История будущего

After a certain Kourier tipped him off to the existence of Vitaly Chernobyl, he put a few intensive weeks into researching a new musical phenomenon - the rise of Ukrainian nuclear fuzz-grunge collectives in L.A.

In the worldwide community of hackers, Hiro is a talented drifter. This is the kind of lifestyle that sounded romantic to him as recently as five years ago. But in the bleak light of full adulthood, which is to one's early twenties as Sunday morning is to Saturday night, he can clearly see what it really amounts to: He's broke and unemployed.

Four things are on the cargo pallet: a bottle of expensive beer from the Puget Sound area, which Hiro cannot really afford; a long sword known in Nippon as a katana and a short sword known as a wakizashi - Hiro's father looted these from Japan after World War II went atomic - and a computer.

Beneath this image, it is possible to see Hiro's eyes, which look Asian. They are from his mother, who is Korean by way of Nippon. The rest of him looks more like his father, who was African by way of Texas by way of the Army

Hiro has cappuccino skin and spiky, truncated dreadlocks.

As the sun sets, its red light is supplanted by the light of many neon logos emanating from the franchise ghetto that constitutes this U-Stor-It's natural habitat. This light, known as loglo, fills in the shadowy comers of the unit with seedy, oversaturated colors.

"But you'll never forget it," Hiro says.
"If you're a hacker. . . "
"How come I'm delivering pizzas?"
"Right."
"Because I'm a freelance hacker.

"Stupid name," she says, shoving the card into one of a hundred little pockets on her coverall.
"But you'll never forget it," Hiro says.

He makes that driveway the center of his universe, puts the Kourier out of his mind, tries not to think about Uncle Enzo, what he's doing right now - in the bath, maybe, <…>, or making love to some actress,

all he can think about is 30:01.