Rash (17 page)

Bork was not just a webghost, I decided. He was an irrational webghost.

A few hours into our trip the tundra slowly gave way to a low, swampy expanse with occasional patches of stunted tamaracks and spruces, and finally tall stands of spruce, fir, and birch. I never thought I’d be so glad to see a real tree. The road continued arrow-straight through the thickening forest, and I slept, dreaming of lawyers and trolls.

I awakened to the smell of Frazzies.

Coca-Cola plant C-82 consisted of six steel-sided buildings much like those of the McDonald’s 3-8-7. The buildings were located in the center of an enormous clearing in the forest. A twenty-foot electrified fence surrounded the complex. The green-uniformed guards who opened the gates for our bus were armed with automatic weapons; the aroma of cooking Frazzies was overwhelming.

We were escorted off the bus by half a dozen armed guards. Behind the guards stood a Rhino-size man with a shiny, smooth head, skin the color of eggplant, and a wide white grin. Hammer walked over to him and they shook hands.

“So these are the mighty Goldshirts,” the man said, looking us over. He laughed. “You wanna just pay me now, Ham? Or you gonna make us show you our moves?”

Hammer shook his head, doing his best to match the
man’s wide grin. “We drove all this way, Hatch. Might as well play some ball, don’t you think?”

“I suppose we got to,” said Hatch. He looked at us again. “You boys hungry?”

Several of us nodded.

“You like Frazzies?”

More nods. Hatch gestured to the guards, threw his arm around Hammer’s shoulders, and the two men walked away, Hatch talking and gesturing wildly with his free arm.

The guards led us into the building to a large room containing several long tables lined with chairs.

“Is this a Frazzie factory?” I asked one of the guards.

“Good guess, Sherlock,” he said. “You like Frazzies?”

“They’re okay.”

“Huh. Our boys here don’t much care for ’em.” He laughed.

A door at the far end of the room opened and two inmates wearing pale blue paper coveralls entered pushing a steel cart loaded with trays of Frazzies and plastic bulbs of Coke. We hadn’t eaten a thing since leaving the 3-8-7, and we fell on the food like ravenous polar bears.

The paperpants stood by and watched us eat, their expressions neutral. After polishing off two excellent seafood Frazzies I asked one of them why he wasn’t eating.

“If I never ate another Frazzie, it’d be too soon,” he said.

“How come?”

“Because it’s all we get.”

“Oh.” I knew what he meant. Eating the same thing every day was rough. “How do you feel about pizza?” I asked.

“Pizza?” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Only the Redshirts get pizza.”

After we ate, several guards escorted us back outside and around the buildings. Hammer and Hatch were standing near the center of a football field. It was far nicer than our practice field at the 3-8-7. The Coke field was entirely covered with bright green grass. It was painted with crisp white stripes every ten yards, and there were actual goalposts at each end. Several tiers of aluminum bleachers stood along one side of the field. On the opposite side was an electronic scoreboard.

Were we delighted to be playing on such a professional field? Only for a moment. Then it sunk in that we were already outclassed. Our muddy, scuffed-up, makeshift practice field at the 3-8-7 didn’t measure up to this professional-quality operation. What if the Redshirts were equally well organized and prepared? We wouldn’t have a chance.

Hammer, sensing our sudden lack of confidence, came over to talk to us.

“What’re you ladies gaping at? You think maybe you don’t deserve to play on such a nice, fancy football field? Well, you don’t. You’re a bunch of candy-ass wannabe mamma’s boys never played a down-and-dirty game of ball in your sorry little lives. These Frazzie-baking Redshirts are likely to make paste out of you, and you want to know something? I don’t really care. You lose, I get to watch each and every one of you take a walk in the tundra. Understand?”

That was Hammer’s idea of a pep talk.

We had
a few hours before game time. The guards herded us into a dormitory. I don’t think any of us were sleepy, but we arranged ourselves on the beds. Nobody had much to say. We were all thinking about the game.

“You think he’s right?” Rhino said in a low voice.

“That we will destroy them?”

“No. That we’re gonna get our asses kicked.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think he’ll do if we lose?”

“Give us to the bears.” I laughed.

“You really think so?”

“Nah. What would he do for entertainment if he didn’t have us?” I asked.

But I wasn’t sure
what
Hammer might do.

I crossed my arms behind my head and stared up at the fly-specked ceiling and tried to understand this place I had come to. Not so long ago I had been mooning over Maddy Wilson, letting Karlohs Mink drive me to violence, taking Levulor to calm myself down, and wearing a helmet and padding to run around an
Adzorbium track. Now, less than three months later, I was in the middle of the great north woods preparing to play an illegal sport with a bunch of violent, oversize, antisocial convicts. I wondered what Gramps would have to say about it.

Someone, probably Gorp, was snoring. Rhino, one bed over, began making his own sputtering noises. I sat up and looked around the dormitory. The whole team was conked out. A long bus ride and an overdose of Frazzies will do that. I lay back down and closed my eyes and sought to join them, but my brain was giving me a slide show: polar bears, Bork, red jerseys, Fragger’s bloody face.

My thoughts settled on Fragger, who hadn’t been the same since the day he had beat his head against the concrete wall. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet—almost gentle. In the few practice sessions we’d had since then, he had played well enough. His passes were as fast and accurate as ever, but something was missing, as if the devil inside him had gone to sleep.

Did we have a chance against the Redshirts? I knew if I could get my hands on the ball, I could run it down the field—but that was all I knew. I sat up and stood up and looked over the room full of snoring Goldshirts. Whatever happened would happen. I walked to the door and turned the handle.

To my surprise the door swung open. I followed a long hallway, no destination in mind, trying side doors here and there, all of which were locked. At the end of the hallway an open doorway to the right led into a mess hall bigger than the one we had eaten in a couple of hours earlier. I could hear voices and clanking from the next room,
probably the kitchen. The smell of cooking Frazzies was powerful, but the tables were all empty. On the wall at the back of the room was a small WindO. Below it a keyboard jutted from the wall.

HELLO, BO.

Bork had traded in his fedora for a top hat so tall it didn’t fit inside the screen.

Hi. How come you’re using my real name?

THE SCANBOTS ARE LESS ACTIVE AT THIS SITE. DO YOU LIKE MY NEW HAT?

You look like Abe Lincoln.

THANK YOU. YOU LOOK JUST LIKE BILL GATES.

No, I don’t.

THAT IS TRUE. I AM PRACTICING THE ART OF TELLING DELIBERATE UNTRUTHS. HOW DID I DO?

Not well. Please confine yourself to the truth from now on.

I WILL DO THAT. WHY ARE YOU NO LONGER AT MCDONALD’S PLANT NUMBER 387?

You sure we aren’t being monitored?

YES, BO.

I’m here to play football.

EXPLAIN, PLEASE.

And so I did. I told him all about Hammer and being chased by the bear and the Tundra Bowl and everything. When I was done, Bork’s irises spun for several seconds.

ARE YOU ENJOYING YOURSELF, BO?

No. But if we win the Tundra Bowl, we get our sentences reduced. If we lose, he says he’ll feed us to the bears. Listen, what you were saying before, about getting me out of here?

YOUR INTERROGATORY IS INCORRECT.

Explain.

THE WORD SEQUENCE YOU EMPLOYED IS PUNCTUATED BY A QUESTION MARK. IT IS NOT, HOWEVER, A QUESTION. FURTHERMORE, IT IS NOT A SENTENCE.

Sorry. You said before that I could get
out of here by hiring a lawyer, but I don’t have any money. Are there any alternatives?

YOU COULD RETAIN AN ATTORNEY ON A PRO BONO BASIS.

What is “pro bono”?

FREE.

How do I do that?

FEW ATTORNEYS WILL AGREE TO SUCH AN ARRANGEMENT.

This information is not helpful.

I AGREE.

Do you have any other suggestions?

YOU COULD HIRE ME TO REPRESENT YOU. I HAVE A DATABASE OF ALL USSA LAW.

But you’re a webghost.

I AM A SENTIENT BEING. IF YOU PERSIST IN APPLYING THE TERM “WEBGHOST” TO ME, I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO HELP YOU.

Sorry. Can a sentient cybernetic entity act as a lawyer?

NO. USSA V. CHAVEN, 9/8/2069.

Then that won’t work.

YOU ASKED ME FOR ALTERNATIVES. YOU DID NOT REQUIRE THAT THEY BE FEASIBLE.

Thanks a lot.

YOU ARE WELCOME.

I heard footsteps behind me, hit the shutdown key, and turned. It was Rhino.

“Hey,” he said, yawning, stretching, smacking his lips. “Where’s the chow?”

They didn’t
feed us before the game. Hammer said it would just slow us down. As he watched us suiting up, he said, “You win, you get fed. You don’t win . . . let’s just say it’ll be a long ride back home.” He picked up a football and started tossing it in the air and catching it with one hand.

“I have some bad news for you boys,” he said. “I had the opportunity to watch the Redshirts running drills this afternoon. You are outclassed. They’re bigger, stronger, and faster than you.”

“Not bigger than me,” muttered Rhino.

Hammer ignored him. “They run their plays like a finely tuned machine. They have the raw materials, they have the training, and they have a plan.”

“Maybe we should just go back to the three-eight-seven,” I said.

Hammer gave me a bland look.

I said, “If we can’t beat ’em, then what’s the point?”

“Did I say we couldn’t beat them?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Hammer shook his head. “Nail, you don’t listen so
good. Size, speed, strength, and training do not define a winning team. If they did, there would be no point in playing the game now, would there?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know what the point was, anyway.

“Hatch Banning was a fine linesman in his day. He knows football. He’s a fine coach. He’s built himself an impressive team. But the man has no imagination. He’s probably taught his boys a dozen or so plays. He’ll use them up fast. When a play works, he’ll use it again without variation. By the end of the first quarter we’ll have his playbook. Furthermore, his Redshirts do not know fear. You will teach them fear. You will teach them fear, and you will destroy them.”

Rhino, as usual, was having trouble getting his helmet on.

“You want a hand with that?” I asked.

“No, thanks.” Twisting his face into a frightening grimace, Rhino eased the helmet over his red ears.

We were huddled at one end of the field, shivering and waiting. A bright, clear cold front had moved in, and the air temperature had dropped to near freezing. The sun hung low in the sky, casting long shadows across the field. Hammer and Hatch were out on the fifty-yard line, arguing.

“What do you think’s going on?” I asked.

“Strategy,” said Bullet. “They want us half-frozen.”

“It’s working.”

Hammer was waving his arms; Hatch shrugged. Hammer stabbed his forefinger into Hatch’s chest; Hatch
slapped it away. Hammer, carrying the football, turned away from Hatch and walked over to us. He tossed the ball to Nuke, our kicker.