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Chapter 1: Tomorrow Is Another Name for Yesterday

Charlie Kogburn, a licorice whip of a figure, was a sensible man in most ways.  He was not extravagant in dress or décor. Kogburn blended into the background of life. Even people who were relatively close to Kogburn could not remember the color, make, or model of the car he drove, and that was just fine with Kogburn, who preferred to go about unnoticed. Long ago, Kogburn gave up wearing anything that would call attention to himself. He was a fan of Punk music and all its descendants. He had worn punk inspired t-shirts with various sociopolitical statements on them, and even to this day, he fancied wearing ones that told the establishment or so and so to fuck off, but it was an attention-netter, and attention was something Kogburn didn't want. He didn't mind people who were centers of attention. He enjoyed bathing in their overflowing personalities. When he was comfortable, he'd crack jokes or relate a story he thought amusing. Even then, he was careful to edit himself. Kogb
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Chapter 2: My Name Is Steve

Steve was the name they assigned him. It was part of a check list he given before deployment. All the other things he either wore or used in the execution of his duties, but the name was something he internalized. It not only formed his operational identity, but strangely, the more he lived with it, the more he felt it suited him. At first it held a strange sound, terse, primitive, guttural, sudden like a punch to the face. It reflected the nature of many things in his new surroundings. The rhythm of life in his native land was quick, graceful, and efficient, much like the language and the names of the inhabitants. In the new land, the actions and manners were clumsy, plodding, even wasteful. He learned to slow down expectations and responses, to move and talk more slowly, to let himself fall into a cadence that was so odd to him, but the more he lived it, the more it became like breathing. Nothing came easy for Steve. Among his own, he was considered a failure. His genetic make-up w
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