MOAB

Beau

Beau

Beau needed to go faster. Usain Bolt had set the record too high, 9.58 seconds. That Jamaican superhuman remained unbeatable for years.

Beau wasn’t in the Olympics. But it didn’t matter. He had himself hooked up with the official Hermes timekeeper AI, in real time. It acted as a witness to any record-breaking attempts. Usually people used it for silly things like Guinness records of how many cucumbers they can stuff in their mouths or something, but Beau actually used it for the 100m race.

All he had to do was wear the tracking device on his ankle, and let the camera record him on the track.

It was dark at the track, nothing like the usual ‘light the place up like it’s midday’ thing you see during athletic events. He was the only one using the track so they only lit up the one spotlight on his side. And half of that as well. It was fine, Beau could see well enough. It just gave the track an eerie feeling, nothing like letting yourself daydream that you’re in the Olympics.

Nevermind that. Beau assumed the starting position. An ARO referee, a digital construct, held the starting pistol in the air.

Bang.

He ran.

He had trained his mind to process information at faster speeds. Like seeing in more framerates per second, effectively experiencing the world in slow motion. He was a Next. The trigger was the starting pistol. As soon as it fired, his mind went into overdrive, consuming calories like crazy and pumping his heart like no tomorrow.

He could experience each second dilated into ten. He could take his time, weigh each step, follow his breathing, balance himself properly.

Even the wind hitting his face felt slow.

It was almost like cheating. But the Next were only capable of mental feats. None of the rest had ever attempted to apply their sped up mental processes on physical activities. They were like an evolution of nerds, only worrying about stuff of the mind.

Even as fast as they were, Beau could see that their minds were small.

He struck the track with his feet. Each step perfect, balanced, calm.

It was like running through the woods. Anybody can run through the woods, but it takes care and patience to avoid hitting a tree or breaking your ankle. A Next could run through the woods at slow speed, minding each step, then the whole thing would be sped up for real-time and it would seem miraculous, a perfect run with no errors or missteps at all.

Almost a cheat.

But Beau couldn’t feel bad for being the next step in human evolution.

Transhumanism was one thing. Melding your body with machines or tinkering with your genes. This was pure, natural evolution.

The Next.

The timer showed the milliseconds slowly scroll by in his augmented reality vision. He was almost there. He could make it. He could break the record, and it would be official.

The seconds ticked down. Five. Four.

Oh, no. He felt a pain in his chest. He took a misplaced step. This was all going to hell, really-really fast, or really-really slow, depending on who you asked.

He fell back to the old mantra. The second generation of Next had absconded these silly rituals, but there he was, moments away from making his dream come true, a misstep he could see happening from a mile away, and he found himself praying.

It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

It is by will alone… He grunted.

I set my mind in motion.

I set my mind in motion.

The timer seemed to freeze. No, it was still ticking away. Where was his heartbeat? Was he dead?

No, there was his heart, happily ready to pump the next cycle, squirt oxygenated blood into his body.

Dlup.

That was one chamber. The right ventricle. He couldn’t wait around for the next one to cycle.

He had work to do.

He glanced at the track on his feet. His foot was at a bad angle. Buuut… If he shifted his weight just right, he could adjust on the next step and lose a tiny portion of momentum, instead of the half-second trip he was initially heading towards.

Beau felt his heart thudding again, and the milliseconds ticked away.

Thud. His foot fell on the track.

Shift weight, adjust torso.

Thud. The other foot.

Excellent.

Beau ran the final seconds.

His vision tunnelled. All he could see was the finish line. His brain starved for oxygen, his muscles were blaring alarms at him to stop or risk permanent damage.

He didn’t care.

He had to win this. He had to see if he could.

Nothing mattered but that.

He threw himself at the finish line, chest first, just because the Olympians did it.

He fell on the track, collapsing, his vision blurring and wobbling. Stop wobbling, everybody! He could almost hear the cheering of the crowd. It wasn’t there, but he could hear it. He was certain of it.

Blood.

Oh, what about it?

A single thought came to his mind, the words ‘collapsed lung.’ He didn’t know why, it’s not like he was a doctor or anything. But sometimes things popped up in Beau’s mind that he hadn’t consciously considered, that was how swift the Next mind was.

He was choking on his own blood. His back on the track, his muscles unable to move.

He saw a light in the sky.

That was it. Coming to get him.

The light was bright, triangular. The airlifter medical drone picked him up with his mechanical tentacles. It was the Apollo Tripod, reserved for VIPs only. The Tripod broke the sound barrier and the stadium’s spotlights shattered. The stadium went completely dark except the shaft of light coming from the sky.

Wait. Wait. What was his track time?

He couldn’t see clearly, the veil reading was right at the edge of his eye, but it was blurry and wobbly.

He coughed blood. His legs didn’t hurt anymore. That might not have been a good thing.

What was his track time.

The Tripod injected him with five needles all over his body.

What was his track time. Somebody should tell him.

9.576 seconds.

Yes.

Suck it, Bolt.

Beau surrendered into the sweet night.

The End