Chương 174: Preseason, Giants @ Bills

August 2030, Highmark Flying Aces Stadium, 'Buffalo' NY"Welcome to ESPN's pregame coverage of the 2030 NFL Preseason. Tonight, the New York Giants face the Buffalo Bills in what promises to be a historic evening. Kickoff is in ninety minutes."

"I'm Jim Pasch."

"And I'm Dave Nantz. We are live from Buffalo, New York, where the temperature is a crisp sixty-two degrees and the energy in this stadium is absolutely electric. Jim, I've been covering this league for decades, and I have never seen anything like this for a preseason game." The camera panned wide, capturing the stadium bowl. Every seat was filled.

"Neither have I, Dave. Neither has anyone. The last time a preseason game sold out was 1987."

"1987. That was when the Philadelphia Eagles debuted the first Tier Five enhanced flying sword."

"A watershed moment for the league. And tonight might be another one." The aerial shot pulled back further. The parking lots were packed. Tailgate boats drifted in lazy circles above the stadium, their occupants grilling on open-air platforms while formation barriers kept the smoke contained. Lines snaked from the concession stands and bathrooms in every direction. The camera cut to a crowd shot. A sea of red and blue filled the frame, Giants colors everywhere. Each of them with the number seven.

"You know why everyone is here, Dave. You know why I'm here."

"Leo Chen."

"Leo Chen," Jim confirmed.

"We covered every aspect of his collegiate career. From his first game against Florida, where he scored a touchdown in forty-five seconds. To the Ivy League championship, where he dueled Mateo Thandril and won. To the CFL finals, where he dismantled Texas A&M's Azure Dragon Formation."

"And now he's here. First overall pick in the 2029 NFL Draft. The youngest flyer drafted in the modern era."

"But Dave, I have to ask the question that's on everyone's mind." Jim leaned forward.

"Is Leo Chen ready for the NFL?" Dave was quiet for a moment.

"That's the million-dollar question, isn't it? Is he going to be a draft bust, or is he going to be the next Tompa Brady?"

"The history isn't kind, Jim. In fact, there is no history. Nobody transitions from collegiate to professional play anymore. The last flyer drafted under forty was in 2009, and he washed out in two seasons."

"For context, the second youngest flyer in the NFL right now is fifty-one years old. That's Tariq Guidry of the Dolphins. Leo Chen is nineteen."

"Nineteen years old, going up against players who've been training their divine sense since before his parents were born."

"There's no blueprint for this, Dave. No comparable case study. Either Leo Chen is about to prove that raw talent can overcome decades of experience, or he's about to prove why the league stopped drafting young flyers in the first place."

"Well, everyone wants to know the answer. So we've brought in someone who might actually have it. Please welcome our special guest, Coach Maurice Williams of the Yale Bulldogs." The camera panned to the side of the broadcast desk. Coach Williams settled into the guest chair. The clipboard was absent but the intensity wasn't.

"Coach Williams, thank you for joining us."

"Thanks for having me."

"You coached Leo Chen from his first collegiate snap to a national championship. If anyone knows what he's capable of, it's you." Jim leaned forward.

"So give us your honest assessment. Can he make it in the NFL?" Williams was quiet for a moment.

"Leo Chen is the most talented flyer I've ever worked with. His divine sense growth rate is unprecedented. His omnidirectional awareness puts him in a category that most NFL veterans never reach." Williams paused.

"But talent isn't the same as experience. The NFL is a different animal. Faster. More brutal. The gunners alone will give him problems he's never faced before."

"So you're saying he might struggle?"

"I'm saying he's going to get hit. He's going to make mistakes. He's going to look like a rookie, because he is a rookie." Williams leaned back.

"But if you're asking me whether he'll wash out? No. Absolutely not. That kid has something you can't teach. He gets better when things get harder. The more pressure you put on him, the more he rises to meet it." Jim nodded.

"High praise from the man who coached him."

"It's not praise. It's just the truth." Williams shrugged.

"Of course, now I have to figure out how to win without him."

"How's that going?"

"We're rebuilding. The team that won the championship? All seniors. They walked off that field, collected their diplomas, and left me with an empty roster."

"That's brutal."

"It is what it is. We knew it was coming. You don't keep talent like that forever." Williams shrugged.

"We've got some promising recruits. The freshman class has potential. But this year? We're going to take our lumps."

"So no championship run?"

"Not this year. Probably not next year either. We're looking at a three to four year rebuild before we're competitive again." Dave winced.

"That's a tough timeline for a program that just won a national championship."

"Championships come and go. You want your players to outgrow you."

"Well, Yale got its money's worth before he left." Jim said.

"I remember two years ago, Yale couldn't print Flyer Seven jerseys fast enough. You sold out what, three separate runs?"

"Four."

"Four runs. And now it's the Giants' turn." Jim gestured at the crowd.

"Dave, look at this crowd. Red and blue everywhere. Number seven on every back. The Giants merchandise team must be thrilled. I heard they sold more Leo Chen jerseys in the first week than any rookie in franchise history."

"The kid's a marketing dream." The broadcast cut to a crowd shot. Jerseys, t-shirts, hoodies. Red and blue. Number seven on every chest. Dave squinted at the monitor.

"Jim."

"Yeah?"

"Those aren't Giants jerseys." The camera zoomed in. The logo on every chest wasn't the Giants' lowercase "ny." It was a bulldog.

"Coach Williams." Jim's voice carried a note of barely suppressed amusement.

"Is Yale selling Leo Chen merchandise at an NFL game?" Williams didn't even try to hide the smile.

"We prefer to call it our 330th anniversary commemorative collection."

"In Giants colors?"

"I believe the official color designation is 'Bulldog Crimson' and 'Yale Navy.'" Dave laughed.

"Coach, those are the exact same colors as the New York Giants."

"Are they?" Williams feigned surprise.

"I hadn't noticed."

"You're telling me it's a coincidence that Yale released a special 330th anniversary jersey in red and blue, the exact same week Leo Chen makes his NFL debut?"

"Red is the color a Yalie bleeds." Williams' voice was steady, but something twitched at the corner of his mouth.

"And blue is blue, Jim. These are Yale colors. Three hundred and thirty years of tradition." He paused to hold back a smirk.

"If the Giants happen to share our distinguished color palette, that's their good fortune." Dave stared at him.

"That's the worst legal defense I've ever heard."

"I'LL SEE YOU IN COURT, WILLIAMS!" The shout came from somewhere off-camera. A voice cut through the crowd noise. Williams didn't miss a beat. He turned toward the source of the voice, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted back with the full force of his Foundation Establishment lungs.

"GOOD LUCK WITH DISCOVERY!" The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. The crowd erupted in cheers. Jim and Dave exchanged glances. Jim's hand came up to cover his microphone, but the gesture came a half-second too late.

"And that's... that's Coach Williams, everyone." Jim recovered his composure.

"Head coach of the Yale Bulldogs. Thank you for joining us, Coach."

"My pleasure, Jim." Williams was already standing, waving to the crowd with both arms raised. The Bulldog Army roared their approval. Chants of "BULL-DOGS! BULL-DOGS!" rolled through the stadium. For a moment, Jim could have sworn he was broadcasting from the Yale Bowl.

The locker room was quiet. Leo sat on the bench, checking the straps on his armor for the third time. He'd worn this exact set through three weeks of summer training camp, knew every buckle and plate by feel, and it still didn't sit right. The Giants' equipment was heavier than what he'd worn in the CFL. Tier 4. 5 protection meant denser spiritual alloys, thicker formation layers, more weight pressing against his shoulders.

His fingers brushed the dense cluster of array runes along the collar, the ones designed to scatter hostile divine sense before it could latch onto his spiritual sea. Every player in the league wore the same protection, which meant Scholar's Ink was useless here. The door opened. Coach Harbach walked in alone.

"Chen. A word." Leo stood.

"Coach." Harbach crossed to him, lowering his voice despite the empty room.

"I need you to hide the micrododging." Leo stared at him. Three weeks of camp. Three weeks of the coaching staff treating his shrapnel-threading like the most valuable weapon in their arsenal. And now, an hour before his NFL debut, Harbach wanted him to hide it.

"Coach, I can't control it. When flak detonates near me, my body moves."

"Word came in ten minutes ago." Harbach's jaw was tight.

"Every team in the league sent scouts. All thirty-one. Recording equipment, formation analysis arrays, the works. They're here for you."

"Then bench me."

"I'd love to." Harbach's laugh was humorless.

"We sold two hundred thousand tickets. You're on every billboard from here to New Haven. If Flyer Seven doesn't take the field tonight, we'll have a riot on our hands."

"Then what do you want me to do?" Leo's jaw tightened.

"It's not a technique I activate. It's reflex. The moment I try to suppress it is the moment I lose it."

"I'm not asking you to suppress anything. I'm asking you to stay out of situations where you'd need it. One game. That's all." Silence stretched between them.

"I'm sending Deluca and Kowalski out with you." Harbach stepped back.

"Two starters. Their job is to keep you out of trouble. Stay behind them. Let them draw fire. If the gunners focus on Deluca, you won't need to dodge anything."

"You're putting starters in a preseason game?"

"I'm protecting an investment." Harbach's expression softened slightly.

"The story tonight is that you belong here. That's all we need. We control what they see, we control the conversation going into week one." Leo exhaled slowly.

"Yes, Coach." Harbach nodded and left. Leo sat back down on the bench. His hands were steady. His breathing was even. But somewhere in his chest, something hurt. He had spent weeks training his body to react without thinking. To thread gaps between shrapnel fragments at speeds his conscious mind couldn't process. Now Harbach wanted him to leash that instinct. The door opened again. Vince Deluca walked in, followed by Dale Kowalski, their starting Linebacker. Kowalski was older than Vince.

He had a weathered face, deeply tanned from decades of outdoor practice. He wore his armor precisely, every strap cinched, every plate aligned. Yet on his head sat a hat made of aluminum foil. At this point Leo had stopped questioning it. Three weeks of camp, three weeks of the hat, three weeks of overhearing conversations in the locker room that made him wonder if Kowalski was insane or if everyone else was naive. The tower shield strapped to Kowalski's back was nearly as tall as Leo.

Standard linebacker equipment. Kowalski's job was coverage and interception. Project barriers, block incoming fire, buy time for flyers to reposition. In three weeks of scrimmages, Leo had never once seen him out of position.

"Hey, pal." Vince dropped onto the bench across from Leo.

"You ready for this?"

"Ready as I'll ever be."

"That's the wrong answer. You're supposed to say 'born ready' or something like that. Give me a little confidence here." Kowalski sat down and produced a roll of spiritual tobacco.

"Thirty-one teams," he said.

"All here tonight."

"For Chen," Vince said.

"Obviously."

"For the halftime show." Kowalski lit his tobacco with a flicker of qi.

"Buffalo booked a children's choir from Syracuse. Forty-seven kids. You know how many kids were in the choir last year?"

"Dale."

"Forty-six." Kowalski let that hang.

"One extra kid. Nobody's asking why." Leo stared at him.

"The scouts aren't here for the rookie." Kowalski took a drag.

"They're here to see who that forty-seventh kid belongs to." Vince sighed.

"That doesn't even..."

"But hey." Kowalski exhaled smoke.

"I'm just a linebacker." Leo fought the urge to laugh. Kowalski's aluminum foil hat had been easy to accept. His conspiracy theories were something else entirely. Leo still hadn't figured out the right facial expression for "I respect you enormously but you just said something completely insane."

"Okay." Vince slapped his knees and stood.

"Before Dale gets to the part about the fluoride in the Gatorade, let's talk about the actual game." He pulled out his spiritual coordination nexus and tapped it twice. A faint spiritual pulse rippled from the device, and Leo felt the familiar thread of qi brush his awareness. Every Center in the league carried a nexus. The spiritual treasure let Vince communicate with the entire team instantly. In scrimmages, his directions had come through clean even when flak explosions drowned out everything else.

"We're running overload," Vince said.

"Three of us pressure their fort, force both gunners to track us. You and Kowalski stay high and stay quiet. If we do our jobs right, nobody even looks at you."

"Clear." Vince stood.

"Alright, let's..." The door banged open. Harbach stood in the frame, Kowalski's helmet in hand. He crossed the room without a word, plucked the foil hat off Kowalski's head, crumpled it, and dropped it in the trash.

"Helmet," he said.

"Coach, the league-mandated helmet contains tracking..."

"Helmet." Kowalski put on his helmet. Harbach left. The moment the door closed, Kowalski reached into his armor and pulled out a second foil hat. Deluca groaned.

The tunnel opened onto a wall of sound. Leo stepped onto the sideline and the stadium erupted.

"LEO! LEO! LEO!" The chant found a rhythm. Boots stomped. Banners waved. The stadium was a sea of red and blue, and Leo could see the number seven on every chest, could feel the weight of every eye in the stadium turning toward him.

"LEO! LEO! LEO!" He stepped on his flying sword and lifted off. The crowd roared louder. He rose above the sideliens and banked into a wide figure-eight. Below him, the Giants' fort bristled with activity. The Soldiers were taking their positions. The Gunners were running final checks on their flak cannons. Across the field, the Bills' flyers mirrored them. Five figures in white and red launched from their own sideline, beginning their own warmup routines. Leo flew past Vince. The old man was grinning.

"Chief." Vince's voice came through the spiritual coordination nexus.

"You hear that?"

"Hard to miss."

"Let me tell you something." Vince banked closer, his squat silhouette somehow graceful on the sword.

"Two hundred thousand people paid money to watch you fly. Preseason tickets usually go for thirty bucks. Tonight they're scalping at four hundred. That's a thirteen hundred percent markup. You know what that means?"

"That I should've negotiated a better contract?" Vince laughed.

"It means you're already a star, pal. Everything else is just paperwork. And I'm telling you, you play your cards right, you could move serious product. Endorsements, licensing, the whole deal. You ever think about home security? I've got a formation kit that would look great with your name on the box." Leo didn't respond.

"Just think about it. I'll send you a catalog." Leo completed another circuit of the field. The chant followed him wherever he went.

"LEO! LEO! LEO!" Kowalski drifted into formation on his left, tower shield angled to catch the light. The aluminum foil hat was gone, replaced by the league-mandated helmet, but Leo could see a suspicious glint beneath the visor.

"The lighting array," Kowalski said.

"Notice anything?" Leo glanced up at the formation barriers overhead. Standard stadium illumination. Nothing unusual.

"What about it?"

"Three banks instead of four. They reduced coverage by twenty-five percent." Kowalski's voice was perfectly flat.

"You know what happens when you reduce lighting by exactly twenty-five percent?" Leo opened his mouth to respond. The announcer cut him off.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR BUFFALO BILLS!" The Bills' flyers completed their warmup patterns and descended toward their fort. The crowd's energy shifted, the Bulldog Army booing while scattered pockets of Bills supporters cheered. Leo watched the Bills take their positions. Standard zone coverage. Nothing special.

"Alright." Vince's voice came through the nexus, all business now.

"Remember the plan. Stay behind Kowalski. Let us draw fire. You're here to look pretty and stay alive."

"Understood."

"Good. Here's the thing. We go out, we do our jobs, we give them absolutely noth..." Vince stopped mid-sentence. Leo felt the shift through the nexus. A flicker of attention. Vince's qi signature.

"Vince?" No response. Leo banked toward him. Vince was hovering motionless above the one hundred-yard line, his eyes fixed on the Bills' fort.

"Vince. What is it?"

"The gunners." Vince's voice was quiet.

"Look at the gunners." Leo directed his divine sense toward the Bills' fort. He recognized both gunners instantly. He had watched the pair dismantle the Patriots' flyer rotation in the film room. He knew their tendencies, their timing, the way they staggered their flak patterns. Starters. Both of them. First-team All-Pro. They had no business being on the field tonight.

"Vince." Leo's voice was flat.

"Those are their starters." Vince didn't respond. He was staring at the Bills' sideline. Leo followed his gaze. Two flyers were lifting off. At the same moment, two others touched down, stepping off their swords and jogging toward the bench.

"LAST-MINUTE SUBSTITUTION. BUFFALO BILLS REPLACING BOTH WINGS." Starting Wings in. Hurns and Snead. Backups out. Leo remembered what Harbach had said in the locker room. Every team in the league sent scouts. All thirty-one. Recording equipment, formation analysis arrays, the works. Someone had coordinated this. Someone had gotten word to the Bills that the rookie had a technique worth exposing.

Someone had arranged for every other team to be in the stands with their best equipment, ready to capture whatever the Bills' gunners could force out of him. A league-wide operation. Targeting a player who hadn't taken a single NFL snap. Somewhere across the country, analysts were already drafting countermeasures for a technique he hadn't even used yet. The referee's platform rose. Thirty seconds to kickoff. Leo felt the Bills' gunners extend their divine sense. Both of them. Locking onto him simultaneously.

Just him. Two hundred thousand people chanting his name. The entire league recording everything. Two All-Pro gunners with their divine sense locked on his chest.

"LEO! LEO! LEO!" The starting horn fired.