Jim takes the beer and reaches over to smack the cap of it off against the edge of an end-table. One day he'll introduce these people to the concept of a screw-on cap, but apparently that day isn't today.

He takes a swig, settles into the couch until his elbow's braced on the back of it and he can press the bottle against his temple. He's not thinking about war or pain or being alone throughout, he's thinking about dusty, endless roads in Iowa and everything they mean to him. Sometimes it felt like freedom, that he could walk anywhere and end up anywhere, and sometimes it felt like a cage, because there was nothing to find no matter how far he went.

Their world is brighter than Kyle's. With its Eugenic Wars and its systematic oppression and its political corruptions (It's got to be more than Robert April and Alexander Marcus and Commodore Daniels, how high up does the rot go?) and its hunger and thirst for war, it's still brighter than what Kyle faces.

It's why he doesn't say a word. He just takes another drink.