"Reed, Robert - TheTournament" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

ROBERT REED

THE TOURNAMENT

The round of 1 048 576 The Net calls everyone it selects. That's the rule.
Always at five in the afternoon, Eastern Double-Daylight Time. Always on the
Friday before June's first Monday, the bulk of the month reserved for little
else. More than a million phones sing out at once, their owners picking up as
one, nervously hoping to hear the Net's cool, unruffled voice giving them the
glorious news. Another Tournament is at hand! The best of our citizens will be
pitted against each other, in a myriad of contests, the single-elimination
adventure culminating in honor, wealth and an incandescent and genuinely
deserved fame.

Some contestants like being with friends when the call comes. Not me. Bette
claims I'm scared of being embarrassed by a silent phone. Maybe so. But I think
it's because my first call was a surprise, coming when I was a kid -barely
eighteen-- and expecting nothing. I'm at least as superstitious as the next
idiot, I'll admit it. And I was alone that first time as well as every time
since. This is my seventeenth Tournament; I like my atmosphere of anxious
solitude, thank you. And I won't change one damned thing.

Five o'clock. My phone sings, and my hands shake. Opening the line, I watch my
viewing wall fill with the Net's milk-on-jade symbol, and the expected voice
says, "Hello, Mr. Avery Masters. You are ranked 20,008 in the national pool,
forty-seventh in your district. Congratulations, sir. Details will follow, and
as always, the best of luck to you."

"Thanks," I manage, breaking into a smile. Forty-seventh is my best local
ranking ever, but in truth, I'd hoped for better. My training has been going
great; all my qualifying tests are up. But then again, who's to bitch? Positive
thoughts, positive results. That's what coaches tell you. With that in mind, I
brighten my smile, reading about Monday's opponent.

Ms. June Harryman -- a district legend. She's deep in her eighties, both hips
plastic and a carbon rod fused to a regenerated spine. She's made fifty-one
appearances in the Tournament, including its very first year, and while she
never finishes high, she's always there, always full of pluck, always garnering
local praise and national mention.

No, I think, I can't ignore the lady.

Don't look past tomorrow, coaches tell you. Even if tomorrow isn't for three
days.

Our morning event is a 10K race, and the Net has given Ms. Harryman a
twenty-five minute head start. That's a brutal lead, I'm thinking. It's probably
as much for her hips as her age. Then comes our afternoon game--some kind of