Reincarnated As A Wonderkid-Chapter 580: Goosebumps

The year was 2155.

Neo-Tokyo.

The city did not sleep. It didn't even blink. It pulsed with neon veins of purple and electric blue. Cars didn't drive; they hummed through the air on magnetic highways. The rain was synthetic, programmed to fall at 2 AM to clean the streets.

Alex Finch sat in the locker room of the "Sector 7 Youth Academy".

He was ten years old. Again.

But his eyes were old. They held the weight of three lifetimes.

He looked at his boots. They weren't leather. They were made of "Hyper-Weave" and had small thrusters on the heels.

Gravity Ball.

That was the game now. It was football, but vertical. You could run on the walls. You could jump twenty feet in the air. The ball was heavy, made of a dense alloy, but it floated if you hit it with the right spin.

"It is just physics," Alex whispered to himself. "New variables. Same equation."

The door to the locker room slid open with a pneumatic hiss.

Mark zoomed in. He was wearing a silver jumpsuit that was too tight. He had a pair of goggles on his head and a jetpack strapped to his back (which was against regulations, but Mark didn't care about regulations).

"I AM THE ROCKET MAN!" Mark screamed, hovering two feet off the ground. "ALEX! I FOUND THE CAFETERIA! THEY SERVE PIZZA IN A TUBE! IT TASTES LIKE CHEESE AND THE FUTURE!"

"Mark," Alex said. "Turn off the jetpack. You are scorching the floor."

"I AM WARMING UP THE TURF!" Mark argued, spinning in a circle. "I AM A HUMAN DRILL!"

Rico walked in. He was wearing boots that glowed in the dark. He was tapping a rhythm on the wall.

"The beat is different here," Rico said. "It is electronic. Boop-beep-boop. But I can still samba to it."

"You can samba to anything," Alex smiled.

Milo burst through the ventilation shaft (he refused to use the door). He was wearing a coat made of fiber-optic cables.

"THE DATA BROKER!" Milo shouted, dusting off his knees. "ALEX! I HACKED THE OPPOSITION'S MAINFRAME! I KNOW THEIR WEAKNESS! THEY ARE ALLERGIC TO EMOTION! I AM SELLING TEAR GAS! (It is just onions in a jar!)."

"Milo, we don't need onions," Alex said.

"WE NEED AN EDGE!" Milo yelled. "THEY ARE CYBORGS, ALEX! REAL ONES!"

Alex looked at his team. His friends.

They had found each other again. Across time. Across death. Across the void.

But today was different. Today was the District Final.

Against "The Mecha-City Titans".

A team of bio-enhanced kids who had microchips in their brains to calculate trajectories. They didn't make mistakes. They didn't feel fear. They didn't feel anything.

The locker room was cold. The steel walls hummed.

The other kids in the academy looked terrified. They were ten-year-olds facing machines.

"We are going to lose," a kid named Jett whispered. "They calculate faster than us. They run faster than us. They are perfect."

Alex stood up.

He walked to the center of the room.

He looked small. He looked like just another kid in a shiny suit.

But when he spoke, the room went silent. The hum of the lights seemed to fade.

"Perfect?" Alex asked.

He looked at Jett. He looked at Mark. He looked at everyone.

"You think they are perfect because they don't make mistakes?"

Alex shook his head.

"Let me tell you a story," Alex said. His voice wasn't a child's voice. It had the timber of a captain. The weight of a legend.

"I knew a man once. His name was Danein Blake. He played in the mud. In the cold. He wasn't fast. He wasn't strong. He made mistakes every day. He missed goals. He lost games. He died with nothing."

Mark stopped hovering. He landed on the floor. He listened.

"But Danein Blake had something the machines don't have," Alex said. "He had hunger. He had a fire in his belly that hurt."

Alex walked to the whiteboard. He picked up a digital pen. He drew a heart.

"Then I knew a boy named Leon. He was a genius. He saw the numbers. He saw the code. He thought he could solve football like a math problem."

Alex looked at Maya (who was sitting in the corner, analyzing holographic data).

"But numbers don't bleed," Alex said. "Numbers don't cry when they lose. Numbers don't hug their best friend when they win."

He looked at Mark.

"And I knew a man named Alex Finch. The Professor. He won everything. Gold. Silver. History."

Alex paused. The silence was heavy. It was a silence you could touch.

"Do you know why he won?" Alex asked.

"Because he was smart?" Jett asked.

"Because he was fast?" Mark suggested.

"No," Alex said.

He walked over to his locker. He pulled out the ball. The heavy, metallic gravity ball.

He held it up.

"He won because he knew that this..." he tapped the ball, "...is not a machine. This is a dream."

"The cyborgs out there," Alex pointed to the door. "They have chips in their brains. They have algorithms in their legs. They know the probability of every shot. They know the physics of every pass."

Alex stepped closer to the team. His eyes were burning.

"But they don't know why we play."

He looked at Mark.

"Do they know the feeling of eating pizza after a win?"

"NO!" Mark shouted. "THEY EAT BATTERIES!"

"Do they know the feeling of dancing when you score?" Alex asked Rico.

"No," Rico said softly. "They have no rhythm."

"Do they know the feeling of selling a fake rock to a tourist?" Alex asked Milo.

"THEY HAVE NO HUSTLE!" Milo screamed.

Alex turned back to the terrified kids.

"They are perfect," Alex said. "And that is their weakness. Because football... Gravity Ball... whatever you call it... it is not about perfection."

Alex's voice dropped to a whisper. It gave them goosebumps. Real, shivering goosebumps.

"It is about the mistake," Alex said. "It is about the moment when the plan fails, and you have to use your heart. It is about the deflection. The scuffed shot. The lucky bounce."

He put his hand on his chest.

"They have processors," Alex said. "We have souls."

"They have oil," Alex said. "We have blood."

"They have calculations," Alex said. "We have... magic."

He looked at Mark.

"Mark. What are you?"

Mark stood up straight. He ripped off his goggles.

"I AM THE EMPEROR OF THE STARS!" Mark roared. "I AM NOT A PROGRAM! I AM A GLITCH! A FAST, HUNGRY GLITCH!"

"Rico?" Alex asked.

"I am the music," Rico said, his boots glowing brighter. "I am the beat they cannot calculate."

"Milo?"

"I AM THE MERCHANT OF CHAOS!" Milo yelled. "I AM UNSUSTAINABLE ECONOMICS!"

Alex turned to the rest of the team.

"Tonight," Alex said. "We do not play their game. We do not try to be perfect."

He smiled. It was the smile of the Wonderkid.

"We play our game. We make a mess. We run where we shouldn't run. We pass where we shouldn't pass. We confuse their sensors with our joy."

"We are humans," Alex said. "And humans are impossible to predict."

"So," Alex held out the ball. "Who wants to go out there and break some machines?"

"ME!" Jett shouted.

"US!" the team roared.

"FOR THE PIZZA!" Mark screamed.

The energy in the room shifted. The fear evaporated. It was replaced by something hotter. Something wilder.

Hope.

The Tunnel.

The Mecha-City Titans stood on the other side. They looked impressive. Silver suits. Glowing red eyes. They stood perfectly still, synchronized breathing.

Their captain, Unit Alpha, looked at Alex.

"Probability of victory: 99.8%," Unit Alpha said in a robotic monotone.

Alex looked at Unit Alpha.

"Variable missing," Alex said.

"What variable?" the cyborg asked.

"The goosebumps," Alex smiled.

Mark stood next to Alex. He leaned in towards the cyborg.

"Hey Robot," Mark whispered.

"Query?" Unit Alpha asked.

"Do you know what a whoopee cushion is?"

"Database search: Negative."

"You are going to learn," Mark grinned.

The platform rose. They entered the arena.

The stadium was a dome of glass and steel. Holographic advertisements floated in the air. The crowd was a mix of humans and droids.

The whistle blew.

The game started.

The Titans were fast. They moved in geometric patterns. Perfect triangles. Perfect lines.

But Arsenal (Neo-Tokyo Branch) were... weird.

In the fifth minute, Mark got the ball.

The Titans calculated his trajectory. Straight line. Intercept point B.

But Mark didn't run in a straight line.

He saw a holographic advertisement for 'Moon-Burgers' floating near the sideline.

"BURGER!" Mark yelled.

He ran towards the hologram. He jumped off the wall. He used his thrusters.

He flew over the Titan defenders.

"Error," Unit Alpha said. "Illogical movement."

Mark landed. He passed to Rico.

Rico didn't control the ball. He let it hit his knee, then his shoulder, then his head.

The Titan sensors couldn't track the ball. It was moving too erratically.

Rico volleyed it.

It hit the post.

CLANG.

The ball bounced out.

Alex was there. The Professor.

He saw the angles. He saw the vectors.

But he didn't use them.

He closed his eyes. He felt the history of three lives flowing through him.

He hit the ball with his heel. A blind backheel.

It rolled slowly.

The Titan goalkeeper, a massive droid with four arms, calculated the speed.

Intercept in 2.4 seconds.

But then, the ball hit a divot in the synthetic turf (probably made by Milo earlier).

The ball bobbled. It changed direction by two degrees.

The droid's hand swiped at empty air.

The ball rolled into the net.

GOAL.

One zero. Humans.

"ERROR!" The Titans shouted in unison. "PHYSICS VIOLATION!"

Alex ran to the corner. He slid on his knees, sparks flying from his boots.

Mark landed on top of him. "WE BROKE THE CODE!"

"We broke the logic!" Alex laughed.

Milo was on the sideline. He had hacked the stadium scoreboard.

Instead of 1-0, it now read: HUMANS: 1, TOASTERS: 0.

"I AM THE HACKER KING!" Milo screamed into a headset. "BUY MY SOFTWARE! IT IS CALLED 'CHAOS 1.0'!"

The game continued.

The Titans tried to adapt. They increased their processing speed.

But they couldn't calculate Mark's hunger. They couldn't calculate Rico's rhythm.

And they couldn't calculate Alex's heart.

In the ninetieth minute (or whatever time it was in the future), the Titans equalized. A perfect, laser-guided shot.

1-1.

Last play of the game.

Alex had the ball. He was on the wall. Gravity boots locked in.

He looked down at the pitch.

He saw Mark running. Mark was running upside down on the ceiling.

"MARK!" Alex shouted. "DROP!"

Mark disengaged his boots.

He fell from the ceiling.

Gravity took over.

Alex chipped the ball up towards the falling Mark.

Mark was falling fast.

"I AM A METEOR!" Mark screamed.

He met the ball in mid-air.

He didn't head it. He didn't kick it.

He belly-flopped onto it.

OOF.

The ball shot out from under his stomach like a cannonball.

It flew past the confused droid goalkeeper.

It smashed into the net.

GOAL.

Two one.

Mark landed on the pitch. He bounced.

"I AM ALIVE!" Mark yelled. "AND I AM HUNGRY!"

The final siren blared.

Victory.

The kids from Sector 7 had beaten the machines.

Alex walked over to Mark. He helped him up.

"That was," Alex said, shaking his head. "The stupidest goal in history."

"It was genius!" Mark argued, rubbing his belly. "I used my center of mass as a weapon!"

Unit Alpha walked over. His eyes were flickering.

"Logic failure," the cyborg said. "Cannot compute. Why did you jump from the ceiling?"

Mark looked at the robot. He put a hand on its metal shoulder.

"Because," Mark said wisely. "The ceiling is just a floor that is high up. And also, I wanted to see if I could fly."

"Fly?" the robot asked.

"Yes," Alex said, stepping in. "We fly. Not with engines. But with dreams."

The robot looked at them.

"Dreams," it repeated. "Adding to vocabulary."

The robot walked away, looking confused.

Milo ran onto the pitch. He was holding a screwdriver.

"I AM SCAVENGING!" Milo shouted. "I AM TAKING SOUVENIRS! DOES ANYONE WANT A ROBOT ARM? TEN CREDITS!"

"Milo, stop dismantling the opposition," Alex laughed.

They walked out of the arena.

The neon lights of Neo-Tokyo shone down on them.

They were just kids. In a strange world. In a strange time.

But they were together.

And they were champions.

Alex looked at his friends.

Mark, the flying stomach. Rico, the neon dancer. Milo, the scrap merchant.

He felt it again. That feeling.

Goosebumps.