Analog Science Fiction And Fact - June 2014 (13 page)

Markus pushed his aching legs even harder and sucked in ragged gasps of oxy-mix, but he was too far behind. And with the free safety blitzing, the field ahead was clear. He heard the crowd's roar over his pounding heart long before Hardwick crossed the goal line.

Ballgame.

The GEM generators beneath the field spun down to normal-g with the blow of the whistle ending the play. Markus took a knee and sucked oxy deep into his lungs. Hardwick brushed him on his way back to the sideline.

"That all you got, Greene? Shit, I heard you were good."

Markus spit out his mouthpiece/rebreather and slammed his helmet's faceplate up, but Hardwick was already too far away to hear any retort he might manage to gasp.
Bastard.

A hand batted the side of his helmet. "C'-mon, Markus," Kat said. "It ain't no thing. Let's shower up."

"That little wise ass wants to come into my house and talk shit? He's got another thing coming."

"Let it go. The guy's good. He beat me on a deep route in the third quarter. Besides, he's got a hot ass."

"Damn it, Kat." But he felt a smile growing on his lips. "All right, you win. I just don't understand how I got myself so far out of position. Gave them the division title."

"Hey, we still got a wildcard spot. Fifth seed. With a little luck, you'll get another shot at him." She made a grasping gesture aimed at Hardwick's retreating butt. "And maybe he'll get a shot at the Wild Kat."

Markus turned to watch Hardwick trot into the visitors' tunnel. "I hope so."

He followed Kat to the sideline, but Coach caught his arm before he could head down the tunnel to the locker room.

"What the hell happened out there?"

Markus shook his head. "Gravity shift threw me."

"That's on me. I knew they'd punch up the g-field to slow our blitz, so I dumped the last of my GEM power allotment into reducing gravity as far as I could for you guys. I didn't expect them to have that much juice left. They were burning twenty megajoules a second on that play! When my juice ran out, well, you felt it."

Markus whistled. "That's what? Over two gee? No wonder running hurt so bad. But I still don't get..." Gravity shift or no, that ball didn't move right.

"What is it, Greene?"

"Nothing, I guess. I just got beat."

"Each team begins the game with an energy allotment, thirty gigajoules in most professional leagues, for use in the GEM generators. The coach must select his gravity setting before the ball's GPS chip detects the snap. Net gravity on the field is simply the vector sum of the two coaches' settings and will remain constant until the play is blown dead or one or both coaches depletes his energy allotment."

—
Beginner's Guide to Football Strategy

"I don't get it, Kat." Markus raised his voice over the blaring electrometal. "How the hell could my instincts be that far off?"

"Let it go. Have a drink." Kat called a 'tender over. It hovered next to her on its GEM field while she punched in an order for two beers. "It was a two-gee field, with a shift in the middle of the play. That never happens. No one can blame you for misjudging the throw."

"But that's just it. I
didn't
misjudge."

Kat slid a bottle across the table. "Drink your beer and forget it. We have to prepare for Chicago this week. Coach is gonna need his Mike linebacker focused on their brutal running game, not looking back at one little mistake in pass coverage."

"But it wasn't—oh, hell, never mind." He picked up the bottle and took a long draught. His eyes scanned the dance floor. The DJ had spun up the GEM generator beneath the floor, letting the dancers frolic in low-g. Looked like about a quarter gee. He watched a spike-haired blonde twirl high in the air and drift gracefully back down to her dance partner, her dress flaring tantalizingly.

"Hot little thing," Kat said.

Markus was paying more attention to the hot thing's guy, how he had to stutter-step to the side to catch her. The gravitomagnetic London moment. Perpendicular to the g-f ield, but much smaller magnitude. Most people weren't even aware of it; he'd built his career convincing fans he was a wizard by timing the deflection just right.

Kat blew a heavy sigh. "Man, you gotta let it go. Chicago has the number one running back in the league. He's fast, especially when they dial the grav down. Nothing like the high-g power run game you're used to."

"No worries. I'll be ready to execute whatever game plan Coach comes up with."

"That's more like it." Kat flashed a broad smile, then downed the last of her beer. "The Wild Kat is heading out to the dance floor, maybe pick up a piece of meat."

Markus took another sip of his beer and watched Kat tumble like a fool on the low-g dance floor.

"The first gravitoelectromagnetic (GEM) generators were bulky and expensive, limited to space launches and military applications. As the size and price came down, they found more and more commercial uses: air travel, heavy construction, amusement parks, and even high-end automobiles. The earliest use in football was by Gabe Armstrong, then-owner of the expansion Los Angeles Pythons, who hoped to gain a competitive advantage by secretly installing fifteen GEM generators beneath his new stadium. The resulting scandal cost Armstrong ownership of the team, but fan interest peaked and soon the league was running variable-g exhibition games on the field. The modern-day football field is built with an array of one hundred high-performance GEM generators, allowing coaches fine control over the field's gravity strength."

—
GEM Fields in Sports:A Brief History

"Okay Coach, third and short," Markus said into his throat mic. They're gonna run Mitchell up the gut."

"Agreed." A gust of wind howled around his helmet, muffling Coach's voice in Markus's earpiece.
Windy city, indeed.
"I'll dial up the gee to slow him down, but I can't spare a lot of megajoules. Bring the safeties up and make sure your Will 'backer keeps contain on the outside, just in case. They're killing us with that sweep play."

Markus signaled his players into position and watched for the snap. The ball moved and he felt lighter. Chicago's coach won the gee battle this time.

Kat's voice shouted in his earpiece. "Sweep!"

Markus took a step to the right, ready to chase down the outside run, but his instincts stopped him. Something about the zone blocking scheme they were using screamed deception. He turned back in time to see Mitchell leaping high over the center, soaring in the low-g.

He risked two steps forward to build momentum, then launched himself like a missile. He felt the shock of the impact stiffen the plastiform at his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around Mitchell, and his momentum sent the two of them cartwheeling back behind the line of scrimmage.

The whistle blew and normal-g returned. No gain. Fourth down.

Markus did a quick victory dance and trotted to the sidelines.

"Nice play out there," Coach said. "Sealed the win."

"Don't count your chickens, Coach."

"They put all their GEM allotment into that play. I got three minutes to go, my offense on the field with a four-point lead, and ninety megajoules to slow the game down. They'll never get the ball back."

"I dunno, Coach. Their D-line is solid."

The corners of Coach's mouth dipped. "Who plucked you out of the fourth round, ignored the naysayers, gave you time to develop your skills? Now you're gonna doubt me?"

Markus grinned and clapped his back. "Show me how it's done."

He sat on the bench and watched the offense grind out a high-g running attack that burned up the remaining game time, just like Coach said. At the buzzer, Markus flashed Coach a wide grin and trotted onto the field with the rest of the team to shake hands with the Chicago players. He kept his eyes open for Mitchell; young guy like that deserved a show of respect.

"Yo, Greene."

Markus turned to the voice, Chicago's strong safety. "Good game, bro."

The safety bumped his fist, then said, "I saw your whiff against Hardwick last week."

"Man, why'd you have to go there?"

"It's not like that." The safety waved his hands, erasing the thought. "I'm just saying he did it to me too, when we played LA earlier in the season. Something ain't right about him."

Markus nodded. "I remember watching film of your game when I was prepping for the Giants. Heh, at the time, I thought you had an off game. Now, I just don't know."

The safety's eyes narrowed. "I don't have off games."

"It was the deflection force, wasn't it?"

"Not nearly what it should have been at that g-level. I don't know how he's doing it, but he's cheating."

"I don't know, man," Markus said. "I don't like calling a guy a cheater, not without some hard evidence."

"You think the laws of physics work different for him? He have some dirt on Old Man Einstein or something?"

"Maybe he's just better at judging the deflection."

"You better be damn sure. You have him next week in the divisional round."

"The gravitomagnetic force is a commonly overlooked artifact of the GEM generators. The spinning superconductor drums generate the gravitoelectric force, the force that is aligned in the up-down direction and directly influences the effective gravitational force on the playing field. The gravitomagnetic force acts perpendicularly to the playing field and is much weaker. Thus, it has little influence on the motion of the players and is commonly ignored. A ball in flight may experience a noticeable deflection from the force, particularly at extremely high or low gravity settings. Look for it next time you watch a game."

—
Beginner's Guide to Football Strategy

"You called for me, Greene?"

"Yeah, Coach." Markus pointed to the vidscreen. "Take a look."

Coach frowned. "This better be big. I got a lot on my plate."

"Just watch." Markus started the video, a clip of Hardwick making a catch across the middle. "Watch the ball."

"Looks like low-g. Maybe point seven."

"Yeah, so the ball should deflect toward midfield."

"It does."

"But not enough. And at high-g, the sideline deflection is smaller than it should be, too."

"What are you getting at?"

"One of Chicago's safeties suspected Hardwick was cheating somehow, and I think he's right."

"I don't have time for this, Greene."

"Listen to me!"

Coach gave him a hard look. "Don't you dare shout at me."

"Okay Coach, I'm sorry." Markus took a moment to calm himself. "But I've watched lots of film. I
know
how the ball's supposed to move. And it only moves wrong for Hardwick. It did when he played for the Pythons, too."

"Look, I know the DBs always come up with some kind of cheating rumor when a receiver beats too many of them." Coach pointed at the door behind him. "And I bet the D-linemen across the hall have conspiracy theories about how the offensive line opened up the A gap so wide in Chicago. Just watch the film and make any adjustments you think you need to beat him." He stalked out and pulled the door shut behind him.

Kat's head poked over the edge of the cubicle. "Man, you gotta learn to keep your head low," she said. "You know Coach is always pissy when he has to prep for the Giants."

"Not with me. He knows I got his back."

"Then maybe he's still pissed at you for getting torched for the winning score last time. Better make damn sure it doesn't happen in the rematch."

"Damn it, Kat, you know I didn't get..." He saw her mischievous grin and stopped. "Real funny." He turned back to the vidscreen and loaded another clip.

He watched the clip three times before he gave up. Huffing with annoyance, he opened a web browser and typed in a search on Hardwick. He paged through with little idea what he was looking for. There were a lot of headlines from his days at USC, of course. Pics of Hardwick in uniform, press release photos, candid shots with a few different women. One particular young woman seemed to merit a lot of media attention. Marta Fischer.

Holy hell.

"Hey Kat, take a look at this."

Her head reappeared. "What now?"

"Did you know Hardwick dated Hans Fischer's daughter back at USC?"

"What of it? Young stud, football star, probably banged half the socialites in LA."

"So he has connections with the guy who got rich off mass producing GEM generators."

"So what are you saying? Fish-Co gave daddy's little girl's ex some sort of GEM cheat code? Or maybe she got her old man to stuff a couple of superconducting drums up his ass?"

He felt heat in his face. "Seems suspicious, is all. Just forget I mentioned it." He turned his attention back to the screen.

"Don't get too cozy. We have variable-g calisthenics in fifteen."

He blew out a long breath. "I know what I saw. I thought you of all people would have my back."

"I'm not saying I don't—"

He stood, sending his chair skittering across the floor. "Save it." He smacked the door open and stormed out.

"Gravity can be a double-edged sword. Conventional wisdom is to use high gravity to slow down a pass rush, especially against a blitz, but the cost is that it slows your receivers and makes the throw difficult for the quarterback. If you trust your line to pick up the blitz, an unexpected use of low gravity may allow your receivers to get past the defense quickly. Since the ball will hang in the air longer, the quarter-back can release the ball quicker, further frustrating the pass rush. It all depends on the specific talents of your players. There is no substitute for knowing your players."

—
The Art of Coaching Football

As leader of the defense, Markus was on the field for the coin toss. He didn't get to call the toss; that was the quarterback's prerogative. "Tails."

The coin toss was done in low-g; the fans screamed with anticipation while the coin took its time falling. Markus bounced with pent-up energy, drifting slowly back to the field with each hop.
Let's go!

"Heads. The home team wins the toss and has elected to receive."

The plastiform at his knees and ankles stiffened momentarily as normal-g returned. He trotted off the field long enough for the kickoff. The defense gathered around him. "Let's go out there and kick some ass," he said. "Victory on three. One, two, three."