Justice for one before justice for all. It’s inequitable, sure, but equity isn’t one of the rules in T.K.’s game of life. Retribution. Retribution is a rule, maybe the cardinal rule. That and vengeance, swift and bitter. IBC is behind it all, but IBC is a big, impersonal corporation. Harv Matision, on the other hand, is something T.K. can see, smell, hate and, yes, best of all, destroy. How does one go about explaining that, explaining the whole concept of manhood to a man with negotiations for balls. T.K. strips the cloth from his face. “That’s my final word, Senator. After the Killerbowl. Not one minute before.”

Senator Abelman, drained of arguments, lowers his head and walks away.

A cameraman pans after him, following him out of the locker room door. This shot, plus one before of him talking to T.K., plus an audio pickup of their entire conversation is all fed into the control room, still active for the after-game color.

The programming adjuster watches it on the master console, listens to it through his multi-channeled earphones, and immediately picks up a vidphone, a bright green one, the direct line to Pierce Spencer.

“Mr. Spencer,” he says when his employer answers, “there’s something you should know.”

Visual: The IBC logo, a football overlaying stylized representations of a knife and a rifle.

Announcer: Catch all the action, all the time, right here on IBC, your street football network.

(The preceding message is broadcast on the half hour every single day of the year.)

Monday, September 6, 2010

Methodically, with all the persistence of a metronome cast in the shape of a fist, Pierce Spencer hammers his desk with his hand.

Bam. “Damn that son of a bitch.” Bam. “That miserable bastard.” Bam. “First Abelman, now Mann.” Bam. “I’m surprised he didn’t print up a fax sheet and pass it out on street corners.

All the while her boss rants, Ida Moulay sits pristinely off in one corner of his office, acting as a sounding board for his rage. She doesn’t interject any opinions of her own, nor, in this situation, is she expected to. Working out seemingly insurmountable problems is a technique Pierce Spencer has raised to the level of high art. Like most artists, he enjoys displaying his talent to a receptive public. Hence Ida Moulay. A smile at the right moment, a nod of assent, an admiring wrinkle of the brow, a subtle underscore to the artistic ego.

“I took care of Deutsch.” The bastardly son of a bitch referred to earlier. “I turned Abelman into a laughingstock. Now I’ve got to deal with Mann.”