The Human Bullet. Joaquin De Torres

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ this level, the money and endorsements were enough. They no longer raced for the prizes but for the intrinsic and unattainable motive of moving towards perfection. They had stood on the winner’s podium more times than any of their predecessors and cared not which of them were first or second.

      The camaraderie between their pit teams and media sponsors was also warm despite their competitive natures. They were better, stronger and more attentive because of these two young men, not to mention the endorsements were through the roof when they were in the same race. They promoted the circuits together, appeared in commercials together, and even promoted each other’s motorcycle brands on TV together. To say they dominated the sport would be an understatement. They not only dominated the sport, but the image of MotoGP, propelling it to the level of Formula 1 in the sense of ticket sales, merchandise sales, advertising, sponsorships, TV ratings, and fan loyalty.

      “CRUSH! CRUSH! CRUSH! CRUSH! CRUSH!”

      He could hear them roar! He could hear it through his helmet as he leaned into the second-to-last turn - turn 14. Jace had already completed that turn and seemed to find another gear as he flew up the straight, pulling away from him. At that moment, Cordell already knew the result.

      “Congrats, Jace, this one’s yours, Brother,” he conceded silently. He then began to hear Pines’ fans roaring as well!

      “JACE! JACE! JACE! JACE! JACE!” Cordell smiled and gave his bike one last explosive push to close the gap.

      “FOR THE FANS!” he yelled and brought his front wheel up into the air and rode on his rear wheel for about 30 yards. The stadium went berserk as the legions of fans around the world seemed to roar in unison for their hero. He put his front wheel down, waved to the crowds and then proceeded towards the final turn - turn 15. One hundred yards from the turn, he took a quick look over his shoulder to see where Wilford was. He was now 60 yards behind him and fending off the challenge of two other riders for third place. Way to go, Steve. Keep ‘em back there!

      Then, before he could turn his head forward, his entire body turned to ice as tens of thousands of spectators screamed frightfully in one deafening voice. Crush came out of turn 15 and something unimaginable flashed before his eyes: he saw a motorcycle tumbling and breaking apart in front of him! He instantly saw skid marks; smoke and the acrid stench of burnt rubber filled his nostrils.

      “JACE!” he yelled as his eyes darted towards a crumpled body lying twisted in the grass unmoving. Another flash of light pierced his eyes, but they were the oscillating red lights of emergency vehicles rushing towards the scene.

      Crush, in his panic for his friend, was distracted just long enough to slam into Pines’ fractured hulk of bike at more than 150 mph. His front wheel snagged on the spinning wreckage and locked it in place, sending the rear of his bike into the air in a freakish summersault. The momentum and sudden buck of the bike catapulted Cordell some 15 feet skyward.

      It was then as he flailed helplessly in the air that the silence enveloped him. He heard no screams then, no sound of his bike colliding with Pines’, nor the sound of the emergency vehicles racing closer. The blue of the sky, the black of the track, the green of the grounds, and the miscellaneous shapes and colors of the stadium tumbled and spun before his horrified eyes in the silence. He heard just two words leave his lips involuntarily: “Oh God!” A second later Chris Cordell slammed his neck and back on the sweltering asphalt with the force of a massive sledgehammer.

      His bones disintegrated with grotesque popping and snapping sounds inside his racing suit. The speed of the crash sent his body tumbling and flopping on the track like a human-sized doll being dragged behind an invisible vehicle.

      His mind didn’t register any pain as he rolled, only the assurance that he’d be dead when he finally stopped. He came to a stop some 85 yards from where he first hit Pines’ bike. He was still alive, but barely. His eyes opened for only a moment and he saw the asphalt of the track giving off translucent vapors of steam from its surface.

      Distant echoes of screaming, crying, incoherent voices and sirens penetrated his helmet, barely audible, but he heard them. As those sounds grew fainter, he felt himself pulled backwards into some kind of tube or tunnel. This is it, he thought. I’m about to die. An instant later, Chris Cordell’s world went black.

      CHAPTER ONE

      Let Us Begin

      Kaiser Permanente Medical Center

      Extreme Care Ward

      Walnut Creek, CA.

      Fluid mechanics. . .dynamic combustion compression. . .aero elasticity. . .

      The words came in waves, muddling sounds in the dark.

      . . .bi-elliptic transfer is an orbital maneuver. . .

      The words, then the sentences, or fragments of sentences came in and out of his existence, weak at first, then a little stronger as time went by.

      Let us begin. . .sectorial velocity is the rate at which area is swept out by a particle as it. . .

      He wasn’t dead, that much Crush knew because he was actually hearing words, whole readings and questions. Questions? Who was asking him questions?!

      Let us begin, remember when we talked about Kepler’s second law? Do you remember? That areal velocity. . .

      Yet, despite not knowing what was going on, what any of these words and sentences meant, where he was, or who was speaking, he could hear a voice. Just one voice.

      . . .this requires that the sum of kinetic energy, potential energy and internal energy remains constant. . .

      A female voice. And that voice always started speaking with -

      Let us begin. . .

      The subjects seemed random and never-ending.

      . . .within a fluid flowing horizontally. . .

      He was unable to find any connection between the subjects or any reason why he was hearing them.

      . . . Angular momentum is subject to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, meaning only one component can be measured. . .

      There were times when the voice was as far away as the horizon, and times when it seemed right next to his ear. He didn’t know how long this was going on, how long he was hearing the voice. There was no sense of time, just darkness and the voice.

      Let us begin. . .

      He couldn’t feel his body, couldn’t make himself move. He couldn’t reason or formulate a single substantive thought about his condition. He couldn’t remember a thing and couldn’t imagine the future. He couldn’t even concentrate on other strange voices that occasionally made it into his consciousness.

      Then one day, it all came together.

      * * * * *

      “Good morning, Chris. Today’s lesson is Hypersonic travel. Let us begin. . .”

      Chris Cordell’s eyes suddenly flew open, startling the person who was standing over him.

      “Well, hello! Good morning, Chris! Great to see you awake this morning.” Crush blinked several times СКАЧАТЬ