ref: cde05f4187aed1c77b8efb57ee5dabe8d5d5106d
dir: /troff/043.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 % 115 \ " start with this page number .ds CF [%] \" first numbered page (bottom) .ps 10 .SH PASSIVE INCOME .R .PP .ps 10 Maude always got her cut. .PP .ps 10 It wasn't child support, exactly, as her child was now a grown man, and anyway, her marriage to Plinth Mold had nullified such quotidian considerations as money out of hand. Alimony was technically disqualified on similar grounds. No, Maude's interest in TAB2's plan to save the world by scooping all the good drugs out of the future and dumping them back in the past had been instantiated by sheer force of will. After her Dad died, Maude knew that someone would have to look out for her sister Antigone. And knowing was halfway to getting paid. .PP .ps 10 Her sister. Perhaps unemployable, she, too was approaching middle age, whatever that might mean for human beings who'd enjoyed sustained physical proximity to members of the curiously long\-lived Mold family. No one in her household had aged visibly since the abandoned shopping mall they once called home finally revealed itself as the carcass of a ship from Plinth's former space fleet. A variable\-sized, giant pink triangle everyone in the food court laughingly referred to as the RAGNAROK. Residents of the mall were abruptly obliged to GTFO, with no advance warning, and no prior arrangements as to WTF they were supposed to go. Dad just sat down on the curb outside and started crying. Maude now found it was her own responsibility to step up and take care of the family. And that required resources. .PP .ps 10 Going on a hundred years ago, this month. .PP .ps 10 Plinth must have seen it all coming.