Michael got up with a new frame of mind. Today is going to be better. He rolled out of bed to a supine position on the floor. He gathered himself up so that he could push up off of the carpet. His forehead grazed the carpet with a turn as he braced his fists on the floor.

He pushed.

His whole body shook with the effort. It didn’t move, but it shook.

Fuck it, let’s try this. He lifted his legs from the knee and settled his feet to point position. Bearing down on his knees, he tried again.

He pushed.

Shakily his body angled up from the floor. He shakily returned it to the floor.

One.

He steadied himself for another go and pushed again. He lifted himself just enough to decide to swing his leg up to stand up. One is more than none. That’s progress enough. Michael thought to himself as he walked out of his bedroom to prepare himself for the day.

---

Many would say that the Shil’vati Invasion and consequent occupation had led to great strides, nay, replacements for caretaking. They’d all but cured cancer, rebuilt infrastructure, made life in general easier for humanity. That said, improvements didn’t necessarily equate to “fixing” people. Cochlear implants from the Shil’vati could tap into many more frequencies than regular Human implants could, but it still wasn’t natural hearing. Most hearing amplifications could let you hear more, but hearing more didn’t mean hearing like the average person heard. An amplified person could hear a person talking in front of them, but they also heard every other conversation happening in the room. They also heard the buzz of heating and air conditioning at the same volume. Conversations with someone with amplification could still be interrupted by a spoon falling to the floor with a spinning clang across the cafeteria.

All of this to say, Michael still had job security. Deaf people were still culturally Deaf, meaning they did not want to be fixed by the Shil’vati. Deaf people call people who are hard of hearing “little d-deaf” because as much as those people wanted to be considered hearing, even though they didn’t want to be called Deaf and they had a degree more hearing than those who were Deaf; they still weren’t “hearing” enough for hearing people to not be compelled to correct their incorrect pronunciations. Not hearing enough, not Deaf enough; they were between worlds. Little d deaf people were still Deaf because, without their amplifications, their capacity to hear was limited. Even then, with amplifications, no amount of speech therapy or auditory training with hoops covering mouths or other clinical training can make a person who cannot discern a V from a B able to better understand those letters and many others when spoken.

Interpreters will always have jobs.

Having completed their morning routines, going down the stairs, Michael and Bill fell into Michael’s car and swung into motion.

Gazing out the window, at nothing in particular, Bill informed Michael, “I had a dream last night.”

“Oh yeah?” Michael asked in a reflected nonchalance, waiting for his turn to get on the main road.

“Yeah, you came in my room and started bugging me.” Bill tried to continue before Michael interrupted.

“Like I do…”, Michael falsely admitted.

Bill must’ve rolled his eyes before continuing, Michael couldn’t tell; eyes on the road and all that. “You wouldn’t stop poking at me. I didn’t want to get up.” He caught his breath before sharing, “And I just started stabbing you.”

“You what!?” Michael exclaimed.

“Yeah, you know I keep a KBAR under my pillow, right?”

Michael’s eyes widened, but didn’t leave the road, “...Ok…”.

“You wouldn’t leave me alone so I grabbed my KBar and started stabbing you.” Bill wiped the sleep from his eyes. “And it wasn’t how much I was stabbing you--like how many times. It was how hard I was stabbing you.”

Michael shut up any notion of interrupting again.

Bill noticed and started chuckling to himself. “Heh, your head was just hanging off of your body by a sliver.”

Michael’s mind flashed to Serca’s body gushing on the parking lot. Fucking great… But that was the recent past. Given his living situation previous to living with Bill, where he felt disrespected and ignored, the threat of death made him feel like he was seen. Whether he was seen as a target or not, he was still seen. At least I’m present enough in his mind that I would be worth putting in the effort to kill me.

“You know, that doesn’t bother me as much as you may think it would.” Michael finally replied.

“Oh?” Bill stopped brooding long enough to ask.

“Yeah, even hearing that, I still feel happier and safer living with you than I was in my own home. Doesn’t even make me want to lock my door.” In fact, at this point, I might welcome it.

Michael didn’t want to hurt himself, but to no longer exist seemed better than any other situation in which he could envision himself.

“Dude… I mean, I did kill you in my dreams, but that’s fucked up.”

Their ride continued in amicable silence.

---

Work went as well as it usually did. Nothing terribly challenging so far this semester.

It was fun going into a psychology class the first day and setting himself up at the front of the class, like he usually did. Interpreters stand or sit in the front of classrooms off to the side so as to not be more of a distraction than they already were. Michael, at 5’10”, 270 lbs, in all black clothing, was kind of a distraction for most people in the best of circumstances.

He’d gotten himself settled in the front of the room and faced into the rows of seats to discern if his Deaf student was there yet or not. He decided not to worry too much about it yet and looked at his phone to check the time.

At that point, the professor stepped near to Michael. “You know, you might get a lot more out of the class if you faced the board.”

Michael had smiled at the misunderstanding. “Oh! No sir, I’m your interpreter.”

“Interpreter?”

“Yeah, you’ve got a Deaf student this semester. In fact, here they are.” Michael motioned to the student who’d just crossed the threshold. Michael began signing introductions.

“Oh...I see.” The professor settled back onto the table in the front of the lecture hall before beginning their lesson soon after.

---

Though he was an interpreter, he worked with people who had disabilities, and there was no shortage of them around. War was hell. No matter the reparations the Shil’vati made in the way of medical technology, economic resettlement, and other miracles Humanity was in no position to develop any time soon disabilities were still there. A missing limb could be replaced, but it did not make up for the real thing. Poor Rachel, I hope she’s doing ok.

Ultimately, not too much changed for him.

Throughout the day though, Michael worried about repercussions from his weekend. Celeste was still in the office most of the day outside of her classes. Instead of her darkened camouflage, she wore a bright sundress. She didn’t make a peep in front of Michael regarding Rachel or Amber nor any of the gruesomeness that’d witnessed.

Michael’s paranoia extended to Bill as well. Not that Bill could attest to anything that had happened, he still had a bad habit of telling Michael’s business. It hadn’t gone any farther than Michael’s head. Luckily enough for him.

---

The day finished without much ado. Bill and Michael went home, noting dark storm clouds that loomed on the horizon.

Bill was the first to speak up. “Look, Mike, I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. We are fat fucking slobs.” He sighed and opened a beer. “We need to fix it. We gotta stop all the bullshit we’re doing and start working out.”

In the short time they’d lived together, Michael knew where it was going. He grumbled audibly.

Bill stayed standing at the island in the kitchen. He’d brought out his sleeping knife and was sharpening it at the sink. “Yeah, yeah, I know, you wanna keep living like every day is a vacation. But we can’t keep pretending that everything’s ok.” He began scraping the knife’s edge against a whetstone. “Dude, you got attacked. You have no idea how to defend yourself and--no offense--but you’re too weak to defend yourself.”

“What? You think I can defend myself against 8 foot tall amazons even if I were fit? Didn’t they annihilate the military? You know, the trained fit people? Why do you think I should get fit? Being fit and trained killed them.” Michael leaned back into the elbow of the sectional. “Being fat has kept me alive so far.”

Bill ground his knife slowly. “Ok, but don’t you think you’d live longer if you were a little healthier?”

Michael pitched his head back. Who wants to do that? “You apes wanna live forever!?” he quoted Starship Troopers.

“But bro, you’ve got kids. Doesn’t that make you want to live longer?”

Michael was already over this particular button getting punched. “They’ll be fine. My Dad died when I was 15, they can figure it out.”

Seeing this particular road was blocked, Bill finished, “Ok, fine. But I’m going to make up a workout plan. You might as well join me.”

“Hey! I did a push up this morning!”

“Oh..? On your knees?” Bill chided.

Michael wrinkled his face and nodded his head. “So?”

“Well look, to do a proper push up, you’ve got to have strong shoulders. If you wanna get stronger shoulders, you’ve gotta do push ups.” Bill shrugged back.

Michael flared his nostrils. “That logic sure helps your argument.” Thinking further, “You know what? Fine. You come up with a plan and I’ll join you.”

Bill shinged his knife from the stone. “Ah ha! Our plan starts tomorrow!”

Bill transitioned from a triumphant smile to looking from side to side. “You, uh...ya wanna get a pizza?”

“Of course!” Michael didn’t have to be asked twice.

---

In the dark, green-gray of the rain, a red light utility vehicle skimmed the fringes of the Shil’vati base where NAS Jax once stood. The driver awkwardly juggled the wheel and the gearshift with one arm. This made the ride a little less smooth than one might otherwise have expected from a random vehicle. The passenger didn't gripe, not externally. They were able to hold the camera straight and still enough to take the pictures they had intended to gather.

They dared to go onto the Shil’way.

Unbeknownst to them, soon after, a purple brick floated behind and above them. It looked a bit like a shoebox on its side. Though it didn’t have wings, it did have its own lens on one of the shorter ends. The Shil’vati drone followed the red jeep as it drove the length of the entrances to the base. Where the jeep occupants took individual pictures, the drone took video and pictures.

With the jeep’s license plate on record, its occupants identified by visual confirmation, and multiple other identifying features established, the drone returned to base; out of the rain.

---

The storm had raged for a bit. Michael halfheartedly worried about the pizza delivery driver. Eh, they knew what they signed up for, he thought lazily. He’d had a few drinks by this time. Not a full on rager, but enough to represent the end of the day and celebrate not going out any more today.

There was a knock on the door. It seemed a little too pointed to be the pizza, but seemed urgent all the same. I would probably knock on the door like the damn police if I’d been called out in the rain like this too. “Get me outta the rain!” I’d be screaming in my head. Maybe we should have figured something else out to eat tonight. Oh well, too late now.

Michael scampered down the stairs, expecting pizza. He opened the door without bothering with the peephole. In front of him stood an enormous, hairy, wolflike figure.

“Uh, hi! I got caught in the rain. May I come in?” the toothy smile requested.