and the new world speed record printed under it.
What the hell, thought the engineer; he didn't work
for these idiots. He was just a paid consultant and
he had already been paid. Whoever she was, she
didn't have a chance now because the valve at the
bottom of the hill was timed to open for the gym-
nast/skater's run, to slow him down, and she was way
ahead and way, way faster. That meant certain death.
She must have known that, he thought. Some kind
of death wish? Well, the record was hers. Looking at
the speed on the sensor indicators, it would probably
be hers forever!
She was coughing. Her eyes snapped open-she was
suffocating. She ripped the speed skiing helmet off and
drew in fresh air-it made her cough again. Where am
I? She was sitting upright in a large dirt hole. It looked
like a major construction site. She removed a webbed glove
and picked up her exotic titanium honeycombed downhill
stick. The wheels were melted to two-thirds of their original
size. The underside of the board had finger marks crushed
into it. She stood up, wearily at first, and brushed the dust
off. The fingermarks reminded her. Right after she hit the
time trap in the tunnel where her speed was recorded, she
saw the closed valve coming up fast! Thinking, what the
hell, I'm going to die anyway, she spun el rollos at terminal
velocity. Coming off the roof at just better than the speed of
sound, she crouched and grabbed her board stalefish and
slammed an upside down death carve into the run-off reser-
voir, the last exit before the solid steel valve which was now
opening and allowing air to rush in to slow the gymnast/skater.
Only, for her, the inrush of air acted like a massive tailwind,
plus she was still accelerating! Locked into this high speed front-
side carve, she was orbiting the enclosed run-off reservoir like
a motorcycle in a barrel. She remembered being compressed down
on her board before she blacked out.
She climbed out of her dirt would-be grave and scanned the area.
It was where the aqueduct was, but the aqueduct wasn't there! She
hitched a ride back to town and found out it was six months ago!
Naw, it couldn't be. More and more she believed it, but she didn't
understand it. After all, the whole world couldn't be involved in a
plot to make her believe she went back in time-she must have really
done it. She vaguely remembered reading about time in Thrasher, but
the issue wasn't out yet! Something to do with speed. How fast had
she gone anyway? She went to the doctor and told him what kind of
disease she had. Because the disease was now in its early stages, the
doctor was able to cure her completely. The doctor asked her how she
knew. She just shrugged.
This time she skated home from the doctor's office. On the way home
she got the "new" issue of Thrasher and read the time vs. speed article
and how it related to Einstein's theories. If time moved differently for
everybody, like a river, no make that a freeway (this is almost the 90's after
all) with different lanes moving at different speeds, then she must have shot
over to the fast lane, frontside wall rode into a carve grind, reverted back.
to the other side, went the other way (back in time) and then rejoined the
rat race a few months earlier. She wouldn't question it; it just was. She tried
to find an Einstein sticker for her skate, but nobody had one so she painted
his face on the back of her jacket.
Epilogue: Why did all of you assume "the skater" was a guy? Being a skater
has nothing to do with where you leave the toilet seat.
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