"Only two and a half hours?" Bailey inquired weakly. "It seemed like two years."
"You build muscle by tearing down muscle," the trainer said. "You just tore down a couple billion cells—and that hurts. But the body's a fast worker. She rebuilds—and then we tear down again. So she works faster. But she hurts. She hurts all the time. For a week. For a month. Max job? Make that three months."
"That's cutting it fine," Bailey said. "Can't you rush it any?"
"Sure—if you want to sleep in the tank," Goldblatt said sardonically.
"If that's what it takes."
"Are you serious? But I don't need to ask, do I? You're a man that's driven, if I ever saw one. What is it that's eating at you, young fellow? You've got a lot of life ahead of you. Slow down—"
"I can't," Bailey said. "Let's get started on what comes next."
In the third week Bailey, out of the tank for his alter-hourly session in the treadcage, paused to look at himself in the mirror. His face was gaunt, knobbed below the jawline with unfamiliar lumps of muscle; his neck was awkwardly corded; his shoulders swelled in sinewy striations above a chest which seemed to belong to someone else.
"I look wrong," he said. "Misshapen. No symmetry. Out of balance."
"Sure, sure. What do you expect, to start with? Some sectors respond quicker, some were in better shape. Don't worry. First we go for tone, then bulk, then definition, then balance. You're doing swell. We start coordination and dynamics next. Another sixty days and you'll look like you were born under that blue tag." He rubbed a hand over his head, eyeing Bailey. "If it wasn't so crazy, I'd think maybe that's the way you were thinking," he said.
"Don't think about it, Hy," Bailey said. "Just keep the pressure on."