NR Ch. 05: Hail Mary

Patrick Bradshaw woke up the same way he did every day, to the sound of a shrill, blaring tone. Everybody in the Wasps compound woke up as one, lest they provoke the ire of their employers. If one of them triggered the pressure sensors in their bunks five minutes after the alarm, every single one of them would get a harsh shock between their legs. He wondered where the fucking bastards who ran the Wasps came up with this stuff.

Who installed electric chastity cages on their employees without being some kind of sadistic pervert? As if he didn't hate what was between his legs enough, it was repurposed into an instrument of torture. It was like team ownership had it in for him specifically.

As Patrick stood and made his way to the team shower, he wondered if everybody else in the Crown League was subjected to the same treatment as he and his teammates were. Players weren't allowed to interact with members of other teams socially, and if they were traded their memories of their time with their prior team was wiped to protect proprietary information. At least he'd stayed on the Wasps his whole career so he didn't have his brain fried. Players who were traded regularly could barely string a sentence together.

He stood there with his fifty-two teammates as water laced with chemical cleansers poured down on them. Well, perhaps not "poured" so much as "sprayed." There wasn't enough water on this godforsaken rock for them all to have water properly poured on them. Instead they got just enough of a mist full of stuff that would surely kill them to keep them clean. Patrick tried to breathe in as little as possible in here. He took full breaths the first time they were shoved in this box, and it felt like his lungs had been scoured with a wire brush for the rest of the day.

Patrick winced as the soapy water sank into the fresh flogging wounds on his back. Losing to a chickenshit team like the Cherries would've been bad enough, but losses didn't go down easily in the Crown League. The league's security forces would tie each player to metal posts and flog them live on camera, though whether that was to satisfy team owners or the bloodthirsty fans was beyond Patrick. That particular tradition only started when the Compact war began, and while the players weren't happy about it, they couldn't do anything about it. The league, and by consequence team ownership, held all the power. Patrick and his teammates could only obey their directives.

The far wall of the group shower opened and the fifty-three men proceeded out and dressed for practice in silence. Patrick missed the old camaraderie back on Terra. They used to behave like teammates, they used to talk like friends. Now? If they wasted time with frivolities like conversations in the locker room, they'd all be shocked. The microphones in there were hooked up to a transmitter to their cages. None of them knew the exact decibel level that would trip the sensor, but they'd learned to be careful. Three years of this treatment was enough to cow anybody into silence.

He enjoyed this job, once upon a time. Thank the stars, otherwise he wouldn't have made it this long in this hellhole. There was a certain poetry to football, an artistry to a perfectly constructed play run by teammates operating in perfect sync. When they were on Terra, the labor conditions were odious, but at least they weren't treated like slaves. They had homes, they could go on vacations, they even had actual pay. Maybe it wasn't as nice as he remembered it, but even a sliver of freedom sounded like heaven compared to this.

Patrick had no idea where they were now, somewhere far away from any prying vines. His new home was a series of steel compounds on a desolate asteroid, with the sucking void of space just outside any number of easily accessible airlocks. He suspected this was a repurposed military training facility from the aesthetics of the place, all corrugated steel and desolate barracks.

The second it became clear the Affini Compact was going to conquer Terra, that sliver of freedom was ripped from his grasp, apparently never to return. The working conditions were terrible, but they were never good. But those bastards had torn the one thing he ever had from him. He couldn't love his game anymore. He could deal with the miserable conditions here on this rock in the middle of nowhere, well outside Accord space by his estimation. But if he couldn't love football anymore, what did he have left?

Patrick sighed as he pulled his red practice jersey over his shoulder pads, looking around the locker room. He knew all of these guys like the back of his hand, they had grown up together. But ever since they came to this hideous rock, they were getting harder and harder to recognize. He had spent just about every day of his thirty years with them, and now they were all so beaten down they could barely stand to look each other in the eye.

He suspected that the microphones and cameras everywhere were in place to prevent the players from doing anything about their steadily worsening conditions. Authorities in the Accord did not take kindly to organized labor; when Crown League concessions workers tried to unionize, the leaders of the movement were shot in broad daylight. Patrick would point out that workers wouldn't feel the need to organize if they were treated well, but the league wasn't about to listen to his thoughts on the matter.

His cage buzzed with a gentle current, indicating it was time to head out to the practice field. Patrick and his teammates filed out the double doors to the field, an expanse of artificially vibrant grass under harsh fluorescent lighting. Everything smelled like industrial disinfectant, although there was a faint scent of rot that Patrick assumed was endemic to this planetoid before the Crown League showed up to make it their hidey-hole. If it was somewhere the Compact couldn't find for three years, it must've been a pretty miserable shithole.

"Let's go, you lazy pricks!" Ah yes, just what Patrick wanted to hear when he was already in a despairing mood. Coach Brian Cashwell was a member of a virulent strain of football coach: the shouting prick. In his life with the Wasps, coming up in their training academy and then as a member of the team, he'd had several coaches like Cashwell. But none of them were quite so relentlessly unpleasant as he was, and none of them had quite so much power over his players as he did now.

He hardly cut an intimidating figure. He was a hair over five feet tall, with a few wisps of greasy black hair he kept in a sickening combover. As ever, he was clad in a Wasps team tracksuit, with a comically oversized fanny pack on his right hip. Once upon a time, the players loved to make fun of him for it. Those days were long gone. They ended the second Cashwell heard one of the jokes and had the offending party tossed out of an airlock.

"You sorry sons of bitches are NOT going to put on another fucking performance like what I saw yesterday!" Cashwell hollered. He rarely did anything but holler. "Ten laps around the field, right now, get a move on! You are going to run until you fucking bleed today!"

Several of the players grumbled, a few muttered angry retorts under their breaths, but nobody wanted to stand up to him. What good would it do? The last time somebody talked back to Cashwell with any kind of venom, they got spaced. As the balding man was happy to point out, each of them was replaceable. Every year, the Crown League's genetic engineering improved, bringing up another crop of brainwashed recruits for the teams to draw from. If somebody displeased their team enough, they would be replaced.

Best-case scenario, getting cut from the league meant having your memory wiped and reduced to some kind of menial service role. Some of the lucky ones got to coach or work as trainers, but a lot of former players ended up working as glorified maids for the league. But these days, you were just as likely to end up a corpse floating through space.

"Word is Cato's getting spaced next time he drops a pass," a voice said to Patrick's left. It was Devin, the closest thing he had to a friend left on the team. Most of his favorite teammates had long since been cut, traded, or thrown into space. He suspected that the league was trying to isolate everybody and keep them under control, no wonder everybody's play looked worse these days.

"Who're you hearing that from?" Patrick replied, trying to act like the notion didn't bother him. Being openly bothered by spacings was often sufficient grounds to put you next in line.

"Nash and Brand," Devin answered. "They said they heard coaches talking 'bout it right after the Cherries game."

Patrick shot Devin a brief, worried look, finding him as disengaged as ever. Devin David was easy to talk to, but it was difficult to feel close to somebody so disconnected from the world around him. Patrick had no clue whether this was a defense mechanism or if he really didn't care about anything. How could anybody discuss such matters with nonchalance?

"Would be a bummer," Patrick said, fighting to tamp down his feelings. "Cato's a damn fine player."

Devin snorted. "Not since his boyfriend got spaced," he snarked. "Dumbass shoulda just kept his mouth shut, now we're down a left tackle all season and our X wideout's a fucking wreck."

Patrick scowled. How in the stars could Devin blame poor Sean for getting spaced? Cashwell tried to force him to come back way too soon following a broken leg, just arguing was enough to get him summarily executed. Jordan Cato, once a boisterous, lively, if slightly annoying, presence, was now a shell of himself. How was anything going to get better if his teammates thought like Devin?

"I guess," Patrick mumbled. He didn't dare say what he was thinking. This life may have been miserable, but it was still a life. Life had possibilities, life had opportunities. Floating through space would be nothing but a short burst of hellish suffering followed by endless nothingness. Keeping his head down may have felt like walking on his soul in cleats, but it kept him going.

The team flew through their laps, as they always did. Genetic modification worked a trick for athletic ability. They were all built to be stronger, faster, and a good deal more agile than normal humans. There were costs; cancer rates for former Crown League players were catastrophic. Patrick knew from when he was very young that he wasn't meant to die old. But at least it made miserable workouts a bit more bearable.

"Come on you fucking sissies, let's GO!" Cashwell bellowed. Nothing was ever good enough for that son of a bitch. Patrick longed to knock his block off. If running all the way around a football field ten times in ten minutes wasn't good enough for him, he had no idea what was.

"Prick," somebody behind Patrick grumbled. Devin shot him a dirty look.

"You're gonna get us all fried cocksucker, shut up!" he hissed urgently. "I don't want my junk zapped because you can't shut your mouth."

"Liar," a voice Patrick now recognized to be Jordan responded. "I bet you fucking love it."

"Are you calling me a fucking faggot, Cato?!" Devin demanded. He ignored a chorus of urgent shushing from his teammates. "I'll kill you!"

"You don't have the balls, David!" Jordan shouted. Devin didn't need any more than that, and he broke pace to pounce on Jordan and drag him to the ground, raining down punches on him and spewing homophobic vitriol. Jordan didn't even defend himself.

A reasonable coach would have rushed in to break it up. Coach Cashwell, on the other hand, stood thirty yards away and laughed his ass off. So it was left to Patrick, the ostensible team captain of this band of sorry misfits, to pull Devin off of his newly-bloodied teammate.

"I'll fucking kill you, you fudge-packing piece of shit!" Devin howled, struggling against Patrick's grip. "Let go, Bradshaw!"

"Get back to your laps, Devin," Patrick whispered urgently. "Cashwell's gonna fry you."

Devin kept fighting, trying to pull his way free to jump back on Jordan. Cato, for his part, lay on the turf, blood pouring out of his freshly broken nose. These days, it was rare to make it through a whole practice without at least one fight breaking out. Everybody was exhausted and on edge, everybody was worried about making a mistake and getting spaced. New academy recruits came up and joined the team seemingly every day to replace whoever ownership deemed expendable. It was no wonder they ended up like this.

"You fucking nancies can't even fight right!" Cashwell growled as he stalked up to the trio. The rest of the team continued their laps, leaving Jordan, Devin, and Patrick alone with their coach. "Bradshaw! What the fuck are you doing? Just let them fight. You can't let Cato call him a fag and not let him do something about it!"

"He didn't call him anything like that, Coach," Patrick said, still trying to restrain Devin.

"He called you a prick, Coach!" Devin interjected. "Then he said I liked getting fried!"

A cold fury washed over the stocky, balding Cashwell, and Patrick's heart stopped. He may have been a temperamental, violent man, but you really had to be scared when he got quiet. When his volume dropped and his tone grew clipped, it usually meant somebody was getting spaced.

"Is he telling the truth, Bradshaw?" Cashwell asked, his steel-grey eyes boring in Patrick's green ones. Great. Fantastic. He had two choices before him: lie and get spaced, or tell the truth and watch Jordan get spaced because of him. The slim wide receiver was never his favorite teammate, but that didn't mean he deserved to die.

On the other hand, what was the best-case scenario of lying? Devin would hate him for it and immediately contradict him, Cashwell would go check the security cameras, and then they would both get spaced. There was no way to win.

"He is, Coach," Patrick said, hanging his head in shame. Cashwell's nostrils flared, and he kicked the still-prone Jordan in the head as hard as he could. Then he reached into his fanny pack and pulled out a remote.

"You know the rules, boys!" Cashwell roared. He pressed a big red button on the remote, and all of the players collapsed as their cages lit up with a potent current. Patrick and Devin convulsed on the ground, inadvertently grinding against each other. Just what Patrick needed today, a nice dose of dysphoria to go on top of everything else. If he didn't know any better, he would swear Devin was doing this on purpose.

Cashwell held the button down for a full minute before releasing it, leaving his players shaking and twitching on the ground. He delivered another three swift kicks to Jordan's head, then grabbed his communicator and held it up to his ear.

"Yes, I have a new customer for you," he said, leering at Jordan. "Use the practice field airlock. I want these sons of bitches to see what happens to ungrateful brats who call me names."

He slipped the communicator back into his fanny pack, kicked Jordan again, brushed a few hairs out of his face, and strode away. Patrick wanted to cry, but that would get him fried again. He crawled over to Jordan and looked down at him. The receiver's gaze was a million miles away, Cashwell and Devin's aggression likely gave him a concussion.

"I'm so sorry, Jordan," he said, his voice breaking. Jordan Cato cracked a tiny smile.

"Why?" Jordan responded, his voice weak. "I've been dead since Sean got spaced. I can finally see him again."

Patrick had no response to that. He didn't think there was another side where he could see everybody the Crown League tore from him, but what use was there in breaking a dying man?

A door slid open on the far side of the practice field, and three men dressed in black tactical gear marched through. Patrick fought the urge to roll his eyes. Crown League security took themselves so seriously, it was ridiculous. They dressed like soldiers, complete with two guns and body armor. The players were much more likely to get hurt than the rent-a-cops were, but it seemed like more money went into their protective gear.

"Right this way, officers," Cashwell said. Funny how his tone was always sweet as synthsugar when he dealt with security staff. "The one laying on the ground."

"Affirmative," the tallest security man said with a grunt. "You said you wanted it public?"

"Absolutely," Cashwell said, leering at Patrick and Devin. "These pricks need to understand their place."

"You'd think they'd get it by now," the shortest security man said with a cruel laugh. "I didn't think they took out their brains in the fuckin' vats."

Two of the three security men took Jordan under the arms and lugged him over to the airlock, while the third hung back to talk with Cashwell. The airlock was simple, a door leading to a small steel box attached to the main building with an outer door that spelled your doom. Going into the airlock was a one-way trip, as far as Patrick knew, nobody who went in ever came back.

"Watch and learn, you pricks!" Cashwell called as the two security men unceremoniously dumped Jordan into the airlock. "This is what happens to replaceable cogs when they disobey orders!"

One of the security men hit the big red button labeled PURGE to the left of the door, sending Jordan to his doom. Patrick couldn't bear to look, instead directing his gaze over to Cashwell and the third security man.

"Yeah, we're heading out tonight," the security man said with a sigh, his bushy mustache wrinkling. "Copyright protection assignment, none of the comms units are available to respond after the raid on the relay base."

"Bullshit that you've gotta do it," Cashwell responded, a sick smile on his face as he looked out the window at Jordan.

"Eh, gets us off this fucking rock for a couple nights," the security man said. "Besides, we get to put these fuckin' things to use for once. Never gonna kill any wormheads around here."

Wormheads?

Patrick remembered that term from back on Terra. What was it the Affini called them in the propaganda? Florets, right? They claimed that the beings under their care lived pampered, carefree lives where they could pursue their passions liberated from the strains of capitalism. It sounded too good to be true, but then again, so did everything about the Affini.

"Wormheads" was an early Terran slang term for the pets. According to rumor, the massive plants implanted some kind of bug on every pet's spinal cord that controlled their minds and rendered them docile. Patrick always thought that was ridiculous, but even if it wasn't, he'd rather have a worm on his spine than go on living like this.

"We're running pretty low on bodies these days," the security man said, glancing down at his communicator. "Gotta carry this mission out down a man, Rodriguez got spaced last week."

"What for?" Cashwell asked, finally looking away from the window. Jordan must've been done thrashing.

"Who knows anymore?" The security man said with a sigh. "Not like those fat cats are ever gonna tell us."

Before he knew it, Patrick moved. He didn't know if this was a good idea, he didn't think enough for it to even classify as an "idea." But he saw a chance, a fleeting hope to get out of this nightmarish existence, and he took it.

"Officer!" Patrick exclaimed, his voice leaping up half an octave. "I want to help, there's no reason our brave security forces should be down a man for a dangerous mission."

Lying like that brought bile up in his throat, but he kept himself under control. The image of Patrick Bradshaw he projected was somebody endlessly loyal to the Crown League, somebody who would surely put himself on the line for the sanctity of its intellectual property. None of them had to know that he was desperate to escape more than anything else.

The security man cocked an eyebrow. "Bradshaw?" He said dubiously. "This isn't some high-flyin' hero shit, you're not gonna be the toast of the Accord for goin' on a copyright raid."

Patrick fought back the urge to roll his eyes once again. The Accord didn't even exist anymore, and he didn't expect to get good press for much of anything these days. It had been a long time since he was interviewed for a Crown League broadcast, they didn't bother with all of that anymore. Yet further points in his favor that this was purely an act of altruism.

"I know that sir," he said, putting on his most winning smile. "I owe the Crown League my life, it only seems right that I do what I can to protect it."

The security man looked at Cashwell for approval, who shrugged. "I've got another three of him in the academy right now if he dies," he said with a wave of his hand. "Will he be back before the next game?"

The security man stroked his mustache. "Shouldn't be a problem," he said. "Jump there, kill the wormheads, jump back. He know his way around a gun?"

"I do, sir," Patrick chimed in. "We all learned during the war in order to defend our home."

"Alright then," the security man said with a curt nod. "Be ready to go at 1900 hours on the dot or we leave without you."

He turned and strode away, his colleagues coming after him. For the first time in years, Patrick felt a burst of hope in his heart. It was a small chance, but it was a chance. Maybe now, for once, he could have a life that was his own.