Lucius felt the pleasing texture of soft fingers embrace his hand.
“You were great tonight, Lucius.” He saw Boudica’s green eyes gleam. She leaned forward, and he felt the soft peck of her lips upon his cheek. “Now everyone in Columbia – even Bobby and his Neanderthal friends – will think twice about saying anything bad about you,” she said, “Never again will they think…” and Lucius felt an oasis of warmth swell within, “that you’re different. Because from now on, like me, they’ll know you are extraordinary.”
Paused on the ascending terrace of the steps while observing the action on the field, Desmond became startled, hearing a terse bark come from out of the sea of anxious faces.
“I’m up here, Dez.” He saw Mister Tepper beckon with his ursine hand.
“Good evening,” Desmond greeted Tepper, “I know we agreed to meet here,” he jested. “It’s unfortunate the weather chose to become rather disagreeable – and well; I see it’s not looking good for the hometown team.”
“I’d introduce you to Bobby’s mother and my lovely wife of over twenty years,” Tepper replied, “but she works the night shift at the hospital and couldn’t make it – though she is watching on the holo-web. But oh; this is perfect football weather. We used to play in this sort of crap all the time when I was a varsity Eagle,” Tepper joked. “And don’t you worry about my son Bobby and the team,” he said, gesturing towards the field below, “I know you’ve seen his video by now and how clever a kid he his…he’ll figure out how to lead his team to victory, I just know it. And that freshman Holden – wow – looks like Hammond’s got himself a hell of a player for the future of the team there. But hell, Dez,” Tepper went on, “everyone in Sky Parlor is talking about that video of my son onstage in the auditorium and the strange appearance of the three kids they say were kidnapped and murdered by that saint that worked at Paramount Games, that is,” Tepper frowned, “until it seems – suddenly – to have mysteriously disappeared from the holo-web. And though you’re the youngest candidate the president’s ever named alderman, you’re no fool, but a smart fellow, I just figure you might suspect exactly why, right?”
Desmond’s face molded with gravity and he buried his hands into the pockets of his long black cotton overcoat.
“I’ve been considering what you told me that day when we met on the monorail,” Desmond related, “and I do think there’s every reason to believe what you’ve said is plausible, and I still hope you’re willing to testify before the commission later this week,” Desmond pleaded. “But the video content from your son’s performance was rather disturbing,” he admitted, “and the fact it has, as you say, disappeared after being so widely circulated is more than suspicious. It just seems all so inconceivable, but…”
For a moment, Desmond hesitated to perhaps engage a whimsical notion, mulling over whether he should attempt to tell Tepper about Abigail, the strange spirit from his dream, and what she revealed about President Ulysses.
“Although the footage from your son’s performance appears genuine, the ZEN news footage of the murder suspect’s hearing looks suspicious. I think there’s something going on that transcends even the implications of what you’ve told me thus far,” Desmond confessed. “Something bigger, darker and even more inconceivable than you and me, or anyone in Columbia or all Sky Parlor could ever imagine, and perhaps what I’m about to reveal will help justify that theory. I have a friend – a tech – one of the statisticians compiling reports of fines, convictions and warehoused prisoners, who works in cooperation with the praetorian troopers. He tells me in strict confidence that Cassiopeia Craft, the one who was accused of killing those kids is not being held at Praetorian headquarters and has never been held there. In fact, according to official records, Craft’s identification and model number have been reclassified. And, these are only available to those with ‘a need to know’.”
“So Dez,” Tepper’s gruff voice replied. “You’re telling me that the entire thing, including the trial’s hearing going on right now and reported by ZEN news is a hoax. You’re telling me, that not only didn’t this saint, Craft, kidnap or kill those kids, but someone else did, and the praetorians are doing everything to make sure no one finds out anything about the truth behind the whole damned mess, right?”
“Precisely, Mister Tepper,” Desmond replied in a tone of unshakable assurance. “And I know this about Cassiopeia Craft because…”
The crowd howled like a herd of wild, stampeding beasts.
Both men turned their heads and peered down upon the sideline where Bobby was conferring with Coach Hammond.
“Look, Tepper,” Hammond said settling a reassuring hand upon Bobby’s shoulder pads as he took a long sip from a water bottle that Boudica handed to him. “If ever there was a time, we’ve got to run the three-man blitz – you’ve got to startle Arcadia’s center linesman and QB – jump the snap, disrupt the transition and get them to cough it up. When we regain possession,” Hammond said while Lucius noticed the coach’s eyes glance at him, “then you run the hurry-up to get us into field goal territory in the final seconds, got it?”
“Alright Coach,” Bobby agreed, taking another gulp of water before handing the half-empty bottle back to Boudica and sprinting back onto the field. “We’ll get it done, guaranteed.”
“C’mon Bobby lead the Eagles to victory,” Mister Tepper shouted towards the field, forming a makeshift megaphone with his cupped hands. “I’ve got to tell you, Dez,” Tepper said as a crescendo of cheers rose among the stadium’s capacity crowd, “I’ve never liked President Ulysses. He’s a damned saint. And even if he wasn’t, my gut has always told me he’s one not to be trusted.”
“Alright, listen up,” Bobby began to marshal the attention of his huddled teammates. “We’re going to run the three-man blitz. Loman – I need you to get the center and the QB’s attention and to get them thinking about you – and Ken, I want you to do the same. “I’ll fade from the line of scrimmage just as the QB’s cadence starts, then sneak up and jump the snap – got it? Let’s get it done, win this damned thing and go home champions.”
Bobby and his teammates broke their huddle, and with their backs protecting their own goal line and heads held high, they approached the ball placed upon the white battle line of demarcation spread out across the field to stand face to face with their opponents.
“You’re a chicken crap coward whose mother is a saint whore just like Cassiopeia Craft with a face uglier than your school mascot,” Loman began baiting Arcadia’s quarterback.
“Yeah, I heard she goes around with a mattress tied to her back and a holo-sign that says, ‘open for business anytime’,” Ken scorned as he stared down Arcadia’s center linesman.
“I’ve seen her naked pictures on zap-com, and I heard she smells like fish,” Loman bellowed.
“Her ass is so big each buttock has its own zip code,” Ken snarled.
“You’re going to fumble, chicken crap brain,” Bobby yelled as he saw the hands of Arcadia’s quarterback begin to tremble while crouched over his center linesman in wait for the ball’s snap. “I guarantee it, you’re about to fumble and you’re going back to Arcadia – LOSERS.”
Beneath the rain glistened rungs of his facemask, Bobby’s face overwhelmed with delight, observing his opponent’s eyes film over with squirming trepidation. Focusing his mind, the earsplitting chant of the crowd and the searing intensity of the stadium lights melted away. Bobby’s radar eyes tunneled in on the grass stained brown leather of the ball twirling in the center lineman’s shaking hands. His cleats shifted over the slick grass riddled with clods of muddy divots, maneuvering with the poetic precision of a nimble ballerina. Creeping closer to the defensive line of his teammates like a panther on the hunt, Bobby saw the Arcadia center linesman’s uncertain hands clench the leather of the ball. A riotous howl sprang from the crowd as Bobby launched into the air, jackknifing into the opposing quarterback at the precise moment his hands flexed in anticipation of grasping once tran
sitioned from the hands of the center linesman. Bobby’s body cut through the opposition’s line like a slashing scimitar and the ball whirled in the air, spinning like a top before it plunged to the ground. Crashing through the confused array of Arcadia linesman, Ken swooped in and secured the wildly bouncing ball in a bear hug grasp. As his legs began to churn upfield, a gaggle of desperate arms like the tentacles of an octopus reached out and managed to grasp his jersey.
“Bobby’s done it! They’ve got it, Dez,” Mister Tepper cheered, thrusting his meaty fists high above his broad shoulders.
“Run: run Loman run dammit,” Coach Hammond encouraged from the sidelines.
With agile grace, Bobby sprang from the muddy turf and sprinted toward Loman and the vicious scrum.
“Coming from behind and I’m wide open, toss me a lateral,” Bobby’s command cut through the stadium’s mayhem of voices.
Before being driven to the ground, Loman extended his arms and released the ball into Bobby’s outstretched hands. With the ball cradled tight under his arm, and with clods of dirt kicking up in the wake of his churning cleats, Bobby’s feet raced forward, adroitly navigating the sideline as if balanced on a high-wire tightrope. Advancing ten, twenty, twenty-five and then thirty-five yards, Bobby jerked his helmeted head back over his shoulder. Fast pursued by a pair of sprinting opponents, Bobby tucked the ball tighter as Lucius, Boudica and Coach Hammond watched him streak by at mid-field. Twisting his head around once again, Bobby saw a flash of a hulking figure in a red uniform crash into him before he cartwheeled out of bounds with the ball still intact, tucked beneath his arm.
Lucius looked up at the numbers gleaming from the stadium’s timeclock: 00:06.
“TIME OUT REF – KICKING GAME,” a decisive Coach Hammond barked over the din of the crowd and the official’s piercing whistle. “Alright Holden,” Hammond said turning to Lucius, “Bobby gave us a chance, but it’s up to you now, Son. Get out there and bring the championship back to Columbia.”
Lucius felt the jackhammer pound of the wailing crowd vibrate on his skin. He recalled that day on the playground, the taunts, the snubs and slights hurled like sharp shards of glass at his fragile senses, and like torturing déjà vu, the familiar feeling of his stomach transformed to a melting block of ice returned.
“C’mon Lucius,” he heard a mud-caked Bobby say. “Let’s go win this damned thing, huh?”
Before his reticent fingers clasped his helmet to slide it onto his dizzied head, he once more sensed Boudica’s soft lips upon his cheek. Basking in her fulsome smile, he secured his helmet and while tightening his chin strap, together with Bobby, Loman, and Ken, sprinted out onto the field.
“Wait till you see this kid, this freshman Holden kick the damned ball, Dez,” Desmond heard Mister Tepper proclaim, laced with amazement, “I don’t think anyone’s ever seen the likes of it.”
Both teams gathered together on opposite sides of where the head official set the ball, approximately fifty yards from the gaping mouth of the snow-white goal posts. Behind the line of his ten teammates, Lucius counted out the requisite number of steps needed to acquire a good approach on the ball.
The referee’s whistle brayed like a wounded mallard and an eerie hush fell over the stadium.
Bobby knelt on one knee in front of Lucius and readied himself to receive the ball from Loman crouched in the center of Columbia’s line. Lucius felt as if his lungs were panting with the bulk of the entire world’s enormous girth while gusts of moist air swirled in his nostrils. The world seemed poised on the edge of a profound stillness. He tunneled his vision, first upon the sight of the ball and then upon Bobby’s dirt smudged hands jutted forward towards the line. Bobby’s fingers flexed. Lucius saw the ball spring from Loman’s grip on a straight and speedy trajectory. The sound of wet leather smacked against Bobby’s sure handed palms and Lucius surged forward.
With iron pronged momentum, his leg swung. Bobby rose to watch the ball soar above the corona of stadium lights and then as it tumbled in a great arc, he saw it plunge deep into the vortex of darkness beyond the pair of goal line posts. Coach Hammond fell to his knees as if in prayer as a great roar of triumph spat from his throat. The head referee stuck up his arms straight above his head to signal the official score, and the stadium crowd became enraged with a stirring frenzy.
“You did it, Lucius; you did it,” Boudica’s voice strained above the stadium’s tumult.
As Bobby, Loman and Ken hoisted him above their shoulders, Lucius saw Boudica running towards him with the entire team behind her rushing from the sidelines, and the crown of stadium lights seemed to shower him in a celestial glow.
“That’s the most amazing end to a game I’ve ever seen in my lifetime,” an applauding Mister Tepper claimed.
“My congratulations to your son,” Desmond complimented, “and you’re correct, that ball flew as if propelled by supernatural forces.”
“By the way, Dez,” Tepper said as he dropped his bear-like hands to his side. “You were saying…about the saint accused of killing those three kids who magically showed up on my kid’s video?”
While observing the applauding crowd and the celebratory varsity Columbia Eagles on the field, Desmond became stricken with a thought: Could it be that President Ulysses – considering the ZEN news tale of the three kidnapped and murdered students and what Abigail related during his strange dream – was attempting to immerse all of Sky Parlor in some sort of supernatural spell? Then, Desmond felt a stark impression’s odd tingle develop into an aggressive stab at his brain as he looked up into the foggy murk. Were he and Mister Tepper being watched?
“I know about Craft because the night I was invited to the presidential palace there was an intruder and I…I happened to be in the right place at the wrong time, if you know what I mean and I…there was a confrontation which ended with me fending for my mortal life. And now with my official silence on the matter – at the demands of the Chief Praetorian who was there to witness what happened – It’s my guess the president has decided to use it for his own interests against those of the people of Sky Parlor.”
Tepper pursed his grey lips and shook his boulder-sized head.
“Yeah well, it wouldn’t surprise me,” he replied. “Like I said, I’ve never trusted the guy…every breeder in Sky Parlor knows, you can never trust a saint, you know what I mean, Dez?”
Desmond curled his hands into a tight ball and shoved them even deeper into the pockets of his overcoat.
“Well, thanks for meeting with me, Mister Tepper,” Desmond grinned. “I think I’m going to beat the crowd back to the monorail to get home and start writing a formal letter of congratulations to the team for their stunning victory,” Desmond said while his eyes still panned upward, thinking he imagined there may be a surveillance drone hidden amid the overcast fog. “You haven’t changed your mind about testifying before the commission, have you Mister Tepper? I must warn you though, once this gets out, things are likely to get bumpy for you and maybe even your family – I’ve met the Chief Sustainability Councilor, Charlemagne, and he’s likely to put pressure on your boss at Greenview, who will be instructed to apply pressure to dissuade you from doing so – I just hope you’re prepared?”
Desmond saw Tepper’s demeanor transform from exultation to solemn gravity.
“I’m a man of my word, and you bet I will,” Tepper said. “You can count on me.”
“Good,” Desmond said with a brief sigh. “It never entered my mind to think otherwise – I’ll see you in my office in a couple of days during the late afternoon, and before consulting with you to prepare a formal testimony, “Desmond added, feeling the granite hard grasp of Tepper’s hand, “I’ll confer with Commissioner Pembroke to let him know you’ll be coming in.”
Ahead of the capacity crowd, Desmond scampered down the stadium’s tiered steps. Emerging from the end of the lighted tunnel, the persistent notion he was being watched, again nagged at his senses. Then, a sliver of an object like a silver
winged bullet darted among the evening’s thick nebulous of clouded dark velvet and caught his peripheral glance.
Was it a drone, he wondered?
*
The presidential palace (Ulysses’ private chambers)
“My techs have just informed that drone surveillance of Columbia’s Achilles stadium has acquired a clear visual and audio of a conversation between Alderman Starr and Michael Lee Tepper, a section manager at Columbia’s food packaging and distribution plant. It is obvious that Alderman Starr has persuaded him to testify before the city’s Trade and Transportation Commission. Mister President, this represents a clear and present danger to your political interests. In my opinion, Sir, everything must be done to prevent Tepper from testifying and rumors of his testimony must be stopped before it can be reported by ZEN news and from spreading on the holo-web.”
“Just as I expected, and you were both correct to advise me concerning Starr’s noble but inadvisable revolutionary notions,” President Ulysses said to the vivid images of Plato Charlemagne and Icarus Blythe reflected on the twin holo-screens floating before him at eye level. “Indeed, it has become clear, we’re dealing with one clever, resourceful, persuasive and very ambitious young alderman who if left unchecked could represent a possible danger. Meanwhile, on the other hand, gentlemen,” Ulysses added, “regarding Tepper, and unlike Alderman Starr, his psychological profile is typical of those of most breeders. He can be dissuaded from causing any further agitations when instilled with fear. Perhaps, Icarus, your techs can drum up something on this Tepper and persuade him to be subjected to interrogation. And if, by chance, your techs do find even the slimmest misdemeanor or better still, evidence of felonious behavior or activity, you may choose to have him arrested. Plato shall instruct Doctor Zoe to make a formal address to ZEN news executives and press, announcing our final list of selections for SAGAN’s mission to Enceladus. He shall also brief Commissioner Pembroke. Politics is a balancing act, Chief Blythe, like walking a high-wire, only when you plunge, one quickly discerns there is no net to prevent the inevitability of falling into the darkness of utter oblivion.”
Sky Parlor: A NOVEL Page 27