Kobayasho nodded, as did the other players.
“Break!”
The Krakens lined up. The Demolition dug in. Quentin surveyed the defense, and saw Yalla drifting to the offense’s right. Quentin’s instincts screamed at him to call an audible, change the play to a dive left to take advantage of the cheating middle linebacker.
Run the plays I call, Quentin heard in his mind.
“Hut-hut!”
The ball slapped into his hands and he pivoted to the left. He put the ball in Fayed’s stomach and turned with the running back, guiding him to the line. Just before Fayed crashed into the mass of bodies, Quentin pulled the ball out and pivoted hard to his right. He sprinted to the sidelines. The defense had bought the fake, all were converging on Fayed… all but Yalla the Biter. The monstrous, pitch-black-eyed Quyth Warrior linebacker went into a side-roll, staying flat to to the goal line as he matched Quentin’s horizontal movement. Kobayasho bounced to the outside, but he was covered by the Demolition cornerback.
Quentin thought about the pass for one more second, then tucked the ball and sprinted for the corner of the end zone. Kobayasho instantly reacted to the situation, turning and blocking his defender, taking her out of the play.
That left only Quentin and Yalla the Biter.
Yalla popped out of his roll and sprang forward, hitting Quentin at the two-yard line.
You wanna mess with me? Quentin thought as he switched the ball to his right hand and threw his left forward in a vicious, snarling upper-cut. His fist slammed into Yalla’s chest, bounced up, and nailed the Quyth Warrior right between the pedipalps. Yalla reached out and grabbed at Quentin’s jersey as sharp teeth slashed Quentin’s left hand. Yalla’s full weight slammed into him — Quentin stumbled, but recovered and drove forward. His momentum pushed Yalla backwards, just a touch, but it was enough. They both started to fall… Quentin managed two more powerful strides on the way down, and landed after the ball just crossed the goal line.
Demolition 21, Krakens 18.
Flags flew. Unnecessary roughness on Yalla the Biter, to be assessed on the kickoff. The Krakens offense ran off the field to the boos of the Demolition faithful. Yalla’s bite had torn open the skin on the back of Quentin’s left hand, a bloody gash running from the knuckle on his index finger to the middle of his forearm. Blood poured from the wound, leaving an intermittent trail on the white playing field. Pine met him halfway, his cane doing a double-time that barely kept up the pace.
“Quentin, you idiot, why didn’t you audible out of that? I could see from here that Yalla knew the play, and I know you saw it!”
“I run the plays that are called,” Quentin said as he jogged back to the bench, leaving the crippled Pine behind him.
“Doc!” Quentin shouted, oblivious to the shoulder pad and helmet slaps his appreciative teammates threw his way. “Doc get over here!”
The Harrah doctor glided over, his tentacles immediately grabbing Quentin’s wrist in a surprisingly strong grip.
“Sit still,” Doc said firmly. “This is a deep cut, we’ve got to get you to the locker room for the healing tank.”
“Forget that!” Quentin yanked his hand away. Blood flew in all directions. Teammates stopped what they were doing and stared at him, but he saw nothing except Doc, who was now no more than another obstacle trying to stop him from winning.
“You fix this up right now!” Quentin’s face twisted into a mask of challenge and fury. “I’ve got to put another three on the board.”
“You’re out of the game!” Doc yelled back.
Quentin’s eyes widened to giant white balls spotted with flecks of pure black. He suddenly rushed Doc, grabbing his floating body, finding it surprisingly light. He started to shake Doc when Yitzhak and Yassoud grabbed him, pulling him away.
“Jesus Christ, Quentin, stop it!” Yitzhak shouted as he stepped between Quentin and Doc.
Quentin ignored him, looking over Yitzhak’s shoulder and shaking his blood-dripping finger at Doc. “If you don’t fix up my hand, I’ll bounce you off the ground like a damn toy, you got that? I don’t care if you have to cauterize it with a damned branding iron, stop the bleeding.”
Doc hung there for a second, then reached into his bag and pulled out the now-familiar blue strip. He wrapped it around Quentin’s shredded skin. Yitzhak and Yassoud let Quentin go, cautiously, as if he might snap again at any second. Quentin hissed as the acid-like sting spread through his hand. Blood pooled up around the edges of the blue strip and dripped to the trampled white plants below. He looked down, seeing that his blood had stained his orange jersey with stripes and splotches of bright red.
Doc held Quentin’s hand tight as he removed the blood-soaked strip, now a deep purple, and applied another.
Yitzhak, leaned in to examine the extent of injury. “Hey won’t that put too many nanocytes in his body? Can’t that cause liver damage.”
“Shut up,” Quentin growled at Yitzhak. “And don’t bother getting warmed up, I’m going back in.”
The second strip also turned purple with blood. Quentin felt as if his hand was being cooked from the inside out.
“It’s not working,” Doc said. “The lacerations are too large, and you’ve got an arterial tear. The nanocytes can’t bind it up. We need to put your hand in the healing tank, Quentin. The gel in the tank is programmed to hold your skin together long enough for the nanocytes to do their work.”
“I don’t have time for the damned tank!” A string of spittle flew from Quentin’s mouth to dangle from the bottom bar of his facemask. He looked up at the scoreboard: 3:12 to play, the Demolition with the ball, second and three on their own 32. As soon as the defense stopped them, the Krakens would have a chance to win the game. He wanted to be on that field, and he wanted to win. He quickly looked around the sidelines, searching for an answer.
Then he saw Messal.
“Messal! Get your box and get over here, now!”
The manager turned at the sound of Quentin’s bellowing voice, quivering as if a Quyth Leader had done the yelling. He scrambled to grab his box off the bench, then ran to Quentin.
“Get that thing you used to fix my jersey,” Quentin said.
Messal pulled out the gun-pliers. Doc took one look at the device, then looked at the ugly stitch running up the front of Quentin’s jersey.
“Absolutely not!” Doc said. “We will not use stitches on Human flesh!”
“Do it, Messal,” Quentin said.
“Use that on him and I’ll have Gredok fire you,” Doc said. “I mean it, Messal.”
Messal started to put the gun-pliers away. Quentin reached down with his right hand and grabbed the short Quyth Worker by his left pedipalp.
“You use that thing on this,” Quentin said, holding up his bloody left hand, “or I will kill you, cook you, and eat you.”
Messal quivered like a tuning fork. He reached out and gently pinched together the skin on both sides of the cut. Yassoud moved in and wrapped his arms around Quentin’s left arm, holding it still. Quentin felt Ki arms snake around his chest, their strength holding him immobile. He looked over his shoulder — Kill-O-Yowet’s black eyes stared at him, only inches from his own.
Messal looked up, the obvious question burning in his one eye.
“Do it,” Quentin said through clenched teeth.
Messal pulled the trigger. Quentin’s eyes grew wider still as a new level of pain seared through his arm. He tried to pull back, but Yassoud and Kill-O-Yowet held him still. Messal slid the gun-pliers up the cut in a smooth stroke, and it was over. Quentin stared at his arm — the edges of the skin pursed out a quarter inch from his arm, smeared with blood and roughly stitched together with Kevlar thread, like the seam of his jersey. Echoes of the needle-and-thread pain ripped through his arm, but through that he still felt the burning of the nanocytes. That burning intensified on the stitch itself — the tiny machines were trying to do their job.