Mike had taken the final watch once more. It simply made sense considering his role in the organization involved prepping for the day. This time he had partnered up with old man Woodrow, who unexpectedly became a chatterbox at that time in the morning.

"I'm always awake early," Woodrow continued his monologue. "Always. I was up three times last night to use the facilities. Every time it was harder to get back to sleep. My hips and shoulders like to complain. That's the whole reason why I turned into a swimmer in my old age. As a kid I never learned how to swim properly. Can you believe that? Then after retirement I started swimming every morning at the YMCA. Ten laps, Mike. Ten laps every morning, followed by ten minutes in the steam room."

Ten minutes into their shift and Mike wanted to murder Woodrow and dispose of his body in the river. He sighed. If he started murdering his troops for being annoying, he wouldn't have a very large army after a few days. Mike put out a hand to stop Woodrow. "I've got joint problems from years of martial arts training. The two of us ought to fix that with the teleotic talent."

"Marius always said we could fix my body. Shame he didn't make it. The pain has been worse since I ran out of my medication. I used to take Celebrex every day. That's an anti-inflammatory. I would also take fish oil and glucosamine and MSM. Those are supplements and let me tell you, they really helped. I've been using animas to put some heat on the stiffness, that seems to help a little."

"Woodrow," Mike interrupted, "we're training now. Let's be quiet while I take a look at your shoulder." He extended both his corona and his teleotic sense into his comrade's shoulder. Though he had very little knowledge of anatomy, the problem jumped out at him. The globular socket at the end of the arm bone had worn through its smooth covering in several places, and tiny needles of hard bone had lifted free to spear into the tissue around it. "Damn, Woodrow, I think you wore through your cartilage."

"That's exactly right. It's rheumatoid arthritis."

Mike used the teleotic talent to seal the bone needles into the head of the shoulder he pushed them flat with his corona. When those were no longer sticking up, Mike loosened up the cartilage that still existed with gravitas, turning it into a liquid momentarily as he spread it around evenly, then hardening it so that it froze into a smooth surface. Mike then turned his attention to his own shoulder for comparison. There was definitely a difference. The puffy swelling in every soft structure of Woodrow's shoulder might go away on its own now that the irritations had been removed. He didn't want to wait on that, so Mike looked closer. As the granularity of his sense went to finer scale, he noticed that the cells that were inflamed were filled to bursting with fluid. It took nearly fifteen minutes, a time during which he had to regularly admonish Woodrow to silence, before Mike figured out a teleotic pattern that caused excess fluid to drain back out of the cells. He applied the pattern broadly across the area and held it for five minutes.

"Now try to move your arm."

Woodrow cautiously raised his hand above his head, paused, lowered it. A thoughtful expression came over his face as he moved both hands in unison through the same range of motion, for once that morning remaining silent. After a few more tests, Woodrow stood and moved his chair to point the other way, sitting to place his opposite shoulder beside Mike. "Do this one now."

Mike used the same process on the other shoulder, at the conclusion of which Woodrow did another range of motion test. "The pain is almost gone," he finally said. "There is still some tightness, and some weakness, but it doesn't feel like I'm grinding my shoulder into dust every time I move. Do my hips now. Those are the worst of it."

"If this soldiering thing doesn't work out, maybe I'll try out doctoring," Mike muttered as he went to work on the hip joint. The problem was much the same, as the hip was a ball and socket joint similar to the shoulder, but in addition to the head of the thigh bone being exposed and spiky, the hip socket had the same problem. Mike applied his fix, pushing down and sealing the needles to the underlying bone, then spreading around cartilage in an even surface to re-cover the areas that had worn through. He followed up by draining some fluid from the inflamed cells. Then he did the other hip.

While Woodrow seemed pleased with the results, walking around for several minutes and performing old man stretches, the positive attitude did not last long. "Mike, you messed up yesterday by not getting coffee for breakfast. People like coffee with breakfast. And you need to get something more filling than bagels. I always did bacon and eggs when I had the option. I know you have to pick up a meat free option because Cassandane is used to space food. I know that. I'm just saying you should consider getting something more filling. And coffee. Definitely coffee."

Mike squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He had only one polite way to shut the old man up. "Hey, Woodrow, I want you to work on body sculpting. Part of your joint pain comes from the muscles and tendons and ligaments being weak."

"Mike, it's because I can't swim. I used to do ten laps every morning."

"No, Woodrow. You haven't been away from swimming long enough to lose muscle. This is caused by long term inflammation and old age."

Woodrow huffed at the diagnosis. "What, you expect me to stop being old?"

"Exactly. The best use of the teleotic talent for you is getting those muscles big and strong. Age has made it a little harder for you to grow muscle, maybe, but your talents have made it easier. It balances out."

It took a little more convincing, but Woodrow finally set to working on his muscles. That shut him up just in time for Spencer to stumble out of the women's room. "Hey, Ski, am I still doing the breakfast run today?"

"You can run for breakfast or you can sit with Woodrow," he said.

Even half asleep, Spencer silently chuckled at the choice. "I'll go get breakfast. Any recommendations."

"Make sure there is a food option for the boss. And you better pick up coffee. I'm getting tired of hearing everyone complaining about it."

"Food, coffee, plates. How hard can it be?" She winked at him.

Mike rolled his eyes. "You forget plates one time . . . ."

"Can I get one of those prepaid cards?"

He dug into his wallet and handed over the card he had been given for food expenses. "Try to keep it under a hundred dollars. We don't know when the next influx of funds is coming."

"We have fifteen people, Mike. If I spend ten dollars a person, that is a hundred and fifty dollars."

"And Jimmy set a budget of a hundred dollars a meal," Mike said. "You go over that and we need to skimp on lunch and dinner. Bring back the receipt or we'll get lectured to death."

Spencer muttered to herself as she walked out to the roof and flew away.

"I hope she remembers coffee," Woodrow said. "People like coffee with breakfast."