The next few days, Laz spent time with Dr. Anton and Sven while occasionally the others would come see him as well. They didn’t restrict where he could go, except to tell him not to intrude into the personal lab areas without permission as something like that wouldn’t even be allowed between the scientists themselves. Since they lacked a connection to the outside, the satellites and communication relays being offline during the constant snow storms that ravaged the complex, Lax was forced to use whatever databases they had to figure out what had happened while he had been gone and asleep. One of the first things Laz wanted to find out about was what happened in Nevada all those months ago, but found out that access to such things was restricted. In fact, the access account he had blocked most recent news items from being accessed. Laz knew it had to do with the captain, but didn’t bother arguing about it. He didn’t want to cause a rift when he didn’t understand the current state of the base.

He could leave, but even with his god powers, trying to fight such a storm would tire even him out quickly. Being a god didn’t mean he was immortal, at least not yet. Flying, sure. Freezing into a ice cube and being thawed out months later, ok. Sinking to the bottom of the ocean while an ice cube could mean an eternity below the water while being crushed by so much weight that he couldn’t move. In that case, he would probably survive longer in dead space as the pressure wouldn’t be nearly as much.

Also, he wasn’t trying to make himself a criminal to the entire planet just yet, so taking over the base was out, even if that smirk of the captain made him want to try out the dark path. As he couldn’t reload the game, he gave up on the thought.

After one such incident with the captain, where Laz was trying to locate Kennedy and Malene and get some information about their company, which he was denied doing since he couldn’t reveal their relationship so easily, Laz was lifting weights in the gym with a vengeance. He was currently benching around six hundred pounds which was all the weight available for the bar in the gym, but that barely even registered in the same way a normal man wouldn’t bulk at lifting five pound weights using an entire hand. Lax could life over ten times as much, he just didn’t have anything that heavy to lift that wouldn’t cause the station some serious damage.

Even still, he was using it as more of a mental training simulation, lifting back and forth while keeping his eyes closed and focusing on his breathing while circulating his technique. He was hoping to calm his mind down and readjust to being back on earth where killing wasn’t a way to solve a problem, despite his desire to do so. Sven had tried stopping in to join him, but sensing his mood after hearing about another denial of information and Sven backed off. Even he was getting angry at the captain but as the captain’s word on such thing was law in the station, they had to listen to him. Even though Sven had offered to let Laz use his account for access, Laz turned him down saying that he didn’t wish to get him in trouble, even if Laz was tempted to do so. After all, he didn’t want to give the captain any ammo to use against him.

Either way, Laz had heard Sven arrive, but then leave soon after.

Then, after a while, Shelly and Jun had arrived to use the area, as both were younger women who desired to keep healthy. As their jobs didn’t involve a lot of intense action and there wasn’t too much to do in the station otherwise, they came to the gym together frequently. Sometimes the captain would join them or maybe one of the others, but the captain was busy and Sven had already left earlier, so they walked in on Laz alone.

As Laz was deep in his mediation and lifting, the girls didn’t disturb him. They had heard about the lack of access Laz was getting and wanted to stay out of it.

"Let’s go," Shelly said after she and Jun had watched Laz for a little but decided to ignore him. They both got to the treadmills, both new models that included virtual run features and began their runs. As they were doing it together, they were keeping pace on the run together as well. After a ten minute job, they began the harder part of the run and really began sweating. Both were wearing black leggings but while Shelly was sporting a tight tank top, Jun had on a tee shirt instead and the shirt quickly became drenched in her sweat. As her stamina had always been better than Shelly’s, she didn’t struggle as much on the run and took a quick moment to look again at Laz, feeling slightly uncomfortable with not knowing where in the room the stranger was, even if he was a kid.

As it turned out, he was still in the same spot, doing the same bench press over and over again in the same pattern. Breath, lower down, push up, hold, breath and repeat. Not fast, nor slow, and robotic like in movement, as though it didn’t strain him in the slightest.

’Must be doing a low weight set,’ Jun thought to herself as he had been going at it the full half hour they had been there and hadn’t moved. Still, she couldn’t resist seeing what kind of low weight set he was doing when she looked at the bar, seeing the slight bend in the middle, she quickly looked at the load and almost fell off the treadmill.

She wasn’t a gym rat, but she wasn’t a stranger either and could quickly determine the three hundred pounds on either side of the bar. Jun rubbed the sweat out of her eyes and poked Shelly in the ribs.

"What... What do... you want? Giving... up... so.... soon...?" Shelly asked, struggling a bit for breath.

"No. You’ve worked out with both the captain and Sven before, right? What kinds of weights can they press?" Jun asked, her breathing even and strong.

"The... captain.. uh... about two fifty max. Sven... two seventy five... but only... after being... told to beat.... the captain... by the... doc..." Shelly said, pausing her run to respond to her friend and glance her way.

"Why do you ask?" Shelly then questioned.

Jun had been looking at her and nodded, thinking that was in line with what she thought.

"And even then, it was only a full down and up max, right?" Jun then questioned.

"Well yeah. I mean that’s lifting more than their own weight anyway luv. They would never do that more than once otherwise they would risk tearing something. You know that! They normally use way less for actual workouts," Shelly then added with a questioning look on her face.

Jun then turned to look at Laz while Shelly, who was also curious, turned to look as well. Both of their jaws dropped as they saw what Laz was doing. In black shorts and a white tank top, his still slightly tanned skin seemed to glitter in the harsh light of the room, but there was barely a drop of sweat. Even then, his rock solid arms showed no signs of strain or stress.

The girls, mesmerized, walked over to where Laz still had his eyes closed and was still meditating and poked his arms, feeling the explosively solid strength beneath them. Such an action also alerted Laz to their presence and he opened up his eyes.

"Hi? Can I help you?" Laz said, putting the weight back on the rest and sitting up.

"How....???" Shelly asked, her voice coming to her.

"Uh? Oh. I don’t know. I tried lifting a little at a time but there was just no strain. I finally got up to a weight that I felt. Not sure why. I’ve been in many gyms but ever since I’ve woken up, my body feels better than ever. I guess that’s kind of strange, huh?" Laz said, making up a lie as he hadn’t considered that even lifting six hundred pounds wasn’t something a normal human could do. Sure, it wasn’t a world record, but it wasn’t too far off either. For a normal person to see that, it would be a lot for them to take.

"I guess I must have one of those sleeper builds people talk about, right?" Laz added on, seeing them skeptical.

"I guess.."

"Uh. Sure."

"Hi Girls. Hi Laz. Doing some lifting? Wow... uh. Trying to see how much the bar can support to be safe? I wouldn’t try benching that. We would have to get both the captain and Sven to get that off you when it falls on you. Just put the weights away and start with something easy for your size... Maybe like one hundred or just eighty to be safe until you get a feel for it, ok?" Saanvi said, walking in. She had on tight shorts and a loose shirt and was clearly here to exercise as well.

"That’s alright. Time to move on to something else," Laz said, taking the weights off, one at a time. Shelly and Jun didn’t say anything else and just went back to their treadmills. The captain had said to keep an eye on anything strange and this definitely counted as strange, but they didn’t know if he would even believe them if they told him. What was more, since Saanvi was here, they would leave his observation to her. Afterall, they didn’t want to get involved in this any more than her. They were here to work, not to babysit.

"Hey, Laz... do you know martial arts?" Saanvi asked, pointing to a mat on the floor.

...

’Hopefully this thing goes out. Since I have his name, I should be able to get a detailed report about him. I don’t like that little shit and there is something about him that just bothers me. There is no way someone normal can survive being frozen and rethawed. And who knows, maybe there is a reward for his capture? Glad I got that equipment just in case we ever ended up with one of them bastards sneaking in. Still though, I need to be careful. If he is one of them, he’s dangerous and I might just have to kill him. That would screw over the reward, but I’ll still get something for my trouble. And maybe even a medal? Well, whatever. Long as I can get ten seconds of a signal, the mail will go out and I just need to wait for a response. Until then... let’s see what the girls are up to? After all, getting these camera’s smuggled in and installed wasn’t cheap. But with it, I can blackmail them in the future. And if they don’t do what I want? Well, that will be their own careers they flush. Got nothing to do with me. They should be done with their work outs soon and heading to the showers... Love this time of the day....’