this part of your church thing?” he asks. Juanita has been using her excess money to start her own branch of the Catholic church—she considers herself a missionary to the intelligent atheists of the world.
“Don't be condescending,” she says. “That's exactly the attitude I'm fighting. Religion is not for simpletons.”
“Sorry. This is unfair, you know—you can read every expression on my face, and I'm looking at you through a fucking blizzard.”
“It's definitely related to religion,” she says. “But this is so complex, and your background in that area is so deficient, I don't know where to begin.”
“Hey, I went to church every week in high school. I sang in the choir.”
“I know. That's exactly the problem. Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds.”
“So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?”
Juanita thinks for a while, eyeing him. Then she pulls a hypercard out of her pocket. “Here. Take this.”
As Hiro pulls it from her hand, the hypercard changes from a jittery two-dimensional figment into a realistic, cream-colored, finely textured piece of stationery. Printed across its face in glossy black ink is a pair of words
9
The world freezes and grows dim for a second. The Black Sun loses its smooth animation and begins to move in fuzzy stop-action. Clearly, his computer has just taken a major hit; all of its circuits are busy processing a huge bolus of data—the contents of the hypercard—and don't have time to redraw the image of The Black Sun in its full, breathtaking fidelity.
“Holy shit!” he says, when The Black Sun pops back into full animation again. “What the hell is in this card? You must have half of the Library in here!”
“And a librarian to boot,” Juanita says, “to help you sort through it. And lots of videotapes of L. Bob Rife—which accounts for most of the bytes.”
“Well, I'll try to have a look at it,” he says dubiously.
“Do. Unlike Da5id, you're just smart enough to benefit from this. And in the meantime, stay away from Raven. And stay away from Snow Crash. Okay?”
“Who's Raven?” he asks. But Juanita is already on her way out the door. The fancy avatars all turn around to watch her as she goes past them, the movie stars give her drop-dead looks, and the hackers purse their lips and stare reverently.
Hiro orbits back around to the Hacker Quadrant. Da5id's shuffling hypercards around on his table—business stats on The Black Sun, film and video clips, hunks of software, scrawled telephone numbers.
“There's a little blip in the operating system that hits me right in the gut every time you come in the door,” Da5id says. “I always have this premonition that The Black Sun is headed for a crash.”
“Must be Bigboard,” Hiro says. “It has one routine that patches some of the traps in low memory, for a moment.”
“Ah, that's it. Please, please throw that thing away,” Da5id says.
“What, Bigboard?”
“Yeah. It was totally rad at one point, but now it's like trying to work on a fusion reactor with a stone ax.”
“Thanks.”
“I'll give you all the headers you need if you want to update it to something a little less dangerous,” Da5id says. “I wasn't impugning your abilities. I'm just saying you need to keep up with the times.”
“It's fucking hard,” Hiro says. “There's no place for a freelance hacker anymore. You have to have a big corporation behind you.”
“I'm aware of that. And I'm aware that you can't stand to work for a big corporation. That's why I'm saying, I'll give you the stuff you need. You're always a part of The Black Sun to me, Hiro, even since we
“Don't be condescending,” she says. “That's exactly the attitude I'm fighting. Religion is not for simpletons.”
“Sorry. This is unfair, you know—you can read every expression on my face, and I'm looking at you through a fucking blizzard.”
“It's definitely related to religion,” she says. “But this is so complex, and your background in that area is so deficient, I don't know where to begin.”
“Hey, I went to church every week in high school. I sang in the choir.”
“I know. That's exactly the problem. Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism is connected with being intelligent in people's minds.”
“So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?”
Juanita thinks for a while, eyeing him. Then she pulls a hypercard out of her pocket. “Here. Take this.”
As Hiro pulls it from her hand, the hypercard changes from a jittery two-dimensional figment into a realistic, cream-colored, finely textured piece of stationery. Printed across its face in glossy black ink is a pair of words
9
The world freezes and grows dim for a second. The Black Sun loses its smooth animation and begins to move in fuzzy stop-action. Clearly, his computer has just taken a major hit; all of its circuits are busy processing a huge bolus of data—the contents of the hypercard—and don't have time to redraw the image of The Black Sun in its full, breathtaking fidelity.
“Holy shit!” he says, when The Black Sun pops back into full animation again. “What the hell is in this card? You must have half of the Library in here!”
“And a librarian to boot,” Juanita says, “to help you sort through it. And lots of videotapes of L. Bob Rife—which accounts for most of the bytes.”
“Well, I'll try to have a look at it,” he says dubiously.
“Do. Unlike Da5id, you're just smart enough to benefit from this. And in the meantime, stay away from Raven. And stay away from Snow Crash. Okay?”
“Who's Raven?” he asks. But Juanita is already on her way out the door. The fancy avatars all turn around to watch her as she goes past them, the movie stars give her drop-dead looks, and the hackers purse their lips and stare reverently.
Hiro orbits back around to the Hacker Quadrant. Da5id's shuffling hypercards around on his table—business stats on The Black Sun, film and video clips, hunks of software, scrawled telephone numbers.
“There's a little blip in the operating system that hits me right in the gut every time you come in the door,” Da5id says. “I always have this premonition that The Black Sun is headed for a crash.”
“Must be Bigboard,” Hiro says. “It has one routine that patches some of the traps in low memory, for a moment.”
“Ah, that's it. Please, please throw that thing away,” Da5id says.
“What, Bigboard?”
“Yeah. It was totally rad at one point, but now it's like trying to work on a fusion reactor with a stone ax.”
“Thanks.”
“I'll give you all the headers you need if you want to update it to something a little less dangerous,” Da5id says. “I wasn't impugning your abilities. I'm just saying you need to keep up with the times.”
“It's fucking hard,” Hiro says. “There's no place for a freelance hacker anymore. You have to have a big corporation behind you.”
“I'm aware of that. And I'm aware that you can't stand to work for a big corporation. That's why I'm saying, I'll give you the stuff you need. You're always a part of The Black Sun to me, Hiro, even since we
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