Nine: What’s the weirdest field?

Geometrically, I mean.

Juice: hmm

Juice: well, when i first started surveying the field i was quietly hoping i’d find evidence of some kind of large-scale ancient conspiracy. i mean if all the stadiums were built at angles that pointed to the same spot, would anyone have ever noticed? seems like a really great satanic ritual

Ten: Oh, that’s a new one from you. “Post-secondary education is Satanic.”

Juice: oh yeah it’s just a school you have to pay for and live inside of and if you’re special you get to work for free. my apologies

unfortunately, despite my best wishes i found no such conspiracy. in fact i was kinda disappointed by how few anomalies i found in the intersections of these lines. only got ONE single goddamn three-way intersection! you’d think that if you had 111 fields, each of which intersects with another field 20, 30, 40 times, you’d get more than that

but you could argue that Grambling State might be the weirdest field, because they come real REAL close at several points

see down here in the middle of the mississippi sea, Grambling State missed hittin the Iowa-Mississippi intersection by about 700 yards. which might sound like a lot, but considering their stadium’s 90 miles away that’s a very near miss

Juice: and way up northwest in oklahoma, a good 350 miles away from eddie robinson stadium, an even more tragic near-miss for the Tigers. if only the Texas and North Texas fields were 250 yards closer together, we would’ve had it

Juice: but unbelievably, from a far greater distance, they had an even nearer miss

Grambling State shoots its beam all the way from louisiana to nowheresville, montana, and it misses the BYU-UNC intersection by ...

Juice: … THIRTY YARDS. from about 1,500 miles away.

Nine: oooooooooof

You have me rooting for lines to run into each other. Incredible. Where’s that triple intersection?

Juice: the one and only three-way intersection is right outside Hillsboro, Ohio. and it just barely counts

Juice: you can see that one lil bitty sliver where Washington, Bowling Green and Eastern Michigan overlap. whole area’s about 2,000 square feet. so like a pretty big house’s worth

Nine: It’s beautiful.

Ten: But this doesn’t hold any tactical significance, right?

Juice: no!

sometimes things can just be neat!

Ten: Didn’t say they couldn’t! Didn’t say they couldn’t.

I just can’t help but imagine a couple of rule changes that would infuse some interesting significance. Like if you

Phone: BEEP BEEP BEEP

BEEP BEEP BEEP

Nine: What’s that?

Juice: OH GOD!

IT’S THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL ALERT SIREN

WE’VE FINALLY FOUND SOMEONE OUT THERE

i can’t believe it

after all this time

Nine: What?

Juice: lol nah i’m just fuckin with you lemme see who it is

hello

Manny: Uh hi, requesting contact with the commissioner?

Juice: Oh! Hello!

(sh shshhh y’all i got a work call)

This is the commissioner, may I ask who’s calling?

Manny: This is Manuel Baez, free safety for San Diego State.

Juice: Mr. Baez! Of course. How are you?

Manny: I’m doing good. You know, feet are a little sore, I’ve been on the move.

Juice: So I’ve seen! This is quite a journey you’re on.

Manny: Ha, well you know, lots more journey to go. God willing, anyways.

Juice: Indeed, indeed. Good luck to you.

What can I do for you?

Manny: Well, I was interested in seeking a rule clarification. Some years back, we submitted a game plan for league approval, and it was approved. But my teammate and I were reviewing the document we submitted, and we realized that there’s a very minor discrepancy between the approved version and, you know, what we’re planning at the moment.

Juice: Certainly, let me retrieve it. Give me one moment.

Manny: I’m not sure how much of this you remember, since we submitted it a long time ago, but basically–

Juice: Oh don’t worry. I’m quite familiar.

Ten: (“Oh, Don’t Worry! I’m Quite Familiar!”)

Juice: (SHH)

Manny: Well if you flip to page 33, you’ll see the relevant section. In this plan, we described using D-2, but there’s been a change of plans and we’d like to proceed with D-1 instead.

Juice: I see! I’m happy to assist. I’ll tell you what, I’ll send some relevant rule documents and we can review them together. I’m sure we can find a solution.

Ten: (Look at this fucking herb! “Oh Yes Sir! Oh I’m Happy To Assist, Sir!”)

Juice: (lady i am at WORK ok)

Nine: (lol you have a job)

Juice: (you know what fuck yall im taking this private)

I’m sorry for the delay, Mr. Baez. If you would kindly look first at Appendix G of the–

Phone: –bzzzZZZZZzzzZZt–

Ten: Wow.

I have NEVER seen him like that.

Nine: He’s so buttoned-up! I don’t even recognize him.

I guess commissioner is a job he takes seriously.

Ten: For once.

Nine: I love the open-door policy. Wouldn’t have guessed he’d have that kind of relationship with the players.

Ten: I think I know what he’s doing. Every sports commissioner is hated. That’s always been the rule. Go to a draft and announce the picks, show up for a game, whatever, and you’re always booed. Whenever something goes wrong, it’s your fault. He’s trying to counteract that.

God, he’s “trying”! I’m a little touched by that.

Nine: I wonder what this plan’s about.

Where are Nick and Manny now?

Ten: Haven’t tracked them in a minute, lemme see.

Ten: Oh, they split up! What the hell?

Yeah it looks like … Nick continued north on Georgia Tech, Manny cut left on WKU and north on Michigan State.

Ten: Look, they’re up in Tennessee. Manny’s just outside of Emory Gap, and Nick’s up in the hills.

Did you notice a scoreboard change?

Nine: Nope. Nick must have all the footballs on the Georgia Tech field still.

Ten: Oh. Yep.

Ten: I don’t get it. I don’t know how splitting up does anything.

Nine: Neither of them are moving, either.

Ten: I’m sure Juice knows.

Nine: Fuck that, let’s try and figure it out ourselves.

Ten: Hmm.

Okay, well, if Nick’s up there in the hills, and he’s not moving, he must be hiding. Seems like a good hiding place, too.

Nine: That might be all that’s happening here. Nick took the footballs and is hiding out in the hills indefinitely. Manny is roving around various fields, trying to gain intelligence and find out where opposing players are.

Then one day, months or years from now, Manny decides that the coast is clear in the region and he and Nick take the footballs and make a run for it.

Ten: One guy doing all that scouting?

God, you might be right, but that would take forever.

Of course, if you’re gonna hide out forever, I can’t think of a better spot. What a miserable scrap of land to try and comb through.

Nine: Yeah. You see those? The structures just west of the field?

Nine: Yeah.

Nine: That’s the old Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary.

Nine: This was his third escape attempt at Brushy Mountain. On attempt number three, he and some other inmates shoved an improvised ladder against the wall. The guard in the nearest tower panicked, tripped over his rifle, fell against the door, and locked himself inside. He was the one guy who could have stopped them.

He’d conquered man’s architecture, and next up was nature’s, and the mountains crushed him. Across two and a half days, he didn’t even make it ten miles. They found him lying on his back, too exhausted to move.

Ten: I remember this.

When I first woke up, I scanned my residual memory first, looking for transmissions of the things I’d picked up in the first few years after I was launched. It wasn’t until later that I came to realize who he was and what he’d done.

At the time I only thought about the mountains.

I was traveling through the universe at seven miles per second without even giving the slightest effort. I considered what it would feel like to move with difficulty. I was terrified of those mountains.

Nine: Well, clearly there’s a lot to like about them, too.

Ten: Michigan State. Michigan State I get.

Nine: Huh?

You’re still looking at this?

Ten: Yeah. See, their field and Georgia Tech’s field don’t intersect, and that’s the problem.

Nine: You like this game.

Ten: No, I don’t. There are things ABOUT it that I like.

Nine: You like it! Why are you so intent on letting on that you don’t?

Ten: The thing about Juice and I is … I don’t want to encourage him.

As game builders, he and I are terrible collaborators. I see things like chaos and eccentricity as ingredients that should be balanced with other components. He wants to make the whole casserole out of them. And I can only say no so many times without coming off as some sort of harpy. He’s the fun one, and by default, I’m the boring one.

You know I love him, but after all these years, I’ve lost the desire to encourage him.

Nine: This game means a lot to him, though. Clearly. It’s different.

Ten: I don’t know, what do you think about it?

Nine: The game itself?

I think it’s a celebration of the wild outcomes that originate from confines so rigid, so frustratingly letter-of-the-law, that you’d think they’d snuff out any remotely interesting outcome.

In using the old college fields and the angles they sit along, there’s a quality of “sleep in the bed you made” that, you could argue, is the story of modern America.

In inviting 111 teams and placing 111 footballs on the field, it ensures that it’ll take a very, very long time to play. It’s like watching a star form. Fascinating to see, boring to watch.

We’re all experience eternal lives, and the interminable nature of this game reminds us that for us, a long time is no time at all. Which, personally, is a reminder I’ve found very edifying.

I also think it sucks ass.

Ten: Hmm.

Nine: So tell me what you’re looking at.

Ten: Okay.

Suppose Nick and Manny were somehow able to hop directly from Georgia Tech’s field to Michigan State’s field, and take their nine footballs with them. Those nine, naturally, would add to Michigan State’s score. This is the change we’d see on the scoreboard:

Ten: Of course, Georgia Tech falls out of the top five entirely. Consequently, all the other teams here are bumped up a spot. But Michigan State doesn’t move, since they were the #1 team to begin with.

But teams only have access to scoreboards that only display the number of footballs that they THEMSELVES possess. So if you’re most teams, all you see is this:

Ten: If this is all you see, what’s your best guess as to what happened?

Nine: Well, obviously Georgia Tech lost all their footballs. Of course, I didn’t know how many they had in the first place. Twenty-five? Four? No way I can know, just based on this.

It’s possible that South Carolina State got them, since they moved up a spot. As an aside, this would mean that #1 Michigan State and #2 Georgia Southern are significantly out in front, since SC State adds the Tech footballs to the balls they already had and still only got to #3.

But it’s also possible that all of Tech’s footballs just fell off the field somewhere. That can happen. We saw that with the guy in the truck. Once he drove it off the field, the ball simply wasn’t reflected on the scoreboard.

I’d go with that as the most likely scenario.

I feel like I’m playing some kind of sinister sudoku variant.

Ten: But the one thing you wouldn’t automatically deduce is that Michigan State got them. Because they didn’t budge.

Nine: Yeah, it’s a possibility, but definitely not the only one.

Ten: Of course, if you’re Michigan State, you are very well aware of what happened, since you get to see your total:

Ten: So if you’re Nick and Manny, Michigan State is gonna be looking for you, even if they don’t necessarily know who you are, or where on their field you are.

Nine: But at least they’re the only ones who actually know what’s up. Better just them than the whole country.

Ten: Right. And this is how hopping over to the Michigan State field would provide them with a sort of camouflage.

Obviously, they still have to get all the way across the country. But my guess is that if damn near every team in the country sees Georgia Tech just crater on the scoreboard, they’re gonna send everything they’ve got to Tech’s field, just to see if they can spot the balls sitting somewhere just off the field. Nine footballs is an enormous take, and a lot of schools have nothing better to do.

If THAT happens, it empties out the rest of the country, and Nick and Manny have a far less difficult time getting home.

But again, this returns us to the central problem: Michigan State and Georgia Tech don’t intersect. Spartan Stadium and Bobby Dodd Stadium were built at almost the exact same angle.

Ten: If Nick and Manny carried the balls across literally any field to get over to Michigan State, that field’s school would light up on the scoreboard. “Look, Georgia Tech went way down at the same time WKU went way up.” It’s obvious to everyone where they crossed. Everybody knows where they’re at. They’re done.

Nine: Well, let’s just open up every possibility. How can you jump straight from yellow to green without using a third field?

Ten: Uhh.

Nine: Let’s get some ideas going, no matter how stupid.

For example, Nick could throw it to Manny.

Ten: The fields are ten miles apart.

Nine: Right, he can’t throw it ten miles, that’s why I said stupid.

Ten: Obviously, the option to just try to run across is on the table, but they only have 18 minutes of out-of-bounds time saved up. Not possible.

Nine: Let me just go down the list.

They can’t drive, right?

Ten: Nope, against the rules. You can’t drive anything of any kind. No steering.

Nine: No bicycles, then.

Ten: Nope.

Nine: You can’t ask someone who lives nearby to just deliver it for you?

Ten: No, non-players are completely forbidden from knowingly interacting with the ball in any way.

And no, you cannot strap the football to a trained animal.

Nine: Clearly, if the guy in the truck is any indication, it’s legal for a non-player to unknowingly transport the ball.

Hmm. There might be something here.

Suppose someone works here … and lives here.

Nine: You just slip it into their car in the parking lot without them knowing, make your way to the other field, and fish it out of the car in their driveway.

Obviously this would require an unimaginable amount of scouting on top of an absurd amount of luck.

Ten: That … seems like it would be legal! Technically legal. Practically almost impossible.

Nine: We should ask Juice if that’s ever happened. I can’t imagine this is Nick and Manny’s grand plan, though.

Ten: Yeah, agree.

I guess you could uh … nevermind.

Nine: What?

Ten: Nah, it’s illegal anyway. No ropes longer than a hundred feet. It’s stupid, nevermind.

Nine: Oh!

Oh you wanna like, tie the footballs to a rope that’s miles long, then run to the other field and pull it across!

Ten: I know I know I know I know.

Nine: Haaaaahahaha like you’re reeling in a fish. Dragging the ball through miles of woods and streets and buildings and everything. A million things for it to get stuck on, and if that happens you gotta burn tons of out-of-bounds time to go get the damn thing.

Ten: Yeah I know, stupid.

Nine: Funny, though.

Hot air balloon? Unmanned, so no one steers it.

Ten: With no one in it? I guess you could, but you’d have no fucking idea where it would end up. Probably the middle of nowhere.

Nine: Trying to think of natural forces of some kind.

Tornado?

Ten: All right, Nancy.

Nine: Oh, downriver! Just set it in the water. Worked for Moses.

Ten: Okay yeah, that’s been done! I’ve seen it in other games.

But in those games you weren’t confined, you could run around wherever you needed to go get it.

It’s pretty slow. And very dicey. Really easy for the river to dump the ball on a bank somewhere, even if you set it in a canoe or something.

Even then, tough to predict rivers. If you aren’t positioned right, it could very easily get past you. And then it’s just GONE.

Nine: Yeah, Nick and Manny just have one to release it and one to catch it. I think they’ve invested way too many years into this to gamble it on something like that.

Ten: Damn.

Something you don’t have to steer ...

You know, you’d think they would have invented teleporters by now. Of course, you’d have to input coordinates anyway, so I guess that’s steering.

Star Trek was set in the 24th century or so. We’re in the 201st century and the closest thing they have to an intergalactic spaceship is … me. Shame.

Nine: They have replicators, at least. For food and stuff.

Ten: Lot of good that does me.

Nine: Hang on.

TRAIN.

Ten: A train? A train’s a vehicle.

Nine: There’s nothing in the book that specifically outlaws vehicles, though. Just no steering.

Ten: You steer a train, though, clearly. When you move the switches, you’re essentially steering.

Nine: YOU don’t, though. It’s automated. All you’re doing is firing it up and shoving it down the track. Where it goes from there is out of your hands.

Ten: Well

Which line is nearest to Nick and–

Nine: Already looked it up. This one.

Nine: Look at where they’re positioned. What else would they be doing here?

Ten: Okay, Manny’s right near the track, but what’s Nick doing up in the hills?

Nine: Watching for trains.

Nine: From up here, he has a great view of Oliver Springs. He can safely watch for any trains coming through the area.

Trains commonly park along this stretch, too. Conductors will hop off a train and leave it there for days. Next time a train rolls through and parks along the field, he can run down there, chuck the balls onboard, and start the engine.

Ten: So it becomes a ghost train, essentially. Nick loads it up and shoots it ten miles west to the Michigan State field, where Manny is waiting in Emory Gap.

There are two switches between Oliver Springs and Emory Gap, and it looks like they’re both in the right position. At the moment, anyway.

But you can’t stop it.

I guess … you’d just have to make sure it runs out of fuel. He’d have to siphon a lot of it out, probably.

Nine: Or just punch a leak in the fuel tank.

Ten: Either way, that’s a lot of math to do on their part. It’s about a 13-mile trip along the track between the two fields. And Manny’s gotta save up every second of OBT he possibly can. If the train stops even a quarter-mile too long or too short, that means Manny has to run a half-mile there and back to get the balls. Even for someone as fast as him, that’s two or three minutes. He can’t afford to kill that much time.

And this is all supposing the actual locomotive stops on the Tech field so that Nick can actually go downfield and rig it up.

I don’t know. This is crazy.

I don’t think “runaway train” is a viable strategy. Not here. Look, there are so many bends in the track, and there’d be no one onboard to slow it down. No way to keep it from derailing.

Nine: It’s happened before.

Ten: Well yeah, there have been runaway trains. But not–

Nine: Here. Right here. This exact spot.

Ten: Oh my God.

Nine: This is it.

Ten: This is what they’re doing.