Jeff failed to convince her to come back with him to her manor. They agreed that she would stay on the planned route so that he could catch up with her later. Jeff waved her goodbye worriedly and started for home. Cleo did one last stretch on her tiptoes and said goodbye to Jeff.
***
"Why do these shoes arch like hell?" she thought to herself as she lowered herself back down to her heels. There was no way she could run any further in these much too small shoes, so she bent down and removed them along with her socks. She placed the back of one shoe against her sole and noticed that they were almost the same size. Her feet must have grown. Normally, she should be worried and concerned that her feet grew a size in an hour, but not today. Today was her day. Cleo put away the useless piece of cloth and began to feel the dusty and sandy desert floor with her feet. The sun had already heated the sand and standing barefoot felt somehow uncomfortable.
"Keep moving," she said to herself, "it's getting hot here."
***
Jeff ran home as fast as he could. But he was still exhausted from the previous faster-than-usual jog. So he had to take it slow and steady or he would end up taking longer. And why was the sun so hot today? He really should have checked the weather forecast.
***
Without wasting any more time, Cleo began to run along the desert road, enjoying the feeling of freedom. Her legs effortlessly moved her faster than ever. She pushed herself faster and faster, and her muscles responded, growing bigger, stronger, harder and denser. Soon she was running faster than the fastest world record sprinter, but she didn't think about stopping. For a couple of miles she ran like never before, and soon she noticed that the hot sensation on her sole was slowly fading as the skin on her feet adapted and became more resistant to the hard, burning ground. She could still feel every small pebble on the ground, but neither the hot sand nor some sharp rocks bothered her. It was as if her body was quickly adapting to every obstacle and challenge.
***
One more turn and then the last mile straight ahead and he would reach Cleo's property. Jeff was getting more and more nervous. What will he find when he reaches the Chronivac? What will he see when he gets back to Cleo? He could still undo the changes, couldn't he?
***
Cleo noticed something strange. She had already noticed that she must have gotten taller and her feet must have gotten bigger, but for the last mile she only touched the ground with the balls of her feet, which caused her heels to lengthen and her knees to bend a natural 90 degrees. The anatomy of her legs and feet changed into something that would be expected from an animal or a were-creature she knew from the movies, but not from a human being.
Her thick thighs, calves, and the tops of her feet were almost equally long and folded in a Z-like arrangement. Her former heel was more than a foot off the ground, but since her legs were so strangely bent, it didn't add much to her height. The nails on her feet had also grown dramatically in size and thickness, looking more like claws, giving her extra grip on the rough surface of the ground. Her entire lower body was made for running. High flexibility, low friction, maximum muscle size and density. She didn't really know how fast she was running, but judging from the blurry passing bushes and trees, she must be running over a hundred miles per hour, almost four times faster than any human had ever run. And it didn't even feel like a challenge to her.
Cleo finally slowed down when she reached the base of the local mountain. Jeff might be angry that she left the original trail, but it felt too good to stop after the agreed upon distance of 15 miles. She had added an extra lap and was now standing in front of one of the largest mountains in the area. She couldn't even make out the peak, it disappeared into a white sea of snow at the horizon. If she remembered correctly, it had been a volcano a thousand years ago, with some thermal springs.
This was the first time she realized how dramatically her body had changed. Her overall fitness level was much more developed than it had been earlier in the morning, and even her arms and stomach were packed with well defined muscles. Nothing compared to the powerful muscles packed into her legs, but big enough to be considered an athlete. Despite the alien anatomy of her legs, they still felt completely normal to her. As if they had always been that way. She stretched her legs out fully and rose a foot, maybe a foot and a half, into the air. She was certainly taller than Jeff by now, and at least as muscular. She felt proud and powerful and ready to continue testing her new body.
Cleo started jogging toward the mountain and began to move upward.
***
Exhausted, Jeff finally made it back to the house where they had started the morning. Without wasting any time, he rushed to the gym bag where he had left the Chronivac and opened it.