[PASS COMPLETE. A GAIN OF SIX YARDS. SECOND AND FOUR]
Pine walked back to Quentin, who couldn’t stop himself from constantly looking around. “What do you think, rookie?”
“This is incredible. Is this where we practice?”
Pine shook his head. “No, we practice on the main field. But this is where you do your position work, and drill for each week’s game. This way you can practice sets over and over again against holographs that are just as fast as the opposition’s defensive backs. Practice squad players aren’t as much of a challenge.”
“Can I give it a try?”
Pine grabbed a football and tossed it to Quentin. “Be my guest. Let me set it up for you. It’s second-and-four, what do you want to run?”
Quentin smiled. “I want to go deep.”
Pine smiled — that condescending smile again — and nodded. “Wide set, snake package, double post. On two. Defense, cover two with woman-to-woman under.”
“You mean man-to-man.”
“The Sklorno are females, remember? Woman-to-woman. There you go, kid, I made it easy for you.”
The players materialized and ran to the line. Quentin walked forward, eyes wide with wonder. He crouched below the center as his eyes scanned the defense. The reality was such that he recognized Warburg at tight end, Scarborough at wide receiver, Hawick in the slot, two yards in and one yard back from Scarborough. He didn’t bother to look, but he knew a life-like image of number 47, tailback Mitchell Fayed, would be right behind him.
“Hut… hut!” The line surged forward. It sounded similar to a real line crash, but was just a bit stale and echoey. Quentin dropped back five steps, planted and eased into his standup, ball at the ready.
He watched the holo-Scarborough streak down the right sideline. The man-to-man (woman-to-woman, that is) coverage quickly fell behind. Just as the safety started to pick up the route, Quentin reared back and let the ball fly. It sailed through the air in a perfect, arching spiral, a brown missile framed against a bright purple sky. The ball looked on the money, but the safety moved faster than anything Quentin had ever seen on a football field.
“Damn it,” Quentin whispered as the holo-safety blurred in front of the holo-Scarborough, leapt twelve feet into the air, and reached for the ball. The ball continued down the field, bouncing off the flat leaves, but Quentin didn’t need the computer to tell him the results.
[PASS INTERCEPTED]
“Why’d you guys have to rig this? Quentin said. “You think that’s funny?”
“Rig it?” Pine said. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh come on, you saw how fast that safety closed. Nothing moves that fast.”
Pine and Yitzhak looked at each other, then started laughing.
“Welcome to the GFL, backwater,” Yitzhak said. “You’re going to love it here.”
Quentin glared. If they wanted to play stupid games with him, he’d show them. “Let me try that again.”
“Why, so you can fail again?” Hokor’s voice caught him by surprise. He turned, an unexpected sense of trepidation in his chest, as if he were a teenage boy caught in the middle of masturbating.
“End simulation!” Hokor barked. The tiny Quyth Leader marched towards Quentin as the field, the fans, the stadium and the players vanished, replaced by the clear dome and the sparkling stars.
“Barnes, what in the name of your primitive, backwater gods was that?”
Hokor’s fur seemed to stand on end, making him look thicker than normal. Quentin knew that was some instinctive reaction, evolutionarily designed to make Hokor look bigger, therefore more dangerous, but in reality it just made him look fuzzy, like a stuffed animal. Still, his voice had a tone of command Quentin’s previous coaches had never possessed. Or, perhaps more accurately, had never used, at least not on him.
“That was an interception, Coach,” Quentin said calmly.
“Why did you throw it?”
“Well, I thought I had Scarborough on the streak.”
“You thought? You thought? Don’t you know who the Warpigs’ safety is?”
Quentin assumed it was a rhetorical question, but Hokor seemed to wait for an answer. Quentin shrugged. “Nope.”
Hokor’s pedipalps quivered with anger. “You don’t know who it is, but you threw the pass anyway? You didn’t know that the Warpigs’ picked up Keluang in free agency?”
“Keluang?” “I thought he, I mean, she, played for the Hullwalkers, in Tier One.”
“Well now she plays for the Warpigs!” Hokor’s furry body shook with anger. “You stupid Human, you don’t even know who you’re playing against and you just blindly throw into coverage.”
Quentin smiled. “Take it easy, Coach. How am I supposed to know who’s on what team right now?” Quentin saw Pine and Yitzhak duck their heads in an effort to conceal their grins. Yitzhak hid his face in his hands and slowly shook his head.
“It’s your job to know,” Hokor said coldly. “You are a quarterback for the Ionath Krakens. We will not make it to the Tier Two tournament and therefore back into the glory of Tier One if my helpless quarterbacks don’t know everything there is to know about the opposition. You must be punished for this error. You will report to me after practice. And by tomorrow, you will know the defensive roster of all nine teams in the Quyth Conference.”
“By tomorrow? Come on, Coach — I figure that out on the field. Nobody knows all that stuff, nobody except sports reporters.”
Hokor turned to face Pine. “Who is the second-string free safety for the Sheb Stalkers?”
“Fairmont,” Pine answered instantly.
“What are her stats?
“Last recorded time in the 40 was a 3.2. She’s seventeen years old, an eight-year veteran, tends to jump the short routes and give extra space on deep routes for passing situations. She comes in as nickel back, but doesn’t like to hit big tight ends head-on.”
“Yitzhak, what is the strategy when playing her?”
“Passing situations, send tight ends on deep outs or deep curls. She doesn’t pressure the tight end enough, usually allowing for a little extra time to make a well-placed throw. Shouldn’t go deep on her if avoidable, but put the ball up high if you must because her vertical leap of twelve feet usually can’t compete with our receivers.”
Hokor turned back to Quentin. “That is why these men have been around the league for so long.”
Quentin sneered. “With all due respect Coach, just because you guys memorize one player doesn’t mean anything. I may be young, but I wasn’t born yesterday. You guys set that up just to impress me.”
Hokor’s fur rippled, and his pedipalps were a vibrating blur. “Pick a player.”
“Huh?”
“Pick a player.”
Quentin felt a sinking feeling. “From what team?”
“Any team in the Quyth Irradiated Division.”
“Okay, how about this? The second-string weak-side linebacker for the Bigg Diggers.”
“Ripok the Stonecutter,” Pine and Yitzhak said simultaneously.
“Last recorded time of 3.9 in the 40,” Pine said.
“Five-year veteran, the last three with the Diggers,” Yitzhak added.
“Very disciplined,” Pine said. “Plays excellent zone, makes excellent reads, but poor lateral movement due to leg-replacement surgery in 2671.”
“Use quick tight end out patterns,” Yitzhak said. “Or, bring wide receivers on crossing patterns and throw when they are equal to Ripok, because he can’t break on the ball as fast as they can.”
Quentin just stared. He didn’t know that much information about his own linebackers for the Raiders, let alone for another team. And these guys had ripped off the info without a second thought.