After the gray-suited men had retreated across the sky and the crab had scuttled off back to the sea, there had been a lot of questions. Answers, however, were thin on the ground.

  Deciding those answers could wait, Roy and Bastion had dragged themselves up the hotel stairs, and Roy had practically collapsed onto his pillow.

  Roy began the next morning by working out in his room, doing dips between the desk and windowsill, holding his backpack between his legs for extra resistance. He’d heard that old hotels like this had real gyms sometimes, but he’d been thinking of old as in pre-warp, the corporate chains whose bland design meant they now existed only as images in fading magazines. This place was even older than that.

  Once, ancient Greeks had wrestled, thrown discuses and javelins, and heaved stone dumbbells in the shadows of temples on the hill, their gods literally above them, the twin themes of nature and the cosmos etched into every stone.

  After that, Roy knew, civilization had lost most of its symbolic meaning. Cities had gone from the cosmic circle of ancient Athens to grids of production, built for function instead of form, and fitness had fallen out of fashion.

  Later, of course, the structures of symbolism had staged the greatest comeback imaginable, and grand hotels like this were one of the earliest examples, but when opulence and indulgence were the order of the day, the means for building your body still took a back seat.

  Roy made do, like he always had before, and looked for ways to turn his hotel room into his gymnasium.

  He’d started by lying flat on the carpet and pressing the armchair. Its solid wood frame gave it some decent weight, and its unbalanced shape added to the challenge in a way he found satisfying.

  Next, he overhead-pressed the bedside tables. With this, there wasn’t a place to get a good grip, and his form was a little off.

  The dips felt the best so far, but dips were easy. You could dip between almost anything: cinderblocks, burned-out old cars, a narrow crevasse in a crumbling highway.

  Roy was scanning the room for something he could curl when he heard a knock at his door.

  Too musical to be Bastion. Maybe someone from the Mayor? Like Ben the bellboy?

  “Coming,” Roy shouted, taking a few extra seconds to finish his set first.

  He was delighted to look down to see not Ben the bellboy, but W. Sara Cartwright.

  “Armor please,” she said, holding out both hands expectantly. “I thought of more ideas for it last night, and I want to get to work right away.”

  “Hi, W. I’ll go get it.”

  Roy had left his armor in a heap at the foot of his bed. He’d almost slept in it, having barely summoned the energy to undo the straps. He felt slightly ashamed of himself as W. watched him gather it up, but when he turned back around, she was the one who looked nervous, taking slightly too long to snap her gaze away from him and toward the pile of sportswear in his arms.

  “So, uh, I’m going to start by focusing on your chest—your armor. The chest armor, I mean. The armor that goes over your chest.” She tried to clarify by grabbing her own chest, then realized what she was doing and flung her arms down to her sides. “The big piece. Not that I’m saying your chest is big, but it’s the bigger armor piece.”

  “A brigandine,” Roy had learned the name for a knight’s body armor from a children’s history book that he’d found when he was already slightly too old for it.

  “Yes! That. I’m going to make that part first, to establish the look of all the other parts of your body. Not sure I'll do cloth over it though, so maybe not a traditional brigandine.”

  “Thanks a lot for helping us out with this. I’m really excited to feel how much of a boost I’ll get.”

  “So, you got it working? The armor’s resonance? Last night? I mean, of course you did, what am I even saying?”

  “I did. It worked better when I charged forward. Especially when I actually shouted ‘charge’. One time it took a plasma blast without breaking, and other times I could move faster.”

  W. nodded. “Once I make it look better, all of that will be amplified. You’ll be able to shrug off gunshots, run as fast as a horse, and maybe even more. I’ve heard rumours of people doing wild stuff out here when their theming is good enough. I’ll do the same for your friend, too.”

  She took the armor from him and set off down the hallway toward Bastion’s room, leaning to one side to see around the pile, which came up to her head.

  Roy popped his head out of the doorway and called after her. “Hey, tell him to meet me in the lounge for breakfast. And join us if you want.”

  W. paused, caught mid-step. Her eyes took on a faraway look as indecision struck. “I’d really like to… but there’s too much for me to be working on. I haven’t even started on the boat project for the Mayor yet. Come see me down by the boathouse later though.”

  By the time Bastion showed up, Roy had already drunk three glasses of milk and eaten most of his bacon. At the Tampa Bay Grand, it was served on a sizzle platter shaped like a volcano, a look which kept it sizzling longer and magically enhanced the flavor.

  This wasn’t Roy’s usual breakfast; he preferred Highland Oats. He’d always liked the picture on the box: a highland-man throwing a log at a castle gate, barrelling over the knights in front of it. His dad had found a lifetime supply while out scavenging and told him it was their heritage. Neither of them knew much about Scotland, but the image had become part of Roy’s sense of who he was. Unfortunately, the small amount he’d traveled with had run out during their trip around the Gulf.

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  Bastion slid across two chairs, resting his legs on one, and began crunching the toast Roy had ordered for him.

  “Oh man, we have to try the coffee here,” said Bastion. “I saw an actual espresso machine on my way in. You know it’s been years since I saw one of those that actually worked.”

  “I didn’t know what kind to order,” Roy said. “The only coffee I’ve tried was dried-up instant stuff.” The tin he’d found in an abandoned trailer had been covered in dust and stuck together in clumps, even after a vigorous mixing.

  “You shouldn’t go for straight espresso shots then, not if you’re not used to it. Hell, even I might get jittery after going cold turkey this long. You should go with a latte. Compared to the straight milk you’ve been drinking, it’s like a coffee-flavored milkshake.”

  “I do like the sound of that.”

  Bastion flagged down the waitress and ordered for both of them. While they waited, they did an action replay of the previous night.

  “Hold up, Thunder Cannon and Storm Carbine, I get. But why Shock Pea?” Bastion asked once Roy started referring to the gray men’s weapons with his own made-up names.

  Roy shrugged. “It was small and green.”

  “And more of a cannon than the one you called a cannon.”

  “The disparity was the point. I think the smaller ones being deadlier was part of the way the theme functioned. We’ll have to watch out for that in the future.”

  “I’d rather not run into them again. I’m hoping we can just do this one job for Big Time, then move on to something with a better risk to reward ratio. When they shot us with laser shades inside the time-slowing stopwatch effect, that was like the maximum possible level of risk, and the rewards need to match that. I honestly don’t know what the hell happened there that let us survive that.”

  “Oh, that was me. Well, OK, it was mostly Mayor Big Time. He stopped time with his clock and moved us to safety, but it was partially me! I deflected the lasers with my shiny shield and blew up the Shock Pea so he’d have time to finish winding it.”

  “Wow. Good going. How did you have time to do that? Even with theme magic, no one’s faster than light.”

  “That’s what I was hoping you’d be able to explain. I know the light slowed down when it entered the slow-time area, and it bent the beams so they didn’t hit us.”

  “That’s called refraction, and it makes sense.”

  “What I don’t get is, shouldn’t all light be affected? Not just the laser beams? Shouldn’t everything have looked like a fishbowl from inside the sphere of slowed time?”

  “From what I know of normal physics, yeah. But let me remind you, this all took place because of a time-slowing stopwatch. This is all well outside the realm of normal and deep in the province of theme magic fuckery. You’d know more about that than me, and if you don’t, well, you can ask W. later, I guess.”

  “Then there’s the other thing I don’t understand,” said Roy.

  “The glowing sword thing?”

  “Yeah, I got something more besides that last night. All the signs and street lights lit up at the same time, and did you hear what I sounded like when I said to take the shot?”

  “Yeah. Like you were talking through a voice deepening megaphone. The sword thing’s clearly the most useful part, though. You should keep practising that until you can do it at will.”

  “I just wish I knew where to start,” Roy said.

  Their coffees arrived, Bastion’s in a small glass cup, Roy’s in a tall one that widened toward the top. Roy was delighted to find a drawing in the foam.

  “Hey, cool, it’s a map of Bay Town,” he said to the waitress. “Did you draw this? It’s amazing.”

  “Yes, and thanks,” said the ponytailed woman who’d carried the drinks over. “It enhances the flavor too, something to do with making a local specialty look local, you know.”

  “It’s almost a shame to drink it,” Roy said.

  He still drank it, though, and very much enjoyed the foamy texture. “Huh. This is, like, premium milk.”

  “Told you,” said Bastion. “You know, I used to think about starting a coffee import business, back in Star City. People are always looking for the hot new thing there. I wanted to get all different kinds of coffee beans to offer more variety. I never could get work out a way of getting them, though. The best coffee grows in the mountains, and there’s just no way to transport it anymore.”

  “What about prepackaged beans that don’t decay?”

  “Themed beans?”

  “Yes. Ones with a mascot on the packaging, like the Highland man,” said Roy.

  “What’s the Highland man from?”

  “Those oats I used to eat on the boat.”

  “Oh, right,” said Bastion. “I guess those did last forever, to be around still.”

  “Same as all the sodas and candy bars.”

  “Eh, like I said, it was something I used to want. I was thinking too small.”

  “Hard to imagine, for either of us.”

  “I know,” said Bastion.

  They finished their drinks and walked back through to the lobby. Looking through the windows, you could hardly tell the street had been the site of a battle mere hours ago, though there were a lot more guards on patrol now.

  Ben the bellboy called them over to the front desk. “Mr. Big Time wants to see you guys. He got the elevator fixed overnight, so let me know when you want to go up.”

  “I want to see W. first,” said Roy.

  “Let him wait,” said Bastion. “It’s not like he has anyone else he can send out for this.”

  “What about all those guards?” asked Roy.

  “They don’t have ambition. If they did, they wouldn’t have taken the guard jobs. They’re not like us, Roy. They’re more like what we would have been if we’d taken the easy option and signed up for service back in the Republic.”

  “I guess I can’t really argue with you there.”

  “I don’t think Mr. Big Time will mind if you visit your friend first,” said Ben. “He was looking over his maps and his model of the town. When he gets like that, he doesn’t really notice time passing. Hey… do you guys really think working for Mr. Big Time means you’re not aiming high enough?”

  “I’m sure Bastion didn’t mean it that way,” Roy said quickly.

  “Yes, I did,” said Bastion. “I meant it exactly that way. I wanted you to hear it. Don’t keep working here when you’re older.”

  “Oh. OK,” said Ben.

  Roy tried to think of something to say after that, but Bastion was already heading for the door.

  He caught up with him outside.

  “You didn’t need to be that harsh back there.”

  “He has to learn, Roy. Or do you think it’s OK to spend your life working toward someone else’s dream?”

  “You know I don’t. But I would have said it in a way that sounded more encouraging.”

  “What I said will encourage him. When someone’s doubting themselves, the best thing you can say is ‘give up then’. If that doesn’t make them seethe with anger until they have to prove you wrong, they never had a chance in the first place.”

  Roy thought about that while they walked through the hotel gardens. That wasn’t the kind of encouragement he’d ever received. His dad has always just talked about how much fun it would be once they set off for Lightner World. He wondered where Bastion had got that idea from as they came to the end of the path.