Chương 44: [No Wings in the Box]

The ground was a short walk from the bridge, tucked behind a row of streets that opened up around it. Up close the stands were visible above the surrounding walls, the pylons rising higher than anything nearby. Rika was still looking up at them as they reached the entrance.

"What are the tall ones for?"

"Floodlights," Leo said.

"The game gets played at night sometimes. Those light the whole pitch up so everyone can see."

"The whole pitch?"

"You'll see." The gate to the ground was open. Someone had been here recently, a scuff of boot marks in the mud near the entrance, a discarded water bottle just inside. Leo pushed it open and they went through. The pitch opened up in front of them. Green, wide, the stands rising on all four sides. Empty seats stretching back row after row, the floodlight pylons at each corner, the goals at either end. Torren stopped just inside and looked across it.

"How many people watch this?" he said.

"This ground holds maybe eight to ten thousand," Phil said.

"The big clubs in our country, the famous ones, their grounds hold sixty, seventy thousand. Wembley is the biggest, I think it's around ninety thousand. It's where England's national team play at home. Some countries have bigger." Torren looked at the empty stands and said nothing for a moment.

"Ninety thousand people," he said.

"Watching, what did you call it, football?"

"Yeah," Leo said.

"It's the most popular sport in our world. Every four years the World Cup is held, it's a huge tournament with international teams competing to be the best. The last tournament pulled in around five billion cumulative views across all the games. It lasts about a month."

"People go mental for it," Luka said.

"Singing, chanting, the noise is something else."

"Imagine ninety thousand people all singing at the top of their lungs," Phil said.

"The songs are often stupid, funny, sometimes offensive. But the atmosphere is unlike anything else." Shai looked at the pitch.

"So what actually is football?"

"Right," Leo said.

"Two teams, eleven players each. You're trying to get the ball into the other team's goal." He pointed to the far end.

"That one's yours, that one's theirs. The goalkeeper, the one protecting the goal, can use their hands. Nobody else can. Everything else is pretty much fair game."

"No hands," Shai said.

"No hands."

"That's it?"

"There's a bit more to it," Phil said.

"Ninety minutes, two halves of forty five. A referee keeps the rules, makes the calls. Both sets of fans usually think he's an idiot."

"Some of the goals people score are ridiculous," Luka said.

"Crazy angles, thirty yards out, top corner. The best players make it look effortless."

"And teams have rivalries," Sam said.

"Other teams they can't stand. They have songs for each other. Some of them aren't very polite."

"It sounds simple," Shai said.

"It is and it isn't," Leo said.

"Watching a good team move the ball, the way they link up, the timing of it, the drama when a goal goes in with five minutes left—" he paused.

"It's hard to explain. You have to see it." Phil had wandered onto the pitch and come back with a ball he'd found near the dugout, scuffed but usable.

"We could show you a bit," Leo said.

"Me and Phil on one team, you three—" he nodded at Sam, Luka and Parmo "—on the other." Rika's hand shot up.

"I want to be in goal." The boys looked at each other.

"Yeah alright," Leo said.

"Only thing you need to do is stop the ball crossing that line." He pointed to the goal line.

"That's it."

"I can use my hands?" If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"You can use anything," Phil said. Rika took her position between the posts, the Rubik's cube nowhere to be seen, wings settling at her back. Rika threw the ball into the air to start. Leo jumped for it, heading it down sharply to Phil who controlled it and drove toward the right touchline. Parmo tracked Leo, Sam and Luka went for Phil. He cut inside one of them, dropped his shoulder and left Sam flat footed, still moving, looking for the angle. He shot from the edge of the box.

Rika launched herself sideways toward the top corner, wings snapping open, and palmed it away one handed. Everyone stopped.

"Woah, woah, woah," Phil said. Rika landed and looked at them.

"What? What did I do?"

"You can't use your wings," Leo said, laughing despite himself.

"You said I could use anything."

"Yeah but we don't have people with wings on Earth. If we did the game would be completely mental. Imagine trying to score against that." Rika looked at her wings. Then at the goal.

"That does seem unfair."

"Just a bit yeah."

"Fine." She picked the ball up and threw it back out.

"No wings." Parmo received it, turned and slipped it to Sam. Leo closed him down fast, too fast, quicker than Sam expected, and got a toe to it. The ball broke to Phil on the right. He was already moving, taking it down the line, one touch, two, then he whipped it in. Leo had made the run without anyone tracking him. He met the cross at the far post, jumped, and smashed it downward with his head. It flew into the top corner before Rika's hands were anywhere near it. For a second nobody moved.

"Holy shit," Parmo said.

"That was a sick header mate," Luka said. Leo blinked. Then the grin spread across his face.

"Fuck yeah it was," he said, and ran straight at Phil, getting him up over his shoulder before Phil had any idea what was happening.

"Put me down you fucking bellend!" Phil shouted, legs kicking. Leo was already running down the touchline with him. The others lost it. Sam was bent double. Luka had his hands on his knees. Parmo was just pointing. Shai and Torren had watched from the side the whole time. When Leo ran past with Phil over his shoulder, Shai pressed her lips together and lost the battle with it entirely. Torren laughed.

They stood together watching the others recover, Rika already demanding they continue, Parmo insisting the goal didn't count for reasons he was making up as he went.

"Today's really been something," Torren said after a moment.

"Yeah I know, they have so much here. It's unlike anything I've ever seen." Agreed Shai.

"The supermarket. What it means. Not just for the town but for us, for the village." He watched the pitch.

"If we can learn even a small part of how they approach feeding people, what changes in Stonehall in ten years? Twenty?"

"Terry and the elders were already thinking about the southern plains. The greenhouses. That's just the start."

"And it's not just food. The medicine Mags spoke about. The things Gary knows about building. These aren't things to trade for and set aside. These are ideas that change how people live." He watched Rika arguing passionately with Parmo about a rule she had clearly invented on the spot.

"And these people. I think they could become genuinely close to many in the village. Not allies at a distance. Real friends."

"Dude you nearly took my leg off, I've only just got it back, Jesus..." Phil's voice drifted over. Shai smiled.

"Rika has already adopted half of them which is funny considering how much older they are. Parmo has ten years on her."

"Rika adopts everyone," Torren said.

"But yes." He watched Leo running away from Luka who was trying to kick his legs out from under him, still grinning.

"He's different today." Shai looked over.

"When we first met them he was quiet. Careful. Especially around you. Today he's—" He nodded toward where Leo was jumping for another high ball.

"Fucking hell Leo, watch where you're jumping, you nearly kneed me in the face you big prick," Sam's voice carried across. Leo spread his hands wide in protest. Shai's ears tilted forward.

"He's more himself," Torren said.

"Whatever he was carrying before, he's set some of it down today." Shai watched him for a moment without answering.

"Man, even with your upgrades Luka, you're still shit at this," Parmo called out somewhere behind them. Torren looked at Shai once then turned back to the pitch. She was watching Leo with a small smile on her face. They gathered themselves slowly, Rika retrieved her Rubik's cube from where she had flung it.

"Right," Leo said, slightly out of breath. He stopped. Looked at his hands.

"Actually, hang on."

"What?" Phil said.

"I'm not sweating." Phil looked at himself. Then at the others. None of them were. They'd been sprinting around a football pitch for twenty minutes and not one of them had broken a sweat.

"That's not normal," Luka said.

"None of this is normal," Parmo said.

"Did any of you notice how fast you were moving out there? Like actually notice it?"

"Yeah you're right," Sam said.

"My reaction when Leo intercepted that pass. I saw it coming before it happened almost."

"Still couldn't stop it." Leo grinned.

"My acceleration is completely different," Phil said.

"I used to play a bit, Leo too back in college, we were alright. That was something else though. We were better than a lot of Sunday league players with no game time in well over a decade." Leo was nodding.

"All of us. Not just me and Phil. The way Luka was tracking runs, the way Parmo was reading the game. None of you ever played seriously but that sort of thing is something you pick up over time."

"I'm shit at football," Parmo confirmed.

"I was not shit out there."

"The upgrade did more than get us in shape and fix what was broken," Leo said.

"We're way better at this than we have any right to be." They stood with that for a moment. Shai had been listening.

"That should help when training starts," she said.

"If any of you end up working with Kai or Ronan you're going to need every advantage you can get."

"Well that's reassuring..." Sam said.

"It wasn't really meant to be," she laughed.

"Right, anyway," Leo said.

"We really should get back." They left the ground and headed toward the meeting.