Ultraball #1

by Jeff Chen

  “Boom’s gone!” Nugget said. He pointed to the sideline.

  Strike’s stomach tightened. He whirled around to see Boom’s number 3 Ultrabot suit lying on the ground. It was open. Empty. The field turf next to the suit was scratched, scuff marks heading toward one of the airlock exits. “Boom!” he called out. “Where are you?”

  And then a wave of despair crashed over him, dropping him to his knees. Strike slapped his hands to his helmet. He slammed his head into the turf, pounding it over and over. The realization hit him like a roundhouse punch to the stomach. He collapsed.

  “Player out of suit and off the field,” the announcer’s voice blasted over the loudspeaker. “The Miners are automatically disqualified. Congratulations to the champions of Ultrabowl X, with their fourth championship in a row . . .

  “The North Pole Neutrons!”

  21

  The Fate of Taiko Colony

  STRIKE AND ROCK had racked their brains with Governor Katana and his advisors, trying to come up with some solution, some trade, some arrangement that Zuna might accept. Part of the deal was that Governor Katana could call off the bet by buying Zuna’s oxygen recycler outright, thus saving Taiko Colony. But coming up with ten million U-dollars was laughable.

  Strike paced in front of the eastern airlock to Taiko Colony, waiting to intercept Raiden Zuna when he arrived. Taiko Colony was doomed. Raiden Zuna would take control, and then the blast fracking and explosion mining would start. The giant cavern would collapse, destroying the colony. In the distance, a low background buzz of people desperately evacuating filled Strike’s ears.

  All night long, Strike had kicked himself for being so stupid. How could he have trusted Boom? She made such a good show of being his star RB1, his teammate—even his friend. And then she sold him out, getting out of her Ultrabot suit to get the Miners disqualified. The scratch marks in the field turf around her suit were signs of her scrambling away in the dark. The traitor had signed Taiko Colony’s death warrant.

  So much for all of Boom’s talk about trust. Whatever it took, however much it cost him, Strike would find the dirty rat.

  And then he’d make her pay.

  Strike turned at the sound of footsteps from behind. Rock shook his head, dark circles under his eyes. “I scoured the law books at Copernicus College library all night.”

  “Any miraculous ideas?” Strike asked.

  Rock glumly shook his head.

  Strike’s last shred of hope shriveled and died. If Rock couldn’t figure a way out of this, no one could. He clenched his fists, picturing the dead Earth swirling with nuclear fallout. Earthfall had happened because of ultrapowerful tyrants battling to gain control over the planet. Raiden Zuna had to be stopped.

  It was time for the nuclear option.

  “You did everything you possibly could,” Rock said.

  Strike closed his eyes, seeing the toxic clouds covering Earth. Taiko Colony would soon fall in Earth’s footsteps, a rotting graveyard. Where would three thousand people go? They would wander the Tunnel Ring, begging one of the other twenty underground colonies to take them in. Maybe set out for the Dark Side. Many of them would die.

  “Strike?” Rock said. “Did you hear me? You did all you possibly could.”

  A dizziness filled Strike’s head. “Get going, Rock,” he said. He reflexively touched his right jumpsuit pocket. “I need to meet Zuna by myself. Alone.”

  Rock furrowed his brow. “I should stay.”

  “I don’t want you here,” Strike said. “Go.”

  “Promise me you won’t do anything crazy,” Rock said.

  Strike kept staring forward, silent.

  Rock grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Strike. I know what you’re planning. It’s stupid. Zuna will kill you for sure. And that can’t happen. You’re the only friend I have left.”

  At the bottom of Strike’s jumpsuit pocket, the hilt of a knife pressed into his leg. His brain spun, trying to think of a way to make this promise to Rock and still carry out his plan.

  Rock shook him hard. “Promise me you won’t do this. On your parents’ graves.”

  “Someone has to stop Raiden Zuna.”

  “But this won’t achieve anything. It’ll only end with you dead. The people of Taiko Colony need you more than ever right now. Governor Katana needs you. I need you.”

  Strike had to do something. Anything.

  But like always, Rock was right.

  Strike screamed in frustration. Attacking Zuna was pointless.

  Everything was pointless.

  He dropped his head in defeat. So much for going out in a blaze of glory. So much for showing Zuna that some people still had fight in them.

  “I’m going to stay right here with you,” Rock said. He reached into Strike’s pocket and took the knife. “And I’m going to hold on to this.”

  They both turned at the sound of the metal airlock door squealing open.

  But it wasn’t Zuna. A scrawny boy in a filthy jumpsuit tripped through the gateway and stumbled, falling to the ground in a heap.

  “TNT?” Strike said. “Where have you been?”

  Breathing hard, TNT struggled to catch his breath.

  Strike recoiled at the sight of his face, bony and ashy gray. His eyes were sunk into sockets darkened black. TNT was no longer human. He was a skeleton.

  “Zuna bribed two Blackguards to haul me in,” TNT said. “They got me after I tried to warn you.” He broke into a spasm of coughing. “He had me locked up in a prison cell under Neutron Stadium for two weeks.” He shook his head. “I failed you, Strike. I couldn’t get you the message.”

  “You got locked up,” Strike said. “So that’s why you never showed up at the junk hole.”

  A look of relief appeared on TNT’s face. “You actually went. I wasn’t sure you’d show up. I tried to escape from my cell to get there, but it was no use. At least until the power went out during the Ultrabowl. I busted out right then and ran straight to the announcers’ booth to warn you about Boom. But I was too late.” TNT clawed at his cheeks. “I told you I had proof, Strike. It cost me everything to get this.” He pulled a grainy picture out of his jumpsuit pocket.

  Strike leaned in. It was tough to make out the two figures in the blurry shot. But the angular black weapon strapped to the man’s side and the shoulder-length hair framing the girl’s face made everything clear.

  It was Zuna and Boom, shaking hands inside an apartment building.

  Strike paused, but he reached down to give TNT a hand. He pulled him up easily, TNT’s bony frame shockingly light.

  TNT sobbed. “I had a chance to stop this. But I failed you. All I wanted was for things to go back to the way they used to be. And now they never will.”

  Memories came flooding back to Strike. The day they first met. So many all-nighters, planning practical jokes on their teammates. Thousands of hours at practice. Dozens of high-pressure games. Strike had thrown over one hundred touchdown passes to TNT. They had fought together to make three straight Ultrabowls. Even after a full year, the pain of losing his best friend still stabbed at his heart.

  A phone rang, startling them all. “Where’s that coming from?” Strike asked. Hardly anyone in Taiko Colony had a phone, everyone having hocked anything of value long ago. He followed the sounds to Rock. “Is that you?”

  “No.” But Rock patted his pockets, and pulled out a tiny phone. “Where did this come from?” He answered it, and a scratchy picture appeared.

  It was Boom, flanked by people in white jumpsuits.

  But this wasn’t the Boom who Strike knew. Lying in a cot in a dim room, she looked even worse than TNT. Her face was charred and raw, skin peeling off her cheeks, covered by oozing red sores. Big clumps of her hair had fallen out, and the rest was so thin you could see her scalp through it.

  She took a raspy breath. “Rock. I’m calling you because you’re my friend. Remember that, no matter what.”

  “Where are you?” Rock said. “You look terri
ble. Are you okay?”

  “Always the charmer, aren’t you?” She let out a pained sigh. “They say I could get better, but . . .” She shook her head, tears running down her cheeks. “Tell Strike I didn’t plan for it to end this way.”

  Strike jumped in front of the phone. “Liar. You took a payoff from Zuna, didn’t you?”

  She paused. “Yes. But—”

  “I knew it. You screwed us. Taiko Colony is going to die because of you. You deserve to die, you frakkin’ traitor.”

  “You’re right,” Boom said. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Wait.” Strike glanced uneasily at Rock and TNT. “What?”

  “This will explain some things,” she said.

  A second later, the phone in Rock’s hand beeped. He pushed a button, and a document came up. He squinted as he read through it. “This transfers ownership of Raiden Zuna’s oxygen recycler . . . to Governor Katana?”

  Strike pushed in to look at the document. He ran his fingers through his hair as he studied it, hardly understanding a word of the legal mumbo-jumbo.

  Rock pored over the details, hardly blinking. “It appears that Zuna has been paid the ten million U-dollars needed to buy the oxygen recycler and cancel the bet.”

  A corner of Boom’s mouth curled up.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Strike said. “Someone explain to me what the frak is going on.”

  Rock held up the phone, a giant smile on his face. “Look.”

  Strike studied a photo containing dozens of pieces of paper. “Betting slips?”

  “That’s right,” Rock said. “A total of one hundred thousand U-dollars in bets, all placed at one-hundred-to-one odds. Boom turned one hundred thousand into ten million.”

  “But . . .” Strike shook his head, dumbfounded. “Where did you get one hundred thousand U-dollars?”

  “I told you,” Boom said, with a wry grin. “I took a payoff from Zuna. A big one. My friends then placed all those bets for me. They already collected all the winnings and sent them to Governor Katana.” Her smile widened. “What I wouldn’t give to see Zuna’s face when he finds out what happened.”

  “She rigged it all,” Rock said, bouncing with excitement. “Everything. She’s been pulling the strings all along.” He zoomed in on one of the slips. “Her friends bet all that money on a blackout happening during the Ultrabowl. Zuna was so sure that his two nuclear reactors and his solar power backup wouldn’t all go off-line at the same time, he set the odds at one-hundred-to-one.”

  “Didn’t count on me and my friends,” Boom said. “We Dark Siders pride ourselves on having all sorts of different skills. Tunneling. Electronics. Explosives.” She paused, looking expectantly at Rock, waiting for him to figure it all out.

  Rock slowly put the pieces together. “You tunneled underneath Neutron Stadium?” he asked. “And then set off a massive electromagnetic burst? But how?”

  “Remember the day we met?” Boom said. “I stole that Blackguard’s ID badge?”

  Rock flipped through his notebook, studying a page titled “The Day I Met Boom.” “You said you had some shopping to do . . .” His face lit up. “At Saladin Colony. You said you needed some big-ticket electronic items.”

  “People in Saladin Colony love two things,” Boom said. “The Saladin Shock, and high-powered electronics. Making a gigantic electromagnetic explosion is easy, if you have the right equipment.”

  Strike rubbed the back of his neck, still trying to make sense of it all. “But this is crazy,” he said. “Why did you do all this complicated stuff? Why not just help us win the Ultrabowl? That would have been a much easier way to save Taiko Colony.”

  “Vengeance,” Boom said.

  Rock and Strike looked at each other, puzzled. Then Rock’s eyes widened. “Did you blow up the Meltdown Gun?”

  She nodded. “I finally destroyed the weapon that . . .” She choked up. “That . . .”

  “The weapon that killed your parents,” Rock whispered.

  “I don’t get this,” Strike said. He shook Rock in frustration. “Dumb it down for me.”

  “An electromagnetic burst blows up all things electrical,” Rock said. “But only if they’re running. The Meltdown Gun had to be operating in order for that massive electrical blast to destroy it. At the end of the Ultrabowl, Boom made it look like she was going back on her agreement with Zuna. All that yelling, up toward the luxury boxes at the end of the game? She was goading him.”

  “I had to convince him that I was double-crossing him,” Boom said. “I only left him one way to stop me: to pull the trigger.”

  Rock gulped. “To nuke you with the Meltdown Gun.”

  A cold shiver shot down Strike’s back as he remembered the bright red circle he had seen up in the stands. It was the Meltdown Gun, firing at Boom. No wonder she looked like she had been burned to a crisp. Ultrabot suits could withstand almost everything, but nothing could stop the focused nuclear radiation blasting out of the Meltdown Gun. Even impactanium armor could only block it for a few seconds. “But wait,” Strike said. “Zuna still becomes governor of Taiko Colony because we didn’t win the Ultrabowl, right?”

  Rock broke out laughing as he studied another document that popped up on the phone’s screen. “No. Boom’s Dark Sider friends already sent that ten million U-dollars to Governor Katana, allowing him to buy Zuna’s oxygen recycler outright. That will officially cancel their bet. Governor Katana will remain governor.”

  “But won’t Zuna somehow weasel his way out of all that?” Strike asked. “Still take over Taiko Colony?”

  “No,” Rock said. “Not even he has enough power to welch on a bet this huge. Taiko Colony is saved. Everything went exactly to Boom’s plan.”

  Boom’s smile melted away. “Not everything.”

  Strike and Rock waited for her to explain, but Boom didn’t speak. Her jaw trembled.

  “What do you mean . . .” Rock startled. “Wait. The scratches by your Ultrabot suit. You weren’t scrambling to get away. You were fighting to stay put. You tried to die out on the field?”

  Boom closed her eyes. She nodded.

  “What?” Strike said. “That’s insane. Why?”

  “Disqualification only happens if a player gets out of their Ultrabot suit during the game,” Rock said. “If she had died inside her suit, we would have been allowed to play, as long as her body was suited up and on the field. We could have run out the clock and won.”

  “You tried to stay on the field,” Strike said, a lump clogging his throat, “so we could win?”

  Boom nodded again. “I tried. But I couldn’t stop my friends from evacuating me. From trying to save my worthless life. Once I destroyed the Meltdown Gun and saved Taiko Colony, I accomplished my mission. But my friends cost you your Ultrabowl title, Strike.” She turned away, her eyes pinched tight.

  Strike stared at the phone, trying to process the horror of it all. Boom had orchestrated a grand plan to get her vengeance, save Taiko Colony, and get Strike the title he so badly needed, all in one fell swoop. She had been planning to die in order to make it all happen.

  But as he tried to process everything, something didn’t sit well. His hands balled up into fists. They began to quiver, then tremble. “You’re a coward,” he said through gritted teeth. “Nothing but a frakkin’ coward.”

  Boom’s eyes popped open. She scowled, and her jaw tensed. “What did you just call me?”

  “You heard me,” Strike said. “You’re not even going to fight to stay alive, are you?”

  She looked down before shaking her head.

  “You think destroying the Meltdown Gun means anything?”

  “Of course it does,” Boom said. “It’s the source of Zuna’s power. I blew it up. Avenged my parents. I saved Taiko Colony, too. Shouldn’t you be thanking me?”

  Strike took several deep breaths, struggling to hold his rage in check. “Yeah. Okay. That’s big. But don’t you see? Zuna won’t stop until he gets at those ice deposits undernea
th Taiko Colony.” Although Strike had only wanted one thing his entire life—to win an Ultrabowl for his Miners, thus guaranteeing their futures—he could no longer ignore what had been staring him in the face. “This is a major setback for him. But he’ll regroup. He’s going to come at Taiko Colony even harder. And it won’t be just Taiko Colony. His alliance will be gunning to take over the entire moon. Zuna has to be stopped for good. No one’s standing in his way. Someone has to take him down.” He glanced nervously at Rock. “I think . . . as crazy as it sounds, I think it has be us. And we need your help, Boom.”

  “But I’m a disgrace—”

  “Stop saying that!” Strike yelled. “What you are is brilliant. Amazing. You die, and Taiko Colony dies along with you. Frak! I don’t know what chance a couple of kids have of stopping the most powerful person on the moon. But one thing is for sure: without you, we’ll go down in flames.”

  Boom stayed quiet for a long moment. She peered nervously at Rock. “Can you ever look at me again?”

  Rock’s face screwed up in confusion. “What are you talking about? You’re my friend. You’ll always be my friend. Strike is right. We can’t stop Zuna without your help. We need you to survive.” He choked back a sob. “I need you to survive.”

  Boom turned away, tears freely flowing down her cheeks. She wiped at her face. “Way to make it awkward, doofus.”

  “What?” Rock said, turning red. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Just yanking your chain,” she said with a tiny grin.

  “You have to hold on, Boom,” Strike said. “Get better. Get back to full strength. Then help us fight Zuna. Help us take him down. For good, this time.”

  She took several weak, rattling breaths. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be in Ultraball shape again. Or what I can do to help stop him. But . . .” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I’d be honored if you’d still let me call myself a Miner.”

  Strike turned to Rock. “Miners together?” he said.

  “Miners forever,” Rock replied.

  A million-U-dollar smile came to Boom’s face. She keyed a code into her phone. “We won’t be able to talk on this phone again—too much risk of Zuna picking up the signal and locating us—but I’m sending Rock an emergency code. If there’s ever a dire need, punch it into the phone. I’ll come running.”