With a deep, and slightly pained, sigh I slowly lower the heavy dumbbells to the ground. My quiet apartment fills with creaking as the weights come to rest against the hardwood floor, the boards shifting as I gently roll the set of metal dumbbells beneath my large queen bed.
Taking a deep breath I wipe the sweat from my forehead, my new fitness tracker flashing on my wrist as it strives to get my attention. Despite its efforts I decide to leave it for the moment, slowly shuffling to get changed out of my sweat-coated workout clothes in favor of something clean and cool. Tugging off the black sweatpants and the simple black cotton shirt I quickly apply a coating of deodorant before whipping a thankfully clean white button-up shirt and a pair of comfortably loose black jeans.
I had started my new workout regime only a few weeks back, and yet I had already started to notice results. What little fat I had around my mid-section and pecs had rapidly withered away, and my normally lean to non-existent muscles had already begun to grow slightly more prominent.
Marveling for a moment at my progress my eyes dart to the watch at the wrist, the blinking lights practically begging me to check my phone for some notification or update. My lips twist into a smirk as I turn my wrist, my eyes glued to the watch as I look over its sleek black rounded exterior.
"Guess I should be thanking you for all...this" I chuckle, patting my stomach before heading to the living room in search of my phone.
While some people would attribute their exercise success to their workout app of choice anyone who used Fit-In quite literally had it to blame for all their gains or losses. Where the competition would merely guide their users in how to best achieve their fitness goals, tracking progress on a self-reported basis, Fit-In went the extra, extremely invasive, mile.
The Fit-In system came in three parts, though only one was truly revolutionary. The App and the Watch merely acted like most other fitness gear, tracking your progress and sending it to your phone to add to a schedule and to update your routine. The third, and groundbreaking, aspect was the inclusion of a nanobot payload tied to the watch.
When worn for the first time the watch would deploy the accompanying nanobots into the user's bloodstream, slowly and harmlessly populating throughout the user's body. At first these nanites were designed to aid the user as they exercised and speeding up the recovery process, preventing or repairing micro-tears and assisting in oxygenating trouble spots, the app soon developed their most well-known feature;
Paired Progression
Not everything that a user does during their routine, or even over the course of their day, is conducive to the goals they had set for themselves. A power lifter may not need the cardio from walking to work, whereas a shelf-stacker may not need the muscle work caused by a day of heavy lifting and squatting. With the Paired Progress feature the nanobots in both the users could exchange the gains earned that surpass their individual goals, reducing and removing the cardio improvements in exchange for enhanced strength and vice versa.
While this feature had been used by practically every owner of the Fit-In the latest update was about to add one new feature, one that could not be shut off.
When going about one's day the Fit-In, along with the nano-bots and the phone, could track where the user went, what they did, and how they did it. With this sort of information at the App's proverbial fingertips, the next logical step was to automate the pairing process and automate the perceived goals of each user. This thinking lead to the latest feature;
Generated Goals
Once turned on, Generated Goals sets about working out what sort of goals the user had before converting it to a Paired Progression connection between other users. A person struggling to reach down to grab their dog's toys maybe be flagged as requiring more flexibility, a pairing soon being made with one of the nearly endless range of users to provide them this needed factor in exchange for something else.
However, due to rushing the feature out the door several major errors plagued the system.
Firstly, once activated the Generated Goals can not be turned off, the nanobots locking into the feature and requiring a full shutdown either through waiting out their battery life or destroying them in some other way.
Secondly, what the feature defined as a goal and what could be exchanged had been made far too broad. Over the first few hours people noticed subtle, soon to be drastic, changes in themselves. Short people struggling to reach the top shelves suddenly finding those goods within their grasp, or men at a strip club to ogle women finding fat pooling on their chests and their cocks withering away inch by cruel inch. Middle-aged women eating cheap two-minute noodles in the office for lunch growing closer to college-age to match their cheap meals audience, or people tanning by the pool finding their skin pigment shifting to darker hues.
Finally, dues to the terrifying extent of changes done to the user's body and the severity of the internal alterations required these exchanges could not be undone anytime soon. Beyond the merely practical side of things, the human body only being able to take so much punishment, it was also difficult to undo the changes exactly as they had been done, the sheer number of user's involved from all over the world making it near impossible to coordinate it all.
Reaching the living room I immediately crash down on my delightfully plush green couch, the muscles in my arms and legs still twitching excitedly as the nanobots coursing through my bloodstream continue to massage and stimulate the fibers even after I had finished.
"So...what do you want?" I mutter to myself, groaning slightly as I reach over to my phone. The aching in my bicep quickly begins to dissipate as whatever damage inside is quickly addressed, tears being sealed and lactic acid being shifted away.
Glancing down at my screen I watch as the app congratulates me for another completed workout, the whole routine being broken down into various aspects as it informs me how much cardio has been exchanged for further work on muscle tone. As I tap out of the summary screen a new pop-up fills my view, a large page of patch notes that I merely tap through. However, just as I get rid of the patch notes another pop-up snaps into view.
Hey Hughes_1305
You can always do more for better gains
From current data you get more... cardio then needed
You also could use more...flexibility
Activate 'Generated Goals'
Get more of what you need
Give others what you don't
Accept Decline Cocking my eyebrow slightly I try to make head or tails of the new offer, the strange explanation doing little to help me understand what it did.
"I should have read those patch notes" I sigh, clicking my tongue ruefully at the confusion I had foisted on myself.
My thumb hovers over decline, the thought of letting the strange new technology inside of me do some new feature sending chills down my spine. However, I quickly shrug the unease off as I tap accept. This was a multi-million dollar company and they had already done so much to help my exercise journey. This was probably just some new more refined feature that'll get me closer to my fitness goals faster than before.
As I accept the offer I watch as my goals and workout schedule clear, the lists being quickly replaced with the text;
Awaiting New Input
Goals and Routine UpdatingI slowly bring my hand to my face, rubbing the bridge of my nose in frustration.
"Urgh" I groan, leaning my head back as I stare at the ceiling. "Guess I'll need to redo my workout plan" I continue with a grumble, upset that I had seemingly deleted my entire routine.
"Tomorrow, I'll do all that tomorrow" I mutter, heaving myself up from the couch with a big stretch. While It was only the afternoon I still technically had the whole weekend ahead of me, I couldn't spend it just sitting on the couch doing nothing. While before using Fit-In I would have been laid out on my couch or bed, napping until midnight, thanks to the quick recovery time I could still do something with the rest of my day.
With a little hop in place, trying to get my still slightly aching body energized, I decide to...
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