entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

There's a Bruce Sterling novel that I haven't read, but I've heard the first chapter read by the author, and the first chapter features a dry post-mortem on the event where a group of people materialized into a mob and attacked a bank, destroying its doors, locks, windows, ATM(?) etc., and then vanished back into the crowd. The tenor of the chapter suggested it was spontaneous, except that some people were carrying heavy tools that you don't carry around with you if you don't think you'll be using them. I suspect that this sort of attack is the penultimate step in the evolution of a flash mob. The ultimate step is a hivemind, of course. Really, though, I should find what book it was and read it.