The Human Bullet. Joaquin De Torres

smile dropped a few centimeters.

      “Chris, you were in a horrible accident at your last race at the Sepang track in Malaysia. Do you remember that place?”

      “No.”

      “You crashed into the bike of your friend Jason Pines.”

      “JACE!” Crush barked bringing instant pain to his throat. “What happened to him?” Serrano raised his palms up in reassurance.

      “Don’t worry, Chris. Mr. Pines is fine. He’s going through physical therapy in his home state of Oregon.” Crush’s eyes reflected relief.

      “Doctor, I can’t feel my body. I can’t move anything, my fingertips, toes, nothing.” Serrano again nodded. It was going to pain him to explain.

      “Your paralysis is the result of the damage to over 82 percent of your spinal column. You’ve been in a coma all this time. It is a miracle that you are alive at all.”

      “How long have I been out?” Serrano hesitated, his smile completely gone now. “Please, Doctor. How long?”

      “As of four days ago, 23 months, 17 days.”

      “What?!”

      “Son, you’ve been in a coma for almost two years.”

      The room suddenly plunged into utter silence. The shock of the statement slammed into him like a massive wave on a rocky cliff. His eyes pulled away from Serrano and fixed themselves on the ceiling.

      The enormity of this reality was too much for him to handle and he felt himself crying. Fresh naked tears poured out from the young man who ignored the pain in his throat to wail loudly at his fate. If Crush had opened his eyes, he would have seen that Dr. Serrano, one of Kaiser’s most experienced paralysis doctors and a veteran of hundreds of spinal surgeries, was also crying.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Visionary

      MIRA-CAL Technologies

      Research & Development Complex

      San Leandro, CA.

      Dr. Marko Marmilic, pronounced Marmi-litch, was deep in thought as he studied the set of schematics laid flat on his large glass work table.

      In his luxurious office of glass, leather, polished wood and indoor trees on the 12^th floor of his corporate office, he juxtaposed the dimensions and designs of several blueprints for the last two hours. Also on the table was a laptop connected to a massive flat screen where he would occasionally check several sets of algorithms and physics calculations.

      He reached for his cup of expresso and brought it to his lips. Marmilic was a genius in the field of physics and materials design, the essential confluence by which aerodynamic engineering is dependent.

      Described by the media as an eclectic amalgamation of Elon Musk, Michelangelo and Nikola Tesla, he was a celebrated and respected member of the upper crust of international aeronautical engineers, and was offered the job of Director of NASA Design twice in his 47 years.

      Marmilic, a Croatian by birth, was already a famous architect in his home country and throughout Europe before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area to create his own firm. He made his early fortune designing seafront promenades for several Croatian, Italian and Spanish resorts. He designed office buildings, hospitals, hotels, art galleries and skyscrapers in over a dozen EU and Asian capitals. As his reputation grew in popularity, so did the demand for his sophisticated, futuristic, but elegant designs.

      He stole the hearts of his fellow Croatians when he designed an ultra-modern campus for the new University of Zagreb and didn’t charge the city a single kuna. He paid for the project and its materials out of his own pocket.

      His next project for his people would see the design and construction of Croatia’s first high-speed rail system from Zagreb to Dubrovnik, 600 kilometers, with bullet-trains running at over 340 kph. It was called the ‘Croatian Rocket Line.’ The Croatian Rockets were so innovative, so fast and so energy efficient that Slovenia and the Czech Republic paid tens of millions of Euros for the design concepts.

      But designing gorgeous buildings wasn’t Marmilic’s deepest interest. He built his architectural empire to fund an industry that had incubated within him since he was a small boy. The field of his dreams was Bio-Technology, specifically, in the esoteric but emerging science of physical regeneration, Bionic reconstruction and Elemental resistance.

      Marmilic was dedicated to the pursuit of developing scientific ways to heal victims of horrible physical tragedies such as burns, severed limbs, catastrophic flesh wounds, broken bones, organ failure, even paralysis.

      By the age of 37, he bought Novo-Tech, a leading California bio-engineering corporation which manufactured experimental prosthetics and space exploration materials. Novo-Tech had contracts with NASA, rehabilitation hospitals, kinesiology labs and the Pentagon.

      It was through Pentagon ties that Marmilic met Dr. Dale Turnbull, director of the notorious secret vigilante society PIPER’S, Inc. Turnbull, a huge fan of his work, commissioned Marmilic to design the shadow society’s main training and organizational campus at a hidden forest location in Northern California.

      When the work was completed, Turnbull paid Marmilic three times the price the architect had originally charged. This did two things: First, it allowed the architect to purchase TRI-CORE, a special synthetics and textile manufacturing firm so that he could design and patent his own materials for his experiments; and second, foster a strong personal relationship with PIPER’S, Inc. This kept Marmilic in Turnbull’s service for any future tasking or favor, as well as under the organization’s coveted protection.

      Two years later, Marmilic merged Novo-Tech and TRI-CORE, and moved both firms to a newly-constructed and beautiful San Leandro industrial park. Much like the GOOGLE, APPLE or Microsoft campuses, his was equipped with technical warehouses, design and fabrication facilities, R&D labs, testing rooms, parts and materials storage rooms, finishing rooms, and showrooms – all, within first-class office buildings.

      It was here that Marmilic’s dream began, a small private and gated ‘city’ where his visions could be realized. It was here where MIRA-CAL Technologies was born.

      * * * * *

      Marko was looking over the latest testing results on his massive flat screen monitors in his office. A fifth simulated successful run of the Sonic One had just been completed by Goran Bakarčić, using adjustments made by Irena Pezelj. With much of the pressure finally lifting off his shoulders, Marko was once again able to concentrate on the goal. His only glaring problem was time; not so much about the time the vehicle would be ready, but for the man who would be riding it.

      A soft therapeutic but electronic chime sounded behind him, the doorbell.

      “Come in,” he called back. The glass doors automatically slid open with a whisper of air. Entering the room was a familiar member of his team. He didn’t have to turn around to know who it was; the scent of Chloé Love gave it away immediately.

      “Good morning, Martina!” he greeted with a warm smile.

      MIRA-CAL’s Director of Operations, Martina Ćorić, came in looking absolutely stunning. He couldn’t help but notice the body-hugging, long-sleeved, black Versace half-dress with silver buttons that complimented her Dolce and Gabbana red lipstick. Martina was the Gisele Bundchen of MIRA-CAL, but much better, a supermodel with a Ph.D.

      She looked at Marko impatiently like someone who couldn’t wait to deliver some important news.

      “All those documents for me so early in the morning?” he asked as the attractive young woman approached and took a seat on one of the leather couches next to the table.

      Martina Ćorić, 30, was a former fashion model before earning her business law degree at the Zagreb Academy of Law. Half-Croatian and half-Bosnian from Herzegovina, she represented the perfect confluence of beauty and intelligence. As MIRA-CAL’s D.O.O., she was an astute