After morning formation, the trainers under Sam's command moved next door to what had become known as the 'training annex'. Mike had vague notions for leading his platoon through some combat training. Those vague notions should be sufficient. Years of teaching grappling at an MMA gym had instilled in him a deep understanding of training skills. People mostly needed to be pointed in a direction and held accountable for dedicating time towards the goal. Some degree of knowledge and skill was necessary to create a basic lesson and answer any questions that were raised, but the essential component was providing people the opportunity to improve. There had been many days where he didn't know what the lesson would be until five minutes before class began, when he would pull some disparate ideas together. His vague notions that morning involved a corona wrestling drill stealing control of a softball from an opponent. They only had one softball, but he could scrounge up some random other objects and cast their diversity of equipment in a positive light.

Those vague notions died suddenly when Cassandane informed Mike that she would be training him that morning in preparation for whatever Nallit threw at him once his grace period expired. He suddenly had less than half an hour to figure out assignments for his subordinates to keep them busy for the next four hours. Giving a group of soldiers the instruction to train something was effectively giving them permission to sit around and bullshit, so that was not an option. Of all the things on their to-do list, very few of them were group activities. Yet he couldn't justify letting them slack off when the next attack could happen any day.

The problem solved itself when Jimmy asked permission to go look at some containers before he made a purchase. Apparently, their showers and toilets in the arctic were going to be built inside used intermodal shipping containers. Jimmy needed to ensure the containers were still serviceable after being hard used for a number of years. His view was that dents were fine but they wouldn't accept anything with rust. Mike's skepticism resulted in Jimmy pulling out hand-sketched blueprints for several containers bolted together: one for men next to one for women (the doors oriented in opposite directions to minimize shenanigans) and a smaller one up top to hold the hot water tank. There was piping all over the place, with some leading out the bottom to storage tanks for gray and waste water. Not having a lot of time to spare and being suitably impressed with the level of detail on display, Mike instructed Sergeant Erica Spencer to take the platoon with Jimmy.

Then began the real work. Cassandane had very little new to teach Mike with regards to corona wrestling. So rather than instruction, their time became an extended sparring session. Neither of them requested a break, so they fought through the entire morning, resetting to neutral whenever one of them -- Cassandane mostly -- achieved a decisive advantage. Mike did better than he would have expected, but his successes were measured in how long it took for him to lose rather than in actual victories. Twice he managed to best his teacher, but that was out of hundreds of matches, making his win rate on par with a rounding error.

They took a break only when Sam popped her head out to tell them lunch had arrived. Mike had jumped to the end of the line before noticing an unexpected presence in the room. An older black man pointed at him and made a 'get over here' gesture while wearing a giant smile. Mike abandoned the food line to walk over and shake hands. "Mr. Hill! I didn't expect to see you today. How have you been?"

"I'm surviving. A little upset you didn't invite me to be in your little army, but I'll get over it," Mr. Hills said.

"That's my fault, sir. I was worried if we gave you superpowers there wouldn't be enough bad guys for the rest of us to fight."

The old man laughed. "Oh, well that makes sense." He put an arm around Mike's shoulder. "Tell me about this Kendra girl."

"Dad!" Jimmy growled.

Mike leaned in and dropped his volume. "I heard she lived in an apartment with some bum for years before she started dating a CFO."

"I heard the same. I figure that room mate must be into men if he never tried to date her."

Mike playfully pushed Mr. Hills away. "Get out of here with that talk."

"Just having fun with ya. Serious talk, though. She a good woman?"

"She's great. Sounds like you already met her, though. And maybe heard about her a bit even before that?"

"True that. Got to talk to her a good bit earlier. An' Jimmy does pretty good at calling home to give updates on things."

"Are you the one drawing diagrams for the bathroom?"

"The containers was my idea," Mr. Hills said. "I don't know if you recall on account of how much you were drinking at the time, but at one of Jimmy's fights I mentioned to you how I was building a container house for some rich feller. After everything, it wasn't any cheaper than a normal house, but the man wanted a certain look. I figure if you want to build remote and fly something in, containers are the best bet. I'm retired now anyway, so this is something in the way of entertainment for me."

"Did Jimmy buy the containers we need?"

"You better believe it. We're gonna bolt them together in the next couple of weeks. Got to run the plumbing and what not so all you when you set it onto the snow is connect your septic tank. Or maybe you just let your waste drain somewhere. I don't know what environmental laws Canada has." Mr. Hills clapped Mike on the back. "You get some food and we'll chat some more."

Jimmy intercepted him while he was loading his plate. "Sorry he came back to base with us. I couldn't figure out how to get rid of him without being rude."

"Sounds like he's a military contractor, so it's not uncalled for to have him on site."

"Thanks for understanding, Mike. Now, there's a couple of topics I would be eternally grateful if you avoided."

"He already asked about Varanelli."

"Yeah, I heard. Try to divert next time he brings her up."

"Why? You seem to like her, she definitely likes you. It's the only relationship around here that could be considered wholesome."

Jimmy groaned. "I already had enough dad time today Mike, so none of that talk from you. Just please, for the sake of my sanity, don't let my dad talk about my girl."

"Fine. But you're going to owe me. I'll be missing out on a huge opportunity to tease you."

"Agreed. I will owe you. Also, my parents are under the impression that I am never in any danger whatsoever in my role as CFO of the EDA. Any talk to the contrary would cause me lots of grief."

Mike nodded. "I'm not going to talk about our morality rate."

"Thanks, man."

Mike forced a smile back onto his face that he no longer felt. They had held the memorial service for Woodrow the previous day. In seven days the grace period Nallit had granted Mike would expire. Random terrorist groups knew where they were. Elements of the American government had an adversarial view of the EDA. All of it added up to a distasteful truth: whatever Jimmy might have told his parents, his life was not safe. That went for every single member of the EDA.