"Okay. This is embarrassing. And I'm glad there's no one around to see it."
As I carefully extricated myself from the brush and bramble in the stand of woods north of the freeway I had landed in, I made a mental note and promised
myself that I would post said note on a forum sometime in the future as a cautionary tale for any other speedsters who might have gotten themselves caught up
in this... event.
That note would read something like this:
"Just because the game no longer imposes a limit on your speed doesn't mean there isn't a PRACTICAL limit to how fast you can go, at least on the
GROUND!"
So, what had just happened?
I'd always thought Interstate 20 was pretty ruler-straight. Between the Grand Prairie Muni Airport to where the road splits temporarily going up the modest
ridge to Duncanville it certainly feels that way - if you're going 60. If you're going at a considerably faster speed though...
Look, rocket cars and jet fighters look very similar because mother nature pushes back HARD at those speeds. When you get down to it, to reach those speeds -
to reach for the sound barrier - you have to present as small a profile to the oncoming wall of air as you can while piling on as much power as possible.
Well I'm not a car, and I'm not very aerodynamic, but I was pretty sure I might've broken the sound barrier somewhere back there in the five and a
half miles between where I jumped up on the freeway and where I shot off the top of the ridgeline like going up a ramp.
It had been more than a little disconcerting to watch the 408 Interchange with it's multistory overpasses slide by -underneath- me and try to change
direction in mid-air like you could with "superleap" in the game, only to discover that mid-air course correction was another game-ism that
hadn't translated over. By my best guess, I'd plowed into the woods about a mile or two further on and a couple of hundred yards north of the freeway.
I remember putting up my arms to protect my face as the branches broke my fall.
As I stepped into a clearing and looked up at the moon in the night sky, I replayed my memory for the approximately 25 seconds I had been on the highway. A
little over twenty seconds to go from about 110 MPH or so, to... I blinked at the HUD display.
773 Miles per hour.
All of a sudden I was glad this was in the middle of the night. It occurred to me then that a sonic boom in the middle of rush hour traffic back up
would've been incredibly bad. I know I passed at least a couple of cars out there. Hopefully they were all right. I'd check as soon as I got out of the
woods.
But if I had gone airborne like that at the top of the modest ridgeline the freeway was cresting, why the hell hadn't I done so before that? Air resistance
should've insured that I flutter like a leaf in the wind. There should've been no way for my feet to even stay planted!
When I did a more detailed memory review, playing the whole sequence out in slow-mo and running a full systems record, I found the answer. My body could
generate a sonic barrier at speed. As the pressure wave formed in front of me, an autonomic subprocess activated my sonic fold, shaping the pressure wave into
a cone pointed in front of me. Ah... now that I thought about it, I hadn't actually felt much wind, despite my speed. With the sonic fold in place, it was
deflecting most of that around me. (Good. That meant that I could carry someone at speed and not harm them.)
But even though the sonic fold could be shaped to help me stay on the road, it could only do so much. That's why when I hit the curve of the hill at the
top I had gone flying. Funny, I'd never thought of that hill as a ramp when I was driving up it, but at over Mach 1, oh yeah...
Right. One lesson learned. How many others? I checked my inertial compass and determined approximately where I was. Crouching and then leaping, I bounded over
the treeline and onto a nearby street.
I made good on my earlier intent and retraced my path (at a more "sedate" 180 MPH) down the freeway, but saw no wrecks and no one pulled over with
problems. Good, that was a relief. I may have scared hell out of someone briefly, but that was all.
As I ran, I took a moment to marvel at a couple of things. I never felt tired, for one thing. And once I was at speed, I could sort of go on
"autopilot" and let my autonomic processes handle the details. If I wanted to pay attention, I could focus on my running and maneuvering, but I
didn't have to.
Another thing was, this was incredible fun. And I hadn't enjoyed running in... I could never enjoy running really. I'd had asthma as a child and it
seemed I'd never quite fully recovered. I could exert myself as much as anyone else for short amounts of time, but I'd always wind up out of breath
sooner than anyone else. Now I needed to breathe only to talk and maintain a lifelike appearance. It was also useful as one of my cooling elements.
I needed to test my abilities further, and it might be a good idea to get far away from the Metroplex in the process. I considered which direction would be
best and came up with an old, familiar answer. I smiled as I poured on some more speed and followed I-20 out of Fort Worth to the west. Mom lived in Ruidoso
New Mexico and was always asking me to come and see her out there when I had a chance. I actually loved the town and would have gone out more often if I had
the funds and time to do so. Well now, won't she be surprised! It would allow me to both open up the speed out in the flats of West Texas and to practice
maneuvering in the twists and turn of the mountains.
And then I almost laughed out loud as I remembered I'd be going straight through Roswell on the way. I'd be a URO - and Unidentified Running Object!
HA!
----------
As I carefully extricated myself from the brush and bramble in the stand of woods north of the freeway I had landed in, I made a mental note and promised
myself that I would post said note on a forum sometime in the future as a cautionary tale for any other speedsters who might have gotten themselves caught up
in this... event.
That note would read something like this:
"Just because the game no longer imposes a limit on your speed doesn't mean there isn't a PRACTICAL limit to how fast you can go, at least on the
GROUND!"
So, what had just happened?
I'd always thought Interstate 20 was pretty ruler-straight. Between the Grand Prairie Muni Airport to where the road splits temporarily going up the modest
ridge to Duncanville it certainly feels that way - if you're going 60. If you're going at a considerably faster speed though...
Look, rocket cars and jet fighters look very similar because mother nature pushes back HARD at those speeds. When you get down to it, to reach those speeds -
to reach for the sound barrier - you have to present as small a profile to the oncoming wall of air as you can while piling on as much power as possible.
Well I'm not a car, and I'm not very aerodynamic, but I was pretty sure I might've broken the sound barrier somewhere back there in the five and a
half miles between where I jumped up on the freeway and where I shot off the top of the ridgeline like going up a ramp.
It had been more than a little disconcerting to watch the 408 Interchange with it's multistory overpasses slide by -underneath- me and try to change
direction in mid-air like you could with "superleap" in the game, only to discover that mid-air course correction was another game-ism that
hadn't translated over. By my best guess, I'd plowed into the woods about a mile or two further on and a couple of hundred yards north of the freeway.
I remember putting up my arms to protect my face as the branches broke my fall.
As I stepped into a clearing and looked up at the moon in the night sky, I replayed my memory for the approximately 25 seconds I had been on the highway. A
little over twenty seconds to go from about 110 MPH or so, to... I blinked at the HUD display.
773 Miles per hour.
All of a sudden I was glad this was in the middle of the night. It occurred to me then that a sonic boom in the middle of rush hour traffic back up
would've been incredibly bad. I know I passed at least a couple of cars out there. Hopefully they were all right. I'd check as soon as I got out of the
woods.
But if I had gone airborne like that at the top of the modest ridgeline the freeway was cresting, why the hell hadn't I done so before that? Air resistance
should've insured that I flutter like a leaf in the wind. There should've been no way for my feet to even stay planted!
When I did a more detailed memory review, playing the whole sequence out in slow-mo and running a full systems record, I found the answer. My body could
generate a sonic barrier at speed. As the pressure wave formed in front of me, an autonomic subprocess activated my sonic fold, shaping the pressure wave into
a cone pointed in front of me. Ah... now that I thought about it, I hadn't actually felt much wind, despite my speed. With the sonic fold in place, it was
deflecting most of that around me. (Good. That meant that I could carry someone at speed and not harm them.)
But even though the sonic fold could be shaped to help me stay on the road, it could only do so much. That's why when I hit the curve of the hill at the
top I had gone flying. Funny, I'd never thought of that hill as a ramp when I was driving up it, but at over Mach 1, oh yeah...
Right. One lesson learned. How many others? I checked my inertial compass and determined approximately where I was. Crouching and then leaping, I bounded over
the treeline and onto a nearby street.
I made good on my earlier intent and retraced my path (at a more "sedate" 180 MPH) down the freeway, but saw no wrecks and no one pulled over with
problems. Good, that was a relief. I may have scared hell out of someone briefly, but that was all.
As I ran, I took a moment to marvel at a couple of things. I never felt tired, for one thing. And once I was at speed, I could sort of go on
"autopilot" and let my autonomic processes handle the details. If I wanted to pay attention, I could focus on my running and maneuvering, but I
didn't have to.
Another thing was, this was incredible fun. And I hadn't enjoyed running in... I could never enjoy running really. I'd had asthma as a child and it
seemed I'd never quite fully recovered. I could exert myself as much as anyone else for short amounts of time, but I'd always wind up out of breath
sooner than anyone else. Now I needed to breathe only to talk and maintain a lifelike appearance. It was also useful as one of my cooling elements.
I needed to test my abilities further, and it might be a good idea to get far away from the Metroplex in the process. I considered which direction would be
best and came up with an old, familiar answer. I smiled as I poured on some more speed and followed I-20 out of Fort Worth to the west. Mom lived in Ruidoso
New Mexico and was always asking me to come and see her out there when I had a chance. I actually loved the town and would have gone out more often if I had
the funds and time to do so. Well now, won't she be surprised! It would allow me to both open up the speed out in the flats of West Texas and to practice
maneuvering in the twists and turn of the mountains.
And then I almost laughed out loud as I remembered I'd be going straight through Roswell on the way. I'd be a URO - and Unidentified Running Object!
HA!
----------