The Champion Read Free Page A

her music and acting — kept them apart, and they’d simply stopped communicating. He still loved her songs and always would, as they were one of the few things that had brought him happiness back on Micovi.
    Quentin hopped off the pool’s edge and sank in feet first. The scalding temperature sent needle stabs up and down his skin. He let himself sink to the bottom, soles of his feet resting on the algae-covered ceramic tile. Water surrounded him, so hot his body tried to rebel, but he didn’t come up.
    Down there, it was the opposite of the football field’s controlled madness, the locker room’s unpredictability or the unending pressure of real life. In the water, he weighed nothing at all. Floating above him were a dozen Ki linemen who considered him a warrior-brother, a combined seven thousand pounds of elite athlete who would do anything to protect him.
    His lungs began to burn. He had to go up, but he didn’t want to. If only he could stay under forever, stay under and just be .
    The sound of a body plunging into the water startled him, almost made him take a surprised breath. Becca, probably; she was the only one who joined him here. Maybe she would have some ideas on how to move forward. Maybe he could finally reveal his feelings for her, tell her what was in his heart. But was this the time for that? Did he need anything that might complicate the trip to save Jeanine and Fred?
    The burning in his lungs intensified. Almost time to surface. He focused — just a few seconds more.
    Another heavy splash. Then another, bigger than the two before it.
    Quentin opened his eyes and looked up. What little light filtered down showed three sets of Human legs slowly kicking in the water next to the dark mass of Ki.
    What was going on?
    He pushed off the bottom, heard more heavy splashes before his head broke the surface.
    There was Becca, all right, but treading water near her was John Tweedy and his brother, Ju. Hanging on the pool’s edge, off to the left, bodies only half in the water: Crazy George Starcher and Tara the Freak, the Quyth Warrior receiver. To the right, the hulking HeavyG form of Michael Kimberlin. And in the middle of the pool, the slithering mass of long Ki bodies winding in and out and around each other, purple lights gleaming off water-slick, pebbly enamel skin.
    Ju let out a puff of air.
    “ Jeez , Q,” he said. “This pool is mega-hot.”
    The words
SOOOOPER MEGA-HOT
scrolled across John’s forehead.
    “Sure is,” he said. “You’d have to be a dumbass to come here on purpose.”
    There was no humor in John’s voice. He’d just won a GFL title and had pledged to help Quentin find Jeanine, but he still blamed Quentin for Becca breaking off their engagement.
    Quentin looked at his teammates. Other than Becca, none of them had entered the Ki baths before.
    “What are you all doing here?”
    Becca eased closer, her black hair trailing behind her like a snake sliding across the water.
    “Messal told us to come, don’t ya know,” she said. “He should be here any second.” She glanced up to the ceiling. “Computer, music off.”
    The music stopped.
    Ju groaned. “Come on, Becca, I love that song. You don’t like Trench Warfare?”
    “No, I don’t,” she said. “I’m not a fan of ... of that band.”
    The door to the pool room opened, letting in a brief bit of stronger light from the hallway outside. Messal entered, the Quyth Worker neatly uniformed as always, along with Choto the Bright, already dressed in the Warrior equivalent of street clothes: loose-fitting gray pants and nothing else. The room’s steam instantly glazed his carapace, making the hard shell reflect the purple lights.
    Messal stopped at the pool’s edge, water already beading up on his clothes and fur.
    “Oh, my,” he said. “Is it always so warm in here?”
    John laughed. “See? Even Messal knows sense from shinola.”
    George Starcher raised a hand dramatically. “The Old Ones live and breathe in the