The Compleat Billy Chronicles (thanks to Zenpatista)

[The Johnny]

Is it fair to say you are having more fun than the rats?

Incidentally, you do know that eventually if you keep breeding the rats who make it away from the drones you will have another potent warfare resource to hand.

<<No fate... "No fate but what we make..."! My mother taught me this... I mean, I made him memorize it as a message to her... Never mind. Okay, the whole thing goes "The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves.">>

-Rat Connor, 2016

[altered]

Howl, if there isn't at least one close call evaded only with use of a bucket and running shoes before this is over, you have failed in your plan to turn your plant into a Shadowrun mission.

[Doktor Howl]

Norton:  "I'm back."

Me:  "Oh, yeah, you were gone, weren't you?"

[Doktor Howl]

Me:  "John, I want you to meet the woobie."

John:  "..."

Norton:  "My name is Norton."

Me:  "Norton is our woobie."

John:  "..."

Norton:  "I'm a chemist."

Me:  "Your job title is 'woobie'."

Norton:  "I thought it was 'programmer'."

Me: "If David could change my job title to 'fucking WIZARD' then I can change yours to 'woobie.'"

John:  "What is a woobie?"

Me:  "You know those characters in movies that are really nice and do the right thing and the universe just shits on them nonstop?"

John:  "Yeah?"

Me:  "That's a woobie.  They do good and bad things happen.  Norton, here, has two girlfriends and lived a blameless life in Nebraska and did very well in university.  But now he works for me."

John:  "Uh, that makes me a woobie too, right?"

Me:  "It's just me in a universe of woobies, John."

John:  "That's a really fucked view of the world."

Me:  "This is all normal, John.  Now, what are we going to do about lunch?"

[Doktor Howl]

David:  "So, I am transferring to Delaware as of tomorrow."

Me:  "You have to move to Delaware tomorrow?"

David:  "Yes."

Me:  "I'd offer to help you move, but I have no legs."

David:  "Thanks.  In any case, you're in charge until Dan gets here.  Next month."

Steve (Baby Engineer):  *looks stricken*

Me:  "Ho ho ho!"

Steve:  *more stricken*

Me:  "I shall need to enlist an engineer or two to haul my palanquin around.  On account of the no legs thing."

Steve:  "I live in hell."

David:  "Nope.  That's where I'm going.  It's like the Stepford Wives of states."

Me:  "Billy says people are very nice there.  Excellent drivers."

David:  "Shut up, Hamish.  Your wizard tricks don't work on me."

Steve:  *looks gloomy*

Me:  "Cheer up, Steve.  We're going to do great things.  This new project isn't just 'blue sky', it's 'somewhere around Neptune' and we get paid for no deliverables."

Steve:  "This isn't how I thought my life would turn out."

Me:  "You know, I get that a lot."

Steve:  *mumbles*

Me:  "This is all normal, Steve.  I mean, it's normal *now*."

[chaotic neutral observer]

Me:  "Cheer up, Steve.  We're going to do great things.  This new project isn't just 'blue sky', it's 'somewhere around Neptune' and we get paid for no deliverables."

I love those projects.  I'm currently on an R&D project for a three-letter government agency (no, not that one, the other one) and the PM is complaining almost weekly that we're not spending enough money.

[Doktor Howl]

Me:  "Cheer up, Steve.  We're going to do great things.  This new project isn't just 'blue sky', it's 'somewhere around Neptune' and we get paid for no deliverables."

I love those projects.  I'm currently on an R&D project for a three-letter government agency (no, not that one, the other one) and the PM is complaining almost weekly that we're not spending enough money.

I am sitting here getting paid to think up what could go wrong with an innovative new tech that has a 100% chance of being fatal to the operator, and could basically also knock divots out of our little corner of reality.

I don't have to work on the tech itself, just think up ways why exposing an operator to 90x a fatal dose of radiation per second might have downsides.

[The Wizard Joseph]

Maybe there have already been "successes"...


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_meat_shower

[altered]

Fuck damn Howl, I want to know about this. I want to know about it SO BAD. But I know you can't tell me.

If you could, I swear, I would willingly get irradiated for the chance to knock a great stonking hole in the fabric of the universe. I'd even go to Tucson for it.

You just don't get to do that kind of shit every day and BY FUCKING GOLLY is it on brand for me, by which I mean it's literally my favorite thing to consider: just a Heavily Modified golf club, a nice easy putt at a tungsten globe or something, and there's now a sucking vortex into an event horizon holding court over Lake Michigan and the remaining lifespan of the planet is measured in femtoseconds.

[altered]

Also, if you're considering a naked singularity, I want in on that too. That's quite possibly all new deranged physics to consider, not to mention what's IN the singularity. Depending on how much energy you're looking at and the mechanism, we might even get into another Everett-Wheeler branch, where I can knock my own stupid ass out and have only the satisfaction of doing so, none of the headaches or regret.

[Doktor Howl]

At the moment I can't say much about it, other than it makes the DEFF BOTS look socially responsible.

Once the principals realize they're shoveling money down a fucking hole and pull the plug, I'll gab all day.

[altered]

I can only hope this is the sort of socially irresponsible I can hope to achieve by myself with sufficient hard work and lack of survival instinct.

[Doktor Howl]

I can only hope this is the sort of socially irresponsible I can hope to achieve by myself with sufficient hard work and lack of survival instinct.

On the other hand, there's a tiny but greater than zero chance they're onto something, and then I get everything I ever wanted.

I mean, once we get around that "insane level of radiation basically microwaving the operator" thing.

[Doktor Howl]

Which leads me to another theoretically possible thing that might convince them to throw money at us.

Did Oppenheimer ever feel this sort of glee?

[chaotic neutral observer]

At the moment I can't say much about it, other than it makes the DEFF BOTS look socially responsible.

Once the principals realize they're shoveling money down a fucking hole and pull the plug, I'll gab all day.

Until told otherwise, I choose to believe it is a man-portable directed-energy beam weapon.  The kind that can burn a hole in tank armour, or wipe out an approaching army just by sweeping it in an arc in their general direction.