ref: b9fbb17c04e4ccfb2021dac818e514351ca8f646
dir: /troff/0607.ms/
.LP \& .ce .sp |4.25i .PP .ps 12 .CW ░ New York, 2020. .PP .ps 12 It was time to dye his hair again. .PP .ps 12 Tom kneaded the Grisham's Formula into his scalp and waited for it to take effect. The inevitable sales boost would hit like a four day weekend. Ah, here it came now. .PP .ps 12 Was this stuff affecting him? .PP .ps 12 Could .I anything .R affect him? .PP .ps 12 Just being born had been traumatic enough. But nowadays he had to contend with efficiency stats, human resources protocols, public relations snafus, labor boards, local agreements, office politics, quarterly budgets, and the fact that this hair dye recalcitrantly refused to turn his hair completely silver. He looked like a young man wearing an old man costume. But in a bad way. Everything he did to try and accentuate his apparent age only made him look more and more like a little boy wearing his father's clothes. .PP .ps 12 He wasn't going deaf, he thought. If anything, his superpowers had intensified with age. He was stronger. He was faster. And he was pretty sure his hearing had actually improved. Therefore, he could only conclude that .I sound itself .R had degraded. Hadn't he been saying that all along? .PP .ps 12 Crushed the pocket radio (where had \fIthat\fR thing come from?) in his super\-powered fist, scattering electronic dust across his low pile carpet. .PP .ps 12 His reverie was disrupted by yet another call from Piro. .PP .ps 12 Which was curious, since Piro had been dead for thirty years.