The 400 was Maine Parker’s race. He wanted to win.
Through the curve, he worked on his stride, focusing on his footsteps and his exhalations, ignoring the sounds from other runners behind him that echoed in the chasm of the facility, ignoring movements of other athletes training for other events, focusing only on a proper midfoot gait, on keeping his hands relaxed and down at waist level, his arms swinging, his body loping with what he hoped was fluid grace. The soles of his shoes sounded like sandpaper as they grazed the running surface. The weight of his body rocked back and forth as it transferred through his hips and up his thighs.
He checked the clock as he matched his breathing to that same gait, ignoring the burn of his muscles as he turned the corner and headed for the finish.
Behind him, Matt Reed and Lionel Burgess huffed harder as they stretched their own strides. They wouldn’t catch him, though. They were basketball players moonlighting as runners, so they didn’t understand what it took to win in a race, didn’t understand that the opposition was really pain and fatigue, and that the challenge was really to bring discipline to bear against variance in your own stride that would cost you those fractions of a centimeter off each stride.
That’s why the 400 was his race.
It was a race against yourself. A race where precision and practice and persistence met talent.
His monitor said he was within the parameters Coach Hedvitt had given him at their session before today’s practice. His heart rate and oxygen exchange were good and getting stronger. A big kick would blow Coach H away.
He didn’t have it, though. Not today.
He tripped the timer at 43.38, not bad for a kid with the Mercy North Academy. Good enough to win Zone, probably even good enough to make the Global Games. Still not good enough for himself, though.
Sub-43, he thought, hearing Coach H’s voice inside his mind. That’s the target.
“You, my friend,” said Lionel as he grabbed his knees and sucked air after finishing, “are goddamned lightning in a pair of running shorts.”
“That’s da plan, right, Maine-man?” Matt added next, also grabbing for air.
“Yeah, that’s da plan,” Maine replied.
“My Maine-man is gonna just be cruising along and letting them all think they can win until the very end when he kicks in that last gear, and whoosh” — Matt dropped into a caricature of a runner’s squat — “he’ll get all down there and be gone, gone, gone!”
Everyone laughed, including Maine.
Maine did his recovery and his stretches, then took his electrolytes and the protein builders that would repair microfractures in the cells of his muscles, then he went to the showers with the rest.
The steam was hot against his shoulders.
The water pressure at the school was better than at home. He liked the sharp feeling of water on his skin.
In the distance, the gang laughed at a joke.
Lionel, he thought. The guy was funny as hell.
He liked to be with the team. It kept his mind from wandering to “the problem.” It was always there, though, hidden behind the moment. If he could have one wish — beyond being the fastest human being to ever run the 400 — it would be settling somewhere for good.
This time “the problem” was that the steward for Bay Pod 41, where the Parker family lived, was trying to get the community to agree to add a marine manufacturing site to their area, making it easier for people to receive boats they’d requested.
It didn’t make a lot of sense to him — wait time for a boat was usually only a week or so anyway. Lots of people already put their boats in the bay. A factory here would just make it happen a little faster.
If the proposition succeeded, though, Bay Pod 41 would be rezoned, leaving the Parkers to find a new place.
Again.
Which would fucking suck.
His parents had worried about this for as long as he remembered, though worried was probably the wrong word there. The Parkers were about like everyone else, their record was solid, so it was never hard to find another zone.
But a move meant uncertainty while the request was processed. Although physically attending a high school wasn’t much required anymore, swapping out his learning group meant he would have to suspend school while the move happened, which was both annoying and bothersome. The idea created anxiety.
He liked Mercy North as well as any, and the kids in his session seemed to like him. Coach Hedvitt was the best, too. If Maine had to, he would tram all the way across town to keep working with him. But now something bigger was at stake. Now, the first issue was Beatrice.
The idea of being separated was like a big piece of his chest had been ripped out.
“Maine?”
The coach’s voice rose above everyone’s laughter as he startled back to reality.
“Yes, Coach?”
“Come see me when you’re done in there.”
“All right.”
“Mainey’s in trouble.” Lionel sang it as a tune. “Probably got caught looking over his shoulder on that last turn.”
“Probably,” Maine shot back. “But, I like seeing you, and lookin’ behind me is the only way to take you in.”
The team laughed.
Maine smiled, put his head under the stream of hot water to rinse one more time, then went to dry off.
He knew what the coach was going to say.
Because Coach H understood it wasn’t really about winning for Maine Parker — or, at least, since it was a foregone conclusion that Maine was going to win every time he stepped onto the track, winning meant something more to him than crossing the finish line first.
Maine Parker was something special.
A world record was not out of the question.
The coach knew this.
So, what worried Maine as he dried off, stuffed his running clothes into the laundry, and put on his street clothes was that Coach H almost certainly knew he had coasted the last half of this practice sprint.
“Coach?” he said as he knocked on the door.
“Come on in, Maine.” Coach Hedvitt motioned to a seat. “Shut the door.”
Maine shut the door and took the seat.
Coach H was an old guy, probably forty. He had been a distance runner of some note when he was at school, but never good enough to progress far up the chain. He was still lean, though, still put in five kilometers a day.
Now he was sitting at his desk, looking at time sheets and metabolic charts on his data scan.
“Are you okay?” the coach said after Maine got settled.
“Sure, Coach.”
“Really?” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“Didn’t look fine. Looked like you quit on me.”
Maine stared straight ahead.
“You know how long it’s been since a man set a world record in the 400?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long?”
“Fifty-three years, Coach.”
“That’s right. Shanghai, 2319. Lucifer Jones, running in the Global Games.”
“42.82 seconds,” Maine added. “With a headwind of 0.02 kilometers an hour. Bested Frenchie Tardiff’s previous record by a full tenth.”
“You ran 43.02 in the finals last year.”
“I understand, Coach.”
“No, Maine, I don’t think you do.”
Coach H’s face got a set to it.
“That record lasted a hundred twenty years before Jones ran his time, right? Nobody without augmentation sets world records like that anymore. Nobody. Except maybe for you.”
The coach let that sit for longer than Maine was comfortable with.
“You know when runners peak.”
“Yeah, Coach, I know.”
“Twenty-two,” Coach H said anyway. “Maybe twenty-three. You drop a sub-forty-three before you’re eighteen years old and every eye in the field will be on you, right?”
Maine wanted to say I understand one more time, but he knew how far that would go, knew the coach was on a roll and nothing would stop him now, so he sat quietly instead.
“You’re a special runner, Maine. I know you know that. But you aren’t breaking anything without putting in the work. So, here’s the deal: You’re not getting a shower ever again without giving me your best effort, you hear?”
“I ran a thirty-eight.”
The coach put his hands together and rested on his elbows, waiting until Maine caught his eye before speaking again.
“I love you like a son, you know?”
“I know you do, Coach. I’m sorry. I’ll do better tomorrow.”
“You need help with anything, you know all you need to do is say the word and I’ll be there. But when I see you on the track, I’m getting your best or you’re not coming in.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So, let me ask again. Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine. Just got to get home.”
“All right then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Maine stood up, shouldered his bag, and headed home.