Hiro's Fall

by G L Rathweg

  This is why humanity was granted status. They knew basketball. They invented it. Every single team wanted a human coach. Basketball became humanities industry. It became a class studied in school. There was advanced basketball theory I, II, and III in university. Since all education was universalized everyone was taught basketball as a core subject.

  Every single human being was taught to become an expert in the sport. Any human could name any player in the entire history of basketball. All the way from the Magic-Bird-Jordan generations, to the Kobe-Shaq-Wade generations, to the Lebron-Curry-Durant generations, and beyond. These are referred to as the golden ages of basketball.

  The whole universe craved the knowledge of basketball. Humanity hoarded its advantage as much as they possibly could. They knew it was their only leverage in the universe and what kept them on the council. Why was this? They had the same technology now and they were part of the ruling council. The main reason was humanity was just physically less good then every, single, other race in the UFP. The only thing they had was their knowledge. That is why humanity honed its basketball IQ to the point that they understood basketball on a completely fundamental level that surpassed every other civilization. They had evolved to the point where basketball was like breathing. They just do it!

  The year is 2171, but some things never change. Human beings still have children. And parents still abandon them. With the pinnacle of technological achievement all biological beings are born faster, stronger, smarter, healthier, basically all the positive ers’ there are. This is because bioscience has figured out how to maximize the nano technology to use the bodies, of any species, to heal and grow, and basically make the healthiest version of itself.

  Beings don’t die of old age. There is still death. There are primal beings out there, criminals the dregs of society, also there were accidents spaceship collisions blah… blah… blah... There was also drug use, and murder. But there was no death by natural causes. That is why murder became the biggest offense in the universe. Coincidentally, a major factor in basketball being so popular was the lack of death. War was too horrible to contemplate because murder ended someone’s being forever!

  Basketball had been elevated to an almost religious status. There were legends and tales of all sorts about the history of B-Ball. Humanity was responsible for this mostly, having hoarded the basketball knowledge to such an extent that… That’s enough for now.

  Back to the story, ahem, but some things never change. Parents still abandon their children. This is the story of one such child, an orphan all alone in the universe.

  This is the story of the boy who saved humanity.

  This is the story of a basketball hero.

  TRACK 1 –

  Here we go! Dribble, left, left, back step, right, right, spin left, turn, step back, behind the back, through the legs, dribble right, forward!

  I darted ahead around my buddy Julius, one step ahead and gone. I jumped up reaching high over the rim and dunked on my friend.

  POSTERIZED!

  “And One!” I yelled, as I hung from the rim.

  “What do you mean, And One?” He yelled back, from his butt on the ground.

  “Dude, your feet weren’t set.” I replied, dropping to the ground.

  For some reason I came down with my legs squatting across my friend. Not wanting to waste the opportunity I squatted down my butt over his head.

  “Man, I have some sweaty balls!” I laughed out loud, squatting up and down.

  Julius did not share my humor. He promptly punched my, said balls, and rolled away, now the one laughing, as I dropped to the ground clutching my precious family jewels. I rolled there trying to breathe, barely making out my friend Julius. He was still on the ground gasping for air. But his reason was due to laughing so hard that he couldn’t breathe, not from a nut shot.

  Ok, fair enough, I may have deserved that hit. I finally caught my breath and got to my feet. I walked over to Jay and looked down at him. He was still on the ground laughing in hilarity, so I kicked him in the side, lightly, and he coughed a bit. Then I reached my hand down to help him up. He reached up and accepted my peace offering. We clasped hands and I pulled him to his feet.

  We both looked each other over. Both having just turned twelve years old, it was our first day of high school. We looked each other over and nodded. Not bad, we had been issued the standard uniform for high school students. The uniforms were white one-piece things. Think high tech overalls that fit perfectly and kept you cool or warm automatically depending on the weather. They also allowed for a complete range of motion. We received and were wearing the school issued sneakers, which were white as well and optimized for running, jumping, cutting, and all other basketball needs.

  DING DONG!

  “Oh no! MJ, that is first bell! We gotta go!” Jay called out as he ran ahead.

  I grabbed the basketball and thumbed the command. The ball immediately shrank down to the size of a marble and I placed it on my wrist holder. Then I took off and followed behind Julius running to catch up.

  I caught up and as we ran, I spotted the hover tram coming from our right. I pointed it out to Julius, and we altered course. We both used our implants to map out an optimal course to get on the train. A light blue course highlighted our way. I went ahead of Julius I was just a bit quicker and jumped up onto a trash bin. Not stopping I leaped out and grabbed a fire escape ladder. Using it as leverage I flung myself forward, doing a back flip midair and landing into a forward roll. Rising to my feet I glanced back and saw Julius hot on my heels.

  I sprinted forward. He would never let me live it down if he beat me as I wouldn’t when I won. I followed the highlighted trail and ran across the ledge of the second story apartment we were running along then hopped ledge to ledge, increasing my pace as I moved. A gap between buildings came up and I leapt off then landed on top of a glass elevator that was heading upwards to the top of the train station. Julius was right behind me but slipped his landing.

  “Jules!” I yelled.

  I fell to the ground reached out and grabbed the front of his uniform as he fell backward.

  “Hiro!” Jules yelled.

  I had one hand grasping the rail of the elevator and my other with a handful of Julius’s clothes. My knuckles were white with the strain.

  “Jules, help me! Or I’m going to drop you!” I screamed. My fingers and hands were trembling.

  He reached out and grabbed my arm with both his hands. I slowly pulled him to me. Finally, he tumbled forward into me and we fell to the elevators roof and sat there catching our breath.

  “Dude… soooo your fault.” I said, between gulps of air.

  He just looked at me and then at the ground below, trying to get as much air in his oxygen starved lungs as possible.

  “Yeah man…” He replied white faced. “Don’t call me Jules, I hate that. You jerk.” He said, punching me lightly in the shoulder.

  I laughed punched him back and we were good. The pathway was still highlighted, so we both stood up and jumped off the elevator onto the train platform. Then we continued our run across the platform.

  BEEEEP!

  That was the train signal. We watched as we approached at top speed as the train started to pull away. I stopped ahead of Jay and put my hands together and went to one knee. Not pausing he kept running forward and jumped up, using my hands as a steppingstone. He landed on top of the train station awning. He reached down and I jumped up grabbing his hand. He pulled me up over the edge and then we were both up and running. The train was almost to the edge of the awning. We both ran and jumped out!

  SLAM! SLAM!

  We hit the train roof almost simultaneously then kept moving and rolled to our feet. Then continued running along the top of the train. I could hear the passengers exclaiming inside as we ran over head banging the roof with every step.

  DING DONG!

  The bell sounded as we ran. The train was approaching the school. We both ran forward to the front of the t
rain. Not stopping we leapt off reaching out and grabbing the Flag of Humanity poll then we both looped around pole spinning over once, twice, and flipping over the school wall on the third.

  DING DONG!

  The final bell rang as the gates closed shut. Julius and I stood up and looked at each other then, high-fived and strode forward into school.

  TRACK 2 –

  Jules and I headed with the other white suited onesie wearing freshman and different upper classmen wearing uniforms of red and blue respectively. They were all moving like lemmings, into what I assumed was the gymnasium for the first day of school’s assembly. We followed everyone in and then I stopped. It was like a light had gone off in my head. I felt like I was momentarily blinded. I had never felt like this before.

  It felt like I was home for the first time ever. Julius and I were orphans and had bounced from home to home throughout our childhoods. Sometimes with families but when it eventually didn’t work out back to group homes. In every single one of those places I have never felt like home. But now, in this gym I was finally home. This is where belonged. I turned to say something to Julius then…

  BUMP!

  Someone hit me from behind and I stumbled and fell into the person in front of me. That person in turn stumbled into the person in front of them and so on. Since we were packed so tight, did I mention that we were like canned sardines? Everyone, I repeat everyone began to fall like dominos.

  CRASH!

  The sound echoed throughout the vast space. If you didn’t know modern basketball arenas were equivalent in size to pre UFP era football stadiums. The sizes of high schools were much smaller although still quite large. Society had found that schools no larger than one thousand students were ideal and scaled the arenas proportionately.

  The UFP eventually enforced the galactic standard on humanity, which surprisingly enough was exactly the same as the metric system. Funny how things work like that, right?

  Everything was set in increments of ten. There were one thousand students in Hiro’s high school. There were one hundred thousand students in his district. There were one million students in his region. This goes so and so on. Since the rest of the universe used a variant of the metric system, the earth complied, eventually.

  Hiro looked up from his splayed-out position on top of the student in front of him. But his hands didn’t grab floor, instead he felt something warm and soft. What the hell? He thought?

  SQUEEZE, SQUEEZE!

  “Hey! Stop that!” An extremely female voice cried.

  I looked down at the voices beautiful face, which admittedly was extorted in rage at the moment, and then back down at my hands. I was not grabbing the floor. I was grabbing…

  SMACK!

  The girl slapped my face hard and quickly stood up. Everyone around us was standing back up but laughing at me as they did so. Those in my immediate surrounding area anyway those in other areas for their own reasons. I stood up quickly as well blushing, the girl glared at me then turned and stormed off with a couple other girls giving not very nice gestures.

  Girls are so rude. I didn’t mean to fall down and grab her… SMH… I moved along with the rest of the student body with glares and some not nice words from other students and went to the seats sitting in the middle of the gymnasium.

  My luck was going strong. The girl I had so recently been acquainted was in the row directly in front of me and Jules was nowhere to be seen. Since my luck was still going in the same direction I glanced to my immediate left and my eyes bulged. There was the largest person I had ever seen and when I looked to my right was the second largest person I had ever seen. Although, the one on my right may have been slightly wider than the one on my left once thing was certain, they were both massive.

  They each looked down on me from their Herculean heights. They were twins, or KD and AD, as I would affectionately cone to call them. Right now, and for the immediate future, they were;

  “What are you looking at Dumb and Dumber?” I said, glaring back and forth between the two of them.

  Yeah, not the best insult. Plus, I may have had a bit of a Napoleon complex. It was probably a ten in things not to say to people who were much larger than you. The two mammoths shared a grin at my comment. Then the two giants each put a hand on each of my shoulders and forced me to my seat. It was quite a kind force. Like a please sit down. More of a, please sit sir. Less of a, SIT DOWN NOW! Seriously, you believe me, right? I slammed to my backside with a thud and grunt.

  As we sat there, I began realized the extent of my mistake. It was starting to hurt on my shoulders where they squeezed.

  “Hey guys, please, a little less hey?” I asked, extremely politely. Why did they squeeze harder? “My bad…”

  “Hey Anthony,” the monster on my left said.

  “Yes Kevin?” The monster on my right asked.

  “There is a thirty-minute break in between this service and our first class. Shall we introduce young… what was your name old boy?” Anthony said in a faux old time English accent.

  We were briefly interrupted as a large man wearing the red, white, and blue of our school colors approached a podium in the center of the room on the raised dais.

  “Ahem… Ahem… testing… testing… yes well now… ahem,” the man began when he reached the podium. “Welcome Freshmen to your first day of school here at Michael Jordan High School, I am your principal and head coach Riley Kerr Jackson…”

  A not so soft shoulder squeeze recaptured my attention.

  “My name is Hiro,” I squeaked out.

  Thug B, Kevin, let my shoulder go slightly.

  “Oh, Hiro is it? I and my dashingly handsome brother will see you upstairs, on the third level of the B-Ball court directly after this ceremony.” Anthony said.

  “And you, our future, you are the future of humanity. It is you that will be spreading the future of our species. So, study hard, earn those positions. The greatest coaches in history are human. Let’s keep that tradition proud.” The principle said from the holo-podium.

  “That is quite right,” Kevin said, still in the accent.

  “Sure guys, now,” I shrugged my shoulders, “I’d love to, now please keep your gigantic, but lovely,” I added hastily, “hands off my new unitard. I just got it pressed.” I finished with an exaggerated huff of my breath. I followed it up with an extremely over exaggerated shake of my hair. Both Neanderthals laughed at my act. Unfortunately for them, principle, whoever he was had just stopped talking.

  “…”

  The principle, who was maybe the largest man I had seen, even bigger than my two new friends, in real life not on the old vid’s or holo’s. Now, the gigantic man was staring at the three of us. I think I gulped audibly. The whole room was silent. It felt like everyone’s eyes were on the three of us.

  “You three have the honor of being the first freshmen of this year’s class to be given detention. Stand up and let the rest of your class see you. Now!” The principal barked out at us.

  We jumped up in unison. My face turned bright red again, I was super embarrassed. First the thing with the girl and now this, this was not how I envisioned my first day. It was at this point that one of the students started giggling. I don’t know who it was, but my shame was just multiplied by a thousand. I turned even redder if possible.

  Suddenly everyone was laughing. I opened my eyes and looked around in shock as the room thundered in laughter. Everyone, I mean, everyone was laughing at us. All of the students, the teachers and faculty, even the principle was chuckling. I looked at the two giants too either side of me. I could tell by their faces that they were just as embarrassed as I was. Inspiration hits at the most awkward moments. I hit both giants at the same time.

  “Follow my lead.” I told them.

  I quickly raised my hands over my head like I had just won an award. I then began bowing theatrically. I repeated both these actions over and over. The two behemoths slowly started playing along. Now we weren’t three people being ostr
acized by their classmates. We were the heroes who got the first detention. The laughing slowly morphed into cheering. We cheered, bowed, and waved. We all really got into the act.

  “QUIET!” The principle bellowed, “You three will meet me here directly after school. I will personally administer your detention.”

  All three of us stopped moving and sat down. We stared at the principle with our mouths agape. I swear he smiled a small cruel smile at us. I blinked once and it was gone, it must have been my imagination.

  “Before I was so rudely interrupted,” he glared at us again, “this school has a proud tradition. We blend learning of all subjects, traditional and sport, into a seamless learning experience that will help all you excel at life. Whether it being the coach of an intergalactic basketball team.”

  He paused as the room gasped audibly.

  “Or if you want to create new and important arts and sciences.” He continued, “Michael Jordan High School has the highest standards of excellence. We expect you to outperform and excel here as well. Thank You.” The principle finished.

  With that he and the rest of the teachers stood up and left the auditorium. I sat there and then felt a tap on the shoulder.

  “Hey man, so we’re cool, see you after school.” Kevin said.

  Then both of them stood up and left with the other freshman. I sat there for a minute trying to collect my thoughts. First, I fell with the girl, then almost got beat up, and third got detention. It seemed that the two giants were still going to beat me up so that was something to look forward too as well. Le sigh…

  “Hey Hiro,” Julius said.