Batey Ascending

We were in a chase. The ball got hit so hard so many times we couldn’t follow it anymore. The Absolutes were on the defensive, because none of us had the implants that the RTG had. They had hookups that tracked the ball and where it was going based on angles, trajectories, high-speed math calculations that put them in the right place at the right time.

We just have to keep interrupting them on their path and let the ball do its thing. Because we’ve got something they don’t, we’ve got an ace. It isn’t IND23, although he’s our full forward star, martial artist by trade and pro athlete for fun. It isn’t AB, he’s a strong man with a pretty face but I’ve met smarter kids than him. And it ain’t me or Chilly. We’ve got the spirit, and we’ve got our teamwork.

No one would suspect an old man to be the best player in the league, but no one seems to care enough to know Gorri like we do. He started the Absolutes, Black just took up the face. He’s past his prime by age alone, but he helped invent New Batey. Literally. He was on one of the first pro teams when the sport was just getting broadcast to the Ship.

“Hey!” I shout. “Two up top!”

“Where?” AB called. I tried to point but got sent tumbling by some jackass flying into me from behind. No harm, no foul. The thing about the pads that makes this more fun than painful is how much it dampens an impact. You feel the hit to the back but the whole blow stops there. Every collision is basically just a hard slap to the skin.

What sucks is the impact itself. You don’t just take it and stumble a little. This ain’t Earth anymore. If you get hit, you’re going for a ride, and we don’t bounce like the ball does. If we’re knocked out of the Sphere we get caught in the Orbit and have to get placed back in slowly. Guess where I’m heading.

I get snagged hard by the orbit. I can feel it shifting like the tides of a huge pool, shifting me around one way and another on a spiraling path somewhere close to the top. Players have to drop back in, and I’m down near the bottom. RTG aren’t just punks with computers for brains, they’re smart. Fred might be a jerk, but he handles his team up to the mark.

“Nico!” I turned around and saw someone flying up at me. The whole cheer squad was covering for me, using their own Flash Flight gear to make a light show out of their moves while they covered for me.

“Hey, man,” I say. Tyger, our only dude cheerman. Not good enough to be floating but great moral support. He slipped a straw out of a nutrient pack into the field and I grabbed it to suck on the float up. I recognized that tart, medicine flavor immediately, like salted cantaloupe baby food. Anti-anti, for when you need gravity to calm down.

“I wish there was a way to shut their computer brains down!” He gets hot under the collar easily and can’t do much but dance about it. Then I saw Yuiza turning around for me. I could see her at any angle and feel a lot better.

“Hey,” she says, without interrupting a beat of her routine, “play an in-game if you can. They have two goalies to your one but they’re getting distracted.”

“They don’t think we’ll score this early.” And to be real, we might not.

“Just be there,” she says. “Just in case.” And she gives me a wink before I’m back up at the top. I get sucked in by the torrent and I’m back down. The juice makes my body feel brick solid, like all of my insides have been glued together. It’s a different kind of uncomfortable but it’s way more manageable than before. Nothing’s holding me back. I can hit max speed.

I blast down to their infield, towards their goal line, the ring built into and just a little off from the opposite side of the Sphere from ours. Four of their guys are advancing. They got the ball controlled again in our in-field, but Gorri can handle it. I just have one guy to deal with and tangle up.

Their rear guard, a dude with cybernetic eyes, narrow red slits with metallic shutter eyelids, and I can feel something else in the way he knocks me back. He’s got synthetic muscles. Either out of labor or whatever, he’s got more power in his arms than I have in my body. Just touching me sent me halfway across the field.

I steal a quick look at the ball over there. It’s still getting juggled back and forth, but the RTGs are dominating the possession. With this guy coming after me it’s gonna be a hard time helping out. I spin upside down and jet away just as he shoots forward. If I can bait him outside of the Sphere, I could get us at an advantage.

He keeps on me, but he’s slow. He lets me get away a little bit. He must know what I’m doing. My only option to get him gone is to make him charge and he’s staying smart about it. So, I decide to get risky, because that’s the only way to really win, to all in.

Down at the bottom depth of the Sphere. He’s chasing, trying to corner me to send me back out again, to layer on some shame with my defeat. Tough luck. He’s got pushing power, but I’ve got the fastest Flash Flight shoes in the League. Benefits of PCred earned in the right place at the right time.

I wait for the elbow and take it to the head. Kind of hurts, but only because my boots pushed harder than his piston-powered shoulder can. We’re at an odd angle, but I blast off with enough power to send him out of the Sphere right close to the bottom. That’s one down for at least half a minute. Time enough to get at least one goal….

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