The Rookie

by Scott Sigler

  “I’m here all day!” Fayed shouted, thumping his fist against his chest. “Just see if you can tear my leg off.”

  Fayed walked back to the huddle. Quentin felt a wave of awe wash over him — Yalla the Biter had just crippled Paul Pierson, and on the very next play Fayed not only carried the ball, but went headhunting for Yalla. The play energized the entire team. If Fayed could show that kind of courage, so could everyone else.

  Another running play put the Krakens on the Demolition 5-yard line.

  “S-set, double-cross,” Hokor barked. Quentin relayed the play to the Krakens’ huddle. He felt the pure vibe of control now, the rhythm of the game coursing through him, answering to him, obeying his every whim. The huddle broke and he strode to the line, his predator’s eyes sweeping over the defense. S-set was a single-back set: Fayed in the backfield, five offensive linemen, Hawick and Mezquitic split out left, Warburg in the right slot, and Scarborough wide right. It was the first time that day the Krakens used such a setup, and the Demolition scrambled to adjust. They quickly fell into woman-to-woman coverage with a linebacker wide on either side. That left four down linemen and a single middle linebacker — Yalla — in the middle.

  Quentin knew what he wanted to do even before he snapped the ball.

  “Red, ninety-one, red, ninety-one, hut-hut!”

  The receivers drove off the line and cut inside at six yards. Quentin dropped back as Fayed rolled to the right flat. Yalla moved with him, and Quentin made his decision — after just a three step drop, he planted and bounced forward, his 360 pounds hitting top speed almost instantly. The sudden change caught the onrushing defense off-guard, he slipped past them without so much as a single cut. Yalla was already moving to the right to cover Fayed — the linebacker drove back to the left, but was far too late to match Quentin’s quickness.

  Quentin strode into the end zone untouched.

  Demolition 21, Krakens 16.

  Quentin started to run off the field when he saw Hokor signaling to him to stay.

  “We’re going for two,” Hokor called calmly over the ear-piece. “I-set, show left dive, naked boot right. Kobayasho blocks inside and releases to the right. Hit him for the conversion.”

  Quentin nodded, but his mind raced with possibilities. A two-point conversion would pull them to within three points, one field goal away from tying. With the game on the line, Hokor was calling a naked boot, which meant Quentin rolled to the right with no blockers. It was both an insult and a compliment: an insult, because the Demolition still wouldn’t think Hokor would put the game on a rookie’s shoulders; and a compliment because Hokor was putting the game on his shoulders.

  He felt palpable excitement in the huddle. All eyes looked to him, awaiting his words. There was victory in the air, every being felt it. All they had to do was reach out and take it. Warburg and Kobayasho, the tight ends, were in the huddle, as was Pareless the fullback. Scarborough and Mezquitic were back on the sidelines — it was a two-tight end set with a fullback, clearly a running formation.

  “I-set, show left dive, and Fayed make it count. Naked boot right. Kobayasho, block in and release deep. If I have to run, I don’t want the guy covering you able to stop me from scoring, got it?”

  Kobayasho nodded, as did the other players.

  “Break!”

  The Krakens lined up. The Demolition dug in. Quentin surveyed the defense, and saw Yalla drifting to the offense’s right. Quentin’s instincts screamed at him to call an audible, change the play to a dive left to take advantage of the cheating middle linebacker.

  Run the plays I call, Quentin heard in his mind.

  “Hut-hut!”

  The ball slapped into his hands and he pivoted to the left. He put the ball in Fayed’s stomach and turned with the running back, guiding him to the line. Just before Fayed crashed into the mass of bodies, Quentin pulled the ball out and pivoted hard to his right. He sprinted to the sidelines. The defense had bought the fake, all were converging on Fayed ... all but Yalla the Biter. The monstrous, pitch-black-eyed Quyth Warrior linebacker went into a side-roll, staying flat to to the goal line as he matched Quentin’s horizontal movement. Kobayasho bounced to the outside, but he was covered by the Demolition cornerback.

  Quentin thought about the pass for one more second, then tucked the ball and sprinted for the corner of the end zone. Kobayasho instantly reacted to the situation, turning and blocking his defender, taking her out of the play.

  That left only Quentin and Yalla the Biter.

  Yalla popped out of his roll and sprang forward, hitting Quentin at the two-yard line.

  You wanna mess with me? Quentin thought as he switched the ball to his right hand and threw his left forward in a vicious, snarling upper-cut. His fist slammed into Yalla’s chest, bounced up, and nailed the Quyth Warrior right between the pedipalps. Yalla reached out and grabbed at Quentin’s jersey as sharp teeth slashed Quentin’s left hand. Yalla’s full weight slammed into him — Quentin stumbled, but recovered and drove forward. His momentum pushed Yalla backwards, just a touch, but it was enough. They both started to fall ... Quentin managed two more powerful strides on the way down, and landed after the ball just crossed the goal line.

  Demolition 21, Krakens 18.

  Flags flew. Unnecessary roughness on Yalla the Biter, to be assessed on the kickoff. The Krakens offense ran off the field to the boos of the Demolition faithful. Yalla’s bite had torn open the skin on the back of Quentin’s left hand, a bloody gash running from the knuckle on his index finger to the middle of his forearm. Blood poured from the wound, leaving an intermittent trail on the white playing field. Pine met him halfway, his cane doing a double-time that barely kept up the pace.

  “Quentin, you idiot, why didn’t you audible out of that? I could see from here that Yalla knew the play, and I know you saw it!”

  “I run the plays that are called,” Quentin said as he jogged back to the bench, leaving the crippled Pine behind him.

  “Doc!” Quentin shouted, oblivious to the shoulder pad and helmet slaps his appreciative teammates threw his way. “Doc get over here!”

  The Harrah doctor glided over, his tentacles immediately grabbing Quentin’s wrist in a surprisingly strong grip.

  “Sit still,” Doc said firmly. “This is a deep cut, we’ve got to get you to the locker room for the healing tank.”

  “Forget that!” Quentin yanked his hand away. Blood flew in all directions. Teammates stopped what they were doing and stared at him, but he saw nothing except Doc, who was now no more than another obstacle trying to stop him from winning.

  “You fix this up right now!” Quentin’s face twisted into a mask of challenge and fury. “I’ve got to put another three on the board.”

  “You’re out of the game!” Doc yelled back.

  Quentin’s eyes widened to giant white balls spotted with flecks of pure black. He suddenly rushed Doc, grabbing his floating body, finding it surprisingly light. He started to shake Doc when Yitzhak and Yassoud grabbed him, pulling him away.

  “Jesus Christ, Quentin, stop it!” Yitzhak shouted as he stepped between Quentin and Doc.

  Quentin ignored him, looking over Yitzhak’s shoulder and shaking his blood-dripping finger at Doc. “If you don’t fix up my hand, I’ll bounce you off the ground like a damn toy, you got that? I don’t care if you have to cauterize it with a damned branding iron, stop the bleeding.”

  Doc hung there for a second, then reached into his bag and pulled out the now-familiar blue strip. He wrapped it around Quentin’s shredded skin. Yitzhak and Yassoud let Quentin go, cautiously, as if he might snap again at any second. Quentin hissed as the acid-like sting spread through his hand. Blood pooled up around the edges of the blue strip and dripped to the trampled white plants below. He looked down, seeing that his blood had stained his orange jersey with stripes and splotches of bright red.

  Doc held Quentin’s hand tight as he removed the blood-soaked strip, now a deep purple, and applied another.

&nb
sp; Yitzhak, leaned in to examine the extent of injury. “Hey won’t that put too many nanocytes in his body? Can’t that cause liver damage.”

  “Shut up,” Quentin growled at Yitzhak. “And don’t bother getting warmed up, I’m going back in.”

  The second strip also turned purple with blood. Quentin felt as if his hand was being cooked from the inside out.

  “It’s not working,” Doc said. “The lacerations are too large, and you’ve got an arterial tear. The nanocytes can’t bind it up. We need to put your hand in the healing tank, Quentin. The gel in the tank is programmed to hold your skin together long enough for the nanocytes to do their work.”

  “I don’t have time for the damned tank!” A string of spittle flew from Quentin’s mouth to dangle from the bottom bar of his facemask. He looked up at the scoreboard: 3:12 to play, the Demolition with the ball, second and three on their own 32. As soon as the defense stopped them, the Krakens would have a chance to win the game. He wanted to be on that field, and he wanted to win. He quickly looked around the sidelines, searching for an answer.

  Then he saw Messal.

  “Messal! Get your box and get over here, now!”

  The manager turned at the sound of Quentin’s bellowing voice, quivering as if a Quyth Leader had done the yelling. He scrambled to grab his box off the bench, then ran to Quentin.

  “Get that thing you used to fix my jersey,” Quentin said.

  Messal pulled out the gun-pliers. Doc took one look at the device, then looked at the ugly stitch running up the front of Quentin’s jersey.

  “Absolutely not!” Doc said. “We will not use stitches on Human flesh!”

  “Do it, Messal,” Quentin said.

  “Use that on him and I’ll have Gredok fire you,” Doc said. “I mean it, Messal.”

  Messal started to put the gun-pliers away. Quentin reached down with his right hand and grabbed the short Quyth Worker by his left pedipalp.

  “You use that thing on this,” Quentin said, holding up his bloody left hand, “or I will kill you, cook you, and eat you.”

  Messal quivered like a tuning fork. He reached out and gently pinched together the skin on both sides of the cut. Yassoud moved in and wrapped his arms around Quentin’s left arm, holding it still. Quentin felt Ki arms snake around his chest, their strength holding him immobile. He looked over his shoulder — Kill-O-Yowet’s black eyes stared at him, only inches from his own.

  Messal looked up, the obvious question burning in his one eye.

  “Do it,” Quentin said through clenched teeth.

  Messal pulled the trigger. Quentin’s eyes grew wider still as a new level of pain seared through his arm. He tried to pull back, but Yassoud and Kill-O-Yowet held him still. Messal slid the gun-pliers up the cut in a smooth stroke, and it was over. Quentin stared at his arm — the edges of the skin pursed out a quarter inch from his arm, smeared with blood and roughly stitched together with Kevlar thread, like the seam of his jersey. Echoes of the needle-and-thread pain ripped through his arm, but through that he still felt the burning of the nanocytes. That burning intensified on the stitch itself — the tiny machines were trying to do their job.

  “That’s going to leave a horrible scar,” Doc said angrily. “And it’s not going to heal the arterial tear. You’ve got ten minutes, tops, before you pass out.

  Quentin heard boos from the crowd. He looked up at the scoreboard, his heart leaping when he saw the magic words “4th down, 6 to go, ball on the Demolition’s 44.” The clock counted down ... 1:12 ... 1:11 ... 1:10 ...

  “Barnes, get your lazy butt up here,” Hokor’s voice said in his helmet. Quentin ran to his Coach and knelt. Hokor stared at him, and Quentin saw his own reflection in Hokor’s big eye: jersey torn and stitched up the chest, making the left side of his number “10” slightly higher than the right; the orange fabric stained bright red with blood; his arm a bloody mess with an ugly, black-threaded stitch running from his hand to his elbow.

  “You sure you can make it?” Hokor asked.

  Quentin nodded and smiled. “Just give me the ball, Coach.”

  Hokor’s pedipalps reached out, each one lightly touching Quentin’s shoulder pads. “We’ve pulled a lot of new strategies on them this quarter, so they’ll be ready for anything, but at the same time they won’t focus on any one area. We’re going to spread it out, so you’ll have room to move — if you’re in doubt, tuck it and run, but no more head-to-head battles. I can’t have you getting hurt. When you run, you slide before they tackle you, you got it?”

  Quentin nodded quickly. Hokor called the first play.

  The Demolition punt sailed through the air. Richfield signaled a fair catch at the Krakens’ 17-yard line. Quentin looked at the clock, then nodded again, to himself this time — he had his work cut out for him: he needed to go 83 yards in 56 seconds.

  The Krakens offense ran onto the field. In the huddle, the players seemed different, staring at him with near reverence. Quentin noticed that blood streaked all of the Ki linemen jerseys. Red blood. But Ki blood was black ... it took him a second to realize that Kill-O-Yowet had rubbed blood, Quentin’s blood, on each jersey. The pain in his arm faded away as a new dose of adrenaline pumped through his veins.

  “We’re going to get back in the hunt for Tier One right now,” Quentin said. “We’ve got 56 seconds to put these motherless losers away. A field goal ties it, but I want a win. X-set, 21-base. All routes break off at twenty yards.” Quentin reached up and grabbed Hawick’s facemask, but when he spoke, it was to another receiver.

  “Scarborough,” Quentin said, his eyes still locked on Hawick. “Their nickel back will be on you. She can’t handle your speed.” Scarborough quivered once, then stopped and stood stock-still. “You sprint downfield on a post and when I throw you the ball you damn well catch it. Let’s step on their throats right now and put this one away. Ready?”

  “Break!”

  The crowd roared as Quentin’s team stepped to the line. He moved up with a step left, a half-bounce left, a step right, a half-bounce right. He stood behind Bud-O-Shwek, his hands tapping out a quick left-right-left ba-da-bap on the Ki’s carapace. As he suspected, the defense moved to key on Hawick.

  The ball snapped into his hands and he dropped back five long steps. He planted, left knee bent deep, and slid two yards across the oily white surface before his cleats caught and he bounced forward a half-step. Standing tall at the six yard line, he locked his eyes on Hawick. She drove downfield and suddenly broke off at the 37, cutting back on a hook route. The motion was enough to freeze the safety, only for a moment, but in that moment Scarborough turned on the afterburners.

  Wait for it ... Quentin thought as the pocket started to collapse around him.

  She sprinted past the 40 ... the 50 ...

  Wait for it ...

  She sprinted past the 40 ... the 30 ...

  Kill-O-Yowet lost his fit on his defender and fell to the ground. The defender’s body gathered for a vicious blow even as he ran forward, multi-jointed limbs reaching out like those of a hungry, long-armed spider.

  Quentin reared back and launched the ball just before the defensive lineman extended and smashed into him at full-force. Quentin was knocked ten yards to his right, the wind whuffing out of his lungs. He hit and rolled. The ball was in the air so long he actually stumbled to his feet before it finished its long parabola.

  Scarborough leapt into the air, the safety a good three feet behind her. At the 12-yard line, 81 yards from where he’d released it, the ball landed in Scarborough’s tentacles. Her feet touched down at the 7-yard line, and she strolled into the end zone standing up.

  Krakens 25, Demolition 21.

  Quentin stumbled off the field, his mind still fuzzy from the devastating hit he’d taken just after releasing the ball. Morningstar added the extra point to put the Krakens up by five. The hit had also opened up the cut on the back of Quentin’s hand, although most of the rest of the gash remained sutured shut. From there on, things w
ere a bit of a blur. Someone guided him to a medsled and sat him on the back edge. The medsled moved down the sidelines and into the tunnel. The crowed seemed a massive blur of colors and shapes and sounds. The medsled cruised into the visitor’s locker room — Quentin had an impression of someone (or something) helping him off the sled before his legs gave out, and everything went black.

  WEEK FOUR LEAGUE ROUNDUP(courtesy of Galaxy Sports network)

  With a thrilling 28-24 win over the Glory Warpigs (3-1), the Whitok Pioneers (4-0) took sole possession of first place in the Quyth Irradiated Conference.

  Rookie QB Quentin Barnes kept the Ionath Krakens (2-2) in the playoff hunt with an 83-yard TD pass to Scarborough, giving the Krakens a 25-21 win over the win-less Sky Demolition (0-4).

  The Grontak Hydras (2-2) edged out a 35-31 win over the Bigg Diggers (1-3).

  Orbiting Death (3-1) is only one game out of first thanks to a 28-7 drubbing of the Quyth Survivors (1-3).

  The Sheb Stalkers (3-1) shutout the Woo Wallcrawlers (1-3) 17-0.

  DEATHS:

  No deaths to report this week.

  WEEK #4 PLAYERS OF THE WEEK:

  Offense: Condor Adrienne, quarterback, Whitok Pioneers. 31-of-42, 334 yards, three TDs, no INTs.

  Defense: Arkham, cornerback, Bigg Diggers. Six tackles, one sack, three interceptions, including one returned for a TD, her second of the year.

  GAME FIVE: Sheb Stalkers (3-1) at Ionath Krakens (2-2)

  QUYTH IRRADIATED CONFERENCE STANDINGS

  QUENTIN WALKED SLOWLY from his locker to the central meeting room and to Hokor’s office. Two days of rest hadn’t completely removed the pulsing, dull-nova ache that lived inside his skull. “Concussion-proof helmets.” Right.