Analog Science Fiction And Fact - June 2014 (15 page)

"Get your game on," she said. "Hardwick's going to pull out all the stops, and you know what that means."

Coach took the headset from her. "We're going with the same defense, cover two, light."

It was normally the right call, Markus thought, but it wouldn't work. Hardwick would take him out with his mystery force generator, sure as hell.

Play clock wound down, quarterback started his snap count.

He was out of time.

No.

He stood and made a T with his hands. "Time out."

"What the hell, Greene?" Coach's voice neared the threshold of pain. "Get to the god-damned sideline. Now."

He trotted to the sideline with the rest of the defense. "Sorry Coach, but we need to change it up."

"What the hell were you thinking? The offense might need that time out if the Giants score here."

"I know. But traditional defense isn't going to work here. I need you to trust me this time." He turned to Kat. "If we can't figure out how he's cheating the forces, and I mean right now, we're going to lose this game."

Kat nodded. "And your ACL. Or worse. We don't know how much force he can generate."

"Aw hell, you too?" Coach turned away, holding his head.

Kat swore in frustration. "How can we find his limitations if we don't even know how he's doing it?"

Limitations?
Markus latched onto the word, rolled it around his mind. There must be boundaries. "Kat, what was the ball's deflection like when he took your knee out?"

"Low-g pass, it turned inward."

"Just like normal?"

"Yeah, just like—oh! He had to choose between the ball and my knee."

"Right. That's the key."

Coach interrupted. "Time's up. Get back out there. Cover two, light, you know the—"

"Go heavy, Coach."

"They
like
heavy on these crossing routes."

"I know. I'm counting on it."

"Then why the hell—"

"Just
trust
me, Coach."

"Get the hell out on the field."

Markus pulled his faceplate down and trotted onto the field. Everything hinged on Coach now. If he dialed the gee down...

The center snapped the ball.

A giant sat on Markus's back, squeezing the air out of his lungs and pressing his feet hard against the turf. The plastiform at his ankles and knees stiffened. He smiled and sucked hard on his rebreather. Maintaining blood O
₂
saturation was going to be critical.

Hardwick cut toward Markus, moving fast for the gee level.

Markus took tiny steps, running carefully in the high-g. Every step sent a shock wave through his legs and up his spine. He took a steep angle, one that would bring him behind Hardwick.

Choose, you bastard.

Hardwick hesitated.
Gotcha!

Markus saw him make his decision. He sped past, taking the inside position. Where the ball would go without deflection.

You can shear my knee or counter the deflection. Not both.

Now came the hard part. With Hardwick committing to his position, Markus had little time to close the gap. He drove the balls of his feet deep into the turf, pushing himself to a dead run at high-g.

The ball came out of the backfield. Markus's chest burned, his heart thumped hard in his ears. His blood O
₂
indicator flashed red as the numbers fell.

He thought he heard the crowd cheering wildly, or maybe it was Coach screaming in his headset. The ball sailed in a low arc, just ahead. Jumping was not an option at this gee. One more step.

Arm out, fingers extended.

The ball came in hot, stinging his fingers. He batted upward as hard as he could.

The ball looked like it stopped in place, tracing the slightest upward arc, before plummeting downward. He stumbled forward, a burning pain shooting through his ankle, and grabbed the ball with both hands.

His upper carapace stiffened with impact from behind. The ground hit with a sharp thump that sent a shock of pain through his back and chest. The whistle blew and normal-g returned. He lay on the turf, wheezing oxy-mix deep into his lungs, with the ball firmly clenched in his hands and Hardwick lying on top.

The home crowd of Giants fans was dead silent. He rolled over to get up, and Hardwick punched the ball. It shifted, and Markus tightened his grip. "It's over, man."

"No way," Hardwick screamed. "No way." He swung again, harder.

"Get off me, asshole." He balled a fist, ready to strike back.
No.
No way was he going to let his team down this time. Coach had put his trust in him, and for once in his damned life he was going to be worthy of it.

Whistles blew, and two officials pulled Hardwick from him. "After the interception, personal foul, number 81, offense. Fifteen yard penalty, first down."

Markus started to get up, made it to his hands and knees when Hardwick pointed his jaw at him and hit a toggle inside his faceplate with his chin. A blast of force caught Markus and threw him violently to the turf. His plastiform stiffened, but not before electric pain shot through his elbow.

Tens of thousands of spectators gasped as one. Markus crawled to his feet, grinning despite the pain. He'd just won, and from the look in Hardwick's eyes he knew it too.

Markus turned away without a word and limped off the field. The limp reminded him of the pain in his ankle. He was going to have to put in a lot of time in the training room to get healthy for next week. But there would be a next week. He knew in his heart that the offense would eat up the last few minutes and preserve the win. He trusted them. He trusted Coach.

Kat caught him on the sideline. "All right, spill. How did you keep him from ripping your knees up?"

"I gambled that he could only produce one force—either cancel the ball's deflection or take out my legs. So I gave him a choice."

She nodded vigorously. "You settled where the ball would go with the gravitomagnetic deflection force working. If he went for your legs, he'd never make the catch."

"Well, I am a genius, you know."

"But what if he had decided to take you out and take his chances on fourth down?"

Markus shrugged. "Another gamble. Your plastiform was supposed to stiffen fast enough to protect your knee from a shearing force, but apparently Hardwick's mystery force was faster. But I was running at high-g, so my plastiform stiffened every time my knee supported my weight."

"And they call me crazy?" She laughed. "You took a hell of a risk."

"Someone had to stop the guy. He was a menace."

"Greene!" Coach's voice carried across the sidelines. "What the hell was that out there?"

"Uh, Coach?"

"I'll tell you what it was. Damn good defense. Prettiest high-g interception I ever seen." An honest-to-goodness grin split his face, but only for a moment.

Markus gave him a nod. "Better get working on next week's game plan, Coach."

"In the wake of the GEM scandal surrounding Giants wide receiver Dom Hardwick, Fish-Co announced a breakthrough in the manipulation of the gravitomagnetic force. Researchers have been able to generate the little-known force independently of the gravitoelectric force by using a revolutionary technique that does not require the rapid rotation of heavy superconducting drums. A spokesman for Fish-Co says that a tiny prototype device was stolen from a secure research facility and somehow made its way into Hardwick's hands. Speculation centers on Marta Fischer, who had been romantically involved with the football star. Sources close to Miss Fischer indicate that the young woman had hoped to reconcile with her former lover."

—AP/UPI Newsnet

The region of Jennifer extended to about thirty kilometers. Out there, amongst the decaying factory belt, daffodils pushed their heads through the tired earth of the canal banks.

The Steam Barons may have lost their power, but the world still bore their scars. Even so, Jennifer was at work to make things beautiful. At twenty kilometers, shining fields of buttercups lapped the slag heaps, At ten kilometers there were avenues of laburnum, the strings of yellow flowers drooping over rusting railway lines. At one kilometer the fields gave way to green lawns as smooth as a billiards table. A team of gardeners labored constantly to unstitch the Abraxan threadweed that wriggled blindly up from deep below ground. Gardeners pruned the fruit trees, they collected the oranges and peaches into baskets to be stacked in the cool rooms by the kitchens of Jennifer's house.

The house was the stationary heart of the region of Jennifer. The maid would open the front door in her yellow dress and white pinafore and show guests into a reception room striped with yellow and white wallpaper where they would be served pale golden earl grey tea. Usually, Jennifer would come down to meet them, but a very fortunate few would be ushered upstairs to her private rooms.

Jennifer's rooms were painted in yellow and gold. They were decorated with gifts brought from around the Universe: diamond casts from the ice caves of Lithium; living gold leaf from Aral 9. Jennifer would sit on the brocade sofa in the center of the room wearing a simple white dress over a silk slip. Beneath the slip, silk underwear, a hand stitched brassiere, silk knickers. And beneath the silk knickers, the reason for all of this extravagance.

That was Jennifer, life support system for a womb. A womb that, in eight days time, was due to receive its first passenger.

But not if Randy had anything to do with it.

Randy's life had taken a very different direction to Jennifer's. There was no region of Randy. Randy was the region of Randy in its entirety. Randy had no home: he had been re-engineered that way. His skin was thick and leathery, so well insulated that he could sleep in the pools of cold water that filled the broken basements of the broken factories in the former industrial zone. When the outsiders had come to Abraxas and bankrupted the Steam Barons, Randy's re-engineering decision looked to have been the smart choice. As the economy collapsed across the planet, as the work dried up and the bread lines grew, as the engines fell silent and the trains stopped moving, people came to envy those like Randy. Having metacarbon teeth that could bite through bone and a metacarbon laced stomach lining containing acids and catalysts that could dissolve and metabolize just about anything organic seemed like a great thing. Especially when you were half starving and getting by on a diet of boiled Abraxan threadweed and however many Abraxan bloodworms you could pull from the ground. Those who had put their faith in property and fine clothes, people like Jennifer, in fact, seemed to have backed the wrong horse.

But that was before Abraxas had fully opened up to the outside universe. Now, six years later, there weren't the riches of the Steam Barons but there wasn't the same aching poverty either. People got by well enough, and those as different as Randy were treated with mistrust at best, and outright hostility at worst. Little wonder that when Randy entered the region of Jennifer he did it in disguise, riding on the back of a truck delivering liquid manure to the garden. Half submerged in the tank of slurry, he didn't worry about the smell; in fact he dipped his nose beneath the level of the liquid and took a couple of gulps whenever he felt thirsty. To his re-engineered tastebuds it tasted good. Of course it did, it was full of goodness, there were enough nutrients there to send a field full of seed thrusting to the sky in golden headed glory.

Randy wallowed in the warmth of liquid shit whilst, in the house, Jennifer had just got out of the bath and was rubbing oil into her smooth calves. She wouldn't be eating slurry tonight, that was for certain.

"No, no, no, Jennifer! That's not how one eats a salad!"

"Then how, M. Lombard?"

Jennifer didn't throw down her fork, she didn't show the slightest hint of annoyance at being corrected. Jennifer wanted to be the best at everything, and she relished the opportunity to learn.

"Like this," said M. Lombard, picking up his own fork. He speared a fragment of arugula, a little mizuna, some red leaf. He dipped them in shiny balsamic vinegar. "You see?" he said, turning the forkful this way and that. "Every moment can be beautiful."

Jennifer's father entered the room. He'd had his skin replaced with metacarbon fifteen years ago, back when the procedure had been prohibitively expensive for the common workers of Abraxas. Now that outside contact had made the procedure more affordable her father had returned to wearing clothes—if a series of polished titanium plates, a completely unnecessary covering to his impervious jet black skin, could be called clothes. But he looked impressive, Jennifer knew. The servants were terrified of him, they shrank into doorways as he strode down the corridors of the house, titanium plates clattering.

"Reynaldo has confirmed he will arrive one week from today at six o'clock," said Jennifer's father. "He will stay here for four days, with an option for a further four if there are complications."

"Stop worrying, Daddy. I was made for this. Reynaldo will fertilize me, you can depend upon it."

"Let's just hope that he can get it up," said her father, darkly. "It's cash on conception. He won't be the first man to shrivel under pressure."

Jennifer touched his hand.

"You worry too much, Daddy. I know my business. And if not, there are drugs."

"I hope so for his sake. The Shinkansen are paying him a fortune to go up for stud." Her father paused and sniffed the air.

"What is that smell?" he said. Annoyance flickered across his face. "Are the drains backing up again?"

"I don't know," said Jennifer. "Why don't you go and see?" She turned to M. Lombard. "I think that I have had enough practice for today. I will go and have a lie down; I need to be ready for next week."

"Certainly, Jennifer," said M. Lombard.

Jennifer entered her bedroom to find Randy sitting on the bed, a reactionless pistol pointing in her direction.

"Randy!" gasped Jennifer. "I thought it would be you. Who else would smell so bad? How did you get in?"