Last Chance (4 page)

“What do you think it is?”

Connor responded, “I don’t know, but I see four guards heading over there.”

Connor grabbed Matthew by the shoulders and pulled him lower to the edge of the window. He popped him on the top of the head and told him that if those guards saw them up after ten, it would be their butts in a sling.

The boys looked back to the warehouse window and could see a man staring back at them. He had a bald head and was wearing black glasses. He kept his position, looking out toward the boys for several seconds.

“He can’t see us, can he?”

Suddenly, the man in the window pulled down a shade and he was gone, along with the light and noise. Matthew looked at Connor and with a sigh said, “We could see him. Why wouldn’t he be able to see us?”

The boys decided to stay up for another hour to see the man brought from the building by the four guards who had entered, but they never saw anyone leave. The boys wanted to know if the man had been arrested and what had created that bright light.

None of those questions would be answered that night, however, so they decided to go back to bed. They would have a big day at the park tomorrow and needed their rest. They both decided that they could do some investigating of the building tomorrow. For now, the boys were in bed, and another day in Sector 37 faded away.

Chapter 3

beamball

“Wake up, Matt! We’re gonna be late for the game,” said a wide-eyed and hyper Connor to the lump still slumped into his covers.

“What time is it?” asked a sleepy Matthew.

“It’s nine, and our game starts at nine thirty. Get your clothes on, eat the breakfast bar April left for you, and let’s get to the transport.”

Matthew jumped from his bed and started rooting around in his closet for his best set of ball clothes. Today was a big game. This was a chance to make up for the repeated losses to Sector 39 over the last two years. As Matthew looked through the wreck of a closet that he and Connor shared, Connor made his way to the kitchen to get Matthew’s pastry that the breakfast servers had left an hour ago.

Connor ran into the bedroom. “It’s still pretty warm, and I only spit on it once, so it should be good.”

Matthew struggled to pull his red ball shirt over his head, but he started to make his way to the front door, regardless. He did not want to miss this game.

Connor handed Matthew his breakfast, grabbed his key to the apartment and his sector ID, and made sure he had some credits for the transport, and the boys were out the door.

“Race you to the bottom,” yelled out Connor, already halfway down the first flight. Matthew gave chase, but he was not as fast as Connor in a fair race, much less when Connor cheated.

The boys ran a couple of blocks to the closest transport station and saw their ride pulling up, just as they pulled out the credits needed for the payment to travel. A credit was much like a coin, but there was only one coin per person and a digital readout told how many credits you had. Kids the age of Connor and Matthew were given ten credits a month for travel on the sector transports.

As the boys loaded onto the crowded transport, Matthew questioned Connor about the credits left for the month. It looked like they had enough credits to get back to the park one more time that month. The boys always went everywhere together, so neither had any extra credits for the last week of the month.

Matthew asked, “How we gonna get to the park?”

Connor replied, “Walk, I guess.”

The boys both laughed out loud, knowing it was a good fifteen miles to the park. It took two changeovers on the transport system just to get there. They hoped that the transports were all on schedule so they wouldn’t be late for the game.

The transport system between the sectors was designed based on the old highway system. Instead of roads where cars and trucks had traveled between locations, there was a central system with thousands of interconnecting lines. Unlike the days of the old railroad system, these transports ran on magnetized plates and speeds of over one hundred miles per hour. Ninety-nine percent of the population used this for travel, so they had to be fast. They could best be described as an above-ground subway, without the graffiti.

The boys had rushed out of the apartment so fast they had almost forgotten about the mysterious man in the warehouse window. As Matthew reviewed his plans for the approaching game, it hit him that he and Connor had some detective work to take care of after the game.

“Are we gonna check out that warehouse when we get back home?” asked Matthew.

“Come on, do you really want to see if we can find some old guy that was staring at us through a window?”

Matthew was determined to find out what had gone on the night before. He wanted to know what that light was and if the old man had been taken by the sector security team. For some reason, he wanted to know who he was.

The transport came to an abrupt stop without making a sound. It was time to jump on the last connection to the park. The boys followed the mass of citizens to the adjoining transport. For the volume of people moving, there was not a lot of conversation. People knew where they were going and had little time to talk to each other. The prevailing sounds came from the monitors in the station that repeatedly showed the Supreme Leader and the World Council helping their fellow citizens.

“We’ll take a look around when we get back,” said Connor. “We’re only a few minutes from the park and we need to concentrate on the game.” With that, the boys stopped talking about the strange man in the warehouse and talked strategy for the game.

Connor, the gambler of the two, made the first suggestion. “We need to go long early and build up a lead. Sector 39 will start making mistakes if they think we’re gonna run up the score.”

Matthew, the planner and more analytical of the two, was not thrilled with the plan. “We can’t go long early against these guys. We’re not as athletic as they are. We need to start conservative and try to wear ‘em down.”

Connor punched Matthew in the arm and announced to the entire transport, “This guy is such a wimp! Good thing I’m the captain of the team.” He got a couple of looks from girls at the front of the cabin, but everyone else ignored him.

The final transport pulled up to the last stop on the boys’ journey. Just a quick sprint down to the corner and the boys would reach the park. They jockeyed around other passengers waiting for their rides and wound their way past the main transport station’s building.

Suddenly, as if a pop-up book had been opened, the landscape turned from the brown brick and steel of a functioning city to the green and wide-open spaces of a national park. The boys ran through the main gate and were greeted with perfectly maintained green grass, large oak trees with extended limbs and lightly colored leaves, and a backdrop of rolling hills and stone peaks.

The park was a true escape from the day-to-day reality of school and work for the local communities, and today was no different. The park was packed to capacity with hikers, bike riders, and bird watchers, and of course the ball fields buzzed with anticipation awaiting the start of the weekly beamball matchups. The contradiction of odors from the sterilized district hubs of the city to the smell of fresh mowed grass, dandelions, and wood bark was inescapable.

The visual differences were not limited to the physical surroundings, as people in the park were allowed to wear clothing of their own. You couldn’t tell a factory worker from an engineer on the Day of Rest. Security was tight at the park. They wanted to make sure that no one strayed too far from the community norm.

Beamball was the only government-sanctioned sport left for school-age young adults to play in the year 2185. It had been around for thirty years and was as popular as ever. The boys ran up to Field 12 and saw the rest of their team stretching and prepping for the game.

“Where have you two been? I thought we were gonna have to forfeit the game,” said Coach Jenkins.

Matthew explained that the transports were running behind, and Connor explained that Matthew was running behind.

Coach Jenkins only took this job with the school to bolster his own work history, so he didn’t take it too seriously. He never had the boys run laps or sprints as a punishment; he just wanted to look good for the Sector 37 school board. He wasn’t much of a coach, and the small blue whistle around his neck didn’t disguise that he would be more comfortable teaching an English class. His cardigan sweater and brown loafers did not match the athletic theme of the day.

“All right, boys, as you know, we are playing Sector 39’s top team. They’ve beaten us three times in a row, so it’s important to make me look good today.” The boys looked at Coach Jenkins, and he revised his previous comment: “I mean, I just really want you guys to get that good feeling of a victory this time.” Coach pulled out a clipboard and pointed it at Connor. “Now, you have to look out for 32451; he killed us last time.”

Rocky 32451 was Sector 39’s best disruptor. This was one large fourteen-year-old. He made Connor look small. Rocky was all of six feet five inches and 230 pounds of pure muscle, and he was as fast as a transport on All Hathmec’s Day. He was, by far, the most feared disruptor in all of the age twelve to fourteen beamball divisions.

The field stands were full of onlookers, family, and fans of this division’s teams. April was missing from that group. She had to get up early to run errands and would not make the game. She trusted the boys to get to and from the games on their own, and she had promised not to miss any of the championship tournament games that would be played in a few weeks.

Coach Jenkins gave his final instructions to the boys of Sector 37 and then read off the lineups for the start of the game.

“42713 and 21874, you are marksmen on both offense and defense, so get your equipment and head to the lines. 57432, 19754, 62487, and 32741, you’re the trackers, so take the field. 24612, you are at tosser, as usual, so go ahead and grab the ball and head to the base outline. We get to go first.”

Coach Jenkins looked around at the remaining players and said, “You three are my trailers, so get ready to go in after our offensive series is done.”

Coach Jenkins had a solid team overall, no thanks to his leadership. He had placed Mark and Brett, two of the most experienced thirteen-year-old marksmen, into position to help guard and defend the tosser’s passes. He had four very speedy trackers in Jim, Ty, Lynn, and Andy, who would be attempting to catch the tosser’s throws. All four of them were in their last year in this division.

Connor had been placed at tosser and was the team captain. His size and strength made him the perfect tosser. He could throw a ball sixty yards on a dime and could avoid the rush of the disruptor as well as anyone in the league. Matthew was stuck with Jant and Que as the defensive trailers, not a glamour position, but an important one.

The game was about to begin when Coach Jenkins noticed that someone had sneaked up behind him on the sidelines. Her heels sank into the soft ground of the field and the wind struggled to remove the small bonnet perched atop her head. It was Superintendent Margaret Casey, and she was carrying a small black notebook with several pieces of paper in it.

“Superintendent Casey, to what do I owe the pleasure?” asked Jenkins.

Ms. Casey responded, “I am just here to make sure that all of our kids are eligible to play, academically. It looks like 24612 and 25871 have had some discipline issues recently.”

Coach Jenkins looked at the papers and said, “That’s Connor and Matthew, superintendent. I can probably replace Matthew, but I need Connor; he’s the best player we have. You see, he plays the tosser position, and if you don’t have a good tosser, you may as well forfeit the game.”

Superintendent Casey looked around the field at the players preparing for the game and turned back to Coach Jenkins. “Well, I don’t want to hurt the team, coach, especially since I do not necessarily like my counterpart in Sector 39.”

Coach Jenkins, a sincere look of relief on his face, replied, “Thank you, Ms. Casey. We won’t let you down. We’re going to pour it on those Sector 39 boys.”

“I’ve never really watched any of these beamball games, coach. I would like to know what all the fuss is about.” Superintendent Casey walked to the edge of the field and looked at Connor. “Can you tell me what he is trying to do?”

Considering Superintendent Casey held the success of his team in her hands, Coach Jenkins decided to take the time to explain the game to his boss.

“You see, Ms. Casey, that is our tosser, Connor. He is the captain of the team and he is leading our offense onto the field.” Coach Jenkins picked up a ball made of a yellow-colored rubber compound, just a bit bigger than a cantaloupe. “The tosser is responsible for throwing a beamball, like this one, to one of our four trackers down the field. The goal is to get the ball caught as far down the field as possible. If we catch the ball twenty yards from his throwing location, that box called the beam-base, we get twenty points.”

Ms. Casey asked, “That’s all you have to do is throw and catch a ball? I thought it was more complicated than that.”

Coach Jenkins replied, “Oh, it is much more difficult than that. Look down the sidelines along both sides of the field. Do you see those two boys with the equipment on their wrists?”

Ms. Casey looked down the near sideline and could see two boys, each with something that looked like a big wristwatch on their arms. “What are those things on their arms?” Coach Jenkins pulled a spare laser tracker from his bag and handed it to her.

“This is a laser tracker, superintendent. Each team has two marksmen trying to either deflect the passed ball away from a tracker or toward a tracker, depending on whether they are on offense or defense.”

Ms. Casey, confused, asked, “So they try to blow up the ball with these laser cannons?”

The coach snickered and said, “No, ma’am. The lasers are tuned to only react with the ball, and they will only alter the ball’s orientation, not blow it up. Basically, the lasers are a defensive or offensive weapon to keep one team from catching the beamball.”

Ms. Casey started to get the idea, but she was still confused about the extra players on the field, so she asked, “What are those three boys from Sector 39 doing on the field with our team’s trackers?”

The coach pointed to a line just outside of the beam-base and said, “This is where the defense will use trailers to try to catch passes thrown by the other team. Once Connor releases the ball, they will be able to leave that line and try to catch the ball themselves. If one of them does, they get the points. It doesn’t happen very often, but it can change the whole game.”