The Champion (72 page)

“Virak,
stop!
”

For years, Quentin and Virak had followed their coach’s commands; Hokor’s voice had an automatic effect.

Virak stopped.

Hokor stepped face-to-face with Virak.

“
Shamakath
, Virak needs to come with us,” the coach said. “We can all make the shuttle.”

Gredok’s middle right hand shot up, a stubby fist smashing into Hokor’s sternum. The coach let out a little whine, then fell in a heap on the floor.

“You
dare
tell me what to do? Get to the loading dock,
now
! And Barnes,
come here
. You are irreplaceable. Virak will do his job. Virak, go take care of that
yakochat
.”

“Don’t do it,” Quentin said. “Ignore this
shamakath
nonsense. If you go back there, you’re dead. You’re a sentient being — make your own choices!”

Virak’s eye swirled black. He pulled the bulky pistol from his waistband, then sprinted out the aft doors and into the long corridor. The door hissed shut behind him.

Would the gun be enough? Bobby had had a gun, and Sandoval had obviously gotten past him ... did Sandoval now have Bobby’s gun?

Virak was in danger, and it wasn’t his fault ... Quentin had to help him.

He stepped toward the aft door.

“Barnes, I told you to
come here
” Gredok said. “Virak is doing his
duty
so that we can escape. I order you to come with me!”

The door hissed open. Quentin stopped.

What are you doing, Quentin? Go to the shuttle, get away. Virak hates you. He’d beat you senseless if he could. What’s it going to help if you die, too?

It wouldn’t help anything, and going after Virak was just plain stupid, but Quentin couldn’t help it.

He turned to face Gredok. Hokor was struggling to his feet; the blow must have really done a number on him.

Quentin pointed to the locker-room’s forward door. “Gredok, run if you want, or—” he pointed right, to the open entrance to the HeavyG dressing room, then left, to the open entrance of the Sklorno dressing room “—just hide if you don’t think you can make it, but either way? You’re a coward. Shuck you.”

Quentin turned and ran down the corridor after his teammate.

QUENTIN HADN’T TAKEN FIVE STEPS
before he heard a flurry of gunshots coming from the training room on his left. Something heavy crashed into something heavier, then Virak the Mean stumbled out of the open entryway, hit the wall opposite, and slid down into a heap, leaving red blood smears trailing down the white surface.

The Warrior rolled, slightly, side to side, fresh wetness spreading across two spots on the chest of his black jersey. The big HeavyKi pistol was still held loosely in a pedipalp hand.

Out of the training room stepped Jonathan Sandoval. The tall reporter’s left temple — where Quentin had hit him with the pipe — bled badly, oozing from an already-swollen, split lump. He held Bobby Brobst’s pistol.

Before Quentin could move, the reporter aimed the gun at Quentin’s face.

“You really are a dumbass after all,” Sandoval said. “You should have just run. Not that I wouldn’t have found you anyway.”

Quentin took a step backward.

“Don’t,” Sandoval said. He bent and took the gun out of Virak’s pedipalp hand, then tucked it into his belt.

“I’ve got an idea, Quentin. How about we do this the old-fashioned way? Big, strong kid like you ... maybe you can beat me hand-to-hand. If you would have just paid me, I could have kept these mods. I want to kill you with them before I have some underground doc cut them out of me because, after this little endeavor, I can’t exactly go to a real hospital. I want you to know the pain I’m going to feel. But if you come at me, at least you’ve got a
chance
, right?”

Quentin calmed himself and read his opponent. There was no hope of beating Sandoval in a straight-up fight. Sandoval’s anger permeated his tall body, made his nostrils flare and — more importantly — made his hand tremble. He wasn’t experienced with firearms; he’d taken out Brobst and Virak, true, but this was still new to him.

Quentin took another step backward. The locker-room door hissed open behind him.

Sandoval leveled his aim.

“Dammit, pretty boy, are you gonna make me shoot you?” He sighed, took a step away from Virak toward Quentin. He was trying to be clever, but Quentin could see something else — the man was terrified. Maybe he had actually thought the bombing would be easy, that he could slip in, find Quentin’s corpse, then slip out... but it had all gotten away from him.

Other than pull that trigger, Sandoval had no idea what to do next.

And neither did Quentin. He had to draw Sandoval into the locker room, maybe grab a helmet and use that as a weapon.

Why didn’t you just get on the shuttle, why did you come back here, why why why
 ...

Now or never.

Quentin turned and dove in the same motion, knowing he was probably going to get shot but not having any other choice. The gun went off behind him, once, twice, then he hit the locker-room floor and rolled over his right shoulder, tucking into a ball, driving his powerful legs down hard and launching himself to the right, away from the door.

The gun went off again: this time, Quentin felt a burning impact on his right shoulder blade.

He landed hard but was up in an instant, sprinting the ten feet to the HeavyG locker room. The gun went off again as he ran through the open door. He heard something
crack
to his left — he turned a hard right, getting out of Sandoval’s line of sight.

“Damn, you’re fast,” the reporter called out behind him.

Quentin reached into the first locker he found and grabbed the helmet hanging there. The same shape as his, but wider, heavier, built to fit the larger HeavyG head. He tucked his back into the shallow locker, the wooden sides touching either shoulder. Maybe he could get one hit in when Sandoval entered the room, maybe knock him out.

Quentin stayed perfectly still. He’d learned to control his rage; he discovered the same emotional mastery let him push the terror to the back of his mind, hold it at bay while he did what he had to do. He held the helmet in his right hand, up high near his ear, arm cocked and ready to strike.

He saw the gun. Just the barrel, but he swung instantly. The helmet
snapped
down on the weapon, knocking it out of Sandoval’s hand: it clattered against the hard floor. Quentin stepped out of the locker and reared back for another swing — a fist drove into his mouth, knocking him backward. The helmet dropped out of his hand. He tried to get his feet under him but couldn’t move them fast enough.

He fell hard on his ass.

Through watering eyes, he stared up at Sandoval, who was shaking his right hand.

“Man, that
hurt
” Sandoval said. “I’ve about had it with—”

Quentin popped to his feet instantly, came forward hard to put a shoulder into the skinny man’s stomach.

Sandoval’s foot kicked out, caught Quentin full in the face, knocking him to the right. Quentin’s own momentum rode him into a locker; he smashed into the wooden panels, snapping them off the wall — quarterback, helmet, pads and panels alike crashed to the floor.

The world faded out for a moment, then back in. Quentin reached down, tried to push himself up but his left arm screamed and gave up instantly, while his right arm felt like it was made of cold meat.

“Yeah, you’re fast,” Sandoval said. “But not faster than
me
. Maybe I should try out for the GFL, huh? Oh, that’s right, I
can’t
because I’m not a genetic freak like you damn monsters.”

Quentin wouldn’t give up,
couldn’t
give up. He got to his knees, put his right foot flat, started to rise ...

... and from that position, through the seven-foot-tall Sandoval’s legs, he saw Hokor the Hookchest, HeavyG helmet facemask held in the fingers of his left-middle arm. The coach swung the helmet like he was bowling: the rounded crown almost brushed the floor as it passed between Sandoval’s feet, then arced up and hit Sandoval dead in the crotch.

The tall man grunted in surprise and pain; he half folded, knees buckling, face pinched tight, then he twisted back and to the left: the side of his fist smashed into Hokor’s head, knocking the little Leader to the floor and sending his tiny Krakens ball cap tumbling away.

The reporter turned to go after him, walking awkwardly with his legs pressed together, his expression of agony shifting to one of rage.

Quentin got his other foot under him, pushed his back against the wall and used it to help him stand.

Then he saw it...
Bobby’s gun
, sitting just right of the entrance, only a few feet away.

“You scumbag Quyth,” Sandoval said. “You hit me in the balls!”

The reporter launched a snap-kick that drove into Hokor’s little body with a muffled
crunch
— the Leader flew across the floor, landed and flopped, furred body convulsing.

Quentin took one step toward the gun; his leg gave out instantly—

BLINK—

It was like being on the football field ... no noise ... no
nothing
, only movement, pure and natural and effortless. He fell toward the gun, reaching his right hand out like he was stretching a ball over the goal line.

Sandoval heard him and turned, seemed to move with the same agonizing slowness Quentin felt. Sandoval’s eyes, first locking on Quentin, then on the gun.

Sandoval’s hand shot to his waist to draw the HeavyKi’s pistol.

Quentin’s body hit the floor; his right hand landed on the gun, his fingers closed around the cool metal.

BLINK—

Quentin rolled to his right shoulder, right arm stiff and straight, gun pointed at Sandoval.

Sandoval froze, the HeavyKi’s pistol in his hand but still pointed down.

Quentin hurt all over, far worse than any game he’d played, but he could hide the pain like he’d hid it a hundred times out on the field. There was a man holding a gun, a man who had come to kill him, yet Quentin felt as calm as he did while standing in the pocket.

“Put it down, Sandoval.”

The reporter’s wide eyes revealed much. He knew he’d made a mistake, knew he should have just shot Quentin earlier, and now he had a gun pointed at him. The turmoil of that decision — choosing to punish Quentin instead of just finishing the job — roiled across his face.

“Put it
down
” Quentin said again.

Sandoval shook his head. Fear on that face, sure, but also a cold determination, and an all-powerful, underlying confidence in his modded abilities.

“I don’t think so,” Sandoval said.

“Know what the difference between us is?”

The reporter slowly shook his head.

“I’ve got a steady hand,” Quentin said.

Sandoval glanced down involuntarily, saw his pistol’s slight shake. His eyes flicked up to Quentin’s weapon. Despite the punch, the bullet wound, the kick to the head, the crash into the locker and using the wrong hand, Quentin’s gun might as well have been forever fixed in place for all it moved.

“Just drop it,” Quentin said, his voice calm and even. “Then get on the floor, face down.”

“What, and lace my fingers behind my head? You watch a lot of movies, Barnes?”

“Enough to know how this one ends.”

Quentin saw Sandoval’s nostrils flare, saw the locker-room lights reflecting off the pulse in his neck. The man was panicking. He was desperate.

“I can’t,” Sandoval said. “You know what they’ll do to me?”

“Whatever it is, you deserve it, and more. Final warning — the next sound you make will be your last.”

Sandoval forced a smile. “You ever killed anyone before, Barnes? You know what that
feels
like?”

Quentin pulled the trigger.

The gun jumped in his hand.

Sandoval’s head snapped back, then lolled forward. He fell face first, right cheek on the locker room’s tile, eyes wide open and staring. Blood oozed out of a spot in the middle of his forehead. He didn’t move.

Quentin stared into those lifeless eyes.

“I know now,” he said to the dead man. The dead man didn’t answer.

Blackness swept over Quentin, a welcome, much-deserved,
much-beaten-into-him
drop into unconsciousness, but a wet, rattling sound brought him back.

He tried to stand, still couldn’t manage it, so he crawled instead, crawled across the floor to Hokor the Hookchest.

“Coach, I’m here. Hold tight, I’ll get some help.”

The Leader shivered uncontrollably. Blood coated his black Krakens jacket. His pedipalp and middle arms were drawn in tight to his sides, making him look like a bumblebee that had just rolled to its back and was about to die.

Hokor started coughing. He stared straight up at the ceiling. For a moment, Quentin expected the coughs to kick out droplets of blood. When they didn’t, he felt a quick surge of hope — a hope that was dashed when spots of blood appeared somewhere else: inside the softball-sized cornea.

Quentin had no idea what to do. He put a hand lightly on Hokor’s chest.

“Coach, come
on
”

The lids blinked once, twice, a third time. Through the cornea, Quentin could see the little discs that lined Hokor’s eye cone, the cone that seemed to go back much farther than the head would allow.

“Barnes, are you out of danger?”

“Yeah, Coach, I’m fine.”

“Your face ... Humans are ugly to begin with, but now ... how unfortunate.”

For a moment, Quentin saw a reflection of himself in Hokor’s cornea: face sheeted with blood; nose broken, resting more on the side of his face than the front; lower lip swollen horribly; tooth missing,
again
, but he didn’t care about that now.

“Barnes, I am afraid I will not be able to coach you in the Galaxy Bowl.”

“Shut up,” Quentin said. He felt the tears coming, felt a hammer twisting in his chest. “Doc Patah will fix you up. All I have to do is get you to the rejuve tank — there’s got to be first-aid steps in the computer. Just hang tight.”