ref: cde05f4187aed1c77b8efb57ee5dabe8d5d5106d
dir: /troff/035.ms/
\" This master file produces text suitable for a 6"x9" paperback. .ds CH \" turn off page numbering (top) .B .nr HM 1i \" header margin .nr FM 1i \" footer margin .nr LL 4.25i \" line length .pl 9i \" page length .po .87i \" page offset (from left) .nr PS 8 \" font point size \" .kern \" pairwise kerning (groff only) .hy 14 \" automatic hyphenation \" .nr VS 24 \" double space .fp 1 R GA \" URW Garamond .fp 2 I GI .fp 3 B GM .fp 4 BI GMI .fp 5 CW H \" Helvetica .LP \& .nr % 91 \ " start with this page number .ds CF [%] \" first numbered page (bottom) .ps 10 .ce .B MAUDE'S NEW NEW JOB \& .ps 8 tags: 1967, mars3, maude_mold, piro, tab2 .R .PP .ps 10 3 January. On the job training. .PP .ps 10 "What ho, pirate!" .PP .ps 10 It was back to school for TAB2, the very next day after returning from the old test site. No time off for bad behavior. Piro was still moonlighting as a bus driver, pretending somewhat implausibly that nobody knew who he was. He nodded down at the boy, blank as a main sail, and the serpent's mouth yawned, dilating in anticipation as TAB2 scrambled aboard, Piro's smooth facade still deadpan in the morning breeze even after TAB2 had taken his seat. .PP .ps 10 "Yisssssssss," the door hissed. .PP .ps 10 And they were off. .PP .ps 10 School at MARS3 was more of the same drudgery he'd grown accustomed to throughout his academic career. Endless scroll on new old stock computers, acquired through the usual government gumbo of cost plus goldbricking and standards compliant corruption. Dad had already made sure the company replaced his discarded visor, so the mandatory interface lag resumed annoying him. The beige boxes and clicky mechanical keyboards were friction, the bane of harvesting surplus, which he'd thought had been the whole point of the exercise. This e\-waste only served to retard the natural process of indoctrination. .PP .ps 10 The serpent spit him out at the front gates. Piro collapsed its flaps, flipping the serpent around and kicking up sand in the faces of nearby sand dunes as he slithered off in the opposite direction. TAB2's gloves had already logged him in, so now he was trapped waiting for his assignments to download. There was no skipping class without violating the EULA. .PP .ps 10 New Teacher. .PP .ps 10 Spiro's mom.