So I can't claim that I picked this selection entirely at random . . . but I will say I spent the last couple of hours trying to decide on something, and it all looked terrible, and completely unsuitable. So anyway I decided on this bit 30 seconds ago right there in the corner. Ahem.

    Miles' ears rang painfully. Numerous muscles in his legs and lower back ached keenly. His right wrist and palm were chafed and sore from rapid-firing a large-caliber pistol. He was suffering from the effects of adrenaline burnout, extended shock, sleep deprivation, hunger, dehydration, and post-traumatic stress disorder – which was flooding in, interestingly, before the original stress had drained out. He began saying shit like:
    "You should have seen when I put down that fairy friend of yours, the one in the ice skates." He scanned the other faces in the room, grinning leisurely. "Couple of double taps right between the shoulder blades. Yeah, that was like the motherfucking Cap-In-Your-Ass Ice-Capades. Ha, ha."
    The level of ire in the big room began to go through the roof. The others – Global Acumen employees, contractors, federal agents? tough to tell – pretended to work on whatever they were working on. But they couldn't help listening to Miles. He held the floor.
    "And those guys who chased us into the Mall!" Miles snorted, a violent motion which moved both his chair and Dana's (they, and the chairs, had been tied together). "Those guys shoot like ass! Man! They shoot like little girls. We lit them up pretty good." Dana banged the back of her head into the back of Miles'. "Say? Are those guys okay? They around here?" Miles twisted his head around, looking for wounded guys.
    Dana popped him in the back of the head again, then twisted around as far as she might. She whispered, "I want you to shut up, Miles. Please."
    "Shut up? Why should I shut up? I'm just talking about all those punks we shot earlier."
    "You sound," Dana hissed, "like FreeBSD. Just shut up."
    "What's wrong with FreeBSD? I love FreeBSD. That guy's the tits."
    "No," Dana said, facing forward, and losing her fear again, "you just idolize him because he used to jockey computers, then went out into the world and did something."
    This did shut Miles up then. Too late, though: Stanley Luther was choking on bile, and approached Miles for a word.

Umm . . . I'm going to skip ahead a bit here. Is that allowed?

    "You have a lot of commentary," said Stanley to Miles, "for a guy tied to a chair."
    Reality presented itself briefly to Miles and he eyed a patch of floor.
    Stanley worked his jaw, waiting for a fuller head of steam, when the guy in charge appeared at his shoulder. He said, "Thanks, Stanley. I'll take it from here." He said, to Miles, "Why don't you tell me who else has seen the Manuscript? Make me look good in front of my colleagues, and make it easier on yourself. We just want to know who else has read it." He grinned conspiratorially. "Who else is in on the little secret."
    "Hey," replied Miles, head rolling, "It's just between you, me, and the crack dealer on the corner."
    "The crack dealer's on his way up now," the leader said, nodding and missing the joke. "But I don't believe you're telling me everything."
    "If there were alien visitors here with a raygun to my head and a rectal probe to my ass, I couldn't tell you anymore."
    "You should be so lucky."
    Stanley turned to leave. "This is highly pointless," he muttered.

<snaps book shut> <applause>

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