THE ALL-PRO (53 page)

He stopped, stood, watched.

Tara crossed the Wolfpack 40-yard line, heading straight downfield.

Sklorno defensive backs closed in.

Mississauga, the safety, shot straight in at Tara. Tara just tucked the ball deep in his arms and lowered his helmet. The hit — a devastating thing that sounded like a high-speed hovercab accident, a hit that would have leveled even Ju Tweedy — rocked both players.

Mississauga fell.

Tara spun off the hit and kept going.

Mars, the cornerback, closed in as Tara crossed the Wabash 30. Mars hit Tara from behind, a helmet-to-helmet shot. Tara’s head bounced forward. He stumbled, but his powerful legs kept churning. Mars’ tentacle-arms wrapped around Tara’s shoulders. Still Tara kept running.

The 20.

Mars couldn’t stop the powerful Warrior. Her raspers shot out, flicked, tightened, shredded fabric, cut chitin, drew blood.

Still Tara kept running.

The 10.

Mars lowered her tentacles, reaching for Tara’s feet, his legs, but Tara high-stepped into the end zone.

Touchdown.

Ionath 27, Wabash 25.

Quentin ran off the field as the extra-point team ran on. The Krakens on the sidelines jumped and hopped — they were almost there, they had almost done it. Tara ran off the field and was mobbed by Human, HeavyG, Ki and Sklorno teammates.

The other Warriors stood together, watching, not joining in.

Same as always, unaccepting, hateful. Only ... this time, there was something different.

Virak the Mean, Choto the Bright, Killik the Unworthy, their eyes all swirled with hints of light red.

The color of appreciation, possibly even
respect
.

Arioch Morningstar kicked in the extra point. 28-25 Ionath, 1:07 to play. If the defense could stop the Wolfpack, it was over.

Virak and the other Warriors knew Ionath had won the game on an amazing effort by the player that they called
mutie
. Tara the Freak’s touchdown had given Ionath a win over Wabash for the first time in fifteen years.

Quentin looked up to the stands, eyes taking in the sea of white-clad sentients. His gaze fell upon a luxury box between the first and second decks. He saw Gredok the Splithead, small but recognizable, standing next to Gloria Ogawa. Was Gredok ...
clapping?
He
was
clapping, he was jumping up and down.

Quentin laughed. So this is all it took to make Gredok show emotion? Why, it was almost nothing.

Quentin raised his broken right hand, managed to extend his index finger — he pointed at his team owner. The gesture said
this one is for you
. Maybe he and Gredok would never be friends, but now they understood each other. Together, they fought for the same goal.

The pain finally took over. Quentin bent at the waist, his right arm shrinking protectively to his chest. The Krakens’ sidelines bounced with insanity. His team had gone mad. He couldn’t blame them. Quentin could do no more. Strong hands guided him to a sideline medbay. He felt the bay’s metal grate deck beneath his feet before he turned, sat, then laid back.

Quentin closed his eyes as Doc Patah went to work, knowing the sound of the crowd would tell him if the defense held, or if the Wolfpack found a way to win.

• • •

QUENTIN HAD NEVER SEEN
a locker room so electric. He remembered the happy insanity after they’d defeated the Texas Earthlings two seasons ago to earn promotion to Tier One. And he could never forget the celebration last year, when they’d topped the Mars Planets to avoid relegation.

But nothing compared to this.

Jersey, helmet and shoulder pads off, right arm in a sling, Quentin stood against the wall at the room’s edge. He wore only his cleats, leg armor and a sweaty, bloody
PROPERTY OF KRAKENS
T-shirt. He still held the game ball from Tara’s winning touchdown catch. Coach gave it to Tara, but Tara had insisted Quentin take it.

Quentin soaked it all in, watched his teammates celebrate. His father stood next to him, watching as well. Cillian wore a black, button-down shirt decorated with the Krakens logo on the left breast. He’d combed his hair, even shaved. Quentin had to admit, the man looked good.

An all-access lanyard hung around Cillian’s neck. He was staff now, would help Messal gather equipment and transport it to the
Touchback
. Cillian couldn’t do a thing, however, until after the celebration stopped.

The central visitors locker room was packed with football players of all species in various stages of undress. Helmets, shoulder armor, dirty jerseys, bloody bandages, assorted tape and braces littered the floor. Sklorno jumped in place and screeched gibberish. The Quyth Warriors clacked out a rhythm by banging their middle arms against their chest plates. John and Ju stood on a bench, doing some kind of improvised choreographed dance to celebrate the win. Their exaggerated actions had the Humans and HeavyG players laughing hysterically, clutching stomachs, wiping eyes. Even the grim-faced Ibrahim Khomeni played along, his HeavyG face wrinkled in a rare smile. That could have been because of the Tweedys’ performance, or because he’d notched three sacks on Wolfpack quarterback Rich Bennett.

The Tweedy brothers took turns singing a line, then letting the team respond. Even the Ki were there, barking and shouting in their native language, trying and failing to sing in time.

Cillian nodded in John’s direction. “I know he’s your best friend, but is he retarded?”

John wore only his waist armor and his left sock. His entire body flashed the words
OH-VER, RAY-TED! OH-VER, RAY-TED!


“Wabash-trash, suck-o-tash!” Ju called.

“
Wabash-trash, suck-o-tash!
” the team responded.

“Over-rated, like a baked potated,” John called.

“
Over-rated, like a baked potated
,” the team responded.

Quentin laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, probably. I love him anyway.”

Cillian looked around the room, smiling, showing clear pride that he was somehow connected to all of this through his son. “This is really something, Quentin. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It’s not always like this, Dad. Sometimes we lose.”

Cillian shrugged. “I don’t know sports, but it seems to me a hundred losses would be a small price to pay to be a part of this feeling, with these guys.”

Quentin nodded politely. Nothing was worth a hundred losses. Nothing was worth one loss, for that matter, but he understood what his father was trying to say.

“This is special,” Cillian said. “My whole life, I never had anything like this. Is it like this on other teams?”

Quentin paused as John bent and jumped into the air, aiming for his brother’s shoulders. John misjudged the ceiling height and hit his head on a light fixture, breaking it, sending out a wave of sparks, but Ju adjusted with that insane athleticism that only he possessed, moving so that his brother’s thighs landed on his shoulders. John shook his head once to clear it, splattering blood from the fresh cuts, then smiled and started screaming.

“Undefeated and now de-cleated!”

“
Undefeated and now de-CLEATED!
”

Ju slipped. The Tweedy brothers fell face-first to the floor. The Sklorno misunderstood what was happening and dove on top of the brothers as if it were a touchdown celebration. Then Michael Kimberlin joined in — the singing degenerated into a huge pileup of laughing, shouting Krakens sentients acting more like children than grown adults.

“I don’t know, Dad,” Quentin said. “The Raiders weren’t like this. I don’t know if other Tier One teams are.”

Cillian nodded. “Huh. Well, hopefully, you never have to find out that they aren’t.”

Quentin laughed as he watched more Krakens jump on the Tweedy pile. Hokor came in and started screaming for the players to
knock it the hell off
and to
stop playing grab-ass
. They largely ignored him. Someone, probably John, grabbed a large drink cooler and up-ended it over Hokor. The team screamed and laughed as the coach’s fur clung to his skin, making him look thirty pounds lighter.

“Tweedy!” Hokor screamed. “That’s one hundred laps!”

“Worth it!” John screamed back, then picked up the coach and set him on his shoulders. Hokor demanded to be put down. John ignored him and started running laps around the small locker room.

Quentin felt a tap on his shoulder. Cillian, quietly trying to get his attention.

“Yeah, Dad?”

Cillian pointed to the other side of the room. “Who is that?”

Quentin hadn’t noticed before, but Crazy George Starcher was standing there, alone. Despite the energy, the action and the laughter, George looked isolated, almost as if a three-foot force field surrounded him, kept the others away.

“George Starcher,” Quentin said. “Tight end.”

“He didn’t play much tonight, did he?”

Quentin shook his head. “No. He’s in my dog house.”

“Like Warburg is?”

“No, different. Warburg is an ass. George could be great, could be an All-Pro, but he’s playing really bad.”

Cillian stared, then snapped his fingers. “Wait, I recognize him now. I read an article on him a few years ago in Galaxy Sports Magazine.”

“I thought you said you’re not a sports fan.”

“I’m not. I mean, I wasn’t, but they were going to make a movie about him.”

“A movie? About Starcher? What kind of movie?”

“He’s been kicked off a bunch of teams, right?”

Quentin nodded. “Yeah. He seems to play well for the first season he’s with a team, then things just go bad or something.” Quentin remembered how fantastic George had been last year. He also remembered Don Pine’s warning —
don’t sign him, you’ll regret it
. And, as usual, Pine was right — Quentin did regret it.

George, sitting there all alone, talking quietly to his towel. Then Quentin noticed two things. Tara the Freak was only a few feet from George. Standing alone, as Tara always did, but also
watching
George. What was that about? And George himself — Quentin looked back and forth between Cillian and the tight end.

“Hey, Dad. You look a little like George, you know that?”

Cillian shook his head. “Naw, not at all. Why isn’t anyone talking to him?”

Quentin shrugged. “The guys can’t stand him. He’s all ...
weird
. They don’t call him
Crazy George
for nothing.”

“So he’s mentally ill?”

Quentin started to speak, then stopped. He’d never thought of it in that light before. Was George
ill
? “I don’t know, Dad. Maybe.”

“Is he getting help?”

Another stunner of a question. No, George wasn’t getting help. George was being
shunned
. No one wanted to deal with him. No one except Tara the Freak, it seemed.

“Quentin, maybe you should talk to him.”

“I think George is having a nice conversation with his towel, Dad. I wouldn’t want to interrupt.”

“Son,” Cillian said, his tone more firm, “I will not tell you what to do, but you need to listen to me on this. Someone needs to help that man. Think of all the happiness in this room and how none of it involves him. How would that make you feel?”

Quentin looked around. He recalled his days with the Raiders, when the team would celebrate their wins — celebrate with each other, but not with their orphan quarterback.

“Pretty bad,” Quentin said. “I would feel pretty bad.”

“And you’re a smart, healthy kid,” Cillian said. “If George has issues, things like this can make it far worse. Can you talk to him?”

Quentin watched George. The man had always seemed ...
eccentric
. But it wasn’t eccentricity. It was something else, something dangerous.

“Okay, Dad,” Quentin said. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Good. That’s good. Now, you get yourself cleaned up. The stadium has a VIP area for players’ spouses, celebrities and things like that. I took Somalia there after the game. She’s waiting for you.”

Somalia. In all the excitement, the celebration, Quentin had forgotten she’d come out to watch the game.

“Son, that girl is something else,” Cillian said. “She’s not as pretty as your mother was. But then again, you mother didn’t have a spiked mohawk.”

His father approved? “Dad, she’s ... you know, she’s ...”

Cillian smiled. “Not from the Purist Nation?”

“No, I mean—”

“I know what you mean, Quentin. I don’t care what color her skin is, as long as she makes you happy. You should take her a present. Women love that kind of thing.”

“I don’t exactly have time to go shopping.”

Cillian pointed to the game ball. “You could give her that.”

Quentin looked at it. The brown leather, scratched and stained with flecks of blood. The shiny GFL logo embossed into the side. That would make a great present.

“Good idea, Dad. I’ll do that.”

Cillian slapped him on the shoulder. “Okay, it’s time for me to earn my paycheck. I’m proud of you.”

Cillian started picking up gear, jerseys and trash, hustling to move things to their proper bins. He was picking up what the players tossed away, yet he didn’t show an ounce of shame.

Why should he? It was his job and it contributed to the team’s success.

That was the kind of man you could be proud to call
father
.

Quentin felt eyes upon him. He looked up — Becca was staring at him. Staring with hurt eyes,
angry
eyes. She was close enough to have heard the whole conversation. She looked at the game ball, then at his face, then she shook her head with disgust. She turned and walked into the HeavyG locker room.

Was she mad he was giving a game ball to Somalia? Why?

Women. No figuring them, even the ones on your team.

Quentin walked to the Human locker room. He had to stop and let John rush past — a vociferously protesting and soaking wet Coach Hokor still on his shoulders — then headed for his locker to start cleaning up.