Rash (18 page)

“We kick off in one minute,” Hammer said, “whether they’re there or not.”

I heard a soft grunt come from Rhino. I looked downfield. A wave of red was pouring around the far end of the building, running out onto the field with frightening vigor. They looked big. Really big. As we watched, wide eyed, they lined up at the twenty-yard line, thirty or more, clicking into place like teeth on a steel comb, radiating discipline, precision, and power.

After that
things just got worse.

Because Hammer wanted to use me and Fragger for offense only, we were watching that first play from the sidelines. Nuke’s kickoff was caught in the air at the twenty-yard line. The receiver immediately disappeared from sight as the other Redshirts linked arms, formed a solid wedge, and began running down the center of the field, picking up speed. It was not a play we had ever seen or imagined; I could see our defense faltering. Gorp, our fastest defenseman, hit first at the point of the wedge. He was mowed down like an errant dandelion. Lugger, Nuke, and three other defenders also tried a frontal assault. All were knocked aside. Seeing this, Bullet, Jimmy, Kareem, and Bubba went wide, trying to get around the wedge to attack the receiver from behind, but the Redshirts were moving so fast by then I doubted the tactic would succeed.

The wedge had reached the fifty-yard line by the time it encountered Rhino. I held my breath. The cumulative weight of the wedge had to be well over a ton, and it was moving at twice Rhino’s speed.

Rhino hit the wedge just to the right of the lead man, the way a perfectly bowled ball carves into a set of pins. For one glorious moment I thought the entire wedge would collapse. They never slowed down. Rhino took out three of them, but the ballcarrier remained safely tucked inside the rest of the protective
V
. Bullet and the others who had come around the outside of the wedge were gaining, but as soon as the wedge passed Rhino, it reshaped itself, the tail ends coming together behind the ballcarrier, forming a reverse wedge. The ball carrier had a clear shot at the end zone.

He scored.

Gorp and Nuke lay where they had fallen on the field, along with one of the Redshirts that Rhino had bowled over. Hammer charged red-faced across the field toward Hatch, who looked both stunned and pleased at his play’s success. Fragger and I ran out onto the field. Nuke was unconscious. Gorp’s face, usually the color of milk chocolate, was ashen. Through gritted teeth he said he thought he had re-broken his collarbone. The other Goldshirts, apparently uninjured, were milling about, casting angry, bewildered glances at the Redshirts, who were in the end zone slapping one another on the back and grinning.

Rhino was helping a fallen Redshirt to his feet.

“I think I busted a rib,” said the Redshirt. He was bent over, holding one arm across his chest.

“What was that play?” Rhino asked.

“‘Flying wedge,’” said the Redshirt as he walked slowly toward his bench.

Hammer was screaming in Hatch’s face. Hatch stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest, leaning
back a little. He seemed to be enjoying it.

I helped Gorp over to our bench. Nuke had regained consciousness and was sitting up and looking around with a bewildered expression. He climbed unsteadily to his feet and followed Gorp and me to the bench.

“What the hell was that?” he asked.

“Flying wedge,” I said.

“They score?”

“What do you think?”

The other Goldshirts gathered at the bench. Hammer and Hatch were both yelling now, the air between them glistening with flying spit droplets.

“Think Hammer can take him?” asked Nuke.

“I don’t know. Hatch is smaller, but he looks like you could pound on him all day long and he’d never feel a thing.”

The argument lasted a few more seconds. Hammer abruptly turned and walked across the field toward us. He looked us over, his face rigid.

“Can you play?” he asked Gorp.

Gorp shook his head. “Collarbone,” he said.

“He needs a medtech,” I said.

Hammer looked at Gorp as if he were dead. “Later,” he said. “Now let’s win this thing.”

“Win?” Bullet said. “How? You saw what happened there.”

“It won’t happen again. That play has been illegal since 1910. Their touchdown doesn’t count.”

I said, “Yeah, but now Gorp’s all busted up and Nuke got his head scrambled.”

“We took one of them out too,” Hammer said. He
glared at me. “You think this is some kind of game?”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Hammer stabbed his finger toward the end of the field. “Let’s go, nails.”

The kickoff was high and wide—the ball hung in the air for an eternity before coming down in the corner, three yards short of the end zone. Just about the last thing on earth I wanted to do was catch it, but I did. The Redshirts had covered more than half the field by that time.

I took off laterally to get myself out of the corner. Bullet and Pineapple had anticipated me and moved to cut off the Redshirts who were coming in wide. I turned downfield and found myself facing a red wall. I cut left, then right. Rhino charged past me, shattering the wall of defenders; I moved into the breach. For one moment I thought I’d made it through, then a hand closed around my ankle and I went down. An instant later, a tremendous weight smashed me into the turf and everything went black.

Blue sky, a wheel of faces, spinning.

“Bo?” I recognized Rhino’s voice, but the faces were whirling so fast I couldn’t pick him out.

“You okay?”

I closed my eyes, then opened them. I could see Rhino now. And Fragger and Bubba. “I think so.” I sat up, the ball still clutched in my hands. “What happened?”

“You got piled,” Fragger said.

“I got what?”

“They all piled up on you. After you were already
down. All of ’em. We were afraid you’d got smothered.”

The Redshirts were standing a few yards away, shooting us occasional looks.

“Anybody get hurt?” I asked.

“Just you,” Rhino said. “Hammer’s over there yelling at the other guy.”

I looked across the field to where Hammer and Hatch were having another discussion. It looked like a rerun from the last play: shouting, veins popping, spittle flying. After several more shouts and gesticulations, Hammer threw up his hands and marched stiff-legged back across the field, his hands balled into fists. He jerked his head toward the bench. We followed him, leaving the football on the line of scrimmage.

“Maybe they called the game off,” Rhino said.

“I doubt it.”

We gathered around Hammer.

“Nails,” he said, “change in plan.” His hands clenched and unclenched, and he smiled.

I took
off running an instant before Lugger hiked the ball to Fragger. I cut across the line of scrimmage at a sharp angle, danced around the Redshirt cornerback, and headed for the sideline at midfield. One half second before I stepped out-of-bounds I turned and plucked the ball out of the air. The play, a variation on one of our standards, worked beautifully. I picked up ten yards, taking the ball out of play at the fifty. It should have ended there, but it didn’t. The three Redshirts on my tail did not stop just because the play was over. Neither did I. I kept running down the sideline past our bench as the Redshirts pounded after me. Behind me I heard bodies slamming, grunts of pain, curses, and one heart-stopping howl of rage. I looked back, then stopped running. The sideline in front of our bench was a writhing mass of gold, with flashes of red. Our entire defensive line had come off the bench and attacked the Redshirts who were after me. Hammer watched from a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest. A few seconds later he shouted something and the melee broke up.

Two of the Redshirts lay prostrate. The third was dragging himself away on his hands and knees.

Hatch ran across the field, looking as angry as Hammer had been after the previous play. He ignored his fallen players and tore into Hammer, who just grinned back at him. I walked the ball back out to the fifty-yard line, set it on the turf, then joined Fragger, Rhino, and the rest of the offense. We waited a few yards behind the line of scrimmage while Hammer and Hatch had it out again.

“Well, we got three of ’em,” Fragger said.

Two medtechs appeared and ran to assist the fallen Redshirts. One of them was able to stand on his own and totter back to the Redshirt bench. The one who had managed to crawl away was helped off the field by one of his teammates. The third Redshirt left the field on a stretcher.

“Looks like at least one of ’em can still play,” said Lugger.

Rhino said nothing. I could see he was bothered by the way things were going.

I said, “It’s not like they wouldn’t have killed me if they’d caught me.”

Rhino shrugged. “You were way ahead of them.”

Hammer and Hatch were done yelling at each other; Hammer came out onto the field to give us our next set of instructions. Hatch was doing the same for the Redshirts.

“That worked perfectly, nails,” Hammer said. “Now we run the ‘nose dozer.’” He looked at Rhino. “It’s time to make these boys afraid, understand?”

Rhino nodded. The “nose dozer” was our simplest and most devastating play: Give the ball to Rhino and let him run.

We lined up in a classic T formation, with Rhino to Lugger’s right. The Redshirts took up an odd widespread defense, with every player up against the line.

“Maybe we should go for a pass play,” I said to Fragger.

Fragger shook his head. “I ain’t going against Hammer,” he said. I backed off to my position. I had a bad feeling, but I didn’t get a chance to dwell on it. Lugger hiked the ball to Fragger, who instantly shoved it into Rhino’s arms, then backed up quickly, faking that he still had the ball. Rhino took off running. For a moment I was elated—the Redshirts’ defensive line parted like toilet paper. There was nothing between Rhino and the end zone. Then I saw what was really happening. Every single Redshirt was converging on Fragger.

Fragger turned and ran, but it was too late—the Redshirts had too much momentum. They caught him on our twenty-yard line, and Fragger Bruste disappeared beneath a mound of red.

Of course, we all ran to help Fragger—all of us except Rhino, who was busy scoring a touchdown all by himself. We were a gang of killer cyborgs; I watched myself charge into the fight, fired up with adrenaline and mob madness, but not really
feeling
anything. I didn’t hate the Redshirts. I wasn’t even angry at them. I watched myself grab one of them by the face guard and pull so hard his chin strap snapped and the helmet came right off his head. I swung the helmet, hitting him on the side of the head. He went down. Another one came at me; I ducked and hit him with the helmet. I took a glancing hit to the jaw from yet another direction but felt no pain. I just kept on swinging
until one of them grabbed me from behind and wrapped his arm around my neck. I swung the helmet up over my head and banged it off his helmet, but he wouldn’t let go. He squeezed until the big black fuzzy spots came. I dropped the helmet and my legs went rubbery and I sank into the void.

I don’t know what ended the fight. When I came to, only four Goldshirts and five Redshirts were still standing, breathing heavily, staring at one another with a mixture of fear and caution. Everybody from both benches had joined in the fight. More than twenty of us were scattered across the blood-spotted turf, unable or unwilling to keep fighting for reasons ranging from smashed noses to gouged eyes to broken hands to unconsciousness. I was one of them. My throat had been crushed; it was all I could do to breathe.

Hammer and Hatch approached from opposite sides of the field. They both looked a bit stunned.

“Looks like you lose,” said Hatch.

Hammer pointed downfield at Rhino, who, having scored his unopposed touchdown, was walking back with the ball. “I make it five to five,” Hammer said.

I almost opened my mouth to tell Hammer that a touchdown was worth six points, but then I realized that he was talking about the number of players left standing.

“I call that a draw,” said Hammer.

Since we were in no shape for a six-hour bus ride, we stayed the night, taking turns visiting the overworked medtechs. Two players had to be medevaced to Winnipeg,
five hundred miles away. One of them, a Redshirt, had shattered a neck vertebra. The other medevaced player was Nuke, who had been knocked unconscious and had yet to wake up.