Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 145402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 582(@250wpm)___ 485(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 727(@200wpm)___ 582(@250wpm)___ 485(@300wpm)
The second wave of vandalism brought the press running back, and a reporter finally got close enough to Wymack to put a microphone in his face. Wymack was too smart to go after the Ravens, so he settled for attacking the fans.
"I think it's pathetic," he said. "What good do these cowards think they're accomplishing by lashing out at us like this? All they're doing is bringing negative attention and publicity to the team they're trying to defend. It's past time the Ravens spoke out."
Edgar Allan's president, Louis Andritch, responded within the hour and made an obligatory appeal to Raven fans to cease such "unruly" behavior. Tetsuji Moriyama released a harsher statement shortly afterward, condemning the attacks as both insulting and unnecessary. It sounded suspiciously supportive until Moriyama finished with, "You cannot house train a dog by beating it a day late; it is not smart enough to correlate action and punishment. You have to discipline it the moment it misbehaves. Leave it to us to correct them on the court."
Dan seethed the rest of the day, but Moriyama's words got through to the fans. Monday dawned with no new disasters. Neil almost regretted it, because without outside distractions the team was free to focus on their internal problems again. Dan and Matt spoke to Neil but ignored the rest of Andrew's group. Allison acted like nothing had happened but noticeably stayed out of Andrew's reach. Aaron didn't so much as look in Neil's direction and wouldn't talk to anyone, Nicky included. Neil expected him to speak up when Neil caught a ride with them to practice, but maybe Aaron was trying to keep Andrew out of the fight for as long as possible.
Kevin griped about the rampant discord for forty minutes of afternoon practice, then gave up chewing out his teammates and rounded on Neil. "If you cost us our game because you couldn't keep your mouth shut—" He didn't finish that threat, assuming Neil could fill in the blanks himself. His expression only darkened when Neil waved him off. "This is not the time for your attitude. Stop causing unnecessary problems before you ruin anything else."
Neil weighed all the possible responses to that and settled on the simplest: "Fuck you."
Kevin shoved him like he could push sense into Neil. Neil shoved back with everything he had and sent Kevin careening into Matt. Luckily Matt had been watching the short argument. He stumbled under Kevin's sudden weight but didn't fall and grabbed Kevin to stop him from going after Neil. Neil pointed his racquet at Kevin in warning and strode for half-court. He knew Kevin tried coming after him because he heard Matt's fierce warning to knock it off. By the time Neil reached the half-court line Dan had gotten involved. It took several minutes of angry threats to calm Kevin down, but the questionable peace only lasted because Kevin and Neil resorted to ignoring each other.
As soon as they were dismissed for break Neil went to the locker room for a drink. Wymack followed him up and stood just inside the back door. He planted his hands on his hips and stared Neil down across the room.
"I'm really interested to know how this went from an us-and-them feud to an all-out war," Wymack said. "Popular opinion is it's your fault. That true?"
"I had good intentions," Neil said.
"I don't care what your intentions were," Wymack said. "We can't afford to lose Friday's game, not after what they did to us and especially not after what Coach Moriyama said. I don't know if you've noticed, but we're not exactly in winning shape right now."
"I know," Neil said. "I'm sorry about the timing, but I'm not sorry for anything I said."
"I don't want your apologies. I want this fixed as soon as possible," Wymack said.
"Yes, Coach."
Neil started for the door to return to the inner ring, but Wymack put a hand out to stop him and said, "Speaking of timing, how's your mental clock doing? Does having a set schedule again help any?"
"Not as much as having them all here does," Neil said. "I'm not alone enough to get lost."
"Good," Wymack said. "Now come on. Let's see if we can't salvage this mess."
Neil followed him back to the inner ring. His teammates had dispersed in his short absence. Matt, Dan, and Allison had claimed one of the Vixens' benches. Kevin stood alone near the court wall, Wymack's clipboard in hand, and rummaged through the day's notes. Nicky lounged on the steps leading into the stands, and Neil spotted Aaron about twenty rows up. Andrew and Renee were making their usual laps around the inner ring and hadn't gotten far.
Neil didn't feel like dealing with anyone else yet, so he went after the goalies. Renee spotted him as they rounded the first corner and motioned for Andrew to wait. Neil had excuses ready if they asked why he was invading their space, but Renee greeted his arrival with a brilliant smile and Andrew acknowledged him with an unconcerned glance. They set off again at a lazy pace as soon as Neil caught up.
Neil had wondered what the two talked about when they were away from everyone else. The last thing he expected was for them to be discussing Exy. Renee wanted to switch which halves they played now that Andrew wasn't limited by his withdrawal. Their opponents were going to get more challenging every week and Andrew was the stronger goalkeeper. She wanted him to pick up the slack when their teammates wound down in second half. Andrew accepted her suggestion without argument, and Renee moved on.
What started as a normal conversation quickly spiraled out of hand, and Neil had no idea how they went from the construction work on the far side of campus grounds to a likely starting point for World War III. There had to be a correlation between the two, but as hard as he wracked his brain he couldn't find one. Eventually he gave up, because trying to make sense of the jump meant he couldn't actually listen to their argument. Renee expected it to start over resources, particularly water shortages, whereas Andrew was convinced the US government would get involved in the wrong conflict and draw vicious retaliation. There wasn't enough time left in break for either one of them to win the other over, and since Neil wouldn't play tiebreaker they set the debate aside for another day.