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That Fred believed a combination nursing home and whorehouse was a splendid idea would surprise no one who knew him. It was somewhat more surprising that he could find so many RNs who were also experienced prostitutes. It was genuinely alarming that he had gotten this far along in the loan application process at one of the largest banks operating in Nevada. "Health care and sex work have a lot in common both in terms of the skills you have to bring to them and the outcomes you can expect with the clients," he said to the assembled skeptical faces.

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Silk Worm Moon had decided that it was time to bring the religion of The Users out of the fictional world of Tron and into the real world. Having worked in translation of one sort or another all her life, this seemed a natural thing to her. It helped a lot that philosophers were now regarding the idea that we live in a computer simulation to be a live possibility, rather than a skeptical hypothesis. She thought about bringing the religion to some of the corners of the internet she knew where such proposals are received with exactly the level of seriousness she had. She worried, though, that the voices there would have questions about the video game, the comic book, or the new movie. A user, she thought, would be a kind of semi-demi-urge: not ultimate creator, nor the creator of this world, merely someone who had customized this portion of the world to suit his needs. A city god, or tribal god. A guardian spirit or animal guide. Should she first show that the world is really a computer simulation? She didn't want this project to end like her youthful attempt to recreate the Pythagorean cult. Most of all, she needed to know what her user wanted her to do.

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In recent ship-wide elections, the Conservative Party gained control of the starboard engine, and have vowed to shut it down. If Labor, which retains control of the port engine, decides to massively increase thrust, the ship may start traveling in tiny circles. However, the most politically likely outcome is that the massive asteroid vessel will fly straight into the sun.

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"Ha ha!" cried the villain, "with this device I shall go all the way back in time, to the very beginning, and change it so the universe as a whole never existed!"

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The Grand Mother-Empress summoned the greatest scholars of the River, the impuritans of the lower valley and the Maximalists of the upper valley, to debate her divinity. Privately, she hoped she was not divine.

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The people of his planet had large hands that were extremely sensitive. Indeed, their language had a hand-holding form, in addition to a spoken and a written form. The cost of this sensitivity was that the hands must be kept extremely cold, about 20 degrees colder than human body temperature, a fact that Captain Patel found very inconvenient whenever she was in a relationship with one, which was surprisingly often.