Lightning's Limit by Mark Brandon Powell Page A

delorium. All he needs now is the right opening and once drawn he was going to blow the other teams away.
As he gets close to the school he can see he’s the first one to arrive at the school, other than Coach Hillborn. He gets off his bike and folds it up into his bag and walks toward the bus.
    Hillborn says, “You’re early as usual Mitchel.”
    “I am, how are you doing coach?”
    “Doing good, and I just hope no one gets hurt today at the tournament.”
    “What about us winning it?”
    "Mitchel, throw your bag in the storage let's talk about that."
    "Oh! Do want to talk strategy? How about the Hillborn hand block? Or maybe the Pharis fetal position? Or if things get dicey we can run that trick play where we all get in Julie's mirage field and-”
    Hillborn cuts Vargas off, ”Mitchel, you know that bothers me as much as it bothers you. Just like I told you two weeks ago, a week ago, and yesterday. We have to keep the rich kids safe. Rich kids have rich parents and rich parents pay off school administrators to put rich kids as team captains. If a team captain gets hurt, my boss gets hurt. Where it counts.”
    Vargas sighs, “I know, right in the wallet."
    "That's right. Look, I know you can do more and I'm actually looking forward to seeing it, but as long as I have verbal orders it's going to be drills, drills, drills. It keeps them occupied during practice and they will filled with defense, defense, defense. Hopefully keeping them somewhat safe in a real match."
    "I know coach, and thanks for being truthful with me. I still haven't told that to anyone or plan too. I was just giving you a hard time since no one was here yet. Speaking of which, I was wondering if I could get your help on some history. I was supposed to have it finished for class yesterday but Mr. Black said I could send it to him as long as I was on the schools network and before we leave today."
    “Don’t you have the check software the school provides?”
    “No I don’t.”
    Vargas would have loved to have signed up for the school’s work check program but didn't have the extra credits each month to have his work validated like that through his HaLO.   Everyone on Eden may be fitted with a Haptics Language and Optics bracelet at birth, but that didn't mean they were all born equal.  
    Hillborn crosses his arms and leans against the bus, “Alright, what’s the question?”
    "I'm still a little unclear as to why people came here. I'm glad we did but why don't we try to go back to Earth?"
    Coach Hillborn put on the best thinking face a coach can have when not looking at a play book and simply said, "From the way I understand it, we didn't have any magic there. They only had weapons, like guns and bombs. Some of those people would come up with a weapon that no one else had and then they would dominate without fear of retribution. That is of course until the other side copied or improved upon that weapon. Then it was flipped, and back and forth. Then one side finally made a weapon that was so big that it would not only kill far and wide, but also over time."
    "So it wasn't enough to just blow up whatever they were aiming at, they also had to make sure no one could use it?"
    "Exactly. It was rarely used, until it was used frequently. It didn't take long after that to make the planet pretty inhospitable. As the old saying goes, peeing in your own bed and all."
    Vargas was quickly jotting down notes during this impromptu session because the teachers are not usually so candid. He stops and looks up at Coach Hillborn and asks, "That was when Adam Augustus made the Ark Aspiration, and took everyone that wanted to leave here?"
    "Exactly. It wasn't the only one, just the only Ark that we know survived."
    "Thanks Coach. This should get me what I need. I'm going to go turn this in real quick."
    Vargas runs over to the sidewalk near the school. It was the edge of the school network, which is what he needed to be connected to so he could turn in his