How It All Goes Down
- Hiro rides his bike through Downtown in the Metaverse. It's super-crowded because of a benefit being thrown for Da5id, who's still in the hospital.
- He's heading for Rife's mysterious black cube, and he goes invisible and then hacks his way inside.
- The place is full of cubes and spheres and other 3D shapes in bright, primary colors. Hiro recognizes it as a model of a system, like a giant worldwide network of some kind.
- Juanita, also goggled in, recognizes it: It's the Government of the United States. The Feds employ thousands of programmers, who are all working on parts of something.
- This is that something. The government has been contracted to write software for Rife.
- Then they see Raven's avatar standing next to a giant blue cube. He's carrying something, which he sets in the sidecar of his motorcycle.
- It's got to be a bomb, Rife's revenge on hackers for refusing to bow to him. And all of the hackers, right now, are in one place in the Metaverse: the amphitheater where Da5id's benefit is.