Her name is Juanita Marquez. Hiro has known her ever since they were freshmen1 together at Berkeley, and they were in the same lab section in a freshman2 physics class. The first time he saw her, he formed an impression that did not change for many years: She was a dour4, bookish, geeky type who dressed like she was interviewing for a job as an accountant at a funeral parlor5. At the same time, she had a flamethrower tongue that she would turn on people at the oddest times, usually in some grandiose6, earth-scorching retaliation7 for a slight or breach8 of etiquette9 that none of the other freshmen had even perceived. It wasn't until a number of years later, when they both wound up working at Black Sun Systems, Inc., that he put the other half of the equation together. At the time, both of them were working on avatars. He was working on bodies, she was working on faces. She was the face department, because nobody thought that faces were all that important -- they were just flesh-toned busts10 on top of the avatars. She was just in the process of proving them all desperately12 wrong. But at this phase, the all-male society of bit-heads that made up the power structure of Black Sun Systems said that the face problem was trivial and superficial. It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent13 type espoused14 by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists.
That first impression, back at the age of seventeen, was nothing more than that -- the gut15 reaction of a post-adolescent Army brat16 who had been on his own for about three weeks. His mind was good, but he only understood one or two things in the whole world -- samurai movies and the Macintosh -- and he understood them far, far too well. It was a worldview with no room for someone like Juanita.
There is a certain kind of small town that grows like a boil on the ass3 of every Army base in the world. In a long series of such places, Hiro Protagonist17 was speed-raised like a mutant hothouse orchid18 flourishing under the glow of a thousand Buy 'n' Fly security spotlights19. Hiro's father had joined the army in 1944, at the age of sixteen, and spent a year in the Pacific, most of it as a prisoner of war. Hiro was born when his father was in his late middle age. By that time, Dad could long since have quit and taken his pension, but he wouldn't have known what to do with himself outside of the service, and so he stayed in until they finally kicked him out in the late eighties. By the time Hiro made it out to Berkeley, he had lived in Wrightstown, New Jersey20; Tacoma, Washington; Fayetteville, North Carolina; Hinesville, Georgia; Killeen, Texas; Grafenwehr, Germany; Seoul, Korea; Ogden, Kansas; and Watertown, New York. All of these places were basically the same, with the same franchise21 ghettos, the same strip joints22, and even the same people -- he kept running into school chums he'd known years before, other Army brats23 who happened to wind up at the same base at the same time.
Their skins were different colors but they all belonged to the same ethnic24 group: Military. Black kids didn't talk like black kids. Asian kids didn't bust11 their asses25 to excel in school. White kids, by and large, didn't have any problem getting along with the black and Asian kids. And girls knew their place. They all had the same moms with the same generous buttocks in stretchy slacks and the same frosted-and-curling-ironed hairdos, and they were all basically sweet and endearing and conforming and, if they happened to be smart, they went out of their way to hide it.
So the first time Hiro saw Juanita, or any other girl like her, his perspectives were bent26 all out of shape. She had long, glossy27 black hair that had never been subjected to any chemical process other than regular shampooing. She didn't wear blue stuff on her eyelids28. Her clothing was dark, tailored, restrained. And she didn't take shit from anyone, not even her professors, which seemed shrewish and threatening to him at the time.
When he saw her again after an absence of several years -- a period spent mostly in Japan, working among real grown-ups from a higher social class than he was used to, people of substance who wore real clothes and did real things with their lives -- he was startled to realize that Juanita was an elegant, stylish29 knockout. He thought at first that she had undergone some kind of radical30 changes since their first year in college.
But then he went back to visit his father in one of those Army towns and ran into the high school prom queen. She had grown up shockingly fast into an overweight dame31 with loud hair and loud clothes who speed-read the tabloids32 at the check-out line in the commissary because she didn't have the spare money to buy them, who popped her gum and had two kids that she didn't have the energy or the foresight33 to discipline.
Seeing this woman at the commissary, he finally went through a belated, dim-witted epiphany, not a brilliant light shining down from heaven, more like the brown glimmer34 of a half-dead flashlight from the top of a stepladder: Juanita hadn't really changed much at all since those days, just grown into herself. It was he who had changed. Radically35.
He came into her office once, strictly36 on a business matter. Until this point, they had seen each other around the office a lot but acted like they had never met before. But when he came into her office that day, she told him to close the door behind him, and she blacked out the screen on her computer and started twiddling a pencil between her hands and eyed him like a plate of day-old sushi. Behind her on the wall was an amateurish37 painting of an old lady, set in an ornate antique frame. It was the only decoration in Juanita's office. All the other hackers39 had color photographs of the space shuttle lifting off, or posters of the starship Enterprise.
"It's my late grandmother, may God have mercy on her soul," she said, watching him look at the painting. "My role model."
"Why? Was she a programmer?"
She just looked at him over the rotating pencil like, how slow can a mammal be and still have respiratory functions? But instead of lowering the boom on him, she just gave a simple answer: "No." Then she gave a more complicated answer. "When I was fifteen years old, I missed a period. My boyfriend and I were using a diaphragm, but I knew it was fallible. I was good at math, I had the failure rate memorized, burnt into my subconscious40. Or maybe it was my conscious, I can never keep them straight. Anyway, I was terrified. Our family dog started treating me differently -- supposedly, they can smell a pregnant woman. Or a pregnant bitch, for that matter."
By this point, Hiro's face was frozen in a wary41, astonished position that Juanita later made extensive use of in her work. Because, as she was talking to him, she was watching his face, analyzing42 the way the little muscles in his forehead pulled his brows up and made his eyes change shape.
"My mother was clueless. My boyfriend was worse than clue-less -- in fact, I ditched him on the spot, because it made me realize what an alien the guy was -- like many members of your species." By this, she was referring to males. "Anyway, my grandmother came to visit," she continued, glancing back over her shoulder at the painting. "I avoided her until we all sat down for dinner. And then she figured out the whole situation in, maybe, ten minutes, just by watching my face across the dinner table. I didn't say more than ten words -- 'Pass the tortillas.' I don't know how my face conveyed that information, or what kind of internal wiring in my grandmother's mind enabled her to accomplish this incredible feat44. To condense fact from the vapor45 of nuance46."
Condense fact from the vapor of nuance. Hiro has never forgotten the sound of her speaking those words, the feeling that came over him as he realized for the first time how smart Juanita was.
She continued. "I didn't even really appreciate all of this until about ten years later, as a grad student, trying to build a user interface47 that would convey a lot of data very quickly, for one of these baby-killer grants." This was her term for anything related to the Defense48 Department. "I was coming up with all kinds of elaborate technical fixes like trying to implant49 electrodes directly into the brain. Then I remembered my grandmother and realized, my God, the human mind can absorb and process an incredible amount of information -- if it comes in the right format43. The right interface. If you put the right face on it. Want some coffee?"
Then he had an alarming thought: What had he been like back in college? How much of an asshole had he been? Had he left Juanita with a bad impression?
Another young man would have worried about it in silence, but Hiro has never been restrained by thinking about things too hard, and so he asked her out for dinner and, after having a couple of drinks (she drank club sodas), just popped the question:
Do you think I'm an asshole?
She laughed. He smiled, believing that he had come up with a good, endearing, flirtatious50 bit of patter.
He did not realize until a couple of years later that this question was, in effect, the cornerstone of their relationship. Did Juanita think that Hiro was an asshole? He always had some reason to think that the answer was yes, but nine times out of ten she insisted the answer was no. It made for some great arguments and some great sex, some dramatic fallings out and some passionate51 reconciliations52, but in the end the wildness was just too much for them -- they were exhausted53 by work -- and they backed away from each other. He was emotionally worn out from wondering what she really thought of him, and confused by the fact that he cared so deeply about her opinion. And she, maybe, was begining to think that if Hiro was so convinced in his own mind that he was unworthy of her, maybe he knew something she didn't.
Hiro would have chalked it all up to class differences, except that her parents lived in a house in Mexicali with a dirt floor, and his father made more money than many college professors. But the class idea still held sway in his mind, because class is more than income -- it has to do with knowing where you stand in a web of social relationships. Juanita and her folks knew where they stood with a certitude that bordered on dementia. Hiro never knew. His father was a sergeant54 major, his mother was a Korean woman whose people had been mine slaves in Nippon, and Hiro didn't know whether he was black or Asian or just plain Army, whether he was rich or poor, educated or ignorant, talented or lucky. He didn't even have a part of the country to call home until he moved to California, which is about as specific as saying that you live in the Northern Hemisphere. In the end, it was probably his general disorientation that did them in.
After the breakup, Hiro went out with a long succession of essentially55 bimbos who (unlike Juanita) were impressed that he worked for a high-tech56 Silicon57 Valley firm. More recently, he has had to go searching for women who are even easier to impress.
Juanita went celibate58 for a while and then started going out with Da5id and eventually got married to him. Da5id had no doubts whatsoever59 about his standing60 in the world. His folks were Russian Jews from Brooklyn and had lived in the same brownstone for seventy years after coming from a village in Latvia where they had lived for five hundred years; with a Torah on his lap, he could trace his bloodlines all the way back to Adam and Eve. He was an only child who had always been first in his class in everything, and when he got his master's in computer science from Stanford, he went out and started his own company with about as much fuss as Hiro's dad used to exhibit in renting out a new P.O. box when they moved. Then he got rich, and now he runs The Black Sun. Da5id has always been certain of everything.
Even when he's totally wrong. Which is why Hiro quit his job at Black Sun Systems, despite the promise of future riches, and why Juanita divorced Da5id two years after she married him.
Hiro did not attend Juanita and Da5id's wedding -- he was languishing61 in jail, into which he had been thrown a few hours before the rehearsal62. He had been found in Golden Gate Park, lovesick, wearing nothing but a thong63, taking long pulls from a jumbo bottle of Courvoisier and practicing kendo attacks with a genuine samurai sword, floating across the grass on powerfully muscled thighs64 to slice other picnickers' hurtling Frisbees and baseballs in twain. Catching65 a long fly ball with the edge of your blade, neatly66 halving67 it like a grapefruit, is not an insignificant68 feat. The only drawback is that the owners of the baseball may misinterpret your intentions and summon the police.
He got out of it by paying for all the baseballs and Frisbees, but since that episode, he has never even bothered to ask Juanita whether or not she thinks he's an asshole. Even Hiro knows the answer now.
Since then, they've gone very different ways. In the early years of The Black Sun project, the only way the hackers ever got paid was by issuing stock to themselves. Hiro tended to sell his off almost as quickly as he got it. Juanita didn't. Now she's rich, and he isn't. It would be easy to say that Hiro is a stupid investor69 and Juanita a smart one, but the facts are a little more complicated than that: Juanita put her eggs in one basket, keeping all her money in Black Sun stock, as it turns out, she made a lot of money that way, but she could have gone broke, too. And Hiro didn't have a lot of choice in some ways. When his father got sick, the Army and the V.A. took care of most of his medical bills, but they ran into a lot of expenses anyway, and Hiro's mother -- who could barely speak English -- wasn't equipped to make or handle money on her own. When Hiro's father died, he cashed in all of his Black Sun stock to put Mom in a nice community in Korea. She loves it there. Goes golfing every day. He could have kept his money in The Black Sun and made ten million dollars about a year later when it went public, but his mother would have been a street person. So when his mother visits him in the Metaverse, looking tan and happy in her golfing duds, Hiro views that as his personal fortune. It won't pay the rent, but that's okay -- when you live in a shithole, there's always the Metaverse, and in the Metaverse, Hiro Protagonist is a warrior70 prince.
His tongue is stinging; he realizes that, back in Reality, he has forgotten to swallow his beer.
It's ironic71 that Juanita has come into this place in a low-tech, black-and-white avatar. She was the one who figured out a way to make avatars show something close to real emotion. That is a fact Hiro has never forgotten, because she did most of her work when they were together, and whenever an avatar looks surprised or angry or passionate in the Metaverse, he sees an echo of himself or Juanita -- the Adam and Eve of the Metaverse. Makes it hard to forget.
Shortly after Juanita and Da5id got divorced, The Black Sun really took off. And once they got done counting their money, marketing72 the spinoffs, soaking up the adulation of others in the hacker38 community, they all came to the realization73 that what made this place a success was not the collision-avoidance algorithms or the bouncer daemons or any of that other stuff. It was Juanita's faces. Just ask the businessmen in the Nipponese Quadrant. They come here to talk turkey with suits from around the world, and they consider it just as good as a face-to-face. They more or less ignore what is being said -- a lot gets lost in translation, after all. They pay attention to the facial expressions and body language of the people they are talking to. And that's how they know what's going on inside a person's head-by condensing fact from the vapor of nuance.
Juanita refused to analyze74 this process, insisted that it was something ineffable75, something you couldn't explain with words. A radical, rosary-toting Catholic, she has no problem with that kind of thing. But the bitheads didn't like it. Said it was irrational76 mysticism. So she quit and took a job with some Nipponese company. They don't have any problem with irrational mysticism as long as it makes money.
But Juanita never comes to The Black Sun anymore. Partly, she's pissed at Da5id and the other hackers who never appreciated her work. But she has also decided77 that the whole thing is bogus. That no matter how good it is, the Metaverse is distorting the way people talk to each other, and she wants no such distortion in her relationships.
Da5id notices Hiro, indicates with a flick78 of his eyes that this is not a good time. Normally, such subtle gestures are lost in the system's noise, but Da5id has a very good personal computer, and Juanita helped design his avatar -- so the message comes through like a shot fired into the ceiling.
Hiro turns away, saunters around the big circular bar in a slow orbit. Most of the sixty-four bar stools are filled with lower-level Industry people, getting together in twos and threes, doing what they do best: gossip and intrigue79.
"So I get together with the director for a story conference. He's got this beach house -- "
"Incredible?"
"Don't get me started."
"I heard. Debi was there for a party when Frank and Mitzi owned it."
"Anyway, there's this scene, early, where the main character wakes up in a dumpster. The idea is to show how, you know, despondent80 he is -- "
"That crazy energy -- "
"Exactly."
"I like it. Well, he wants to replace it with a scene where the guy is out in the desert with a bazooka, blowing up old cars in an abandoned junkyard."
"You're kidding!"
"So we're sitting there on his fucking patio82 over the beach and he's going, like, whoom! whoom! imitating this goddamn bazooka. He's thrilled by the idea. I mean, this is a man who wants to put a bazooka in a movie. So I think I talked him out of it."
"Nice scene. But you're right. A bazooka doesn't do the same thing as a dumpster."
Hiro pauses long enough to get this down, then keeps walking. He mumbles83 "Bigboard" again, recalls the magic map, pinpoints84 his own location, and then reads off the name of this nearby screenwriter. Later on, he can do a search of industry publications to find out what script this guy is working on, hence the name of this mystery director with a fetish for bazookas. Since this whole conversation has come to him via his computer, he's just taken an audio tape of the whole thing. Later, he can process it to disguise the voices, then upload it to the Library, cross-referenced under the director's name. A hundred struggling screenwriters will call this conversation up, listen to it over and over until they've got it memorized, paying Hiro for the privilege, and within a few weeks, bazooka scripts will flood the director's office. Whoom!
The Rock Star Quadrant is almost too bright to look at. Rock star avatars have the hairdos that rock stars can only wear in their dreams. Hiro scans it briefly85 to see if any of his friends are in there, but it's mostly parasites86 and has-beens. Most of the people Hiro knows are will-bes or wannabes.
The Movie Star Quadrant is easier to look at. Actors love to come here because in The Black Sun, they always look as good as they do in the movies. And unlike a bar or club in Reality, they can get into this place without physically87 having to leave their mansion88, hotel suite89, ski lodge90, private airline cabin, or whatever. They can strut91 their stuff and visit with their friends without any exposure to kidnappers92, paparazzi, script-flingers, assassins, ex-spouses, autograph brokers93, process servers, psycho fans, marriage proposals, or gossip columnists94.
He gets up off the bar stool and resumes his slow orbit, scanning the Nipponese Quadrant. It's a lot of guys in suits, as usual. Some of them are talking to gringos from the Industry. And a large part of the quadrant, in the back corner, has been screened off by a temporary partition.
Bigboard again. Hiro figures out which tables are behind the partition, starts reading off the names. The only one he recognizes immediately is an American: L. Bob Rife95, the cable television monopolist. A very big name to the Industry, though he's rarely seen. He seems to be meeting with a whole raft of big Nipponese honchos. Hiro has his computer memorize their names so that, later, he can check them against the CIC database and find out who they are. It has the look of a big and important meeting.
"Secret Agent Hiro! How are you doing?"
Hiro turns around. Juanita is right behind him, standing out in her black-and-white avatar, looking good anyway. "How are you?" she asks.
"Fine. How are you?"
"Great. I hope you don't mind talking to me in this ugly fax-of-life avatar."
"Juanita, I would rather look at a fax of you than most other women in the flesh."
"Thanks, you sly bastard96. It's been a long time since we've talked!" she observes, as though there's something remarkable97 about this. Something's going on.
"I hope you're not going to mess around with Snow Crash," she says. "Da5id won't listen to me."
"What am I, a model of self-restraint? I'm exactly the kind of guy who would mess around with it."
"I know you better than that. You're impulsive98. But you're very clever. You have those sword-fighting reflexes."
"What does that have to do with drug abuse?' "It means you can see bad things coming and deflect99 them. It's an instinct, not a learned thing. As soon as you turned around and saw me, that look came over your face, like, what's going on? What the hell is Juanita up to?"
"I didn't think you talked to people in the Metaverse."
"I do if I want to get through to someone in a hurry," she says. "And I'll always talk to you."
"Why me?"
"You know. Because of us. Remember? Because of our relationship -- when I was writing this thing -- you and I are the only two people who can ever have an honest conversation in the Metaverse."
"You're just the same mystical crank you always were," he says, smiling so as to make this a charming statement.
"You can't imagine how mystical and cranky l am now, Hiro."
"How mystical and cranky are you?"
She eyes him warily100. Exactly the same way she did when he came into her office years ago.
It comes into his mind to wonder why she is always so alert in his presence. In college, he used to think that she was afraid of his intellect, but he's known for years that this is the last of her worries. At Black Sun Systems, he figured that it was just typical female guardedness -- Juanita was afraid he was trying to get her into the sack. But this, too, is pretty much out of the question.
At this late date in his romantic career, he is just canny101 enough to come up with a new theory: She's being careful because she likes him. She likes him in spite of herself. He is exactly the kind of tempting102 but utterly103 wrong romantic choice that a smart girl like Juanita must learn to avoid.
That's definitely it. There's something to be said for getting older.
By way of answering his question, she says, "I have an associate I'd like you to meet. A gentleman and a scholar named Lagos. He's a fascinating guy to talk to."
"Is he your boyfriend?"
She thinks this one over rather than lashing104 out instantaneously. "My behavior at The Black Sun to the contrary, I don't fuck every male I work with. And even if I did, Lagos is out of the question."
"Not your type?"
"Not by a long shot."
"What is your type, anyway?"
"Old, rich, unimaginative blonds with steady careers."
This one almost slips by him. Then he catches it. "Well, I could dye my hair. And I'll get old eventually."
She actually laughs. It's a tension-releasing kind of outburst. "Believe me, Hiro, I'm the last person you want to be involved with at this point."
"Is this part of your church thing?" he asks. Juanita has been using her excess money to start her own branch of the Catholic church -- she considers herself a missionary105 to the intelligent atheists of the world.
"Don't be condescending," she says. "That's exactly the attitude I'm fighting. Religion is not for simpletons."
"Sorry. This is unfair, you know -- you can read every expression on my face, and I'm looking at you through a fucking blizzard106."
"It's definitely related to religion," she says. "But this is so complex, and your background in that area is so deficient107, I don't know where to begin."
"Hey, I went to church every week in high school. I sang in the choir108."
"I know. That's exactly the problem. Ninety-nine percent of everything that goes on in most Christian109 churches has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual religion. Intelligent people all notice this sooner or later, and they conclude that the entire one hundred percent is bullshit, which is why atheism110 is connected with being intelligent in people's minds."
"So none of that stuff I learned in church has anything to do with what you're talking about?"
Juanita thinks for a while, eyeing him. Then she pulls a hypercard out of her pocket. "Here. Take this."
As Hiro pulls it from her hand, the hypercard changes from a jittery111 two-dimensional figment into a realistic, cream-colored, finely textured112 piece of stationery113. Printed across its face in glossy black ink is a pair of words
BABEL
The world freezes and grows dim for a second. The Black Sun loses its smooth animation114 and begins to move in fuzzy stop-action. Clearly, his computer has just taken a major hit; all of its circuits are busy processing a huge bolus of data -- the contents of the hypercard -- and don't have time to redraw the image of The Black Sun in its full, breathtaking fidelity115.
"Holy shit!" he says, when The Black Sun pops back into full animation again. "What the hell is in this card? You must have half of the Library in here!"
"And a librarian to boot," Juanita says, "to help you sort through it. And lots of MPEG of L. Bob Rife -- which accounts for most of the bytes."
"Well, I'll try to have a look at it," he says dubiously116.
"Do. Unlike Da5id, you're just smart enough to benefit from this. And in the meantime, stay away from Raven117. And stay away from Snow Crash. Okay?"
"Who's Raven?" he asks. But Juanita is already on her way out the door. The fancy avatars all turn around to watch her as she goes past them; the movie stars give her drop-dead looks, and the hackers purse their lips and stare reverently118.
收听单词发音 |
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freshmen
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| n.（中学或大学的）一年级学生( freshman的名词复数 ) | |
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freshman
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| n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女) | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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dour
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| adj.冷酷的，严厉的；（岩石）嶙峋的；顽强不屈 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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grandiose
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| adj.宏伟的，宏大的，堂皇的，铺张的 | |
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retaliation
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| n.报复，反击 | |
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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busts
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| 半身雕塑像( bust的名词复数 )； 妇女的胸部； 胸围； 突击搜捕 | |
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bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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virulent
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| adj.有毒的，有恶意的，充满敌意的 | |
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espoused
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| v.（决定）支持，拥护（目标、主张等）( espouse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gut
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| n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏 | |
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brat
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| n.孩子；顽童 | |
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protagonist
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| n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公 | |
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orchid
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| n.兰花，淡紫色 | |
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spotlights
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| n.聚光灯（的光）( spotlight的名词复数 )；公众注意的中心v.聚光照明( spotlight的第三人称单数 )；使公众注意，使突出醒目 | |
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jersey
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franchise
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| n.特许，特权，专营权，特许权 | |
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joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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brats
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| n.调皮捣蛋的孩子( brat的名词复数 ) | |
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ethnic
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| adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的 | |
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asses
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| n. 驴，愚蠢的人，臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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27
glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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28
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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29
stylish
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| adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的 | |
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radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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31
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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32
tabloids
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| n.小报，通俗小报（版面通常比大报小一半，文章短，图片多，经常报道名人佚事）( tabloid的名词复数 )；药片 | |
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33
foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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34
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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35
radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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36
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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37
amateurish
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| n.业余爱好的，不熟练的 | |
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38
hacker
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| n.能盗用或偷改电脑中信息的人，电脑黑客 | |
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39
hackers
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| n.计算机迷( hacker的名词复数 )；私自存取或篡改电脑资料者，电脑“黑客” | |
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40
subconscious
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| n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的) | |
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41
wary
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| adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的 | |
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42
analyzing
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| v.分析；分析( analyze的现在分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析n.分析 | |
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43
format
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| n.设计，版式；[计算机]格式，DOS命令:格式化(磁盘)，用于空盘或使用过的磁盘建立新空盘来存储数据；v.使格式化，设计，安排 | |
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44
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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45
vapor
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| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
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46
nuance
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| n.(意义、意见、颜色)细微差别 | |
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47
interface
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| n.接合部位，分界面；v.(使)互相联系 | |
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48
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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49
implant
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| vt.注入，植入，灌输 | |
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50
flirtatious
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| adj.爱调情的，调情的，卖俏的 | |
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51
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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52
reconciliations
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| 和解( reconciliation的名词复数 )； 一致； 勉强接受； （争吵等的）止息 | |
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53
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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55
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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56
high-tech
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| adj.高科技的 | |
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57
silicon
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| n.硅(旧名矽) | |
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58
celibate
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| adj.独身的，独身主义的；n.独身者 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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languishing
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| a. 衰弱下去的 | |
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62
rehearsal
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| n.排练，排演；练习 | |
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63
thong
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| n.皮带；皮鞭；v.装皮带 | |
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thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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halving
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| n.对分，二等分，减半[航空、航海]等分v.把…分成两半( halve的现在分词 )；把…减半；对分；平摊 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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investor
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| n.投资者，投资人 | |
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warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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71
ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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72
marketing
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| n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西 | |
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73
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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74
analyze
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| vt.分析，解析 (=analyse) | |
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75
ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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76
irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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flick
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| n.快速的轻打，轻打声，弹开；v.轻弹，轻轻拂去，忽然摇动 | |
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intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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80
despondent
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| adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的 | |
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81
fabulous
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| adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的 | |
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82
patio
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| n.庭院，平台 | |
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83
mumbles
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| 含糊的话或声音，咕哝( mumble的名词复数 ) | |
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84
pinpoints
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| 准确地找出或描述( pinpoint的第三人称单数 )； 为…准确定位 | |
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85
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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86
parasites
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| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
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87
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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88
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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89
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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90
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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strut
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| v.肿胀，鼓起；大摇大摆地走；炫耀；支撑；撑开；n.高视阔步；支柱，撑杆 | |
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92
kidnappers
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| n.拐子，绑匪( kidnapper的名词复数 ) | |
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93
brokers
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| n.（股票、外币等）经纪人( broker的名词复数 )；中间人；代理商；（订合同的）中人v.做掮客（或中人等）( broker的第三人称单数 )；作为权力经纪人进行谈判；以中间人等身份安排… | |
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94
columnists
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| n.专栏作家( columnist的名词复数 ) | |
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95
rife
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| adj.(指坏事情)充斥的，流行的，普遍的 | |
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96
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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97
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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98
impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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99
deflect
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| v.(使)偏斜，(使)偏离，(使)转向 | |
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100
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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101
canny
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| adj.谨慎的，节俭的 | |
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102
tempting
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| a.诱人的, 吸引人的 | |
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103
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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104
lashing
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| n.鞭打；痛斥；大量；许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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105
missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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106
blizzard
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| n.暴风雪 | |
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107
deficient
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| adj.不足的，不充份的，有缺陷的 | |
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108
choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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109
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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110
atheism
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| n.无神论，不信神 | |
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111
jittery
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| adj. 神经过敏的, 战战兢兢的 | |
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112
textured
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| adj.手摸时有感觉的, 有织纹的 | |
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113
stationery
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| n.文具；(配套的)信笺信封 | |
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114
animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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115
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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116
dubiously
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| adv.可疑地，怀疑地 | |
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117
raven
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| n.渡鸟，乌鸦；adj.乌亮的 | |
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118
reverently
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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