The Champion (76 page)

The ref’s whistle blew. Quentin took one last glance up at the crowd that wanted to see him crushed, beaten and broken.

My last game ... and I am going to tear your beating hearts from your chests
.

He looked out to the field.

Jacks kicker Jack Burrill ran at the ball, his line of metallic-clad comrades running with him, and then the ball arced high into the night: Jupiter fans cranked the volume up just one more notch.

The ball dropped down. Niami stood a yard deep in the end zone. Her tentacles hauled it in, and she was off and running. A wall of orange, black and white slammed into a wave of copper, gold and silver.

There were no words, because no words were needed — a clash of two clans fighting for dominance, a language as old as sentience itself.

Niami cut left, but she didn’t get far before a Jacks Sklorno brought her down.

First-and-ten on Ionath’s 18-yard line.

Quentin took the time to close his eyes, to take one breath. He tasted the air. He tasted the noise and the cold and the night itself. He swallowed it down and burned it into his brain: this moment, this last moment before his final snap, he wanted to know the memory would be there on his deathbed many years from now.

For you, Coach
.

He opened his eyes and jogged onto the field, Becca Montagne at his side.

SO LOUD IT
HURT.

Quentin walked up to the line. He stared over his wall of orange-numbered black jerseys, black arm and leg armor, black helmets sparkling under the stadium lights. And beyond them, five sentient species decked out in gleaming metallics.

Behind Quentin, Becca and Ju lined up in an I-formation. George Starcher at right tight end, Milford wide right, Denver wide left.

It was too loud to hear a snap count, but the Krakens had expected that, prepared for it. He’d called two plays in the huddle. If he lifted his left leg, they went with the first play, a dive-left to Ju. If he lifted his right, they went with the second, the play that they had worked on with the single day of practice available to them.

Quentin looked over the defense, one of the best the GFL had to offer. Cornerbacks Morelia and Xuchang, free safety Luxemborg and safety Matidi. Linebackers Katan the Beheader and Ridley Korika, defensive tackle Kal-Gah-Het, rookie standout defensive end Tony Jones. If they weren’t the top defense in the game, they were second only to Ionath.

The Jacks lined up in their usual 4-3. Korika and Katan played aggressively, often overly so: both were hungry to prove their worth against Ju Tweedy, the best running back in football. They tracked Quentin, but only with cursory glances.

They had eyes only for Ju.

Here we go
 ...
one chance, Quentin, make it count
.

The Krakens players were all looking at him, waiting to see what signal he would give.

Quentin lifted his right knee high, then set it back down. As they’d practiced, Bud-O waited for a single count —
one one-thousand
— then snapped the ball at the very same moment the well-disciplined Krakens shot off the line.

The ball slapped into Quentin’s hands, sending a lightning bolt of pain up his left arm. He gripped the ball tightly, mostly with the three fingers and thumb of his right hand. He stepped back with his left foot and pitched to Ju, who was running right with Becca in the lead. Quentin ran left, away from the play, hands up at his helmet holding an imaginary ball in the worst play-fake in league history.

Kimberlin pulled from his right guard position, intending to lead-block for Ju but stumbled as soon as he took that first lateral step. Jupiter defensive tackle Kal-Gah-Het shot through the line and hit Kimberlin, knocking the HeavyG on his side, then scurried after Ju in a six-legged sprint. Becca stopped short: instead of leading Ju, she turned and put a shoulder into Kal-Gah — Kal-Gah bowled her over, six legs stomping past her as he tried to catch the fleeing running back.

Out in front of Ju, Morelia, the cornerback, fought against the block of Denver, stretching the play to the sidelines and keeping Ju from turning it upfield. Korika, the linebacker, pursued from behind, closing in on Ju.

Ju had nowhere to run. It looked like the play would end in a big loss, but just before the sideline, he stopped, turned to his left and threw a wobbler back to the middle of the field — where Becca was waiting. Forgotten by the defense, she had popped up, just as planned. Ju’s pass looked horrible, a wounded duck to end all wounded ducks, but it found its mark. Becca hauled it in, raised it to her right ear, then looked downfield — where Quentin was sprinting up the left sidelines.

Xuchang, the other cornerback, saw the ruse but saw it too late. A sweep pitch-back to the fullback, then a downfield throw to the quarterback? So much to track on the first play, and Xuchang had been caught sleeping. The defense reacted quickly, came for Becca, but she fired the ball downfield before anyone could reach her.

Xuchang sprinted with the blinding speed of the Sklorno, trying to catch up, but she’d drifted into the middle of the field when Ju was running right. The perfect spiral sailed through the air. Quentin watched it coming, knew he wouldn’t even have to break stride, all he had to do was haul it in ...

The ball passed over his shoulder and hit his hands: another
zap
of pain in his left arm threw off his focus. The ball bounced up as he crossed the five, as Xuchang caught him from behind and tangled her tentacles around his legs.

Quentin’s focus was the ball,
only
the ball, all that existed in the universe. As he fell he watched it come down. His big body hit the end zone,
rattled
against it. He slid, eyes never wavering ...

The ball fell into his right hand. His thumb and three fingers grabbed it like a spider grabbing a fat, brown insect, grabbed and
held
.

He slid to a stop: he was lying chest-down in the end zone, the ball firmly in his upturned hand.

The first offensive snap of the game? A trick play for an Ionath touchdown.

Live feed from
UBS GameDay holocast coverage

“Chick, what a first half it’s been. Quentin Barnes, last year’s Galaxy Bowl MVP, the man who
this year
broke single-season passing records for total yards and touchdowns, playing almost the entire half at
fullback
. It’s amazing.”

“And the Krakens All-Pro fullback played almost the entire first half at quarterback, Masara. The Krakens did an excellent job of keeping mum after the horrible attack that killed coach Hokor the Hookchest and Kopor the Climber, because we had no idea Barnes was hurt and Becca Montagne would be the Ionath signal-caller.”

“And obviously it’s something with his arm, Chick, because he’s still well enough to be on the field, although he’s not the best fullback I’ve ever seen.”

“You can say that again, Masara.”

“Amazingly, despite losing the coach and
two
fullbacks before this game, the reshuffled Krakens are only down ten to seven. Our sideline reporters tell us that Barnes is calling the plays on offense, and John Tweedy is calling them on defense. Both are obviously doing an amazing job. Chick, how have the Krakens kept this lead to just three points?”

“The old-fashioned way, Masara — with ball control and defense. Becca Montagne doesn’t have the throwing power or accuracy of Barnes, but you know what she does well? Hand the ball off to the Mad Ju. Ju Tweedy has eighty-two yards on twenty-three carries. The Krakens haven’t scored since that first trick play to open the game, but they’ve held onto the ball for twenty-one minutes, leaving Don Pine with only
nine minutes
to work first-half magic.”

“And there hasn’t been much magic there for the Jacks offense, has there, Chick?”

“About as much magic as my honeymoon with my second ex-wife, who passed out during the best man’s toast.”

“Chick! Stories about your mating rituals are not—”

“Sorry, Masara, sorry, folks at home. The Jacks offense hasn’t been able to get into a rhythm, due to lack of time with the ball and due to the Krakens defense. Don Pine was sacked three times in the first half, once by Mum-O-Killowe, once by Alexsandar Michnik and once by Ibrahim Khomeni. Pine has a lousy seventy-six yards passing, but one of those was a fifty-one yard strike to New Delhi to set up a ten-yard CJ Wellman touchdown run. Wellman has run wild, carrying the ball fifteen times for a hundred and six, but hasn’t been able to put the Jacks into scoring position other than one long run that set up a Jack Burrill field goal.”

“What do the Jacks need to do in the second half, Chick?”

“If I was Jupiter, Masara, I’d throw in the towel on the passing attack and just feed Wellman the pellet. Not only were Choto the Bright and Virak the Mean out coming into this game, but Shayat the Thick suffered a broken leg in the second quarter, and he’s out as well. That means if the Krakens stick to their four-three defense, they have
no subs
at linebacker. John Tweedy, Pishor the Fang and Samuel Darkeye are going to be three tired puppies by game’s end. Look for Jupiter to keep it on the ground in the second half.”

“Chick, do the Krakens have any chance at all?”

“Sure they do, Masara. Montagne isn’t Barnes, but if the Jacks keep focusing on Tweedy, she’s going to burn them sooner or later. And Tweedy himself is going to keep grinding away. Ionath is just a field goal down, so one big play either way could decide the Galaxy Bowl.”

“Excellent, Chick. We’re ready for the second-half kickoff. Let’s go back to the field.”

QUENTIN STRUGGLED TO STAND.
Bodies were piled around him, both orange and black and metallic. His chest hurt because he’d tried to block Ridley Korika, who had come in on a run blitz and hit him right in the sternum. His back hurt because Ju, seeing the hole was blocked, had put his head down and just driven forward — right over Quentin and Korika both.

His left arm
screamed
. The ravaged nerve thrummed with eight-out-of-ten pain that had him constantly wincing.

Three quarters of play had left him battered and drained. His body hadn’t fully recovered from the Sandoval beating, which now felt like a warm and fuzzy memory compared to the punishment he’d suffered blocking for Ju, Yassoud and Becca. Quentin had delivered his share of hits, true, but compared to the number of times a lineman or linebacker had laid him out, they were few and far between.

A big pair of hands grabbed his rib armor, lifted him off the ground, set him on wobbly legs.

“Are you okay?”

Quentin looked into the eyes of Michael Kimberlin. Eight feet tall, over six hundred pounds, a giant even to someone Quentin’s size. A massive block of long-armed HeavyG granite, yet his eyes were those of a man lost. If he wanted forgiveness for his past, for how his silence had killed Hokor and Kopor even more than Quentin’s had, this wasn’t the time or the place.

“Fine,” Quentin said. He slapped the side of Kimberlin’s helmet — with his
right
hand, mind you. “Get your damn head in the game, Mike.”

Third down and goal, ball on Jupiter’s 5-yard line. Neither team had scored in the third quarter. Ionath was still down three. Quentin’s ball-control strategy had kept it close, had disrupted Pine’s rhythm and — maybe most important of all — had taken the Jupiter crowd out of the game. But none of it mattered if Ionath couldn’t put more points on the board.

Quentin jogged to the huddle. He moved to stand in front of it, briefly forgetting — for the tenth time that night — that it was no longer his place. He ran around to the back-center, standing behind Bud-O, Ju on his immediate right, Cheboygan past Ju, Crazy George on his immediate left, Tara the Freak past George. It had been the main formation of the game: Ionath’s strongest receivers and dominant tight end provided more blocking mass for the run game.

The front wasn’t his place anymore, because that’s where Becca stood.

She bled from a deep cut on her cheek. It didn’t ooze, it
pumped
, coursing red down her jaw, then pattering onto her already-soaked black jersey. Somewhere on this drive, a fist or a foot or a tentacle had broken her nose. The bone stuck out a little bit, red-smeared white. Becca looked like she’d been mugged, yet if she felt any pain, she didn’t show it; her eyes remained clear and focused.

“Third down,” she said. “We don’t get a touchdown here, we kick a field goal and tie it, but that leaves the door open for them to kick one of their own and win the game. If we want to be champions, we have to shove this ball right down their throats and score on
this play
.”

Quentin felt a small burst of energy, his soul willing his body to go on, driven by Becca’s words, her intensity. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in her.

“Listen up,” she said. “I-formation, wide-set, fake-dive-right, QB boot left.”

Quentin stood straight.

“No, they’ll see that coming. They—”

“
Shut your mouth, Barnes
,” Becca hissed. “My huddle, don’t ya know.”

“And my
team
. I’m the coach for this game, Montagne. I-formation, tight-set, pitch right.”

She shook her head. “No, we go with the boot.”

One play from a lead, and she was
arguing
with him?

“Montagne, just run the plays that I call!”

Her armored hand reached over Bud-O and grabbed Quentin’s facemask. She twisted it and yanked him forward so fast he had to put his hands on Bud-O’s back to keep from falling on top of him.

“
My huddle
,” she said. “Right now you’re my fullback, and my fullback
shuts the hell up
in
my
huddle, you got that?”

She shoved him back into place. Quentin stared at her, so stunned he didn’t know how to react.

Ju started laughing. “I’m glad I lived long enough to see
that
happen.”

Becca reached over the front row and slapped Ju’s helmet.