by Travis McBee
The weeks following the fight were some of the happiest of Will’s life. He had become a minor celebrity among the freshmen and even some of the upperclassmen would say hi to him in the hall. The circus of attention did die down after a few weeks but Will was no longer invisible to his classmates. Jon had become his closest friend and the two spent all of their free time together joking around or talking about the differences between Earth and the rest of the universe.
Abby had also become close friends with both him and Jon. She moved across the room the day after the fight to sit at Will’s table in Basic Sciences and had sat next to him and Jon in Intergalactic Relations. They were only friends and Will still harbored an enormous crush on her, a fact that Jon was well aware of, but he found himself completely relaxed around her and didn’t try to make anything happen between the two of them that might jeopardize that comfort.
Classes themselves became ridiculously hard and most of Will’s free time was spent studying in either the lounge or the Study Hall. All of his classes provided copious amounts of homework except for physical education and flight, where he spent hours in the small simulator. He was amazed to find that he didn’t mind studying, his entire life he had never needed to and had found school boring as a result, now school was exciting and he found himself engrossed in each lecture, except for Intergalactic Relations which he found excruciatingly distasteful.
Brandon had experienced the opposite luck of Will. He found himself excluded from every group. It didn’t matter if he was in the cafeteria, Study Hall, or lounge nobody seemed to want anything to do with him and he was forced to sit alone in silence. He became furious at that and could be seen sulking around the school in a self absorbed cloud of misery and anger. He only saw Will three times a day in P.E, Language, and Intergalactic Relations. He made sure to stay well away from him on each occasion. The bruises had lasted nearly three weeks and he could still see them clearly every time he showered. He hadn’t learned his lesson but he was no longer a problem for Will and Will was thankful for not having to deal with him on top of school work.
* * *
“Alright guys we’re going to be playing zegma today so everyone needs to change into the zegma suits before coming out into the gym. There should be one in everyone’s locker,” Coach called in from the door to the locker room.
“What is zegma?” Will asked turning to Jon as he slid himself out of his monogarb.
“It’s a sport,” Jon replied used to Will asking questions about what he found mundane, “Not as popular as Quizex but it’s still pretty fun.”
Will opened his locker with a touch of his thumb and found a suit remarkably similar to his monogarb inside. He pulled it out and noticed that it was significantly heavier than the suit he had just discarded and was much thicker, with solid sections that looked like pads woven under the fabric along the arms, legs, and back. On the floor of the locker sat a helmet that looked like it belonged to a motorcycle rider.
“I don’t know what this game is,” he said to Jon, “but I think I’m going to like it.”
Will emerged into the gym fifteen minutes later with his zegma suit on. He stared around the white room through the dark visor of the helmet and saw fifty other people who all looked remarkably like motorcycle riders. The suit, while heavier than his monogarb, did not restrict his movement at all and he felt like he was more than ready for whatever this new sport had to throw at him. He wasn’t entirely wrong.
“Okay guys, is everyone ready?” Coach asked standing in a corner with his Micro out.
The muffled sounds of voices filtered through helmets filled the room and Coach smiled and pressed a finger onto the screen of his Micro. Will felt weird instantly, his stomach seemed to jump into his chest and he felt as if he was falling but his eyes clearly told him that he was still on the floor. Except he wasn’t on the floor anymore, he was now floating an inch away from the ground and as he looked around he saw his classmates thrust their feet against the floor and rocket into the air as if gravity didn’t exist. Oh heavenly meatballs. He turned the gravity off!
As Will watched his classmates began bouncing off of the walls streaking across the gym with reckless abandon. Well, can’t let them have all the fun. He bent his knees and slammed his feet into the ground with as much force as he could manage. The world around him lurched and the floor fell away instantly as the ceiling came hurtling towards him. He leaned to the side as if he was submersed in water instead of air and managed to make contact with the ceiling with his hands and feet instead of his head. He decided he would try and launch himself at the far wall so he pushed his hands along the smooth ceiling trying to force a grip from friction but the harder he pushed the further away the ceiling grew. Soon he could no longer reach the ceiling and he found himself floating helplessly in the middle of the gym with no way to make himself move.
He began to swim furiously towards the ceiling but he discovered his efforts were in vain after only a few seconds of strenuous flailing. Will was stuck, he was stuck good, and he knew it.
“Well dang,” He muttered into his helmet.
Wham! Something struck Will in the middle of his back and launched him towards the wall at the far side of the gym like a cork from a pop gun. He looked down at his stomach and saw a pair of arms wrapped around him, leading to the body of the boy that had hit and saved him. He struck the wall and absorbed the energy of impact in his arms to keep from simply bouncing back out into the cavernous room, beside him stood his rescuer although Will could not tell who he was because the dark visor of the helmet. His savior gave him a thumbs up before planting his feet against the wall and launching himself back out into the room.
“Okay guys,” Coach’s deep voice laughed into the room, “Stop fooling around and come down here and get your clubs before I put out the ball and satellites.”
Coach was floating near the middle of the room with a large bag in one hand and his Micro in another. Will planted his feet and pushed himself away from the wall with what he hoped was enough force to get him to the center of the gym without over shooting it. As it was he misjudged the force and would have sailed easily to the other side of the room if it wasn’t for the fact that he collided with a knot of boys that were already at the center.
“Hey watch it!” A voice yelled out from under a visor.
“Whoa easy tiger,” Yelled another.
The group managed to correct itself after a few seconds of laughing and cursing and they all floated facing Coach a few feet off the ground. Coach handed each of them what appeared to be black sticks about a foot long. When Will got his he examined it closely and discovered it had a small strap and handle on one end, he looped the short strap around his wrist and held onto the handle.
“It’s going to be a bit crazy with twenty-five a side,” Coach warned them, “But we’ll make it work. It will be red versus orange. I will give the freers their Libers when they are selected so give me a moment, and remember to play fair.” Coach laughingly added as pressed his finger against his Micro yet again.
At his touch the fifty helmets all changed colors. Will looked around and saw that some had turned brilliant red and others had become an outrageous orange. He also saw that two of the helmets had developed a white stripe down the middle of their either red or orange helmets. The people wearing the helmets with the white stripe were approached by Coach and given a slightly longer club than the one Will held. As he watched this Will suddenly realized he didn’t know which team he was on and turned to one of the boys that floated at his side.
“What color am I?” he asked the black visor.
“Orange,” a voice replied which he didn’t recognize replied.
“Alright here we go,” Coach shouted out, “I’m going to magnetize you and you will be released on the third beep. The ball will be in the middle and the satellites will be random as always. Now have fun!”
Coach shouted this last part and pressed his forefinger against the screen of his Micro yet agai
n. This time Will felt his suit around him stiffen up suddenly as if it had just grown a skeleton of its own. He saw the wall he had been facing retreat and suddenly realized he was being pulled through the air by his suit. As Will watched the wall retreat he also saw twenty-five red helmeted figures being propelled towards the wall he was flying away from and realized what was going on. Coach had said he would magnetize them and he had, his team was being attracted by one wall while the other team was attracted by the other. Well that’s cool. Will failed to think about what would happen when he reached the other wall until it was too late.
He collided heavily with the unmoving wall while he had been in mid exhale. The collision felt like he had fallen out of a tree and landed on his back and the sheer force of the thud forced the air that was already leaving his body to expedite its journey. Will sucked for air but none would come. Relax, you’ve gotten the wind knocked out of you before. That thought helped a little but not a lot. It’s never fun to suddenly find yourself sans oxygen, no matter how many times you’ve experienced it. Within moments however he was breathing freely again and was looking out into the expanse of the gym in anticipation.
Coach wasn’t used to dealing with Terries and it showed. He had no idea that anyone in the room wouldn’t know what zegma was. It would be like an American P.E teacher having to explain the rules of baseball to a group of high school students. There might be a foreign exchange student who didn’t know that you were supposed to hit the ball and run around the bases, but that wasn’t his problem and the student could figure it out, after all it wasn’t complicated. Coach Bower had either knowingly or unknowingly decided to use the same tactic and when he pressed his finger to his Micro yet again he initiated a crash learning course for Will.
Will watched in amazement as small objects the size of golf balls zoomed out of a box that Coach Bower had brought into the room. He watched in absolute fascination as the balls expanded in mid air until they were the size of compact cars. In seconds the air was filled with half a dozen of what he supposed were the satellites that Coach had talked about.
After the satellites had formed in midair a loud series of beeps filled the gym. BEEP! Will saw everyone tense up on his wall Beep! Feet were struggling to get into position against the magnetic attraction that held them. Beep! Twenty-three fully suited boys launched themselves towards the center of the room leaving Will and one other team member behind. The other boy was the one with the white stripe down the middle of his helmet.
“What are you waiting for?” White-stripe yelled, “Go!”
Will didn’t bother to respond instead he launched himself as hard as he could across the room. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do but he was already passing many of his teammates who didn’t possess the powerful legs that Will had to launch them away from the wall.
Will found out that there was a ball involved in the game of zegma, he found that out when he went flying past it and into the ranks of red helmets. They were all surging forward trying to get to the ball that Will had just carelessly flown past. Their heads turned as they saw the orange helmet come amongst them and Will caught a brief glimpse of a short club being swung toward him.
The club connected with the small of his back and he felt the suit stiffen up as if it were growing a skeleton. Oh not again! He saw the Red team retreat as he was sucked towards the wall he had only recently left. He zoomed past where the ball had been and noticed that it was now in the possession of one of his teammates. Go team he thought miserably as he braced for impact.
He hit the wall with a dull thud and didn’t so much as bounce in his shoes. His arms were spread eagle and he felt like a fly stuck to a piece of tape. Luckily he had been prepared this time and the shock of impact hadn’t forced the breath out of his body. He discovered that his head was the only part of his body that could still move and turned it from side to side to see the action. All around him flying team members were hurtling into the wall he was stuck to and he guessed they had suffered a similar fate as him. As Will watched the boy with the stripe on his helmet hopped from team member to team member touching them with the special club that Coach had given him, as he touched them they sprang away from the wall and jumped back into the action at the center of the gym. The boy made his way to Will and when he was liberated from the wall he sprang into action ready for another try.
* * *
Will discovered the purpose of the game after being launched back to the wall three more times. At first he thought the point was to send the other team hurtling to the wall, but soon found out that sending the other boys screaming across the gym, while entertaining, was not the point to the game. The game was measured by points scored; you scored five points by shoving a green ball, which was the size of a basketball, against the opponent’s wall. Every time someone managed to place the ball on their opponents’ wall the wall would flash the color of the team that scored and both sides would be magnetized so that everybody would be stuck to a wall. The ball would be replaced in the middle of the gym and the fun would begin all over again. Placing the ball against the wall was called a stick and counted five points towards your team’s total. Will also discovered that throwing the ball against the wall did not count as a stick after he attempted just that and watched as the ball simply bounced off of the wall and towards his own without scoring so much as a point.
There were only two positions on the team; doublers and freers. The doublers were the ones who bounced around trying to score sticks and trying to prevent the other team from getting sticks. The freer was the only one who could demagnetize his teammates from the wall and did that by touching them with his special club that was called a liber. After a successful stick and the team’s were magnetized the freer did not have to release them; like the beginning of the game three loud beeps would sound and everyone would be free to move until clubbed by the opposition.
* * *
Will didn’t know who won that first game he played but he did know that he loved playing it and couldn’t wait to do it again.
“Man I love that game!” Will said to Jon as they both walked down the central staircase.
“Yeah it’s pretty fun isn’t it,” Jon agreed, “Bit of a bummer we couldn’t tell who was who though. I would have loved to club you,”
Will laughed aloud, “You probably did club me, I got hit about a hundred times,”
Jon laughed along with his friend and wondered if any of those people he had sent flying had been Will.
“Well have fun in Space flight, I’ll see you at dinner,” Jon said turning into the massive crowd that was the third floor.
“Alright dude, I’ll catch you later.” Will replied and continued towards the first floor and the hanger.
* * *
Will didn’t get a chance to play zegma again until two weeks after his first game. He was in the cafeteria eating breakfast and talking to Abby and Jon when all three of their Micros emitted the soft beep that indicated a new message. Will opened his along with his friends and read the text that scrolled across the screen.
“Zegma team tryouts tonight. Meet Coach Hinge in gym at eight if interested,” Will read aloud .
“Yeah I got the same thing,” Giggled Abby, “Don’t think I’m going to be trying out,”
“Good idea Abbz,” replied Jon as if it were ever a possibility in her mind, zegma wasn’t like Quizex, girls seldom played, although it wasn’t unheard of.
“Jon,” Will said looking at his friend with a fire in his eye that Jon had not yet seen and would one day grow to fear, “Let’s try out man!”
Jon groaned and looked his friend in the eye, “Why? Our team is always a joke and loses most of its games, besides no one cares about zegma,”
“Well if no one cares then why not try out?” Will shot back instantly.
Jon glanced up at his friend, saw the determination dancing in his eyes and realized there was no point in trying to convince the eager Terry otherwise. He shrugged giving his consent. Af
ter all they probably wouldn’t make the team so what did it matter?
* * *
That night Will and Jon said goodbye to Abby and headed towards the gym. When they arrived they found the room was nearly empty compared to the throng of people they were used to during class. About fifteen boys stood around the gym in small knots of conversation. Will couldn’t help notice that most of the boys were older than him and had filled into their bodies where as he still resembled a stretched piece of chewing gum in comparison. Will at first thought that he and Jon were the only freshmen that were going to try out but five minutes later he learned he was mistaken when the door slid open and Brandon walked in.
“What is he doing here?” Will whispered into Jon’s ear.
“Dunno, maybe he wants to try out?” Jon replied with a shrug.
“Ha, I doubt it,” Will snorted.
It turned out that Brandon really did want to try out and nearly half an hour later he was standing in a line of boys wearing zegma suits with their helmets held under their arms. Coach was walking around in front of them and Will suddenly felt like he was in the army and about to get chewed out by a drill sergeant.
“Each of you will have a different pattern on your helmet so I will know who’s who,” Coach was telling them, “Since we only have fourteen people trying out and there are ten starters and three reserves only one person won’t make the team. That being said make sure you try your hardest so that won’t be you, I imagine it will be quite embarrassing.”
Coach trailed off in a soft rumble of chuckling at his own good humor. Will glanced at Jon and suddenly felt nervous. What if one of them was the single castoff? He didn’t like the idea of being embarrassed but the thought of being on the team without his best friend didn’t seem anymore pleasant. Will’s fears were unfounded and twenty minutes into the tryouts he found out that fate can not only be kind; sometimes it can sometimes be downright generous.