performance enhancing drugs, and asks her questions about her health and habits. No, she isn’t taking any medications at this time. No, she doesn’t smoke or drink alcohol. Yes, she does drink coffee, but only a little.
The WMSC official informs her they will once again record her speed in their books, even though she is doing so on foot. He is gracious but a bit stand-offish, and Salena knows it’s because he’s rationally offended at the idea of a human being running faster than the speed of sound.
She doesn’t know if she can do it. The fastest she’s officially gone, a number she committed to memory years ago, is 697.045 miles per hour over one mile. She set that record when she was eighteen, six years after Andy Green broke the speed of sound, which made her officially the second fastest person in the world, the fastest woman, and the fastest ever on foot. She knows she’s faster now, because she’s trained long and hard to become so.
The Bonneville Speedway official is nervous. There are so many things that can go wrong with this run. He wants to know about her safety equipment and finally takes off his hat, runs his hand through his thinning hair, and says he just doesn’t know how to deal with parahumans. He knows engines, frames, tires, and fireproof suits. Jason and Sondra do their best to settle the man down while Salena changes into her racing suit.
The high-speed suit is heavier than her normal costume, but with good reason. Nobody is sure what will happen to her if she breaks the sonic barrier, so the engineers decided to risk additional weight in favor of some specially-designed airbags. Sensors in the suit will deploy them if they detect her falling, surrounding her and turning her into a big, red beach ball.
The suit clings to her like a cool second skin. The innermost layer is cotton, followed by an insulating gel to protect her skin from friction heat and to keep her body cool, and finally the outermost layer is the low-friction fabric used by Olympic speed-skaters. The airbags are located strategically around her body to help redirect airflow more efficiently around the non-aerodynamic human form. Normally she eschews a helmet in favor of goggles and a breather mask so she doesn’t accidentally rupture a lung when inhaling at high speed. For this run she’s wearing a lightweight helmet shaped like a teardrop, with her horse-head emblem on either side and the Ford logo across the top of the visor.
Her boots are a marvel of engineering, created by an unlikely team of an Italian footwear designer and an aerospace engineer. Lightweight and comfortable, they fit her legs to exact tolerances. The soles are thick and layered with ceramic wear plating and tungsten carbide cleats.
Salena finishes dressing and looks herself over critically in the mirror. The suit designers tried to follow the basic look of her costume: red with yellow trim and the yellow horse-head logo across her chest. But she doesn’t really look like herself. It doesn’t help that she has patches for all her sponsors across her shoulders.
“I look like a race car,” she says out loud.
“Honey, you look wonderful,” says a voice and she turns to see her mother and grandmother in the doorway. The three generations of speedsters embrace. Each of them was the fastest in her time. Her grandmother, called Colt by her teammates, is a veteran of World War II and a founder of the superhero team Just Cause. Her mother, known publicly as Pony Girl, was a member of the same team in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
And now there’s just Salena, Mustang Sally, the youngest member of Just Cause, about to set a world land speed record.
“I’m so happy to see you, Mom,” says Salena, and she means it. The two had been at each other’s throats all through Salena’s school years, but have since buried the hatchet and decided it’s much more fun to get along as mother and daughter than otherwise.
“You do look like a race car,” comments her grandmother.
Her helmet under one arm, Salena steps out of the RV. All her friends wait for her; the whole Just Cause team has flown in for the event, but she only has eyes for the man with the goofy grin and the unshaven chin whom she’s loved for years. She accepts some apple slices and a small cup of coffee from Jason. The combination will give her a quick burst of energy when she hits the starting line.
“Fifteen minutes, Ms., uh, Mustang Sally,” warns the track official.
Most of her retinue will watch the satellite feed provided by Chad and his people. A few will be with her at the starting line; she has asked for Jason, Sondra, and her mother to accompany her.
As the small group walks down the line of parked cars, trucks, and bikes, where mechanics work feverishly to get their machines ready to run the speed course, people pause to watch her pass by. Applause begins somewhere and soon she is blushing as it seems everyone at Speed Week is cheering and whistling for her, chanting Sal-LEE Sal-LEE Sal-LEE.
“All right, honey, we’ve talked about this.” Her mother pauses in her final instructions as a motorbike under a fiberglass shell roars away from the starting line. “Use the first mile to warm up and check your boots. No faster than four hundred, four hundred fifty miles per hour.”
“I know, Mom.” Salena can accelerate very quickly, reaching her “cruising” speed within a few steps.
“Once you pass that first mile marker, use the second mile to accelerate, and work up to your top speed.”
“I know, Mom.”
“Run the next two or three miles as quick as you can at top speed. If you break the sound barrier, that’s where it’ll happen.”
“I know, Mom.” She turns to Sondra. “What’s my target speed?” There is a digital speedometer inset into her helmet visor.
Sondra pulls a Blackberry from her pocket and punches some numbers. “Temperature is about twenty-nine Celsius. . . looks like you’ll need to hit just over 780 miles per hour.”
“That’s a lot,” says Jason. “Do you think you can do it?”
Salena knows she can. She jumps into his arms and kisses him hard. “Yes.”
“Be careful, baby.”
“Three minutes,” says the track official. “Better get to the line, Miss.”
“Do you have my starting blocks?” Salena asks Jason. He holds up them up proudly.
She smiles at him. “Set me up, then, big guy?” She coils her long blonde hair into a bun at the back of her head so it will fit underneath her helmet. She’s used to keeping it in braids that flap behind her but at these speeds, she’s afraid of it tearing or burning away.
Jason takes each aluminum starting block and presses it into the salt at the starting line. The long spikes underneath them anchor them firmly in the ground.
“One minute,” announces the official. Over the loudspeakers, Salena can barely hear her name being read over the roar of the onlookers. She looks around at the faces of her friends and loved ones and smiles at them. Then she pulls the helmet over her head and switches it on.
A readout to the left of her visor shows her the current temperature, wind speed and direction. To the right is her speedometer, which constantly changes as she moves to the starting line. “Radio check,” she says.
“Read you loud and clear,” says Chad’s voice in her ears. “Are you receiving me, Sally?”
“Affirmative.” She hunches over into a sprinter’s stance and places her feet against the blocks. “Got my iPod ready?”
“That I do.”
The track official waves at her. “Whenever you’re ready, Miss.”
“Push play,” she says.
Jason’s band is named Velma’s Glasses. On their first date, he took her to a show they put on in a local bar. Since then, she’s enjoyed supporting them as much as possible, given that both she and he are in Just Cause. He and his bandmates recorded a hard-rocking cover of Mack Rice’s Mustang Sally for her, and this is what she’s going to listen to on her journey across the salt flats.
The first notes sound in her ears, and she leaves the starting line behind in a graceful blur. Her feet pump like pistons across the sparkling salt. The speedometer numbers jump almost randomly until settling into the low 400s. At that speed, it
takes her less than ten seconds to cover the first mile. The air whistles past her, the shape of her helmet forcing her head to stay pointed straight forward.
“You’re looking good, Sally. How are you feeling?” asks Chad.
“Fast.” She passes the first mile marker almost before she realizes she’s come upon it. She leans into her stride, and accelerates.
She covers the second mile in six and a half seconds at a speed of six hundred forty miles per hour.
Not fast enough.
She pushes harder. The landscape around her narrows with tunnel vision until all she sees is a small space straight in front of her. Her entire world becomes that five-inch black line in the white salt.
The third mile marker comes and goes in a flash at seven hundred and thirty-five miles per hour.
Still not fast enough.
Patches on the front of her outfit tear away. It doesn’t matter. She can go faster.
She only needs another sixty miles per hour. She can do that; she’s a superhero for God’s sake!
But she’s pushing a column of air and it’s tough to force her way through it. She leans down further to change how the air moves past her. And then she is going faster again. Seven hundred forty. Seven hundred fifty. Seven hundred sixty. Seven hundred seventy. She’s beaten Green’s top speed; she’s now the fastest person in the world.
Still not fast enough.
Mile four passes in five seconds. So does mile five. Seven hundred
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