Note: I seriously doubt that more than a handful of people will get this crossover without some help. Just FYI - Evan's run-in here is with the star of that late, lamented thirty-minute CGI toy commercial, 'Max Steel.' Which I dearly love despite its occasional overwhelming cheesiness.


A Sporting Chance

(or, Why It's Always Good To Network)


"No, you ask him."

"Nuh-uh, it was your idea, dude."

The voices belonged to two kids - boys, probably young teenagers, trailing some distance behind him. Considering that he'd just come off of a pretty awesome day of competition, Josh figured they were getting up the nerve to ask him for his autograph.

"Make it fast," the second kid hissed, apparently winning the argument. "She's waitin' for us."

Josh paused outside the command van, kneeling and pretending to adjust something on his bike. He didn't mind signing autographs - he'd do it all day long, in fact. It was all part of being a recognized sports figure, and that was cool. He was just glad they weren't after a signature from Kat.

"Hey," the first kid said, sounding slightly overconfident.

Josh looked up. "Yeah?"

The boy was all but buried beneath a bulky jacket; the hood was pulled down over his face, hiding all but his nose and mouth in shadow. It being a cold day in New York, edging towards sunset, that wasn't sufficiently odd to worry Josh.

"You're Josh McGrath, right?" More overconfidence. It was the kind of cocky bluster that a lot of athletes gave off. Himself included.

"Sure am." He stood up, brushing off his hands. "What's up?"

The kid thrust a slightly rumpled stack of paper at him. The paper was stapled in one corner and folded back. A bunch of scribbled signatures were organized in neat columns. "It's a petition. We're getting signatures from all the athletes."

Josh revised his age estimate of the boy to fifteen or sixteen. He took the papers, noting without caring that the boy was wearing big ski gloves. It was cold out. "Petition for what?"

The boy shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "The guy that sponsored this competition - he's making this drink. It's toxic. He knows it and he's not stopping. So we're gonna get a bunch of athletes and other people to sign it and take it to the courts."

Josh flicked the papers back to the first page. "HELP STOP POW-R8" was written in bold letters across the top. "Pow-R8? The sports drink?"

The boy nodded, making the hood bob up and down. "Yeah. It's poison, dude." He seemed to draw inward a little, and there was a bitter tang to his next words: "Trust me on that one."

Josh frowned, thinking. It was a reputable company, run by a reputable businessman, and why they would deliberately make a toxic sports drink was almost too bizarre to believe.

Almost. After all, Josh was a guy with nanomachines in his blood who regularly battled cyborgs and genetically-altered snake creatures all over the world. And just a few months ago, a reputable businessman with a reputable company had tried to blow up a sports park - and one of his friends along with it.

He made an impulse decision and gave the boy a grin. "You got a pen?"

"Uh..." The boy took his hands out of his pockets and turned around. "Dude! I need a pen!"

The second kid produced a pen from somewhere and tossed it over. The boy fumbled it with his gloves, and the pen fell to the asphalt. Muttering, the boy stripped off a glove and picked up the cheap plastic thing. He handed it over to Josh. "Here."

Josh took the pen automatically, more interested in the hand that gave it to him. The boy's skin was marred with several rough-looking yellowish patches, almost like outgrowths of bone. "Thanks, uh..."

"Evan," the boy said. He already had the glove back on.

Josh signed his name without paying attention. So there was the explanation for the gloves, he thought. What was hidden beneath the jacket and the hood? "How many signatures do you guys have so far?"

"Almost a thousand," Evan answered. He was shifting from one foot to the other, clearly getting anxious to leave.

Josh gave the petition and the pen back. "Hope you win."

The petition disappeared into the depths of the jacket. Evan nodded again; Josh thought he caught a glimpse of more yellowish patches on the boy's face. "Thanks a lot, man."

"Evan!" the second kid called. "Move it! We're gonna be late!"

Evan looked at Josh one last time, then jogged off. Josh watched the two boys go, curious. Someone was waiting for them, and there was a schedule; he wanted to see where they went. But they only ran across the street and into an alleyway. Weird.

Still, he'd seen weirder. He stowed the bike and went inside the van. "I'm back, bro!"

Berto was watching a movie and doing paperwork. Surprising, the amount of paperwork it required to keep an extreme-sports team afloat. Without taking his eyes off the flat-screen TV, he asked, "Did Kat leave already?"

"Yeah." Josh shook his head, dropping onto the couch next to Berto. The movie of choice today was 'The Day The Earth Stood Still.' Black-and-white and too old for him to care about. "I don't even want to know what they're going to do."

Berto raised an eyebrow. "A 'girls' night out' in New York City with a bunch of extreme athletes? Nothing legal."

Josh silently agreed with that assessment, then changed the subject. "Hey, speaking of illegal stuff, what do you know about Pow-R8?"

"The sports drink?" Berto paused the movie and resettled his glasses on his nose. "Not much. It was yanked from the market a few weeks ago after a promotional run. I think I read something about it being toxic."

Now Josh knew why he'd gotten the feeling that things here were just a little screwy. Instinct. A good spy could spot trouble from a mile away - especially if he had Max nanoprobes enhancing his vision. Besides, he'd seen this stuff too many times. "Like, environmentalists-hate-it toxic, or get-me-to-the-hospital toxic?"

"The second one. But only for mutants. I think," Berto added after a beat, frowning. "Why?"

" 'Cause I just heard a dirty rumor that it's back in production."

Berto put down his pen and pulled his laptop closer, an unspoken prelude to hacking. "From who?"

"A mutant, I think."

"They would probably know," he muttered, fingers flying over the keyboard with the speed of a true-blue computer geek, someone who dreamed in code and understood binary as a written language. "And they're right. Spears signed a contract with... let's see... Shaw Industries. Wow. They're asking for over a million gallons of the stuff."

"Bro," Josh said slowly, working through the idea as it came to him. "What would happen if someone reputable, someone high up in the business, came forward with that?"

"Spears would have to stop," Berto said. "But who do we... oh. Like the president and CEO of N-Tek?"

"None other," Josh said with no small amount of satisfaction, pulled out his cell phone, and punched in his father's number.


Two days and fifty-nine signatures later, the Morlocks were on the verge of delivering their petition to the New York legal system when the news broke. Jefferson Smith of N-Tek fame, one of the most respected men in the sporting-goods industry, had informed the EPA of Spears' continued production of a banned substance. As a result the FBI had raided Spears' main production facilities and found the allegations were in fact truthful, and Spears was suddenly in a lot of trouble. So much so that his company teetered on bankruptcy.

"Dude," Evan said, reading the article. Dreamer had snatched a newspaper from Upworld and now they were all clustered around it, trying to read over everyone's shoulders. "That's awesome!"

"It's suspicious," Callisto said, narrowing her eye at the paper. "Why would an equipment manufacturer know what a sports drink magnate was doing?"

"Maybe they play golf together," Feral suggested, baring her teeth at the joke, which was met with general Upworld-derisive laughter. Further suggestions followed, growing increasingly more unlikely and hysterical at the same time, until it was decided by Callisto that the time for seriousness was past and the Morlocks should, for once, celebrate. So they did.