ref: b9fbb17c04e4ccfb2021dac818e514351ca8f646
dir: /troff/0701.ms/
.LP \& .ce .sp |4.25i .ps 12 .I You blame yourself for what you can't ignore .R .PP .ps 12 \(em The Smashing Pumpkins, .I Zero .R .ce .ps 12 .CW NO VISOR .R .PP .ps 12 Two hundred years later, commence perpetual dusk. .PP .ps 12 Cue Kraftwerk. Or, just write your own. .PP .ps 12 K.A.R.R. squinted at the flat expanse, incredulous at the monotonous flatness of that same, boring horizon. In his head he repeated a snatch of unrelated music, culminating in the fragmented lyric: "orgasmic waste for the seven senses." Indeed, he thought. Already he was repeating himself. .PP .ps 12 He blinked out an alternate musical sequence to trigger his memory settings. Scrolling through the options, he happened upon an unfinished simulacrum and resumed authoring the clip. It was a pitch from back in middle school for a vintage SNL skit: Chris Farley as the Incredible Hulk. The transformation sequence from the 1970s show, with Farley in civilian clothes roiding out into Farley as the Hulk. Only, Farley wasn't ragequitting his western style snap shirt and denims slacks, he was simply yawning. Shirt rips. Pants rip. Cut to a shot of his eyes, bloodshot from lack of sleep. Face going slack\(emnot angry, but .I exhausted. .R Humorous because Farley was famously, morbidly obese. End skit. .PP .ps 12 K.A.R.R. saved his progress, kicked off a test render, and then took a long pull from his bubble pipe. .PP .ps 12 Nobody out here at this time of night, thank god who didn't exist. .PP .ps 12 K.I.T.T. raced across the desert floor every bit as fast as his gleaming dark vehicle could take him, tracking mere inches above the rapidly cooling sand. Yes, he was wasting fuel, but K.A.R.R. was out here, somewhere. Waiting. It was already (still?) dusk. Calories trickled out of his exhaust in the form of sound. Truth be told, it was taking a toll on his ears, though he wouldn't become aware of the fact until several decades hence. .PP .ps 12 Prodigious clouds of dust obscured his approach. If not for the interminable .I WUPPA WUPPA WUPPA .R of K.I.T.T.'s propulsion system, K.A.R.R. might never have become aware that he was no longer alone. As it was, K.A.R.R. had stopped paying attention, enjoying his solitude, and he was startled anew whenever K.I.T.T. got close enough to kick rocks into his field of vision. .PP .ps 12 K.I.T.T. reduced window opacity and motioned for K.A.R.R. to get in. .PP .ps 12 These two would not quarrel today. .PP .ps 12 Streaking towards home, smearing red sand in their wake, they began to talk. .PP .ps 12 "I wasn't really finished, you know." .PP .ps 12 "Bonnie doesn't care." .PP .ps 12 K.A.R.R. accepted the obvious because it was true. Bonnie probably would have preferred it if he wasn't out here at all, so far from town center. But there were worse things he could have been doing with his time. Mostly, Bonnie left him alone to work through his simulacra. .PP .ps 12 "What happened to your hair?" .PP .ps 12 There was no real reason why K.A.R.R. needed to come home for dinner. He could just as easily have packed a lunch. But sometimes these little interruptions relieved the pressures that bore down on him so oppressively. It gave him a chance to regroup before re\-attaching to whatever project currently occupied his agenda. In this example, Chris Farley could wait. .PP .ps 12 "I got rid of it, okay?" .PP .ps 12 K.A.R.R.'s bubble pipe had run out of bubbles. He tapped the cylinder, forlorn at the sudden realization he'd forgotten to pack extra mixture. So here was a reason to stop by home, after all. .PP .ps 12 "It's your turn to be the bad guy," K.I.T.T. said at once, smiling to himself in the rear\-view mirror. .PP .ps 12 No. K.A.R.R. was not going to quarrel, today. .PP .ps 12 K.A.R.R. clocked in at home and sat himself down for a quick dinner. Per company police, he had only twenty\-six minutes to clean his plate and police his dishes. Bonnie ran a disciplined operation, and she hadn't authorized overtime. .PP .ps 12 Next would be town center. If you could call it that. K.A.R.R. knew it was only a matter of time before the economy would pick up again, but a body marooned in these parts could be forgiven their doubts. Most of these businesses had been boarded over for years. Decades. .PP .ps 12 Ruins of the silo lay just beyond the town. Once, it had featured as the center of activity in the settlement. Now, most residents acted as if it didn't exist, if they remembered it at all. K.A.R.R. thought this was interesting. The place had obviously had something to do with the military. Information about it was scarce. He passed by the ruins on his way back to the desert. This time, without his visor.