Complaining on and on with its thoughtful, useless voice, the box was thrown into the middle of Tech’s next practice, and nothing was left afterward but gutted electronics pushed deep into the clipped green grass.
* * *
Tech’s and State’s regular season was finished. But that turned out to be a blessing as far as school coffers and the entertainment conglomerates were concerned. Hundred-point slaughters weren’t winning the best ratings. In lieu of butchery, a series of ritualized scrimmages were held on Saturdays, each team dividing its top squads into two near equal parts, then playing against themselves with enough skill and flair to bring packed stadiums and enormous remote audiences: all that helping to feed an accelerating, almost feverish interest in the coming showdown.
Sports addicts talked about little else.
While the larger public, caring nothing for the fabled gridiron, found plenty else to hang their interest on. The contrasting coaches, and the 1-1-2041s, and the debate about what is human, and particularly among girlfriends and wives, the salient fact that a female was the undisputed leader of one team.
Sports networks and digital wonderhouses began playing the games of the century early, boiling down its participants into algorithms and vectors and best guesses, then showing the best of their bloodless contests to surprisingly large audiences.
Eight times out of eleven, the digital Tech went away victors.
Not counting private and foreign betting, nearly ten billion reconstituted dollars had been wagered on the contest by Thanksgiving. By Christmas Eve, that figure had jumped another five-fold. Plus there were the traditional gubernatorial wagers of state-grown products: a ton of computer chips versus a ton of free-range buffalo.
Theresa spent Christmas at home with parents and grandparents, plus more than a dozen relatives who had managed to invite themselves. If anything, those cousins and uncles and assorted spouses were worse than a room full of reporters. They didn’t know the rules. They expected disclosures. Confessions. The real and the dirty. And when Theresa offered any less-than-spectacular answer, it was met with disappointment and disbelief.
The faces said as much. And one little old aunt said it with her liquor-soddened mouth, telling her niece, “You’re among family, darling. Why can’t you trust us?”
Because she didn’t know these people over the past eighteen years, she had seen them sporadically, and all she remembered were their uncomfortable expressions and the careful words offered with quiet, overly cautious voices.
Looking at her, some had said, “She’s a lovely girl.”
“Exotic,” others volunteered.
“You’re very lucky,” to her parents.
Then out of pure-human earshot they would ask, “What do you think is inside her? Dog? Dinosaur? What?”
Theresa didn’t know which genes went into her creation. What was more, she hadn’t felt a compelling need to ask. But whatever chimerical stew made up her chromosomes, she had inherited wonderful ears that could pick up distant insults as well as the kindest, sweetest words.
She was trying to be patient and charitable when one idiot leaned forward, planted a drunken hand on her granite-hard thigh, then told her with a resoundingly patronizing tone, “I don’t see what people complain about. Up close, you’re a beautiful creature . . .”
Daddy heard those words, their tone.
And he detonated.
“What are you doing?” he screamed. “And get your hand off your niece!”
Uncle John flinched, the hand vanishing. Then he stared at his brother with a mixture of astonishment and building rage, taking a deep breath, then another, before finding the air to ask, “What did I say?”
“Why? Don’t you remember?”
The poor fool sputtered something about being fair, for God’s sake.
The rest of the family stood mute, and stunned, and a few began asking their personal clocks for the time.
“Leave,” Daddy suggested.
To his brother, and everyone else, too.
He found the self-control to say, “Thank you for coming,” but then added, “My daughter isn’t a freak. She isn’t, and remember that, and good night.”
Christmas ended with a dash for the coats and some tenth-hearted, “Good lucks,” lobbed in Theresa’s direction.
Then it was just the three of them. And Daddy offered Theresa a sorrowful expression, then repeated his reasoning. “I’ve been listening to their contemptuous crap for nearly twenty years. You’re not a monster, or a possession, and I get sick, sick, sick of it.”
Theresa said nothing.
Mother said, “Darling,” to one of them. Theresa wasn’t sure who.
When nobody responded, Mother rose and staggered into the kitchen, telling the AI to finish its cooking, then store the meat and vegetables and mounds of stuffing for later this week, and into next year.
Theresa kept staring at her father, trying to understand why she was so disappointed, and angry, and sad.
He averted his eyes, then said, “I know.”
What did he know?
“You’re right,” he confessed. “You caught me. You know!”
But Theresa couldn’t make herself ask, “What am I right about?”
A citizen of unalloyed strength, yet she couldn’t summon enough air to ask, “What is it, Father? What am I supposed to know?”
* * *
The Hope Dome was older than the players. Led by Miami, a consortium of cities had built that gaudy glass and carbon-fiber structure out on the continental shelf. Its playing field lay nearly fifty meters beneath the water’s surface, and rising ocean levels combined with the new generation of hurricanes had caused problems. One of the bowl officials even repeated that tired joke that it was hope holding back the Atlantic. But then he winked slyly and said, “Don’t worry.” He unlocked a heavy door next to State’s locker, revealing an enormous room filled with roaring bilge pumps whose only purpose, he boasted, was to send a river’s worth of tiny leaks back into the sea.
In contrast to the palacelike Dome, the playing field was utterly ordinary.
Its dimensions and black earth and fluorescent-fed grass made it identical to a thousand other indoor facilities.
The day after Christmas, and both teams were given the traditional tour of the Dome and its field. To help extract the last greasy drama out of the blandness, Tech was still finishing its walk-through when State arrived. On the field together, with cameras and the world watching, the teams got their first naked-eye look at one another. And with a hundred million people waiting for anything, the two Heisman candidates met, and without any fuss, the two politely shook hands.
The Wildman offered Theresa several flavors of surprise.
The first surprise was his appearance. She had seen endless images of man-child, and she’d been near plenty of 1-1-2041s. But the running back was still impressive. There was bison in him, she had heard. And gorilla. And what might have been Siberian tiger genes. Plus something with an enormous capacity to grow bone. Elephant, perhaps. Something in the shape of his enormous head reminded her of the ancient mammoth skulls that she’d seen haunting the university museum.
The second surprise was the Wildman’s mannerisms. A bowl official, nervous enough to shiver, introduced the two of them, then practically threw himself backward. But the boy was polite, and in a passing way, charming.
“We meet,” he grunted. “Finally.”
Theresa stared at the swollen incisors and the giant dog eyes, and telling herself not to stumble over her tongue, she offered her hand and said, “Hello,” with the same pleasant voice she used on every new friend.
The Wildman took her hand gently. Almost too softly to be felt.
And with a thin humor, he said, “What do you think they would do? If we got down on our knees and grazed?”
Then the third surprise said, “Alan.”
And the fourth surprise added, “You’re just joking. Aren’t you, son?”
Parents weren’t normal
ly allowed to travel with the players. But the Wildes appeared to be the exception. Theresa later learned that they accompanied him everywhere, always. Pulling her hand out of Alan’s giant hand, she offered them a smile, and the mother said, “How are you, dear?”
The father offered, “I’m an admirer.” His right hand was plastic. Lifelike, but not alive. Retrieving his hand, he added, “We’re all admirers, of course.”
How did he lose the limb? she wondered.
Because it was the polite thing to say, Theresa told them, “The best of luck to you. All of you.”
Together, the Wildes wished her the same cliché. Then they said, “Alan,” in a shared voice. Practiced, and firmly patient.
The boy stared at Theresa for a long moment, his face unreadable. Perhaps there was nothing there to read. Then with a deep bass voice, he said, “Later.”
“Later,” she echoed.
Two hundred kilos of muscle and armored bone pivoted, walking away with his tiny, seemingly fragile parents flanking him—each adult holding tightly to one of the hands and whispering. Encouragements, or sage advice. Or grave warnings about the world.
Even with her spectacular ears, Theresa couldn’t hear enough to tell.
* * *
Days meant light practices, then the daily press conferences where every ludicrous question was asked and asked again with a linebacker’s single-mindedness. Then the evenings were stuffed full of tightly orchestrated fun: Cookouts. A parade. Seats at a nuclear polka concert. Then a beach party held in both teams’ honor.
It was on the beach that the Tech quarterback, Mosgrove, made a half-joking comment. “You know what we should do? Together, I mean.” And he told the other 1-1-2041s, thinking they would laugh about it.
But instead of laughing, a plan was drawn up between the sea trout dinner and the banana split dessert.
On New Year’s Eve, coaches put their teams to bed at ten o’clock. That was the tradition. And an hour later, exactly twenty-four of their players crept out of their beds and their hotel rooms, slipping down to the same beach to gather in two distinct groups.
At midnight and for the next three minutes and twenty-one seconds, no one said one word. With fireworks and laser arrays going off on all sides, their eyes were pointed at the foot-chewed sand, and every face grew solemn. Reflective. Then Theresa said, “Now,” and looked up, suddenly aware of the electricity passing between them.
What was she feeling? She couldn’t put a name to it. Whatever it was, it was warm, and real, and it felt closer even than the warm, salty air.
Still divided along team lines, the players quietly walked off the beach.
Theresa meant to return straight to bed, even though she wouldn’t sleep. But she stopped first at the ladies’ room, then happened past one of several hotel bars, a familiar face smiling out at her from the darkness, a thick hand waving her closer.
He was sitting alone in a booth, which surprised her.
With that slick, aw shucks voice, he asked, “Are my boys finding their way home again? Or am I going to have to get myself a posse?”
“They’ll end up in their rooms,” she assured.
“Sit,” said the coach. Followed by, “Please.”
She squeezed her legs under the booth. Marlboro cuddled with his beer, but he hadn’t been alone for long. The cultured leather beneath Theresa was still warm. But not the seat next to her, she noted. And she found herself wondering who was here first.
“Buy you a drink, young lady?”
She didn’t answer.
He laughed with that easy charm, touched the order pad, and said, “Water, please. Just water.”
“I really should leave,” she told Marlboro.
But before she could make her legs move, he said, “You pegged me. That last time I came calling, you saw right through that brown shit I was flinging. About needing you for quarterback, and all that.” A wink, then he added, “I was lying. Wasn’t I?”
She didn’t say one word.
Chilled water arrived, and Theresa found herself dipping into a strange paranoia. Mosgrove had suggested that meeting on the beach because Theresa had to come past this bar, and Coach Jones was waiting to ambush her, slipping some drug into her system so that tomorrow, in front of the entire world, she would fail.
A silly thought. But she found herself shuddering, if only because it was finally beginning to sink in . . . what was going to happen tomorrow . . .
She didn’t speak, but Marlboro couldn’t let the silence continue. After finishing his beer and ordering another, he leaned over and spoke quietly, with intensity. He told her, “You saw through me. I’ll give you that. But you know something, young lady? You’re not the only shrewd soul at this table.”
“No?” she replied.
Softly. With an unexpected tentativeness.
Then she forced herself to take a sip of her chilled water, licking her lips before asking, “What did you see in me?”
“Nothing,” Marlboro said.
Then he leaned back and picked up the fresh beer glass, sucking down half of its contents before admitting, “I don’t read you kids well. It’s the muscles in your faces. They don’t telephone emotions like they should.”
She said, “Good.”
He laughed again. Nothing was drunk about the man, but something about the eyes and mouth told her that he had been drinking for a long while. Nothing was drunk about the voice, but the words had even more sparkle and speed than usual. “Why do you think it is, young lady? All this noise and anguish about a game? A fucking little game that uses a hundred meters of grass and a ball that doesn’t know enough to keep itself round?”
“I don’t know—” she started.
“You’re the favorite,” he interrupted. “State is, I mean. According to polls, the general public hopes that I’m beat. You know why? Cause I’ve got twelve of you kids, and Rickover has only ten. And it takes eleven to play. Which means that on your team, at least one pure-human is always out there. He might be full of steroids and fake blood, and he’s only going to last one set of downs, at most. But he’s as close to being one of them butter-butts as anyone on either team. And those butter-butts, those fans of yours and mine, identify with Mr. Steroid. Which is why in their hearts they want Tech to stumble.”
Theresa watched the dark eyes; the quick, wide mouth. For some reason, she couldn’t force herself to offer any comment, no matter how small.
“And there’s that matter of coaches,” said Marlboro. “I’m the godless one, and Rickover is God’s Chosen, and I bet that’s good enough for ten or twenty million churchgoers. They’re putting their prayers on the good man.”
She thought of those days last summer—the pain and humiliation of practically begging for a spot on the roster, all while that good man watched from a distance—and she secretly bristled. Less secretly, she took a deep breath, looking away and asking him finally, “If it isn’t me, who? Who do you see through?”
“Parents,” he said. Point-blank.
“My folks?” she asked.
“And all the others, too,” Marlboro promised. Then he took a pull of beer, grinned, and added, “They’re pretty much the same. Sad fuck failures who want to bend the rules of biology and nature as much as they can, diluting their blood and their own talents, thinking that’s what it takes for them to have genuinely successful children.”
Theresa thought of her father’s Christmas tantrum.
More beer, then Marlboro said, “Yeah, your parents. They’re the same as the others. All of ’em brought you kids into existence, and only later, when it was too late, they realized what it meant. Like the poor Wildes. Their kid’s designed for awesome strength and useful rage, and so much has gone so wrong that they can’t get a moment’s rest. They’re scared. And with reason. They seem like nice people, but I guarantee you, young lady, that’s what happens when you’re torn up by guilt. You keep yourself sweet and nice, because if you falter, even for a second, who knows what you’l
l betray about your real self?”
Theresa sighed, then grudgingly finished her water. If there was a poison in this booth, it didn’t come inside a thick blister of glass.
“Darling.” A thick, slurring feminine voice broke the silence, saying, “Darling,” a second time, with too much air. “Marl, honey.”
A hand lay on the tabletop. Theresa found herself looking at it and at the fat diamond riding the ring finger. She asked herself what was wrong with that hand. It was too long, and its flesh wore a thin golden fur, and the fingernails were thick and curved and obviously sharp. Theresa blinked and looked up at the very young woman, and in that instant, the coach said, “My fiancée. Ivana Buckleman. Honey, this is the enemy, Theresa Varner—”
“How are you?” said the fiancée, a mouthful of cougar teeth giving the words that distinctive, airy sound. Then she offered the long hand, and the two women shook, nothing friendly about the gesture. With blue cat-eyes staring. Ivana asked, “Shouldn’t you be asleep, miss? You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
Marlboro said nothing, drinking in the jealousy.
Theresa surrendered her place, then said, “Good luck, Coach.”
He stared at her, and grinned, and finally said, “You know perfectly well, girl. There’s no such bird.”
* * *
Coach Rickover was famous for avoiding pregame pep talks. Football was war, and you did it. Or you didn’t do it. But if you needed your emotions cranked up with colored lights, then you probably shouldn’t be one of his players.
And yet.
Before the opening kickover, Rickover called everyone to the sideline. An acoustic umbrella was set up over the team, drowning out the roar of a hundred thousand fans and a dozen competing bands and the dull thunder of a passing storm. And with a voice that couldn’t have been more calm, he told them, “Whatever happens tonight, I am extraordinarily proud of you. All of you. Ability is something given by God. But discipline and determination are yours alone. And after all my years in coaching, I can say without reservation, I’ve never been so proud and pleased with any team. Ever.
“Whatever happens tonight,” he continued, “this is my final game. Tomorrow morning, I retire as your coach. The Lord has told me it’s time. And you’re first to hear the news. Not even my wife knows. Not my assistant coaches. Look at their faces, if you don’t believe me.”
Future Sports Page 13
