by Jeff Chen
“Let’s see how you do with some basic plays. And let’s work on your touchdown dance before our crackbacks get here.”
“What’s wrong with my touchdown dance?” She stuck her hand into the air and waved it around as she high-stepped in a tight circle. “Dark Siders know how to dance.”
“Touchdown dances are meant to charge up the crowd,” Strike said. “Not make them think you’re hallucinating from dust poisoning.”
Her eyebrows pinched together. “You don’t hallucinate from dust poisoning.”
“She is correct,” Rock said. “I think what Strike meant to say was, ‘Not make them think you’re hallucinating from dust dementia.’”
“Yeah, that,” Strike said.
“It’s funny because it exaggerates how strange your dancing looks,” Rock said. He launched into a torrent of laughter, but it quickly died out as the girl stared him down.
“You’re seriously making a joke out of that?” she said. “Out of dust poisoning?” She stuck a finger into Strike’s chest. “Dust poisoning is a very serious disease. Do you know how many people die of it every year? Last year alone, the death toll—including both the United Moon Colonies and the Federation of Free Territories—was five hundred fifty-one people. That’s about half a percent of the moon’s total population.”
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .” Strike looked to Rock for help, but his rocketback 2 looked as confused and horrified as Strike felt.
The girl cracked a smile. “Just messing with you.” She waved the ball into the air as she shook her butt at them.
Strike nudged Rock. “What’s the Federation of Free Territories? And what the frak is she doing? She looks ridiculous.”
“Must be what the Dark Siders call their nation,” Rock said. “And she looks pretty good to me.” His face went red and he flipped his visor back to reflective mode. “Her touchdown dance, I meant. That’s all. Nothing more. Let’s get in some more reps before our backcracks arrive. I mean, our crackbacks.”
Strike was too nervous to laugh at Rock, his stomach flip-flopping at the thought of how Pickaxe was going to react to Boom. Pickaxe was fiercely loyal to his teammates, but he hardly trusted hardly anyone else. With so much rumor and fear surrounding the legends of the Dark Siders, there was no way Pickaxe would accept Boom as a teammate. It didn’t help that Pickaxe had been pushing Strike to give him a shot at the star rocketback 1 spot. To get beat out by a Dark Sider was sure to rankle him but good.
“Line it up,” Strike said. “Let’s see how you do with some simple pass routes. Pretend it’s fourth down. Give Rock a juke and then take sideline or fly. Whatever he gives you.”
“If I give her anything,” Rock said.
“Oh, I’ll get open,” Boom said. “I’m gonna put ten points on the board so quick your helmet will short-circuit.” She raised her arms in a victory pose. “Boom saves the day, on fifth down.”
Rock paused. “I had assumed you knew the rules. But perhaps we should go over them. Touchdowns are seven points, not ten. There is no such thing as a fifth down.” His forehead wrinkled up. “And Ultrabot suit helmets don’t short-circuit.”
“I think she was just kidding around again,” Strike said.
Boom smiled. “I brushed up on Ultraball rules last night. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the rule book.”
“Yes, but it’s important to understand the nuances,” Rock said.
“What nuances?” Boom said. “All five players have to play every single down. Four downs to score, or you turn it over. Seven points a touchdown. Easy as that.”
“No, Rock is right,” Strike said. “There are other things you have to know. Like when you tackle someone in their own end zone—”
“You score seven points,” Boom said. “Just like when you stuffed Fusion in his own end zone during last year’s Ultrabowl. Eighth play of the game. Man, that was an impressive hit. He almost wiggled out of your grasp, but you turned him upside down and pile-drove his helmet straight into the turf.”
“Huh,” Strike said. “You’ve done your homework. I doubt anyone but Rock would remember what play of the game that was. Right, Rock?”
Rock stared off at the roof. “Yes, I suppose Ultrabot suits could short-circuit.”
“What?” Strike said.
“A big enough electromagnetic explosion could short out an Ultrabot suit. Now, how big would that explosion have to be?”
Strike rolled his eyes. “Let’s just line it up for the next play.”
“Couldn’t I just run a couple of quick calculations?” Rock asked.
“No,” Strike and Boom said at the same time. They grinned at each other.
Strike got over the Ultraball, and Boom lined up to the far left. Rock jogged over to cover Boom, crouching down.
“This is gonna be an easy six points,” Boom said.
Rock straightened up. “It’s not possible to score six points. All touchdowns are seven—”
“Hike!” Strike shouted. He grabbed the Ultraball and backpedaled as Boom took off like a shot. She caught Rock off guard, but he jumped back into action, jamming her as she streaked by. Swiveling, he chased her in hot pursuit.
Boom accelerated, shifting her angle, heading straight toward a deep field pit at the thirty-five-meter line. It was a curving trench that wound back and forth in an irregular pattern, giving Rock a huge advantage since he had practiced around it all preseason. But Boom danced back and forth along its edge, barely staying ahead of Rock. Toward the end of the trench, it looked like she was going to fall in. But with a hard jab step, she kicked off the side of the pit and threw herself high into a backward spin, hurdling into the air, head over heels. Unable to stop his momentum quickly enough, Rock raced right underneath her.
Boom hit the turf hard, but she popped up, breaking into a sprint toward the far corner of the end zone. Strike reared back and threw a bullet of a pass, aiming two meters above her helmet. She didn’t have to break stride or even adjust her path as the ball roared in. Reaching up with both hands, the ball smacked into her magnetized gloves, its momentum whipping her forward into a hard spin, sending her bouncing along the turf. Strike had put everything he had on the pass, too hot for many rocketbacks to handle. But Boom held on tight, hauling the ball safely into her chest plate as she tumbled along the ground.
“Watch the one-meter pit!” Strike yelled into the helmet comm.
Just before crossing the goal line, Boom plummeted into a camouflaged hole, disappearing through the trapdoor with a thud.
Almost perfect, Strike thought wistfully. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up so high. No one could do it all on just their second play inside an Ultrabot suit.
Rock raced in, leaping into the pit to smother Boom and end the play. But as he dropped in, Boom came shooting out of the trapdoor. She smashed into him with a clang. Rock yelled in surprise as he flew up off his feet. The two of them tangled in midair, exchanging a barrage of explosive punches, blue gloves flashing in a dazzling array of speed and power. For a second, it looked like Rock would crack the ball loose, but as they fell, Boom crunched a boot into Rock’s chest plate. In that split second of freedom, she lurched over the goal line and smacked the Ultraball down into the end zone. “Eight points!” she yelled.
From the ground, Rock propped himself up onto his elbows and flipped his visor to clear. “It’s not possible to score eight points . . . ah, another joke.” He cocked his head. “Right?”
“You don’t think I deserve an extra point for all that work?” Boom asked.
“There are no extra points in Ultraball. Didn’t I already say that it’s just seven points for a touchdown . . .” He trailed off as Boom chuckled good-naturedly through her clear visor. He turned to Strike. “I really need to write these jokes down. Please?”
“Later,” Strike said. He studied Boom’s mischievous grin. “I have a feeling there will be plenty more, anyway.”
Strike had them run all their simple plays,
from slingshot Vs to passing routes where Strike ricocheted the Ultraball off a protective barrier at tough angles. Boom beat Rock almost every time. Even though Rock was an experienced defender, Boom put on a showstopping array of jukes, dives, and jumps off Strike’s back to make Rock miss over and over again. It wasn’t until the last play that Rock took her down for a loss, anticipating a spin move and latching on to her leg armor with a glove electromagnet.
“Okay, genius,” Boom said from the turf. She flipped her visor from reflective to clear. “How’d you know I was going to cut left?”
“I based my guess on emerging patterns. When you lead with your right foot, there’s almost a two-thirds chance that you’ll ultimately go left. I went with the odds.”
“Huh.” She grabbed Rock’s outstretched hand. “Maybe this kid’s not so weird after all.”
Rock looked to Strike. “Can I click out of my suit now, so I can catalog and analyze all of Boom’s statistics?”
“Okay, maybe he is weird,” Boom muttered. But she shot Rock a crooked smile.
Rock reddened. Before he could say anything, one of the airlock doors opened, and two boys bounded in. “Remember, don’t tell Pickaxe you’re a Dark Sider just yet,” Strike said over the helmet comm.
“This is insulting,” Boom said. “Shouldn’t your crackback 1 want to play with the best teammates possible, no matter where they’re from?”
“Yeah,” Strike said. “But you gotta admit, there’s a lot of questions about the Dark Siders. Pickaxe isn’t the only person who’s going to be suspicious. Can’t you just tell us a little more? Like how many Dark Siders there are in that Federation of Free Territories you mentioned?”
Rock leaned in to whisper. “There are approximately ten thousand people living on the Dark Side.”
Boom narrowed her eyes. “How’d you know that?”
“You said there were five hundred fifty-one deaths from dust poisoning last year, and that was about half a percent of the moon’s total population,” Rock said. “Given that there are about one hundred thousand people in the UMC, the rest of the math is easy.”
“Huh,” Boom said, looking off into the distance. “So it is. Easy.”
“Uh, yeah, easy,” Strike said. He wasn’t sure he could do that math even with the help of Copernicus College’s supercomputers. “Just tell us a little more about the Dark Side.”
She shook her head. “The only thing that matters is that I will win you an Ultrabowl.”
“I have to agree with Boom,” Rock said. “The facts are clear. She represents our best chance of winning the Ultrabowl, no matter if she’s a Dark Sider or a girl or an outsider or what.”
“So you don’t care that I’m a girl?” Boom asked.
“No. Wait. Yes.” Rock gulped. “What’s the right answer to your question?”
Two dark-skinned boys bounded in from the entrance, a tiny one and his taller older brother. Pickaxe and Nugget had been Strike’s two crackbacks for three years now, all of them having started as Ultraball rookies at the same time. Along with Rock and TNT, they had been the Fireball Five, nicknamed after the Fireball Blast mine explosion that killed all their fathers and two of their mothers. The Fireball Five had gone to the Ultrabowl in their first year, an astounding feat for a team of five rookies. Reaching the next two Ultrabowls as well, they deserved a place in history. But just like Torch knew all too well, no one cared about the losers.
Pickaxe ran a hand through his short black mohawk as he eyed Boom. “You give any more thought to my idea?” he asked Strike.
Strike unlatched his helmet, the dome rising and over his head. He locked eyes with Pickaxe, hoping he would sound believable. “I can’t move you to rocketback, because you’re too valuable at crackback 1. You got my blind side.”
“Don’t you think we need a star rocketback more? I can do this, Strike. I’m your man.”
“I need you keeping me safe. There’s nothing scarier to a QB than a blind-side hit. You’re my enforcer. My muscle. Without you at crackback, the Miners are going nowhere fast.”
Pickaxe grinned. “Guess I’ll have to stick to crackback 1, then, right, little bro?” He grabbed Nugget, shoving his armpit into his little brother’s face. “What’s that? I can’t hear you.”
Nugget slapped at his brother’s hands, his face turning red as he slithered his way out of his brother’s grasp. “You suck. And you smell like you’ve been swimming inside one of Guoming Colony’s waste recyclers. And eating out of it, too.”
“I’d shower more often if a certain little turd eater didn’t steal my assigned bathroom time slots.”
“You’d still stink even if you showered every day.” His eyes squeezed shut, Nugget rubbed his face with both palms. “You burned away most of my nose hairs.”
“Lemme get the rest of them for you.” Pickaxe aimed his butt at Nugget before tensing up and ripping a fart. He burst into laughter as his brother gagged and punched at him.
Strike cracked up at the brothers. “All right, Pickaxe,” he said. “Cut it out before you take a dump on his head.”
“You need to check your jumpsuit,” Nugget said, swatting at his brother’s butt. “Something that smells that bad has to be solid.”
Strike’s nose wrinkled as the stench hit him. “Or liquid. Seriously, Pickaxe, there’s something wrong with you.” He pulled his helmet down, smiling both at Nugget’s look of disgust and the fact that his Ultrabot suit’s air filter had kicked on. “Come on, suit up already.”
Pickaxe and Nugget went to the sideline to get into their Ultrabot suits. “Okay, Boom,” Strike said. “Show Pickaxe and Nugget what you can do. Everyone, line it up. Sideline left, fake fly, cut in.” A standard play, no flips or superjumps or anything, but a solid performance by Boom would start winning over Pickaxe.
“Line me up on the other side, Strike,” Pickaxe said. “Give me a shot at the RB1 spot. Come on.”
It made no sense, but Pickaxe was one of the Fireball Five, one of his sworn brothers.
“Okay,” Strike said. “One play to show me what you can do. Sideline right for Pickaxe. Boom, cut over for a lateral after Pickaxe makes the catch.”
“Really?” Pickaxe said. “All right!”
“Lemme defend him,” Nugget said, jogging over to guard his brother. “Please?”
“Let him, Strike,” Pickaxe said. “I’ll flick the little man away like he was a dingleberry hanging off my butthole.”
“Got some serious dingleberry problems, do you?” Nugget said, frowning with mock sympathy.
“Okay, you two, get to the line,” Strike said with a grin. The brothers’ never-ending stream of smack talk always kept things fun. Strike engaged his glove electromagnets and grabbed the solid steel ball as everyone lined up into their positions. “On two. Hut hut!”
Pickaxe immediately got jammed by his brother, Nugget digging in to drive Pickaxe backward. Strike could almost see the glee on the short boy’s face. In an ideal world, Strike would have made Nugget his crackback 1, but that might have pissed off Pickaxe to the point of quitting.
“Stop it,” Pickaxe said, swatting and punching at his brother. “Give me a chance to make my move.”
“How about I give you a chance to smell my butt?” Nugget said.
“Let him through,” Strike said.
“Fine,” Nugget said. The play was busted, as Pickaxe was way behind where he was supposed to be, but Strike tossed him an easy floater anyway. The brothers’ legs tangled, and Pickaxe tripped.
Nugget vaulted over his brother. “Interception coming up,” he said.
Cutting in, Boom pumped her arms, getting her Ultrabot suit to full speed. She charged toward the Ultraball, still high in the air.
“Oh no you don’t,” Nugget said. “That’s mine.”
Boom jumped early, vaulting high toward the ball. Caught off guard, Nugget leapt as well, but Boom sailed higher, easily twenty meters into the air. She snagged the ball as Nugget tackled her legs. But with a snakelik
e twist, Boom writhed out of Nugget’s grasp. On the way down, she grabbed his wrist and whipped him around, smashing him into Rock, who had been charging in. As she landed, she took off in a burst of speed. By the time she crossed the end zone, she had left everyone in the dust.
“Dang, what a play,” Strike said, racing in.
“Got a hand from Nugget,” Boom said. She hit him playfully on the wrist she had grabbed.
Rock burst into gunfire laughter, making Boom flinch. “Are you okay?” she asked. “Seriously, what’s with that laugh?”
“I’m better than okay,” Rock said. “That’s such a great joke. I have to write it down.” His helmet clicked, popping up with a hiss.
“Hey!” Strike said. “We’ve talked about this a hundred times. Write it down later. I never want to see anyone out of their suit while on the field, even if it is just practice.” During games, a player getting out of their Ultrabot suit on the field resulted in an automatic forfeit.
“But it’ll only take a second,” Rock said.
“No.”
“What if I forget the joke?”
“I’m sure she’ll have more,” Strike said. “Okay, everyone, let’s line it up and work through our playbook. Nice try, Pickaxe, but I really do need you at crackback.”
“I didn’t really want to play RB1, anyway,” Pickaxe grumbled. “Everyone knows that the most important position on the field is crackback 1.”
“Except for quarterback,” Nugget said. “And rocketback 1. Rocketback 2, too. Oh, and crackback 2, of course.”
“You are so dead.” Pickaxe charged at his snickering brother.
“All right, you two,” Strike said with a grin. “Let’s run through the playbook.”
Strike marveled at Boom, who seemed to get more out of her Ultrabot suit with each play. In just a few hours, she had proven herself to be an offensive battlefield weapon, and she was even better on defense. Manning up against Rock, it was all Rock could do to make any positive gain against her. She tackled him for losses on several sweeps and darts, even hiding in a field pit once, leaping out to surprise tackle him.