Overdeveloped Amateurs -

He nodded. He knew.

Leo, callsign Chimera, wiped a film of nano-sweat from his brow. He was seventeen. His body was a cartographer’s nightmare of hyper-developed musculature—deltoids that looked like cannonballs, a trapezius ridge that sloped into his neck like a mountain range, and quads so vast he couldn’t bring his knees together. He had never climbed a real staircase. He had never lifted a bag of groceries. But he could generate a 4,000-newton roundhouse kick, verified by LIDAR. overdeveloped amateurs

“One,” Priya whispered.

“My viola,” she said. Her eyes were wet. “I had a Stradivarius replica. My fingers can’t fit in the fingerboard anymore. I tried last week. I broke the neck.” He nodded

“They’ll turn off our life support mods,” she replied. “We’ll be dead in a week. Our hearts can’t beat on their own anymore. Too much left ventricular hypertrophy.” He was seventeen