Read Away Games: Science Fiction Sports Stories for Free Online Page A

to justify my expense account,” I said.
    They exchanged looks. The bartender started rubbing the totally clean surface of the bar with a cloth. “Up to you,” he said at last. “But don’t say you weren’t warned.”
    “This was my idea,” I said. “You’re off the hook.” I turned to Jeremy. “You want to point out the school to me?”
    “Walk out the door, and it’s two blocks down on your left,” he said. “It’s mostly empty these days, but back when the real Damika was around, we used to fill just about every desk in every room.”
    I thanked him, left a tip on the bar, and walked out of the tavern. I turned left, walked two blocks, and since I was looking ahead at the school I almost tripped over a drunk who was sleeping it off at the edge of the sidewalk. (It had been a slidewalk, but I suspected the mechanism hadn’t worked in a couple of centuries.)
    “Excuse me,” I said as he grunted in surprise. “Are you all right?”
    “I will be,” he said, getting unsteadily to his feet. “My own fault for not going all the way home last night.”
    “Maybe you’d better head for home now,” I said. “Better late than never.”
    “No, it’s almost practice time.”
    “What are you practicing?” I asked.
    “Not me ,” he said. “Them.”
    “Them?”
    “The team,” he said. “It’s the only pleasure I get these days.”
    “So you’re a fan,” I said.
    He spat on the ground. “I couldn’t care less about basketball.”
    “I’m a little confused,” I said. “I thought you said …”
    “Basketball is where we fell from our exalted position,” he said. “It’s the only way we’ll ever recapture it.”
    “There are lots of ways,” I said. I’m a coach. I know. The world doesn’t change because you win or lose a game except that their world did.
    “Not for Plutarch,” he said. “You know, every time a baby boy is born, people gather around it and try to see if he could possibly be the One.”
    “The one?” I repeated.
    “The One who will lead us back to glory.”
    “What makes you so sure it’s got to be a basketball player?” I asked. “Why not some other sport?”
    “Football, murderball, baseball, prongball, they all have bigger teams and take more equipment. Look at us. We’re lucky to field a basketball team.”
    “Well, let’s go take a look at them,” I said, and we walked off toward a playground on the side of the school.
    A few minutes later classes were let out, and about two hundred kids left the building and headed off for their homes. But about twenty stuck around the court to watch, and after another five minutes ten young men came out in shorts and t-shirts. Their coach immediately divided them into two teams—but not with five on a side. One side—the shirts—had seven players; the other—the skins—had only three.
    There was one kid on the skins I couldn’t take my eyes off of. The scrimmage hadn’t started, but he moved with such an animal grace, carried himself with such confidence, I knew he had to be Damika Drake.
    The coach gave the ball to the shirts, and they began bringing it down the court. Drake jumped into a passing lane at the last second, intercepted a pass, dribbled the length of the court, and took off like a helicopter. He couldn’t have stood much more than six feet, but he had a vertical leap of better than forty-five inches. I’d never seen anything like it.
    Next time the shirts came down the court they kept the ball away from Drake, finally shot it up, and missed. His head was higher than the rim when he grabbed the rebound. He fired an outlet pass to a teammate who waited for him to catch up, then fed him the ball near half-court and he put it up from there. Drained it, as if it was something he did every day (and for all I knew, he did.)
    The kid was everywhere. I wasn’t keeping official score, but in the ten minutes I watched I think he grabbed eight rebounds, blocked five shots, picked up four assists, and