You’re saying the Krakens are going to be relegated?
DAN: Oh come on, there’s no question! Quentin Barnes might have been good enough to get Ionath through the T2 Tourney, but the Krak-pack lost their starting running back, Mitchell “The Machine” Fayed. Ionath has no running game, and I don’t think their defensive backs can stop any Tier One offense.
TARAT: I think Quentin Barnes may surprise you, Dan. He’s a true warrior in the making.
DAN: Warrior? He’s from the Purist Nation! No Nationalite quarterback has ever led a team to a Tier One championship. Eh -ver. He’ll be lucky to live long enough to fail and go back to Tier Two. Let’s go to the callers. Line two from Citadel in the Tower Republic, go...
• • •
QUENTIN BARNES HAD NEVER SEEN a real parade before. He certainly hadn’t been in one, and most certainly hadn’t been a guest of honor.
Back on Micovi, the fundamentalist theocracy frowned on such things. There were processionals, sure — somber marches for the latest martyr, a funeral train for a passed religious leader, that kind of thing. Long lines of people dressed in blue robes, chanting, swaying, self-flagellating, doing everything they could to show their grief and anguish lest a neighbor report them for not feeling enough grief and anguish. Not showing enough anguish might lead to an inquiry, probably an arrest, and — quite frequently — yet another funeral processional.
There was no shortage of funerals in the Purist Nation.
So Quentin Barnes had seen lines of people walking down a street and he’d seen throngs of people lining the sidewalks, but never anything like this . So much color. So much noise.
So much... joy.
Ionath City’s rad-free dome was two miles in diameter. A full circle around Fifth Ring Road made for a trip of over three miles. Three slow miles. Even with a phalanx of riot-geared Quyth Warrior police dishing out random beat-downs, adoring football fans were still climbing over barriers and running up to the sixteen grav-train cars that traveled down the road’s center lev-track.
“This is crazy,” Quentin said to Don Pine, who sat on his right. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Don nodded. He was smiling, waving a cupped hand with a practiced motion. He called it his princess wave . “You’ll get used to this, Q. At least I hope you do. As many times as I’ve done this, it’s hard to be jaded looking at all these happy faces. Just you wait until you win the big one — this is nothing in comparison.”
Quentin found it hard to believe he’d ever think of this teeming mass of sentients as “nothing.” The city had placed dividers down the middle of each two-lane road that ran along either side of the lev-track. That let orange- and black-clad fans fill half of the road, and the sidewalk beyond, and the diameter roads that ran deeper into the city. Every window in the red, hexagonal buildings had several heads of various species sticking out of it. Krakens flags flew everywhere, from the small, hand-held kind to giant flags that were probably ten feet high and twenty feet long. Banners, flags, pom-pons, foam fingers, foam pincers, foam tentacles, jackets, hats, jerseys — more orange and black than Quentin had even known existed.
Ionath City’s urban dome normally held somewhere around 110,000 residents in claustrophobic closeness. Considering the dome was just about the only place most of the Ionath Krakens players could breathe, that was where they held the parade, and that was where an estimated one million additional beings had packed in tight.
Quentin felt an elbow bump on his left arm. He turned to look at Yitzhak, who sat in the seat next to him.
“Q, smile , will ya?” Yitzhak said. “Maybe try not to look like an anthropomorphic hayseed?”
“Shuck you, Zak,” Quentin said, but he smiled and waved. Hard to think that just hours earlier there had been functioning roads, packed sidewalks, grav-cars, taxis,
DAN: Oh come on, there’s no question! Quentin Barnes might have been good enough to get Ionath through the T2 Tourney, but the Krak-pack lost their starting running back, Mitchell “The Machine” Fayed. Ionath has no running game, and I don’t think their defensive backs can stop any Tier One offense.
TARAT: I think Quentin Barnes may surprise you, Dan. He’s a true warrior in the making.
DAN: Warrior? He’s from the Purist Nation! No Nationalite quarterback has ever led a team to a Tier One championship. Eh -ver. He’ll be lucky to live long enough to fail and go back to Tier Two. Let’s go to the callers. Line two from Citadel in the Tower Republic, go...
• • •
QUENTIN BARNES HAD NEVER SEEN a real parade before. He certainly hadn’t been in one, and most certainly hadn’t been a guest of honor.
Back on Micovi, the fundamentalist theocracy frowned on such things. There were processionals, sure — somber marches for the latest martyr, a funeral train for a passed religious leader, that kind of thing. Long lines of people dressed in blue robes, chanting, swaying, self-flagellating, doing everything they could to show their grief and anguish lest a neighbor report them for not feeling enough grief and anguish. Not showing enough anguish might lead to an inquiry, probably an arrest, and — quite frequently — yet another funeral processional.
There was no shortage of funerals in the Purist Nation.
So Quentin Barnes had seen lines of people walking down a street and he’d seen throngs of people lining the sidewalks, but never anything like this . So much color. So much noise.
So much... joy.
Ionath City’s rad-free dome was two miles in diameter. A full circle around Fifth Ring Road made for a trip of over three miles. Three slow miles. Even with a phalanx of riot-geared Quyth Warrior police dishing out random beat-downs, adoring football fans were still climbing over barriers and running up to the sixteen grav-train cars that traveled down the road’s center lev-track.
“This is crazy,” Quentin said to Don Pine, who sat on his right. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Don nodded. He was smiling, waving a cupped hand with a practiced motion. He called it his princess wave . “You’ll get used to this, Q. At least I hope you do. As many times as I’ve done this, it’s hard to be jaded looking at all these happy faces. Just you wait until you win the big one — this is nothing in comparison.”
Quentin found it hard to believe he’d ever think of this teeming mass of sentients as “nothing.” The city had placed dividers down the middle of each two-lane road that ran along either side of the lev-track. That let orange- and black-clad fans fill half of the road, and the sidewalk beyond, and the diameter roads that ran deeper into the city. Every window in the red, hexagonal buildings had several heads of various species sticking out of it. Krakens flags flew everywhere, from the small, hand-held kind to giant flags that were probably ten feet high and twenty feet long. Banners, flags, pom-pons, foam fingers, foam pincers, foam tentacles, jackets, hats, jerseys — more orange and black than Quentin had even known existed.
Ionath City’s urban dome normally held somewhere around 110,000 residents in claustrophobic closeness. Considering the dome was just about the only place most of the Ionath Krakens players could breathe, that was where they held the parade, and that was where an estimated one million additional beings had packed in tight.
Quentin felt an elbow bump on his left arm. He turned to look at Yitzhak, who sat in the seat next to him.
“Q, smile , will ya?” Yitzhak said. “Maybe try not to look like an anthropomorphic hayseed?”
“Shuck you, Zak,” Quentin said, but he smiled and waved. Hard to think that just hours earlier there had been functioning roads, packed sidewalks, grav-cars, taxis,
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