In the first chapter, the reader is introduced to the Deliverator, a man given a dangerous job. The action is set in Los Angeles in a time when the situation differs from the present. The Deliverator is a man who is tasked with the job of delivering pizzas and his job is so serious that he is even given guns to protect himself. The Deliverator’s name is Hiro and he used to be a security officer in a suburb but had to find another job.
Hiro arrives at the place where he is supposed to pick the pizzas and he is given a box with a timer on it, telling Hiro that he must deliver the pizza in less than twenty minutes. Hiro rushes to get the delivery but along the way, a courier on a skateboard latches onto his car making Hiro lose his concentration. As a result, Hiro drives straight into a pool. The skater introduces herself a Y.T. before getting out of the swimming pool and delivering the pizza for Hiro. Y.T. is later rewarded for her service by uncle Enzo who giver her his dog tags as a form of protection. After that, Y.T. is told to make a delivery into a dangerous part of the town.
Hiro is forced to try and earn money some other way so he turns to hacking once more. Hiro goes into the metaverse, a parallel universe where only the rich can afford to buy properties and to live. Hiro and some of his friends bought a land in metaverse long before it became popular and they ended up owning a tasteful house in the metaverse on one of the most important streets.
In the metaverse, Hiro goes to the place where he knows he will be able to sell some information. Outside the Black Sun, the building where Hiro knows he will be able to sell some information, he is stopped by a strange man offering to sell him a drug named Snow Crash. Hiro, confused because he knows that people can’t get high in the metaverse, ignores him and goes inside the building.
Meanwhile, Y.T. is arrested for crashing all those cars and taken to a police station where she is cuffed to a pipe.
At the Black Sun, Hiro meets with one of his friends called Da5id. Hiro also sees a woman named Juanita. Hiro and Juanita used to date before she dumped him from Da5id with whom she was actually married for a couple of years before divorcing. It is also revealed that Hiro ended up poor because he gave all his money to his parents when they suffered an accident.
Hiro and Juanita talk for a bit and before departing she warns him not to take any Snow Crash and to stay clear of Raven, the man who tried to approach Hiro about Snow Crash. After Juanita left, Da5id showed Hiro a pack of Snow Crash he received for free from the same man that Hiro talked with at the entrance. Da5id opened the package but nothing happened so he and Hiro continued to talk and walk in the building. All of a sudden however, Da5id’s avatar turned into a flash of light and Hiro realized that Da5id’s avatar just crashed.
Back in the real world, Hiro receives a call from Y.T. who asks for his help and Hiro goes and helps her break from the prison. After Hiro helps Y.T. , they are attacked and Y.T. has a bomb thrown at her. She is saved by a half dog-half machine thing called #A-367 and in return Y.T. takes the wounded dog back to its house to be repaired. After this event, Y.T. and Hiro go to their own houses, agreeing to sell whichever piece of information they find and then split the earnings in two.
Y.T., Hiro and another of his associates go to a concert to try and find some information they can sell. At the concert, they meet with another guy named Lagos who warns them once more to be aware of Raven. Just then, Raven appears and the group is able to see the tattoo on his forehead, a type of punishment common in various parts of the country. The Raven makes some kind of deal with the Crips before departing. After the Raven disappears, Hiro is asked to go backstage where he sees Lagos’ body split into two.
Hiro concludes that Laos was not killed with a sword and then he is called to a murder scene. There, a large number of bodies laid on the ground and the people at the scene found that the people who were murdered were Crips members, most likely killed by the Raven. Also, Y.T. was following the Raven but they find her later at a diner. Y.T. tells the boys that the suitcase the Raven gave to a Crip member exploded and that the suitcase was filled with the same drug that affected Da5id. She also tells them that the Raven has a nuke in his motorcycle and if he were to die the nuke will detonate.
Hiro is called to a hospital where he is told that Da5id is in a comatose state. Hiro thinks that maybe the drug Da5id took in the metaverse was the reason why he was in that state but at the same time he feels conflicted, knowing that people can’t get high in the metaverse. Hiro enters the metaverse where he talks with Juanita about what may cause the virus but they all agree that don’t know if Snow Crash is a virus or what it is and how it can affect both the avatars in the metaverse and the people in the real world.
When Hiro talks with Y.T. again, she tells him about a delivery she had to make and how the people she delivered the package got high. She also mentions that the people were talking in a made up language and so Hiro begins to read about different religious groups that claim they can speak in tongues and how the event is linked with one man in particular. Hiro begins studying religions and compares them to a virus that is hard to eliminate from a person’s system or brain.
Y.T. is picked up by a man named Ng who takes her to a dangerous zone to buy some drugs for him. After Y.T. finishes her job, Ng tells her to enter a warehouse with drug dealers and after getting the drug, to throw it into the air. Y.T. does just that, which angers the drug dealers but she is saved by the Rat Things, the half-dogs half-machines creatures designed by Ng.
Y.T. tells Hiro what she has learned about Snow Crash and how it affects a person and Hiro reaches the conclusion that the drug works almost like the herpes virus, infecting the host and changing everything about that host. Hiro continues to read about religion and he theorizes that religion may have helped the virus to spread quicker from one person to another.
Someone tries to infect Y.T. with the virus but Hiro assures her that it is impossible since she is not a programmer. Scared, Y.T. rushes home to save her mother who is a programmer but her mother does not understand her daughter’s actions.
Meanwhile, Hiro theorizes that a rich man named Bob Rife is behind the virus and decides that he must stop him. Hiro finds the hidden city where Bob lives and he goes to it alone. When he arrives there, he finds that Y.T. was kidnapped by Bob Rife as well but she is saved by Raven.
Hiro fights against Bob Rife and defeats him while also destroying the virus. At the end of the novel, Y.T. returns home and Hiro and Juanita are reunited. The later decided that they must give their relationship another shot and they return to the mainland.
