Snow Crash

The drug dealer refers to himself as the “Undisputed King of the Ozone Destroyers” (174), or UKOD. He sells Snow Crash to YT, who immediately throws it at Mr. Ng’s hidden helicopter. Mr. Ng distracts the drug dealers with a bright flash of light and unleashes the Rat Thing robot guard dogs. After the brief, violent battle, Mr. Ng talks about the Rat Things with YT, explaining that they are made from a mixture of real dog parts and “radiothermal isotopes.” YT thinks that this is cruel, though Mr. Ng points out that he is also cybernetically enhanced. YT thinks about her own dog, Fido, who was stolen when she was young. She wonders whether Fido was turned into a Rat Thing. Unknown to her, this is exactly what happened. Fido still remembers the “nice girl who loved him” (178).

YT goes to Hiro’s office in the Metaverse. After telling him what happened and correcting his unfavorable view of the Mafia, she leaves. Hiro continues his discussion with the Librarian. They talk about Sumerian mythology; the stories involve the invention of irrigation, the impregnation of Asherah, and an incestuous chain of sexual relationships involving Enki. According to the Librarian, a man named Enki did exist. He was “a priest-king of sorts” (182), and evidence of his existence was uncovered by a team of archeologists hired by Rife. The Librarian believes that there is a connection between language and the myths about Enki. Hiro speculates that this connection may involve binary code, comparing the rules for governing a society to a computer operating system. As Hiro picks apart the Sumerian myths’ metaphors, the Librarian says that he sounds “a little like Lagos” (185).

YT enters the Falabala camp on her skateboard. She finds one of the cult members and interrogates her. Before an incident with her computer, the cultist says, she was a computer programmer. She became sick and was recruited into the cult at the hospital, going from there to live on the Raft belonging to Rife. Once all the blood was drawn from her—so much that her veins collapsed—she was taken back to California and dumped.

YT is spotted by the priest, who encourages her to join the campfire. She sees that he is carrying a syringe filled with “fresh blood.” YT fights him off and leaves. As she dashes away through a traffic jam, she calls her mother, and then she calls Hiro. She is concerned that Snow Crash “affects hackers” by attacking their susceptible brains through code. When he confirms her suspicions, she is angry that he did not warn her. YT arrives home and smashes her mother’s computer.

Hiro studies the Raft using a piece of software named Earth. The Raft is a collection of boats “several miles across” (192), all attached to Rife’s repurposed aircraft carrier and an oil tanker. Purchasing an expensive motorcycle and a collection of gear, Hiro heads north to Oregon, where the Raft is supposed to make landfall.

The Raft is too big to steer. Instead, it drifts across the Pacific Ocean and collects refugees in a “cycle of migration” (195). Many of these refugees do not survive, and the rest are dropped in California, much to the locals’ consternation. This year, the locals are armed and ready to repel the Raft.

While riding his motorcycle, Hiro calls the Librarian. They talk about Lagos’s theory that the Sumerian gods may have been actual people or even “aliens” (196). They discuss language and the ways languages diverge from each other. Scientists disagree as to whether languages shape the way people think or whether languages have a universal quality that is hardwired into the human brain. Lagos believed in a blend of the theories in which language could shape and dictate the neural pathways of the mind. According to Lagos, there was once a language of Eden that could be spoken by all humans. Hiro compares this to the binary language of 1s and 0s. Since binary is difficult to understand, humans have invented “a whole Babel of computer languages” (199) to write computer code. These languages may be mutually unintelligible, but they are all built on the foundation of binary.

Lagos suspected that Sumerian may have been unique in that it could create and spread viruses in a neurolinguistic manner. Hiro wonders whether Enki stopped this spread in an event resembling the Tower of Babel story and whether “Babel was the best thing that ever happened to us” (200).

YT’s mother works for the remnants of the United States government in Fedland. She is a cog in a bureaucratic machine that demands the loyalty of all its employees. She is sent a memo about “the problem of distributing bathroom tissue to workers” (203); employees are forbidden from using United States currency—now hugely inflated so as to be nearly worthless—instead of bathroom tissue as this “constitutes defacement of U.S. currency, which is a federal crime” (204) and clogs the pipes. YT’s mother works hard on a project she does not understand. As lunch approaches, she is made to sit down for a polygraph test administered by her boss and several male colleagues.

Before the polygraph test, YT’s mother must give a urine sample. This is standard procedure. She is given a series of injections and then asked “nonsense questions” while the polygraph machine records her physical responses. She is asked about her daughter breaking her computer and her daughter’s story about viruses. YT’s mother asks for a more direct approach to whatever they want to know. The test administers give her another injection. Feeling numb and cold, she is asked to provide her name.

Hiro rides his motorcycle along the highway in Alaska. He passes “beefy Caucasians” in camper vans, polluting everything as they drive along. He wants to find Chuck Wrightson, who was once president of TROKK, the Temporary Republic of Kenai and Kodiak. When he finds Wrightson, Hiro asks about how TROKK was taken over by evangelical Russian refugees armed with a nuclear torpedo. Wrightson tells him everything, describing how Raven stole a torpedo from a nuclear submarine and killed most of the crew with his glass knives, which can bypass metal detectors. He notes that Raven is an “Aleut whale killer” (214), a Russian ethnic minority group. Hiro remembers that his father once met an Aleut man while serving in the military in World War II. Their conversation is interrupted.

A “big porky white man” (216) with “RACIALLY INSENSITIVE” (216) tattooed on his forehead interrupts the conversation between Wrightson and Hiro. He flings racial slurs at Hiro and claims to be from New South Africa. Together with a group of self-declared white nationalists, he announces his intention to hurt Hiro. Instead, Hiro pulls out his sword and beheads one of the attackers. He is shocked; he has never killed anyone in the real world before, only in the Metaverse. The attackers are stunned, allowing Hiro to escape. They try to shoot him, but he is saved by his body armor, though he feels several ribs break. Hiro escapes the building and returns to the highway. The attackers chase after him.

YT is approached by an anonymous client who asks her to deliver a “legal-size envelope” (220) to Fedland (the Burbclave of the United States government). She accepts and says it will take two hours. On leaving, she learns that the destination is Rife Advanced Research Enterprises. When entering Fedland, she must declare that she is not gay, or a terrorist, or a pornography merchant, or an “advocate of any ideology tending to impugn traditional family values” (221). She enters EBGOC, which is what’s left of the American intelligence services, and is immediately arrested. YT is able to break free thanks to her technology and quick wits, and she tries to escape from the building.

As Hiro returns to California, he continues his discussion with the Librarian. He asks about Inanna, a character in Sumerian mythology who delivered Enki’s “me” to the people. After, she descended into the underworld and was ritually executed to gain the power of life over death. She was rescued by Enki and returned to the world of the living with an army of the dead behind her. Hiro interprets the story. He believes that Juanita is Inanna and that she has gone to the Raft. He plans to rescue her, so he changes his destination. In Port Sherman, Oregon, the Russian evangelicals hide out in a motel as the refugees from the Raft plan to come ashore. Hiro finds a boat and makes sure to remember the face of the local Greater Hong Kong consulate manager.

YT wakes up as a prisoner in the back of a van. After eight hours of driving, she arrives at a church belonging to Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates. Two women watch her closely, then place her onboard a van containing a group of youthful Christians singing a “happy song.” They drive around for two days. Occasionally, one of the Christians will begin speaking in tongues. Once one starts, the others also start speaking in tongues. YT does not. Eventually, the van arrives at a dock and boards a ferry. The ferry sails out into the sea and reaches the Raft. By this time, YT is almost feeling indoctrinated into the cult’s rituals. She quietly accepts a job on the Raft and cuts up fish. Her poor fish-cutting skills mean that she is moved to the cafeteria. The dead-eyed expressions of the people worry her; she sees antennas attached to their heads and realizes that she has been “brainwashed.”

Hiro’s motorcycle breaks down when its computer system crashes, infected by a virus. He sees a helicopter arrive to transport the head of the Russian evangelicals, but the helicopter is shot out of the sky. At the Greater Hong Kong consulate, Hiro books a boat to the Raft, even though the consulate manager is reluctant to give Hiro what he wants. The boat—named the Kowloon—is already heading toward the Raft after being booked by another passenger. When he arrives at the boat, Hiro discovers that these other passengers are members of the Mafia, including the man with the glass eye. Meanwhile, the Russians prepare for a battle with the Mafia, who are about to depart on the Kowloon.

The man with the glass eye talks Hiro through his plan, of which Hiro is already a part. The Mafia is aware that YT has been spying on them on Hiro’s behalf, as this is all part of a plan by Lagos. At the same time, they have used her to spy on Hiro. A bomb explodes on the pier where the Russians are waiting, allowing the Mafia to capture the Russians. Hiro and the Mafia representative eat breakfast and discuss the next stages, which are based on research by Lagos, who is the “nucleus around which it formed” (241). Lagos wanted to make a neurolinguistic virus that would attack computer programmers. He took his idea to Rife, who stole it from him and expanded on it. Lagos grew concerned and recruited Juanita, the Mafia, and Mr. Lee for his “little project.”