The Starter (60 page)

Quentin was staring at Pine. Staring and pointing to the sidelines.

Pine paused, took one step forward, then shrugged and ran back to Hokor.

Quentin didn’t know if Quyth Leaders could have heart attacks. If Hokor lived through his messageboard throwing, tiny-hat-ripping, headphone-smashing, turf-kicking temper tantrum, well, then probably not.

Yassoud ran onto the field, sprinted to the huddle and waited, his eyes wide and alert with excitement.

Quentin looked each of his players in the eye or eyes. “Everyone ready to have some fun?”

They nodded and grunted.

“Okay, I-formation, off-tackle right on two. And Murphy? Do me a favor, and run hard, will ya?”

“You got it!”

“On two, on two... ready?
Break!
”

• • •

IN A PERFECT GALAXY
or in a heroic holo, the Krakens would have won the game without Ju Tweedy running the football.

It was not a perfect galaxy.

Yassoud ran harder than he ever had, including his days in Tier Two. The defense had to pay attention to him, but without The Mad Ju in the game, the Hullwalkers keyed on Quentin. They blitzed as often as possible, double-covering Hawick and Milford. Even with excellent protection, his line couldn’t always hold back the assault. He finished the game 22-for-35 for 235 yards, no TDs, two interceptions, and four sacks.

The last sack — of course — was the worst. Although he had to admit to himself it wasn’t really a
sack
. He’d felt pressure, tucked the ball and ran. Instead of sliding for a three-yard gain, he lowered his head and tried to pick up the five yards needed for a first down. He hadn’t really been thinking, just reacting, doing what he’d always done through five seasons of football. The hit had cracked a rib, apparently, and once again he sat in his now-familiar post-game perch in the rejuve tank.

“I should skip the nerve blockers,” Doc Patah said. “I should let you feel this bone-stitching.”

“Aw, come on, Doc-P. Why would you do that?”

“Because you’ve
got
to learn to slide. If you get hurt, the franchise can’t win a Tier One title. I am not interested in working for a team that can’t take the belt.”

Quentin looked around the training room. Everyone was gone, just him and Doc Patah. If he was going to ask, now was the time.

“The belt,” Quentin said. “I like how you compare everything to fighting.”

“It is my first love. I consider it the third phase of my life. This, possibly, is the fourth.”

“You liked being a ringside surgeon for fights, then?”

“It presents challenges unlike anything else medicine provides. I love the crowds, the smells, the sounds, the sights. I love the months of target-specific training, of watching sentients spend a significant portion of their short lives preparing to briefly take on another sentient. There is a purity in fighting, in locking two sentients inside a cage and letting them decide who is better. It is primitive, to be sure, but a highly refined and elevated kind of primitive. To me, organized fighting is the embodiment of our growth as sentients, to take that which makes us barbaric and to channel it, turn it into a ceremony, a religion of the instincts that let us all beat out the other species on our respective planets.”

Quentin nodded. If someone asked him if he liked football, he would probably just say
yeah
. Doc Patah, apparently, was far more eloquent.

“So why stay with the Krakens?” Quentin said. “Why not get back into it?”

Doc Patah was silent for a moment. Quentin waited, wondering how to phrase the question he really wanted to ask.

“I have a past, Quentin,” Doc Patah said. “I will not get into it, but that past has caught up with me. I am here, and I don’t have a choice. Gredok the Splithead saw to that.”

His was an artificial voice, interpreted and refined by the speakerfilm on his backpack, and yet Quentin could hear the bitterness in those words.

They sat in silence until Doc Patah took the lead. “You have something you want to ask me,” he said. “Something — unsavory — I think. I suggest you get it out in the open.”

Now or never.

“When you were a trainer, did you ever help your fighters... cheat?”

Doc fell silent. Quentin waited, feeling ashamed it had come to the point where he even had to talk about it.

“I had situations,” Doc Patah said. “Situations that called for creative solutions. Why do you ask?”

“Because I may need a creative solution.”

“This involves Ju, does it not?”

Quentin fumbled for the words. Eloquence was the domain of doctors, not quarterbacks.

“Quentin, what is it you want?”

“Ju is killing the team, Doc. He wants to be the captain. He wanted to fight me for it, one-on-one. I refused.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s not who I am anymore,” Quentin said. “I’m learning you can’t solve every problem by punching it.”

“An honorable stance,” Doc Patah said. “Quite civilized. But can I give you some advice, young Quentin?”

Quentin nodded, for once not offended in the least by that ubiquitous question.

“Being civilized is honorable,” Doc Patah said. “But sometimes, civilization fails. You have to decide if this is one of those times.”

“We have two games left. We have to win them both. To win them, I need Ju Tweedy running hard. To get that, I need to convince him it’s my team,
not
his. And to do that, I have to fight him, but there is too much on the line. If I lose and honor the bet, the team will be very confused, confusion that will cost us. They follow me now because I’ve
earned
it out on the field. If I lose to Ju, I think we lose the last two games and drop out of Tier One. I’m willing to do anything to stop that, even...”

“Cheat,” Doc Patah finished. “You want to rig the fight.”

Quentin felt his face flush red. To hear Doc Patah say those words, it brought the situation into focus.

Quentin nodded.

“I see greatness in you, Quentin,” Doc Patah said. “I see in you the cage fighter that will do
anything
to win. I may be stuck with the Krakens, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want the championship. With Ju’s leadership, the Krakens will flounder in Tier Two. But you? Someday soon, you can take us to the title fight. And I should also say that I do not like Ju. He is arrogant. Spoiled by his abilities. I will help you. When do you need this... assistance?”

“Probably about fifteen minutes after I get out of the rejuve tank.”

Doc Patah paused. Quentin could have sworn he heard the speakerfilm give out a very Human sigh.

“How do you think he will fight?”

“I made him mad,” Quentin said. “I think he’ll come at me all wild, enraged.”

“I see,” Doc Patah said. “Just sit there and let the bone-stitcher do its work. I’m sure the repair will last all of ten seconds once you start your idiocy with Ju. I will prepare what we used to call the Neptune Neck Kiss.”

“Do I have to kiss him?”

Another sigh. “No, Quentin, you do not have to kiss him. However, I hope that you are not afraid of needles.”

Doc floated off to his station, mouth flaps sorting through bins of equipment.

Actually, Quentin
was
afraid of needles, but he wasn’t about to say anything. He put his head back on the tank’s edge, closed his eyes, and started to sort through his memories of how Ju Tweedy moved.

• • •

THE HUMAN LOCKER ROOM
had emptied. Quentin sat in front of his locker, fingertips probing the skin above his just-repaired rib. Doc Patah had said the wound would be healed in a few days — if, that was, Quentin didn’t get, say, punched in those same ribs by a world-class professional athlete.

Quentin had sent Messal with a message for Ju —
meet me in the VR room
. Right or wrong, it had come to this. Quentin had tried to do the right thing, but violence had found him yet again. He didn’t like it, not one bit, but the team came first.

And for the team, Ju Tweedy needed to get knocked the hell out.

Someone walked into the room. Quentin looked up, assuming it would be Ju and that the fight would go down here, not in the VR room.

But it wasn’t Ju. It was his brother, John Tweedy.

“Hey, Uncle Johnny.”

John started to talk, then choked up for a second. He cleared his throat and pressed on. His face carried an expression of internal pain, and his face tattoo scrolled gibberish.

“I hear you’re going to fight my brother.”

Not
Ju
, but rather,
my brother
. Even if John thought Ju was a selfish jerk, they were still family — no question where John’s true loyalties fell.

“I’ve got to do something, John. He’s fumbling on purpose.”

John’s eyes squeezed tight, his head turned away.

How had John found out about the fight? Maybe the team knew this was coming, maybe not, but John’s arrival just minutes before the fight... Ju had told him. Just as Quentin was trying to get in Ju’s head, Ju was trying to get in his.

“Quentin,” John said, “I feel real bad, cause I think we’re friends and all —”

“We are friends. And nothing you have to do for your family is going to change that.”

John smiled, then nodded. “Thanks. That means the world. I can’t let you fight my brother. Ma wouldn’t like it. I’ll stop you right here if I have to, but I don’t wanna have to.”

Quentin stood and offered his hand. “Look, John, if you don’t want me to fight your brother, I won’t.”

John looked suspicious. “Really? You mean it?”

Quentin smiled. John reached out and took Quentin’s right hand. As soon as he did, Quentin yanked him forward and landed a powerful, short left on John’s jaw, right where it met his skull. John Tweedy dropped to the locker room floor.

“Sorry, John,” Quentin said. “Fighting one Tweedy is work enough. Two is more than I can handle.”

He hoped John would forgive him for the sucker-punch. John probably would, but if not, well... the team came first.

Quentin headed for the VR room.

• • •

QUENTIN FELT
a calm coldness as he walked into the VR room. Ju Tweedy was waiting for him. Ju still had his leg armor on, his wrists were still taped — he must have been waiting here since the end of the game, as if after Quentin’s on-field antics he’d known the fight would go down. Ju wore a sweaty, gray “Property of Krakens” T-shirt with the collar ripped out and the sleeves cut off. His thick, muscular, exposed arms gleamed with sweat.

He looked at Quentin with an expression that was part eagerness, part rage, part respect.

“I didn’t think you’d show,” he said.

“Yes, you did,” Quentin said. “That’s why you came here right after the game.”

Ju thought for a second, then nodded.

“You embarrassed me out there today,” Ju said. “You embarrassed me in front of a hundred thousand sentients.”

“Actually, one hundred, eighty-five thousand, three hundred and twelve,” Quentin said. “I checked the attendance. Thought you’d like to know exactly.”

Ju’s smile faded. His eyes widened. In that moment, he had never looked more like his brother.

“That was just in person,” Quentin said. “Don’t forget the broadcast audience. We’re talking at least five hundred million sentients that have seen it already, with another quarter-billion as the signal is relayed through the shipping channels. By the time replays are done, Ju, our little escapade will be seen by close to a trillion beings. Nothing like an audience, eh?”

Ju’s chin dipped down. He glared out, eyes visible just under the ridge of his hairy eyebrows. This was the face captured in highlight holos and advertisements, the face of the
real
Ju Tweedy when he actually came to play.

“And your brother won’t be bothering us,” Quentin said. “I just kicked his ass. I already sent a message to your Ma, because Doc Patah is taking John to the hospital.”

The eyes widened further. Maybe Ju was a self-centered jackass, but his reaction spoke volumes about his love for John. There was a soul in there after all — Quentin just had to beat it out of him.

“You for real with this?” Ju asked, his voice calm and slow. “Winner take all?”

Quentin nodded. He rubbed his hands together, fingers tracing the inside of his right wrist. He felt the needles embedded under his skin. Maybe he wouldn’t need them.

Ju twisted to the left, then to the right, his spine cracks echoing through the VR room.

“Gonna bust you up,” he said.

Quentin waved him forward. “Go for it.”

Ju walked in. He didn’t run, didn’t come in off-balance. Maybe he was infuriated, sure, but not enough, not yet. Quentin had to push more buttons, get the guy so enraged he would make mistakes.

Quentin fell into his fighter’s stance: right foot forward, left foot back, open right hand out in front, left fist just in front of his left cheek — both to protect and to be ready to strike. His left was the hand that could throw a football eighty miles per hour, the hand that had ended almost every fight Quentin had ever been in.

Ju closed the distance. Quentin shuffled back a couple of steps, drawing the bigger man in, then planted on his right foot and pushed forward, snapping out a right jab. The fist caught Ju in the temple, popping his head back. Quentin was already in motion, whipping his shoulders and twisting his hips for a vicious left hook. He had the briefest moment to think the fist would land right on the hinge of Ju’s jaw, ending the fight in a one-two combo, then Ju ducked the punch and drove a right hook of his own into Quentin’s ribs.

The same ribs Quentin had broken during the game.

Ju’s first punch felt like a gunshot.

The blow had so much power it knocked Quentin sideways. Ju’s big left hand followed it up, coming for Quentin’s chin, but the younger man shuffled back. The knuckles hissed past so close he felt a puff of air tickle his skin.

Ju threw a right, but telegraphed it. Quentin stepped inside the punch, Ju’s inner forearm hitting harmlessly on Quentin’s shoulder. Quentin brought his knee up — hard — landing it square in Ju’s testicles, lifting the big man up off the ground.