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Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

March 21st 2157

            It seamed that everyone was a little shocked by Jafta announcing his want to leave the company.  Everyone stayed where they were for a few minutes before Mathews made a short announcement.  “We have roughly an hour before we receive a response.  I would suggest doing something productive with you time.”

            With that Mathews turned and strapped himself in the harness of his workstation.  Everyone else left in his or her own directions, and for Jake that was toward the kitchen.  He wasn’t sure why, but he suddenly felt like he needed a snack.

            Jake left the lab, passed through the sleeping quarters and the rec room and entered the kitchen.  Opening the refrigerator and rifling though the scant contents, he shut it’s door without finding anything good.  After going though several of the food storage shelves he decided to give up the hunt for anything that might satiate his hunger.

            He headed back into the sleeping area and changed his clothes, deciding that a few laps around the grav ring will make him feel better.  Once fully dressed for a run Jake moved to the end of the sleeping quarters and opened a hatch that lead down a long thin tube like hall way.

            Jake began to float down the tube, but had to begin slowing himself by grabbing on the hand railings that acted like a ladder attached to the walls.  After another several meters he realized that someone must be in the grav ring because he wasn’t to the ring and was already feeling over one G.

            Upon reaching the ring, Jake gently lowered himself onto the floor from the ladder.  It was clear that someone had turned the grav ring up to around two G’s.  Performing his pre exercise stretches and warm up, then sighed heavily as he began jogging around the ring.

            Jake didn’t really like running or jogging at anything more than one and a half G’s.  But the rules in the grav ring were simple; who ever was there first gets to set the G’s.

            One full circle around the ring was five hundred meters, two full laps and you have run, jogged or walked one kilometer.  Having a nice easy measured lap made keeping track of progress easier.

            On the floor of the grav ring there was a white line that divided the area into a right side and a left side.  The right side of the ring was dedicated to running, and there was nothing on this side, other than the occasional person running on it.  The left side is where everything else that you could find in a gym was located.

            Weights, lifting machines, rowing machines, treadmills, medicine balls, and even a small pool were just some of the things on the left side.  The pool was about three meters wide and six deep.  Lasers would track the swimmer and adjust the flow of water and allow the swimmer to swim in place as fast or slow, as they wanted.

            The first time Jake had seen the pool, he thought it was just absurd.  Why would anyone haul that much water out into space just so someone could float around in it?  He had since loved whoever thought about having this pool on the grav ring.  For him, it was the single most used thing in the ring.

            After finishing almost three quarters of a lap, Jacob came across Jafta.  He was sitting on one of the weight benches resting after having just finished a set.  Jake slowed to a stop, “Need a spot?”

            Jafta looked up at him and nodded his head.  Jafta lay back down to resume his bench presses and Jake moved into position behind his head.  Jake noted that the weight on the bar read two hundred and twenty kilo’s.  He was shocked, that was a staggering amount of weight.  Then the realization hit him hard that he was lifting this in about two G’s.