Alex was panting. He'd only been running for ten minutes, he couldn't already be out of breath. There was no way. He looked at the display, ten more minutes to go. He slowed.

    "Keep going," Will said. "Doc said twenty minutes." Will was running a lot faster than Alex had been, and he wasn't even breathing hard.

    Alex wanted to curse him, but he didn't have the breath. He kept running. When the timer finally slowed the treadmill to a stop Alex leaned against the steadying bars to remain standing.

    Will handed him a bottle. "Gotta drink."

    Alex drank half of it in a couple of gulps, he would have drank all of it, but Will took it out of his hands.

    "Drink," he said, "not drown." He handed Alex a towel. "Gonna lift weights now."

    Alex shook his head. "Can't do it," he panted.

    "Course you can. Doc set it up, she knows how it works. Gonna get you all in shape. Come on."

    Alex watched the smaller man move away. He didn't think he could get himself to move. His legs were shaking, as were his arms, even if they hadn't been the ones to do this workout.

     Will grabbed his arm and pulled him across the room and had Alex lie down on a bench. He placed the bar in his hands and adjusted the display on it. The bar became slightly heavier.

    Will showed him how to lower it and raise it.

    Alex did it fifteen times, then Will took his place, adjusting the controls on it first. When he was done it was Alex's turn again, and he found he couldn't lift the bar. Will adjusted it again and it was light.

    "How heavy is it for you?" Alex asked, as he struggled to raise it a fifteenth time.

    Will shrugged. "Doc set it." Will took his place and he too had trouble with the last few times.

    Then they moved to a machine to exercise their legs, then a different machine for his arms again, and then another machine for his legs, and so on, back and forth, until Alex felt like his entire body was going to fall apart.

    At the end of each exercises, a different set of muscles hurt, at least Alex thought they were muscles, he hadn't known his chest was muscles too. He realized he knew very little of how his body worked. Maybe if he'd spent much time looking at other guys' body he might have picked up something, but aliens were who he liked looking at.

    * * * * *

    Doc had been surprised when he'd showed up and asked for the exercise regiment. She told him she'd expected to have to chase him down, and he mentioned the altercation in the dining hall.

    "What have I told you about walking around alone?"

    "I can't have Will accompany me everywhere," he'd replied. "Then get someone else."

    "Who? It isn't like I know anyone else. You're too busy to do it too."

    She'd given him a look that said he wasn't very bright.

    The next day five people joined him and Will for breakfast.

    He recognized Terry and Asyr, but not the others.

    Ana was introduced. She was a small and wirery woman and Terry's friend. Pat was a little taller than her and heavily built. Jennifer was Alex's height, and looked like she didn't want to be there, but Asyr assured Alex it was just how she always looked. She was her girlfriend.

    Doc had arranged for them to be his bodyguards. Their duties were staggered in such a way that at least one of them was always free. Alex had tried to convince them he didn't need it, but they wouldn't listen. When he tried to get Will to talk to them, he said he wasn't going against what Doc wanted.

    Alex had to give in.

    * * * * *

    Alex fell on his bed. He'd planned on working on the computer, but he hadn't counted on how weak he'd be after exercising. He groaned as he watched Will bounce around the room, putting things away, before heading out for his duties.

    An hour later, Alex felt strong enough to stand. He showered, changed and tried to open the door. He was locked in.

    "Will," he called on the comms, "Door's locked. Do you know what's wrong with it?"

    "Busy, get someone else." The call terminated.

    Someone else? What did he mean by that. He had no idea who he was suppose to contact to fix it, and the directory was of no use, it wouldn't be until the computer was in much better shape.

    The only other person he knew how to contact was Doc, since Will had added her contact information to his personal comm.

    "What's the problem?" she said on answering. "If you can move, get yourself to me. I'm not crossing the ship for a scratch."

    "Doc, it's Alex."

    "Crimson, how are you feeling?"

    "I'm okay. I'm sorry to disturb you, but I'm locked in my room and I don't know who to contact to get the door fixed."

    "Oh, it isn't broken."

    Alex tried to get it to open, nothing happened. "I think it is, it's not responding."

    "I know, but it isn't because it's broken, I has Asyr adjust the lock, the door can only be opened by Will, or someone from the outside."

    Alex was speechless for a moment. "Are you telling me I'm a prisoner now?"

    "Oh no, but I don't trust you to use your escorts, so I made sure you didn't have a choice."

    "Doc, I don't need-"

    "Crimson, Anders is pissed at you. That means he and his cronies are going to look for any chance to hurt you. They aren't going to do anything major on purpose, since you're officially a passenger, but there's no telling what might happen by accident. So I'm sending your escorts' info, as well as a notification of who is free. Call him or her, and they'll let you out."

    "This is ridiculous," he grumbled.

    "It might feel that way, but I'd like to see you survive to reach your destination."

    "Fine." He terminated the call. It wasn't like he could do anything. He couldn't even tell the computer to open the door, it didn't have access to it. Now he had to fix it just so he could be able to leave his room when he wanted.

    He looked at the list of six names. Will's name had rearranged itself to be part of the list, instead of his general contact. Terry and Asyr showed as being free. He contacted Asyr, since he wanted to head to her lab.

    He didn't talk to her one the way there, as far as he was concerned, she was as much to blame for him being under house arrest, as Doc was. He sat at the terminal and set to work. He'd expected her to leave, but she went to one of the assistant's station.

    Great, he thought, she doesn't even trust me not to leave without her. His grumbling ebbed as he focused on his work. The computer didn't feel any different as when he'd left it.

    Normally, computers had multiple subroutines that saw to their health, and could fix minor damage, in this one, those subroutines were sequestered somewhere else.

    He did much more of the work in silence than he was used to. The computer was in no state to hold conversations, and it wasn't actively fighting him. It knew he was trying to help, so it mostly cooperated. Resisting only when it had an attack of paranoia. Those were coming on less frequently, and Alex was glad, he was certain his betrayal was the cause of them.

    "What did you just do?" Asyr asked, and Alex nearly jumped out of the chair.

    He glared at her while he caught his breath, his gaze dared her to let that smile, he could guess was coming by the quivering of her lips, appear. When it didn't, and he could breathe again he said.

    "I reposition some of the codes, to see if it will reduce the amount of pain it's in."

    "You can do that? Just move code around? Won't that screw up the programing?"

    "Depends on the code. Some are dependent on where they are, but there's usually a lot that's modular, that can be moved without changing how things work, and since the computer's personality is formed by how the code interact, moving that will change the personality."

    She gave him a blank stare.

    "You are familiar with Core Computer Personality Theorem, right?"

    She shook her head.

    Alex frowned, How could she not know that, it was one of the first courses any programmers went through. "Where did you learn programing?"

    "Here."

    "You didn't learn in a school? Who taught you?" 

    "I did."

    Alex gaped. How had she learned anything usable from the mess that this computer was? He'd never heard of anyone learning programing on their own, computers were just too complex.

    Alex turned back to the screen and gave her the basics, demonstrating what he meant as he worked.

    * * * * *

    There was a knock on his door. Will was off working, and Alex hadn't planned on going anywhere. He was trying to get access to his vault, he was sure he'd kept his early texts from school. He wanted to retrieve them for Asyr, she showed a lot of interest and reading the texts would help her more than just following along what he did. Unfortunately, wherever they were in space, he couldn't get a reliable connection to the open network.

    He pressed the button to open the door by reflex, and nothing happened. He cursed under his breath, he couldn't get used to this.

    "You have to open the door on your side," he yelled, not knowing if his voice would carry through.

    The door opened.

    "I know," Anna said. "I didn't want to just barge in." 

    "Oh, okay. What can I do for you?"

    "You can follow me. Will said you don't know how to fight. Getting in shape isn't going to do you any good if you can't throw a punch." She looked at him. "Is this what you normally wear?"

    Alex looked down, he was wearing denim pants and a shirt. "Yeah."

    "Do you mind wearing something looser? I can work with this, but it cuts down your range of motion."

    "I have some of my work pants."

    She pointed to the bathroom. "Go put that on."

    Alex  came  back  and  she  nodded,  then  she  led him  to  the  room  where  Will  had  started  teaching  him  how  to fight.  She  took  position  on  the  center  and  motioned  for  him  to join her.

    He did so and discovered that the petite woman, was an expert hand to hand fighter.

    He crashed on his bed after that. His body hurting. Two hours later, Jenifer dragged him out to teach him how to use a gun. He protested, he had no intention of ever using a gun, ever. She didn't care. She got in his face and told him to pick it up before she shoved hers up somewhere the sun don't shine.

    Once that hour was done, Alex remarked to himself that at least the only part of him that hurt was his ears.

    That became his routine. Every other day he spent an hour exercising with Will, the others was one hour of hand to hand and one hour of gun training.