Unrivaled pt. 4 (Patreon)

There was slow but steady progress, and Trevor hated it. It was much less than what he had feared, but more than he wanted just one month in. Beside the occasional test where he had to lift quite heavy as many reps as he could, most of the exercises were really mellow. Hundreds of repetitions on very low weights. Lots of cardio, some of which was high intensity interval training, but for the most part also very chill jog, or even walk. Some of the weirder parts of the schedule was lying down on a super soft mattress, which gripped him like a plastic bag under water, and then massaged and pulled him for an hour or two.

Despite the shower every day before dinner, he felt like he never was clean. He woke up every morning feeling like he needed a shower to get the faint sweat smell out, but instead he spent a full day working out. Then a shower with unscented industrial soap, and then back into the confines of his room. He couldn’t remember feeling like this at the academy, so he suspected after sweating, or the soap, or the food, or something had changed. He became certain after the first round of booster shots one month in, which both accelerated his growth and increased the smell.

This was one of many things that made Trevor grow more and more irritable. There wasn’t much of post workout soreness, but any little hint of new muscle development made him unreasonable upset. He didn’t really mind the food they ate, but he kept thinking that every mouthful took him further and further away from what he wanted. His mind kept going back to Kyle, who undoubtedly had his surveillance footage live streamed into an app. His increasingly bad mood spilled over to his interactions with the other inmates. It had started out fine the first few weeks, but after a few blow outs where he had trash talked the Hamlins, and called the other inmates “fucking felony guinea pigs”, he now sat alone at lunch. He ate in solitude and only spoke with the training and support staff, the doctor at his weekly checkup and Mr. Thompson during his Monday review. He wasn’t making any friends there either.

He couldn’t exactly remember what was said or why he reacted as violently as he did, but he had punched the doctor. He had been sedated by a guard who had rushed into the examination room. Trevor was aware of being strapped to a wheel chair and rolled into a dark room, but at some point he had fallen asleep there. Harsh lights jolted him right awake, and a somber Mr. Thompson walked into view.

- Trevor. Trevor. I thought we knew each other. Behave and follow orders and your stay will be uneventful and short. Misbehave and you get punished. Didn’t we establish that already?

Trevor was pissed about the smug condensation from this prick, but he knew that if there ever was a time for impulse control, this was it. He kept his mouth shut.

- I’m afraid we’ll have to add some more profound treatments to your regimen. We will have to schedule some behavior modulation to get your anger issues under control. Two session per week, minimum. The first one begins right now.

And he walked out. Someone who had been standing behind him started to wheel the chair out of the room down a few corridors, and into a different procedure room. Same kind of white, sterile room he’d come to recognize and loathe. He was parked next to a table with some equipment on it, most notably a large fighter pilot style helmet.

The technician who had brought him there quickly secured the helmet on Trevor, gas mask and all. Everything went dead silent. Probably noise cancellation. Several minutes went by where, in the corner of his eye, he could see the lab tech pressing buttons and selecting things in menus. Suddenly the helmet came to life and started sweeping his face with green light. It stopped as abruptly as it started. Then white noise started playing, the smell of ripe banana started to trickle into the helmet, he started to feel drowsy, and a horse was standing in the middle of the room.

He knew he ought to be impressed by the totally convincing horse the helmet somehow projected into his eyes, but he was quickly feeling really sluggish. And how impressive are horses, really?

“10 minutes until scheduled activities” said the recorded voice over the jarring buzzer. He was dressed, confused and lying on the bed. The wall clock showed 06:20. What the fuck had just happened? He had just lost more than half a day. Or was this several days later? He felt good though. Really good. Calmer. He snapped out of it as Mike opened the door to deliver breakfast. 6:30 already?

- Hey, bro! What the fuck happened?
- Morning, bro. I only know about your future schedule.

With that he handed over the charged smartwatch and left.

Trevor found that he was speeding through set after set of weight exercises with ease, as if some heavy burden had been dropped from him. Apparently it showed as well, because the last hour before lunch he spent on the elliptical next to Tony. Tony was a 60 year old thief and robber who had been given “the body he wished he had when he was thirty”. More like 25, Trevor thought when he heard it.

- Are you feeling better?
- Sorry?
- This is all an experiment, for sure. I got this body within weeks when I came here. Everything has stayed the same for me since, for sure. 5 months now, promise. I assume they just want to see nothing falls apart, for sure.
- Weeks?
- Yeah. I’ve seen several arrivals, trust me. They are doing something else with you, for sure. Probably was them hormones made you shitty. I’ll talk to the others. You’ll join someones table tomorrow, for sure.

Later that evening, after dinner, Trevor was of two minds about it all. Sure, it was great that things were going smoothly now, exercise was easy, the other inmates started to talk to him again. But on the other hand did he really want exercise to be going smoothly? He was obviously and directly manipulated, having his brain altered somehow. Well, nothing he could do at the moment until he knew more.

Read the continuation.