Krystal wasn't certain when she had first become aware of the stalker, only that for as long as she could remember it had been there. Her father would tell stories of when she had learned to walk.
     “Like a bat outta hell, she was. A regular little speed demon from the time Krissy took her first steps.” Daddy would always laugh, remembering the headlong race his daughter made of childhood.
     She didn't actually remember the moment but she did know why she'd been inspired to learn and she appreciated having a name for the nebulous being she'd glimpsed from time to time. Speed demon.
     The demon's face would glow with pleasure every time she ran. The further she outpaced him the greater his happiness. When she was still his frigid breath would plaster the back of her neck with cold sweat but after a good race he would caress her sore muscles with the icy-hot fingers of his invisible hands.
     Her first bicycle increased her velocity. Better yet, the small mirror allowed her to see the demon as he pursued her, his non-being rippled and flashed as she gained ground. She knew that he was waiting for her to reach a speed at which he could catch her, but felt no menace only longing for the moment. She missed his gentle touch.
     The enforced sedentary restraints of school were unbearable, until she realized that the demon would not appear there. Krissy made friends and excelled in her studies, but counted the minutes until she could race with the wind and chase the demon.
     The demon showed himself less frequently as the years passed. Going fast became less of an obsession until she discovered boys and fast cars.
     “Faster,” she would shout, glancing behind as the engines roared and whined. Invariably, at the moment when she knew the demon would appear, the driver would lose his nerve and brake, slowing to a relative crawl in comparison to the velocity her heart was surging. On the few occasions when she had glimpsed the demon's smile, the boy was rewarded with a passion of frightening intensity.
     That's how she met Nick. Cruising the loop with two friends in a woefully inadequate Chevette, a mint Mustang rumbled to a stop next to them at a redlight.
     One of the girls called out. “Nice car! Looks fast!”
     Nick smiled. Though he didn't raise his voice, Krissy heard every word as if she wore an earpiece directly linked to his mind. “It is. I'm a regular speed demon.” He glanced at Krissy as he finished his sentence and, in startled recognition, they stared at each other as if statues.
     She didn't remember ditching her friends, but could replay at will every moment of the ride that followed. Nick reached across her to fasten her seatbelt, lingering only a moment too long with his face close to hers.
     “Speed kills, you know.”
     “Not me,” she said. ' Now, he'll ask what I meant by that,' she thought. But he hadn't, merely nodding his understanding.
     The night beckoned and Nick drove into the twisting dark highways of the hills, looking for the right place. She stole glances at him, suddenly nervous. He looked much older than she had initially thought.
     As if divining her worry, he smiled and spoke about his gearheaded obsession with this car. The longer he spoke about his need for speed, the less nervous she felt.
     At the top of a high ridge, he stopped the car. “Ready?” he asked, looking in the rearview mirror. Ahead lay a long straight stretch of freshly macadam. No lines had been painted and the acrid scent eddied in the wisp of mist rising from the seasoning surface.
     Nodding, she braced herself for a fishtailing start, but Nick eased the transmission into reverse and backed a couple hundred feet.
     He grinned at her, and flipped the shifter into low and let the tires find traction. He slipped up through every gear smoothly and, by the time they reached the black-as-space new road, Krissy knew that every speed she'd ever experienced had been shattered. The absolute perfection of the stretch of highway increased the illusion of space flight. Once she caught a glimpse of the driver's flicked glance to the mirror, and the satisfied half-smile whatever he saw caused.
     Krissy twisted around to look behind. Her demon was as close as he'd ever come. The blaze of ferocious excitement sparked like electricity between them before he swept by and beyond, disappearing in the yawning cavern of trees on the approaching hill.
     The road doglegged and Nick's face looked tight and worried. The tires squealed and slipped a little before settling down to business. He pulled into the picnic area at a crossroads a few miles further.
     Krissy ripped the seatbelt off and jumped from the car to run. Nick climbed onto the trunk, his hands visibly shaking in the glow of the moon and stars.
     When she returned, he put her through her paces in the tiny backseat. He was no boy, and knew a woman's body like the engine of his 'Stang'.
     Retracing their route to town, he whispered all the reasons a relationship with her was impossible. He finally quit trying to convince her.
     “What do you see?” she asked. He didn't answer until he stopped in front of her house.
     “Maybe the same thing you do.” He drove away.
     They tried twice more, but failed to conjure the demons. She heard he drove off a cliff in California a couple years later.

     Fast was easy. Fast enough proved more and more difficult to achieve. She graduated college in record time and searched for vehicles that could reach the required velocity for her demon to appear.

     The OutReach project contacted her. They were looking for mathematically gifted people. Her gender was a further recommendation. Her fearless aptitude for the physical aspects came as a pleasant surprise to the program's founders as Kris flawlessly passed each rigorous test. The field of twenty dwindled as the demands winnowed out the unfit and unqualified.
     Each of the four candidates would be tested in actual flight before a final decision would be made. The AF schedulers had a rough sense of humor. For her maiden flight on a fighter jet, they teamed her up with a rabid anti-feminist and told neither of the other.
     The sergeant strapped her in the second seat before the pilot came out of the pre-flight meeting. In the meeting the pilots had come to an unofficial understanding. They were to frighten the shit out of the candidates, if possible. Any weakness would be fatal to the program.
     Max Talman clambered into his plane, sparing only the briefest of glances for his passenger. He ran his pre-flight checks and fired up his baby, carefully. He gave thumbs up to his ground crew and then to the guy in the backseat. All he could see was an ear-to-ear grin beneath the visor and vowed to wipe the smug look off the civvy's face, preferably with a smear or two of vomit.
     The agile jet leapt into the sky. The pilot alternately slammed and glided and twisted his machine expecting to hear retching in the com-unit. Finally, he opened her up and kicked ass. He slowed the plane and flipped into a loop to head back to base, satisfied that the low noise from his passenger was a moan of terror.
     “Ah! You know what would be the perfect end to this flight?” he said in a light conversational tone.
     The candidate laughed aloud. “Yes, sir. Your cock in my pit.” He swiveled as far as he could and looked at his delighted passenger. In his helmet, he could hear laughter from the tower — he had left the line open so the program's upper echelon could hear their star pupil fail. He hadn't realized the candidate was a girl.
     “Oh shit! You guys can hear me!” the utterly feminine and unrepentant voice exclaimed. More laughter.
     Max said nothing as he landed. The expression on the schedulers' faces pissed him off even more. He needed a beer or five.

     Kris relaxed back into her pillows and relived the flight. Her demon had been close enough to touch, though she hadn't tried. Footsteps echoed in the hall. She could see the twin shadows of legs pause in front of her door. She crept quietly closer, waiting for the person to knock or walk on. When he did neither, she turned the handle and opened the door a few inches, and moved back.
     The door creaked open; Max stepped in and kicked it closed with his heel. His eyes lighted on her, devouring each feature before jumping hungrily to the next. His kiss brushed her lips as his hands settled on her waist. He chuckled.
     “My cock in your pit,” he said, wishing he could find a way to do this in his plane at top speed. Knowing, if he could, he'd found a willing partner for the experiment.

     The trick would be to use the sun's gravity well to slingshot a specially constructed ship into an elevated state. The newly developed engines would convert the excited matter into velocity gains. The ship would swing into a hyperbolic trajectory through the outer planets before returning to the sun for a second pass. The second pass would provide the matter to slow the ship into regular space. The entire trip would take ninety-six hours of both relative and subjective time. The future of space-exploration would be one of quick trips to neighboring stars, and then further galaxies.
     If successful.

     The fall into the sun was uneventful. Cameras recorded every aspect of the crew's lives and duties. The ship had a civilian complement led by a mathematician and a military one commanded by the pilot/commander. Most people were thankful that the two leaders — who obviously rubbed each other the wrong way — could work together so successfully and with so few bursts of temper.
     Kris and Max — the leaders — found ways around the invasive technology to run more personal experiments dealing with the effects of speed on physical function.

     The slingshot theory held and the ship reached tremendous speed. The external cameras documented several EVAs, visual assurance that the vessel still existed, if in a slightly altered state.
     Kris's EVA would place sensors on the surface to measure the changes as the ship re-entered real space.
     Talman watched as the helmeted form reached the proper position. She pulled several packets from her belt and began to affix the delicate instruments to the metal and ceramic skin. Suddenly she paused and stood looking at the stars.
     Max toggled the com-switch. “Dr. Allen? Problem?”
     The figure remained frozen and Max toggled the switch again. “Kris? What's up?” A few crewmembers had gathered under the monitor, drawn by the concern in Talman's voice.
     “Who are you?” Kris's voice whispered in the speakers.
     “Oh shit!” Talman hit the airlock com-link and yelled for someone to suit-up and get out there. Allen had gone space-phoric. From time to time, astronauts had suffered from delusions during space-walks, often relating complicated hallucinations of angels and devils — if successfully rescued.

     It was cold outside, even in the confines of her heated suit. The black canopy of stars had rippled as her demon had joined her on the oddly dappled shell of the OutReach. For once she could see him clearly, though pinpoints of starlight shimmered through the not quite solid darkness of his un-being.
     “Who are you?” she asked.
     He smiled and she knew. He was what she wasn't. She could see sleek ebony wings and long-fingered hands. His blacker-than-space eyes glimmered with his colorless tears. Joy filled his expression.
     “You've come.”
     “Is this fast enough?”
     “Yes.” He came through her suit and the cold fell away. He entered her, not only in his maleness, but also through every pore and opening. Her orgasm was bliss, and an emotional epiphany as well as a physical one. When he reluctantly withdrew, with the equivalent of a thousand kisses, she was no longer cold.
     “Run with me,” her demon begged. And she turned the gasket and latch to remove her helmet.

     Her ragged breathing had been familiar to Max. He knew that whatever fantasy she was living was pleasurable.
     “No, Kris!” he begged, hoarsely, as she pulled off her helmet and shook her hair free. She turned her face toward the camera mounting and, though his mind screamed impossible, whispered into the helmet's mic.
     “Escape velocity.” Her hair shimmered like the sun, and her suit burned away as she breathed the not-air. She smiled at him and he remembered a similar smile from a childhood dream — the one that had made a pilot of him.
     Max thought he saw a dark ephemeral shadow join her as she leapt away and gained more speed, a bright jewel flashing away on silver white wings.

The End