Several minutes later, the group of four finally make it to the gym. For an underground building, Lewis is impressed with how it just seems to go on forever, and the gym itself is quite large. The guards shove Lewis to the floor, causing him to cry out in pain and surprise as he hits the ground with a thwack. Once Lewis recovers a little from the initial impact, he props himself up with his arms, and he glances over towards Linda and her two assistants, all of whom have smirks on their faces.
"Was that really necessary?" Lewis scowls in annoyance, really not appreciating being shoved around all the time.
"Nope." The guard with black hair answers smugly, causing Lewis to roll his eyes in annoyance.
"Needless to say, Subject A, if you try and use any of your powers in here in an attempt to escape, I will personally make sure that we capture each and every one of your friends and family, human or not." Linda Denman reminds the weary teenager still hunched over on the floor.
"How can you guys honestly live with yourselves?" Lewis laughs in disbelief, looking between the group of scientists in disgust.
"Quite easily, actually. Especially when you're about to make us a fortune and some of the most famous people on earth." The brown haired bodyguard replies, sounding quite proud of himself.
"What do you need me to do?" Lewis sighs defeatedly, gazing back over at Doctor Denman, deciding not to acknowledge the guard's comment.
"I'm glad to see that you're willing to cooperate. That'll make this all so much easier for everyone." Linda smiles brightly.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just tell me what you need me to do." Lewis grumbles as he gets back onto his feet. Denman then proceeds to explain all of the exercises that he will need to complete in a four hour time frame; the first two hours in his human form and the last two hours in his merman form. It seems that a lot of the two hours will be spent on machines like the bench press, working on his upper body strength. It makes sense, considering that is the only part of his body that can be fairly tested both as a human and a merman. Still, Denman throws in some cardio exercises in there as well, including the treadmill, which Lewis absolutely dreads. He has always hated running, and now that he is being forced to do it with scientists watching over him and hooked up to heart rate monitors is just going to make him hate it more. Lewis supposes that Denman is throwing cardio into the mix so that they can compare his stamina in more running based activities to his stamina while swimming in the water. To be honest, Lewis is curious about what those results might be himself.
The absolute worst exercise that Denman gives him though, has to be chin ups. Lewis has almost no arm strength; there's hardly any muscle on him. Especially in his arms, they look like pool noodles. And that's just when he is human. Lewis is highly terrified of how horrific the experience is going to be when he has a tail that weighs a tonne attached to his body. Unfortunately, Lewis is going to find out what it'll be like very soon.
"-and we will be repeating these same exercises every day. As you know, for science experiments to be completely valid, they have to be repeatable. Besides, there's no harm in getting you into shape, is there? I'm sure that your owner, Robert Wilson, would appreciate it." Linda finishes explaining.
"Owner?!" Lewis protests in disgust.
"It's just business. It's nothing personal, Subject A." Linda replies with a nonchalant shrug.
"My name is Lewis!" The merman practically snarls at the woman standing in front of him.
"Not anymore. Can't have any sort of bias in our research results, now can we?" Linda smirks.
"Get to work, fish boy! The sooner you start, the sooner you finish!" The guard with the black hair announces sternly, narrowing his eyes at the teenager.
"Fine. But don't be expecting me to be brilliant at this stuff. I don't go to the gym," Lewis snaps back angrily before storming over to the bench press to begin his horribly long and tedious work out.
Four hours later, Lewis collapses against the side of the pool; his torso lying on the cold tiled floor while his tail floats limply below in the water. Lewis pants heavily, his whole body burning with agony. He swears that his lungs are about to collapse. He coughs, splutters and gasps for air, feeling completely weak and limp. Lewis doesn't think that he will be able to move for about a week. He's supposed to do this every day? Is Denman serious? Lewis will die by the end of the week!
The sound of footsteps makes their way closer to where Lewis is lying, and he looks up to see Doctor Denman walking towards him with a satisfied smile on her face.
"That was a very good start, Subject A. These physical exertion tests could definitely lead to interesting results." Denman says happily while Lewis stares up at her in disbelief, still struggling to breathe as his entire body feels like jelly and continues to burn from being pushed beyond exhaustion both in the gym and in the pool.
"Are you trying to kill me?" Lewis gasps out between his desperate intakes of air.
"Don't be silly. Of course we're not trying to kill you. You're no use to us if you're dead. Well, at least not yet, anyway." Denman answers earnestly as she places a hand over her heart.
"You're insane," Lewis spits out, still struggling for air as he continues to lean on the side of the pool as his tail hangs down in the water below.
"Incorrect. All I'm doing is trying to do is uncover your secrets for the benefit of humanity. Just think about what your cellular mutation could mean for diseases such as cancer, or even aging! You are a major breakthrough." Denman replies excitedly, completely denying Lewis' comment.
"Can I at least rest now, please? My entire body feels like it is on fire and has turned into jelly." Lewis sighs tiredly, glancing up at the marine biologist with pleading eyes. His heart sinks as Linda shakes her head, noticeably false sympathy plastered onto her face.
"I'm afraid not, merman. We still have a lot of tests to get through today." Linda says simply.
"Troy, Frank, can you help get Subject A out of the pool, please?" Linda calls out over her shoulder to the two men that had been standing silently at the back of the room, next to all of Linda's research equipment. The two men quickly make their way over to Linda and Lewis. The exhausted teenager flinches and tries to shuffle further back from his captors, but barely has the energy to move more than a couple of centimetres, so he only manages to slightly dip a fraction more of his tail into the water.
"Please just let me rest for a while, I feel like I'm about to die." Lewis begs the three scientists in front of him pathetically, hating that he even needs to stoop down to a level so low that he has to actually beg. However, Lewis does not know how many more torturous tasks he could endure today. He already feels like he could drop dead at any second, every bone in his body aching. Anything else would basically guarantee Lewis' death.
"As I said, there is no time for you to rest yet. We still have a lot of tests to go through today, if we want to stay on schedule." Linda rolls her eyes in annoyance before glancing over and looking between her two assistants.
"Get it out of the pool and bring it to room 57 for the cognitive tests, please. I'll meet you guys there in 10 minutes." Linda instructs her two assistants/guards before turning around on her heels and walks away from the group, grabbing her laptop on her way out of the large indoor pool room.
"Alright, kid. Time to go." Troy grunts as he starts to move towards Lewis. The merman sighs in defeat as he glances between the two burly guards while they reach down and grab onto Lewis' arms tightly before roughly and painfully begin pulling him out of the pool. Lewis cries out in protest as the scales of his tail are scraped alongside the edge of the pool and up onto the tiled floor, but Troy and Frank don't seem to care in the slightest.
Eventually, they have successfully dragged Lewis out of the pool, but not without unnecessary pain on Lewis' part. He glances over his shoulder and winces at the sight of a dozen of his blue scales floating about in the pool water. Towels are suddenly shoved onto Lewis' chest and he is instructed to dry himself off as quickly as possible. Fighting through the horrid shaking and burning flowing throughout his body, Lewis somehow manages to prop himself up into a sitting position and begins to scrub his body down with a towel. He makes sure to be extra careful with his tail though, not wanting to accidentally rip any more scales out, because that hurts like an absolute bitch. God, Lewis hopes that Denman isn't planning on yanking out any more of his scales for another batch of samples.
"Hurry up!" Frank says warningly. Lewis gives him an icy glare for a second before going back to drying himself off. After another couple of minutes, a familiar tingling sensation rolls over Lewis' body. He blinks, and as he reopens his eyes, Lewis' legs have once again returned, and is back in his usual plain grey t-shirt and sweatpants. The teenager slowly and wobbly gets to his feet, his body still completely drained from the four hours of intense physical exertion. As soon as he shakily manages to stand up successfully, Linda's two guards grab hold of Lewis' upper arms and begin pulling him towards the pool room's exit. The sudden rush of movement causes Lewis to stumble and almost trip over as they pull him along. Lewis' limbs are still having a hard time functioning due to exhaustion, so once again, Lewis finds himself being dragged out of the room and down the hallway, his legs and feet dangling behind him uselessly. The merman has never felt so weak and pathetic in his entire life; it is completely humiliating being dragged around like a little girl would drag her doll along the ground. Thank god Cleo isn't here to see him like this. As his mind wanders back to his girlfriend, Lewis continues to silently and desperately pray that she is okay. He hopes that Linda is holding up her end of the bargain, considering Lewis has been doing everything that she wants without much complaint or resistance. The least that the bitch can do is keep Cleo, Emma and Rikki out of this.
Once the guards have escorted Lewis to room 57, the larger of the two - Frank - unlocks the door and helps Troy with shoving Lewis inside. Lewis lurches forwards, but somehow manages to keep himself on his feet this time, much to the merman's relief. He doesn't need even more extra bruises at the moment. The teenager hears the door shut behind him, so he glances over his shoulder to see both Troy and Frank standing guard in front of the door, blocking Lewis' only way of escape. The two guards glare at him, as if they are challenging Lewis to try and make it past them. Lewis sighs quietly before turning back around and takes note of what is in the room. Again, the room is dimly lit and has no windows, looking more like a box than an actual room. With that realisation, Lewis begins to feel a little claustrophobic. The merman then notices the chair and desk sitting in the middle of the room, with a laptop sitting on top of the desk.
"Sit down and await further instructions from Doctor Denman. She should be here any minute." Troy's voice calls out from behind Lewis. Not seeing any point in trying to cause trouble for his guards as that will only result in more trouble for him, Lewis reluctantly obliges to the request and takes a seat at the desk. The minutes tick by agonisingly so slowly that Lewis swears that they have actually been here for hours. He wishes there was something at least interesting to look at in this room, but apart from the guards and the laptop that he isn't even allowed to open yet, there is nothing. After what feels like an eternity, Lewis hears the door open and close from behind him as well as the sound of high heels walking towards him with a click each step. Within seconds, Doctor Denman walks around and stands in front of the desk Lewis is sitting at and looks down at him with a pleasant and friendly smile.
"Okay, now that we are all here, shall we begin?" Linda asks the small group eagerly.