Outside the machine, the salesman frowned. The big mean green muscle machine should take less than 10 seconds per person. This is what they told him. His cash flow depended on it. Yet this young gymnast girl had already been inside for over a minute and still the characteristic "ding" had not sounded. The line was long, the customers were excited, this was proving to become the best selling day yet if ... if he kept to the schedule.
And what if something was going wrong? What if the machine was breaking? Sure there was a warranty, but it would take weeks to repair, time he didn't have. Time was money!
And what if something happened to the girl? Everyone would see! That girl probably had friends, parents, coaches, teachers. His reputation would be ruined.
Meanwhile, inside, Gretchen heard the machine cycling down. For what felt like the hundredth time (but was actually only the ninth) she opened her hand and touched her iPhone for a "replay". Once again the machine's energy surged around her as if it were starting from the beginning and she felt a new burst of strength flowing into her.
She looked down and saw her top clinging more tightly to her, with the words I FLING CARS FOR LAUGHS Then she remembered what her friend Cyndi told her to do when she wanted to hear "Stronger" again and again during her workout. She changed a setting so that now it would replay automatically until she stopped it. But she was still impatient. How about the volume control? She slid her finger along the screen. Wow! THAT was INTENSE! She could feel herself getting stronger and stronger, second by second. She was over six feet tall, now and her biceps were still growing. They seemed to shimmer with power, and now it felt like her whole body was glowing with energy. Maybe she was overdoing it. She turned off replay and let the machine cycle down for good.
Outside, the machine finally indicated the cycle's end, but strangely sounded like the resonant peal of a church bell, rather than the tinny "ding" of a oven timer. The door flew open and Gretchen stepped out, wearing tight blue shorts and a red spandex top with a diamond-shaped logo and the words SUPER GYMNAST inside.
"I think it worked," she said. "Let me try something." She bent her knees slightly and jumped twenty feet into the air, grabbed one of the metal supports for the walls of the mall and flung herself across the mall, where she flipped around another bar and pulled herself high into the air, soaring to the top of the four story atrium and then down, landing perfectly exactly where she started. She flung her arms up high as if in in a post-performance pose for the judges, tensed her chest slightly, and her massive pecs extended several more inches outward. She looked down at the salesman, whose head was now just centimeters away from her power-packed chest. He gulped and stepped backwards so that he could see her smiling face.
"Yeah, that was definitely worth it! I'm sending my friends!" she chirped. "And Cyndi's got the newest IPOD!" she said, to the salesman's mystification.
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