Getting the App

“What are those dumbasses doing?” Coach Balter glared. He’d been coaching at the college for nearly 30 years now and never saw two guys so fit for athletics yet, refusing to even attempt them. Theo and Austin were on the other side of the gym flexing. And boy was there a lot to flex. Their bodies were fit to go on stage at any time and they knew it. It wasn’t till Austin started to take off his shirt that Coach Balter shouted. “HEY!” his deep voice echoed off the gym walls. Theo fumbled with his phone and dropped it. “What do you idiots think you’re doing?” He stomped over to them, glaring up at them.

“I-I-I…” Stammered Austin.

Theo was quick to pick up his slack. “We were just posing. Then upload a couple of pics online.”

Coach Balter let out an angry huff. These two guys should have known better. Each one was built like a fucking statue and he would have loved to put them on one of his teams. Didn’t matter if it was football, lacrosse, rugby, he knew they could handle it. “You know damn well not to take your clothes off in the gym. It’s distracting. And rude. Other guys get uncomfortable and girls get distracted,” he explained.

Austin looked to Theo for support who was going back to his phone, typing something in it. “We were just—”

Balter snatched it out of his hand. “You were just what?” he held the phone up, showing it off. “You’re not in high school anymore. Even if I don’t have direct authority over you, I can still have authority in this gym. Finish your workout and you can have it back.”

Theo held out his hand. “Alright. We’re done.”

“Absolutely fucking not,” Coach Balter grit his teeth. “You two fuck heads just walked in here and started stripping. Don’t fucking lie to me.”

It was the first time Coach Balter had actually seen Theo stunned. Still, he held his ground. Almost like he was ready to square up with the older coach. But Austin was quick to interject. “Let’s just do a quick work out. Alright?” Austin put his arm on Theo’s, pulling it lightly. Then leaned in closely, whispering, “It’ll be fun testing these bodies out…”

“Fine,” Theo grumbled. “But I’ll be back.”

Coach Balter nodded. He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until the two had walked away. That was one fight he was not wanting to have. Even if he could handle himself fairly well, he wasn’t exactly a spring chicken anymore. A lot of his muscles had gone a bit soft and his belly had grown pretty far out in front of him. He could take a hit or two from some punk, but not from someone built like Theo. He was just glad that Austin was such a softie. Even though the guy had to be at least 230 with an 8% body fat, he still acted like he was some scrawny little nerd who’d never lifted in his life.

Though, looking over at the two, they seemed to be having quite a bit of trouble actually lifting the weights. Coach Balter squinted, unsure how two guys so big, could be so confused with a gym. Theo’s eyes kept darting back to him. Coach Balter just held up the phone and waved it, with an angry grin. ‘You know you’re not getting this back till you finish a workout,’ was plastered all over his face and it only seemed to make Theo even angrier.

That’s when the phone vibrated. ‘The hell!?’ Coach Balter fumbled with it and then looked at the screen.

{New user detected. Please touch screen to begin.}

Fumbling with the phone, Coach Balter accidently touched the screen and it opened up.

{New user identified. Initiating. Process complete. Enjoy your new Chronivac experience.}

{Type what you would like to change.}

Coach Balter stared at the screen blankly. What kind of app was this? It was so simple. Nothing on the screen except for a blank white box and the greyed out words, ‘type what you would like to change.’ What even could it be? His fingers hovered over it, thumb touching the white space and the keyboard showed up. ‘Students listen to me when I tell them what to do.’ He typed. It was always frustrating having the students act as though they owned the place. Even if they were paying to be here, there still needed to rules. Some of them acted so high and mighty that he felt like he just had to pass them even if they shouldn’t have passed.

“HEY!” Theo shouted from across the gym. “Are you going through my phone!?”

“Until you finish your workout, this is mine. So, finish your god damn workout!” he shouted back. Instantly Theo stiffened up and went back to the weights. Austin looked at him for support but continued to follow his lead. “Oh fuck…” Coach Balter muttered to himself as he watched Theo continue his workout. It was like he was a man on a mission, actually doing the exercises and using more proper form and heavier weights than he had been. “Did this…” he looked down at the phone and saw the text there along with the same greyed out words right below it.

{Type what you would like to change.}

Coach Balter couldn’t confirm it, yet it was hard to deny that it worked. The only person Theo ever listened to was his boyfriend. To think that he so diligently and perfectly listened to a teacher’s words was unheard of. He stared at the phone a bit more. He needed more confirmation. Something that he could actually prove changed. He thought about it a bit more before typing, ‘I only have a 9% body fat.’

“Woah,” Coach Balter’s body lurched forward. He could feel it almost instantly as his muscles started to tighten up. Over the years, holding onto a thin waist and defined arms became harder and harder to do. His belly had ballooned out in front of him before he realized it. But now it was traveling in the opposite direction. He could see it pulling in on itself. The hefty belly he’d been so ashamed of completely disappearing. All the while the rest of his body was doing the same. Any amount of fat seemed to disappear. His shoulders had grown wider and rounder. The definition in his biceps only became more prominent. More surprising was that they didn’t seem to shrink at all. If anything, they started to grow.

Though, he did let out a bit of a whimper as his quads grew. His balls had accidently swung between his growing quads, only to get smashed between the hard muscles. “Damn…” Coach Balter smiled when he recovered. At 5’10” and 240 pounds, his fat looked to be pretty good. Now he just looked like a little fireplug with too wide of shoulders and thin of hips. His muscles were maybe just a bit too big to properly fit his body.

‘I’m 6’6”,’ he quickly added to the phone. Instantly he started growing taller. He could feel it in his bones as they lengthened and watched as his muscles grew more suited to his body. Then quickly added another 20 pounds of muscle to really fill it out. Every part of the coach bulged. The athletic gear he was wearing only seemed to grow to fit his body even better. But then he looked at the white color that had overtaken his hair. A bit of anger filled him as he remembered that he was still aging. Even with the boost to his muscles, he still felt like he wasn’t in his prime.

‘I’m only 35 years old,’ Coach Balter added. “Oh fuck yeah…” a deep moan rolled out of his mouth as he felt the vitality of youth returning to him. His body felt better than it had in ages. Ease of motion returned to his joints. The round saggy features of his face tightened against his strong jawline. He felt agile.

Coach Balter instantly went back into a heavy duty workout. Pushing himself well past even his prime. Every part of his body felt good. The sweat dripping down and covering his body felt amazing. His muscles moved and lifted weights he’d only ever imagined lifting. Veins pushed out of his skin as his muscles bulged with a long lost power. And then he saw Theo and Austin come back over to him. “What?” he grumbled. It was nice to actually be looking down at the two studs instead of up.

“My phone,” Theo said. “We finished our workout.”

“Hmmm…” Coach Balter thought about it for a second. He did say that. But was wanting to test this little app out more. And he needed these two to join a team. “You two want to walk around campus without a shirt on,” it was a statement, not a question. He watched as Theo and Austin became uncomfortable with the amount of clothing they were wearing.

Austin nodded while Theo gave an angry, “Yes.”

“Then join one of the sports teams. Don’t care which one. Then you can show off whenever you want,” Coach Balter said.

“Wh-what?” Theo gasped. “Since when?”

“I’ll make it a new rule,” Coach Balter crossed his arms against his chest. “Starting with you two.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Coach Balter confirmed. He dangled the phone under his arm. “What do you say?”

“Sure man. Whatever,” Theo confirmed.

Austin added a, “Whatever team Theo joins, I’ll join too.”

“Perfect,” Coach Balter handed the phone back to the Theo. Theo smiled and started heading to the door mumbling about something. “Oh! Before you go. Send me a copy of that Chronivac app.”

“Wh-at?” Theo turned around but his thumbs were already at work copying the code and pasting it into a message for Coach Balter. He hit send.

Coach Balter opened it up. “Perfect. Now delete it from your phone.” He watched Theo struggle. His fingers were doing everything in their power but couldn’t quite stop themselves from dragging the source code, dropping it in the recycle bin and then emptying that out as well. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good night.”