Scouting For Romance

Entry 36, 37

Entry 36

Day 5, Month 18, Year 572

With our bodies fully healed from our time in the forest, Jovaisa started us off with a jog of three laps around the volcano. Next, he brought us to a gym in the city. Lifting weights, squats, the staff used those physical fitness tests we did on the first day of our recruitment to measure our progress. Across the board, we had far more muscular endurance than we did when we first enlisted, the survival training was perfect.

But during our time at the gym, the goal was to keep our muscle endurance while boosting our physical strength. Everyone could do a pull up, for example, but how many of us could do a pull up with 200 pounds of weight tied to our legs?

At the moment, only Tobiasz and Ludwik could. Tytus got about halfway up. By the end of basic training, we'll all be capable of that feat.

After that came a squat test. Everyone could do a squat, but how many could squat their body weight and 400 pounds? I'm very proud to say that I was one of the few who could.

For the bench press, we'd need to lift 250. For the abs, 200. Not just once or twice, we needed to rep these weights.

I'm about as 'big' as I'm going to get. I'll probably add another 30 pounds of muscle before we get to basugio, but from now on I'll just get denser and more toned.

Once we got our new baseline down and our goals set, we were let loose to work out ourselves. I naturally went with Tytus, and Tytus wanted to work out with Ludwik.

"So, you've slimmed down, but have you even lost any strength?" Tytus asked as he helped Ludwik load a bench press bar with weight. As they did that, Marian and I stood to the side, 40-pound weights in our hands, rhythmically lifting left, right, left.

"I have. Quite a bit, actually. My record was 800, but that was a while ago."

Tytus frowned. "800. How long ago was that?"

"Maybe 40 years ago? It was while we were deployed to Monsoo." He chuckled to himself, "it was a peaceful island, so I spent most of my pay on protein shakes and decided to show off for the locals."

Tytus smiled and gave him a high five, but I was left confused. What the heck is Monsoo? A planet? So what's so special about the locals? Was that an inside joke for people who had been there? No, Tytus seemed to be in-the-know and we had never gone, so was this supposed to be common knowledge? Maybe I should brush up on our history post-Peldor.

Marian chimed in, frowning. "And you almost died of a heart attack for your efforts."

Ludwik shrugged, then laid on the bench. His body was so massive that he spilled over the sides. "Sometimes that's just how it goes." There was 200 pounds on the bar, but he busted out reps as if it was nothing.

I spoke up, "you almost died of a heart attack to impress aliens?"

"Yeah." His response was quick and devoid of any emotion.

"Why?"

"Cause they weren't your garden variety 'aliens', these were monsoorai."

"If they are not peldak they are alien."

He shook his head as if I just didn't get it.

"Hold on, Mal, he's right," Tytus said. "Calling them 'aliens' would be a bit inaccurate. They're monsoorai, you know?"

"I do not."

Marian tried to find the right words. "It's not that... I mean, they're just monsoorai." He failed to find the right words.