With Hiro Protagonist seemingly gone from the stage, the hackers turn their attention toward the giant construction rising up out of the egg. All that nonsense with the sword fight must have been just a wacky introductory piece -- Hiro's typically offbeat way of getting their attention. This light and sound show is the main attraction. The amphitheater is now filling up rapidly as thousands of hackers pour in from all over the place: running down the Street from The Black Sun, streaming out, of the big office towers where the major software corporations are headquartered, goggling into the Metaverse from all points in Reality as word of the extravaganza spreads down the fiber-optic grapevine at the speed of light.

The light show is designed as if late corners were anticipated. It builds to false climax after false climax, like an expensive fireworks show, and each one is better. It is so vast and complicated that no one sees more than 10 percent of it; you could spend a year watching it over and over again and keep seeing new things.

It is a mile-high structure of moving two- and three-dimensional images, interlocked in space and time. It's got everything in it. Leni Riefenstahl films. The sculptures of Michelangelo and the fictional inventions of Da Vinci made real. World War II dogfights zooming in and out of the middle, veering out over the crowd, shooting and burning and exploding. Sce............