by Jeff Chen
He turned to Torch, standing in the back corner of the room. The older boy’s words came back to Strike: Think about life after Ultraball more than I did.
Torch chewed on his lip and gave Strike a shrug, as if to say that he’d understand if Strike took the deal.
“I won’t lie,” Strike said to Chain Reaction. “It would be awesome to throw to you. That twisting midair one-handed spin grab you made yesterday, even after Hammer Fist and Uppercut both smashed giant boulders into you? Incredible.”
“Oh, I’m going to top that for sure,” Chain Reaction said. “Wait until you see what I have planned against the Flamethrowers this Sunday. What I’m going to do off the launching ramps is going to blow your mind. And my new slingshot zone moves? I’m going to wait for the Ultrabowl to break those out. Winning the Ultrabowl in Neutron Stadium, as a North Pole Neutron—you’d be the king of the moon. King of the universe.” He stuck his hand out. “So you’re in? Neutron Nation?”
Strike’s hand moved toward Chain Reaction as if it had a mind of its own. But he jerked it back and shook his head. “We’ll see you in our week 5 matchup.”
Chain Reaction hocked something up and spit it on the ground. “You’re a whole lot dumber than I thought. Now you’re going down with the rest of this frakkin’ scum.”
Strike clenched his teeth, furious with himself for considering the deal even for a split second. “Get out of here.”
“I heard there was a lousy Nuclear Poker game here. Lots of chumps pretending they can play.” Chain Reaction moved in, chest to chest with Strike. “I hope you two are better at Nuclear Poker than you are at Ultraball. Fusion and I are going to clean your clocks.”
“Why are you even here?” Strike said. “Go play in your fancy North Pole game.”
“You scared to play us?”
“Just don’t want to deal with the cleanup.”
“Cleanup? What cleanup?”
“For when you smack the pants . . . for when we crap . . .” Strike pointed at Rock.
Rock paged through his notebook. “The cleanup, when you crap your pants after we put the smackdown on you.”
Laughter broke out all around the room, and Chain Reaction scowled. “Okay, you frakkin’ fools. Nuclear Poker. If you go all in and win, you get this potato.”
“We don’t have enough hardtack bars to match that,” Rock said.
“We don’t want your piece-of-turd hardtack bars. Neutrons get all the hardtack bars we can eat.”
Strike turned to Fusion, who had backed his way into a corner of the room, doing his best not to be noticed. “Why do you even hang around this guy?”
Fusion’s baby-faced cheeks pinched up as he shrugged. “He is the greatest rocketback to ever play the game.”
Chain Reaction pushed a finger into Strike’s chest. “I talk the talk, and I walk the walk. Three MVP titles. Three Ultrabowl rings.” He held up a fist in Strike’s face, the brilliant platinum and diamonds glimmering. “That fourth ring is going to look good on my pinkie.” He shoved Strike, knocking him off his feet.
Strike charged, but Rock grabbed him around the waist, holding him back. “Don’t let him get under your skin,” Rock said. “You can’t afford to get injured.”
Strike swore under his breath. “All right, you asked for it,” he said. “Nuclear Poker. Someone get the cards.”
“But we don’t have anything to put up against his potato,” Rock said.
“There is something you can wager,” Chain Reaction said. “I want a full diagram of one of your trick plays.”
There was a long pause before Strike exploded. “Is this the secret to your Radioactive Waste defense? You fix games?”
Chain Reaction leaned in and whispered, “If anyone would know about that, it’d be your pal TNT.” A sneer crept onto his face before Strike lunged at him. Rock and others in blue jumpsuits wrapped Strike up before he could throw a punch.
“Temper, temper,” Chain Reaction said. “You Taiko morons are so jumpy. How about this? You lose, you throw all your hardtack bars into a waste collection recycler. We flush them. And then you moon your fans in your home opener. Deal?”
Strike couldn’t take his eyes off the potato Chain Reaction was waving in his face. But even more than the potato, Strike wanted—no, needed—to wipe the smile off Chain Reaction’s scraggly face. “Deal.”
Rock pulled Strike away, pleading as he tugged on Strike’s jumpsuit sleeve. “All our hardtack bars. We’ll starve if we lose them all. We can’t do this.”
“We have to,” Strike hissed. He jabbed a finger at a table and sat down, Rock taking a seat opposite him. Chain Reaction and Fusion sat in the other two spots.
Strike motioned to the guy in charge of Taiko Commons, who brought over one of the ten decks of cards, well-worn after years of use. As he took his seat at the corner of the table, he shrank under the gaze of everyone in the room. He shuffled the cards, nearly showering them across the table once in his nervousness, before dealing out two facedown cards to each person.
Strike turned up the corners of his cards, stealing a peek at them. The queen of spades and the two of hearts. Not bad, but not great, either. He glanced across the table at Rock, whose frown told the entire story.
The dealer burned ten cards, turning them faceup into a discard pile. Then he flopped three cards into the center of the table:
Jack of spades.
Nine of spades.
Nine of clubs.
Suddenly, Rock’s face lit up, his eyebrows going high. It immediately told Strike that between the two of them, they might be onto a spade flush. Maybe even an atomic flush. But with Rock’s terrible poker face, the Neutrons knew exactly what they had, too.
Chain Reaction put his head near the table surface, stealing a peek at the two facedown cards in front of him. “Raise you ten hardtack bars,” he said.
“Ten?” Strike said, trying not to let his alarm show. Were the Neutrons onto something even better? Maybe their own spade flush? Or a nuclear straight?
The betting quickly escalated as the dealer placed live cards into the center of the table, in between burning more and more cards faceup into the discard pile. When the last live card went down, Strike studied Rock, who was nearly jumping up and down in his seat in excitement. They had won. It was a lock.
As the final round of betting began, Strike grinned. “We’re all in,” he said.
Given Rock’s complete lack of a poker face, Strike expected Chain Reaction to fold. But to his surprise, Chain Reaction slammed a fist into the table. “We call,” he said.
What a moron, Strike thought. With a flourish, he flipped over his cards, and Rock followed. Exactly as Strike had thought: between the two of them, the Miners had an atomic flush. “That potato is going to taste awesome,” he said.
“Not so fast.” A wicked grin smeared across Chain Reaction’s face. He flipped over his two cards and burst into maniacal laughter. “Nuclear straight. You lose.”
“What?” Rock shouted. He leapt to his feet, gaping at the cards in front of Chain Reaction and Fusion.
“The North Pole Neutrons win again,” Chain Reaction said. “I can’t wait to see you moon all your fans. Now let’s go toss all your hardtack bars.”
“This is impossible,” Rock mumbled in disbelief. “It’s. Not. Possible.”
Chain Reaction grabbed all the cards and shoved them into a pile. “Let’s go flush those hardtack bars. Man, I’m going to enjoy this.”
“Rock,” Strike said, his voice pleading. Rock was never wrong when it came to facts and numbers. “What happened?”
“I counted all the cards. I was one hundred percent sure. We should have won.” Rock bent over, holding his stomach. His face going sickly green, he looked like he was about to heave. “We won’t eat for days. We’ll starve. We should never have agreed to this.”
“Wait.” Torch stepped forward. He pushed Chain Reaction. “Pull up your sleeves.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t touch me, you frakkin’
turd eater,” Chain Reaction said. “Even an idiot like you has to know that Mr. Zuna would have a meltdown if somebody laid a hand on his star rocketback 1. You hear me? A meltdown.”
Torch took a step back, his hands held up. He retreated, but he made his way around the table and whispered to Strike, “Count the cards.”
Strike reached for the pile, but Chain Reaction slapped his hand. With a quick swipe, Chain Reaction flung the cards across the room in a shower of red and black. “No one disrespects a North Pole Neutron,” he said. “We’re outta here. Come on, Fusion.” He yanked his quarterback up by the arm and stormed toward the door.
A furious rage boiled inside Strike, and he shot up to chase the Neutrons. But Rock caught hold of him as the card room exploded in chaos. “Don’t,” Rock said.
Strike tugged away, but he realized that Rock was right. This might even be part of some Neutron scheme. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Chain Reaction had a bunch of Blackguard cops waiting outside to gang up on Strike, maybe even break his arm “in self-defense.”
The guy in charge of Taiko Commons elbowed everyone out of his way, gathering up the cards and counting them. “I am so dead. I’ll lose my job if even one card is missing.” He paused as he sorted them. “Huh. There’s an extra king of spades. Did one of the other decks get shuffled in?”
“I knew it,” Torch said. “Chain Reaction must have had cards up his sleeve. That lousy cheat.” He turned to Strike. “Be careful out there. Neutrons don’t play by the rules.”
“Dang,” Strike said. “We owe you, big-time. We would have lost all our hardtack bars if it hadn’t been for you.” He cocked his head. “Can you come to our game this Sunday?”
Torch shoved his hands in his pockets. His face twisted into a mix of shame and anger. “You know I can’t afford a ticket. Not even a nosebleed seat.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Strike said. “Torch. We can’t pay you. But I want you to sit in the front row of the stands. I sure could use your eyes. I bet you still read defenses better than anyone else on the moon.”
“You want me in the stands? How are you going to get me a front-row ticket?”
“It won’t be just any front-row ticket. I want you watching from our coach’s box.” Each team had a single bench reserved for a coach, but since Strike was the Miners’ player-coach, he had always given that seat away to a random fan. Strike knew that he had finally found the perfect use for that seat.
Torch stood in shock for a long time. “You’re not afraid I’m going to curse the Miners, just like I did the Flamethrowers?”
Strike shook his head. “No such thing as curses. I want you on our side. I need you on our side.”
Finally, Torch’s grin grew from ear to ear. “Okay, then. I’ll be there. You’re really serious?”
“Absolutely. Welcome to the team, Coach.” Strike shook his hand.
People came in from everywhere, swarming Torch, high-fiving the newest member of the Taiko Miners.
Strike thought back to TNT’s dire warning about Zuna paying off Boom. If there was any truth to that, Strike now had the sharpest pair of eyes on the moon watching out for him.
9
Questions and Answers
THE NEXT MORNING, Boom was waiting for Strike and Rock outside the main airlock connecting Taiko Colony to Taiko Arena. Strike slowed as he caught sight of her, TNT’s warning still bouncing around his head. Why does she guard her privacy so fiercely? Strike thought. What is she hiding? Not that Strike trusted TNT one bit anymore, but there had to be a serious reason for him to risk his neck by showing up at an Ultraball game. If any Miners fan had recognized TNT, he would have been beaten into a pulp. Maybe even killed.
Before Strike could say hi, Boom spoke. “What do you think about adding in some out-of-suit workouts?”
“Out of our suits?” Strike said. “Why? We need all the time inside our suits we can get.”
“If we could all improve our reflexes and quickness, we might perform better. Ultrabot suits respond to the wearer’s slightest muscle movements. Remember Serpent’s flying clothesline in the second quarter? If you had ducked a tenth of a second quicker, you would have avoided the tackle and broken for a touchdown. And think what you could do if your crackbacks could change directions quicker to keep you better protected.” She cleared her throat. “One crackback in particular.”
There it was again: the issue Torch had brought up, the same one that Berzerkatron and the Mad Mongol had been debating that morning on the SmashMouth Radio Blitz. Berzerkatron had even started calling Pickaxe “Axepicker” again. Years ago, that nickname had badly shaken Pickaxe. Maybe Boom’s idea would help, but it could also mess with Pickaxe’s head even further if he thought he was being singled out. Strike turned to Rock. “What do you think?” he asked.
“Boom has a point,” Rock said. “Ultrabot suits respond to the smallest of movements. Even microseconds could translate into tremendous improvements.”
“Got an idea for something else that could help, too,” Boom said. “We’re going to work on your improvisation, Rock.”
“Oh no,” Rock said, his hands wringing together. “Oh no, oh no. A pointless effort. My strengths lie in my ability to repeat known patterns with great accuracy.”
Boom raised an eyebrow. “Defenses love known patterns.”
“That’s why we have so many plays in our playbook. Defenses cannot possibly anticipate which of the forty-six plays we might run, not to mention the audibled variants. Strike always knows exactly where I’ll be.”
“You remember every one of those plays?” Boom asked Strike.
“Yes,” Strike said in a huff.
“And all the variants?”
He shrugged. “Mostly. Pretty much.”
Boom stared him down.
“Okay, I forget sometimes,” Strike said.
Boom kept staring.
“Fine, a lot of times,” Strike said. “We have a ton of plays, okay?”
“Let’s spend some time reviewing the playbook, then,” Rock said. “With careful study, you should have no problem recalling even the extra seventeen plays we deleted two years ago.”
“You really think that’s the best use of practice time?” Boom asked. “And is Strike really capable of that?”
“Hey, wait just a second,” Strike said. “Are you calling me dumb? I admit, I screw up a lot of things, but I’m not as dumb as I look. I mean, I’m not as smart as I am dumb . . .” He sighed. “I am dumb.”
“You’re not dumb,” Rock said. He held up his notebook to Strike with a big grin. “You got that one right. ‘You’re not as dumb as you look’ is funny, because although it seems like a compliment on the surface, there’s actually an underlying insult.” He ripped out a rat-a-tat laugh.
Strike was still trying to figure out Rock’s explanation when Pickaxe and Nugget approached. “Why are you all hanging around outside?” Pickaxe asked. “Let’s suit up. I got some big hits to put on my dingleberry bro.”
Strike gave Boom a sidelong glance and made his decision. “We’re going to do something different today,” he said. “We’re not going in just yet.”
“Why? Let’s start hitting.”
“Ultraball is more than just hitting,” Boom said. “We’re going to work on agility.”
“Agility?” Pickaxe snorted. “What a waste. The Ultrabot suits give us all the agility we need.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Strike said.
“I agree one hundred percent,” Rock said.
All was quiet for a moment before Pickaxe exploded. “Is this about those two blocks I missed? Why the frak is Berzerkatron riding me so hard? Every crackback is going to miss a block once in a while.”
“Not Chokehold,” Nugget said. “Or Radioactive. Asbestos did miss one in the regular season game against the Neutrons last year, but since then—”
“Shut up,” Pickaxe said. “So I missed two blocks. Big deal. We still rolled the Venom, big-time. I’m no
Axepicker.”
“Hey, I’m not making any accusations or anything,” Strike said. “But we need to do everything we can to prepare. What happens when we play the Beatdown three weeks from now? And the Neutrons in week 5? A single missed block could mean the difference between a win and a loss.”
“Why are you all ganging up on me?” Pickaxe shouted. “I wasn’t the only one who didn’t have a perfect game. What was Rock doing the last play of the first half, way out on the left, all by himself?”
“That was the play call,” Rock said. “Strike must have audibled at the last moment.” He mulled things over. “Or perhaps he forgot the play. Frak.”
“No one’s ganging up on you, Pickaxe,” Strike said. “Just come on, let’s try this out.” He pointed to Boom. “Lead on.”
She jogged toward the airlock connecting Taiko Arena to Taiko Colony. “Follow me. Whoever can one-up me becomes the leader.” She burst into a sprint and leapt for a gray-brick ledge on top of the airlock. She swung around, launching herself high, then curling into a perfect forward roll.
“Whoa,” Nugget said.
Strike took off, jumping for the ledge and nearly missing it. He flung himself like Boom. Although he didn’t get as high, a rush of adrenaline surged through him. Doing crazy physical feats was the norm in an Ultrabot suit. Doing them on your own was totally different—even better, in a way.
“This is dumb,” Pickaxe said. “Anyone can do that.” He took off after Strike and leapt for the ledge. But as he heaved himself off it, his hand slipped. With a scream, he flew off at an angle, thudding to the ground on his back.
Nugget sprinted to copy Boom, his eyes locked onto the ledge. He jumped high and grabbed it, using his momentum to swing himself into a high arc. Landing and rolling close to Strike, he grinned at his brother. “You’re right. Anyone could do it.”
“Not bad,” Boom said. “But not as high or as far. Come on.”
“Wait,” Strike said. Boom had just handed him the perfect way to dig up more information about her. Genius ideas came to Strike so infrequently that he had to stop and admire it. “We’ll add a twist. The leader gets to ask anyone a question, and it must be answered.”