The Starter (25 page)

They raced out of the tunnel, a sentient tornado of blue and white. Snow-white helmets decorated only on the left side with the Ice Storm logo: six metal-blue swords in a snowflake formation, gleaming with chrome highlights that matched chrome facemasks.

Their jerseys were white on top, fading to a light blue in the middle that blended into leg armor — light blue at the waist blending to navy blue at the shins and shoes, ending with shoes of blue so dark they looked damn near black. Chrome numbers with dark blue trim decorated shoulder pads, chest and back. Even their belts and shoe clips were chrome.

Aside from the uniforms — which Quentin thought were just about as cool as cool could get — what he noticed was the
size
of the players. The Krakens had big players, but the Ice Storm squad just seemed a bit larger across the board. In particular Quentin had trouble looking away from number 76.

Number 76... Ryan Nossek, All-Pro defensive end, HeavyG and big as a tank. The sack leader of Tier One.

A quarterback killer.

In Nossek’s six-year career with the Ice Storm, he had four confirmed kills: one Sklorno receiver, a Human tight end, and two quarterbacks. He’d also ended the careers of two additional quarterbacks. One, a backup for the Sala Intrigue, now had a successful bedding company. You could see his commercials in just about every GFL broadcast. The other, a former starter for the Shorah Warlords, hadn’t made one coherent sentence in the three years since Nossek blind-sided him.

Nossek was a killer, true, but all the hits had been clean. He was widely respected in both the media and among GFL players. None of that mattered now — Nossek was the enemy, and Quentin was going to put him down.

Nossek stopped walking and looked across the empty playing field. He seemed to be searching for something, seemed to find it when he locked eyes with Quentin. The gigantic HeavyG slowly raised one massive hand and pointed at Quentin.

Mind games? This joker wanted to play
mind games
?

Quentin extended both hands at shoulder height, palms up, then flipped his fingers repeatedly, making them touch the heels of his hands. The gesture said
come get some
.

Nossek smiled and nodded.

The crowd roared so loudly neither team could hear the whistles of the flying Harrah refs waiting at the center of the field. Quentin saw the refs beckoning captains from both teams to come out for the coin toss.

He felt a rush in his chest as he jogged out, John Tweedy on his left, Hawick on his right. Quentin was the offensive captain, John the defensive captain. Hawick was this week’s honorary captain, a reward for her fantastic Tier Two season. Such prestige made her shake uncontrollably, of course, but she’d earned the right.

The three Krakens reached the 50-yard line and stood at the edge of an Ice Storm logo painted onto the field. A Harrah ref floated seven feet above the logo. The ref, or “zebe,” as Don Pine called them, wore a black-and-white stripped jersey with a matching black-and-white striped speaker backpack. Two yellow penalty flags dangled, just waiting to be tossed. Just a few feet on the other side of the ref, the Ice Storm captains: Nossek, linebacker Chaka the Brutal, and quarterback Paul Infante.

The players nodded at each other. Quentin waited for one of the Ice Storm captains to say something, to talk trash, but they did not.

“Players,” the zebe said, his mechanized voice echoing across the packed stadium’s sound system, fighting for dominance over the still-shouting crowd. “Because this game is played in Creterakian-controlled space, we will use a Creterakian coin for the toss.”

The Harrah held out a tentacle, which was thick and flat like a squashed snake. The tip of the tentacle showed a round coin with the image of a planet — Creterak. “This is tails,” it said, then flipped the coin once. The other side showed the six-eyed head of a bat. “This is heads. Krakens, you are the visiting team, who will call it?”

“I will,” Quentin said. He’d share the wealth later in the season; use the coin toss as a bonus, a reward for people playing particularly well. For this game, however, his
first
game in Tier One, the honor was his.

“Call it in the air,” the zebe said, then tossed the coin high in a rapidly-spinning arc.

“Heads,” Quentin said.

The coin spun as it fell, hitting the white and chrome Ice Storm logo, bouncing once, then falling flat. Seven sets of eyes leaned in to see.

“Heads,” the zebe said. “Krakens, do you wish to kick off, receive, or defer?”

“We want the ball,” Quentin said.

“You sure?” Nossek said. The big HeavyG smiled, his demon-deep voice dripping with amusement. Seven-foot-three, easily five hundred pounds, long arms leading to massive fists that hung just an inch from the ground. “
Sure
you want the ball, Young’un? You might want to enjoy the day a little first.”

Tweedy took a step forward. “You want some?”
THE BIGGER THEY ARE THE MORE I GET TO EAT
flashed across his face.

Nossek sneered. Quentin realized that Nossek was just trying to affect someone’s game by getting into their head. Apparently that worked on the high-strung John Tweedy, who started to take another step forward but stopped when Quentin’s hand snapped up, palm on John’s chest.

“Easy,” Quentin said. “Let’s play smart.”

Nossek smiled and nodded at Quentin. The giant seemed as polite and professional as could be. He was going to try and kill you, but if he
didn’t
kill you, he’d happily help you up and pat you on the back.

“Ice Storm,” the Harrah referee said. “Which end zone do you wish to defend?”

Paul Infante, the quarterback, answered. “That one,” he said, pointing to a south end zone painted in blazing white with metallic letters that spelled out ice storm. Past the end zone, a waving sea of blue-, white-, and chrome-clad Isis fans ready to blast Quentin and his teammates with deafening noise.

The Harrah ref spun in the air, long tail pointing toward that end zone. “The Ice Storm will defend the south end zone. Sentients, prepare to play ball.”

The crowd’s roar hammered at Quentin. He turned and ran off the field, Tweedy and Hawick only a step behind him. His orange-clad teammates waited for him on the sideline. Krakens players packed in around him. So much mass, so much strength, so much energy and anger, pressing in on him from all sides.

When Quentin spoke, his words came out as a scream: guttural, short, and clipped, his head bouncing forward with each syllable.

“Let’s set this season off right. We get the ball, we show them the Krakens are for real.
Destroy
on three. One... two... three!”

“
DESTROY! DESTROY! DESTROY!
”

The kickoff return team ran onto the field, just as the Ice Storm’s kickoff unit did the same. Richfield waited to receive the ball. The kickoff and kickoff return teams were mostly comprised of backup players, second stringers who contributed by playing on various special teams. Second-stringers were a bit more expendable — because both teams accelerated to reach top speed before smashing into each other, more players died on kickoffs than on any other play.

Suddenly, the arena air filled with spinning images of Ice Storm sword-flakes, holograms sparkling in chrome and white and deep blue. The sound system played a roaring wind that screamed in time with the spinning images. Quentin had never seen anything like it. This was the first Tier One game he’d ever seen in person. It was more than just a game; it was a show — a pageant. Even in his season of Tier Two he’d seen nothing like this. He could only guess at the expense of such a stadium-wide holographic system. The Ice Storm had been in Tier One for twenty-four seasons, and as a result apparently had money to burn.

The crowd ate up the light show, screaming in time with the ebb and flow of the projected wind. Over 150,000 sentients playing along and enjoying every moment. Maybe the Leekee watching from up above were screaming as well, or making whatever noise aquatic creatures made.

The sound and swirling sword-storm vanished, allowing full vision of the white-lined, sapphire-blue field and the two teams preparing for action. Quentin focused on the ball sitting on a tee at the 35-yard line.

That same ball would be in his hands in only minutes.

The Ice Storm kicker raised his hand. The zebe blew his whistle, signifying the game was officially underway. The Human kicker ducked his head for a moment, then ran at the ball. His teammates ran with him, a wall of white and chrome and blue. The kicker nailed the ball, which sailed deep into air thick with the screams of Ice Storm fans.

Richfield waited as the ball descended. Perth, Kobayasho, Kopor the Climber, and Rebecca Montagne formed up in front of her. When the ball landed in Richfield’s tentacles, her four blockers were already going full speed forward, trying to punch a seam in the onrushing tide of blue and white. The Ice Storm’s “wall breakers” shot in, a pair of Sklorno speedsters that crashed into the wave of orange and black. Quentin caught a brief image of Rebecca launching herself, smashing into one of the white- and blue-clad wall breakers, a combined impact that had to be around forty miles an hour. Both players dropped to the ground, the irresistible force hitting the irresistible force.

Richfield shot into the coalescing pile of bodies. Quentin hoped to see her pop out the other side en route to a long return, but the pile collapsed and the zebes blew their whistles.

Quentin felt the butterflies roiling in his chest and stomach. The kick return team ran off as the offense ran on. Rebecca was slow to get up. The Sklorno she’d hit didn’t move at all. Whistles kept blowing long after the play was dead. White-backpacked Ice Storm docs flew from the Isis sideline rushing to the fallen player.

Quentin heard the hum of a medsled flying onto the field, then the echoing voice of the field announcer.

“
Player down on the field, number twenty three, North Branch
.”

Starting off a game with an injury was bad luck. Quentin didn’t want his team to dwell on it, so he gathered his huddle.

“All right, all right,” he said. “Focus on me, on me. Here we go, Krakens. First and ten, Richfield got us to the thirty-three, so we have good field position.”

He knew what was happening somewhere behind him — the medsled was hovering over the fallen player, lowering thousands of nano-fiber wires that would engulf her, allow her to be lifted without changing her position or moving her in a way that could further aggravate her injuries. Quentin saw some of his teammates’ eyes straying over his shoulder.

“Hey!” Quentin said. “Focus on me, got it?” The eyes snapped back to him. “This is a simple game. We run the ball, we catch the ball, and I throw the ball. We block, we execute, just like in practice.”

The medsled hummed again. Quentin didn’t turn to look — the Sklorno player was being taken to the tunnel, to the stadium’s emergency hospital somewhere underneath the stands. All stadiums had hospitals. Rarely did a game go by where at least one player didn’t need immediate, life-saving surgery.

Surgery that didn’t always work.

But such was the GFL, the life-and-death game that he and the rest of these sentients had chosen. Death was always just one snap away. If you thought about that too much, you would play with hesitation and be ineffective. To succeed in the game of football, one needed to play with reckless abandon.

“Here we go,” Quentin said. “Just like we practiced, three plays in a row, no huddle. I-set dive left, then I-set
counter
left, followed by quarterback boot right. That’s two runs right behind Kill-O-Yowet, then a boot where Shun-On-Won and I make Nossek look silly. Ain’t that right, Shun-On?”

The rookie Ki lineman barked out a string of unintelligible vowels. Quentin didn’t have to understand the words to feel the hate they contained — Shun-On-Won couldn’t wait to take on the Ice Storm’s All-Pro defensive end. This was the rookie’s chance to prove himself as a player, as a warrior.

“First play on three,” Quentin said. “Second two plays, we go on first sound. Ready?
Break!
”

The Krakens sprinted to the line. Quentin walked up slowly, taking it all in. The Ice Storm ran a 4-3 defense: four defensive linemen up front, three linebackers playing three or four yards behind them. That left four defensive backs — two cornerbacks near the sidelines, safety and strong safety four or five yards behind the linebackers. HeavyG defensive ends, Ki defensive tackles. The Ice Storm linebackers were all Quyth Warriors, and they were all excellent. The Storm’s only weak spot? The cornerbacks. If Quentin could stay in the pocket long enough to let Hawick, Scarborough, and Denver get deep, he knew he could notch some big plays. The key word being
if
. So much now depended on Shun-On-Won’s ability — could the rookie handle the pressure?

Quentin took his spot behind Bud-O-Shwek. He knelt and slipped his hands under the Ki’s posterior. Bud-O’s pebbly skin felt cold and hard, a familiar, welcome feeling that foreshadowed the snap.

“Blue, forty-seven!” Quentin shouted. “Blue, forty
seveennnn
.”

The defense shifted, flexed. Hands and tentacles clutched at nothing, mouths twitched, eyes widened. This was it... game time.

“Hut-
hut!
” Quentin screamed, pausing only a second to see if his hard count drew the defense off-sides. It did not.

“Hut!”

The roar of the crowd was nothing compared to the clash of bodies at the line of scrimmage. The Krakens offensive line shot forward, met instantly and forcefully by the Ice Storm defenders. Quentin turned to his left, pushing away from the line. Tom Pareless, the fullback, ran by, driving toward the line. Once he passed, Quentin extended the ball. Yassoud lifted his right elbow high, right hand against his chest, left hand palm up, left pinkie against his belly. Quentin placed the ball on Yassoud’s stomach. Yassoud’s arms clamped down, both hands wrapping over the football’s pointy ends.

The hole seemed to open up as Kill-O-Yowet’s huge bulk drove forward, pushing back the opposing defensive tackle. Pareless slammed into the tiny hole, blocking the Quyth Warrior linebacker who tried to fill the gap. Yassoud ran in, helmet and shoulder pads leaning far forward. The hole was there, then gone — a multi-jointed Ki arm reached out and hooked around Yassoud’s waist, slowing him just enough for the middle linebacker to close and land a solid hit. Armor clacked and rattled, Yassoud hit the ground after a three-yard gain.