‘Give it to 14!’ cries Coach Davis in his head. ‘On your right!’
But their winger is cutting off the pass. As he and the full-back converge, Ivon still cannot get the pass away. He thinks he might have to take the tackle, but at the last second he drops the ball onto his boot and dinks it to his right. No instruction from Coach Davis for this improvisation. None even from himself. This comes from somewhere else, somewhere mystical. It is perfect. The winger elects to tackle him just as he performs the chip, just as he is tackled, too, by the full-back. The ball bobbles delicately away from the three-man collision and, pop, with perfect timing it sits up for Travis, who gathers for a free run to the posts.
The stadium is already shaking with its infernal din, which will continue now for a further few minutes. Travis is smiling as he returns the ball for the conversion. Ivon takes it and thinks of Alanis. She said last night she’d be coming. He wonders where she’s sitting. That was a special try. He hopes she liked it.
‘There’s been another try!’ shrieks Adriana.
Alanis looks up towards the rafters of the stadium, and, sure enough, another seven green lights have shown alongside the two remaining from the last score. She and Adriana scream with abandon, their legs and arms coursing with the sweet pain of exertion. Seven more minutes! All around her, levers are flashing and the pump boards thundering. She can almost feel herself borne aloft by the waves, supported by the communal surge for energy, and yet a part of it, too. Oh, there’s no better feeling! When a commune is empowered to generate energy together! It is the highest virtue, the purest pleasure!
Nine minutes later, the last of the countdown lights extinguishes to signal the end of the pump. Alanis draws in air with long, controlled breaths. Her heart is beating with purpose, an organ at the height of its powers. Her limbs tingle.
She sits back on her chair and looks across at Adriana. ‘It might have been 22 minutes in coming, but it was worth the wait.’
Adriana nods. ‘Do you think we’re in for another bonanza?’
Above the gentle hum of conversation, a strange cry rises from the other side of the stadium. Alanis sits up. Adriana has done the same, and there is a general stirring all around, as people strain to know the source of this renegade release of sound energy.
‘Was that someone shouting?’ says Alanis.
‘I think so.’
‘Surely, they know the stadium mikes are not live.’
Another lone cry goes up, this time further round the stand. Alanis cannot quite make out the words. The hum of conversation has intensified.
‘What on earth is happening?’
Adriana notices something and points to a block of secondaries lower down in their section of the stadium. Alanis sees a male standing tall with arms outstretched. There is unrest among those around him. The nearest security officers are being alerted. He arches his back and brings his hands together, cupped round his mouth. And he yells into the great void of the stadium. Alanis can make out these words. He shouts them long and slow, as if gathering every last morsel of energy left to him and forcing them out with violence and wilfulness.
‘I-von! I-von!’
Anxious faces in his vicinity look about for assistance. Security swoop. The deviant is pacified and escorted away.
‘It’s a disgrace!’ says Alanis.
‘Why would anyone do that?’ agrees Adriana. ‘No one’s scored. What benefit can there be in shouting like that?’
From somewhere a few rows in front of the deviant, on the edge by the aisle, another secondary cries out Ivon’s name. This outburst is shorter and more spontaneous, as if it could not be helped. There’s a hint of desperation to it. The guilty party has not risen from his seat, so Alanis cannot tell who it is, but Security are quick to move in, and a man is led away, head hung low, tears on his face.
Alanis is chilled by these outbursts. She thinks of the scenes at the club the week before and the unnatural booking patterns in Ivon’s coitus diary. What is this strange effect he seems to have on people? Uneasily, she scans the ranks of primaries and secondaries, willing the good people to maintain decorum. Come on, London – we are better than this. No more outbursts, please!
It is a relief when the stadium siren cuts across the uneasy atmosphere to signify another score for London, just before half-time. Five green lights go up – it’s a try! – followed shortly by another two for the conversion. Alanis slams herself back into the pumping position and works furiously.
She closes her eyes and shouts the name ‘London’ again and again and again. The noise around her fills the air to saturation. She can distinguish nothing amid the tumult, which will sweep away the ejaculations of rogue individuals. Let them look to themselves! Individuals have meaning only as part of the commune. Deviants are snapped off like twigs in a storm. She will not hear it. She is true, she is good, she is safe. London is moving again!
London! London! London!
The cryo-pot sighs open. Freezing cloudlets billow round Ivon’s head as the iron maiden of ice releases him. He steps out as quickly as he can and roars with relief.
‘Fuck! What’s wrong with a nice hot bath?’
‘It aggravates soft-tissue damage.’
‘Gets the mud off, though.’
‘Mud?’
‘Never mind.’
Moby puffs out his cheeks and runs on the spot, working the cold through his system. He stretches his long frame. Not an ounce of fat on it. Ivon imagines him in a collision with Sumo Simkins back home. Moby’s taller, but he must be a few stone lighter. He’d probably cut Sumo in half, though. He was bred for purpose, and his has been a lifetime of conditioning. The same cannot be said of Sumo.
‘It’s been good having you in the team,’ Moby says.
Ivon is stunned and stops mid-stretch. ‘I’ve enjoyed it,’ he says, even if this is the first time it’s occurred to him.
‘They’ll promote you to elite after that.’
Ivon doesn’t know what to say.
‘Times have been tough for this team,’ Moby continues. ‘Then you come along, and suddenly we can’t stop generating joules. The boys are feeling dominant for the first time. I hope it continues when you’re gone.’
‘It will,’ says Ivon, who thinks he might just love Moby all of a sudden, the super-serious, over-sized plonker. ‘Of course, it will. There’s real talent in this team. You’ve just got to think for yourselves.’
‘You keep saying that.’
‘Well, you do! Don’t listen to what the coach is telling you! Follow your instincts!’
Moby smiles and shakes his head. ‘You wait till you get to elite.’
‘Why?’
‘They use ProzoneX there.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You wait.’
The blood is starting to course through Ivon’s veins again. His skin is pink. He feels fresh and euphoric, as if he could play another match. As if he could drink all night. Even the knowledge that he will be doing neither washes over him for now.
‘Keep moving!’ says the effectiveness director in the corner.
Ivon continues to stretch out. He wants to give something back. ‘What about you?’ he says to him. ‘You could play elite.’
Moby shakes his head. ‘I came through the Academy, but I didn’t make the cut.’
‘Why not?’
‘It came down to me and this other guy. Stanton Jeffries – you’ll meet him in elite. He had a slight diligence deficiency, and was able to actualise only 87 per cent of his congenital physical potential. I was graded at 97.6 per cent of mine, but my physical potential was lesser. In particular, there had been an undetected alpha-actinin mutation in the DNA of one of my progenitors, which I inherited. I managed to secure gene therapy for the deficiency, so I run faster now, but by then they’ve made their mind up.’
‘Shit. That’s so unlucky! Just one little mutant…thing.’
Moby shrugs as he bends to his left. The effect is faintly absur
d, and Ivon’s affection for him deepens further. ‘We are who we are.’
‘But you deserve better.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you have talent and you worked so hard. Harder than he did. That’s what you just said, isn’t it? I mean, you’re basically saying he was lazy, right?’
‘I’m saying he was deficient in one area, and I in another. In the final grading, my deficiency was the greater.’
‘Yeah, but he could do something about his. There was nothing you could do about yours.’
Moby frowns. ‘Why could he do something?’
‘Well, anyone can get off their fat arse, can’t they?’
‘Stanton had a dopamine imbalance across his striatum and anterior insula. It meant he didn’t have the affinity for hard work that I have. I’m sure it’s been addressed since.’
‘Keep working, Moby!’
He shakes his head. ‘It’s not going to happen for me now. The first generation of DGF athletes is coming through.’
‘DGF?’
‘Deliberate Genetic Fusion.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll see.’
‘Don’t you want to be an elite?’
‘I have my place here.’
‘But you must be ambitious. I’ve seen you play. You’re a competitive fucker.’
Moby’s stare is steely. Steely and blank. ‘I want to be productive for my commune. That’s it.’
‘Ivon,’ says a familiar voice from behind him. Coach Davis has appeared at the entrance to the cryo-room. ‘When you’re finished, can I have a word?’
Ivon nods.
Moby arches backwards. ‘I told you.’
In the heart of Parliament, Dusty gazes towards the Thames, which ripples by as it must have for, who knows, hundreds, maybe thousands, of years, no matter what cricket academies rise and fall along its banks, no matter what matches tomorrow may hold. He is starting to see the thread that runs through things. The commune may outlast the individual, but some things outlast the commune.
‘Ah, this must be the Welshman!’ The voice behind him is confident and clear. Dusty turns to see Marcus Apollo enter the conference room to greet Ivon, who has been studying closely the screens arranged across the interior wall. The older man is taller and heavier, but Ivon greets him as an equal.
‘These screens,’ says Ivon, ‘I haven’t seen any in London.’
‘Indeed you have not,’ replies Apollo. ‘The watching of sport is not a leisure pursuit on this side of the Fence. To allow something too much exposure is to distort it, so our matches are scrutinised only by those who need to know. Here in Parliament we stream footage of every match contested across the state, as they do in the Institute of Improvement. There are many happening at any given time, as you can see.’
Apollo cries out when he spots Dusty by the window. ‘Dusty Noble! What a pleasure!’
‘It’s an honour to be here again, Prime Manager,’ says Dusty as they greet each other.
Dusty is moved again to find himself in the man’s presence, to experience the width and liveliness of his expression, face to face. There is talk of an Exemption grant for Apollo, such is his facility for statesmanship. Dusty makes a note to investigate his pedigree when he next has the opportunity. He wears a centurion medal, so must have been an elite in something.
They are ushered towards an arrangement of chairs overlooking the Thames. Once seated, Apollo crosses his legs, making obvious through the fabric of his maroon day suit a calf muscle of considerable substance.
‘Isotonic?’ he offers and then nods to an assistant. ‘You find me in a fine mood! Like everyone living in this commune, I am thrilled to see the recent upturn in London’s productivity. I am, of course impartial across the communes, but no one benefits when this great engine of our nation splutters and stalls.’
‘There’s a new atmosphere on the streets,’ says Dusty, conscious of an unfamiliar urge to say something, anything, ‘in the clubs, the stadiums, the nutrition halls. We’re even cracking smiles at ReSure.’
Apollo roars with laughter. ‘Well, there’s confirmation!’
Ivon allows the good humour to play around him. He is motionless, but for some mischief in the corners of his mouth and a faint narrowing of his eyes, which Dusty catches a couple of times flitting towards the screens over the PM’s shoulder.
‘Naturally, the scientists have set to work identifying new patterns in this surge in productivity. They keep coming back to the Welshman. Two matches for an under-performing unit; two wins: 72–15 and 56–12. Those are impressive numbers – extraordinary, actually, to win by those margins.’
Ivon shrugs. ‘Not in Wales, they’re not. We put a hundred past Treorchy in ’41.’
Apollo laughs again. ‘I don’t doubt it, Ivon! You are an unusually productive…how do you say in Wales…“player”. Highly unusual. And it is for this reason that we would like to offer you a trial with the elite department of London Rugby.’
‘Done.’
There is a moment of silence. Apollo’s assistant brings in a tray of hydro-sacs and places it on the table among them. Dusty and Apollo reach over to take one. Ivon does not.
‘You will find things different at elite level.’
‘Oh, I know. Don’t tell me. It’ll be unlike anything I’ve ever known, blah, blah, blah. Listen, I’ve heard it all before. My parents said it, Dusty said it, that cricket bitch said it, the coaches and the players at URL. And then I get out on the field, and, you know, it’s still rugby, isn’t it. I’m still good at it. And we win.’
Apollo continues to smile, but his movements are slowing down. His manner has become less airy. He pops another hydro-sac, but Dusty does not.
‘Discipline is fundamental to what we do.’
Ivon’s composure slips. He lets fly a howl of exasperation and looks to the ceiling. ‘This’ll be doing what you’re told, will it? Following the voices in your head. Not thinking for yourself. Not playing.’
‘That word “play” again,’ says Apollo, shaking his head. ‘I should tell you it has fallen out of use in England. We do not play here. We strive, we achieve, we move forward. In perpetuity. Surely you can see the benefits! We don’t look to others to help us, we don’t plunder our earthly resources. We propel ourselves.’
Ivon nods slowly, his grin threatening to pierce the edges of his face. ‘I’m going to transform the game of rugby in England. And it is a game. I will show you how it should be played. I will show you that it should be played.’
‘You have already transformed London’s fortunes in the short time you have been here. You are unique, Ivon, that much is clear, and, I’m sure, as unrepresentative of the average Welshman as you are the average English. We want to harness that at elite level, but it will require…certain adjustments. So far your maverick leanings have been indulged. But, at elite level, to defy on-field instruction is to court disaster, for yourself and your commune. Such delinquency is unheard of. You would be sent to the Institute of Correction. All three degrees of Assimilation would likely be required.’
‘What is that?’
Apollo takes another sac. ‘Third-degree Assimilation? Put simply, it is a reformatting of the brain. A kind of full restore, if I may use the old IT vernacular. It is 98 per cent effective. And – so they tell me – exceptionally painful.’
Ivon’s eyes flit towards Dusty, who wants to say something to reassure the young man, but cannot. ‘Those people taken away from the club…’
Dusty nods. ‘There have been a number of disturbances at our club lately,’ he explains to Apollo.
‘Ah, yes! I have heard. And at yesterday’s match. Most regrettable. An example of the kind of distortions to the natural order I mentioned earlier. The cult of personality is a pernicious thing, but for now at least it is helping us identify those who need help. It cannot be allowed to continue, of course.’
‘So, what happens? You cut out my personality?’
‘No, Ivon. That w
ould be a last resort. These procedures are energy-hungry. Third-degree Assimilation requires a significant investment of resources. It would be infinitely preferable for you to learn the discipline yourself. Besides, you’ll find it harder to transgress at elite level. The interface between the athletes and Strategy and Direction is far more sophisticated, as you will discover.’ Apollo pauses to lean in for his fourth hydro-sac. When he reclines again, it is with a kindly smile that makes Dusty wonder if the PM is not beginning to feel the same way about Ivon as he does. Or perhaps this is just his manner with everyone. ‘Now, Ivon, do you think you can take all of this on board?’
The ripples of an inner struggle play across Ivon’s face. His temples pulse, the muscles flex at his jaw. Dusty wills him to keep his discipline. Don’t think you can fight these people, Ivon. No one returns from Assimilation the same person as went in.
‘Transgress?’ he says. ‘Did you really say transgress? Tell me, was I transgressing when we scored 72 points last week? Or 56 yesterday? Was I stepping out of line? Because we wouldn’t have scored them if I hadn’t.’
‘It is true that at collegiate level you have managed to break from the team patterns with notable productivity. Your skills are too advanced for that level. But even collegiate opposition would find ways to counteract them in time. You can be sure that rival communes have already detailed their analysts and espionage teams to investigate you. Individual brilliance is at best a temporary fillip and never a thing to rely on. Long-term success depends upon discipline, structure and adherence to a match-plan.’
‘I’m here to play. I’m here to win. Everything will follow from that.’
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