I've got a gig," Jim said. I sat up in my bed, wide-awake. A gig was good- I needed the money. "Half." "Third." "Half." "Thirty-five percent." Jim's voice hardened. "Half." The phone went silent as my former Guild partner mulled it over. "Okay, forty." I hung up.(...) The phone rang. I let it ring twice before I picked it up. "Fine." Jim's voice had a hint of a snarl in it. "Half.

She put her hand on her hip. "Where are you going?" "To the boat. You called me Lord Bill again. That means we're cool." Cerise slapped her forehead with the heel of her hand and followed him.

Did he just rip out the engine?" I asked. "Yes", Saiman said. "And now he is demolishing the Maserati with it." Ten seconds later Curran hurled the twisted wreck of black and orange that used to be the Maserati into the wall. The first melodic notes of an old song came from the computer. I glanced at Saiman. He shrugged. "It begged for a soundtrack.

You're not going to die?" "Not right this minute." And of course, saying something like that usually resulted in immediate dying. I braced myself for a stray meteorite falling through the roof to crush my skull.

How is it that I could run into a gunfight against overwhelming odds and put myself between bullets and civilians, but I couldn't scrape together enough courage to speak to the one person who mattered the most to me?

Somewhere in that database my name sat in its own little niche, the name of a reject, undisciplined and worthless. Just the way I liked it.

And men my prophet wail deride!