Cassandane left that evening, not long after the conclusion of Mike's combat training ended. She left instructions for them to continue holding senior leader meetings, which she intended to attend remotely over the phone, and asked that Mike work with Sam to practice corona wrestling until she returned. Then, without their vegan leader in attendance, Srinivas led them to Sammy's Famous Corned Beef restaurant. They ordered hearty sandwiches at the counter and crowded into tables. When someone asked Mike if beers were allowed, Mike gave permission for one drink per person, which set off a rush towards the bartender. Only Jimmy, Mike, and Sam refrained.

Jimmy dramatically looked between Mike and the line of people waiting for drinks. "Did you somehow not understand the words that just came out of your own mouth?"

"I'm not the kind of guy who drinks a single beer, Jimmy."

"Oh, trust me, Mike, I know. I just didn't expect you to have the restraint."

Mike had only shrugged. "I want a drink, but I don't need it right now."

After they returned to the convention center, Mike released the others to a few hours of free time while he taught Sam the basics of corona wrestling. She caught on quickly to using the open dimension to get upwise but found the loop dimension challenging to even sense. The session ended before she could provide any value to Mike as a training partner, allowing her to go to bed on time for once.

The following days blurred together.

Early morning wakeup to do an hour of physical training. Pushups, walking lunges, high knees, burpees, flutter kicks, mountain climbers, sprints, box jumps using chairs, and long jumps became a grueling part of every morning. Mike's corona hung heavy on them, pushing them downwise, forcing them to use their actual body strength and not cheat. When he released them to clean up and change, the bathrooms became crowded with people attempting to take bird baths in the sink. They had uniforms by that point, so there were new clothes to change into. After that they ate breakfast, which alternated between bagels and cereal, with cheap coffee available. At some point, Kendra acquired permanent eating utensils for them, so they had mugs, plates, bowls, spoons, forks, and knives for their meals.

After they had eaten, Sam took everyone except for Mike, Kendra, and Jimmy to the large instruction room for her morning class. The group got rowdy the second day, causing Mike to storm in and shout until everyone froze into absolute stillness. She couldn't recall exactly what he had said, but the gist of it had been that the students were not permitted to talk unless they were asking questions of the instructor and no one cared if they were bored or didn't want to train. In five minutes -- which felt more like five hours -- he fixed her classroom discipline problem permanently. No one actually liked her lessons, but they paid attention and did the exercises she assigned them. Jess stopped flirting with her cops when they became serious, which resulted in her friend's skills improving rapidly.

Lunch every day involved something cheap and quick -- and usually unpopular. Hot dogs one day. Chicken nuggets and french fries another. Peanut butter and jelly made a number of appearances, eliciting groans each time, but apparently the minimal preparation made it appealing to the ones preparing the meal. Mike's combat class was where the real stuff happened. He had everyone leave the convention center and then clear their headquarters on their return, sweeping for intruders using a combination of corona and eyes. They did that at least once every day, until it became something they could do in their sleep. Mike also had them practice meme blasts against Kendra, Greg, Erica, and Woodrow, none of whom possessed nous to mount a defense. That exercise served a double purpose as their targets slowly gained a resistance to meme blasts.

Mike had everyone who possessed the teleotic talent hardening their bodies and boxing each other, which had mixed reception. None of the women like it. Nor did Srinivas and Woodrow. But Mike, Sean, and the two cops loved it. They beat on each other like they were attempting homicide, then laughed as their most brutal attacks caused no harm. Except that occasionally someone would get hurt when their hardening proved sloppy. Every time, Mike turned it into a demonstration of healing with the talents. They also continued flying in formation, which began to look professional. And they spent time body sculpting. Mike didn't have a lot to teach them on the topic, other than vague instructions to make their muscle fibers thicker, break up scar tissue around joints, and plump up spinal discs. Apparently it was enough, because all the old guys talked about it like they had found the fountain of youth.

They made it a tradition to go somewhere as a team every day for dinner. It was never anywhere expensive, but Srinivas never had a problem finding them good cheap ethnic food. Thai, German, Vietnamese, Polish, Greek, Ethiopian, Mexican. Srinivas took to the informal role of dinner coordinator with a zeal she had never seen in him before. Fortunately, the Indian man seemed happier as time passed. Mostly because he had managed to forge friendships -- with her and Jess, but also Erica and Jimmy. There also seemed to be a degree of pride as he quite obviously showed off his newly toned figure under the guise of casually changing shirts in public.

Sam noted the friendships forming among the others, but felt like it happened around her instead of to her. Everyone was nice enough, but she was a boss and not a worker. That status hung over every interaction she had with her fellow soldiers. Except Mike, who she had begun to consider a reliable source of answers for any questions she had -- and also a source of annoyance, but she didn't expect something that fundamental to ever change.

The evening meetings became shorter, mostly Cassandane giving instructions to Jimmy, Mike, and Sam while Kendra scribbled down meeting notes. Cassandane had refused the offers of becoming an intragovernment organization due to the strings the U.N. attached. They wanted a governing panel with members appointed to represent the major nations. Cassandane did manage to meet with the president to attune him and gain them federal funding. Getting those funds into the bank took up most of Jimmy's time. Cassandane expressed annoyance that her time away from headquarters had extended as long as it had, but indicated the deals being offered by the United Nations were getting better as more individual nations reached out to her attempting to gain unilateral agreements.

Every evening after they heard from their leader, Mike and Sam engaged in a few bouts of corona wrestling. Sam lost constantly. As if it wasn't bad enough that Mike had an experience advantage and a massive strength advantage, he also possessed a sixth sense for combat. He seemed to predict everything she attempted. Worse, he had a killer instinct that caused him to pounce on any mistake she made. As the days went on, Sam went from a burning desire to wipe the floor with Mike to a desperate yearning to make him at least work at beating her.

Then came night. Sleeping on a creaky, uncomfortable cot. Doing a two hour shift of guard duty.

None of it was fun. She could not claim to be remotely enjoying herself. But with all the hustle, she didn't have the time to complain. Nor did she have the opportunity to slack off. Mike never criticized her in public, but he pulled her aside any time she started to back off and issued some gruff bullshit about responsibility. Sam couldn't bare the thought of him ratting her out to Cassandane when she returned, so those 'motivational sessions' were not as frequent as they could have been.