He'd always known his body marked him as different from others.  Here, where the patrons professed to acceptance of all body types, he felt even more keenly aware of this difference.

Around him he saw men of other types.  There were men who worked out and loved to flaunt the results.  There were older, doughy men with sagging beer bellies and skin that rarely saw the light of day.  The first type of man usually became the second type.  There were others, too.  Some were long and lean, some were skinny and slight, some were short and stocky, and some were just plain average.

But when he looked in the mirror, he saw a soldier's body, hardened by long travels and innumerable hardships.  On that body, he saw scars - scars from bullets, scars from knives, scars from shrapnel.  His muscles were honed not by hours in the gym, but by hard physical labor and shorts bursts of running from people, things, and disasters.  The bite-shaped scars across his shoulders, and the scratches across his back, however, brought him no small amount of pride.

But the thing that bothered him more than anything else currently rested on his upper thigh.  Everyone here bragged about their acceptance of the myriad of bodies here, but he couldn't help but feel like he was not only on display, he felt that we was making them uncomfortable with his deformity.

He lay the menu on the table before him, not wanting to have to hold up the menu with one hand.  It didn't help that the place had a formal, sit-down dinner.  He'd been seated with an older couple and a woman about his own age.

He ordered his dinner, a burger with fries, a Caesar salad, and a cup of tea.  After the clothed waiter had gone, it was time to socialize.  The old man started the ritual of dinner conversation, "It's your first time, isn't it, son?"

Alex nodded, "It's pretty obvious, isn't it?"

"You look a little uneasy," the old man agreed.  "I'm Steve, and this is my wife, Adrean.  The young lady you're sitting next to is our friend Jodie."

"It's good to meet you, all.  My name is Gary."

Steve reached for his water glass, "So, Gary, what made you want to try out Eden?"

Alex hesitated, "My shrink sent me.  I'm having a lot of trouble."  He hesitated, "I'm really self-conscious about my prosthetic, and he said maybe it would help to be around people less body-conscious."

Steve seemed not to know what to say, but his wife, his sensitive counterpart, did, "You'll find that we really are, here.  Everybody is accepted for why they are, not what they look like.  So, who are you, Gary?"

He waited for the waiter to set down the drinks, and took a sip of his hot tea.  It was sub-par, as he'd expected.

"I spent my life, up to a year ago, devoted to my country.  I was a Navy Seal, I did mostly extraction work, and sometimes high-risk guard duty.  But my last mission chewed me up and spit me out - I was in the hospital for a month, and they had to amputate my left arm.  As you can see.  I used to be proud of my scars, since they showed my patriotism.  But now, I'm not so sure."

He looked down into his tea, embarrassed, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't burden you with my issues.  I'm still overwhelmed with the situation.  I planned to retire from my job with old age, not a disability."

Jody spoke with  uncertainty, "That's okay, it must be hard for you.  What do you do now?"

"I got a nice lump sum of money with my discharge from the Navy, and I usually got hazard pay with most jobs, so right now I'm not working.  I'm looking into being a commercial pilot, since I'm already flight certified."

Adrian nodded, "That sounds like a good plan.  What's it like to fly?  What do you fly?"

"For the Navy, I usually flew helicopters - nothing else works well for extractions.  I have flown small planes, and a few times I was allowed to fly a fighter jet.  But you don't get to fly those in the public sector.  A commercial jet should be easier than the helicopter and the jet, but harder to fly than a small plane."

"Really?  I had no idea.  What exactly do you do, when you fly a helicopter for an extraction?" Jody's interest had piqued, now that he had said he had a nice fund that let him not work, and he was thinking of becoming a pilot.

"Well, when the ground teams get in too deep, and can't get themselves back out, I and my squad would provide cover, and create a safe corridor out.  If no corridor can be provided, that's when the helicopter comes in handy.  It's very high-risk to fly one under fire, but someone's gotta do it."

"So, were you in the war?"

"Ah, the whole Desert Storm war.  I did fly a few missions in the Gulf, but not a many.  After being put in the infirmary a few times for heat stroke, they decided to keep me assigned to cooler areas.  Or at least cooler times of year."

"So where was you last mission?  The one where you..." Jody stopped, realizing that she'd crossed a line.

He stared down into his tea and sighed, "I really can't talk about it.  It's too recent.  I've still having a lot of issues with it.  And besides, it was a classified mission. - I couldn't talk about it if I wanted to.  But this was not a flight accident."  He sipped his tea, and his nose scrunched at the bitter flavor, "I'm sorry, I'm bringing down the conversation.  What do you do for a living, Steve?"

"I'm a salesman - office supplies."

"I bet you've got some great stories, with all the people you meet."

Steve talked about himself.  Adrian talked about herself.  Jody talked about someone else's children.  They tried a little too hard to cover for his awkward silence, but the didn't mind.  His mind wandered, and his thoughts turned to his wife.  He realized quickly, though, that, being nude as he was, this was a bad idea.  He forced his mind back to the task at hand - socializing.  Just in time, too.

"What about you, Gary?  What was your first job?"

A quick mental review of the truth - government spy/assassin/mule.  No, not at all appropriate.  "I worked in garage.  It was pretty good, and when I was old enough, I got a job as a chauffeur, from one of our regular customers."

"You probably had a nice time, driving around people celebrating wonderful events in their lives."

Steve had lived a charmed life, apparently.  Alex considered for a moment before answering, "Not as nice as you would think.  You wouldn't believe some of the fights people have in the back of a limo.  Oh, but I think the best story I could tell you is this one.  This guy paid me to pick up a beautiful woman at her home, and let her know that she was expected to have dinner with Peter.  There was an even 5 dozen roses in the limo, waiting for her, and we were to stop by his office to pick him up.  I was told, very specifically, that he wanted her to come into his office and get him.   They had dinner reservations at one of the best places in a hundred square miles - the credit card was already on file there.  She was ecstatic.  You could tell it had been a long time since her husband had done anything romantic.  The only problem was that all the arrangements had been made by her lover - Thomas.  He was trying to offload her back onto her husband, on account of her being much too expensive for him to keep," he laughed, the robust sound echoing in the room.

No one else at the table was amused.  No one even pretended to be amused.  He shrugged, "Sorry, I guess that wasn't really an appropriate story."

*****

He woke late the next morning, and went for a brisk walk.  The grounds were well-maintained, and he was amused to see one of the staff kneeling in the dirt, nude except for the gardening gloves that protected her hands from rose thorns.

He followed the walking path, turned a corner, glanced around, and ducked behind some bushes behind a building.  He retrieved a pair of black gloves he'd hidden in the mulch the night before.  Gloves on, it took only a minute and a long wire to get the window open.  His towel assured him of no scrapes as he climbed in the window.  It took less than ten minutes to do what he had to do.  Ten minutes after that, he was reclining on a lounge chair, reading by the pool.

Slathered in sunscreen, he was able to enjoy the feel of the sun on his skin for almost 20 minutes before his irrevocably fair skin demanded a break.  He had just bought a coffee and danish at the cafe, and was about to sit down with them, when a loud boom shook the building.

He followed the others in the cafe outside, and stared at the column of smoke coming from the back of the property.  He took a bite of danish and followed the other onlookers to the site of the fire.  It was one of the cabins.

He took another bite of danish, and washed it down with a sip of coffee, watching the staff try to put out the fire with hoses.  "Has anyone called the fire department?" he asked loudly.

One of the people who'd been there before him assured him that the fire department had been called.

A woman a few feet away asked if anyone had been inside.  The answer was that nobody knew.

Unfortunately, Dr. Seldon Fiske had been inside at the time of the explosion.  In light of this disturbing fact, the police took personal information from all the guests, interviewed everyone, and Eden was closed.  Refunds were issued.

Alex drove away, hoping that someone would remember Gary Smythe, framing the former Navy Seal, and eliminating him from the Basin Project before he could leak any more information to the Central Intelligence Agency.  He did feel a little guilt at the framing a fellow amputee, but this was a great way to do two jobs at once.

When he stopped for lunch, he reflected on how nice it was to be clothed again.  People rarely recognized his different-ness when he dressed according to the part he wanted to play.  And right now, the part he was playing involved jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, some fries, a burger, and an iced-tea.

Martia would be back from wherever she was in a few days.  He couldn't wait to tell her what he'd been up to.

Step 1. Serve
Step 2. Resist from Within