ROBERT REED

GAME OF THE CENTURY

THE WINDOW WAS LEFT OPEN at midnight, January 1, 2041, and three minutes,
twenty-one seconds later it was closed again by the decisive, barely legible
signature of an elderly Supreme Court justice who reportedly quipped, "I don't
know why I have to. Folks who like screwing sheep are just going to keep at it."

Probably so.

But the issues were larger than traditional bestiality. Loopholes in some badly
drafted legislation had made it perfectly legal to manipulate the human genome
in radical ways. What's more, said offspring were deemed human in all rights and
privileges inside the US of NA. For two hundred and twelve seconds, couples and
single women could legally conceive by any route available to modem science. And
while few clinics and fewer top-grade hospitals had interest in the work, there
were key exceptions. Some fourteen hundred human eggs were fertilized with
tailored sperm, then instantly implanted inside willing mothers. News services
that had paid minimal attention to the legislative breakdown took a sudden
glaring interest in the nameless, still invisible offspring. The blastulas were
dubbed the 1-1-2041s, and everything about their lives became the subject of
intense public scrutiny and fascination and self-righteous horror.

Despite computer models and experiments on chimpanzees, there were surprises.
Nearly a third of the fetuses were stillborn, or worse. Twenty-nine mothers were
killed as a result of their pregnancies. Immunological problems, mostly. But in
one case, a healthy woman in her midtwenties died when her boy, perhaps bothered
by the drumming of her heart, reached through her uterine wall and intestines,
grabbing and squeezing the offending organ with both of his powerful hands.

Of the nine hundred-plus fetuses who survived, almost thirty percent were
mentally impaired or physically frail. Remarkably, others seemed entirely
normal, their human genes running roughshod over their more exotic parts. But
several hundred of the 1-1-2041s were blessed with perfect health as well as a
remarkable stew of talents. Even as newborns, they astonished the researchers
who tested their reflexes and their highly tuned senses. The proudest parents
released the data to the media, then mixed themselves celebratory cocktails,
stepping out onto their porches and balconies to wait for the lucrative offers
to start flowing their way.

MARLBORO JONES came with a colorful reputation. His father was a crack dealer
shot dead in a dispute over footwear. With his teenage mother, Marlboro had
lived at dozens of addresses before her mind failed and she leaped out of their
bedroom window to stop the voices, and from there his life was a string of
unbroken successes. He had coached, and won, at three different schools. He was
currently the youngest head coach of a Top Alliance team. Thirty-six years old,
he looked twenty-six, his chiseled features built around the bright, amoral eyes
of a squirrel. Marlboro was the kind of handsome that made his charm appealing,
and he was charming in a way that made his looks and mannerisms delightfully
boyish. A laser mind lurked behind those eyes, yet in most circumstances he
preferred playing the cultured hick, knowing how much it improved his odds.

"He's a fine lookin' boy," the coach drawled. "Fine lookin'."

The proud parents stood arm in arm, smiling with a frothy, nervous joy.

"May I?" asked Marlboro. Then without waiting for permission, he yanked the
screen off the crib, reached in and grabbed both bare feet. He tugged once, then
again. Harder. "Damn, look at those legs! You'd think this boy'd be scampering
around already. Strong as these seem...!"

"Well," said his mother, "he is awfully active."

"In a good way," the father cautioned.

"I believe it. I do!" Marlboro grinned, noticing that Mom looked awfully sweet
in a tired-of-motherhood way, and it was too bad that he couldn't make a play
for her, too. "Let me tell ya what I'm offering," he boomed. "A free ride. For
the boy here --"

"Alan," Mom interjected.

"Alan," the coach repeated. Instantly, with an easy affection. Then he gave her
a little wink, saying, "For Alan. A free education and every benefit that I'm
allowed to give. Plus the same for your other two kids. Which I'm not supposed
to offer. But it's my school and my scholarships, and I'll be damned if it's
anybody's business but yours and mine!"

The parents squeezed one another, then with a nervous voice, the father made
himself ask, "What about us?"

The coach didn't blink.

"What do you want, Mr. Wilde?" Marlboro smiled and said, "Name it."

"I'm not sure," the father confessed. "I know that we can't be too obvious --"

"But we were hoping," Mom blurted. "I mean, it's not like we're wealthy people.
And we had to spend most of our savings --"

"On your little Alan. I bet you did." A huge wink was followed with, "It'll be
taken care of. My school doesn't have that big college of genetics for nothing."
He looked at the infant again, investing several seconds of hard thought into
how they could bend the system just enough. Then he promised, "You'll be
reimbursed for your expenses. Up front. And we'll put your son on the payroll.
Gentlefolks in lab coats'll come take blood every half-year or so. For a
healthy, just-under-the-table fee. How's that sound?"
The father seemed doubtful. "Will the scientists agree to that?"

"If I want it done," the coach promised.

"Will they actually use his blood?" The father seemed uneasy. Even a little
disgusted. "I don't like thinking of Alan being some kind of laboratory
project."

Marlboro stared at him for a long moment.

Never blinking.

Then he said, "Sir." He said, "If you want, they can pass those samples to you,
and you can flush them down your own toilet. Is that good enough?"

Nobody spoke.

Then he took a different course, using his most mature voice to tell them, "Alan
is a fine, fine boy. But you've got to realize something. He's going to have
more than his share of problems. Special kids always do." Then with a warm
smile, Marlboro promised, "I'll protect him for you. With all my resources and
my good country sense, I'll see that none of those predators out there get their
claws in your little Alan.

"Mom said, "That's good to hear. That's fine."

But Father shrugged, asking, "What about you? It'll be years before Alan can
actually play, and you could have left for the pros by then."

"Never," Marlboro blurted.

Then he gave the woman his best wink and grin, saying, "You know what kind of
talent I've been signing up. Do you really think I'd go anywhere else? Ever?"

She turned to her husband, saying, "We'll sign."

"But --?"

"No. We're going to commit."

Marlboro reconfigured the appropriate contracts, getting everyone's signature.
Then he squeezed one of his recruit's meaty feet, saying, "See ya later, Alan."

Wearing an unreadable smile, he stepped out the front door. A hundred or so
sports reporters were gathered on the small lawn, and through their cameras, as
many as twenty million fans were watching the scene.

They watched Coach Jones smile and say nothing. Then he raised his arms
suddenly, high overhead, and screamed those instantly famous words:
"The Wildman's coming to Tech!"

There was something about the girl. Perfect strangers thought nothing of coming
up to her and asking where she was going to college.

"State," she would reply. Flat out.

"In what sport?" some inquired. While others, knowing that she played the game
on occasion, would guess, "Are you joining the volleyball team?"

"No," Theresa would tell the latter group. Never patient, but usually polite. "I
hate volleyball," she would explain, not wanting to be confused for one of those
glandular, ritualistic gifts. And she always told everyone, friends and
strangers alike, "I'm going to play quarterback for the football team. For Coach
Rickover."

Knowledgeable people were surprised, and puzzled. Some would clear their throats
and look up into Theresa's golden eyes, commenting in an offhand way, "But
Rickover doesn't let women play.

"That was a problem, sure.

Daddy was a proud alumnus of State and a letterman on the famous '33 squad. When
Theresa was born, there was no question about where she was going. In '41,
Rickover was only an assistant coach. Penises weren't required equipment. The
venerable Coach Mannstein had shuffled into her nursery and made his best offer,
then shuffled back out to meet with press and boosters, promising the world that
he would still be coaching when that delightfully young lady was calling plays
for the best team to ever take any field of play.

But six years later, while enjoying the company of a mostly willing cheerleader,
Coach Mannstein felt a searing pain in his head, lost all feeling in his ample
body, and died.

Rickover inherited the program.

A religious man driven by a quixotic understanding of the Bible, one of his
first official acts was to send a letter to Theresa's parents, explaining at
length why he couldn't allow their daughter to join his team. "Football," he
wrote, "is nothing but ritualized warfare, and women don't belong in the
trenches. I am sorry. On the other hand, Coach Terry is a personal friend, and I
would be more than happy to have him introduce you to our nationally ranked
women's volleyball program.

"Thank you sincerely."

"Coach."

The refusal was a crushing blow for Daddy.
For Theresa, it was a ghostly abstraction that she couldn't connect with those
things that she truly knew and understood.

Not that she was a stupid child. Unlike many of her 1-1-2041 peers, her grades
were respectably average, and in spatial subjects, like geometry and geography,
she excelled. Also unlike her peers, Theresa didn't have problems with rage or
with residual instincts. Dogs and cats didn't mysteriously vanish in her
neighborhood. She was a good person with friends and her genuine admirers.
Parents trusted her with their babies. Children she didn't know liked to beg for
rides on her back. Once she was old enough to date, the boys practically lined
up. Out of sexual curiosity, in part. But also out of fondness and an odd
respect. Some of her boyfriends confided that they preferred her to regular
girls. Something about her--and not Just a physical something--set them at ease.
Made them feel safe. A strange thing for adolescent males to admit, while for
Theresa, it was just another circumstance in a life filled with nothing but
circumstances.

In football, she always played quarterback. Whether on playground teams, or in
the various midget leagues, or on the varsity squad in high school.

Her high school teams won the state championship three years in a row. And they
would have won when she was a senior, except a mutant strain of parvovirus gave
her a fever and chills, and eventually, hallucinations. Theresa started throwing
hundred meter bullets toward her more compelling hallucinations, wounding
several fans, and her coach grudgingly ordered her off the field and into a
hospital bed.

Once State relinquished all claims on the girl, a steady stream of coaches and
boosters and sports agents began the inevitable parade.

Marlboro Jones was the most persistent soul. He had already stockpiled a full
dozen of the 1-1-2041s, including the premier player of all time: Alan, The
Wildman, Wilde. But the coach assured Theresa that he still needed a quality
quarterback. With a big wink and a bigger grin, he said, "You're going to be my
field general, young lady. I know you know it, the same as I do...!"

Theresa didn't mention what she really knew.

She let Daddy talk. For years, that proud man had entertain fantasies of
Rickover moving to the pros, leaving the door open for his only child. But it
hadn't happened, and it wouldn't. And over the last few years, with Jones's
help, he had convinced himself that Theresa should play instead for State's
great rival. Call it justice. Or better, revenge. Either way, what mattered was
that she would go somewhere that her talents could blossom. That's all that
mattered, Daddy told the coach. And Marlboro replied with a knowing nod and a
sparkling of the eyes, finally turning to his prospect, and with a victor's
smile, asking, "What's best for you? Tour our campus first? Or get this signing
crap out of the way?"
Theresa said, "Neither."

Then she remembered to add, "Sir," with a forced politeness.

Both men were stunned. But the coach was too slick to let it show. Staring at
the tall, big-shouldered lady, he conjured up his finest drawl, telling her, "I
can fix it. Whatever's broke, it can be fixed."

"Darling," her father mumbled. "What's wrong?"

She looked at her father's puffy, confused face. "This man doesn't want me for
quarterback, Daddy. He just doesn't want me playing somewhere else."

After seventeen years of living with the girl, her father knew better than to
doubt her instincts. Glaring at Marlboro, he asked flat out, "Is that true ?"

"No," the man lied.

Instantly, convincingly.

Then he sputtered, adding, "That Mosgrove kid has too much chimp in his arm. And
not enough touch."

There was a prolonged, uncomfortable silence.

Then Theresa informed both of them, "I've made up my mind, anyway. Starting next
year, I'm going to play for State."

Daddy was startled and a bit frustrated. But as always, a little bit proud, too.

Coach Jones was, if anything, amused. The squirrel eyes smiled, and the handsome
mouth tried not to follow suit. And after a few more seconds of painful silence,
he said, "I've known Rickover for most of my adult life. And you know what,
little girl? You've definitely got your work cut out for you."

Jones was mistaken.

Theresa believed.

A lifetime spent around coaches had taught her that the species was passionate
and stubborn and usually wrong about everything that wasn't lashed to the game
in front of them. But what made coaches ridiculous in the larger world helped
them survive in theirs. Because they were stubborn and overblown, they could
motivate the boys and girls around them; and the very best coaches had a gift
for seducing their players, causing them to lash their souls to the game, and
the next game, and every game to follow.

All Theresa needed to do, she believed, was out-stubborn Coach Rickover.

State had a walk-on program. Overachievers from the Yukon to the Yucatan swarmed
into campus in late summer, prepared to fight it out for a handful of
scholarships. Theresa enrolled with the rest of them, then with her father in
tow, showed up for the first morning's practice. An assistant coach approached.
Polite and determined, he thanked her for coming, but she wasn't welcome. But
they returned for the afternoon practice, this time accompanied by an AI
advocate -- part lawyer, part mediator -- who spoke to a succession of assistant
coaches with the quietly smoldering language of lawsuits and public relations
nightmares.

Theresa's legal standing was questionable, at best. Courts had stopped showing
interest in young ladies wanting to play an increasingly violent sport. But the
threat to call the media seemed to work. Suddenly, without warning, the
quarterback coach walked up to her and looked up, saying to her face, "All
right. Let's see what you can do.

"She was the best on the field, easily.

Pinpoint passes to eighty meters. A sprint speed that mauled every pure-human
record. And best of all, the seemingly innate ability to glance at a fluid
defense and pick it apart. Maybe Theresa lacked the elusive moves of some
1-1-2041s, which was the closest thing to a weakness. But she made up for it
with those big shoulders that she wielded like dozer blades, leaving half a
dozen strong young men lying flat on their backs, trying to recall why they ever
took up this damned sport.

By the next morning, she was taking hikes with the varsity squad.

Coach Rickover went as far as strolling up to her and saying, "Welcome, miss,"
with that cool, almost friendly voice. Then he looked away, adding, "And the
best of luck to you.

"It was a trap.

During a no-contact drill, one of the second-string pure-human linebackers came
through the line and leveled her when she wasn't ready. Then he squatted low and
shouted into her face, "Bitch! Dog bitch! Pussy bitch! Bitch!"

Theresa nearly struck him.

In her mind, she left his smug face strewn across the wiry green grass. But then
Rickover would have his excuse -- she was a discipline problem -- and her career
would have encompassed barely one day.

She didn't hit the bastard, or even chew off one of his fingers.

Instead she went back to throwing lasers at her receivers and running between
the tackles. Sometimes her blockers would go on vacation, allowing two or three
rushers to drag her to the ground. Yet Theresa always got up again and limped
back to the huddle, staring at the stubborn human eyes until those eyes, and the
minds behind them, blinked.
It went on that way for a week.

Because she wouldn't allow herself even the possibility of escape, Theresa
prepared herself for another four months of inglorious abuse. And if need be,
another three years after that.

Her mother came to visit and to beg her daughter to give it up.

"For your sake, and mine. Just do the brave thing and walk away."

Theresa loved her mother, but she had no illusions: The woman was utterly,
hopelessly weak.

Daddy was the one who scared her. He was standing over his daughter, watching as
she carefully licked at a gash that came when she was thrown against a metal
bench, her leg opened up from the knee to her badly swollen ankle. And with a
weakling's little voice, he told her, "This isn't my dream anymore. You need to
reconsider. That, or you'll have to bury me. My nerves can't take any more
twisting."

Picking thick golden strands of fur from her long, long tongue, Theresa stared
at him. And hiding her sadness, she told him, "You're right, Daddy. This isn't
your dream."

The war between player and coach escalated that next morning.

Nine other 1-1-2041s were on the team. Theresa was promoted to first team just
so they could have a shot at her. She threw passes, and she was knocked flat.
She ran sideways, and minotaurs in white jerseys flung her backward, burying
their knees into her kidneys and uterus. Then she moved to defense, playing
ABMback for a few downs, and their woolly, low-built running back drove her
against the juice cooler, knocking her helmet loose and chewing on one of her
ears, then saying into that blood, "There's more coming, darling. There's always
more coming."

Yet despite the carnage, the 1-1-2041s weren't delivering real blows.

Not compared to what they could have done.

It dawned on Theresa that Rickover and his staff, for all their intimate
knowledge about muscle and bone, had no idea what their players were capable of.
She watched those grown men nodding, impressed with the bomb-like impacts and
spattered blood. Sprawled out on her back, waiting for her lungs to work again,
she found herself studying Rickover: He was at least as handsome as Marlboro
Jones, but much less attractive. There was something both analytical and dead
about the man. And underneath it all, he was shy. Deeply and eternally shy.
Wasn't that a trait that came straight out of your genetics? A trait and an
affliction that she lacked, thankfully.
Theresa stood again, and she limped through the milling players and interns,
then the assistant coaches, stepping into Rickover's line of sight, forcing him
to look at her.

"I still want to play for you," she told him. "But you know, Coach...I don't
think I'll ever like you...." And with that, she turned and hobbled back to the
field.

Next morning, a decision had come down from On High.

Theresa was named the new first-string quarterback, and the former first-string
-- a tall, bayonet-shaped boy nicknamed Man O War -- was made rocketback.

For the last bits of summer and until the night before their first game, Theresa
believed that her little speech had done its magic. She was so confident of her
impression that she repeated her speech to her favorite rocketback. And Man O
War gave a little laugh, then climbed out of her narrow dormitory bed,
stretching out on the hard floor, pulling one leg behind his head, then the
other.

"That's not what happened," he said mildly. Smiling now.

She said, "What didn't?"

"It was the nine of us. The other 1-1-2041s." He kept smiling, bending forward
until his chin was resting against his naked crotch, and he licked himself with
a practiced deftness. Once finished, he sat up and explained, "We went to
Coach's house that night. And we told him that if we were supposed to keep
hurting you, we might as well kill you. And eat you. Right in the middle of
practice."

She stared at her lover for a long moment, unsure what to believe.

Theresa could read human faces. And she could smell their moods boiling out of
their hairless flesh. But no matter how hard she tried, she could never decipher
that furry chimera of a face.

"Would you really have?" she finally asked.

"Killed you? Not me," Man O War said instantly.

Then he was laughing, reminding her, "But those linebackers...you never can tell
what's inside their smooth little minds...!"

TECH AND STATE began the season on top of every sport reporter's rankings and
the power polls and leading almost every astrologer's sure-picks. Since they had
two more 1-1-2041s on their roster, including the Wildman, Tech was given the
edge. Professional observers and fans, as well as AI analysts, couldn't imagine
any team challenging either of them. On the season's second weekend, State met a
strong Texas squad with its own handful of 1-1-2041s. They beat them by seventy
points. The future seemed assured. Barring catastrophe, the two teams of the
century would win every contest, then go to war on New Year's Day, inside the
venerable Hope Dome, and the issue about who was best and who was merely second
best would be settled for the ages.

In public, both coaching staffs and the coached players spouted all the hoary
cliches. Take it one play at a time, and one game at a time, and never eat your
chicken before it's cooked through.

But in private, and particularly during closed practices, there was one opponent
and only one, and every mindless drill and every snake run on the stadium stairs
and particularly every two ton rep in the weight room was meant for Tech. For
State. For glory and the championship and a trophy built from gold and sculpted
light.

In the third week of the season, Coach Jones began using his 1-1-2041s on both
sides of the line.

Coach Rickover told reporters that he didn't approve of those tactics. "Even
superhumans need rest," he claimed. But that was before Tech devastated an
excellent Alabama squad by more than a hundred and twenty points. Rickover
prayed to God, talked to several physiologists, then made the same outrageous
adjustment.

In their fourth game, Theresa played at quarterback and ABM.

Not only did she throw a school record ten touchdowns, she also ran for four
more, plus she snagged five interceptions, galloping three of them back for
scores.

"You're the Heisman front-runner," a female reporter assured her, winking and
grinning as if they were girlfriends. "How does it feel?"

How do you answer such a silly question?

"It's an honor," Theresa offered. "Of course it is."

The reporter smiled slyly, then assaulted her with another silliness. "So what
are your goals for the rest of the season?"

"To improve," Theresa muttered. "Every Saturday, from here on."

"Most of your talented teammates will turn professional at the end of the year."
A pause. Then she said, "What about you, Theresa? Will you do the same?"

She hadn't considered it. The UFL was an abstraction, and a distraction, and she
didn't have time or the energy to bother with either.

"All I think about," she admitted, "is this season."
A dubious frown.

Then the reporter asked, "What do you think of Tech's team?"

One play at a time, game at a time, and cook your chicken...

"Okay. But what about the Wildman?"

Nothing simple came into Theresa's head. She paused for a long moment, then told
the truth. "I don't know Alan Wilde."

"But do you think it's right...? Having a confessed killer as your linebacker
and star running back...?"

The reporter was talking about the Wildman. Vague recollections of a violent
death and a famous, brief trial came to mind. But Theresa's parents had shielded
her from any furor about the 1-1-2041s. Honestly, the best she could offer this
woman was a shrug and her own smile, admitting, "It's not right to murder.
Anyone. For any reason."

That simple declaration was the night's lead story on every sports network.

"Heisman hopeful calls her opponent a murderer! Even though the death was ruled
justifiable homicide!"

Judging by the noise, it made for a compelling story.

Whatever the hell that means.

After the season's seventh week, a coalition of coaches and university
presidents filed suit against the two front-runners. The games to date had
resulted in nearly two hundred concussions, four hundred broken bones, and
thirteen injuries so severe that young, pure-human boys were still lying in
hospital beds, existing in protective comas.

"We won't play you anymore," the coalition declared.

They publicly accused both schools of recruiting abuses, and in private, they
warned that if the remaining games weren't canceled, they would lead the pack in
a quick and bloody inquisition.

Coach Rickover responded at his weekly press conference. With a Bible in hand,
he gave a long rambling speech about his innocence and how the playing fields
were perfectly level.

Marlboro Jones took a different tack.

Accompanied by his school's lawyers, AI and human, he visited the ringleaders.
"You goddamn pussies!" he shouted. "We've got contracts with you. We've got
television deals with the networks. If you think we're letting your dicks
wriggle free of this hook, you're not only cowards. You're stupid, too!"

Then he sat back, letting the lawyers dress up his opinion in their own
impenetrable language.

But the opponents weren't fools. A new-generation Al began to list every known
infraction: Payments to players and their families. Secretive changes of title
for homes and businesses. Three boosters forming a charity whose only known
function was to funnel funds to the topflight players. And worst by far, a
series of hushed-up felonies connected to the 1-1-2041s under his care.

Marlboro didn't flinch.

Instead, he smiled -- a bright, blistering smile that left every human in the
room secretly trembling -- and after a prolonged pause, he said, "Fine. Make it
all public."

The AI said, "Thank you. We will."

"But," said Marlboro, "here's what I'll take public. You pussies."

With precision and a perfect ear for detail, the coach listed every secret
infraction and every camouflaged scandal that had ever swirled around his
opponents' programs. Twenty-plus years in this industry, and he knew everything.
Or at least that was the impression he gave. And then as he finished, he said,
"Pussies," again. And laughed. And he glared at the Stanford president -- the
ringleader of this rabble --telling that piece of high-born shit, "I guess we're
stuck. We're just going to have to kill each other."

Nobody spoke.

Moved, or even breathed.

Then the president managed to find enough air to whisper, "What do you propose?"

"Tech and State win our games by forfeit," the coach told them. "And you agree
not to play us in court, either.

"The president said, "Maybe."

Then with a soft synthetic voice, his Al lawyer said, "Begging to differ, but I
think we should pursue --"

Marlboro threw the talking box across the room.

It struck a wall, struck the floor. Then with an eerie calm, it said, "You
cannot damage me, sir."

"Point taken." The coach turned to the humans. "Do we have a deal? Or don't we?"
Details were worked out; absolutely nothing was signed.

Near the end of negotiations, Marlboro announced, "Oh, and there's one last
condition. I want to buy your lawyer." He pointed at the AI. "Bleed it of its
secrets first. But I want it."

"Or what?" Stanford inquired.

"I start talking about your wives. Who likes it this way, who likes it that way.
Just so everyone knows that what I'm saying is the truth."

The AI was sold. For a single dollar.

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 11-2041s, 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 game 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 palace-like 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 normally 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 cliche. 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-two 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. Pointblank.

"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'll 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 fiancee. Ivana Buckleman.
Honey, this is the enemy. Theresa Varner--"

"How are you?" said the fiancee, 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 pre-game 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."

Then looking squarely at Theresa, he added, "Whatever happens, I want to thank
you. Thank you for teaching an old man a thing or two about heart, and spirit,
and passion for a game that he thought he already knew.... "

The umbrella was dismantled, the various thunders descending on them.

Theresa still disliked the man. But despite that hard-won feeling, or maybe
because of it, a lump got up into her throat and refused to go away.

The kickoff set the tone.

Man O War received the ball deep in the end zone, dropped his head and charged,
skipping past defenders, then blockers -- 1-1-2041s, mostly --reaching his
thirty-five meter line with an avenue open to Tech's end zone. But the Wildman
slammed into him from the side, flinging that long graceful body across the side
line and into the first row of seats, his big-cat speed and the crack of pads on
pads causing a hundred thousand fans to go silent.

State's top receiver couldn't play for the first set of downs. His broken left
hand had to be set first, then secured in a cast.

Without Man O War, Theresa worked her team down to the enemy's forty. But for
the first time that season, the opening drive bogged down, and she punted the
ball past the end zone, and Tech's first possession started at their twenty.

Three plays, and they scored.

Mosgrove threw one perfect pass. Then the Wildman charged up the middle twice,
putting his shoulders into defenders and twisting around whatever he couldn't
intimidate. Playing ABM, Theresa tackled him on his second run. But they were
five meters inside the end zone, and a referee fixed his yellow laser on her,
marking her for a personal foul -- a bizarre call considering she was the one
bruised and bleeding here.

Man O War returned, and on the first play from scrimmage, he caught a sixty
meter bullet, broke two tackles, and scored.

But the extra point was blocked.

7-6, read every giant bolo board. In flickering, flame-colored numbers.

The next Tech drive ate up nearly seven minutes, ending with a three meter
plunge up the middle. The Wildman was wearing the entire State team when he
crossed the line -- except for a pure-human boy whose collarbone and various
ribs had been shattered, and who lay on the field until the medical cart could
come and claim him.

14-6.

On the third play of State's next drive, Theresa saw linebackers crowding
against the line, and she called an audible. The ball was snapped to her. And
she instantly delivered it to Man O War, watching him pull it in and turn
upfield, a half step taken when a whippet-like ABM hit the broken hand with his
helmet, splitting both helmet and cast, the ball bouncing just once before a
second whippet scooped it up and galloped in for a touchdown.

Tech celebrated, and Theresa trotted over to the sidelines. Rickover found her,
and for the first time all year -- for the first time in her life -- her coach
said, "That, young lady, was wrong. Was stupid. You weren't thinking out there."

21-6.

State's next possession ate up eight minutes, and it ended when the Wildman
exploded through the line, driving Theresa into the ground and the ball into the
air, then catching the ball as it fell into his chest, grinning behind the
grillwork of his helmet.

Tech's following drive ended with three seconds left in the half.

28-6.

Both locker rooms were at the south end. The teams were leaving in two ragged
lines, and Theresa was thinking about absolutely nothing. Her mind was as close
to empty as she could make it. When a student jumped from the overhead seats,
landing in the tunnel in front of her, she barely paused. She noticed a red
smear of clothing, then a coarse, drunken voice. "Bitch," she heard. Then, "Do
better! You goddamn owe me!" Then he began to make some comment about dog cocks,
and that was when a massive hand grabbed him by an arm, yanking him off his
feet, then throwing his limp body back into the anonymous crowd.

The Wildman stood in front of Theresa.

"She doesn't owe you fuck!" he was screaming. Looking up at hundreds of wide
eyes and opened, horrorstruck mouths, he shouted, "None of us owes you shit! You
morons! Morons! Morons!"

HALF-TIME needed to last long enough to sell a hundred happy products to the
largest holo audience since the Mars landing, and to keep the energy level up in
the dome, there was an elaborate show involving bands and cheerleaders from both
schools, plus half a dozen puffy, middle-aged pop entertainers. It was an hour's
reprieve, which was just enough time for Rickover to define his team's worst
blunders and draw up elegant solutions to every weakness. How much of his speech
sank home, Theresa couldn't say. She found herself listening more to the droning
of the bilge pumps than to the intricacies of playing quarterback and ABM. A
numbness was building inside her, spreading into her hands and cold toes. It
wasn't exhaustion or fear. She knew how those enemies felt, and she recognized
both festering inside her belly, safely contained. And it wasn't self-doubt,
because when she saw Man O War taking practice snaps in the back of the locker
room, she leaped to her feet and charged Rickover, ready to say, "You can, but
you shouldn't! Give me another chance!"

But her rocketback beat her to him. Flexing the stiff hand inside the newest
cast, Man O War admitted, "I can't hold it to pass. Not like I should."

Rickover looked and sounded like a man in absolute control.

He nodded, saying, "Fine." Then he turned to the girl and said, "We need to stop
them on their opening drive, then hang close. You can, believe me, manage that."

Theresa looked at the narrowed comers of his eyes and his tight little mouth,
the terror just showing. And she lied, telling him and herself, "Sure. Why not?"

Tech took the opening kickoff.

Coach Jones was grinning on the sidelines, looking fit and rested. Supremely
confident. Smelling a blowout, he opened up with a passing attack. The
long-armed Mosgrove threw a pair of twenty meter darts, then dropped back and
flung for the end zone. Theresa stumbled early, then picked herself up and
guessed, running hard for the corner, the whippet receiver leaping high and her
doing the same blind, long legs driving her toward the sky as she turned, the
ball hitting her chest, then her hands, then bouncing free, tumbling down into
Man O War's long cupped arms.

State inherited the ball on the twenty.

After three plays and nine meters, they punted.

A palpable calm seemed to have infected the audience. People weren't exactly
quiet, but their chatter wasn't directed at the game anymore. State supporters
tucked into the south corner -- where the piss-mouthed fellow had come from --
found ways to entertain themselves. They chanted abuse at the enemy. "Moron,
moron, moron!" they cried out as Tech moved down the field toward them. "Moron,
moron, moron!"

If the Wildman noticed, it didn't show in the stony, inflexible face.

Or Theresa was too busy to notice subtleties, helping plug holes and flick away
passes. And when the Wildman galloped up the middle, she planted and dropped a
shoulder and hit him low on the shins.

A thousand drills on technique let her tumble the mountainous boy.

Alan fell, and Theresa's teammates would torpedo his exposed ribs and his
hamstrings, using helmets as weapons, and sometimes more than helmets. One time,
the giant man rose up out of the pile and staggered -- just for a strange,
what's-wrong-with-this-picture moment. A river of impossibly red blood was
streaming from his neck. The field judge stopped the game to look at hands until
he found long nails dipped in red, and a culprit. Tech was awarded fifteen
meters with the personal foul, but for the next three plays, their running back
sat on the sideline, his thick flesh being closed up by the team's medics.

Tech was on the eleven when he returned, breaking through the middle, into the
open, then stumbling. Maybe for the first time in his life, his tired legs
suddenly weighed what they really weighed. And when he went down hard, his ball
arm was extended, and Theresa bent and scooped the treasure out of his hand and
dashed twenty meters before one of the whippets leveled her.

For a long minute, she lay on her back on that mangled sod, listening to the
relentless cheers, and trying to remember exactly how to breathe.

Tech's sideline was close. Pure-humans wearing unsoiled laser-blue uniforms
watched her with a fan - like appreciation. This wasn't their game; they were
just spectators here. Then she saw the Wildman trudge into view, his helmet
slightly askew, the gait and the slope of his shoulders betraying a body that
was genuinely, profoundly tired. For the first time in his brief life, Alan
Wilde was exhausted. And Theresa halfway smiled, managing her first sip of real
air as Marlboro Jones strode into view, cornering his star running back in order
to tell him to goddamn please protect the fucking ball --

Alan interrupted him.

Growling. Theresa heard a hard low sound.

Jones grabbed his player's face guard, and he managed a chin-up, putting his
face where it had to be seen. Then he rode the Wildman for a full minute,
telling him, "You don't ever! Ever! Not with me, mister!" Telling him, "This is
your fucking life! It's being played out right here! Right now!" Screaming at
him, "Now sit and miss your life! Until you learn your manners, mister! You
sit!"

Four plays later, Theresa dumped a short pass into her running back's hands, and
he rumbled through a string of sloppy tackles, all the way into the end zone.

State tried for a two-point conversion, but they were stopped.

The score looked sloppy on the holo boards. 28-12.

Tech's star returned for the next downs, but he was more like Alan than like the
mythical Wildman. In part, there was a lack of focus. Theresa saw a confused
rage in those giant, suddenly vulnerable eyes. But it was just as much
exhaustion. Frayed muscles were having trouble lifting the dense,
over-engineered bones, and the pounding successes of the first half were reduced
to three meter gains and gouts of sod and black earth thrown toward the remote
carbon-fiber roof.
State got the ball back late in the third quarter. Rickover called for a draw
play, which might have worked. But in the huddle, Theresa saw how the defense
was lining up, and she gave Man O War a few crisp instructions.

As the play began, her receiver took a few steps back.

Theresa flung the ball at a flat green spot midway between them, and it struck
and bounced high, defenders pulling to a stop when they assumed the play was
dead. Then Man O War grabbed the ball, and despite his cast, heaved the ball an
ugly fifty meters, delivering its fluttering fat body into waiting hands.

Rickover wanted to try for two points.

Theresa called time-out, marched over to Rickover and said, "I can get us
three." It meant setting up on the ten meter line. "I can smell it," she said.
"They're starting to get really tired."

"Like we aren't?" Man O War piped in, laughing amiably as medics patched his
cast.

The coach grudgingly agreed, then called a fumbleroosky. Theresa took the snap,
bent low and set the live ball inside one of the sod's deep gouges. And her
center, a likable and sweet pure-human named Mitch Long, grabbed up the ball and
ran unnoticed and untroubled into the end zone.

28-21, and nobody could think for all the wild, proud cheering of pure-humans.

State managed to hold on defense.

Mosgrove punted, pinning them deep at their end with ten minutes left.

Theresa stretched the field with a towering, uncatchable pass, then started to
run and dump little passes over the middle. The Wildman was playing linebacker,
and he tackled her twice, the second blow leaving her chin cut open and her
helmet in pieces. Man O War took over for a down. He bobbled the snap, then
found his grip just in time for the Wildman to come over the center and throw an
elbow into his face, shattering the reinforced mask as well as his nose.

Playing with two pure-humans at once, Theresa pitched to her running back, and
he charged toward the sideline, wheeled and flung a blind pass back across the
field. She snagged it and ran forty meters in three seconds. Then a whippet got
an angle, and at the last moment pushed her out of bounds. But she managed to
hold the ball out, breaking the orange laser beam rising from the pylon.

Finally, finally, the game was tied.

Marlboro called time out, then huddled with his 1-1-2041s. There wasn't even the
pretense of involving the rest of the team. Theresa watched the gestures, the
coach's contorting face. Then Tech seemed to shake off its collective fatigue,
putting together a prolonged drive, the Wildman scoring on a tough run up the
middle and Mosgrove kicking the extra point with just a minute and fifty seconds
left.

35-28.

Rickover gathered his entire team around him, stared at their faces with a
calming, messianic intensity. Then without uttering a word, he sent eleven of
them out to finish the game.

The resulting drive consumed the entire one hundred and ten seconds.

From the first snap, Theresa sensed what was happening here and what was
inevitable. When Man O War dropped a perfect soft pass, she could assure him,
"Next time." And as promised, he one-handed a dart over his shoulder on the next
play, gaining fifteen. Later, following a pair of hard sacks, it was fourth and
thirty, and Theresa scrambled and pumped faked twice, then broke downfield, one
of the whippets catching her, throwing his hard little body at her belly. But
she threw an elbow, then a shoulder, making their first down by nothing and
leaving the defender unconscious for several minutes, giving the medics
something to do while her team breathed and made ready.

Thirty meters came on a long sideline pattern.

Fifteen were lost when the Wildman drove through the line and chased Theresa
back and forth for a week, then downed her with a swing of an arm.

But she was up and functioning first. Alan lay on the ground gasping, that wide
elephantine face covered with perspiration and its huge tongue panting and an
astonished glaze numbing the eyes.

Tech called time-out.

Mitch brought in the next three plays.

He lasted for one. Another pure-human was inserted the next down, and the next,
and that was just to give them eleven bodies. The thin-skinned, frail-boned
little boys were bruised and exhausted enough to stagger. Mitch vomited twice
before he got back to the sidelines, bile and blue pills scattered on the grass.
The next boy wept the entire time he was with them. Then his leg shattered when
the Wildman ran over him. But every play was a gain, and they won their next
first down, and there was an entire sixteen seconds left and forty meters to
cross and Theresa calmly used their last time-out and joined Rickover, knowing
the play that he'd call before he could say it.

She didn't hear one word from her coach, nodding the whole time while gazing off
into the stands.

Fans were on their feet, hoarsely cheering and banging their hands together. The
drunks in the corner had fashioned a crude banner, and they were holding it
high, with pride, shouting the words with the same dreary rage.

"MORON, MORON, MORON," she read.

She heard.

The time-out ended, and Theresa trotted back out and looked at the faces in the
huddle, then with an almost quiet voice asked, "Why are turds tapered?"

Then she said, "To keep our assholes from slamming shut."

Then she gave the play, and she threw twenty meters to Man O War, and the clock
stopped while the markers moved themselves, and she threw the ball into the sod,
halfway burying it to stop the universe once again.

Two seconds.

She called a simple crossing pattern.

But Coach Jones guessed it and held his people back in coverage. Nobody was open
enough to try forcing it, which was why she took off running. And because
everyone was sloppy tired, she had that advantage, twisting out of four tackles
and head-faking a whippet, then finding herself in the corner with Alan Wilde
standing in front of her, barring the way to the goal line.

She dropped her shoulder, charging as he took a long step forward and braced
himself, pads and her collarbone driving into the giant man's groin, the
exhausted body pitched back and tumbling and her falling on top of him, lying on
him as she would lie on a bed, then rolling, off the ground until she was a full
meter inside the end zone.

She found her legs and her balance, and almost too late, she stood up.

Alan was already on his feet. She saw him marching past one of the officials,
his helmet on the ground behind him, forgotten, his gaze fixed on that MORON
banner and the people brandishing it in front of him.

Some were throwing small brown objects at him.

Or maybe at all the players, it occurred to her.

Theresa picked up the bone-shaped dog treat, a part of her astonished by the
cruel, calculated planning that went into this new game.

Carried by a blistering rage, Alan began running toward the stands, screaming,
"You want to see something funny, fucks? Do you?"

Do nothing, and State would likely win.

But Theresa ran anyway, hitting Alan at the knees, bringing him down for the
last time.

A yellow laser struck her -- a personal foul called by the panicked referee.

Theresa barely noticed, yanking off her helmet and putting her face against that
vast, fury-twisted face, and like that, without warning, she gave him a long,
hard kiss.

"Hey, Alan," she said. "Let's just have some fun here. Okay."

A couple thousand Tech fans, wrongly thinking that the penalty ended the game
and the game was won, stampeded into the far end of the field.

In those next minutes, while penalties and the crowd were sorted out, the
1-1-2041sstood together in the end zone, surrounding the still fuming Wildman.
And watching the mayhem around them, Theresa said, "I wish." Then she said it
again -- "I wish!" -- with a loud, pleading voice.

"What are you wishing for?" asked Man O War.

She didn't know what she wanted. When her mouth opened, her conscious mind
didn't have the simplest clue what she would say. Theresa was just as surprised
as the others when she told them, "I wish they were gone. Ali these people. This
is our game, not theirs. I want to finish it. By ourselves, and for ourselves.
Know what I mean?"

The 1-1-2041s nodded.

Smiled.

The rebellion began that way, and it culminated moments later when a whippet
asked, "But seriously, how can we empty this place out?"

Theresa knew one way, and she said it. Not expecting anything to come of her
suggestion.

But Alan took it to heart, saying, "Let me do it."

He took a step, arguing, "I'm strongest. And besides, if I'm caught, it doesn't
mean anything. It's just the Wildman's usual shit."

Police in riot gear were busy fighting drunks and bitter millionaires. The
running back slipped off in the direction of the locker room, as unnoticed as
any blood-caked giant could be. Then after a few moments, as the crowds were
finally herded back into the stands, Marlboro Jones came over and looked
straight at Theresa, asking everyone, "Where is he?"

No one spoke.

Rickover was waving at his team, asking them to join him.
Theresa felt a gnawy guilt as well as an effervescent thrill.

Marlboro shook his head, his mouth starting to open, another question ready to
be ignored --

Then came the roaring of alarms and a fusillade of spinning red lights. Over the
public address system, a booming voice said, "There is nothing to worry about.
Please, please, everyone needs to leave the dome now! Now! In an orderly
fashion, please follow the ushers now?

Within fifteen minutes, the dome was evacuated.

Coaching staffs and most of the players were taken to the helipad and lifted
back to the mainland, following the media's hasty retreat.

Twenty minutes after the emergency began, the 1-1-2041s came out of their hiding
places. The sidelines were under sea water, but the field itself was high enough
to remain mostly dry. Security people and maintenance crews could be heard in
the distance. Only emergency lights burned, but they were enough. Looking at the
others, Theresa realized they were waiting for her to say something.

"This is for us," she told them. "And however it turns out, we don't tell.
Nobody ever hears the final score. Agreed?"

Alan said, "Good," and glared at the others, his fists bleeding from beating all
those bilge pumps to death.

Man O War cried out, "Let's do it then!"

In the gloom, the teams lined up for a two-point play. State had ten bodies, and
including the whippet still groggy from being unconscious, Tech had its full
twelve.

Fair enough.

Theresa leaned low, and in a whisper, called the only appropriate play.

"Go out for a pass," she told her receivers and her running back. "I'll think of
something."

She settled behind the minotaur playing center, and she nestled her hands into
that warm damp groin, and after a long gaze at the empty stands, she said,
"Hey."

She said, "When you're ready. Give it here."