Shin OK Number 25 - 260.194
The bowl lay before Xingke as if it would go on forever.
Sat down in the bowels of the car, Xingke had to look up and away to see where the track went, tracking up into the sky with no vanishing point. While it was not so steeply banked as to give Xingke the particular sense of being in one of those novelty loop-the-loop theme park rides, as the Daytona Road Course sometimes gave, the curving road soaring away into heaven never became something Xingke could become used to.
He breathed in slowly, feeling the soft, fleshy, decaying ribs in his throat massage the air down to his lungs. This was for him. He could enjoy this. This was allowed. While he had often despised the idea of indulging himself, he only had days to live by this point, and he knew he had someone who could carry on his goals. He could enjoy this.
The world closed circuit speed record stood at 257.123 miles per hour, set in Fort Stockton Texas in 1987. That track was 7.7 miles, much bigger and more open than this one and much better fitted to speed runs, however this comparably shallow 2.6 mile D shaped triangle should be more than enough to challenge that record, especially with the previous years Schwarzenritter as driven by Suzaku, sans some of its draggier aerodynamic components.
He shivered, letting out a quiet cough as the engineers around him got the car ready. Proximity to death had a definite way of clarifying ones priorities, it seemed. Things Xingke had never even worried about two ears ago, now flashing up as emergencies. How would he be remembered? If he couldn't win a championship… what could he do? In the time he had left, what could he do to carve his name into drying pavement, ensure he would be remembered?
It was, on the balance of things, profoundly stupid, he recognised; he had more Le Mans wins than he had had warm dinners, and more to the point the fact of whether he would or wouldn't be remembered would make entirely no difference to him in a coffin.
Then why did he care? Why did he care at all, why was he so invested in Lelouch succeeding at focusing the school on those who needed it if he would never be around to see it? Clearly, what happened while he was in a grave concerned him quite a bit more than he might admit, but the reason why...
"Xingke?" Lelouch asked, crackling in over the radio. "Are you ready?"
After a pause, Xingke nodded, and radioed back "Ready to go!"
He flexed his fingers around the wheel. It hadn't been made for him; Suzaku was much younger, and was far more able to handle a steering system this small and rack this slow. Xingke could make it work, even if it wasn't his preference, as the sweeping oval already required his motions to be slow and deliberate in order to avoid scrubbing off speed.
Behind him, an engineer shouted "Firing!"
On cue, the six cylinder motor tickled into life, with the turbo gently whizzing in the background. As the engine warmed and the tyres were readied, Xingke, holding the car in neutral, gently gave the throttle a poke, earning a satisfying purr for his trouble.
The radio rustled into life again as Lelouch spoke up.
"All clear for the first flying run at the Lí Xīngkè Guójì Sàichēchǎng in six minutes."
Xingke looked around him. This track was his. He didn't own it, but it was his. It was literally named after him. After two decades of struggle, this was his reward. Open road, all for him.
He shivered again. So much fighting, up and through, trying to carve out a place in the world, trying to leave his impression in it like a cattle brand, and this was the result. This was his legacy.
The least he could fucking do was enjoy it while he still could.
He tickled the throttle again, and stared out into the future. He took a breath, and flipped down on the fuel mixture MFD.
"Let's fucking do this!" he gruffly shouted, as the mechanics surrounding the car unwrapped the tyres, a special allocation allowed for filming and promotional days, and mounted them to the car. A third poke of the throttle, the raspy scream filling up Xingke's entire world in a cacophonous cluster of colour and light. It was better than LSD. It made life worth living.
He suddenly coughed, as the mechanics stepped back from the car, their work done. Xingke, sat low in the belly of the beast barely able to see out over the tips of the tyres, pictured the loop ahead, endlessly accelerating out into the great beyond, forever. Forever was about to begin.
He took a deep breath, and released the clutch, engaging first gear.
Lelouch, through a spyglass, watched the Pacific blue chassis pull away gently and move up to the top groove on approach to the steepened banking through turn one. As he built up speed slowly, like a conker on the end of a string being swung around in a circle faster and faster, Lelouch pulled his eye from the lens and spoke out absentmindedly.
"The timing gear is all set up, right?"
CC, who had pointed Lelouch towards VV as a source of finance for the team a year ago, looked up from the tablet she was examining to nod as Xingke climbed the wall up around the exit of turn two, spitting him out onto the long back straight.
"Yup." she nodded, looking down over the bowl from the grassy perch overlooking the great hole of tarmac and concrete carved into the ground. "Laser time breakers, we can measure speed by dividing the length of the oval by the time between each break."
Lelouch took a deep breath as Xingke barrelled up to turn three, holding firm as the road surface banked away from him, compressing him down into the road like he was riding a centrifuge.
"Keep in the groove, stick to the seam." Lelouch whispered, before announcing "Here we go."
Xingke's blue missile rolled out of the banking like a book page unfurling to open up the curved front stretch, letting the slight leftward curve naturally draw the car from the outside of the speedway down to the yellow inside line, slowly, no sudden movements, just let the car build up speed, smooth, smooth. Xingke held tight to the inside as he again climbed the wall, allowing the centripetal force to hug him to the track as he shot around to the back straight, fully wound up.
The rev-limiter removed, Xingke blared down the straight shot down the back, Doppler carrying him on angels wing up to the steep, unforgiving curve. Xingke, unintimidated, rode the lip of the bend with an iron nerve, never shifting his grip, holding the wheel in place without the slightest twitch, and he was able to keep enough momentum through the sweep to spring away as the road opened up and dash towards the timing beam.
"257.929 miles per hour." CC immediately announced, reading out the display on her tablet with excitement. "We're already ahead of the record, and he's still building up speed!"
"Not yet!" Lelouch insisted. "Not yet. We don't have it until we have it."
CC was silent as Xingke came back around to turn one, while Lelouch stood stunned. While he had driven cars like this many times, it was still breathtaking to watch the otherworldly speed that could be carried through an immense turn without so much of a whiff of losing any momentum. It was like the mother of all steam trains, and it showed no sign of stopping.
So much momentum, all turned on a dime, as Xingke barely spent any time moving from one end of the oval to the other, riding up the rise of turn three, still firing around, still firing around. It was a missile being shot across continents, shrugging off the resistance of the earth itself. If there were not walls, it may well have shot up into space.
"259.651!" CC shouted. "He's building up momentum, steady as a rock! Should be close to topping out!"
Lelouch didn't reply, still fixated on the little magician casually breaking physics as he shot around the dome. Of course, since he had been starting from a standstill, it would take a while to build up to the top end of speed, and as the car got closer and closer to its limit, diminishing returns meant that each lap would be a slighter and slighter improvement on the last. But still, he could go faster yet, Xingke could go even faster…
Lelouch could only watch as the six time Le Mans winner made history once again, rounding off the banking with the smooth violence of a comet arcing off Earth's gravity well and shooting off into infinity. As Xingke ran up to the line, Lelouch already knew that he blown the hinges off of the 260 limit.
"263.004!" CC squealed. "He's done it!"
The speed record was taken from an average of three runs. Three laps, add them together and divide by three. The result was 260.194. He had indeed done it.
The first person ever to break 260 miles per hour around a closed circuit. Three miles per hour faster than the previous record.
Lelouch leaned back, beaming as the cars engine dipped and drag carried it slowly down from its terrifying speed, as hammering on the anchors at the limits of speed could have disastrous consequences and destabilise the car completely. Instead, Xingke allowed the physics he had just mocked to act as his gentle parachute, bleeding off speed at a manageable rate.
As the pilot began his gentle re-entry into the atmosphere, Lelouch chuckled, and reached for the radio behind him. "You did it mate, 260! You're the fastest man on Earth."
The crackle on the other end was deafening, with the air rushing past the cockpit drowning out anything Xingke may have been saying. After a moment, Lelouch chuckled and asked again "Xingke, you there?"
The gusty blasting died down as Xingke, likely repositioning his microphone, resolved clearly as he sailed gently out of turn one. At first, there was a cackle of joyous, unreserved laughter, and then a moment of weeping. Only then could Lelouch hear what his friend was saying.
"Thank you so much for this Lelouch…" Xingke celebrated. "This is magnificent, euphoric."
"Thank you Xingke." Lelouch beamed, before pursing his lips and instructing "Bring her in."
He placed down the radio with satisfaction, and took in a deep breath. This was it. Mission accomplished. He'd done it. The school was going to be taking in students soon. The team was winning. His family was safe. Everything was perfect, he was finished.
And then his phone rang.
His eyes flickered down to acknowledge the handheld, buzzing and blaring down on the table, demanding his attention like a fire alarm signalling the meltdown of his entire world. He recognised the number.
He sighed, and picked up the phone. He groaned, before answering "Hello Reuben."
Lelouch's lack of enthusiasm didn't seem to reach Reuben, as the Briton exuberantly greeted his former employee.
"Lelouch!" he excitedly delighted. "It's so great to talk-"
"What do you want." Lelouch flatly interrupted, his joy having evaporated just as quickly as his patience.
"Lelouch, to tell you the truth…." Reuben began, before pausing to collect himself. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I'm really up the creak without a paddle old boy."
Lelouch grimaced, sensing where this conversation was going, before muttering "Go on."
"I'm going to have to wind the whole thing up I'm afraid." Reuben admitted. "We just don't have any liquidity, we don't have enough money coming in from partners, no one wants to partner with us to keep afloat."
Lelouch swore. Fuck, no. He was out, he had made it. He had just moments ago been marvelling his paradise, fuck fuck. Reuben, bastard, ruined it!
Because Lelouch knew. He couldn't say no, not to this. He had stood atop the mountain, mission accomplished, and just like that, he would leap back into the scrum. Reuben…
He swore again. Goddamn, him. Lelouch couldn't stand himself. The moment he saw some sympathetic cause, his heart clasped onto it. He knew he couldn't let Reuben, the man who had enabled him to succeed, go down due to a hostile financial environment. Already, he could feel the cogs in his brain working out how to save Ashford RT. Lelouch did not trust easily, something he felt had enabled him to remain shrewd and canny, but he could not help but despise the volume of his heart.
"No." he finally whispered. "No, there must be… something."
He had been free. He had made it out, but Reuben had pulled the drain out from under him. And Lelouch, as a matter of basic fact, knew he would slip back through. He had no choice but to leap headlong in and try to save them. He had literally done it before with Rosenberg, even when he had no other reason to do so and a lot of reasons not to. It was who he was. He was smart, but he cared quite a bit more easily than might have been ideal.
Finally an answer to that question, Lelouch chuckled darkly. What a convenient time to learn he was a complete fucking sap.
Reuben sighed, and replied "I'm afraid I can't pay wages anymore, I can't open up unless I have a way to pay people, it's a non-starter."
"I can't let that happen." Lelouch insisted, conscious and understanding of the trouble he was making for himself. "How much are you short?"
Reuben, suddenly excited, asked "Lelouch, can you help me?"
"Of course." Lelouch nodded. "We'll arrange a meeting, I won't allow you to go down."
Reuben thanked him, and then Lelouch hung up. After a moment, he swore a third time, in utter disbelief that he was going to do it again. He was really going to fucking do it.
Reuben
He sucked air through his teeth, before groaning "I'm addicted to regret."
CC started, asking "Hmm?"
Lelouch would internally castigate himself for everything he'd done wrong, every wrong choice he'd made, the critic scrutinising the critic scrutinising the critic scrutinising Lelouch, always scorning his insufficiencies and inadequacies, challenging himself. He had heaped mountains of regret for his mistakes, and yet he could not help but keep adding to it, consciously making more and more mistakes with the full knowledge he would hate himself later.
"It feels…" Lelouch began, before faltering, and taking a clean breath. After a moment, he finally found the words, and continued "Like paradise right now... we've finished this track, I'm eating good food, my water is cold and clean, my family isn't sick, my house is nice, my air is clean, the trees have leaves and the flowers are blooming. I just feel like… this is the summit. There's nowhere to go but down. This is as good as it gets."
CC had known him for almost a decade, and was well qualified to understand what Lelouch meant. Nodding, she finished his point by adding "And you're willingly putting it at risk."
"Willingly…" Lelouch murmured.
Was he doing it willingly? Did he have a choice? Or would he just repeat this cycle until he finally drew the short straw and finally croaked? Surely, he had to, or else he would whip his back for all eternity due to his failure to help them, lambasting himself for how he had been an unmoved bystander to suffering. Reuben were the reason Lelouch was here, it was the least he could do…
For a moment, he was filled with unimaginable anger, kicking forward and stubbing his toe on a just-so barrier. Cursed, fucking cursed. He felt like he was in a Twilight Zone episode, watching over as some disembodied puppet of Lelouch gambling his life again and again in the name of some higher ideal, and worse than that, the lives of his siblings. At least if it were only him that suffered of his poor impulse control, his emotional immaturity, and rash, arrogant, and prideful nature, that would be one thing, his family would be included in his punishment, a punishment they didn't deserve.
And a punishment he still refused to walk away from.
~G1ll3s