-Two months later- 

“I can’t believe that I married you for a sweet free house,” said Bee.

They were still in their wedding clothes, sitting on their sweet free bed in their sweet free house, and Chuck was jubilant. He was eating leftover seafood aspic from the buffet and contemplating the taste of victory (It tasted like shrimp.)

Bee was scrolling through a virtual home decoration store’s holofeed and mostly muttering to herself. She looked set to spend her entire marriage pay bonus on designer leopard print reading chairs and hyperbolic orange curtains. She had also made some noise about filling part of their living room with a large HAM radio set up. Chuck put aside his plate and leaned back on the soft bed with a contented sigh. She could spend their wedding night on a shopping spree if she wanted to. All he had planned was to luxuriate in the silence and serenity of their new house and then go to sleep, far away from any annoying nose-coughs and ugly snores. Maybe he would get a set of darker curtains for his room than the ones that came with the house. A larger dresser at the very least, and a full length mirror. He didn’t really see what else a man could need. A weighted blanket maybe? He’d heard really good things about those.

“I think I’ll order a custom carpet that says ‘don’t sit on my bed in your outside clothes’,” said Bee suddenly. She turned her comm caster towards him so he could better see the small holographic image floating above it. Chuck had to raise himself up on his elbows to get a good look. He squinted at the blurry image, confused, until he finally remembered that he wasn’t wearing his decryption lenses.

He kinda hated the military issued casters, because they were designed so that you couldn’t see the holo images clearly unless you were wearing special contact lenses, an anti-spy measure that made them useless if you ever wanted to show something to someone. It was a similar technology than the (supposed) encryption on the giant screens up in Bee’s communication tower. But hey, at least they were free. Chuck had heard from civilians that getting a decent data plan for casters all the way out here on Trout cost an arm and a leg.

“You’re sitting on my bed in your outside clothes,” he pointed out. 

Bee daintily rearranged her white dress around her legs and wiggled her shoulders. The bare backed, full length gown made her look like a princess straight out of a movie, and she had dialed up the snooty look all day just to make him laugh. She’d gotten it at some overpriced couture boutique apparently owned by The Most Beautiful Woman In The World (her words. Chuck had gone in with her a few times to get a lookie and thought that there was nothing to write home about. But he wasn’t really into girls anyway so who knew) and she looked set to wear it for the rest of the evening and maybe part of tomorrow.

 “Yeah, but you don’t mind that stuff. I do.” 

She scrolled to another item on her feed and Chuck laid back down. He had nothing to say to that. 

Bee had commandeered the largest bedroom in the house, as her payment for going along with Chuck’s quote-unquote ‘hare-brained scheme’. Fortunately for them, the military houses came with a master and a guest room, which had mystified Chuck at first. (‘With the hours we pull, who do they expect us to invite over?’) Bee had rolled her eyes at him and reminded him that married couples usually wanted kids, which was, according to her, part of the reason why the military was giving away houses as incentive in the first place. Like everything else she said, he accepted it at face value. Who cared about what the military expected, though, when the house layout meant that both he and Bee could get luxurious bedrooms where he would never have to hear Bouchard’s nose racket ever again.

Unless New Vakalos tried to vaporize them and the bunker went into lockdown, that is, but then he supposed that he would have far more pressing problems to worry about.

That night, once Bee had retired to her room, Chuck proceeded to have the best, most restful sleep that he’d had in years. Foolishly, just before he went off to dream land, he thought to himself that life could only get better from there.