Ultraball #1

by Jeff Chen

  Nugget slapped at his brother’s arm, his punches nothing more than slaps. Twisting away, he gasped for breath, his face dark red and dripping with sweat. He turned to Rock. “Shoving my face into his armpit is illegal. It smells like someone took a dump in there and then smooshed some foot cheese in for good measure. Why didn’t you stop him?”

  Rock pulled out his notebook, writing like mad as he fired out his rat-a-tat laugh. “Because it was funny. Not nearly as funny as a fart in the face, but still funny.”

  “Maybe there’s hope for you after all,” Strike said.

  “Knock it off,” Boom said from a corner of the tram. “We have work to do. Let’s go over game film so we’re ready to practice when we get back to Taiko Arena.”

  Everyone went silent, the Miners turning toward Strike. “We’re going to practice?” Nugget said. “Why?”

  Boom stared at Nugget in silence, her eyes burning like coals.

  Nugget shrank down. “What I meant to say was, more practice sounds like a lot of fun.”

  “This isn’t about fun,” Boom said. “It’s about winning the Ultrabowl. Nugget, you missed a block in the second half and Strike almost got sacked because of it. Pickaxe, you got faked out twice defending inside slants. Let’s figure out how to fix that.”

  “Geez, cut us some slack,” Pickaxe said. “We won big today, didn’t we? And we rolled the Venom last week. We lit them on fire.”

  Rock flipped through his notebook. “Venom is not flammable,” he muttered.

  “Look.” Boom pointed to a TV screen on the tram wall, broadcasting Ultraball highlights on LunarSports Reports. The Neutron’s QB, Fusion, threw a pass through a slingshot zone to Chain Reaction, who superjumped off Ion Storm’s back to snag the metallic blur of a ball that blasted into him like a missile. The brash rocketback had outleapt two Flamethrower defenders to make the catch—and then twisted midair to throw a lateral to the Neutrons’ crackback 1, Radioactive, who was wide open on the other side of the field. “That was just one of the Neutrons’ sixteen touchdowns on the day,” Boom said. “Sixteen. The Neutrons crushed the Flamethrowers.”

  “Who cares if they beat up on a cursed team?” Pickaxe said. He shot a look at Torch.

  Even though Torch was half a meter taller than Pickaxe and a whole lot stronger, he shrank down into his seat. He stared at his feet, flipping his black hair so it covered his eyes.

  “Come on, man,” Strike said. “Be cool. There is no such thing as the Torch’s Curse.”

  “The Flamethrowers are a lot better than a lot of people think,” Boom said. “They have a real shot at the playoffs this year. Might even beat us if we’re not careful.”

  “No chance,” Pickaxe said. “We’re going to run roughshod over the Flamethrowers.”

  “Maybe so,” Boom said. “But we have to practice even harder to keep up with the Neutrons.” She reached up and tapped the top of the screen, at the ever-present Ultraball standings board. The Neutrons and Miners were the only two undefeated teams, but the Neutrons had already scored forty-two more points over the course of just two games.

  Nugget stared at Strike with pleading eyes. “Do we really have to go practice right now?”

  “What about going to our aunt Keiko’s to play Nuclear Poker?” Pickaxe said. He crossed his arms and glared at Boom. “That’s what the Miners have done after every game, for four straight years now. We’re not practicing right after a game. That’s just plain old stupid.”

  “We have to catch up to the Neutrons’ scoring pace,” Boom said. “And don’t forget, they played two strong teams, while we played two of the worst.” She slammed a fist into the side of the tram, making everyone jump. “We have to do better. We will do better.”

  Strike watched the Neutrons’ highlights streaming on LunarSports Reports. Chain Reaction juked his defenders with electric moves. He and Meltdown shot themselves through slingshot zones together, exploding apart at rocket speeds to baffle the Flamethrowers. Fusion threw full-field bullets so hard that the ball didn’t even arc. He bounced his passes off protective barriers with uncanny precision. And the Neutrons’ defense sacked the Flamethrowers’ quarterback nine times. It was like the Neutrons were playing a bunch of amateurs, running circles around a Farajah Flamethrowers team that had won their season opener in surprising fashion. After week 1, the Flamethrowers had looked like they might actually break the Torch’s Curse—until they had been punched in the mouth by the North Pole Neutrons.

  The tram chugged along in silence, only the clacking of the wheels along the tunnel tracks breaking the quiet. “Strike,” Pickaxe said. “We can’t keep up this pace all season long.”

  Boom bristled, her hands curling into fists. “You’re a coward if you’re afraid of practice.”

  “We need to rest,” Pickaxe said.

  “We can rest after the Ultrabowl. We can rest after we’re dead.”

  “I agree with Boom,” Rock said. “She makes good points. Although I hope the time for death is not too close at hand.”

  Boom’s forehead wrinkled up, but she grinned at Rock. “This is one strange kid, but we should all be more like him. He’s not afraid to work.”

  “I like you, too. I mean, I like to work. I mean . . .” He yanked out his notebook, mumbling as he wiped at the sweat beading up on his forehead.

  “We can’t break tradition,” Pickaxe said. “We have to go over to Aunt Keiko’s place like always. She’s doing worse than ever. Even with Nugget and me giving her all our Ultraball money, she can’t barely get by. Seeing us all is the only bright spot in her miserable existence. So what’s it going to be, Strike? You gonna listen to Boom, or the Fireball Five?”

  “Let me remind you, I agree with Boom,” Rock said.

  “Traitor,” Pickaxe said. “What ever happened to standing with your teammates? You’re choosing your girlfriend over us, your family?”

  “Girlfriend?” Rock’s eyes darted around the tram in panic. “I’m not her boyfriend. We’re just friends. Right? We are friends, right?”

  Boom rolled her eyes. She shot Rock a quick nod before focusing her scowl back onto Pickaxe. “Make your call, Strike,” she said.

  Strike bristled at all the bickering, and even more at Boom for having started it. The Miners were his clan. The Fireball Five had always been so tight, even closer than blood relatives. Why couldn’t everyone just get along like in the past?

  Unsure of what to do, Strike turned to the teenager who had shoved himself into a corner of the tram, out of the way. “Torch. What do you think?”

  “I don’t want to take sides. But . . .” Torch shrugged. “Boom has a point. The Neutrons have smashed up two good teams now. I thought the Flamethrowers might actually break the Torch’s Curse, until I saw how badly the Neutrons smacked them down. We have to accelerate our scoring if we’re going to catch the Neutrons in the season tiebreaker.”

  Strike nodded. He didn’t want to make Pickaxe any madder than he already was, but Torch—and Boom and Rock—had good points. “Yeah,” he said. “If we lose the Ultrabowl, and there was a single thing we could have done . . .” He clenched his jaw, thinking yet again about what Torch’s life would be like if he had just won an Ultrabowl. The sad, broken teenager in the tram might even have been Governor Torch of Farajah Colony. “We’ll watch game film today when we get back. But we practice first thing tomorrow morning. We won’t stop until night.”

  “A full day of practice?” Pickaxe said, his eyes going wide. “That’s insane.”

  “That’s going to kill us,” Nugget said.

  “You can’t let a Dark Sider and a washed-up old QB tell you what to do,” Pickaxe said. “You’re the coach and general manager, not any of them.”

  Disgust smeared across Boom’s face. “Strike knows that an Ultrabowl title doesn’t just fall into your lap. You have to work for it.”

  Pickaxe got up out of his seat and stood toe-to-toe with her. “I’m tired of all your yapping. I work. I work hard. And you don’t
tell me what to do. You got that? Why don’t you just go back to the Dark Side, where you came from?”

  Strike jumped up, pushing Pickaxe back. “Everybody calm down. We’re the Miners. Miners together, Miners forever, remember? No more arguing. We’ll take a break tonight, and then go at it with a full day tomorrow. Pickaxe, you good with that?”

  “Fine,” Pickaxe grumbled.

  “Nugget?”

  “You know I’m with you one hundred percent,” Nugget said. He sighed, slumping with exhaustion.

  Strike chucked Nugget’s shoulder. “I know you’re tired and you want to goof off. How about this? We’ll take it easy until we get back home. That’s another hour. Plenty of time”—he nodded at Pickaxe and Rock—“for a dog pile.”

  “Now we’re talking,” Nugget said. “Who are we going to dog-pile—”

  Strike, Pickaxe, and Rock dove onto Nugget. Squished to the ground, he groaned. “You guys suck.”

  At the top of the pile, Strike bounced up and down on top of the others, making everyone cry out and laugh.

  Everyone but Boom.

  RESULTS AND STANDINGS, AFTER WEEK 2

  RESULTS, WEEK 2

  Miners

  91

  Molemen

  21

  Neutrons

  112

  Flamethrowers

  77

  Explorers

  91

  Venom

  49

  Beatdown

  98

  Shock

  35

  STANDINGS, WEEK 2

  Wins Losses Total Points

  Neutrons

  2

  0

  217

  Miners

  2

  0

  175

  Beatdown

  1

  1

  168

  Explorers

  1

  1

  154

  Flamethrowers

  1

  1

  147

  Shock

  1

  1

  98

  Venom

  0

  2

  84

  Molemen

  0

  2

  35

  11

  Boom’s Beatdown

  PICKAXE AND NUGGET were already on the field when Strike and Rock arrived at Taiko Arena the next morning. “Where’s Boom?” Strike asked. She had been the first player at practice every single day.

  “Dunno,” Pickaxe said, stifling a yawn. “She better get here soon though, or I’m going back to sleep.” He scanned the airlock entrances to Taiko Arena, but there was no sign of Boom. “Where does she get off, calling an extra practice—a full-day one—and not even showing up? If she were here, I’d give her a piece of my mind. I don’t care that she’s a girl. I’d kick her ass.”

  “Why don’t you say that to my face?” screamed a high-pitched voice.

  Pickaxe ducked into a crouch, his hands covering his head. He cracked an eye open when Nugget busted up with laughter.

  “You thought I was Boom,” Nugget said, barely able to breathe through his giggles. “You almost pooped your pants.”

  “I knew it was you, you little butt booger,” Pickaxe muttered. He glanced around before getting up. “And now you are going to die.”

  “All right, all right,” Strike said. “Let’s get warmed up while we wait for Boom.”

  Nugget continued to snicker, but he flinched when Pickaxe fake-punched at him. With a screech, Nugget reached up to his neck and rubbed it, cringing as he massaged out a knot. “We aren’t really going to practice all day, are we?”

  “Yes, we are,” Strike said.

  “Are you sure this is smart?” Pickaxe said. “A major injury during a game means we get disqualified. Isn’t that right, Rock?”

  “Well, not exactly,” Rock said. “It’s only clicking out of your Ultrabot suit on the field that disqualifies the team. And Ultrabot suits make it nearly impossible for their wearer to be injured. Nothing less than a nuclear explosion would hurt someone inside an Ultrabot suit.”

  Strike squeezed his eyes tight. All the arguing and these big decisions were making his head throb. The days of the Fireball Five playing loose and easy seemed like a lifetime ago.

  A figure emerged from one of the tunnels leading into Taiko Arena. Her blue hood pulled down low over her face, Boom bounded in with choppy steps.

  Strike froze at the sight of what looked like a bruise on her face. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine.” Boom slowed down, trying to disguise her awkward stride, but something was wrong.

  Strike bounded over and bent down to stare at Boom’s right leg. Boom was keeping it stiff as a board, not bending her knee. And although her jumpsuit hood was pulled down, she couldn’t hide the deep purple-and-yellow splotch on her cheek. “What happened?” Strike asked. He reached toward her, but she slapped his hand away.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I fell down the stairs at my apartment building. Stop asking questions. Let’s start practice.”

  Something’s fishy, Strike thought. People didn’t get hurt like that falling down stairs. But as Strike and Rock prodded Boom with further questions, her grunts and snarls made it clear that she didn’t want to discuss it more.

  Boom winced while getting into her Ultrabot suit. During the warm-up laps, she lagged Strike, her Ultrabot suit mirroring her limp. But by the last lap, she kept up with everyone, and at the ending one-hundred-meter dash, she just barely lost to Strike in their usual flat-out sprint.

  “Got you today,” Strike said. “Finally edged you out.”

  Pickaxe flipped his visor to clear. “What’s the matter, Boom?” he asked. “You need a break?”

  “No,” Boom said.

  Hours went by as the Miners practiced their formations and plays over and over. Boom never showed signs of stopping, even complaining when Strike called an end to practice after eight hours. After they had clicked out of their suits, the Miners tossed around a football made from compacted trash as they headed toward the arena exit. “I’m going to sleep for a week,” Nugget said. “I’ve never been this tired.”

  Boom nodded and trudged away. “See you tomorrow. Got another hard day of practice ahead of us.”

  Strike reared back and fired a pass at her, Boom snagging it. “Wanna go over to the Tao Home with me and Rock?” he asked. “We’re going to hang out with some of the kids there. Maybe even play some schoolyard football with them.”

  “Can’t,” Boom said. “Gotta go train.”

  “Come on, just hang out for a while,” Strike said. “You know, team spirit and all. It’d be awesome for the kids, too. Playing football with you would be the highlight of their year.”

  “Strike brings up an excellent point,” Rock said. “Time together off the field builds better communication on the field. It also can build friendships, of which I have few.” He slowly pulled his notebook from his back pocket. “If you wanted, I could show you all the details of how I categorize jokes. Over eighty-one percent of everything I’ve recorded is actually funny.”

  “I . . .” Boom bit her lip and turned away. “Sorry, Rock. I am curious about everything in that little book of yours. And I will go to the Tao Home with you one day. I promise. I know how much that place means to you guys. But not today.”

  “You have to stop training and practicing sometime,” Pickaxe said.

  “You don’t understand how badly I need to make Raiden Zuna suffer, do you?” Boom said.

  Pickaxe protested, but Strike held up a hand. “It’s okay,” Strike said. “Just go. See you tomorrow morning at seven.”

  Boom studied Strike for a long moment and walked off. “I’ll be here at six.” She left the airlock exit and disappeared.

  Pickaxe waited until the door jerked closed and then exploded. “You can’t let her talk to us like chumps. And don’t you find it strange that she disappears into thin air after every pra
ctice? She’s hiding something. Maybe all the sports talk people have stopped asking questions about her and the Dark Side, but we can’t afford to. We have to know what she’s up to. We have to follow her.”

  “What?” Nugget said. “No way. We can’t spy on one of our own teammates. Auntie Keiko would be furious with us if she ever found out we did something as low as that. I’ll tell her; I swear I will.”

  “No, you won’t,” Pickaxe said. “Aunt Keiko has enough to worry about. So you better shut your trap.”

  Rock looked at Strike, who had gone quiet. “You can’t actually be considering this,” Rock said. “Don’t do it. We must respect her privacy. It’s of utmost importance to her. Following her could mess everything up.”

  Strike chewed his lip. He rarely went against anything Rock suggested, especially when he was this adamant. But Boom was definitely hiding something.

  If she was mixed up with Raiden Zuna, Strike needed to find out about it.

  12

  Cast No Shadows

  THEIR HOODS PULLED low over their grime-streaked faces, Strike and Pickaxe walked down a side street, staying in the shadows behind Boom. She blended into the crowds, wearing the same thing as all the people returning home from work in the mines: a filthy jumpsuit with layers of gray moon dust caked on. Most everyone in Taiko Colony would usually recognize the famous Miners, especially considering how many people carried radios tuned to broadcasts from LunarSports Reports, SmashMouth Radio Blitz, or the Touchdown Zone. But with all the crud they had scrubbed all over their faces, and their hoods pulled down low, Strike and Pickaxe passed for any of the grubby dropout kids in the streets, too weak to work in the mines, forced to beg for hardtack bars just to stay alive.

  In a way, it was good that it was just Strike and Pickaxe on this mission, Rock and Nugget staying behind after refusing to spy on Boom. It was easy for two people to blend into the crowd. “Where did she go?” Strike asked.