Chapter 5
Karl was disappointed. He'd hoped to have a little more time with Natasha, but he'd found she'd departed well before he woke up. He guessed he was a bit lazy or something. Apparently she'd gone down to the surface to work on the case that had brought her here. He didn't know what that case was, and he might or might not be of any help to her.
The image of her in his mind was more than distracting too. The feel of her curvaceous body against him last night had strained his self control to its limits. He wanted her like he hadn't wanted anyone in a long time. He didn't want to ruin it by pushing her too fast though. He realized he wanted more than to date her. There was something magnetic about her and it drew him as if he were made up of iron filings.
The tension made him restless and he couldn't settle down no matter what he tried. He decided to head for the grav gym and put the pent up energy to good use.
When he walked in, he saw the place was practically filled with women! There were plenty of men too, but this wasn't going to help with his frustration much. He knew once he got going though, the people around him would for the most part fade into the background. He made his way to the locker room and changed into his workout clothes, a pair of knee length bike shorts and a close fitted tank shirt that would give him the greatest freedom of movement. Then he slipped on a pair of thin soft shoes that would offer good traction on floor mats without damaging anything. They were often used by collegiate wrestlers and the occasional male gymnast. He found them comfortable durable and versatile enough for most of his workouts. He put his other clothing in a locker and secured it with his own lock.
When he emerged back out into the gym, he immediately saw several sets of eyes turn to examine him. Many female wondering at his prospects, others male, checking out the potential competition. Most of the men dismissed him out of hand. He was tall and he'd been told good looking, but slim in comparison to most of these brutes. By no means a body builder, he did have good muscle tone and was far stronger than he looked. Most of that bulk in the larger men was scar tissue from the damage done to their muscles by the workout regimens they practiced, and for just that purpose. Not the damage, the bulk.
Karl had always been more interested in strength and endurance, so hadn't gone the same way. Instead he'd done quite a bit of bicycling, hiking, climbing and taken a real interest in the martial arts. He'd taken the ever popular taekwondo classes as well as some Krav-Maga, both of which had served him well in his short military career as a recon scout. He and His best friend Melissa had joined right out of high school, had applied for the same MOS and been accepted at the same time. They proved themselves an excellent team and worked well with their other team mates, scoring well and eventually were assigned to the same unit.
Melissa had definitely been straight and they had fooled around a little back in high school, but it hadn't felt right so they'd dropped it and just remained friends. Their friendship had often led them to double date which their parents heartily approved of because it kept them out of trouble. They'd often found themselves helping one another with boy or girl troubles brought on by whoever they were dating at the time. Their friends all said they'd end up married one day, but they knew better. They would be best friends for life and that was all they wanted. He let that go there. He didn't want to think about losing her the way he had again.
He made his way over to the exercise bikes and waited patiently near one a girl was nearly finished with. She saw him waiting and smiled as she finished up and turned it over to him. He thanked her with a smile of his own and manually entered his private program code from memory. The girl looked as if she might be one of the fitness instructors. She stayed nearby to watch and whistled softly when she saw what he'd entered. Apparently she knew more than the average user about this equipment.
The bike was a sim model with all the controls of a normal off-road design and was fully articulated to simulate riding over any kind of terrain a bicycle could navigate. This meant it could tilt forward and back as much as eighty degrees, could lean side to side and even simulated bumps and rough ground reasonably well. It also offered a VR helmet or the option of a neural link patch that could link it into a person's cybernetic computer port if they had the proper audio and visual implants. Karl did, but didn't like to connect to equipment he wasn't intimately familiar with. Who knew what some psycho might load into a public computer system and for what reason? So he usually opted for the helmet. It would have the added benefit of blocking out the sights and sound of the people around him.
The Program started with an easy relatively even and level path giving his muscles time to warm up and prepare for the more vigorous exercise ahead. The trail in front of him began to climb a low hillock that hid the rest of the terrain. As the trail got steeper, the pedaling became harder and the angle of the bike changed to simulate what he was seeing, bumps and all. He had to downshift here and there on the climb to be able to maintain forward motion before the slope and the gear ratio exceeded his body weights ability to turn the pedals any further.
When he crested the top of the hill, he was able to se more of the trail ahead and below him and climbing up the next hillside. He knew the deceptively easy looking trail below wasn't easy at all and his senses were tuned to maximum efficiency. The gym had gone away as far as his mind was concerned. The descending trail was both steep and treacherous with several drop-offs landing him on the next part of the trail and several sharp turns that, if missed would end the ride and in real life probably the riders life, or at least his fine day. One might have thought the descent would be easier, but in truth it only changed the stresses. Instead of taxing his brute strength, it forced him to pay close attention to his surroundings, to push his reflexes and timing to their limits.
When he got to the bottom there was a narrow creek which had to be jumped to continue the ride and he managed it with ease, then began his ride up the next slope. This one was as steep and treacherous as the one he'd just come down and required skill and close attention to his shifting to keep moving upward. Partway up, there was a minor peak that dropped off the other side into a deep half pipe gully which helped to build a little momentum as he pedaled hard as he could down one slope and rocketed up the other to fly over a meter into the air, landing gently on the ascending slope again before switching back and leveling off somewhat in a long straight shot. Then it was another steep treacherous climb to the top.
Once on the top, the trail joined a paved road that ran along the ridge and slowly downhill with a few uphill sections that didn't let the muscles cool too quickly. Karl finished the ride at the point where it had started, the road leading back to the trail head and discontinued the program.
When he got off the bike and took off the helmet, the fitness instructor was still there and looking very impressed. She'd been watching the screen which showed the action from his point of view as he rode as if he'd been wearing a helmet cam. She looked up at him and smiled. "That was impressive! Especially for a warm-up?"
Karl laughed. "You wouldn't believe how long it took me to be able to finish that thing. I know it by heart now. If it was real I imagine I could do it in the dark and blindfolded! NO... actually I'd probably kill myself on it! The guy who created it calls it the suicide run. I threw in the long slope at the end for a cool down. His goes right back to the beginning again."
The woman laughed. He must be either obsessed or crazy!"
