3 Flying

Chapter 3 Flying "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Chances are you've never fallen off a cliff. If you had, you probably wouldn't be reading this right now. Because you would be dead. But have you ever jumped off a high diving board? Have you ever dropped into a steep water slide or a half pipe? Have you ever been on a really high roller coaster? Well, forget it. Falling off a cliff is nothing like any of those experiences. You still have no idea what the McDonald twins were going through. When you fall off a cliff, the first forty or fifty feet are a straight vertical drop. The only thing you feel in that first second or two is sheer terror. You can't think about anything else. The

第三章飞行“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !”你可能从来没有从悬崖上摔下来过。 如果你有，你现在可能就不会读到这篇文章了。 因为你会死的。 但是你从高跳板上跳过吗？ 你掉进过陡峭的滑水道或半管滑道吗？ 你坐过非常高的过山车吗？ 好吧，算了吧。从悬崖上摔下来和这些经历完全不同。 你还是不知道麦当劳双胞胎经历了什么。 当你从悬崖上掉下来时，最初的四五十英尺是垂直的。 在最初的一两秒钟里，你唯一的感觉就是极度的恐惧。 你不能想别的事情。 的

good thing is—and this is probably the only good thing—you can't worry about your problems. If your parents have been bugging you or some kid at school is hassling you, you don't think about it anymore. If you had an ache or pain in any part of your body, it's gone, instantly. In fact, you can't think at all. You can only experience. It's all sensory. Your nervous system goes into survival mode. Nothing else matters. You may even lose control of your bladder. Luckily, in this case, that didn't happen. After they tumbled over the edge, the twins spun and twisted and flopped around in the air, screaming their heads off the whole time. One thought did flash through Coke's brain for a millisecond. I JUST PUSHED MY SISTER OFF A CLIFF! What had he done? But he had no choice. If he hadn't pushed Pep and then jumped, he surely would have taken one of those poison darts in the neck, just like that lady Mya did. He

好事是——这可能是唯一的好事——你不用担心你的问题。 如果你的父母一直在找你的麻烦，或者学校里的某个孩子在找你的麻烦，你不会再去想它。 如果你身体的任何部位感到疼痛，它就会立刻消失。 事实上，你根本无法思考。 你只能去体验。这都是感觉。 你的神经系统进入了生存模式。 其他的都不重要。你甚至可能会失去对膀胱的控制。 幸运的是，在这种情况下，这种情况没有发生。 他们从悬崖边上摔下来后，这对双胞胎不停地旋转，扭动，在空中扑腾，一直尖叫着。 一个想法确实在可口可乐的脑中闪过了一毫秒。 我刚把我妹妹推下悬崖！他做了什么？ 但他别无选择。如果他没有推佩普然后跳下去，他肯定会被毒箭射中脖子，就像那个米亚女士一样。 他

had made a snap decision, and he would have to live with it. Or die with it. Rocks, ledges, and trees shot past Pep's eyes as she plummeted. Something flashed through her mind, too, for a millisecond. I WILL NEVER BE NICE TO MY BROTHER AGAIN. This was the last straw, she thought. She would never again update Coke's iPod for him or help him pick out clothes so he wouldn't look nerdy. Not that it would matter, because they were both about to die. When you're at an amusement park, no matter how terrifying a ride is, you know you're not going to die at the end. Somebody with an advanced engineering degree carefully designed that thrill ride to simulate weightlessness. You know that thousands of people took that same ride before you did, and they all survived. You know that a safety inspector with a clipboard is required by law to check out the rides regularly.

他做了一个草率的决定，他必须承担后果。 或者和它一起死去。当佩普坠落时，岩石、岩壁和树木从她眼前掠过。 有一件事也在她的脑海里闪过，持续了一毫秒。 我再也不会对我弟弟好了。 这是最后一根稻草，她想。 她再也不会为他更新可口可乐的iPod，也不会帮他挑选衣服，以免他看起来像个书呆子。 这也无所谓，因为他们俩都快死了。 当你在游乐园的时候，不管过山车有多可怕，你都知道你最后不会死。 一个拥有高级工程学位的人精心设计了这个刺激的过山车来模拟失重状态。 你知道在你之前有成千上万的人经历过同样的经历，但他们都活了下来。 你知道法律要求带着剪贴板的安全检查员定期检查游乐设施。

You know that after a minute or two, the ride is going to come to an end. You'll climb out of the little car or whatever and go enjoy some cotton candy. But when you go flying off a cliff, there are no such assurances. At the end of a free fall, your body will most likely smash into the hard surface of the ground with thousands of pounds of pressure, crushing your flimsy bones. Your internal organs are going to explode like water balloons. Or maybe you'll get dashed against the rocks on the side of the cliff and fracture your skull on the way down. What an unpleasant way to end a life. But then again, it would be quick and painless. At one second into free fall, Coke and Pep were moving about thirty miles per hour straight down. The wind was whipping, ripping past them as they accelerated, pulling at the skin on their cheeks. There was a roar in their ears, like the sound of a jet taking off in their head.

你知道一两分钟后，旅程就要结束了。 你会从小车里爬出来然后去吃棉花糖。 但当你飞下悬崖时，就没有这样的保证了。 在自由落体的最后，你的身体很可能会在数千磅的压力下撞到坚硬的地面上，压碎你脆弱的骨头。 你的内脏会像水球一样爆炸。 或者你可能会撞到悬崖边上的岩石，在下落的过程中撞碎你的头骨。 多么不愉快的结束生命的方式啊。 但话说回来，这将是快速和无痛的。 在自由落体的一秒钟内，可口可乐和佩普以每小时30英里的速度直线下降。 风在疾驰，在他们加速的时候从他们身边呼啸而过，扯着他们脸颊上的皮肤。 他们的耳朵里响起了一声轰鸣声，就像一架喷气式飞机在他们的脑海里起飞的声音。

Through squinted eyes, Coke could see Pep below him, flailing her arms and legs, trying to turn herself around. At that point, they were dropping like stones. By three seconds into free fall, they were close to sixty miles per hour and still picking up speed. Coke had once leafed through a physics book in the library and learned a few facts about falling objects. For instance, any falling body will accelerate until it reaches what is called terminal velocity: for a human, about 120 mph. But terminal velocity varies depending on the object that's falling. A large, flat object, like a piece of paper, will fall a lot slower than a penny. When the twins stuck out their arms and legs, their rate of descent slowed down. Suddenly, Coke realized what he was doing. He had seen a YouTube video about something called wingsuit BASE jumping just a few weeks earlier. People jump off cliffs wearing these strange-looking wingsuits, and they can actually fly. It blew his mind.

通过眯起的眼睛，可乐可以看到佩普在他下面，挥舞着她的胳膊和腿，试图转过身来。 那时，他们像石头一样往下掉。 在自由落体的三秒内，他们的速度接近每小时六十英里，而且还在加速。 有一次，科克在图书馆翻阅了一本物理书，了解了一些关于落体的知识。 例如，任何落体都会加速，直到达到所谓的终端速度：对人来说，大约是120英里/小时。 但是终端速度取决于下落的物体。 一个大而扁平的物体，比如一张纸，会比一分钱下落得慢得多。 当双胞胎伸出胳膊和腿时，他们下降的速度减慢了。 突然，可口可乐意识到他在做什么。 就在几周前，他在YouTube上看到了一个关于翼装定点跳伞的视频。 人们穿着这些奇怪的翼装从悬崖上跳下来，他们真的会飞。 这让他大吃一惊。

Coke had been intrigued enough to do a Google search of wingsuit BASE jumping. Go ahead and look it up. People actually jump off cliffs for fun, and they've been doing it since the 1930s. According to legend, seventy-two of the first seventy-five people who tried it died. Then, in the 1990s, a French skydiver named Patrick de Gayardon developed a wingsuit that worked. Well, it worked some of the time, anyway. He died in 1998 after jumping off a cliff in Hawaii; but other skydivers took up the "sport," and better wingsuits were designed. Coke realized he didn't have to die. The wingsuit could save him. At four seconds, Coke remembered what Mya had told them: Extend your arms and legs. You will soar like a hawk. Not to get all scientific on you, but if you throw gravity, acceleration, air resistance, and hundreds of feet of vertical drop into an equation and then you add the fabric of a wingsuit as it rushes against the wind like the

可口可乐对此很感兴趣，于是对翼装定点跳伞进行了一番搜索。 去查一下吧。人们从悬崖上跳下来其实是为了好玩，从20世纪30年代就开始了。 据传说，最初尝试的75人中有72人死亡。 然后，在20世纪90年代，一位名叫帕特里克·德·加亚尔登（Patrick de Gayardon）的法国跳伞运动员发明了一种有效的翼装。 好吧，不管怎么说，有时候它还是管用的。 1998年，他在夏威夷跳下悬崖后去世；但其他跳伞者也开始参与这项“运动”，并设计了更好的翼装。 可口可乐意识到他不必死。 翼装可以救他。 四秒钟后，可口可乐想起了米娅告诉他们的话：伸展你的胳膊和腿。 你会像鹰一样展翅高飞。 我不是要用科学的方法，但是如果你把重力，加速度，空气阻力，几百英尺的垂直落差放进一个方程里然后加上翼装的面料它迎风而动就像