Free The Infected 1: Proxy by P. S. Power

never met her myself." Putting out a hand she waited and after a second shook. "Neat! You should come hang out with me! Just, you know, come grab me or something and shake until I get it."
    They had to keep walking, or at least he did, he told them, and began to trudge along again. Slowly. At nearly eight, Jason - the trainer - came. Making Bridget scamper off as if she'd been doing something wrong. He didn't say anything bad about it to Brian though.
    "Brian!"
    His gaze followed Bridget as she scurried over to Lauren. "Making friends? Good to see you still at it, I... wasn't sure you could after I heard the extent of the damage from things. Normally we'd ease into this kind of thing over the course of a few months, not throw you in the day you got out of the hospital. I've been planning your work out and training schedule, it's pretty basic, but grueling to start with, then it moves into being more demanding... Tonight we'll drug the hell out of you at nine, so you can sleep, then in the morning, as soon as you get up, you need to start working out. Karen will be working with you on that, until noon. Ex-Olympian, gymnastics, so get ready for a work out and don't expect her to coddle you. Then you get a break for a whole hour to eat lunch. After that you have martial arts training, weapons, and later - as you heal up a little - we'll add in speed work for running, obstacles, and that kind of thing. For the first few weeks I don't think you're going to be able to do all this, maybe not even after a few months, that's fine. As long as the level of discomfort stays high enough it should be OK. I'm not bothering with a diet plan on this, eat healthy and have some veggies, but don't worry about calories. You'll drop weight doing this."
    The pad Jason carried disappeared. After a few seconds Brian understood that Penny had taken it. There was an outraged grunt from the girl, followed by a gasp.
    Then Jason fell down.
    The fit looking man didn't seem to understand what had happened, that Penny had tripped him or pushed him, but then Jason didn't hear the girl calling him a mother fucker either. When he tried to get up again he couldn't, falling over again.
    "Penny! Stop it. Please?" Brian spoke softly. The violence made him uneasy. Like he should stop her or something. Not that he really could.
    "Brian, this schedule is insane, no diet plan? He doesn't even have breakfast on this! You get like, two hours un-drugged time to yourself each night, not that you'll be able to do anything, because I doubt you'll be able to move..." She sounded worried about him.
    Asking gently, he got her to stop attacking at least, so that the whole thing could be explained. Brian had a feeling that she followed the other man, ready to do it again if she didn't like the answers. Brian fought a smile.
    At least someone here was going to stand up for him if he needed it. That was a good sign he guessed.
    Every second they walked got harder for him, each ache hurt more and he really wanted to stop, to just sit down and rest. He mentioned this to Jason, expecting the man to berate him for being lazy or a wimp. Call him names or even remind him about Barbara Dorn, but instead he just nodded. No smile on his face, just a serious look.
    "Given everything, this must be a bit like trying to run a marathon without training. Actually it's almost literally like that, you haven't gone that far yet today, but darn close... And after what you've been through... Yeah, tough. I don't mean the work either, I mean you. This time right now though, when you want to quit, when everything in your body begs you too, when it doesn't matter if you do really and no one in the world would blame you for slacking off a little... Right now is when your mental endurance and toughness grows. Every step you take when things get this hard makes you stronger. It's not a big comfort now, but it's true."
    Jason left at eight forty-five and came back ten minutes later with a woman that carried