I’ve been toying with writing a story for a couple of years. Haven’t gotten very far but thought I’d put up some of what I’ve written so far just to see if it was interesting to anyone at all.

“Welcome back to Omnibowl 27. I’m Jim Edwards along with Tokado Yomito and Phillipe Denard with continuing live coverage from the new Ariel Tel Aviv stadium. It’s Third and 78 from the 235. Rio de Janero sends 6 wide right, 3 left. Yokohama responds with a triple-layer prevent. RdJ snaps to an 11 man wide 10 man double core. Yokohama feathers the flanks, sets up a shock. Ball snaps.”

The thunderclap of the lines drown out the 200,000 plus in attendence. Surgical corner strikes take out 5 of the receiver set. Shock blitz tears a hole right but offensive countershock left keeps it from penetrating inner shell. 6 receivers are 40 yards deep into the second perimeter in under 3 seconds and now at full speed.

Santos looked out over the field from the safety of the inner pocket. He gives thanks that the he could still see over the smaller 10 foot inner linemen. Heads up visor vector displays show Emmanuel as the highest probable reception. Santos wasn’t paid 200 million Gs a year to think about doing anything other than what the display told him to do.

Emmanuel heard the audible tone indicating he was primary receiver and accelerated along his vector. He focused on the reception trusting his armor to handle the expected impact of the Yokohama tertiary.

Takada Otoma, the defensive operator for Yokohama, smiled. He took a serious gamble on this play, purposely making a couple of the corner strikes miss and feiging follow-on coverage. Just as Santos went to Emmanuel, Takada released 3 of his corners and 2 safeties to the projected convergence point. The RdJ offensive coordinator hit the alert. Santos could only watch as the ball arced the 150 yards to Emmanuel.

The warning audible sounded in Emmanuel’s helmet. He’d heard it a few times before in his career, probably more than any other receiver. He’d always been able to handle it. He just needed those few extra centimeters and he knew he could make it through. He started to make his move but something was wrong. The anticipated acceleration he’d always expected didn’t come. His eyes opened wide and a sudden stomach punch of fear hit him.

So did the first two corners. One high, one low, while the two safeties hit him in the front and the back, one at base of his skull the other in his stomach. His nanoarmor was designed to react to one or two, possibly three simultaneous hits, but not four. It buckled almost instantly. Things might have been only game-ending at that point. Unfortunately the third corner was Okama Noguchi.

The biggest and fastest of the Yokohama corners at 8′ 3″, 350 lbs, Okama was trained to use his 2.9 40 yard speed to hit “last to last”. He started out just a little behind his teammates and aimed for the small of the back. Normally this kind of hit would be enough to severely strain the nanogear, taking him out for the game.
The gear failed completely when Okama struck. Emmanuel’s spine snapped so loud, it could almost be heard outside the massive Tel Aviv dome. One harsh sound came from Emmanuel’s throat and then just a gurgle. The last thing he saw were the lights from the helodirigibles above, floating gently, filled with party gods looking down on the arena from comfortable amphitheater seating.

“Whoa, Emmanuel is down on a terrific convergence play by Yokohama. Wow! That was pure genius. A full 5 back hit. Haven’t seen one of those all year.”

“You’re right, Bob. Terrific play. Looks like Emmanuel is down. His gear seems to have failed. Helodroids are on the way out to pick him up. We’re going to have a substitution time-out. Looks like we’re going to take an injury timeout. We’ll be back after this.”

Except for the familiar sound of a spine snapping, Morgan wasn’t paying attention to the play at all. He wasn’t watching the field. He couldn’t care less. No American team had made it past the opening round in a decade. No, the stands were what interested him the most; a certain section in particular. Looks like he might have something to do anyway today.