(no subject)
One of the things that's kept Hiro mostly out of Milliways since the whole Daemon thing is a little matter of vanishing ex-hackers.
It started when Da5id told him about something happening to the support group for Snow Crash survivors that he (Da5id) goes to, every week in a chat room about a mile out of Downtown. Sometimes, for no reason, people just stop showing up. It's a measure of how disorganized their lives are that it took a half-dozen disappearances for Da5id to start wondering if there might be a pattern. (Also of how far Da5id himself has fallen, but Hiro tries not to dwell on that any more than he can help.)
After piggybacking on a few meetings, Hiro started to notice the pattern. Without exception, the ones who've disappeared have been ex-hackers who, like Da5id, were exposed to Snow Crash through their optic nerves, as distinct from drug users who heard about the new high on the street and let the nam-shub into their veins.
On Hiro's advice, Da5id's been encouraging the group members who live near each other in Reality to make friends, to keep tabs on each other, to hire security if they can afford it. That's where another piece of the puzzle came into play: the disappearances haven't stopped yet, but some of the patients report seeing their friends meet with, or get a call from, "an important-looking man" shortly before the vanishment.
Who is this "important-looking man"? Are the disappearees running from him, or going with him? Who's he working for, what use do they have for burned-out hackers, and why do they need a monopoly on that particular form of biomass?
These are the questions on Hiro's mind as a late night turns into an early morning.
It started when Da5id told him about something happening to the support group for Snow Crash survivors that he (Da5id) goes to, every week in a chat room about a mile out of Downtown. Sometimes, for no reason, people just stop showing up. It's a measure of how disorganized their lives are that it took a half-dozen disappearances for Da5id to start wondering if there might be a pattern. (Also of how far Da5id himself has fallen, but Hiro tries not to dwell on that any more than he can help.)
After piggybacking on a few meetings, Hiro started to notice the pattern. Without exception, the ones who've disappeared have been ex-hackers who, like Da5id, were exposed to Snow Crash through their optic nerves, as distinct from drug users who heard about the new high on the street and let the nam-shub into their veins.
On Hiro's advice, Da5id's been encouraging the group members who live near each other in Reality to make friends, to keep tabs on each other, to hire security if they can afford it. That's where another piece of the puzzle came into play: the disappearances haven't stopped yet, but some of the patients report seeing their friends meet with, or get a call from, "an important-looking man" shortly before the vanishment.
Who is this "important-looking man"? Are the disappearees running from him, or going with him? Who's he working for, what use do they have for burned-out hackers, and why do they need a monopoly on that particular form of biomass?
These are the questions on Hiro's mind as a late night turns into an early morning.