by Jeff Chen
Rock flipped a page in his notebook. “But don’t you want to hear about Serpent’s tendencies to throw short against an atomic blitz if she’s behind an invisibility zone?”
“Just remind me when it comes up. Bring it in, everyone.” The Miners gathered around Strike inside the locker room. “We have a great game plan. Play loose and have fun. Let’s start the season right by kicking some Venom butt.”
Boom got to her feet. “They die out on the field today.” She bounded down the corridor.
Everyone turned to stare at Strike. Boom’s grim words felt off, but he shrugged, waving everyone ahead to follow her.
The Miners jogged out through a giant tunnel, entering Yangju Arena to heavy booing from the crowd decked out in the brown jumpsuits of Yangju Colony, some even holding up “DARK SIDER GO HOME” signs. People everywhere were glued to their phones, bouncing back and forth between LunarSports Reports’ coverage and the actual game. There were some who even held up multiple phones.
Anger surged through Strike as the displays of riches slapped him in the face. Before Earthfall, everyone on the moon had been treated equally: every single person issued a standard package of essentials, including phone, watch monitor, and radio. But after that apocalyptic day, the moon’s economy went berserk. People in colonies that produced less valuable resources had been forced to hock everything, just to buy hardtack bars and water. Yangju Colony, home of all the moon’s livestock, was one of the lucky ones—kids in Yangju still had a shot at finishing high school, maybe even going on to Copernicus College. In the meantime, kids in Taiko Colony had no choice but to head for the mines or beg in the streets just to survive. Strike stored up his wrath over the unfairness of it all, preparing to unleash a storm of raw fury against the Yangju Venom.
Scanning the field, Strike focused on the five invisibility zones—twenty-meter circles projecting up blinding lights to overwhelm both human eyes and Ultrabot visual sensors. They made for a strong home-field advantage, players virtually disappearing inside. The Yangju Venom weren’t a very good team, but they always used the invisibility zones in clever ways.
The Miners locked into their blue Ultrabot suits and lined up to receive the first kickoff of the 2352 Ultraball season. “Miners, let’s go,” Strike said. He stood close to one sideline, while Boom stood by the other. The remaining three Miners lined up ten meters in front of them, ready to form a wedge and block.
The head ref pushed a button on his chest plate armor, and a piercing whistle echoed throughout the stadium.
The five players in brown Ultrabot suits jogged forward, accelerating into a sprint. With a great swing, the Venom kicker slammed his foot into the ball, sending it soaring nearly fifty meters into the air.
Strike focused on the ball, arcing high, straight down the center of the field. He shifted over, never taking his eyes off it.
“Got it,” Boom yelled over the helmet comm.
“I got it,” Strike said. “Clear out.”
“You clear out. I called it.”
The ball headed directly toward one of the invisibility zones. It would cross through the giant cylinder of blazing light before dropping into catchable range. Edging around the perimeter of the invisibility zone, Strike ignored the warning lights flashing on his heads-up display and trusted his eyes. He focused on the Ultraball, ready to catch it in his gut like he had done a hundred times before. With some luck, he’d break a few tackles and be off to the races.
As he jogged sideways, he crunched into something: Boom.
“Move it,” she yelled. “It’s on my side of the field.”
“I said, I got it.” Strike shoved Boom to give himself space to make the catch. In that split second of inattention, he lost sight of the steel ball as it arced down into the invisibility zone, disappearing into the dazzling cylinder of light. He tensed to catch it, but it blipped out of the back edge of the invisibility zone sooner than he expected. It pinged off his chest plate before he could engage his glove electromagnets to lock on.
“Fumble!” the announcer yelled. The crowd let out an earsplitting roar as Strike scrambled for the ball.
Players from both teams came racing in. Strike chased the Ultraball as it bounced with erratic caroms off the turf, scooping it up near the back of their end zone. Spinning away from a Venom defender who had squirted through the blocking wedge in the confusion, Strike charged forward.
Another Venom defender raced in at an angle, getting a hand on Strike, but Boom threw herself at him, smashing the guy off his feet. Boom sprinted up the middle of the field, where the other Miners were in chaos, trying to block the Venom defenders. “Shield three,” she yelled.
The Miners shifted to the right to form a wedge for Strike. With Rock at the front and Boom protecting Strike’s side, the Miners charged up the field. A Venom player sprinted in like a cannonball, but Boom crunched into him. Strike stiff-armed another Venom defender and threw him to the ground. Crossing the fifty-meter line, Strike accelerated, the goal line in sight.
“Incoming,” Boom said into the helmet comm.
Strike glanced over his shoulder at another defender closing the angle. He braced for impact as the Venom player charged in like a runaway mine car.
“Ground it!” Boom yelled.
Just as the defender launched himself high, Strike remembered Boom’s signal. Throwing himself to the turf, he slid low, kicking up a trail of dust. The defender sailed above him, and Strike pushed his body down, just avoiding the defender’s magnetized gloves.
Strike popped back into a full sprint, heading toward an invisibility zone. A Venom defender charged at him. Strike neared the edge of the invisibility zone just as the defender dove at him, flying in like a missile. But with a sudden stop, Strike leapt straight up in a twisting backflip, the defender sailing underneath him. Strike landed and bounced into the invisibility zone, with two other Miners trailing close behind.
Venom defenders raced in to cut Strike off at the other side of invisibility zone. Serpent, the Venom’s QB, blasted full speed into Strike just as he emerged. She drove him sideways before leaping with him in her grasp, body-slamming him to the turf.
A gasp went up through the crowd.
Serpent jerked her head up, her gaze darting around the stadium. Then she pounded the black number 5 on the chest plate beneath her.
She had tackled Rock, not Strike.
By the time the defenders realized that Strike had been waiting inside the invisibility zone, playing possum as he pushed Rock out in his place, Strike had already snuck out the rear of the blinding spotlight and raced across the goal line for the score. He roared and spiked the ball.
A cannon sounded, and the scoreboard flashed “TOUCHDOWN: MINERS.” On its feet, the small Miners section dressed in blue screamed and hollered. The rest of the stadium, filled with Venom fans, booed.
Pickaxe, Nugget, and Rock ran in to chest-bump Strike. Perfect way to start the season, he thought.
Boom jogged in. “What was that?”
“That’s exactly what I was going to ask you,” Strike said. “I told you I had it.”
“I waved you off,” Boom said. “The ball was on my side of the field.”
“We’re up 7–0. Let’s just get ready for the next play, okay?”
Boom walked away, grumbling.
As the refs set up for the Miners’ kickoff, Rock nudged Strike and pointed to the scoreboard, where a replay flashed. The Ultraball fell into the invisibility zone as Strike and Boom bunched together, boxing each other out. Strike winced as he spotted where they were: clearly on Boom’s side of the field.
“She was right,” Rock said.
Strike let out a deep breath. What a jerk he had been—not only had he hijacked Boom’s runback, but he hadn’t said thanks for her big block, or for calling the ducking play for him. He had made a nice deception play inside the invisibility zone, but the Miners weren’t up 7–0 because of Strike.
They were up because of Boom.
> Strike chewed on his lip as he approached Boom. “Uh . . . hey.”
Her visor flicked to clear, her eyes blazing with fire.
Strike hid behind his reflective visor, hot shame rising through his face.
Boom stared him down. “You gotta stop trying to take over games all by yourself. You lost three straight Ultrabowls that way. Do you want to frakkin’ win this one or not?”
Strike froze, shocked by the harshness of Boom’s words. But she was right. In the past, he had always put the Miners on his back, the team’s fortune living and dying with their quarterback. If his Miners were going to have any shot at winning the Ultrabowl, Strike had to let his new rocketback 1 do her job.
LunarSports Reports around the League
MINERS ROLL IN SEASON OPENER BEHIND ROOKIE
By Vikram Cho, Senior Staff Reporter
The 2352 Ultraball season opened with a bang, with the Taiko Miners steamrolling the Yangju Venom, 84–35. The bloodbath at Yangju Colony saw Strike throw seven TDs and pass for 548 meters. On defense, he had three interceptions, four sacks, and seven batted-down passes.
But the real story was the Miners’ rookie rocketback 1, Boom. Never in the history of the league has a new player made such a huge splash, catching six touchdowns and rushing for two more, setting a new rookie rocketback record with an astounding 521 total meters gained. She made one of her touchdown catches in double coverage, nabbing Strike’s bullet pass nearly twenty-five meters in the air, before dropping into a swarm of Venom defenders inside an invisibility zone, kicking, punching, and thrashing her way out before muscling into the end zone for the score. She was even a force on defense, with two interceptions and three sacks.
Boom’s play was astounding, but it’s the off-field intrigue that still holds everyone’s attention. The first Dark Sider ever to return to the United Moon Colonies, Boom has refused to give interviews or take part in press conferences. The only statement she’s released: “I just want to win an Ultrabowl. Leave the other Dark Siders alone. They don’t want anything to do with the United Moon Colonies.” But Boom has done nothing to quiet the rumors circulating throughout the UMC, allowing the mystique and fears surrounding the Dark Siders to run rampant.
When asked about the Dark Siders and the potential threat they pose, Yao Al-Farouk, a professor of history at Copernicus College, said, “I highly doubt the Dark Siders are any danger to us. It is true that little is known about them, but they are a fiercely private people. Every wave of Dark Side colonists has left in protest over various UMC policies they considered a violation of their civil rights. A colleague of mine went with the most recent mass exodus ten years ago, when martial law was declared right after Earthfall. I haven’t heard from him since.”
Kaylen Lin, Captain of the Blackguard, had a different answer to the question. “The Dark Siders are a serious threat. Everyone knows that a government must sometimes take strict measures to keep society in order. I don’t care how great an Ultraball player Boom is. She will be kept under close watch at all times.”
No one even knows why the Dark Siders wear white jumpsuits. Professor Al-Farouk speculated that it’s the Dark Siders’ way of displaying their separation from the UMC, renouncing the centuries-old tradition of each colony adopting a distinctive jumpsuit color. Others have guessed that it helps the Dark Siders move stealthily, without being detected. Boom has refused to fill in any of these gaps, leaving herself shrouded in secrecy.
What is known, though, is that Boom can play Ultraball. Many analysts predicted that the Miners would fall apart without TNT, their old rocketback 1, who some say threw Ultrabowl IX. But in many ways, the Miners have never looked better. As the Miners-Venom game progressed, bookies scrambled to adjust their betting lines. The Neutrons are still heavily favored to win the Ultrabowl, the oddsmakers giving them a 64 percent chance. But the betting line on the Miners has now ballooned all the way from 13 percent to 21 percent.
In the other morning game, the North Pole Neutrons beat down the Tranquility Beatdown in commanding fashion, 105–70. The Beatdown, the only other team besides the Neutrons and the Miners to make the playoffs three years in a row, held their own in the first half but then got stuffed the rest of the way by the Neutrons’ “Radioactive Waste” defense. The Neutrons’ star rocketback, Chain Reaction, made the Beatdown pay for several mistakes, intercepting five passes, returning two the other way for pick-sevens. He also had seven sacks, all unassisted.
On offense, Chain Reaction scored a total of eleven TDs, catching six, rushing for three, and returning two kickoffs all the way. With a total of 657 meters gained, Chain Reaction came close to breaking his own single-game record. “I am unstoppable,” he said after the game. “I guarantee a fourth straight Neutrons title.”
The Neutrons’ star rocketback 1 looked every bit like the MVP he’s been the past three seasons, and more. The oddsmakers have set their betting lines astoundingly high for the MVP race, giving Chain Reaction a 78 percent chance of winning his fourth MVP title in a row.
With the Miners and the Neutrons scoring fast and often, the race has begun for the all-important season tiebreaker: total points scored. The Neutrons have come out strong, leading the Miners by twenty-one points now.
But who knows if the total points tiebreaker will even be relevant this year? The way both teams played this morning, everything might come down to the regular season game every fan is eagerly awaiting: the week-five matchup between these two powerhouses.
7
TNT
STRIKE, ROCK, PICKAXE, and Nugget emerged from the boys’ locker room to a horde of screaming people. Hanging around with loyal Miners fans was one of Strike’s favorite parts of playing Ultraball. With a big smile, Strike pointed at a girl holding out a pen, motioning for her miniature rock shaped like an Ultraball—the most common souvenir.
“Where’s Boom?” the girl said.
“Uh, dunno.” Strike looked around, their star rocketback nowhere in sight.
“Oh.” The kid’s chest deflated.
Strike took the ball and started to sign his name over the laces in his traditional giant style, but the kid stopped him. “Leave room for Boom to sign, okay?”
Strike raised an eyebrow. “You want me to make my autograph smaller? How about I just sign the tip of the ball?”
“Yeah, that’d be great!”
Pulling his lips into a tight smile, Strike signed his name in the tiniest print he could manage. “Like that?”
“Thanks.” She took the ball back. “Let’s go find Boom,” she said to a friend.
“I guess you were right,” Strike said, nudging Rock. “Having a Dark Sider on the team isn’t that big of a deal to the fans.”
“Just as long as she wins us games,” Rock said. “And she will.”
“I still don’t trust her,” Pickaxe said. “Why is she being so secretive about the Dark Side? Something feels weird.”
“Dark Siders value their right to privacy over everything,” Rock said. “They believe there is never a reason to spy on people.” He shot a glance toward the ceiling. “I think they have a good point. It is kind of creepy that the Blackguard might be watching us at any time.”
“Only creepy if you have something to hide,” Pickaxe said. “Right, Strike?”
Before Boom showed up, Strike hadn’t thought much about the UMC’s constant surveillance. It was just the way things were. But now, a cold shiver ran down his spine. “Let’s just sign autographs, okay?” he said.
Strike turned away from his teammates, watching as a group of fans left in search for Boom. Jealousy itched at him. For three years, his number 8 Miners decal had been stitched onto hundreds of jumpsuits of all colors, seen all over every one of the moon’s twenty-one colonies. The only other decal that had sold more was Chain Reaction’s number 2, in the bright red of the North Pole Neutrons. Now Boom might pass them both—her blue number 3 decal was going to go gangbusters. It had been a crazy preseason, with hordes of reporters const
antly pressuring the Miners’ new rocketback with all sorts of questions, but this single game might silence them all.
A voice whispered from Strike’s side, “Hey.”
Nausea rose into Strike’s chest. The boy had his filthy blue jumpsuit hood pulled down over his face, but Strike would recognize that voice anywhere. It had been months since Strike had seen TNT. His thin face had gone even bonier, his cheeks sunken, his bloodshot eyes outlined by dark folds of skin. His tangled black hair was patchy, as if he had been yanking it out. It looked as if TNT hadn’t slept since Ultrabowl IX, eight months ago.
His hands trembling, rising as they squeezed into fists, Strike turned and walked off.
“Strike!” TNT bounded toward Strike and grabbed his shoulder.
“Get away from me before I kill you,” Strike hissed. He wrestled away and stormed into a maintenance tunnel at the side of the stadium.
TNT chased after him. “Strike. Please, just listen to me. It’s really important.”
Halfway down the tunnel, Strike slowed, closing his eyes tight. He couldn’t bear to look at his former best friend, the traitor to the Fireball Five. “You got a lot of nerve, showing your face.”
“I’m so, so, so sorry, Strike.” TNT laced his hands together and dropped to his knees, pleading. “I can’t change what I did. But you have to know how sorry I am.”
“Doesn’t do me a lot of good, does it?” Strike held up a fist. “You see an Ultrabowl ring?”
“No.” TNT lowered his gaze to the ground. “But I’ve spent the past eight months trying to figure out a way to make it up to you. And I think I finally have.”
“Impossible. Now get out of here before I—”
“Raiden Zuna is going to buy off a Miner.”
Strike’s eyes went wide, but they quickly narrowed. “How do you know? And why should I listen to anything you ever say again?”