Debrief with Will

You head over to Will. You had hoped to be able to share some of this with Vanessa, but you can't afford to piss off Alyssa for any reason. Your life literally depends on others believing you. You find Will in the armory, stashing the last of the weapons.

"Well, the good news is -" You shoot a severe glance at Will before flicking your eyes in the direction of your tent. He gets the message. Once the two of you are inside the small tent (which, thanks to your tryst with Vanessa the other night, you've discovered to be mostly sound-proof) Will resumes talking in a whisper. "As I was saying, we've got Alex in a good place. He'll do pretty much anything to keep himself within reach of leadership. If we keep playing the middle we might even get him on our side enough to believe us."

You pinch the bridge of your nose, fighting off the headache that today has been. "That's great, man, but unfortunately our days of playing the middle are over."

"How so?"

You spend the next 5 minutes recounting your conversation with Alyssa. At the end, your friend heaves a sigh of relief.

"Well, as much as I hate being pushed into a side, at least we aren't dead. And in a way, it's nice to be committed one way. A bit easier to play politics that way." You nod your assent. You are exhausted after a hellacious day, and want nothing more than silence, but it is clear that Will's self-medicating is taking the form of near constant conversation. For a while he's content to just think out loud, with no input from you, but eventually you are jarred from your thoughts by the sound of your name.

"Hey, Ben, you still alive over there?!"

"Uh yeah, sorry I was just zoned out. Did you say something to me?"

Will chuckles, "Yeah I only called your name about seven times, it's no big deal. Anyway, I was saying I think you owe me all the details on your little...encounter...with a certain redhead."

You grin. The memory seems so long ago already, but it's still fresh enough to get you excited all over again. You recount every detail for Will, who asks about a thousand questions about every conceivable topic. It's nice, for once, to be able to just gossip with your friend the way you used to. Before long, the two of you are laughing and joking again. Who knew that a sex story was just what the doctor ordered for both of you?

Before long, though, another problem presents itself: Will reeks of sweat.

"Bro, you smell like ass."

"You're one to talk, man."

You shoot him an indignant look until you realize that he's absolutely right. Both of you haven't changed clothes since the crash, and your long day of hiking has made you smell horrendous. You suddenly remember something you read about the cryo-suits. The material is made specially to absorb fluids and pheromones in order to help regulate body temp and activity during cryo-sleep, but on earth people also realized that this resulted in the suits absorbing smells at an accelerated rate, while also keeping the body cleansed of smell. Basically, the suits smelled about twice as awful as a normal human body with BO, but if you removed them, your body would smell fresh no matter how much exercise you'd done. With that, an idea forms in your head.

"Dude, it's the suits. They're made out of the same material as those fancy dry-cleanse no-smell suits back home. If we take them off and leave them outside the tent, we won't have to deal with the smells."

"I don't know man, we're having to sleep pretty close to each other. You sure you want to be naked when we're practically touching each other?"