If these avatars were real people in a real street, Hiro wouldn't be able to
reach the entrance. It's way too crowded. But the computer system that
operates the Street has better things to do than to monitor every single one of
the millions of people there, trying to prevent them from running into each
other. It doesn't bother trying to solve this incredibly difficult problem. On
the Street, avatars just walk right through each other.
So when Hiro cuts through the crowd, headed for the entrance, he really is
cutting through the crowd. When things get this jammed together, the computer
simplifies things by drawing all of the avatars ghostly and translucent so you
can see where you're going. Hiro appears solid to himself, but everyone else
looks like a ghost. He walks through the crowd as if it's a fogbank, clearly
seeing The Black Sun in front of him.
He steps over the property line, and he's in the doorway. And in that instant
he becomes solid and visible to all the avatars milling outside. As one, they
all begin screaming. Not that they have any idea who the hell he is -- Hiro is
just a starving CIC stringer who lives in a U-Stor-It by the airport. But in
the entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step over
the line into The Black Sun.
He turns and looks back at ten thousand shrieking groupies. Now that he's all
by himself in the entryway, no longer immersed in a flood of avatars, he can see
all of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity. They are
all done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars, hoping that Da5id -- The
Black Sun's owner and hacker-in-chief -- will invite them inside. They flick
and merge together into a hysterical wall. Stunningly beautiful women,
computer-airbrushed and retouched at seventy-two frames a second, like Playboy
pinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to be
discovered. Wild-looking abstracts, tornadoes of gyrating light-hackers who are
hoping that Da5id will notice their talent, invite them inside, give them a job.
A liberal sprinkling of black-and-white people -- persons who are accessing the
Metaverse through cheap public terminals, and who are rendered in jerky, grainy
black and white. A lot of these are run-of-the-mill psycho fans, devoted to the
fantasy of stabbing some particular actress to death; they can't even get close
in Reality, so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey. There are
would-be rock stars done up in laser light, as though they just stepped off the
concert stage, and the avatars of Nipponese businessmen, exquisitely rendered by
their fancy equipment, but utterly reserved and boring in their suits.
reach the entrance. It's way too crowded. But the computer system that
operates the Street has better things to do than to monitor every single one of
the millions of people there, trying to prevent them from running into each
other. It doesn't bother trying to solve this incredibly difficult problem. On
the Street, avatars just walk right through each other.
So when Hiro cuts through the crowd, headed for the entrance, he really is
cutting through the crowd. When things get this jammed together, the computer
simplifies things by drawing all of the avatars ghostly and translucent so you
can see where you're going. Hiro appears solid to himself, but everyone else
looks like a ghost. He walks through the crowd as if it's a fogbank, clearly
seeing The Black Sun in front of him.
He steps over the property line, and he's in the doorway. And in that instant
he becomes solid and visible to all the avatars milling outside. As one, they
all begin screaming. Not that they have any idea who the hell he is -- Hiro is
just a starving CIC stringer who lives in a U-Stor-It by the airport. But in
the entire world there are only a couple of thousand people who can step over
the line into The Black Sun.
He turns and looks back at ten thousand shrieking groupies. Now that he's all
by himself in the entryway, no longer immersed in a flood of avatars, he can see
all of the people in the front row of the crowd with perfect clarity. They are
all done up in their wildest and fanciest avatars, hoping that Da5id -- The
Black Sun's owner and hacker-in-chief -- will invite them inside. They flick
and merge together into a hysterical wall. Stunningly beautiful women,
computer-airbrushed and retouched at seventy-two frames a second, like Playboy
pinups turned three-dimensional -- these are would-be actresses hoping to be
discovered. Wild-looking abstracts, tornadoes of gyrating light-hackers who are
hoping that Da5id will notice their talent, invite them inside, give them a job.
A liberal sprinkling of black-and-white people -- persons who are accessing the
Metaverse through cheap public terminals, and who are rendered in jerky, grainy
black and white. A lot of these are run-of-the-mill psycho fans, devoted to the
fantasy of stabbing some particular actress to death; they can't even get close
in Reality, so they goggle into the Metaverse to stalk their prey. There are
would-be rock stars done up in laser light, as though they just stepped off the
concert stage, and the avatars of Nipponese businessmen, exquisitely rendered by
their fancy equipment, but utterly reserved and boring in their suits.
( Neal Stephenson )
[ Snow Crash ]
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