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.LP \& .ce .sp |4.25i .PP .ps 12 .CW ░ "Then why do we have a socialized military?" Piotr countered, not really asking. He was going through Ralph's purse, waiting for Dr. Fadd to return from his smoke break. "I can tell just by your reaction, you're lying." .PP .ps 12 "B\-but, I haven't even said anything yet," Ralph spat, stammering wildly. .PP .ps 12 Thomas leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. Smiling. .PP .ps 12 Dr. Fadd, better known as Super\-Sonic in his capacity as strong\-man mainstay of the A.C.T.R.O.N. team, held a PhD in philosophy from UC Berkeley, an MFA in creative writing from Brown University, and a BA in communications from the University of Southern Indiana (famous "High School on the Highway"). His expertise was therefore grounded in the liberal arts, but extended to interrogations by fiat of the base commander, whomever that was this week. Dr. Fadd considered himself pretty good at it. His subordinates sooner or later realized that his enthusiasm was infectious. .PP .ps 12 "I\-I just can't remember," Ralph was still stammering. He never had been much of a conversationalist. .PP .ps 12 "Historicizing is inevitable," Piotr observed, and hopped up just as Dr. Fadd returned, his two assistants trailing close behind him with the silver tea service. .PP .ps 12 "Tea," Dr. Fadd pronounced, which Piotr and Thomas understood as their cue to leave. .PP .ps 12 They did so. .PP .ps 12 "Time was, all of this was runway." .PP .ps 12 Piotr swept his hand across the horizon from one end of the desert base to the other, apparently hoping to trigger some obscure UI event, maybe a pre-rendered cutscene, but from Thomas' point of view nothing at all happened. "Now, we have a fucking Wal\-Mart." .PP .ps 12 He meant the PX. .PP .ps 12 "Things sure have picked up around here since last I had the pleasure," Thomas scowled, attempting to mimic Piotr's transparent disdain for progress. Matching his mood. He'd learned from experience this was the wisest course of action. .PP .ps 12 "You don't understand," Piotr said. "I was here at the beginning. With your dad. When this all started, the place had a purpose." .PP .ps 12 Thomas shrugged. In addition to not understanding what his pirate friend was on about, he didn't really care. Of course he couldn't just come out and say that. Instead he remained perfectly still, hoping to arrest the coming onslaught through sheer force of will, waiting, praying to omnipresent no one for Piotr to wind himself down before he said something he couldn't take back. .PP .ps 12 But Piotr was just getting started. .PP .ps 12 "Don't even get me started," Piotr continued, obviously itching to lay it all out for Thomas, who at this late date was scrambling for any excuse to change the subject. .PP .ps 12 "Good idea," said Thomas, slapping his folder shut and scraping back his chair to leave. He swiped the window closed and tossed his empty Styrofoam cup into a wastebasket. .PP .ps 12 Dregs of dregs of dregs, at long last, who fucking gave a shit? .PP .ps 12 Exit Thomas. .PP .ps 12 Continuity of government was no trivial exercise, as Thomas figured it. Case in point: MARS2. Established during the last war as a temporary weapons testing facility, the base had slowly expanded to encompass basic research, technical support, product development, and, finally, representative democracy. Thomas wasn't sure any of it had been an upgrade. .PP .ps 12 Piotr, for his part, was certain. .PP .ps 12 "I repeat. Things have gone straight to Hell," echoed (and comprised) his monologue. .PP .ps 12 "Well, I mean, it's Mars," Thomas pointed out. .PP .ps 12 Thomas, too, was beginning to get on Piotr's nerves. .PP .ps 12 "Still," Piotr placed the tip of a Walker's shortbread cookie into his mouth, "It's not all throwing good money after bad. Take this cookie." .PP .ps 12 Hard to argue, and Thomas reached out for it, but Piotr hadn't really been offering him a cookie. He pulled the snack away again and stuck it in his own mouth. .PP .ps 12 "I suppose all of these products we test out here have, ostensibly, made the world a better place." .PP .ps 12 "Sure," Thomas ventured. "I mean, I can have a time machine delivered to my front door in no time flat. Low price. Free shipping." .PP .ps 12 Presently, the RAGNAROK completed its landing cycle, settling smoothly onto a dusty sheet of pink frost no more than six feet in front of the porch where the two men stood, chewing their cud. .PP .ps 12 "Free shipping?" asked Piotr, tossing his now empty bag of Walker's onto the pink sand. .PP .ps 12 They boarded. .PP .ps 12 They came. .PP .ps 12 From all corners of the known universe in perpetuity they came. Riding herd over themselves, the little black skateboards, nollie to grind to kickflip to grind to kickflip to grind, qualified and unqualified alike (some of them where the nephews, or in any case admirers, of management). Stipulated, they came. Flat black wheels, trucks, rails, decks, grip tape, bright yellow millennial jumpsuits. None of it ironic. .PP .ps 12 The skateboards had arrived to be tested. .PP .ps 12 "Another day, another fifty cents," Piotr said, and got up. .PP .ps 12 "I guess we'd better start checking them in," Thomas grumbled, scanner in hand. .PP .ps 12 It was one of those days where Piotr had woken up worryingly chatty. Holding forth ebulliently on topics he usually played close to his tight\-fitting brown vest. Most of it classified. .PP .ps 12 All in all the skateboards were easy to work with. Flat, matte black. Even in the sun's glare they were easy to look at, if difficult to see. Thomas' chief concern was that, indeed, they were so alien to his way of seeing things, the way they simply absorbed whatever light was thrown at them, that he wasn't sure they could ever assimilate. .PP .ps 12 That was where Geo came in. .PP .ps 12 A North American great horned owl, Geo was the lead contractor, also an avid skateboarder, and had, during his travels, picked up some of their lingo. He could communicate with the things, anticipating their desires as well as their ultimate end users' desires, and demanded only a cursory fee, well within the project's budget, for his contributions. Thomas suspected Geo was doing it out of .I love, .R the putz. .PP .ps 12 Piotr wasn't so sure. .PP .ps 12 "You guys are the opposite of gnarly," Geo was saying, his hopelessly dated INFLUENCER patch displayed unironically upon his left wing\-shoulder, "You can't even nollie properly." They had to get their numbers up. .PP .ps 12 "FFFFFFF..." one of the decks said, spinning its tiny black wheels. This batch of black skateboards could hardly speak owing to an acute lack of onboard audio. What the skateboard had been trying to express was that the term "gnarly" embodied two distinct, contradictory definitions. It was a contronym. .PP .ps 12 "I know," Geo said. .PP .ps 12 It was going to be a long session.