by Jeff Chen
Neutron Stadium was state-of-the-art. The best locker rooms, the best field surface, the best stands and food, the best everything the moon had to offer. The enormous space was lit by dozens of blinding ceiling spotlights, the air perfectly clear and clean. The stadium was connected to North Pole Colony’s top-of-the-line oxygen and water recyclers, and two nuclear reactors providing uninterrupted power. If something catastrophic happened on the moon, Neutron Stadium would be the perfect place to house refugees. Not that Zuna would let a single person stay here, Strike thought.
The Miners waited on their side of the field, and the crowd roared when Raiden Zuna walked from the stands to the middle of the fifty-meter line to do his usual pregame greeting. The crowd went quiet as Zuna raised his hands. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Neutron Stadium.” He pointed above the skyboxes, where a spotlight blazed upon three gleaming trophies mounted atop a spire. “Home of the three-time Ultrabowl champions, the North Pole Neutrons!”
The crowd went nuts, the masses of bright red jumpsuits dancing like flames.
Zuna continued. “Neutron Stadium has the honor of hosting the Ultrabowl this year, and with a 4–0 record—soon to be 5–0—there’s no stopping us from winning a fourth trophy in a row.” He pointed at Strike and grinned as the audience hooted and hollered. “There is no stopping the force of nature that is the North Pole Neutrons. The lights will never go out on Neutron Nation!”
Strike’s stomach flip-flopped. This was standard Raiden Zuna and his hyping-up of the crowds before each home game. But never were the stakes as high as they were today. Zuna went on and on about how the Neutrons had crushed all their opponents this year, scoring a league-record 392 points through four games. And doubt ate away at Strike.
Strike startled when someone bumped his shoulder from behind. “Gonna throw up inside your helmet?” someone in a red Ultrabot suit said. The visor flipped to clear, and Chain Reaction’s ugly mug came into view, with Fusion standing right behind him. “You should have taken Mr. Zuna’s offer when you had a chance. Now you’re going down.”
“We’ll see who’s going down,” Strike said.
“I hope you try some quarterback sneaks,” Chain Reaction said. “I’ll slam you into the ground so hard I’ll smash you into a pile of rubble.” He leaned in with a maniacal grin, lowering his voice. “Just like Taiko Colony, after this season.”
The words paralyzed Strike, his limbs frozen in shock. He tried to say something to Chain Reaction, to make sure he hadn’t misheard. But there was no mistaking it.
If Zuna took over as governor, he was going to destroy Taiko Colony.
Strike lunged at Chain Reaction, fists flying, screaming at the top of his lungs. Rock and Boom wrapped him up before he could make contact, but Strike launched punches into his teammates’ helmets in a furious attempt to break loose and pound Chain Reaction into the turf.
“How much suit power did you just waste, moron?” Chain Reaction said. He sauntered off, laughing. “Come on, Fusion.”
Strike stopped struggling against his teammates, swearing at himself. A quick peek at his heads-up display showed that his suit power was already down to 96.2 percent, and the game hadn’t even started.
Fusion stole a glance at Chain Reaction and quickly held a fist out to Strike. “Good luck,” he said. He leaned in close, so they were nearly touching helmets, and whispered something Strike couldn’t make out. His eyes flicked to the other Miners, and then he bounded away.
In his confusion, Strike stared at the back of Fusion’s bright red Ultrabot suit. What had he whispered? Why had he shot glances at the other Miners?
Then Fusion’s words snapped into place: Watch your back, Strike.
If Strike had had any last doubts about TNT’s warnings, they melted away. Fusion might have been a rival Neutron, but he was also in the tight fraternity of Ultraball quarterbacks. If things had been different, they might have even been friends.
Strike motioned his Miners to the line to receive the opening kickoff, keeping his visual targeting sensors trained on Pickaxe. He’d be keeping a close eye on his crackback 1. As the refs signaled for the game to begin, Strike gave the hand signals for the upcoming play, glad that Boom had pressed him to practice with unbearable shrieking noises pumped into their helmets. It would serve them well today.
Fusion ran forward and kicked the ball, sending it in a high arc toward Boom. She backpedaled all the way to the corner of the end zone, adjusting to catch it after it bounced off the back wall. Boom turned and accelerated to full speed in just a few steps.
Strike pulled in behind her. His eyes widened at the sight of the Neutrons closing in. They had always been one of the quickest teams in the league, but they had somehow found a fifth gear. Before he knew it, the lead Neutrons crashed into the Miners’ wedge, Pickaxe getting smashed off his feet straight into Nugget, both brothers going down in a heap. Another Neutron took out Rock, pancaking him to the ground.
Just before another Neutron leapt over the mass to tackle Boom, she flipped the ball backward to Strike. With a sharp juke, he moved to circle around, back the other way. When Strike had enough space to maneuver, he could easily evade one, two, and sometimes even three defenders.
But not this time. Two Neutrons homed in on Strike as if they were reading his mind, cutting off his path. A third defender leapt into one of Neutron Stadium’s slingshot zones—magnetic accelerators that sent anything metal flying like a rocket—and smashed a clothesline tackle into Strike’s neck, whipping him head over heels. Strike’s world went into a smeared blur, all his heads-up displays blinking wildly. Crunching to the ground, Strike tried to get to his feet, but the rest of the Neutrons leapt on him, punching to knock out the ball.
The whistle blew to signal that the play was over, but the Neutrons kept wailing away. Clutching the Ultraball with all his might, his glove electromagnets engaged to full power, Strike ground his teeth together. It’s gonna be a dirty game, he thought.
Boom yanked the Neutrons off and helped Strike to his feet. He heard her yelling something but couldn’t make out a single word over the roar of the crowd. Strike looked over to Torch in the coach’s box, who signaled in a play. Strike relayed it to the team—a fake QB sneak, Strike slinging a long bomb to Boom after she gave him a block and then launched herself through a slingshot zone. This would hopefully silence the crowd.
Strike stood over the ball, ready to give the snap count. He stomped his right foot, trying to draw the Neutrons offsides with a hard first step, but got no takers. On the second stomp, he tucked in the ball and curled to his right as if he was going to run a QB sneak. Boom gave him a huge block, and then she raced toward a slingshot zone, accelerating through and flying out like a bullet.
But just as Strike cocked the ball to throw it, a Neutron punched in from the blind side and popped the ball loose. Strike scrambled toward it but got smashed to the ground by another Neutron.
Rock and Nugget sprinted alongside two Neutron defenders in a footrace for the loose ball. Rock bashed one of the Neutrons with a forearm, the guy’s head snapping back as he flew off his feet. Nugget dove and grabbed the ball, but another Neutron speared him.
The ball flew loose again, skittering backward toward the Miners’ end zone. A mass of players raced in, all jumping for it. Punches flew, some players aiming at the ball and some aiming at opponents’ helmets.
Strike scrambled to the pileup, a mass of arms and legs lashing out. With a surge of relief, Strike saw one of his Miners with the ball: Boom. She had come all the way back from her long route to dive on top of the ball. She was smothered to the ground, and the whistle would blow any second to signal the end of the play.
But no whistle came. Strike looked for the refs in impactanium armor, still coming in from the sidelines, as the pileup on top of Boom continued to wail away. Then Chain Reaction came out of nowhere, blasting out of a slingshot zone to explode the pile backward in a mass of flailing limbs. The ball squirted out, bouncing into t
he Miners’ end zone, and Ion Storm grabbed it. She triumphantly held it up to a ref in black armor, who jerked his arms up, signaling touchdown.
Strike raced over, screaming at the ref. “Are you blind? The play was over way before the ball came out! Did you swallow your whistle or are you just a moron?”
The ref glared before pressing a button by his shoulder to make an announcement over the loudspeaker. “Number 8 on the Miners is assessed a yellow-card warning for unsportsmanlike conduct.”
Boom raced in front of Strike, going helmet to helmet with him. She flipped her visor to clear and yelled at him, spittle flying from her mouth. He couldn’t hear a word she said, but he could read her lips well enough. Strike had just made the dumbest of rookie mistakes—you never yelled at a ref, no matter how bad a call was, especially when you weren’t on your home field. With this yellow card, Strike was one more infraction away from getting ejected. And a team without five manned Ultrabot suits on the field had to forfeit.
As the Miners gathered by their own end zone to receive the kickoff, Strike smacked Pickaxe’s helmet in frustration. None of his teammates could hear a thing due to the crowd noise, but Strike ripped into Pickaxe anyway. “Your only job on that play was to block your rusher. Get your head into the game and stop playing like an Axepicker!”
Pickaxe’s face crumpled. He turned and kicked at the turf.
Boom whirled Strike around, yelling in his face. She beat her helmet three times, the sign for get your head in the game, then pointed toward the Neutrons, who were setting up for the kickoff. Boom grabbed Strike’s arm and pulled him into place just as the Neutrons kicked off.
The Neutrons continued to crush the Miners in the first half, picking apart the Miners for score after score, running through slingshot zones and even throwing passes through them, accelerating the Ultraball to light speed. With so much more practice time on their home field, the Neutrons kept beating the Miners with a dazzling array of bullet-like passes and trick plays through the slingshot zones.
And more important, on defense, the Neutrons repeatedly sacked Strike from his blind side—Pickaxe’s side. On two of the sacks, it was like the Neutrons had known exactly what play the Miners had called, countering it perfectly.
The Miners went into halftime down by thirty-five points. No team in league history had ever come back from that far behind.
As the Miners got out of their suits and assembled inside the locker room, Strike couldn’t even bear to look at Pickaxe through his rage. No one could play so poorly unless it was on purpose. Four times, defenders blew by Pickaxe as if he wasn’t there. And on certain plays, it seemed like the Neutrons knew exactly what the Miners were going to do.
Did Pickaxe somehow accidentally telegraph what we were doing? Strike thought. He narrowed his eyes at his crackback 1, whose eyes were glued to the ground, his mohawk flopped over with sweat.
Or was it no accident?
Strike caught sight of Torch sitting in the corner. The former QB’s talent for making things up on the fly was legendary. “Gunslinger mode,” Strike said through gritted teeth. “I’m gonna wing it.”
“What?” Nugget said. “How are Pickaxe and I supposed to block for you if we don’t know what the play is?”
Pickaxe put his hands over his head, trembling, not saying a word.
“You’ll figure it out,” Strike said. “Boom, you good with that?”
She took a deep breath as she thought it over, and then nodded. “The Neutrons are all over some of our plays. It’s like they have some pages out of our playbook. But there’s no way they can predict crazy.”
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” Rock said. “I’m no good at improvising.”
“Stay back and block, then,” Strike said.
“Won’t the Chain Reaction and Meltdown be able to double-team Boom every play?” Rock asked.
Boom nodded. “We need you out there, running routes with me. Even if you’re the decoy most of the time, you’ll still be a threat.”
“Just wing it,” Strike said.
“I can’t wing anything, much less routes out on the field,” Rock said.
Strike grabbed Rock’s shoulders in frustration, but before he could say anything, Boom stepped in between them. “Wait,” she said. “He’s right.”
“How hard is it to just run around and get open?” Strike said.
“Very hard, especially in a real game,” Boom said. She studied Rock. “How about this? Before every play, you pick a random number from one to forty-six. You run whatever route you’re supposed to run on that page of the playbook.”
Rock’s forehead wrinkled up. “What if it’s a QB sneak? Or I’m supposed to block?”
“Then that’s what you do.”
It took him a moment, but he slowly nodded. “I can do that.”
“How is that any different from what I said?” Strike asked. He glanced at the clock. “Never mind. We gotta get going. Everyone gear up.”
As the Miners headed for their suits, Boom approached Strike. “I’ll get open,” she said. “Just throw it high and hard and I’ll go get it. Trust me.”
A buzzer sounded, echoing through the locker room, and the other Miners hurried to suit up. “Okay,” he said. “You and me. We’ll win this.”
“Not just you and me,” she said, throwing a glance to the others. “All of us. Miners together.” She put her hand out, and Rock, Nugget, and Pickaxe put theirs on top.
Strike slapped his hand down on top of Pickaxe’s. Hard.
After a huge four-and-out stop on defense to start the second half, the Miners got the ball on the Neutrons’ forty-meter line. Everyone jogged a few meters back to where the huddle usually would be, but Strike waved them off, pointing to the line of scrimmage for a no-huddle offense. He signaled to Boom, pointing to the sky. I’m going to throw it up. You go get it.
She nodded.
The Neutrons swarmed like angry insects, darting back and forth, continually in motion. It was unusual for an offense to go without huddles, but the Neutrons didn’t seem fazed. They set up in a run protection scheme, with everyone jammed up at the line. Then, as Strike got over the ball, the Neutrons fell back into a deep pass protection setup.
Strike yanked the ball off the ground, even his teammates not knowing he was going to quick-hike it. As Rock crossed from one side to the other, Boom ran behind him, using Rock to pick off her defender. She took off like a shot, racing toward a slingshot zone.
But Chain Reaction had already adjusted, switching defensive assignments and zeroing in on her. He leapt for her and hit the slingshot zone a split second after she did, grabbing her ankle to lock on. Both of them shot into the sky like a gigantic boomerang, spinning around each other in a whirlwind of red and blue.
On the other side of the field, Strike ducked a tackle. He kicked another defender’s legs out from under him. A third Neutron sent himself spearing in, blocking Strike’s passing lane. Strike cocked back the ball as if he were going to throw it right at the defender’s head, but he swiveled at the last moment and threw an angled pass toward a slingshot zone. It didn’t have much zip on it, but it didn’t need any. As soon as it entered, it accelerated with a blast of speed, exploding like a bullet out the other side. It hit the clear protective barrier separating the field from the stands with an earsplitting bang and ricocheted high, toward the center of the field.
Forty meters off the ground, Boom and Chain Reaction were locked in a midair dogfight, chokeholding and punching each other as they spun around at a dizzying speed. Strike’s visual targeting system hadn’t been able to lock onto Boom, but he’d eyeballed the bounce pass well. The Ultraball was speeding right at them. Now the rest was up to her.
And as the Ultraball zoomed in, Boom smashed a kick into Chain Reaction’s chest plate, the two players bursting apart in opposite directions. Twisting and contorting, Boom reached out at full extension. Her glove magnetized for the lock, but the ball’s unholy speed whipped her into a frenzied spin. She h
urtled out of control toward the corner of the end zone. With an echoing crunch, she crashed into the back protective barrier, shooting shock waves through the clear impactanium barrier. She plummeted down toward the end zone in a death spiral, barely holding on to the ball.
Neutrons came rushing in from all directions, leaping up to spear her. But Strike outjumped everyone. He caught one of Boom’s boots, and in one smooth motion, whipsawed her down toward the turf with all his might. Before the Neutrons knew what had happened, Boom crashed like a meteor into the end zone for a touchdown.
After landing, Strike raced up to Boom, pounding on her helmet to make sure she was okay. “Incredible grab!” he yelled to her, but even he couldn’t hear himself amid the crowd’s thunderous booing.
Boom flipped her visor from reflective to clear. She couldn’t lock onto Strike, her eyes wandering in circles as if she were trying to get the world to stop spinning. But she lifted a glove and gave him the thumbs-up.
Throughout the second half, Strike continued to scramble around like a madman, not even his teammates sure where he was going. And it worked. The Miners scored on each of their next three possessions, on a frenzied scramble by Strike, a wild cross-field pass to Boom, and a bull run where Strike and Boom hit a slingshot zone together, both of them blasting into the Neutrons’ defense like a double-wide cannonball. The Neutrons slowly adjusted, but not before the Miners clawed their way back to make it a game.
By the fourth quarter, the Neutrons started answering every Miners score with a touchdown of their own, momentum swinging from one team to the other and back again. After a huge defensive stop by a blitzing Boom, the Miners got the ball back with five seconds left in the game. The Neutrons were up by a single touchdown, 105–98. The Miners had one last play to tie up the game and send it to overtime. On the Neutrons’ side of the field, they were just forty meters away from scoring.