//------------------------------// // Bad Beats // Story: Tales Of The Canterlot Deportation Agency: Jack // by Estee //------------------------------// "Ask her out." "No. You ask her out." "I'll ask her out if you ask her out." The banter, at least for general style, might have been familiar to anyone wandering through the high school between classes: two teenage males issuing each other dares, displaying a bravado which provided a poor evolutionary substitute for plumage, and that would have drawn no attention whatsoever. The pairing, however, was still regarded as being somewhat unusual. The taller of the two -- they were both on the tall side, but in this case, 'taller' meant a full 6'4" -- had unruly black hair, a lean face which frequently showed signs of lost sleep around the eyes. He had a chin which was slightly too strong, and a nose that might have been overly narrow. It could be argued that he was attractive, but he achieved that quality without being handsome: female gazes occasionally rubbernecked in his presence, mostly as if regarding a particularly fascinating accident. His body had the long muscles of someone whose athletic devotion outshone the academic, and any college scout would have taken a look at the way he casually steered around obstacles and immediately pinned him as a point guard. Several had. And then everything had happened, and the scouts had stopped coming around. The shorter (all of two inches) was also the thinner. He had what some might call a 'geek physique', which meant the majority of his exercise came from lifting concepts which most people couldn't even begin to get off the ground. Too thin, and skin so pale as to approach albino was made worse by insufficient exposure to sunlight. The lack of weight made his already-angular features sharp enough to cut. His best physical aspect might have been the blonde hair, but that was already showing cruel signs of early receding. His companion had told him that he'd been given one of nature's great skull shapes and the best thing to do was just surrender early and let the dome shine on. The blond, especially when it came to any advice meant to help with female interaction, had doubts. "On three," said the taller. "One, two --" "They're not even in this hallway any more. They went into Spanish." It was supposed to be the last year of Spanish classes. He didn't see any point to having any language other than English spoken in his city, and had bribed up laws which discouraged immigrants to suit. (It really didn't matter what languages the slaves he put to work in the secret places spoke, because they were never allowed to talk at all.) "So ask out the air. It'll be practice." An extravagant gesture accompanied the words, one which pulled up the sleeve enough to reveal the bandage on the wrist. "Besides, the air might say yes. Nora, though..." Vic sighed, rolled ice-blue eyes. Jack grinned. It was something close to a perpetual tease between the two (relatively new) friends: their mutual lack of luck with women. For Vic, it had been a life-long condition: he was devoted to Knowledge and Science, so when Hormones had come calling, they had found the only subject which the school's resident genius (already interning and doing so for him) had voluntarily left off the schedule. Vic had a crush on Nora. Anyone who hung around him for so much as ten seconds (as long as those ten seconds had her in that general area) would realize it, see the red rising in near-white cheeks just from proximity. And Nora was friendly and open and rather accepting of just about anyone who was at least polite in her presence: add in the shifting curves of her figure and just about a third of the school had entertained a few fantasies about her, with more than a few trying to get smartphone pictures for private review. However, as accepting as she was, there was something of a condition for admission: you had to be capable of speech. And whenever Vic got close enough for the blush to rise, his frozen vocal chords very much left him out. Jack, however... Jack's isolation on the social scene was a new thing: just one more aspect of his changed life. Before it had all happened, he'd been one of the stars, and there were girls who went for that. He'd been through a few of them, no more than three dates each, trying to find one who didn't just want to attach, because everyone knew Jack was going places and that meant there were girls who wanted to be pulled along. He'd been given advice about spotting the worst of them, had learned to recognize some of the others through their level of need for gifts, plus he'd had a built-in screener ready to swing into action at all times. Jack couldn't have any girl he wanted -- but when the action had still been on the court, he could have dates any time he liked, sex might have been on the table at all times, and he'd still never gotten the one he truly wanted because she didn't go for jocks. He wasn't a jock any more. He wasn't... ...besides, there was no more screener. There had been the Jack from before that last game, and there was the Jack from after. They knew each other, understood what had happened, and the one from the present would never be that other teen again. That was part of it. Most of the rest was the other one. Vic didn't ask Nora out because he thought he'd be rejected. Jack didn't ask his dream girl out because even after all that had happened, perhaps because of all that had happened, there was a chance she'd say yes, and... Jack and Vic were friends, these days. The general consensus around the school was that Vic, near-freak Vic to go with all the other freaks Jack had been accumulating, was all Jack could currently get. Because Vic was seen as being socially blind, deaf, mute, and so wouldn't understand the risks. Vic understood those risks better than anyone. And that was part of why they were friends. "Got banged up during the pickup game?" that recent friend casually asked, and Jack could almost hear the true words lurking underneath. Most of their public conversations were conducted in subtext. It got hurt again, didn't it? "Yeah. Well, you know -- I've got to get back to the hardwood eventually, right? Especially with college getting so close." It's fine. It's practically a scratch. And college was no longer approaching at all. "I want to look at that later. You're your own worst medic. Probably just slapped some tape on it and called it a night." Damn it, Jack... "Fussbudget. Old maid." Stop worrying. (There would have been other terms, but Jack didn't use certain words any more.) "Maybe I've got something that'll help." I need to check you. "Fine..." Jack threw his arms into the air, raised palms to beg rescue from uncaring deities. "If you've gotta." Usual place. Fussbudget. He briefly wondered where 'fussbudget' had come from. It was a fun sort of word, but it really wasn't one of Jack's -- "-- so ask her out," Vic said as they approached Algebra II. "Tomorrow." Part of it was an act. Trying to look normal. Like there was nothing unusual in their lives at all. "Maybe." No. Jack had accepted Vic as a friend. In many ways, it had been a slow process, and in just about every way, a reluctant one. For Vic felt Jack was an idiot, and there were many ways in which Jack agreed with him. Vic also thought Jack was insane, and Jack... well, if it was true, it was someone else's problem. "And don't fall asleep in class again." Too many hours. Too many nights. Too many injuries. "It's algebra. It's got a bra in it and it's still boring." I'm fine. "If I have to hear Mr. Kuttler wake you up one more time... 'Mister Napier! Are we boring you?'" You're going to die. Jack paused at the door. "Probably will." Probably will. Jack hadn't known Vic all that well -- before. Oh, he'd known him on sight: you could hardly miss him. He'd been aware that the other teen was such a giant nerd that he had given him some lab space in one of the Foundation's buildings, and Vic went there most days after school and for huge portions of most weekends, which pretty much answered the question of where any prospective first date with Nora would actually wind up. He'd considered such sterling intellect as something which had to be acknowledged, and the way he'd chosen to acknowledge it was through -- -- he didn't understand why Vic had forgiven him. Why so many people had just -- forgiven. Maybe it was part of his new friendships. Or maybe they all just figured Jack had been through enough already. He hadn't known Vic all that well, and so he hadn't been aware of the teen having placed a secondary lab in the basement under his house. Victor still went to the Foundation facilities, and did a lot there -- but the majority of the real work was now conducted in a place Jack could freely visit. Even with Vic fully understanding the risks, that work went on. Jack understood Vic a little better now, and so knew that Vic had also taken three days to make sure the entire house was free of surveillance devices, along with putting in a few tricks which waited for anyone stupid enough to try installing a few. There was a long table in the basement lab. It had been clumsily padded, all the better to allow it to act as an examination area. (Victor's parents hadn't seen that. They truly trusted their son, and so never entered the basement.) Jack had stripped to the waist, all the better to be examined. And Vic was busy taking a sample of his blood. Vic always took blood. The vampire jokes had run out after two months. "Normal," Vic eventually announced after spending what felt like far too much time with the microscopes and things which mostly existed to spin. "I'm still not seeing any residue buildup. And I'm still not counting on that continuing to be the case. With everything you've been subjecting yourself to, everything you're breathing..." "I trust your stuff," Jack smiled. (It was a small smile, and often took an effort to force into the world.) "I'm fine, Vic --" "-- it wasn't supposed to work that way!" A long-fingered pale hand lashed out to the right, hit a box on a nearby shelf, a metal near-cube lined with wires and tubes. One finger accidentally touched a button, and the fluid flowing through those tubes gave off an electric flash. Vic yelped, pulled his hand back, began frantically blowing on his fingers. Jack immediately pushed himself off the table. "What happened?" A moment was spared for looking at the somewhat frost-covered near-cube which now sat on the shelf. "Are you okay? What is..." "Heat sink," Victor muttered. "Computers run too hot. I wanted a new heat sink. It works so well, it freezes itself up and just about anything touching it, until the components freeze and the whole thing shuts down. Which takes less than two seconds. It's worthless, Jack, and that's why it's on the reject shelf. I can't do anything with it..." He compulsively rubbed his hands together, checked the skin's color. "I'm fine. I've just got to take it apart already, before something stupider happens." Blue eyes moved, automatically came to rest on the bandages around Jack's wrist. "Something else I didn't mean to happen..." Jack was already standing. He was close to Vic, and -- -- no. Too weird. Guys didn't hug, especially not off the court when it hadn't just been a huge win, and really not when one of them didn't have a shirt on. But he wanted to do something, and... Jack being in his basement was a big thing. Vic had security measures, maybe stuff no one had ever seen before. And maybe that would be enough, if it ever came to that. But it could come to that. And Vic still wanted Jack in his house, several times a week. To monitor Jack, to show him what had just been added to the arsenal even as Vic tried to talk his friend out of ever using any of it again. Vic understood the risks -- and Jack was still invited over, as much as he needed to be. So he didn't hug Vic, because that felt weird. Instead, he said the hardest words. "None of us mean for a lot of stuff to happen. It -- happens anyway. That's the joke, Vic." Every word was bitter on his tongue. "That's the fucking joke, and -- maybe something else which wasn't supposed to happen can be the last punchline." They looked at each other for a few seconds, until Jack finally reached for his shirt. "Are you going out tonight?" Vic quietly asked. "It will. I already told it that it'll get some time. During transition. That transfer point is out there. One way or another, we've all got to pin it down. Shut it down. I don't know why we've been dealing with one at a time so far, but he opened up a new one after the last lab it managed to close, and if getting this just buys some time --" "I want to talk to it. Usual time and place." The words had been calm. Strangely so. "New equipment to test?" Jack asked. It was usually a good idea to give it a little practice time before anything went out into the field. "No. I just think -- I want to talk, Jack. Let me meet you at the other place. I won't be followed, and you -- aren't. I know you're worried, but... he doesn't suspect you. To him, you're done. Because... stuff happened. To you. And..." The angular head dipped. Thin legs shuffled. "...I didn't mean for any of this to happen... I didn't -- I didn't goddamn know..." Neither did I. Neither had he, a lifetime ago. "I'll see you there tonight." Jack began to pull the shirt on. "But I've got a meeting before that, so I might run a little late." "Who are you meeting?" "The Princess." Its lifetime. "I'd better get out of here," Jack quietly said. "We're getting close to curfew. Sneaking out at night is easy. Getting inside in daylight after the gates close is a lot harder." He'd been a star. Anyone who knew Jack understood that. His father had been joking about it ever since first grade, how the family could spend on anything without having to worry about the cost of one college education, because his son was destined for a free ride. (The jokes came over dinner. They always had dinner together at home after a game, win or lose.) And Jack had basked in it. His place, even when he was just the littlest kid, had been on the hardwood. He could aim, shoot, weave around just about any defense. His court vision... there were times when he swore he could see the whole floor, and a point guard ran that floor, directing his entire team. The coach on the spot, the improviser when everything went wrong. He was good. So good, good enough to attract college scouts, good enough that the voucher system which ran the city's schools had coughed twice and looked the other way before letting him into the best choice. Good enough to -- well, that was where Jack's ego tended to run out. He knew his father dreamed of seeing that son in the pros. Multi-millionaire, respect, endorsements, and a way out of the city which so few ever seemed to truly escape. And even then, there had been jokes around the dinner table, that he might arrange for Jack to be drafted as a hometown hero. Jack hadn't been sure, though. He knew he was good -- on the city level. (A huge city, one with a population larger than some states and a nearly-as-big sister across the bay -- but still just a city.) He'd never pitted himself against the world, and some of the colleges which started to come around in his freshman year, scouting... they would give him that opportunity. Maybe he was good enough for the pros. Maybe he wasn't. You didn't find out until the highest level of competition came to you, or you to it. Until then, he didn't know, and letting his ego believe it without proof was one of the best ways to get curb-stomped. But on the city level... people knew him, in surprising numbers. He could have little favors here and there, as long as he was asking someone close to his own school. He also had trouble wandering too far: those of rival institutions would take any chance to inflict damage. Some girls tried to attach themselves, but his sister was good at spotting the motivations for the ones where Jack's head was just a little too hormone-fogged for his own good. (He had a type: short, small-breasted, athletic without fully being aware of it. His crush, who had refused a place on the school's gymnastics team simply because she hated competition, cheering, and unitards, qualified for all of that. Plus she wore glasses. There was something about those glasses...) He had friends on the team and people who didn't want to be his friends so much as his posse' because if there were millions coming, they wanted all of it spent on them. His mother usually got rid of them. Jack could do just about anything he liked, and what he'd liked most of all was taking advantage. He'd... ...he'd been a dick. He had teammates. He had a coach. He had his family. One group of likes, one put-up-with-a-little-longer, and one group of loves. He'd also had people he insulted, shoved, berated, maybe casually tripped, there might have been some punches here and there, and about sixty percent of his vocabulary in talking about guys who couldn't stay on the court with him (because that was the only possible measure of success) had been 'fag'. Plus variations. He'd casually shoplifted a few times. As long as he stayed in his own precinct, who was gonna arrest him? He'd conducted his little beta-male-assessment sessions in full view of a few teachers. Wasn't like they could make him miss a game. Jack had been a city-great point guard, and an all-world asshole. Didn't matter. As long as he dominated the court, he dominated life. Even in a city where so few people ever seemed to leave, where his shadow loomed over everything, where no one really talked about him in any way other than jokes and before you did so, you made sure no one was listening. Because he loved the city. It was his. It had been the morning of the city championship, and Jack had been walking to school. He usually did. Extra exercise, right? Besides, the whole walk was his turf now, and he wouldn't be trapped on a bus with losers. And it was warm, for season and city, so the walk felt good. He swung his arms a little as he strode. An imaginary ring weighed down one hand. "Hey! Hey, it's Napier, right?" He turned, because he always had time for a fan and if this wasn't one, if a rival school had sent someone into his turf, well -- Jack had protection. As long as he was close to home, there was nothing which could touch him. Nothing and no one. On that day, nothing did. The man was in his late twenties. Close-cropped dark hair, eyes which went over Jack like someone evaluating a steak: this is the grain, this is where we have to trim, and we put the knife in here as soon as we want a cut to the bone. Jack had recognized that. Mostly in memory, when it was far too late. "Yeah," Jack acknowledged. (He'd already decided to be relatively polite. Part of him thought it could be another scout: too young for a recruiting coach, but he hadn't committed to a college yet, he was having fun playing them all along...) "Something I can help you with?" A quick nod. "Big game tonight, huh?" "The biggest," Jack acknowledged. The biggest around here, anyway. And still there was nothing wrong. Just street chatter. The man's hand went into his pocket, extracted a card. He offered it, and Jack's practiced eyes noticed the smoothness of all movements. A natural acrobat, maybe even a practiced one. "Take this." Probably another agent. He automatically took it, looked at the front -- -- it dropped from his fingers. It took a second before it drifted to the sidewalk, and then the wind blew it against his sneakers. "Lose the game," the man told him. It came out as a prediction. A guaranteed vision of the future which was just waiting for the present to catch up with it, and wasn't all that happy about the delay. Jack couldn't move. Couldn't run, and there was nowhere he could have run to anyway. Not from... He'd seen the symbol on the card. Everyone knew that symbol, and no one ever talked about it. No one who wasn't with him would ever hand out that card. To do so would have meant -- well, not death: that was another thing which didn't get talked about. But still... if you lived in the city, you knew. "I --" "It's easy," the man said, smiling. "He thinks the other guys should take the trophy. He's got a bet down. Well -- more of a mortal lock, you know what I'm saying? So -- help him out. Miss a few baskets. But keep it close, because he's also got a separate bet on the spread, and he knows it's going to be a close game. Losing at the buzzer? That's perfect. He'd consider it a favor. Something he'll remember. And -- well, you haven't met, right? Of course you haven't. But if you did, you'd know how much he loves having things come out exactly the way he thinks they should. He thinks the other team will win. So prove him right for me, willya? As a friend?" It was a warm day, oddly so for season and city. Jack couldn't seem to feel any of it. The phantom jewelry on his finger had vanished. "I can -- tell the team --" he'd finally managed. "We'll all --" "-- just you," the man said. "No one else has to know. Should. Will." "But -- I can't control --" "Everything can be controlled," the man cut in. "That's what he thinks. That's what he does." "-- someone goes on a hot streak, he wants it close and if I don't have the ball at the end, losing at the buzzer -- if I missed too much, Coach would pull me off the floor. If I kept it close --" The eyes flashed. "Keep." "-- and I don't have the ball, if the play is wrong, if anything happens..." He was sweating. He was trying not to shake. His eyes were fighting to leave the man's face, check the street for anyone who could save him. "It's about control," the man said. "Point guard runs the floor. So keep control. He's got his guarantee in. His mortal lock. You don't want to be the guy who proves him wrong, do you? You want to be the guy who gets invited over for a consolation dinner where he tells you all about how much he understands doing your best, even in a losing cause. You want -- to lose." But no one and nothing came down the street, and the odds were that the road had been temporarily closed. That too was control. Jack wanted to lose. He wanted it more than anything in his life. But... "...there's eleven other players on my team. Twelve for the opposition. I can't control everything they all do. I can try, but..." "Mortal. Lock." "...what if I..." He couldn't finish. The man stepped closer. A incidental foot movement put the card through a sewer grating. And then one of those smoothly-moving arms came up, hand forward with the palm down. He had to reach up just a little, and then that hand was on Jack's shoulder. In the nightmares, the ones where he relived the day over and over, he always realized something which had not come to him at that moment, the knowledge which made him wish he could wake up screaming. Because in the night, he realized that the man, in his way, had thought his next words were what Jack needed to hear. It was the only way that emissary could perceive anyone else thinking at all. He was trying to be comforting, and could not be. The man's smile was friendly. The eyes were mostly filled with other people's blood. "Don't worry," he told Jack. "You'll live." Most of the school day had been spent in a fog. He could barely remember being on the bus he had to ride, the one which took them to the venue. The coach's pregame pep talk, always stupid, was forgotten. But he remembered the game. Every second of it, down to the very last. He'd... stayed at school. He often did that on game days: they knew he'd eat something at the stadium. The stadium, this time. City championship. He owned the building, as he owned so many others, and the pregame spread was... who was it who'd been famous for throwing up just before virtually every basketball game he'd ever played? Eleven rings -- Russell. Bill Russell. Jack gave him belated company. He'd kept his head over the thankfully-clean toilet for an extra minute while wondering if it was a ritual which would stick. He hadn't told anyone, because... he couldn't. He moved through the stadium and where it normally seemed as if so many people watched him, it now felt as if everyone did. One desperate moment had seen him nearly break, go for his phone, and -- the network had been down. Or his phone wasn't able to recognize it. Of course, he also ran the electronics for the building, and owned the phone company. No calls. No wifi. No anything. On the court, practicing, with the ball bouncing off numb fingers. But he'd been on his game. He had to be. A puzzle with twenty-four moving parts and two people who felt they were directing all of it. Plus referees. Refs could screw up everything. He'd have to watch his foul count. He could have gone to the refs. A coach. Any other player. But it had been Jack. The star. Back to the locker room. Hearing the crowd fill in outside. And then he'd gone out there. Stared up at some twenty-two thousand people occupying the seats for the city championship. Looked at nearly all of them, except for three who were a few rows back from courtside, because -- he couldn't. And that one skybox, because no one ever did. Gametime. His coach had shown him the statline a few days later. He'd thought it would be comforting, somehow. Jack had... well, there was more than one reason he no longer played, at least officially, and it turned out that once things had ended, the automatic overlooks had gone right with them. But on that night... Jack had run the floor. It had been the game of his life. He'd made shots when he had to, then missed them when he needed to even more. He'd seen which of his teammates were gathering heat almost before they did and put them on a cold streak through directing the ball away. He'd had to be careful. Subtle: even with a coach so stupid that he would bring out the newspaper later, the idiot almost caught on. But he'd been doing it. And the other team? He'd never missed so many assist passes in his life or rather, had them land in exactly the wrong hands. He got beaten on defense just enough. There was a huge element of luck to it all: he couldn't control their shooting, he didn't have the height or a center's positioning for blocks. But somehow, perhaps from the strength of desperation, the will added to a constant stream of prayer... There had been three seconds to go. Down by one. Possession arrow was theirs. But they were at the wrong end of the court. He'd tried to talk the coach into giving him the ball on the inbounds. It hadn't worked, because the man was stupid and Jack had been carrying him for several seasons: the reasoning was that everyone would have been expecting Jack. So it went to Masters -- who was instantly boxed, had risked a between-the-legs bounce pass and he'd had the ball in his hands with time running out, the other team winning lose at the buzzer but he was too good a player to freeze, lose track of the clock, get caught dribbling as quad-zero hit twenty-two thousand people watching him and only one counted so he'd brought the ball up... A lifetime of training. Form. Plant. Push. Any player would do the Hail Mary heave. Such heaves typically missed, and Jack missed the entire backboard. The ball went into one of the hoop's support girders instead. Then it bounced. He tried to spot them, as the others swarmed around him. He tried to reach them. He couldn't. The bodies pressed in, the cameras were everywhere, he would be on YouTube forever with several million views and he would never be able to watch a minute of it. He tried to get out of the crowd. He called out and no one ever heard him. But they did not try to reach him, for it was his game, and they never wanted to be caught in the crush. They always talked about things later, at home, as a family, win or lose, and so as soon as that impossible rebound went through the basket, they'd headed for the exits. Even with blowing off everyone possible, it had taken Jack twenty minutes to get out of the stadium, and still more before he'd reached the house. As it turned out, the promise had been good. Jack lived. The first body he'd found, with the thick fibers of a basketball net stuffed into her throat, had been his sister.