ref: cde05f4187aed1c77b8efb57ee5dabe8d5d5106d
dir: /troff/042.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 % 113 \ " start with this page number .ds CF [%] \" first numbered page (bottom) .ps 10 .SH SPAMMY NOTIFICATIONS .R .PP .ps 10 "Sorry. I have to take this." .PP .ps 10 TAB3 was holding the mirror, staring straight into its supernova surface. Something like a miniature explosion, or perhaps a 1980s television in the context of a dark room, making your arm hair stand on end even from a distance of ten feet. He'd stopped responding, and Maude waited for what seemed like time better spent suffering through a full episode of M.A.S.K. .PP .ps 10 "Sorry. I have to go." .PP .ps 10 TAB3 turned on the heels of his lavender combat boots and returned to wherever it was he'd come from the day before. Tilted forward, head down, bulleting in a straight line along the narrow track of the sidewalk he continued, plumb off of the property. With his bedroll tucked under his arm, muttering into the palm of his hand, he seemed like a different person. .PP .ps 10 Maude let the screen door slam. .PP .ps 10 But this time she didn't lock the dead bolt. .SH ACROSS STATE LINES .R .PP .ps 10 TAB3 had been tasked with a milk run, running milk between 4086 (centuries after his death) and 1986 (moments before he was born). Okay, he figured, there probably wasn't much danger of running into anyone he knew. .PP .ps 10 Somehow, he'd allowed himself to get roped into this, shilling his dad's junk product through time and space at a moment's notice. He wasn't even (really) authorized to access this technology, it was just that his father had never met a rule or regulation he respected. And who knew how all of this would affect the baby. .PP .ps 10 Accelerating smoothly, he transgressed the boundaries of the gray desktop background.