Warburg introduced the other two men. “This is Yotaro Kobayasho and Poncho Saulsgiver.” Quentin shook their hands. Yotaro was the biggest at 7-foot-1 and 380 pounds. He had a shaved head and three short, parallel scars on each cheek. Saulsgiver had pure white skin, like Yitzhak, with ice-blue eyes and white hair. At 6-foot-10 and about 355, he was the smallest of the three. Quentin shook both of their hands.
Hokor’s hovercart floated down and everyone pulled on their helmets.
“Let’s get started,” Hokor shouted before his hovercart even reached ground level. “Starting ‘O’ get on the goal line, we’ll work the tight package.”
Quentin started to move towards the goal line when he heard the words Starting O, then remembered he was not the starter.
Pine lined up on the goal line, back facing the end zone. Kobayasho lined up as the left tight end, and Warburg as the right. Scarborough lined up wide right, with Hawick two steps inside of Warburg and two steps behind him. The defensive backs showed bump-and-run coverage, playing directly in front of Scarborough and Hawick. Three linebackers spread out in their normal positions for a 3-4 defense. The outside linebackers were Quyth, one of whom wore number 58 — he was the guard that had stun-sticked Mum-O-Killowe into submission on the landing dock at the Combine. The middle linebacker, number 50, was Human. He radiated lethality in a way Quentin had never seen or felt.
Pine barked out the signals, dropped back five steps, planted and bounced half-step forward. The receivers sprinted out on their patterns: Scarborough on an in-route, Hawick on a post, Kobayasho on a ten-yard in-hook, Warburg in the flat.
The defense dropped into coverage. Sklorno defensive backs drifted into a zone, and the Human middle linebacker backped-aled straight back five yards. But it was the movement of the Quyth outside linebackers that shocked Quentin. They didn’t run, they rolled to their positions, tucking up into a ball and rolling out — literally — to cover the flats before they popped up like some jumping spider, arms and pedipalps out and waiting.
Kobayasho was open on the hook, but Pine didn’t throw. He checked through his reads, one-two-three-four, then turned and gunned the ball to Warburg, who had hooked up at four yards and drifted into the flat. Warburg caught the pass and turned upfield before Hokor blew the whistle. The players lined up again.
“Why didn’t he hit Kobayasho?” Quentin asked Yitzhak.
“See number fifty there? That’s John Tweedy, starting middle linebacker. All-Tier-Two last year. He’s got phenomenal quickness. Kobayasho looked open, but even on a ten-yard bullet Tweedy can get to the ball. He also pretends to be slower than he is. He’ll do it for most of the game if he has to, to lull the quarterback into a pattern. When the ball is finally thrown to Tweedy’s zone it’s because the QB thinks he can’t get to it. He had six interceptions last year.”
Quentin looked at the bulky linebacker. Something seemed to be on his face ... scrolling letters, hard to see but still legible under the facemask.
“What’s up with his face? Does that say ‘You rookies smell like nasty diarrhea?’“
Yitzhak laughed. “Yeah, probably. Tweedy has a full body tattoo.”
“A tattoo? But it’s moving.”
“Sure, it’s an image implant. Lots of guys in the league have tats. You’ve never seen one before?”
Quentin shook his head. “Not like that.”
“They imbed little light emitters in the skin. They can make changing patterns, words, whatever. Tweedy went for the full package, complete skin coverage with a cyberlink. He can think of words and they play on his face, his forehead, chest, wherever.”
Tweedy stood and pointed at Pine. “How’s that arthritis, old man?” he said in a gravelly bellow.
Pine rose up from center. “A little rough, Johnny. You going to give me another rub-down like you did last night?”
The entire team laughed, including Tweedy, who flipped Pine off with both hands.
“Stop this Human bonding nonsense,” Hokor called out. “Run the play.”
Pine settled in under center and got back to business. Quentin watched carefully as the offense he’d studied on holos and on his messageboard came to life. Each play had several patterns for each receiver, depending on how the defense lined up. Were they in woman-to-woman? Were they in a prevent defense? Were they in a zone underneath with two-deep coverage over the top? At the snap of the ball, the receiver had to read the coverage and make route adjustments. These adjustments were just as planned as the original play itself — if the linebacker blitzed, the tight end changed his route from an out to a short hook; if the linebacker faded to a middle zone, the tight end kept his short hook; if the linebacker bit the run fake and came forward, then dropped back, the tight end changed from the short hook to a 15-yard streak.
The quarterback had to know the patterns for every receiver, for every play, and the variations on every pattern based on the defensive alignment. On top of that, the quarterback had to know every pattern adjustment, for every route, based on the reaction of the defensive players after the snap of the ball. Each receiver had at least three pattern options. For a four-receiver play, that meant four patterns, multiplied by around six defensive sets, multiplied by three pattern options, resulting in seventy-two possible routes for every play. The quarterback had to read the defensive coverage while dropping back, know where his receivers were supposed to be, and usually make the decision to throw within four seconds of the snap. That was just the beginning — defenses did everything they could to disguise coverages, so the quarterback would think he saw one thing when in fact the defense was setting a trap. The quarterback had to be able to see through this ruse within his four seconds. The most complicated aspect of the whole thing was that the quarterback often had to read the defense and throw the ball before the receiver made his cut, so the ball would be there as soon as the receiver turned. For this to work, both the quarterback and the receiver had to make the same read at the same time, or the ball might sail long as the receiver turned up short for a hook pattern.
And then there was the obvious factor that most football fans forgot — the quarterback had to do all of this while 600-pound Ki lineman and 300-pound blitzing Human and Quyth Warrior linebackers and the occasional fast-as-lightning blitzing Sklorno safety were trying to get to him and forcibly remove his head from his shoulders.
And yet the stereotype of the “stupid jock” had persisted for centuries. It never ceased to amaze Quentin when people thought football players were just muscle-bound morons. He’d like to see a physics professor do algorithmic calculations while being chased around by a 600-pound monster that was known for eating its enemies alive.
Pine ran through all the plays, effortlessly reading every defensive adjustment. His skill clearly frustrated the defense, but at the same time Pine usually completed passes for only a five or ten-yard gain. He ran through thirty plays with no interceptions, completing twenty-two passes — but only three for fifteen yards or more.
“Yitzhak,” Hokor called out on his loudspeaker. “Take over.”
Quentin bit his lip in anger. This second-rate benchwarmer was taking reps before he was. Quentin calmed himself — this early in the season, each quarterback would get the same amount of reps. Once the first game was out of the way, practice time would become so precious that very little of it could be used for the second- and third-string quarterbacks. But for now, he had to bite his tongue and wait.
If Pine made the offense look easy, Yitzhak illustrated how difficult it really was. He seemed to read the defense fairly well, but he did not possess Pine’s pinpoint accuracy. Yitzhak finished his thirty plays with two interceptions, eighteen completions and only two passes for that went for more than fifteen yards.
“Barnes!” Hokor barked. “Let’s see what you can do. And remember, this isn’t punting practice.”
The defense laughed at Hokor’s insult, and Quentin’s face turned red. Obviously the entire team knew of his embarrassing incident th
e day before. Well, they wouldn’t be laughing for long.
Quentin swaggered to the line. He’d watched the other two quarterbacks, and he’d watched the defenders — he knew how to run things. He lined up, feeling a surge of adrenaline pump through his veins. As Quentin bent down to start the play, the defensive players started calling out to him.
“Hey, rookie!” John Tweedy yelled. “Throw it my way, boy, make me look good for the Coach.”
“Come on, Human,” called Choto the Bright, the Quyth Warrior that played right outside linebacker. “You Nationalist racist scum, come make us sub-species look bad.”
“You won’t last, Human,” said the left outside linebacker, number 58, Virak the Mean. “You’re going back to your Third World planet in a body bag. I should have killed you on the landing dock at the Combine and just got it over with.”
Quentin smiled. He hadn’t been taunted since halfway through his first season of football back home. It had taken his opponents that long to learn what he was all about, that no matter what they said, he was going to tear their defense apart.
The defense closed in for bump-and-run. The cornerbacks Berea and Davenport lined up directly over Scarborough and Hawick, respectively. Quentin scanned through the rest of the defense, but he’d already seen what he needed to see.
“Hut-hut, hut!”
He took his strong five-step drop. Berea shoved Scarborough at the line of scrimmage, but Scarborough fought through the hit and streaked down the sideline. Quentin saw Stockbridge, the strong safety, moving over to help Berea but it was already too late. Quentin waited, waited, then fired. The ball tore through the air on a shallow arc, hitting Scarborough in stride thirty yards downfield. Stockbridge pushed Scarborough out-of-bounds — a 35-yard gain.
The Sklorno receivers on the sidelines hooted and clicked and jumped with excitement.
“You took too long, Barnes,” Hokor called. “You’d have never got that pass off. You’ve got to go through your reads quicker.”
Quentin put his hands on his hips and stared up at Hokor, who hovered fifteen yards above the field in his little cart. Quentin stared for a few seconds more, then walked back to the line, shaking his head.
He called out the next set, which featured one tight end and three receivers. Scarborough lined up wide to the left, Hawick and Denver to the right, Kobayasho lined up at right end. The defensive backs quickly shifted, taking out Choto the Bright, a linebacker, and bringing in another Sklorno defensive back. Quentin surveyed the field, running through the routes in his mind, matching them against the defensive set. Hawick was covered woman-to-woman by Davenport — Hawick’s pattern in that coverage called for a post, and Quentin didn’t think Davenport could handle Hawick’s speed. Quentin tapped his stomach in a quick ba-da-bap, then barked out signals and snapped the ball.
He dropped back five steps, looked left to throw off the defense, then turned and launched the ball deep. As soon as he let it go he saw his mistake: Davenport had broken off woman-to-woman and dropped into zone coverage, where she was responsible for defending a particular area of the field. Stockbridge, the strong safety, had the deep outside zone, where Quentin had thrown. Correctly reading the deep coverage of Stockbridge, Hawick broke off her post route and hooked up at fifteen yards — the ball sailed over her head, and Stockbridge swept in for an easy interception.
Tweedy let out a grating, evil, mocking laugh that sounded like a stuttering buzz saw. “Thanks, rookie!” he called out through cupped hands. “You just answered Hawick’s prayers!” The Human defenders laughed. Quivering pedipalps showed the Quyth Warriors’ amusement.
Quentin’s face felt hot under his helmet. Davenport had easily disguised her coverage by running stride-for-stride with Hawick, until the defender reached her assigned zone coverage. It all happened so fast — seemingly twice as fast as anything happened back in the PNFL. Quentin had thrown too early.
The team fell silent as Hokor’s cart lowered to the field. “Barnes, how many reads did you make that time?”
Quentin looked down. “One.”
Hokor’s pedipalps quivered, and clearly not from humor. “One. You just turned the ball over, again.”
“Relax, Coach, I’ve got it now.”
Hokor just stared at him with his one big eye. “Run it again,” he said, then his cart rose noiselessly to fifteen feet and hovered behind the end zone.
Quentin lined up for another stab, but his confidence had suddenly abandoned him. Things were moving too fast. He ran the same play, saw the defensive coverage, and opted for a short dump to the tight end. Even that was almost an interception: Virak the Mean tightened up into a ball and rolled sideways, not as fast as a Sklorno but pretty damn fast, a rolling blur that popped open at the last second when the ball drew near.
The next play, Quentin checked off his primary and secondary route, which were covered, and fired a short crossing pass to the tight end — as soon as he let go, he knew he’d messed up again. Tweedy had seemed to be yards away from the play, but he stepped in front of Warburg and picked off the ball.
This time Hokor didn’t come down, but it didn’t matter — Tweedy’s buzz-saw laughter roared across the field.
“You’re my kind of quarterback,” Tweedy called. “I just wish you were playing for Wallcrawlers instead of us, it would make my job easier.”
Laughter and quivering pedipalps were all Quentin heard and saw. His face burned with embarrassment.
“You’re not utilizing your arm strength.”
Quentin turned to see Pine next to him.
“Tweedy is giving you the same cushion he gives me,” Pine said quietly, practically whispering. “But you throw much harder than I do. If you want to shut them up, go after Tweedy again, but this time hard. These tight ends are much better than the guys you played with in the PNFL. As soon as you burn Tweedy a couple of times, he’ll close the cushion, then call crossing routes over his head.”
Now Pine was giving him advice as if he were some school-boy playing pickup ball. It was the final insult. Go after Tweedy, who’d just picked off a pass? Did Pine think Quentin was stupid? Pine obviously wanted to make him look bad.
“Get out of my huddle, Pine,” Quentin growled. “I don’t need any help from a blue-boy.”
Pine leaned back as if he’d been slapped. He stared, shook his head sadly, then turned and jogged back to Yitzhak.
“Is daddy helping Little Quentin play the game?” Tweedy called out loudly.
Quentin’s patience hit a dead end. He pointed his finger at the linebacker. “Shuck him, and shuck you, Tweedy.”
Tweedy’s mocking smile turned into a gleeful snarl. “Well, show me what you got. So far you ain’t got nothin’.”
I’LL POKE OUT YOUR EYES AND CRAP ON YOUR BRAIN played across Tweedy’s face tattoo. Quentin watched it for a second, then shook his head, trying to concentrate.
He ran through ten more plays, his frustration growing with each pass. He threw two more interceptions, his third and fourth of the day, one on a deep passes to Scarborough, and one where Virak the Mean rolled forward in addition to sideways and sprang open right in front of a hooking Kobayasho.
“You’ve got two plays left, Barnes,” Hokor called from his loudspeaker. “Let’s see if you can continue your ineptitude.”
The defense continued to taunt him. He was so mad he could barely see, barely think. This hadn’t been what he’d expected at all. He lined up for his second-to-last play, a three-receiver set with Warburg on the right. Quentin dropped back, trying to read the coverage. Within two seconds, he saw that all of the receivers were well-covered. He checked through the routes, but no one was open. Frustration exploded in his head as he read his last option — Warburg on a crossing route — only to see Tweedy lurking close by. Rage billowing over, Quentin reared back and vented all of his anger on a laser-blast pass. The ball was a blur as it shot forward. Tweedy sprang at it, but too late, and fell flat on his face. The ball slammed into Warburg’s ch
est, hitting him so hard that it knocked him backwards. Warburg stumbled, bobbled the ball, but hauled it in before he dropped to his butt.
For the first time that afternoon, the defense fell silent. Tweedy got up slowly, staring hatefully at Quentin.
Quentin blinked, his rage clearing away, one thought echoing through his head. If you want to shut them up, go after Tweedy again, but this time hard.
The receivers returned to the mini-huddle. Quentin called his last play, a two tight end set, and made sure to include a deep crossing route behind Tweedy. At the snap he dropped back three steps, then reared back to throw a hook to Warburg. Tweedy jumped forward, much sooner than he’d done all day. Quentin pump-faked, then tossed an easy pass over Tweedy’s head to the crossing Kobayasho.
Quentin turned and looked back at Pine, who simply smiled and shrugged.
• • •
AFTER QUENTIN’S last pass, the team started jogging back to the tunnel, headed for the locker room. Quentin stopped when Hokor called out to him. As his teammates disappeared into the tunnel, Quentin waited while Hokor’s cart floated down to the field.
“You have to make your reads faster,” Hokor said.
Quentin felt embarrassed, but couldn’t argue. He felt like he was moving in slow-motion. He’d finished up ten-of-thirty with four interceptions — four — and only his first pass went for more than fifteen yards.
“Who’s the second starting cornerback for the Wallcrawlers?” Hokor asked.
“Jacobina,” Quentin said instantly. “Great vertical leap, but not very strong and easily blocked. Two-year vet.”
“What’s her weakness?”
“Trouble reaching maximum vertical leap during a full sprint.”
“How do you beat her?”
“Throw deep and high, make the receiver have to really sprint and jump to make the catch. Jacobina usually can’t match the jump if the ball is thrown correctly.”
“Good,” Hokor said. “And their second-string nose guard?”