ref: b9fbb17c04e4ccfb2021dac818e514351ca8f646
dir: /troff/0107.ms/
.LP \& .ce .sp |4.25i .PP .ps 12 .CW ░ Contradictions of life in the hotel: The restaurant was situated on a separate floor from its restrooms. SL took the stairs, mainly because the lateral elevator was still only moving sideways. Worse, upon exiting one was obliged to pass through a hall of archival material commemorating the hotel's past advertising campaigns. Egressing the nostalgia tour, guests were scanned and registered as willing participants in whatever current campaign was in the offing, details TBA. A mandatory, implicit endorsement of precisely the horseshit people came here to escape. SL was glad to bypass it. .PP .ps 12 Walking back upstairs presented its own challenges: namely, interception by the hotel's dedicated brand coaching staff. No matter how many times SL refused their services, the pitch remained the same: .I Come with us if you want to live. .R SL invariably declined, citing his self\-evident lack of willpower (\fIe.g.\fR, rehab). .PP .ps 12 And they hadn't killed him yet. .PP .ps 12 For some reason, all the motor vehicles in town had begun presenting as if they rolled on green wheels. Somehow, SL had failed to notice this before. He figured there must be some significance, perhaps an exculpatory one, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Green rubber? Was it \fIpolitical?\fR Guys down at the VFW just stared at him whenever he brought it up. So he let the matter drop, and soon he forgot all about it, as if all wheels everywhere had always been green. A lot of things around here seemed to work that way. Just let it go, and maybe soon you'll forget all about it. The practical applications... .PP .ps 12 SL patted the hidden compartment in his trousers. The envelope was still there. .PP .ps 12 And what had become of his friend during all these weeks? .PP .ps 12 "Long time no snark," SL's friend beamed, genuinely happy to see him. .PP .ps 12 "Yeah," SL allowed, sounding almost as deflated as he felt. .PP .ps 12 Thank Christ for room tone. Whatever his friend had said in reply was lost in a burst of static as his gear adjusted to the room's new normal. SL now paused to calibrate his haptics manually. In the weeks since he'd logged in there had been some considerable drift in his settings. He ignored the inconvenience and tried to look natural. .PP .ps 12 Afterwards, SL was disappointed in himself. Again, he'd broken a winning streak only to come away feeling worse than when he'd logged in. Worst of all, the ground was shifting beneath him. Even as he stood still, his remaining equipment was obsoleting, would soon no longer be .I able to login. .PP .ps 12 And then where would he be?