Hiro looks up into the circle of applauding, whistling, and cheering avatars and notes that they are fading out The entire Black Sun now looks like it is being projected on gauze. On the other side of that gauze, bright lights shine through, overwhelming the image. Then it disappears entirely.
He peels off his goggles and finds himself standing in the parking lot of the U-Stor-It, holding a naked katana.
The sun has just gone down. A couple of dozen people are standing around him at a great distance, shielding themselves behind parked cars, awaiting his next move. Most of them are pretty scared, but a few of them are just plain excited. Vitaly Chernobyl is standing in the open door of their 20-by-30. His hairdo is backlighted. It has been petrified by means of egg whites and other proteins. These substances refract the light and throw off tiny little spectral fragments, a cluster-bombed rainbow. Right now, a miniature image of The Black Sun is being projected onto Vitaly's ass by Hiro's computer. He is rocking unsteadily from foot to foot, as though standing on both of them at the same time is too complicated to deal with this early in the day, and he hasn't decided which one to use.
You're blocking me," Hiro says.
It's time to go," Vitaly says.
You're telling me it's time to go? I've been waiting for you to wake up for an hour.
As Hiro approaches, Vitaly watches his sword uncertainly. Vitaly's eyes are dry and red, and on his lower lip he is sporting a chancre the size of a tangerine.
Did you win your sword fight
Of course I won the fucking sword fight," Hiro says. "I'm the greatest sword fighter in the world.
And you wrote the software.
Yeah. That, too," Hiro says.