Boom-time Silicon Valley. The VC funding flows like wine, cubicle slaves labor through the night, and start-ups grow 100% a month in a race for the Holy Grail of the IPO. Also, overgrown and overpaid high-tech kids compete in the Assassination Game - stalking one another through the dim halls and trendy bistros wielding a terrifying array of toy weaponry (up to and including shoulder-fired Nerf missile launchers). But when things go wrong on the road to riches, and a hostile acquisition looms, some employees - mere hours from vesting in their paid-for-with-blood stock options - decide toy guns just aren't cutting it anymore.This 7,000-word short story, from the author of the acclaimed thrillers The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, takes the reader on a dizzying, horrifying, and hilarious insider tour of the through-the-looking glass world of the dot-com boom. Geeks, big money, and righteous kills predominate. But underneath are more subtle and unsettling issues: the quiet capitulation of solitary young men getting a long way off from their last decent relationship; the meaning we give to work, and to money, and the flight to and from both; and the truth about our real and implied commitments to other people, especially when things begin to fall apart.Also included in the short story collection, Don't Shoot Me In The Ass, And Other Stories.Praise for Michael Stephen Fuchs"Just what a technothriller should be: taut, violent, smart, and very, very technical. As if The Da Vinci Code were written by someone who wasn't an idiot." - Cory Doctorow"Guns, blackmail, computers, unfathomable corruption, angry young Taoists, and a bloody quest for a mysterious manuscript. Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt, put in a firefight.'" - Kirkus Reviews"Once the guns come out, it switches gear into a dream-like actioner where characters discuss favourite automatic rifles, perform startling feats of derring-do, and bust caps in various asses. Definitely worth a look." - Dr. Ian Hocking, author of Déjà Vu"Some writers leave you thinking they know things we ordinary mortals don't have access to. Fuchs is stupendously talented." - Crème de la Crime