT Rat Thing spots the grenade and jumps in front of YT, saving her life but damaging itself. YT carries the damaged robotic dog back to its hutch, where a vet will be dispatched to treat it. Hiro and YT agree to form a partnership. They will gather information together and split the royalties. YT returns home, hiding her clothes and her experiences from her mother, who works for one of the inefficient government bureaucracies. Back in its hutch, Ng Security Industries Semi-Autonomous Guard Unit #A-367 tells the other cybernetic security dogs about “how the bad strangers came and hurt him” (73).

In the Metaverse, “Graveyard Daemons” (75) are programs coded by Hiro to deal with the bodies of avatars. Since he wrote the code, Hiro has access to the tunnels and infrastructure used by the Daemons. After defeating the Japanese man in the duel, Hiro is summoned out of the Metaverse by his roommate, Vitaly Chernobyl. They go to a concert together, where Vitaly will be performing. While driving to the concert, Hiro enters the Metaverse and visits his virtual office. Hiro discovers that he has been subscribed to an expensive espionage and intelligence-gathering service by Juanita. The Librarian of the service’s computer interface tells Hiro about the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. In the story, God muddles human languages so people can no longer understand each other. The story may be based on truth, the Librarian explains. The Librarian is a data management program coded by Dr. Emanuel Lagos to scan information for patterns. Hiro asks the Librarian about L. Bob Rife.

Hiro and the Librarian discuss L. Bob Rife. After graduating with a degree in communications and spending some time as a sports reporter, Rife made a fortune in oil and finance investments. He contributes vast sums of money to evangelical churches, such as Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates. Now, he owns a communications and media empire. His media companies are known for their racist campaigns that portray Japanese people as “duplicitous schemers.” He hates government regulation and wishes the world were a monopoly. He has fired employees for “unacceptable lifestyle choices” (83).

Rife has repurposed a former aircraft carrier into a luxury yacht. His yacht has since expanded into a floating city, which is colloquially known as the Raft. He has allowed a large number of refugees from Eurasia to board this massive structure, and he is sailing toward America. Rife is interested in viral information that can be spread digitally. He claims that he can understand all the refugees aboard the Raft when they begin “speaking in tongues” (86).

YT reveals that she has hitched a lift to Vitaly’s van. They arrive at the concert venue: A highway overpass filled with people.

Hiro walks around the concert. He observes the tensions between the local Crips gang and the private security that was hired for the concert. He feels himself being recorded and documented by a “gargoyle,” an unintelligible intelligence gatherer that records everything it sees. However, this gargoyle introduces himself as Dr. Lagos. They discuss Raven, Snow Crash, and information. Lagos is impressed by Hiro’s ability to defend himself and mentions that Raven is likely at the concert. He warns Hiro not to go near Raven, as Hiro is very vulnerable to something called “nam-shub” (91). He warns Hiro not to look at digital images known as bitmaps, as this is what caused Da5id to disintegrate. Lagos talks about the Mesopotamians and how they viewed evil as a disease. When Raven appears, Hiro recognizes him as the man from The Black Sun. A tattoo on Raven’s forehead reads “POOR IMPULSE CONTROL” (92), a punishment from a Burbclave. Hiro calls YT to tell her that he is going to follow Raven.