Scale

“Fuck!”

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Mishka wiped his eyes and stared down again. He contracted his diaphragm and exhaled hard, pacing in small arcs on hard table rock, breath in stable beats, fighting the urge to send the old analog scale skittering over the cliff. He was over by a mere nine tenths of a pound.

“I put the work in. Fuck you, scale!”

He’d calibrated and stashed the steel box up here twenty-seven days ago, carving off the weight through a regimen of old school diet and discipline. His muscles felt tight but warm from the climb, still good to go. No ropes or pitons on this one, just talc and gumption.

Mishka dispelled his frustration by viewing the rocky desert beneath him as he breathed, savoring a mild headwind on his face. He loved that clean dry smell: no pollution here, just dust and pine and sage, a hint of wood smoke from a campfire somewhere among the striated formations. A spring storm cast a blue pall over the distant northern plains. It looked amazing.

A slight twinge jabbed from under Mishka’s left shoulder blade, but otherwise he felt fine and dandy. His heart thrummed at a fair 130 beats or so after the brisk climb, and he was still properly hydrated. Everything seemed to be in perfect working order.

Screw all those people who took pills or used nanites to remove fat and sculpt muscle. Many of them were also secretly depressed or addicted to something. The Bio Doc app on Mishka’s watch could read how his heart was doing, how much he weighed, his cholesterol, even his blood oxygen and nutrient levels. But that all rang false to him. Mishka wanted to feel it, in limb and jaw, in a blistered grip and heaving chest, oozing water in warm runnels onto rock and sand. Better to earn it, the old way.

Mishka fought the urge to use his watch to call the rented VTOL drone up to get him, settling into a bout of stretching before he slurped down the last electrolyte gel. Alright, there was only one thing to do, just enough daylight left. He still had three days to beat the deadline, but screw it. A quick tromp down the gravel, and up we go again. First, he’d burn that last small pound. Then he’d send that fucking scale flying into the sunset.