Since I don't actually write anymore, I think I'm just going to start throwing up the snippets that occur to me in the off moments-

A bit of character from what is probably the oldest of the stories. Bill, ruminating on his weaponry:


The gun, it looks so simple.  Black steel, red plastic.  Heavy and thick in my head.  Smarter than me, though.  It can do all the gun things that I can't -- gauges distance and windage, tracks the target, looks for obstacles, for innocents that are dumb enough to be in the middle of my firefight.  It adjusts the barrel, shortens the distance on the shells, holds back firing for fractions of a second to allow a screaming mother to clear outta the way before it lets loose.  Really, I could drop the thing on the ground and just give it voice commands, but Bobby's never been comfortable with letting things have their own way.  The gun needs a controller, it needs human intent.  I pick a target and tell the gun to take it down.  It's management, not labor.  I'm a boss, I guess.  The gun is my production line.  The gun is my captive workforce.

The plaza thing that Viv's guys decide to come at me in, it's a flat plain of rock swept smooth by lasersight and ion beams.  Shops carved out of a mountainside are full.  It's some kind of holiday.  I haven't the slightest idea which one.  Probably nothing I've heard of.  Toby's had me asleep for a few months this time.  We landed just to air out the ship and do some routine maintenance.  But Viv's guys, they follow me. 

The game isn't to kill because, c'mon, how's that gonna happen?  The game is to get me to kill people who aren't involved in this thing.  Vivian's endless revenge for picking a fight with him in the first place, making us regret having come after him when we were kids.  So his guys, they carry wide-disbursement kinda weapons.