'It's only for a little while,' Cortez said. 'Don't look at me, Mr. Vega. It's not like you jumped at the chance to move out when Allers offered. She had that nice place and everything.'

'Just don't ask me to share a toothbrush,' James replied, 'and we're cool.'

He kept most of his stuff in a duffel, just in case. Easy to pick up and pack out and move on, and if anything happened, it was all there. He knew what to grab, what he needed and what he didn't, and it even fit with the rest of the room. Not much to look at, just a bed and a pillow and the table, and the old ship model, the aquarium VI.

Cortez dropped his bag of stuff next to that table, not heavy enough to move it when the duffel hit one of the legs on its way down. He looked at the model ship and the VI that stuck out like a sore thumb, a broken thumb, but didn't say anything about it, James daring him to with his eyes.

They'd set up next to each other early on with Allers on the other side of James's space, because it was the only thing that made sense in a world that didn't anymore. But a few weeks in, Allers moved out, into another compound with another…roommate.

'You know she's living with Traynor now, right?' James asked. 'They're running that whole News from London thing together.'

'Right, right. I remember that.' There was no chair for Cortez to pull up and have a seat on, so he leaned against the wall instead, next to where he'd rolled his cot, with James pushing it from behind to get it around the corner, past the lifted tarp. The table separated them now. More like road-block than road-cocoa, James thought. 'Pretty impressive, too, how she managed to set the whole thing up so fast.'

'Pretty impressive how we can do alla this without somebody calling all the shots, you mean?' James dropped to the spot beside his bed, floor cold beneath his palm, tucking his other arm behind his back. He curled his knuckles, blunt nails tucked in, found the right angle, and lowered himself all the way, where the floor was cool but clean. At least compared to everything else. There was nothing but shadow under his bed, not even dust down there. His elbow bent. He held the position, feeling all the muscles of his body, from his shoulders to his calves, pectorals and triceps and deltoids. He knew all the names, that one-handed push-ups always worked best, but it was more important how they felt after: so damn tired and so damn real. 'No surprise here. Council didn't know—the hell it was doing. Just there to—make things complicated. Better off—doing things ourselves.'

In between counts, he remembered to breathe.

Cortez once said it was almost like a miracle James could talk and exercise at the same time.

But exercising was the only time James could talk. The repetition made it possible, up and down, regulating his breathing and tightening his brain.

And Cortez was still in the corner next to the tarp, arms folded, not moving, watching the action.

James didn't start to sweat for a while, but when he did, he could feel it in the usual places, under his arms and down the center of his chest, on his upper lip, mostly on his forehead and in the small of his back, maybe some on his stomach, too.

'It's only for a little while,' Cortez said again, into James's grunts. He figured it was fine to start grunting after a hundred reps. And it was fine to stop thinking after two-hundred. 'Besides, you're the one who suggested it. Don't worry—I've got my own toothbrush.'

James didn't hear Cortez walking closer, but he did see his legs swing around in front as he crossed to James's bed. James knew he was sitting, could feel Cortez's shins almost grazing his obliques. He thought about how much harder it'd be with Cortez planting his foot between James's shoulder-blades and pushing down. He thought about the challenge and he thought about how sore he'd be after, how quick he'd fall asleep, and how he'd wake up early, stiff, in more ways than one.

'My idea, but you didn't argue with it, did you?' James bumped Cortez's knee with the arm he'd twisted behind his back. 'Now we have to hope the guy doesn't have nightmares.'

'That won't even be a problem if he's a light sleeper, anyway,' Cortez said. 'Considering how much you snore, Mr. Vega, it's not all that surprising that Diana moved out, either.'

James grunted, huh. The clap that followed was him switching hands, once, fancy, and he thought he could hear Cortez snort, grudging recognition of the effort it took to do that kind of thing mid-air. Then, James sank all the way down to the floor again but for some reason he stayed there, waiting, head turned away from the bed, staring at the bottom of the broken wall where Steve's duffel rested next to the clawed foot of the table. There was a snag in the fabric where it'd caught against something sharp, almost tearing but not quite.

'How's he holding up, anyway?' James asked. 'Major Alenko.'

'I figure it's something like you right now, actually,' Cortez replied. 'Going through the repetitions. Stuff he knows, stuff his body knows. He's doing pretty well, all things considered.'

'Huh,' James said again, and started his count all over from the beginning. One turned into ten pretty quick, then to twenty, and after that keeping count was just a way to prove to his brain what his body already knew about the situation.

'Anyway,' Cortez added, quieter, 'just because I've got my own experiences doesn't mean there's anything I can say to him to make his easier. It's all about how he processes this. For all we know, he'll never really…'

'Must suck to have people talking about you behind your back like this all the time, though.' James was closing in on fifty. After that, the next landmark was a hundred. 'You know how I process that, Esteban?'

'By being a dinosaur?' Cortez asked.

James closed out the feeling of amusement, the chuckle that came with. No kidding, he thought, while his civvies brushed against Cortez's, tee on fatigues. It was just fabric brushing fabric. It didn't mean anything. Sometimes Cortez let himself in before they were sharing a room, just to watch. Now, he didn't have that far to go, both of them letting an old friend stay close by. If he lost his shit—if he went completely loco in the night, like he had every right to do—then they'd be there to hold him down until he came back to earth again.

Earth. Where they all were. Broadcasting news as far as New York and Vancouver and wherever else, but not up through the atmosphere.

The sweat was running down James's spine and under his belt. His blood was hot and the floor under his hand was hot, but every time his chest made it within a centimeter of the marble, the stone was still cold. It didn't breathe toward him. He was the one doing the moving. Even if the earth was spinning and going around the sun at the same time, James was the one going up and down.

One hundred.

Time was just flying.

'You don't have to show off anymore, you know,' Cortez said. 'Color me already impressed.'

'This isn't for you,' James said.

'Yeah.' Cortez didn't budge. Maybe the added pressure was in the air already, something James was pushing against, and Cortez thought a little more would be what made him go loco. It wasn't going to happen. James hadn't seen worse, but he'd trained for this. He was ready for it. His body especially, but that wasn't the only thing. 'I know it's not. …But I don't mind pretending it is every once in a while.'

'Should've called you Loco,' James said, doing the last of his reps in quiet.

It was the least he could do on this stinking budget. He'd already broken one of the lampposts out back, old metal shearing clean in two, an easy break.

'I don't know,' Cortez said. 'You can't change now. I'm too used to Esteban. Wish you could make me more of your famous heuvos, though.'

James grabbed for something to towel off with and Cortez handed it to him, fingers on fingers. James's hand was too numb, all the blood rushing back to his fingertips, to feel it. He had to pulse his grip on the terrycloth a couple of times to shake it off and loosen up the joints, then wiped the back of his neck, his forehead, messing up his hair, rolling up his t-shirt to get his stomach and lower back. He snapped the tented fabric twice for some air on his skin, and he couldn't reach his shoulders, so he didn't bother trying. When he was finished, the towel was damp and his blood wasn't cool yet. He knelt by the bed, bone meeting marble and neither one winning.

'You could quit staring and pass me something to drink,' he said.

'Figures I'd be bunking with the one guy in London who shows off, then complains when people take notice,' Cortez replied.

He grabbed the thermos off the floor anyway, passing it to James. That was cool, too, metal sides scratched up, providing texture he needed to get a solid grip. James wrapped his fingers around it and unscrewed the top and drank, for a long time, until all the air in his lungs ran out and there was nothing left in the thermos save for a few drops. Those always drove James crazy, knowing they were there, not being able to get 'em out.

'You know you love it,' James said, wiping the grin and the water away with the back of his wrist.

Steve leaned forward, elbows braced on his thighs, until they were close. Not too close but real close, noses almost touching, the way James got all the way down to the floor when he let his arm bend at the perfect angle and his lips nearly brushed the marble. He could see Cortez's eyes, which were baby blues on the worst days, bright even from a distance. Up close, they had no flecks of gray in them, not like the marble at all.

The marble didn't breathe toward him, but Steve Cortez did.

'…You missed a spot,' he said finally, taking a corner of the sweaty towel and rubbing it along the side of James's throat—where the pulse got worked up and James could feel it, thudding, into the ink he had on the skin.

'Yeah.' James swallowed. 'Always forget that's there.'

'You just need some outsider perspective, that's all,' Cortez said. 'Easier to see those things.'

'When you're watching,' James said.

For all the times Cortez hadn't backed down, he chose this one to pull away, stretching his arms out, heels of his palms rubbing his thighs to his knees, sleeves rolled up to the elbow. 'Some people make it hard not to. Like I said—only guy in London who shows off, then calls people out for watching. You're a complicated man, Mr. Vega.'

'You sure about that, Esteban?' James asked. 'Most people think it's the opposite.'

That night, they didn't talk, bunk to bunk. They slept on opposite sides of the room, but James felt like he could also feel Cortez breathing, up and down, in and out. It was something he could feel, instead of everything that went by unnoticed—all the stuff they relied on and all the stuff that mattered most, bars that didn't snap when you were just trying to pull your own weight.