Rain spits down from above as I trudge up the street, my hands pulling and picking at my clothing with each step as I find the material pinching and riding up in the most uncomfortable ways. I hadn't worn something like this in years, at least not for their intended purpose, my preferred size for sweat pants being 'too large' and 'comfortable' as opposed to being made for exercise.
However, after months lazing about at home and even longer being largely sedentary in the office my body had finally started to show the signs of my lounging lifestyle. Glancing down I look at my hoodie covered body, my free hand prodding at the small little bit of belly flab that had started to form over the past who knows how long.
"Maybe I could just eat a little less..." I begin to mumble, already growing tired after my little walk to the deep innards of the city in search of my new gym. "Or like a little jog... in the morning... with no one around to..."
I pause my train of thought as my phone buzzes in my pocket, the small device trying to alert me that we had arrived at our destination. Looking up from my stupor I find myself staring at a large rounded wall of glass, the large corner plot looking more like a view platform for passersby to gawk at the people inside. Pink, blue, and purple cladding run along the edges of the window, framing the gym within with bright eye catching colors.
I can't help but stare for a moment, my gaze locking to the men and women inside as the rain begins to beat down at a heavier rate by the second. Slender yet stacked women bend and twist into all manner of yoga poses in full view of everyone, towering muscular men seem to effortlessly lift weights, women with powerful thighs squat while a group of cyclists power through a stationary workout at high speeds.
For each of these paragons of fitness I spot several more common places persons, most seemingly catching glances at the men and women around them while a scant few seem more so focused on their workout as they hammer out sets and make notes in a little branded pad.
Looking at the treadmills by the window I spot a young yet somewhat doughy blonde woman, her tan face red and drenched in sweat. Her eyes meet my own, her lip twitching and her face wincing as she suddenly slows her stride and steps to the sides of the machine. In a huff she looks down at her flabby frame, muttering something before pulling out a purple notepad with black highlights with a familiar branding.
Full Form Fitness
Most gyms were known to be a relatively parasitic business, making most of their money off of people's best wishes for themselves and the elation of new years resolutions before finding their daily users drop off within the first few weeks of the new year.
However, unlike other gyms Full Form had seemed to not only sustain their active memberships but also grow them, albeit slowly, since their founding. In fact, practically everyone who had signed up after their first meeting seemed to stick around for the long haul with most people not being able to point to a single person who had cancelled their subscription after signing up.
Many tried to work out just why this was, anything from the attractive young staff to the fact that many of the more 'showy' activities in the open for all to look at. Despite their best efforts no one could work it out, though the guesses were never far off.
Behind the scenes, Full Form Fitness was a very different company. Originally Frontiers Research, this small start-up had been working to try and find some usable and marketable application to novel concepts in quantum physics beyond the much lauded quantum computing. After more and more research, days and weeks of time and money being poured into their projects with no return on investment in sight, they soon stumbled upon 'something'.
A quick in entanglement and a variable in the sub-stratum of reality, a series of theoretical notes on who a person was etched into the universe itself. After weeks of testing they couldn't do much with the information at all, the signature being more like a identifier or fingerprint than anything else. However, as though blessed with a miracle they soon had their second breakthrough. Through disrupting this unpinning layer of reality they found they could move these signatures around, though to no overt effect. However, if multiple willing people were to undergo this procedure they soon found that changes could be elicited via swapping this subatomic ephemera around.
For a few minutes there was celebration, watching as two staff member's hair colors changed before everyone's eyes. However, moments later the whole room, bar the two mixed up staff, seemed to quickly forget and begin to bemoan another failure. Thankfully, with the urging of the two swapped staff, they repeated the experiment again and again, each time mangling the two staff members more and more as they soon became unrecognizable as their original selves. Each day they would go home, sometimes to an entirely different house as the two researchers soon found their whole reality changing to accommodate their new traits at the end of each shift.
A Faraday Cage was all it eventually took, the cage stopping the effects temporarily for those inside and even blocking the mind altering nature of the procedure if left inside the cage for long enough afterwards. With the capacity of the device now confirmed the next step was obvious.
'How do we make money with this?"
Not wanting to go public with their device they quickly sought funding from under the table investors. Millions upon millions rolled in, with every aging billionaire and millionaire being enticed by the idea of staving off death or improving their body in one way or another. However, there was an immediate problem. How could they make this work? They needed willing people, people who would stay in the device for long enough to have their traits siphoned off. To this end they decided to build a front, a place for those looking to improve themselves or maintain their bodies to congregate.
With Full Form Fitness set up they quickly set about building up storefronts across the world, eager to burn funds to stretch their grasp out into as many markets as possible. Slowly but surely they started to build up clientele, each one getting a round in the machines on signup to check out just who they were underneath it all. With every batch of stolen youth, pilfered height, or yoinked muscles a dissatisfied aging, short, or flabby customer would leave in tears after being 'turned down' by the elite gym.
However, they soon had a small problem. As their wealthy donors were slowly set up with new bodies the gyms themselves seemed to struggle with membership worse so than most other gyms. With every hottie that came in leaving as something entirely the opposite Full Form soon had an image problem, the place largely being filled with middling men and women struggling to lose weight and seemingly repulsing more attractive prospective members.
They needed to attract more people, and to that end they came to a simple conclusion. They needed two types of 'hand-made' customers, something only they could make.
Built from only the best of the best, these bodies would fill some sort of need or archetype in the hopes of pulling in more members. Muscle Mommies, Instagram Models, Shirtless Chads, and Yoga Contortionists would soon be 'allocated' to a gym, the mind behind the body being chosen to best make an 'interesting interaction' with new members.
While physically perfect in some way this was not done without some thought towards reciprocation. Show Room Models needed to return to the gym often, posing and working out in full view in order to draw in new customers to either use the gym or to have their traits stolen until the 'debt' is repaid.
These are built for existing gym-goers or those with the drive to work towards their goal. Usually made out of gym bunnies and gym bros, former athletes or just those with a great deal of self control and drive to forge their perfect body themselves.
These body's are often tagged as, 'Perfect-Forms-To-Be', diamonds in the rough that a properly motivated person could work their way out of. Tall yet flabby men with the makings of a body builder, scrawny weak women who could be gymnasts or models with some training and perseverance.
These help act as inspiration, the slow progress being made in carving out a trim and terrific form helping to make the regular customers more motivated.
However, in making these forms of eye candy or soon-to-be eye candy they soon found themselves needing an outlet for all the negative traits coming out of these creations. Pimples, stretchmarks, flab and fat all needed new homes in someone else. Regretfully, this lead to the creation of one last classification of body.
These are built for those deemed 'un-fit' for the 'culture' of Perfect Form. Pimples, glasses, flab and bad metabolisms are simply piled into someone who won't complain or fight back along with a small 'thank you gift' often coming from some slightly beneficial trait to hopefully make up their new doughy or scrawny form.
With these three categories the facade side of the business suddenly began to boom. Each gym seemed to maintain a wonderful balance of perfect gym-goers and those who were making steady progress, the sight of the two drawing in more and more people and offering up more and more traits for consumption.
As I open the door the heady scent of sweat and spray on deodorant rapidly assault my senses, the thick mixture being cut with the sharp zesty smell of some sort of citrus based disinfectant. Loud pop music blasts from the wall mounted speakers around the room, the upbeat music being overwhelmed with the discordant sounds of metal weights clanging and footfalls against the whirring treadmills by the door.
Looking around momentarily I try to work out exactly where I'm meant to go, the whole place feeling fairly daunting and not far from being overwhelming. My gaze shifts around, catching the eye of various men and women moving between the complex looking machines and stations around the gym, the occasional glance coming with some side-eye for a reason I can't quite fathom.
I'm snapped back to reality by a set of foot falls, a purple blur darting up in my peripheral vision as I stagger in place and lurch to stand up without any slouching. A young woman with long black hair, tied back into a tight ponytail, looks up at me with a set of piercing bottle green eyes. For a split second she nibbles at her lip her gaze darting over me before locking to the forms clutched in my hand.
"Yoooooou must be Jordan!" she giggles excitedly, grinning ear to ear and clapping daintily. I open my mouth to say something, a small squeak slipping out as she leans in and snatches the forms from my hand. "You. Are. Sooooooo Tall" she coos, bouncing on the balls of her feet as her modest perky chest jostles beneath her tight purple and pink shirt.
"I...uh... I mean I guess..." I blurt out, watching as the energetic young woman glances down at the forms before pouting slightly.
"You guess?" she mutters, shaking her head. "Not the most confident are we. Don't worry, that might actually work out better" she chirps, flashing me a bright smile before bouncing off further into the gym. With her free hand she waves for me to follow, my long strides struggling to keep up with her despite my far large steps.
As we pass the scant few other employees I feel their eyes lock to me, my face burning red with embarrassment as the dark haired young woman leads me to a door at the back.
"Teacher.... well was one..." she giggle, opening the door and skipping her way through. "So you just wanted lose a little..." she begins to ask, only to get cut off by my nervous voice.
"Uh... yeah" I mutter, following in behind her as I glance around at the room. "I guess my metabolism is going with age huh?"
The air of the room almost buzzes, the rather large space seemingly acting as a home for some high tech recovery equipment. Three large metal boxes sit up against the far wall, a wire fence separating them from the room at large, a faint haze of mist slipping through the crack in one of the open doors. Even at my 6'4" stance I would struggle to keep my head out of the coffin-like steel containers, a small gap in the top seemingly having been made for ones head to sit out of the device.
To the left sits a small desk, a simply screen sitting atop the cheap piece of furniture as the wires disappear into the wall and to parts unknown.
Suddenly I feel a finger prod my belly, the sharp nail jabbing into my supple flesh causing me to jump as the young woman giggles.
"It's not that bad" she giggles, waving at me playfully. "Maybe you've just had too many snacks or somethin'. Doesn't matter, we can see what we can do with all... this..." she states, waving her hands at me as she gestures to my whole body.
"Haha... yeah..." I weakly mutter back, fiddling with my hoodie as I try to cover the subtle belly flab as best I can. "Are those... like those post workout... cryo... things?" I ask, pointing to the large contraptions in the back. I watch as the tan dark haired woman purses her lips for a moment, her eyes lighting up excitedly as she looks to the massive devices in the back.
"Like, yeah!" she chirps, waltzing towards the wire wall and pushing open a small door in the wire. "You wanna try one? We keep 'em in the storage cage other everyone would be using them all the time."
"Um... I haven't even had a chance to..." I begin to mutter, walking up towards her before she suddenly grabs my hand and jerks me towards the flimsy metal hole. The young woman practically drags me across the threshold, the buzz suddenly ceasing as I find myself standing in front of one of the ominous devices.
"You walked here right?" she chimes, grabbing the slightly ajar door and slowly heaving it open. "We can totally do it pre-workout post warmup, it'll... like... ease up your joints and improve circulation."
Inside the machine appears to be countless little laser diodes, the hair-like fibers glowing ever so slightly and pulsing rhythmically. The mist emanates from what appears to be a collar in the top of the machine, the icy haze leaving my sweat freezing to my skin. A small pedestal sits at the bottom, a small height adjustable step fro shorter people to fit comfortably inside the machine without drowning in the liquid nitrogen evaporating from the device.
With a pat on my back I stagger forward, partially standing in the machine. The dark-haired girl looks at me expectantly, cocking an eyebrow as she nods towards the device.
"Come on" she coos playfully, poking out her tongue. "I still gotta process this" she explains, holding up my application. "Why not enjoy yourself while I see what we can do for you?"
With slight shrug I step up onto the pedestal, my knees locking as I feel it shudder and shift beneath me to adjust to the appropriate height. I barely have a chance to say anything as the device is slammed shut by the giggling young employee, her impish form quickly becoming obscured in the mist rising from the device as she walks back towards her desk.
"Good grades.... good..." she mutters, her tone taking on a more serious tone as I hear the wire door slam shut with the terrible rattle. "Unemployed... bad... Nerdy... could be interesting as... Do we keep him in the city or maybe... seems kind soft, maybe Mrs Johnson could have his..." she mumbles, her train of thought darting around before she drops into the padded office chair behind the desk.
Suddenly, the machine roars to life as plumes of mist erupt from within. Despite the cold I feel hundreds and thousands of pinprick like bursts of heat begin to tease and dart across my skin. In a matter of moments I feel my muscles seemingly turn to mush, the mixture of targeted heat and surrounding cold easing my body beyond the realms of belief.
"Ten inches? Lucky you" the dark haired woman chuckles, the clattering of keyboard strokes barely reaching me as the machine continues to hum and whir around me.
"How did you..." I begin to croak, my throat soon refusing to make any sort of utterance as it too grows overly relaxed and numbed.
"Oh it's all here" the dark haired employee giggles, a key more keystrokes quickly following. "Don't worry, we know someone who will enjoy it far more. Thank you for filling that order for us, we needed another Show Room Body and that bulge will be peeeeeerfect. But as for you..."
Love this idea! You always have such clever (and sexy) world building.
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