Bridgeworld

by Travis McBee

  Zegma practices also returned even though they only had one game left to compete in since they had failed to make the championship tournament due to their lackluster record. The practices did not reflect their lack of achievement and Will found himself sweating through the roughest sessions he had ever endured. The players were all high strung about the upcoming game and it was a tautness that Will neither shared nor understood, but he discovered the reasoning for it one excruciating Monday before the game, although he still didn’t understand the enormity of the game for the school until much later.

  Will clasped the ball and tossed it down towards a streaking figure that was Jon. Jon caught the ball deftly and hurtled towards the pulsing yellow wall and what looked like a sure stick. Whumph! A blur of silver spun out of the corner of the room and collided with Jon in a bone jarring collision. Both suites buzzed with electricity as the two players clubs unconsciously touched their opponents suit. The two boys stiffened into scare crow like shapes and were launched in opposite directions leaving the green ball spinning by itself in the middle of the gym.

  “Stop it! Stop it now! You have got to pay attention to the corners and don’t try and collide with them just club them!” A harsh voice echoed around the gym.

  Will slid his visor up and saw that Tim Klein had ripped his helmet off and was yelling at the team that was bouncing around in a flurry of activity. Tim was a senior and a big one at that. He was a nice enough guy outside of the gym but he took zegma seriously, very seriously. He was the team captain, a position that didn’t translate to much except he ran practice when Coach was away, which he seldom was. That day however Coach had received a message on his micro and had hurriedly left the practice after instructing Tim on what to do.

  “We have got to get this right! We can’t let Starview beat us, not my senior year!” Tim bellowed out.

  Will breathed in deeply trying to suck in oxygen while he could thinking that the end of Tim’s lecture would see them renewing practice with increased vigor.

  “Get down here guys,” A familiar voice laced with authority interrupted Tim’s budding rant.

  Will glanced down towards the gym door and saw coach floating stiffly into the gigantic room. Will ricocheted off of a satellite he had been floating near and was one of the first to arrive around Coach floating a foot or so above the ground. When the entire team was assembled around him Coach pressed his micro and gravity returned with a rush of thudding feet as boys landed on their feet if they were really lucky, hands and knees if they were mildly lucky, and backs if they weren’t lucky at all.

  “I have some bad news,” Coach told them as Will straightened his knees out as they fought off the sudden shock that the appearance of gravity had brought.

  “There’s no easy way to put this so I’m just going to be blunt,” Coach continued, “I just met with Dean Norris and apparently the game has been changed from here to Starview,”

  “What!” came the cry of outrage from Tim, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the game is going to be played at Starview.”

  To Will it sounded like a rather innocuous little factoid but the rest of the team failed to see it the same way. The air around Will disappeared in a sudden wave as each one of the team members sucked at it in apparent horror.

  “You’re kidding right,” Shane Miller, a blonde haired senior who was the reserve freer, said from the back of group.

  “Afraid not,” Coach frowned, “Apparently there is a ‘Political Situation’ that forces us to play there,” he used his fingers to form air quotes that showed his taste for the situation.

  “But coach!” Derek Hurst, one of the two black boys on the team and an excellent doubler, cried out, “Isn’t there something you can do? This sounds like straight garbage to me!”

  A rumble of agreement spread among the group and Coach hung his head for a moment before looking up into the upset faces of his players.

  “Nothing we can do guys I tried. Now let’s get back to practicing hard so that we can beat their sorry butts at their place and see how they like it,” He said and flicked the gravity in the gym back off.

  * * *

  An hour later the team stumbled into the locker room utterly exhausted but feeling rather good about their chances that weekend. They had really gotten it together and had even managed to pull off the daring Halted Squiggler perfectly. Even then the team was still mumbling to each other about the unjustified change in locations and Will didn’t really understand why they were complaining so much.

  “So what’s up with Starview,” Will asked Jon who was sitting next to him on the bench, “How come nobody wants to play there?”

  Jon looked at him sourly and shook his head before answering.

  “Cause they are our biggest rivals and hate our guts,” Jon replied peeling his zegma suit off of him, “Every time we go there someone gets hurt or disappears or something bad like that.”

  “What do you mean disappears?” Will asked slipping his new sneakers off of his feet.

  “I mean they will just vanish for a little while and the next time someone hears from them they're in an escape pod half way across the galaxy.”

  “So they pull jokes on people?” Will asked as he slipped out of his Zegma suit and into his monogarb.

  “If you want to call them that,” Jon replied, “But sometimes they get a little bit out of control. What are those by the way?” He added pointing towards the bleach white socks that covered Will’s feet.

  “What? These?” Will asked rubbing his socks together and feeling the tingle of static electricity build in his feet, “They’re socks my parents gave them to me for my birthday.”

  “What do they do?” he asked raising his eyebrows at the strange garments.

  “Keep my feet comfortable I guess,” Will shrugged his shoulders.

  A boy sat down next to Will and placed his helmet down next to him. Will didn’t bother looking at him and continued his conversation with Jon.

  “Anyways how bad can it be going there?” Will inquired, “We’re all going to be together so they can’t pull anything right?”

  “I guess so, but I’d rather not take the chance at all,”

  “Me too man,” the boy next to Will said, “Those people are nuts.”

  The boy made to stand up and put his hand on Will’s shoulder to help lever himself to his feet. Will felt the cool embrace of the Zegma suit glove but also felt the sharp tingle as the static electricity in his feet bellowed its way upward through his body and out his shoulder into the boys suit. The boy stiffened as if in shock and his arms splayed wide as if he wanted a hug. Then with alarming force he rocketed backwards and slammed into the wall lined with metal lockers.

  “What the…”Jon gasped looking at the boy.

  “Jason what are you doing?” Tim called from his locker which had been precariously close to where Jason now clung.

  “He’s magnetized,” Jon muttered softly

  Will had jumped to his feet when the boy had stiffened up and he saw that Jon was right. Jason was stuck to the metal lockers exactly like he would have been if he had been in the gym.

  “Alright who clubbed him?” Tim roared at the locker room which was arresting to a deep quiet as everyone stopped what they were doing to look at Jason who was stuck to the wall like a poster.

  “The clubs are all turned off and put away,” Josh Collier, a senior doubler, said walking up to the stuck boy.

  “Someone get coach!” Yelled Tim at the stunned room.

  Russell ambled out of the room and a moment later returned leading Coach Bower into the room. Coach took one look at Jason who was staring wide eyed around the room from his strange perch and pushed a button on his micro. Jason’s suit suddenly relaxed and he fell to the ground with a fairly amusing thud.

  “How did this happen?” Coach asked quietly but with a tone of the severely pissed off.

  The room ground to a halt and no one wanted to move for fear of drawing attention t
o themselves. After several seconds of silence Will rose a trembling hand into the air.

  “Um it was me coach,” Will said softly.

  Coach Bower wheeled his large frame around and stared down at Will who was still sitting on the bench.

  “What did you do Haynes?” He said in a voice that was beginning to become loud with anger.

  “Nothing really,” Will peeped out, “He touched me and I shocked him and his suit got magnetized that’s all.”

  “What do you mean shocked him?”

  “You know? Like static electricity?” Will answered almost too softly to hear

  Coach looked at him with anger seething from his eyes in wicked torrents.

  “Static electricity? You’re telling me that you activated his suit with a little bit of static electricity?” Coach asked in his soft voice again.

  Will nodded.

  Coach looked like he was about to begin yelling and then bent his knees and rested his palms on them and began guffawing hysterically.

  “Well if that isn’t the funniest thing I’ve ever heard!” he wheezed, “Slammed to a wall by a static shock, that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

  Coach continued to laugh and laugh by himself since the rest of the team didn’t really see what was so darn funny about the whole thing. Finally Coach composed himself enough to leave the room and the team stared at each other.

  “What’s wrong with him?” David Kim asked

  “Just stressed out,” Tim replied, “This is a big game for him too.”

  “True,” Russell said, “But did yall see that boy get stuck to the wall? Now you do have to admit that was some funny junk right there!”

  Russell began to laugh. It wasn’t the guffawing insane laugh of Coach Bower but it was a good chuckled none the less and before long everyone but Jason, who was meekly muttering “Not funny”, began to laugh as well.

  * * *

  “What do you mean changed to Starview?” Corey asked dropping his spoon onto his tray with a sharp clatter.

  “I mean the game’s been moved to Starview,” Jon replied spinning his glosh around without an appetite.

  “But how can they do that at the last minute?”

  Jon just shrugged and Corey looked towards Will who did the same. They were eating dinner in the cafeteria and the gentle ting of spoons hitting trays provided a subtle soundtrack. Jon and Will had divulged the information of the venue change to Corey and Abby, and Corey had taken it rather dreadfully which surprised Will especially since Corey usually cared about zegma about as much as he cared about who was eating a pancake in Japan.

  “What’s the big deal guys?” Will asked perplexed, “You usually couldn’t care less about Zegma Corey,”

  “Well this isn’t just a zegma game is it champ?” Corey said frowning at him, “It’s the Starview game. They are our biggest rivals and hate our guts.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Will replied lamely, “But it’s just a stupid rivalry and what’s the big deal over a few practical jokes no one goes to the games anyways.”

  Corey stared at Will and just shook his head sadly before spooning some glosh into his mouth.

  “You have no clue mate,” Will looked up to see Ryan sliding his way into a vacant seat at their table, “I just heard the news. Bit of rotten luck eh? Me mum always told me stories about how bad Starview was and me dad could never say Starview without getting steamed up.”

  “What do they say?” Abby asked whose parents hadn’t gone to Bridgeworld leaving her as in the dark as Will about the history of the rivalry.

  “Well mum talks about how the girls would play little pranks and call each other names. Nothing special about that. But my dad, oh my dad had some stories to tell.” He shook his head and took a drink of water .

  “Like what?” Will asked thinking it couldn’t be any different from the South Valley-Central Valley rivalry which was rather innocuous when you got right down to it.

  “Well dad said they didn’t just play pranks. He said they tried to kill you. He told me that a couple of boys chased him around their school one time when he wandered off to find the loo during a Quizex game at Starview. He said they cornered him after a bit and grabbed him and tried to send him out an airlock. An administrator showed up at the last second and saved him though. Said he nearly wet himself from fear.”

  “Oh please they weren’t going to shoot him out an airlock. That’d be murder,” Abby snorted.

  “That’s what we’re talking about Abby,” Corey said looking her way, “Those Starview kids are psycho, they’ll do anything.”

  Abby snorted in disbelief and began to eat her glosh with what appeared to be intense interest. Will was curious however. He could sense the hyperbole in Ryan’s statement but he also thought there was a bud of truth to it.

  “So one little incident like that makes the whole school look bad for generations?” He asked giving the benefit of the doubt that it was true.

  “Gosh no man!” Jon looked shocked, “There’s been all sorts of stuff happen. Take my dad for instance. He was on the zegma team too and when he went there they sealed the doors and tried to flood the locker room with the team in it. Darn near worked too they were swimming in five feet of water before they got the door open.”

  “Yeah and then there’s always what happened the Couso twins,” Corey piped in and there were mutual flinches exchanged between him, Jon, and Ryan.

  “What happened to them?” Will asked intrigued

  “Well no one knows for certain,” Corey began, “But about ten years ago there were a set of twins that went here named Couso. They were Stingers on the Quizex team,”

  “Wicked good ones too,” Ryan interjected.

  “Yeah well their senior year they went off to Starview to play the last game of the season. Everyone was talking about how’d they go pro and be the best ever. Well they had a great game to say the least.”

  “Singlehandedly thrashed Starview they did,” Ryan added with a joyless chuckle.

  “And after the game everyone was celebrating on the shuttle on the way back home. Problem was, when they got back the twin’s weren’t there. They just vanished into thin air. No one could remember the last time they saw them. They didn’t even know if they had gotten on the shuttle or not.”

  “So you’re telling me they just disappeared without a trace never to be seen again?” Will said with disbelief.

  “Oh they were seen again mate,” Ryan said ominously, “Showed up about three months later on Konig, The planet Starview orbits. They were in the middle of a desert wandering around speaking gibberish. They asked them what happened but they never told.”

  “Yeah they never told anybody anything ever again,” Jon amended, “They had gone completely crazy. They obviously hadn’t been in the desert for three months but no one knows where they had been except for the people that had done it to them and the Couso twins themselves, and they weren’t telling anyone.”

  “What about security cameras?” Will asked, “This place is crawling with them.” He pointed towards the black hemispheres that hung from the ceiling. “I’d assume Starview is too. They had to have caught what happened on one of them,”

  “Yeah you’d think so, but when they went and pulled the records there was nothing on them. Not a trace. All the video of that day disappeared as perfectly as the twins did themselves.”

  “Yall are pulling my leg. You except me to believe that Starview captured some guys and turned them loony? I don’t believe you on this one fellas.” Will shook his head.

  “You don’t have to believe us Will,” Jon said reaching for his water.

  “Look it up yourself mate,” Ryan said nodding at Will’s micro that sat next to his tray, “It was big news all kinds of inquiries were done.”

  Will laughed it off and began to eat. He then left the three boys, whose father’s had gone to Bridgeworld, to themselves and talked with Abby for the rest of the dinner. That night however he did look up the story of
the Couso twins on his micro while laying in bed, and to his horror he discovered that every word they had told him was true.

  * * *

  One thing about space that Will hated was the complete absence of dawn. Days didn’t dawn in Bridgeworld. On Bridgeworld days just turned on in a flash of light and a blur of sound. It was not a subtle way to wake up and Will often felt like the sudden eruption into the day negated all the restoration his hours of sleep might have accomplished.

  When the day of the game turned on Will was already awake however. He had slept the night before but it was more of a series of fitful naps than a night’s rest and he felt groggy, strained, and completely unready for the day ahead. That entire week he had heard tales of horrors that had transpired at the hands of the Starviewers that sometimes seemed menial next to the story of the Couso twins but were terribly cruel none the less. Everywhere Will turned there was a Starview story and some of them he knew were fake but he was scared of the alarming number that seemed to be true. After enough of those stories Will began to fear the trip himself and it was no pleasure to him that his wait was drawing to an end to visit Starview itself.

  He met his friends in the cafeteria as he slid down next to them carrying a tray with the customary powdered eggs and pancakes. Variety was not the spice of Bridgeworld life. As Will looked around he saw that the cafeteria was incredibly crowded for a Saturday morning. On the weekend people would usually sleep in, pulling their blankets over their heads to create their own twilight and not rising from their bed until hours after the lights had come on.

  “Why’s everyone up?” Will yawned.

  “Everyone’s going to the game,” Corey replied.

  “What do you mean everyone, No one goes to the zegma games,” Will said spooning a bit of egg into his mouth.

  “They do for the Starview game,” Jon said after taking a sip of water, “Everyone goes to every Starview game no matter what sport.”