After reading The Eyre Affair, I went online and came across the website here and the affiliated links. I found this:
[
www.goliathcorp.com]
and recognized the picture of the plasma gun. It's Shockwave, a Transformer toy
(a robot that turns into something else, such as a car or gun, for those who don't know)
[
www.seibertron.com]
The best part is Shockwave came out around 1985, when all of this is taking place.