Hiro Protagonist
Last of the freelance hackers
Greatest sword fighter in the world
Stringer, Central Intelligence Corporation

Recently ‘resigned’ from his job as the coolest samurai sword-toting pizza delivery guy in the world, Hiro has had to fall back on his old hi-tech scavenger ways. Not that he’s a nobody on the virtual street – one of the founders of The Black Sun, he helped to write the rule-book for the digital Metaverse. Which is why he’s so confused when he’s offered a cyber-drug called Snow Crash – ‘cos there are no such things as drugs in their computer-generated world. And yet here it is, complete with devastating side-effects. Who could have made it? And what the Hell does it actually do?