Pulse Fitness, Thetford
Thursday, 15 May 2050 — 8:10 a.m.
The retail park beside Castlefields Academy
The turnstile gave with a soft click beneath her palm.
The girl who came through it did not hesitate. Bag over one shoulder, earbuds in, head slightly down, moving with the kind of purpose that made other people move around her without quite noticing they were doing it. Morning light from the front windows fell across the polished floor in pale blue strips. Somewhere overhead, the house playlist was halfway through something slick and forgettable with too much bass. To her left, a woman in a cropped black top was deadlifting with the slow fury of someone who had already been there an hour. To the right, a man on a rower was pulling too hard and breathing like he wanted the whole gym to know about it.
At reception, the girl behind the desk glanced up from her screen.
“Morning.”
A nod back. Barely there.
Then she was through, onto the main floor, where the air smelled faintly of rubber matting, deodorant and the sweet metallic tang of wiped-down equipment. The treadmills along the far wall faced a bank of mirrors that could, if you wanted, throw little green rep-count overlays across your reflection. Most people had them off. One girl near the cardio section had hers on and was watching a glowing silhouette tell her her knees were tracking badly.
She scanned the floor once.
Found them.
By the cable stack, three girls.
One was perched on the edge of a bench in a cropped gym tee and oversized zip hoodie, one leg bouncing, curls piled up into a high puff that had started the day controlled and was already escaping at the edges. Gold hoops. Bright trainers. Mouth moving even while she laughed at her own last sentence, as if silence was a thing that only happened to other people.
Next to her stood a taller girl with deep brown skin and a long plait looped once over one shoulder, phone in one hand, the other resting on the cable tower like she owned it. Her face had that watchful stillness some people had even when they were sixteen — the kind that made it look like she was listening to two conversations at once. She was not smiling, but the corners of her mouth looked like they knew how.
The third was pale, soft-faced, dark blonde hair shoved into a messy ponytail, leggings slightly too long and bunching at the ankle. She was midway through laughing and covering her mouth at the same time, as though she wasn’t sure whether she was allowed to laugh that loudly in public. A tiny silver stud gleamed in one nostril when she turned her head.
The loud one saw her first.
“Oi.”
The girl with the plait looked at the clock on the wall, then back at her.
“You’re late.”
“Trains,” Hannah said.
That was the first time her name entered the room, and once it did, it stayed.
The loud one pressed a hand dramatically to her chest. “Always trains. One day it’ll be, like, a tiger on the line or some mad shit.”
The watchful one said, “I’d respect tiger on the line.”
The blonde girl laughed again, quieter this time.
Hannah dropped her bag by the bench. Pulled one earbud out, then the other. Wound them round her phone in two quick turns and shoved both into the side pocket. Hoodie off next. Plain black gym top underneath, clinging slightly at the shoulders from the walk over. She caught her hair up with both hands and twisted it into a knot that looked careless but held. The chain at her throat stayed tucked under the fabric where it belonged.
The loud one was looking at her arms.
“You’ve gone again.”
“What.”
“You have. Your shoulders.”
Hannah glanced down at herself as if she had not brought the shoulders with her on purpose.
“Gym,” she said.
That got a face from the loud one. “Right. Forgot where we were.”
The girl with the plait let the smallest smile out.
Hannah went straight into her warm-up without another word. Band from the bag. Shoulders first. Then hamstrings, then hips, then the dynamic stretches she always did in the same order because if you changed the order for no reason you ended up thinking about the order instead of doing it. Around her, the others were already half into their own sessions and half into talking.
The blonde one was saying, “No, but the weirdest bit was the hand thing.”
The loud one frowned. “The hand thing?”
“The scan. You put your hand in and it’s warm.”
The girl with the plait said, “That sounds rank.”
“It wasn’t rank, it was just weird. Like… I don’t know. Like holding a kettle that isn’t hot yet.”
The loud one looked disgusted. “Why would you know what that feels like?”
The blonde one ignored her. “And then it comes up with all your stats and whatever.”
“Did it hurt?” Hannah asked, reaching for the cable attachment.
The blonde one blinked, almost pleased she’d joined in. “No. Not at all.”
“Told you,” said the plaited girl.
The loud one rolled her eyes. “I’m still not doing mine.”
The plaited one looked over. “You literally have to at sixteen.”
“I know I have to at sixteen. I’m not sixteen yet.”
“You’re sixteen in, like, six weeks.”
“And I’m not doing it for six weeks, then.”
The blonde one said, “It’s not even a big thing.”
The loud one turned on her. “You say that because you’ve done it.”
Jess — because that was the blonde one, though nobody had said it yet — shrugged. “It’s just your Lifeprint.”
The loud one snorted. “Just your Lifeprint, she says, like that means anything.”
Leila — the one with the plait — said, “Means the usual.”
The loud one threw both hands up. “No, babe. I know what they say it means. I mean what does it actually do.”
Leila looked at her for a second, deciding how much patience she had.
“It’s basically your updated baseline,” she said. “Blood pressure, hormones, neural response, all that. Same stuff they started when we were little, only proper now.”
“And your field signature,” Jess added, like she was helping.
Tasha said, “See, there. That. That’s the creepy bit.”
“It’s not creepy,” Jess said. “It just means if you get hit by a bus they know it’s you.”
Tasha stared at her. “That is not comforting.”
Jess winced. “You know what I mean.”
Leila said, “Hospitals can pull your file straight up. School can. Whoever needs to. Saves all the messing about.”
Tasha folded her arms. “So it’s a medical thing.”
“And an identity thing,” Leila said.
“And a government thing,” Tasha replied at once. “Lovely. Love that for us.”
Hannah clipped the handle to the cable, stepped back, tested the pull. Fine.
Jess said, “It doesn’t tell you who you were, if that’s what you’re being weird about.”
“I’m not being weird about it.”
“You are a bit.”
“I’m being normal. Everyone else is being weird.”
Leila said, “No, you’re being Tasha.”
That got a bark of laughter out of Hannah before she could stop it.
Tasha pointed at her. “There. There. She’s alive.”
“Debatable,” Leila said.
Tasha had already moved on.
“Also, tonight’s meant to be mad.”
Jess looked over. “You’re staying up for that as well?”
“Obviously I’m staying up for that as well,” Tasha said. “They said Cleopatra’s on tonight.”
Jess made a face halfway between delight and alarm. “No, I know. That’s why I’m staying up.”
Leila adjusted the pin on the cable stack. “You’re both acting like she’s coming round yours.”
“She might,” Tasha said. “You don’t know my life.”
Jess laughed. “If Cleopatra turned out to be, like, some dental receptionist in Slough, I’d actually love that.”
Tasha put a hand to her chest. “No, because imagine. Imagine being her boyfriend and then finding out.”
Jess made a strangled noise. “Stop.”
Leila looked tired already. “Finding out what, exactly?”
“That you’d technically slept with Cleopatra,” Tasha said. “I’m sorry, that would end me.”
Jess bent in half laughing and groaning at the same time. “No. No, I hate it.”
Tasha was warming to it now. “Like sorry babe, can’t chat, my girlfriend used to bring down empires.”
Leila said, “That is not how any of this works.”
“Alright,” Tasha shot back, “then Julius Caesar. Because he’s on tonight as well, isn’t he?”
Jess clapped both hands over her mouth.
Leila closed her eyes. “Please don’t.”
Tasha ignored her. “Imagine the two of them end up on the same panel one week.”
Jess made a scandalised little shriek. “Tash.”
“What? It’s history.”
“That is not history, that is you being disgusting.”
“It is literally history.”
Leila opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling as if appealing to something above it. “I came here to do deadlifts, not hear you speculate about reincarnated Roman situations.”
Hannah did the first set while they talked. Slow on the pull, controlled on the return. The gym moved around them in little self-contained pockets — a trainer counting reps for a man twice his age near the cable machines, the whine of the treadmills, the rower still going in ugly bursts. On the television wall, BBC News was muttering over footage of floodwater somewhere. In the upper corner of one screen, a small clean graphic sat over everything else. Friday countdown. Numbers ticking down by the second. Nobody was looking at it.
Tasha was still on it.
“No, but Friday’s the real one.”
Jess straightened up. “I know.”
“Chloe reckons Friday’s going to be some actor.”
Jess said, “No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Leila, checking the pin again, said, “That’s not a reasoned position. That’s just you wanting it to be someone fit.”
“That is reasoned,” Tasha said. “If the whole world’s about to lose its mind, it should at least be over someone worth looking at.”
Jess started laughing again.
“It won’t be an actor,” she said. “That’s too obvious.”
“Why is that obvious?” said Tasha. “Jesus was fit.”
There was a full beat of silence.
Leila looked at her.
Jess looked at her.
Hannah let the handle go with a quiet clink.
Jess made the exact face of someone who had just walked in on her parents kissing. “Oh my God.”
Leila recoiled like Tasha had held something dead out to her. “Why would you say that out loud?”
Tasha pointed at both of them. “Don’t be pathetic. You know what I mean.”
“I genuinely do not,” Leila said.
Jess had gone red. “I hate it. I hate that sentence. Take it back.”
“I’m not taking it back.”
“You have to,” Jess said. “That’s revolting.”
“It’s not revolting, it’s observational.”
Leila said, flat with horror, “I’m traumatised now.”
Tasha laughed. “You are not traumatised.”
“I absolutely am. I’m never hearing the word Jesus again without wanting to die after what you just said.”
Jess still had one hand over her face. “You can’t say Jesus was fit in the gym at eight in the morning.”
“I can say anything in the gym at eight in the morning. It’s a lawless environment.”
Leila handed Hannah the water bottle without looking. Hannah took it. Drank. Gave it back.
Tasha was in full flow now. “No, listen. It’ll be someone famous already. They won’t waste it on some random.”
Jess said, “That’s exactly why they would.”
“Why.”
“Because if it was someone famous, people would’ve worked themselves into thinking it already. They’d want a surprise.”
Leila said, “That is not how any of this works.”
“It might be.”
“It’s not.”
Tasha folded her arms. “Fine. Who’s your guess, then?”
Leila shrugged. “Don’t have one.”
“You do.”
“I genuinely don’t.”
“That’s boring.”
“That’s because I’m Scottish. We’re not exactly built for whimsy.”
Jess laughed so hard she had to lean on the bench.
Tasha turned to her. “Alright, go on then, Liverpool. Who’s yours?”
Jess went pink. “I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You literally do.”
Jess gave in with a mortified little shrug. “Ari Vale.”
Leila stared at her. “The actor?”
Jess covered her face. “I know.”
Tasha howled. “You dirty little liar.”
“I just think he’s got the face for it!”
“The face for being Jesus Christ,” Leila repeated.
“Yes!”
Tasha wheezed. “No, because she’s right, though.”
Leila pointed at both of them. “You’re both spiritually unserious.”
“What’s yours, then?” Tasha shot back. “Go on. You can’t sit there all moral and not contribute.”
Leila exhaled through her nose. “Fine. If I’m being forced into your nonsense, not an actor. Somebody unbearably earnest. Some singer who does charity climbs and looks devastated in black and white.”
Tasha slapped the side of the cable machine. “That is weirdly specific.”
“That’s because she’s thought about it,” Jess said.
“I have not.”
“You have,” Tasha said. “You fully have.”
Leila rolled her eyes and, for one sentence only, let the accent out broad and deadpan. “Aye, awright, maybe ah huv.”
That set them all off.
Tasha, still laughing, swung to Hannah. “What about you, Han?”
Hannah was adjusting the pin on the weight stack. “What.”
“Friday.”
“What about it.”
“Who d’you think it is?”
Hannah glanced up.
The three of them were looking at her now. Expectant. Jess smiling. Tasha basically vibrating. Leila less interested in the answer than in how long Hannah would make them wait for it.
Hannah clipped the cable on. Tested the weight.
“No idea,” she said.
Tasha groaned. “Boring.”
“Probably someone none of us would think of,” Hannah added.
That checked them for a second.
Jess said, “Why?”
Hannah shrugged. “Because that’s usually how it goes.”
Leila looked at her more carefully, but only for a moment.
Tasha made a face. “No. I reject that. If the modern reincarnation of Jesus Christ turns out to be some bloke from Swindon, I’m suing.”
“Why Swindon,” Jess said.
“Because it sounds disappointing.”
Leila muttered, “That’s classist.”
“It is not classist to not want Jesus from Swindon.”
“It absolutely is.”
Jess was still laughing when Hannah reached for her phone.
Only the time. That was what she was checking. The time, because if they stayed too long they’d all be late and Tasha would swear at the clock like it was personal.
She unlocked it with her thumb.
The draft was still there.
She hadn’t meant to open messages. Her hand had done it before her head had caught up.
The unsent text sat in the input field from last night. Two lines. No greeting. No emoji. Just words she’d typed in bed with the room dark and then stared at until the screen had timed itself out.
For a second the rest of the gym thinned. Not vanished. Just moved one step back.
Her thumb hovered.
The others were still talking. Tasha now declaring that if tonight’s Cleopatra was “some woman from Basildon with three kids and a ring light,” she’d still watch every second. Jess was insisting she’d stay up no matter who it was. Leila was taking the piss in a voice so dry it could have caught fire.
Hannah read the draft.
Tapped once.
Added a word. Stared at it. Deleted it.
Typed something else. Shorter this time. Worse. More obvious. More like trying.
She deleted the whole thing.
Put the phone face-down on the bench.
Leila noticed.
Not immediately. Not dramatically. Just enough.
“Everything alright?” she said, low enough that the other two kept going.
Hannah picked up the cable handle again. “Yeah. Fine.”
A beat.
“Your brother?”
Hannah did not answer straight away. She pulled the handle down once. Controlled. Let it back. Picked it up again.
“Yeah.”
“How is he?”
The next rep was a touch too quick on the way up.
“He’s fine.”
Leila looked at her. Long enough that someone else would have found it awkward. Hannah didn’t look back.
“Okay,” Leila said.
Then, louder, to Tasha, “If you stay up Friday and turn into a demon in maths, by the way, that’s on you.”
Tasha spun round. “What are you two whispering about?”
“Nothing.”
“Leila.”
“Seriously, nothing. Shut up.”
Tasha narrowed her eyes theatrically. “Suspicious.”
Jess, still half laughing, said, “Maybe they’re texting the secret gym group chat we’re not in.”
“There is no secret gym group chat,” Hannah said.
“There would be, though,” Tasha replied. “If there was one, Leila would make it and not invite me out of spite.”
“I’d invite Jess,” said Leila. “Not you.”
Jess looked delighted. “I’d leak everything to Tasha immediately.”
“Traitor,” Leila said.
Hannah added two plates to the bar.
Tasha noticed at once. “Jesus, Han.”
Hannah slid one side on, then the other. “What.”
“Nothing. Carry on.”
The bench was free. She lay back, planted her feet, and took the bar out. The first press went up clean. The second slower. The third with the small controlled exhale she never bothered trying to hide around them because they’d all known her too long. Above her, the lights were cool and bright, morning-bright, designed by someone who wanted offices and gyms to feel like sunrise whether or not sunrise had earned it. She racked the bar with a harder clank than she meant to.
When she sat up, Leila was looking elsewhere in the manner of someone very specifically choosing not to watch.
The gym doors opened.
Tasha saw him first.
“Oh, here we go.”
Leila turned. “Kyle’s here.”
Jess made the smallest, happiest sound. “Aww.”
“Don’t aww,” Tasha said. “She’ll hear you.”
Hannah turned.
He was halfway through the turnstile, bag over one shoulder, dark grey tee, track bottoms, hair still damp enough at the front that he’d showered too fast or not dried it properly. Sixteen and taller than most boys his age without seeming to know what to do with the extra height. He looked up, spotted her, and his whole face changed. Not huge. Just enough. Lit slightly from the inside.
Hannah dropped the collar from where she’d been folding it.
Walked straight to him.
He got one arm round her before she kissed him, proper and easy, hand going up to the back of his neck like it lived there. Across the gym, Tasha whooped on purpose. Jess laughed into both hands. Leila rolled her eyes so hard they nearly disappeared, but she was smiling too.
Hannah came up from the kiss laughing.
“Piss off, Tash.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You literally made a noise.”
“That wasn’t me. Could have been anyone.”
Kyle was laughing now too, one hand still at the small of Hannah’s back.
She looked him up and down once. “Thought you weren’t coming.”
“Day off.”
There was a beat where she stared at him.
“Wait,” she said. “Today? It’s today?”
“Today.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope.”
From behind them:
“You have a day off?” said Tasha, wounded.
Leila echoed, “Today?”
Jess looked appalled. “That’s so unfair.”
Tasha pointed at Kyle as if he’d personally engineered the school timetable. “We have double maths.”
Kyle lifted both hands. “Sorry.”
Hannah, grinning now, said, “He’s not sorry.”
Kyle said, “I’m not sorry.”
Jess groaned. Tasha told him she hated him. Leila said, “Unbelievable,” with absolutely no belief in it at all.
Hannah looked back at Kyle.
“Did you eat?”
“Yeah.”
“What.”
“Porridge.”
“Good.”
He smiled properly then, because he knew what that question was and wasn’t. “You?”
She pulled a face instead of answering.
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
He tilted his head a fraction, asking without asking. She shook hers once, tiny, and that was the end of that in public.
Tasha was still talking. “Honestly, I need your life. Just once. Just one random Thursday where no one expects anything from me.”
Leila said, “You have that now. It’s called failing your GCSEs.”
Jess laughed. Tasha threw a towel at her.
For a minute or two the whole thing loosened. Kyle dumped his bag by the bench and leaned against the rack while the four of them made a collective event out of how unfair his freedom was. Tasha wanted to know if his college had spontaneously combusted. Jess wanted to know if he was going back to sleep afterwards. Leila wanted to know what it felt like to be God’s favourite.
Hannah laughed again — properly this time, head tipping back a little, the sound quick and real. It changed her face. Not made it prettier. Just younger. Less held together.
Then Leila checked the time on the wall and swore.
“Oh shit. It’s ten to.”
Tasha whipped round. “What?”
“Look.”
Jess’s entire body stiffened. “Shit. Shit shit shit.”
“Mrs Whelan’s going to actually kill us,” said Tasha.
The bench area exploded into movement. Bottles grabbed. Towels yanked off shoulders. Phones shoved into bags. Hannah caught Kyle by the sleeve, kissed him again — shorter, quick enough to fit inside panic.
“See you later.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Good luck.”
She snorted. “Need it.”
They headed for the side gate in a loose cluster, all motion and overlapping complaints now. Sun had shifted higher while they’d been inside; it hit the concrete of the rear path in a pale gold wash. Tasha was already halfway into outrage.
“We do this every week.”
“We literally do this every week,” Leila said.
Jess, jogging to keep up, pointed at Hannah. “It’s her fault.”
Hannah looked over. “How is it my fault?”
“It’s always your fault,” said Leila.
Hannah thought about that for exactly half a second. “Fair.”
Tasha barked out a laugh.
Behind them, the gym doors swung shut.
On the wall inside, the news screen kept cycling. The BBC logo in the corner. A presenter smiling over footage no one was watching. And there, in the upper right, the Friday graphic counting itself down in clean white numbers.
1 day. 12 hours.
None of them saw it.
They were too busy being late.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVDN8BHWU0u
and then Add to home screen.