The room is far smaller than the waiting room she was in before, only being a bit larger than her own living quarters. Lined up in rows are three pieces of workout equipment on three distinct metal pedestals, the order from left to right going: a single barbell, a squat rack, and a bench press. Each one is strapped to the floor by large, thick bands of rubber. The bench and squat rack seem normal in appearance, though the single barbell on the floor has wires attached to the bands.

Liv shivers, the cold seeping deep into her skin, chills setting deep into her bones. The room was colder than it had any right to be, her exposed skin flirting with the idea of frostbite. She breathes out, a puff of steam billowing from her mouth.

"Great." Liv mutters mentally, her already sour mood further curdling. Just what she needed, the cold.

A crackle reverberates through the room, a crunchy voice eminating out of the ancient speakers hidden in small corners of the room. If they were in the open, they were too small for Liv to see.

“Whenever you’re ready, start on any exercise.” The distinctly male voice says, a powerful nasal present in their voice. Liv looks out at each of them, the realization hitting her... She didn't know how to do these.

"The hell am I looking at?" She questions, gesturing wildly at the three bars. Just what she needed, to feel more incompetent.

“Elaborate.”

“I mean how do I do em. I ain’t seen anythin’ like this ‘fore.” She elaborates slowly.

“Instructions on the lifts are on the platforms.” He responds flatly.

Liv furrows her brow, her eyes drifting back to the platforms. With small steps, she makes her way to the leftmost platform, stepping onto the platform and toward the bar. Right there, smack dab in front of the bar, is two papers with separate types of instruction, both taped on and laminated. One is a poster shows step by step how to do the movement– a basic dead lift– the other has text scrawled across its surface. Liv mentally reads it, mumbling to herself as she does.

"Your score is calculated based on the newtons of force generated. Final score will be additive of all three base scores.”

"So I just pull this lil bar." Liv states, more as a fact than a question as she looks up to one of the corners. There is no response, however– either from a lack of something to say or from malfunction; though, Liv is leaning toward the former.

Liv can remember doing something similar to this back when she was in the city. In the larger stores, most of the unlooted items were on the highest of shelves, and Liv wasn't a climber; instead, she opted for the elegant solution of grabbing them and toppling them over. The range of motion was similar to this. She grits her teeth, crouching down as she arcs her back.

“GRAHHH!” Liv growls, putting every iota of strength in her body into this lift. Her face goes red, veins popping out of her like wires under a blanket. She continues to lift, finding reservoirs of strength she didn't have. It all went into this: her anger, her embarrassment, her sorrow at not fitting in... All of it. She begins to pant, her legs violently shake like jello. More, she needed more.

“You may thank me later.” Her boss says mentally, Liv only barely making their voice out behind the power she exerted. A surge of energy suddenly rushes through her, her muscles swelling with power. She feels more than reinvigorated, her tapped energy reserves filling like a dried out lake. She redoubles her effort, burying her feet in the metal platform. Just one more push-!

RIPPP...

Liv falls back as all her strength turns against her, falling butt first off the platform. She yelps, the bar in her hand clattering to the floor just behind her. She looks to the ceiling, her eyes wide, her chest beating wildly as adrenaline pumps through her veins. What the hell had she just done? As she sits up, she gets her answer.

The bands had failed as it seems, the bar bent and broken with the exertion of her lift.

“How the hell'd you-?" Liv mutters mentally, her eyes wide with shock as she prods the mental connection between her and her boss. Unfortunately, she gets no response. Silence, now this?

“Proceed to the next test.” The spindly man’s voice rings through the room, a hint of an emotion bleeding through. Something akin to surprise, though their professionalism masks it.

Liv stands, patting herself off as she looks to the next two platforms. She shrugs, her shocked mind pushing onward toward the bench. The instructions on the point total and such are the same, the only poster difference being the steps of the lift itself. Liv nods as she sits on the bench. Her muscles tingle, her hands shaking with the raw power laying just beneath the surface. It was like raw electricity coursing through her veins, her heart thrumming in her chest like drums of war. She had so much energy to get out, but she didn't want to break the damn things... Was she supposed to? Maybe they made them weak on purpose or something.

She shakes her head, refocusing her thoughts. She slides under the bar, her hands gripping the bar as she breathes, sliding off the safety pins with one swift motion, another growl escaping her mouth. As she does, the same rush of power courses through her, her already powered up muscles swelling further.

RIPPP…

Liv’s arms shoot up, causing her to blink. Yet again, the straps snapped, though the bar was nearly snapped in half this time. She slowly sits up, gently placing the bar on the bench.

“Proceed.” The spindly man says, clearing his throat afterward. "Try to be careful, though." He adds, his voice still impassive.

Liv nods, hoping they could see the gesture. She was trying her hardest to be careful, but it just wasn't working for some damn reason. Standing from the bench, she walks over to the squat rack, her whole body tingling as she steps up the final platform. She breathes a shuddering breath, a feeling akin to air time rushing through her, almost like her body weighed nothing.

“Careful.” She mutters mentally like a mantra. her teeth clenching as she tries to focus in on that one phrase. As she prepares to lift, however, another surge of power rushes through her, her legs swelling with power.

“G-!” Liv starts as she shoots up with explosive force, laser focused on not ripping the straps.

CRUNCH

The entire platform under her rips, the metal crunching in on itself behind her. The wires within break, sparks flying as Liv tumbles forward, the bolted down squat rack bent beyond recognition. Silence overtakes the room once more, the sound of sparks flying being the only sound to break the overbearing silence. Slowly, Liv stands up, her already annoyed and nervous mental state compounding with the sense of dread she felt.

“Am I In trouble?” Liv asks, looking over the broken equipment. She tried to be careful, she really did. It just... Didn't work.

“I’m not sure… I can't say I've seen this before.” He mutters into the mic. She can hear fumbling on his side, his most likely cluttered desk being sorted for an item of some sort. Liv readies herself to say something, but gets cut off as he speaks. “Exit the door on the right, I'll have to see if I can't find a replacement on the fly."

Liv pauses, questions brewing in her mind. She shakes her head, letting her emotion get the best of her as she drags herself out, exiting through the indicated exit. She felt boundless energy behind every step, like a sort of physical peak for her, a crescendo of power– the source of it completely and utterly unresponsive. Her mind wars with itself as she makes it to the endless steps of the Initiative, caught between the blunders and fuck-ups and the knowledge that she might've done pretty good.

"I reckon the climb’ll be quick atleast.” Liv mutters mentally, trying to think positive.

She manages to make it up a single flight of stairs before the world begins to spin, a wave of fatigue crashing into her like a physical weight. Her body shudders, her knees buckling as nauseating breaths bombard her queasy stomach. Her last act as a conscious being is to shove herself against a wall, sliding down as a cold sweat beads down her entire body. Overexertion? Maybe, though she usually doesn't feel this horrible after that. Her time for thinking is cut off as her eyes flutter shut, darkness swallowing her mind.