Quentin nodded. “You know he told me he’s eaten raw flesh with the Ki?”
“What do you mean, eaten? That’s past tense. He does it every week. Low One take him, look at him now.”
Warburg gestured to the far end of the hall. Most of the tables held members of only one race, either Human, Quyth or Sklorno. But Pine sat at a table of Quyth Warriors, laughing, smiling, and stuffing some limp, brown, multi-legged creature into his mouth.
“I hope he likes the heat, considering where the High One will place him on Judgment Day,” Warburg said. “I mean, it’s one thing to have to talk to these demons, that’s just the nature of the game, but to sit down with them, to eat with them, and eat their barbaric food. It’s unforgivable.”
Quentin nodded and turned back to his plate. The sight of Pine chewing that brown thing had killed his appetite, but he kept eating anyway. Tomorrow was the first practice, and he’d need all of his strength if he was going to win the starting QB slot.
5. PRACTICE
AS INSTRUCTED, his room lights flickered on at 6 a.m., one hour before the position meeting. His room filled with the loud sounds of the band Trench Warfare. He stretched as he listened to the seductive but strong vocals of Trench’s lead singer, Somalia Midori. Their music was banned back on Micovi, but Quentin had managed to get his hands on every song they had ever recorded. As a kid, he didn’t know it was even possible to circumvent the laws of the Holy Men. The more games he won, however, the easier it became to obtain contraband items like erotic pictures, recorded GFL broadcasts, or out-of-system books and music.
When he’d entered his sparse room for the first time the night before, he’d asked the computer if it could play any Trench Warfare for his wake-up call. The shocking answer — the computer had access to not only every Trench album, but most of the band’s live performances from the last five years. He could watch holo or just listen to audio. He’d had time for one holo before going to bed, and had watched in amazement at the four musicians performing on stage to a jumping, gyrating crowd of Humans. He’d been shocked to see that Somalia bore the blue skin of a Satirli 6 native. He thought she was beautiful, but just for a second, then asked the computer for sound only.
Discovering an endless library of music had been a surprise pleasure, but nothing compared to the well-nigh religious experience that came when he asked the computer if there were any archived GFL games.
[WHAT TEAM AND WHAT YEAR?] The computer had asked.
“How far back do the games go?”
[TO THE BEGINNING]
“What, the very first GFL games?”
[TO THE BEGINNING OF FOOTBALL]
“What do you mean, to the beginning of football? What’s the oldest game you’ve got?”
[FORDHAM COLLEGE, EARTH, VERSUS WAYNESBURG COLLEGE, EARTH, 1939]
“But, but that’s seven-hundred years ago!”
[SEVEN-HUNDRED AND FORTY-THREE YEARS AGO] the computer corrected. [WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE?]
“Yes!”
Quentin turned to the holotank. A picture flashed in the tank, but it looked very strange. He could make out football players, but they were tiny and far away, without color, and they were… flat, like a printed picture.
“What’s wrong with it? It looks broken.”
[THIS WAS CALLED ‘TELEVISION,’ A TWO-DIMENSIONAL ELECTRONIC REPRESENTATION OF ACTUAL EVENTS.]
“Do you have more of these television broadcasts?”
[GALACTIC FREE ARCHIVE HAS EVERY GAME EVER BROADCAST VIA TELEVISION, RADIO, AND HOLOCAST]
Quentin watched a play, in which the quarterback took the snap, turned almost 360 degrees and followed a wall of blockers into a wall of defenders. His heart raced — to think he was watching the beginnings of his sport, a game played almost 750 years ago! He could watch any game ever recorded, all of the To Pirates games, even games from the archaic NFL.
One of those games played now in his holotank, between teams called the “Kansas City Chiefs” and the “Chicago Bears.” He’d instructed the computer to wake him with not only music, but also a random football broadcast at least 500 years old or older.
As the music’s heavy beat pounded through his small quarters, he dragged himself out of bed and started stretching. He had plans today — he’d show them all just what kind of a player he was.
He walked through the ship’s empty corridors, descended to field level, and entered the central locker room. A circular area, the central locker room was built around a holoboard. Four doors lined the circular room. A small icon hung on each door: a Human, a Ki, a Sklorno and a Quyth Warrior. A huge, realistic mural dominated the other side of the circular room. Quentin stared at the brightly colored, six-tentacled monster rising up from the depths in a spray of deep-red water. Rows of long, backwards-curved teeth lined a cavernous mouth. One large eye glowed an eerie green. He nodded to the picture.
He entered the Human door and found his own space.
Barnes, #10 it read above the locker.
Get used to that number, galaxy. You’re going to be hearing it a lot.
He opened the locker. The first thing he took out was his practice jersey. He stared at the number “10” on the chest. He felt the texture of the black Kevlar fabric. This was only a practice jersey, yet it was of a far higher quality than anything he’d worn in the PNFL.
He set the jersey flat on the ground.
He smiled as he pulled out a Kool Products body-control suit, designed to regulate his temperature on the field. Coolant fluid constantly circulated through microtubules in the suit’s thin, rubbery fabric. He slid into the suit, which automatically adjusted itself to conform perfectly to his body.
Next he pulled out his arm-and-shoulder armor. Rawlings Null-Contact™ inertia-dampening system. State of the art. Supposedly the armor could stop a bullet, absorbing the velocity into the hard shell instead of transmitting it to the wearer.
He slid them on. Like the Kool suit, the armor’s micro-sensor circuits automatically adjusted for a tailored fit. The armor was thinner on his left arm, his throwing arm, to allow maximum flexibility.
Next came the matching lower-torso armor, which would protect his ribs, stomach, kidneys and lower back. He wrapped it around his waist — the micro-sensors contracted and expanded, locking it in precisely with the shoulder armor.
Groin and leg armor were more of the same. The knee joints were made of an interstellar-caliber alloy, designed to allow normal flexibility but locking out any possible hyperextension. He slid his feet into the armored boots, which locked in perfectly with the leg armor.
With all this protection, it seemed a wonder that any being got hurt at all. And yet they did get hurt — frequently, and badly. Football players were just too big, too strong, too fast and too violent. Quentin wondered what kind of injuries might occur were it not for this high-tech armor.
He moved around, feeling the armor move with him, a perfect fit that didn’t seem to hinder his range of motion. He pulled on the jersey, then grabbed his helmet. The shiny black Riddell helmet was lighter than anything he’d used before, but probably ten times stronger than what he’d worn on Micovi. A patch of bright orange decorated the front of the helmet, from temple to temple. Six white stripes stretched out from the orange patch, like the arms of a stylized sunrise. There were three white stripes on each side: one curving above the ear hole, one halfway up the curving side, and one higher up on each side of the helmet’s center. The stripes represented the six tentacles of the Quyth creature for which the Krakens were named.