MacAskill vs. Chamberlain

The applause is already in motion.

Above the audience, a massive holographic title card rotates in amber and blue:

The Tonight Show
with Johnny Carson

Johnny Carson sits behind the desk in a midnight-blue suit. One hand folded over the other. Chin lifted slightly. He flickers.

“All right,” he says, crossing one leg and settling in. “My next guest is perhaps the most recognizable man on the planet. He’s your favorite man’s favorite man… Please welcome Angus MacAskill-X!”

Angus steps into the light in a stretched-smooth charcoal suit.

His face looks built for a close-up in an old black-and-white epic. Deep-set blue eyes look out from beneath a heavy brow. He gives a small, almost bashful smile, and dimples appear at the corners of his mouth. The applause gets deeper.

He rests one hand on the back of the couch as if testing its structural integrity. The audience laughs. Then he lowers himself with extraordinary care.

“You know, Angus…” Johnny says. “I didn’t wanna say anything, but you look a little thin. You eating alright? What are you, four-ninety soaking wet?”

“Five-ten bone dry, I’m afraid.”

Johnny leans back and laughs. The audience follows.

Angus looks out at them. He blinks once. Then the dimples again.

“So,” Johnny says, straightening his tie. “Anything on the horizon for you? Keeping busy?”

The audience laughs again.

“One or two things, aye.”

More laughter. Johnny lets it settle.

“So… this guy you’re fighting, Mr. Wilt Chamberlain-X… You two grew up in the same complex, correct? You must have crossed paths at some point.”

“…We were on different floors,” Angus says after a long pause. “Didn’t cross paths much.”

Carson nods. “But sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Angus agrees.

“What did you two do? When you crossed paths?”

Angus glances down at his hands. “At the south end of the meditation garden, there’s a koi pond. Wilt and I both enjoyed feeding the fish… I’d see him there in the mornings sometimes.”

Johnny nods. A beat.

“You ever talk at the pond?”

“Not much,” Angus says.

Johnny looks out at the crowd for a second. Then back at Angus.

“Beautiful fish, koi.”

Angus smiles.

Johnny looks at his cards and straightens his tie again. “I had a whole list of questions.”

The audience laughs.

“Now,” Johnny says, leaning back. “You’ve got the most important sporting event in the history of human civilization coming up… And that’s not even the biggest news out of your camp this week… As I understand it, you’re going to be in the upcoming remake of The Princess Bride.”

“Aye,” says Angus. “Fezzik.”

“Now, for those who haven’t heard, the new Princess Bride will be using personalization technology, so you and your ‘person of choice’ appear as Westley and Buttercup when you watch it.”

Johnny turns back to Angus. “So naturally, I have to ask you, Angus. When you watch the film… who plays Westley?”

A beat.

“Myself, of course.”

The audience laughs. Carson nods.

“And who plays Buttercup?”

Angus smiles. He takes his time.

“…Exactly.”

Johnny nods slowly. “You know… I’ve been doing this a long time… That’s one of the better answers I’ve ever gotten.”

More laughter. Angus nods politely.

“Can I ask you something?” Johnny says. He looks out at the audience. “Can I ask both of you something, actually? Do we want to have a little fun tonight?”

The audience cheers.

“You know… when my kids were small,” he says, settling back, “I used to throw them up in the air. Catch them on the way down. Over and over. They loved it. Couldn’t get enough of it… And it always struck me as a shame,” Johnny continues, “that at a certain point in life, nobody ever does that for you again.”

A beat.

“Now.” Johnny turns to Angus. “Do you think we could do something about that tonight, Angus?”

“Sure.”

The audience goes wild.

“I’d volunteer myself, but…” Johnny waves his flickering hand. The audience laughs.

Johnny turns to the audience. He scans slowly. Left to right. The camera follows.

“Now,” he says. “We need someone… Substantial.”

A stagehand moves through the audience. Several larger people have suddenly become very interested in their shoes. One of them is a heavyset man in the fourth row. He’s around six feet tall. Weighs maybe two-seventy. He’s looking directly at the floor.

The stagehand finds him. Points him out. The audience erupts, and he looks up. He laughs nervously.

“Sir,” Johnny says, leaning forward. “Would you do us the honor?”

The man rises. Slowly. His wife is covering her mouth.

He makes his way down the aisle, up to the stage, and across to the couch. The audience is cheering for him the whole way. Angus stands.

The man looks up. And up. His nervous laugh from before tries to come back and doesn’t quite make it.

He’s stiff for the first throw. Arms pinned to his sides. But Angus catches him so gently, so cleanly, that the whole audience feels the man’s body understand it’s safe a half-second before he does. By the third throw, his feet start kicking on the way up. Then on the way down. He giggles and flails his arms.

Angus sets him down, and the man starts laughing. He wipes his eyes. The audience is on their feet.

Helix Presents: An Evening with Stuart Scott

RECORDED LIVE AT THE ESPN CLASSIC STUDIOS, BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT — MARCH, 2070

The desk curves like a command station. Behind it, a cascade of screens pulses with looping graphics, stat bars, and a giant Helix X.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” says Stuart Scott, gliding into the light with an easy smile, “Our next guest is undefeated, unbothered, and downright unfair. Give it up for Wilt Chamberlain-X!”

The floor-length sherbet coat floats into view first. Beneath it — the glow of an ivory suit.

Stuart gestures to the chair. Wilt looks at it for a moment. Then he sits, crosses one leg over the other, and settles. Stuart waits until the applause tapers.

“You good?” Stuart asks.

Wilt takes one slow look around the studio. Then back at Stuart. “Always.”

Stuart nods slowly. Leans back.

“So… Three weeks out. What does a day in the life of Wilt Chamberlain-X look like right now?”

“What does a day look like? Uh… I wake up. I sit with myself until I know what the day is trying to tell me. Then I train. Then I sleep. Then I do it again.”

“No rest days, huh?”

Wilt shrugs. “I’m doing what I want to be doing every day.”

“Okay, now hold on,” Stuart says, leaning in. “Because my producers tell me you’re also writing a book. First of all, of course you are. Second of all, when?”

“Every night before bed, I write down the thoughts from the day that surprised me.”

“Surprised you?”

“Yeah,” Wilt says. “Little things I notice that other people don’t.”

“Uh-huh.”

Stuart looks down at his cards. “Now that is a title. ‘The Burden of Inevitability.’”

Wilt nods once, smiling. “The Burden of Inevitability.”

“I pulled a line,” Stuart says, looking back up. “You wrote, ‘Most men spend their lives becoming. I have always simply been.’ Can you explain that?”

“It means I never got to wonder,” Wilt says. “I arrived before I had the privilege of becoming.”

Stuart studies him for a second.

“I don’t think most people are gonna hear that and feel sorry for you.”

Wilt smiles faintly. “I know.”

“Now I have to ask you about Big Bro,” Stuart says. “Because the original Wilt made some claims. Some famous claims that are still being discussed.” He pauses. “You keeping up the family tradition?”

The audience loses it. Wilt smiles slowly. “I do alright,” he says.

“Just alright?”

“I do very well.”

Stuart grins. “So the next generation of elite athletes — we might be looking at some of your kids out there?”

Wilt raises one hand slightly. Not a dramatic gesture. Just a quiet correction coming.

“I don’t finish,” he says.

The audience doesn’t react immediately. The information takes a moment to land.

“Excuse me?” Stuart says.

“Release lowers testosterone levels,” Wilt says. “I’m not interested in that tradeoff right now.”

Stuart looks at the camera. Just for a half second. Then back at Wilt. He flickers.

“We’re gonna take a quick break.”

Ten days later, you sit at the edge of your bed and slide on your NeuroSight One. The inside of this thing is pretty gross now, but you won’t be needing it much longer.

The twin ceremonies load in side by side.

A translucent betting menu slides over both:

The list keeps going. These are all easy money.

You think about your daughter sitting on the couch next to you and asking you, casually, whether you bet on the ceremonies. You imagine telling her no.

You decide you’d rather not place any bets, and instantly, the betting menu disappears. The split-screen worlds return all at once.

Abuja

One hundred thousand people pack Unity Square in Abuja, Nigeria. Gold and crimson and emerald move like a living mosaic. The drummers are already drumming.

Wilt Chamberlain-X stands atop a slowly advancing golden procession platform — its edges lined with lion sigils and ivory. Supporting the platform are one hundred men in flowing white robes, stepping in perfect unison.

Gold drapes over Wilt’s bare chest in layers. Jeweled bracelets stack to his elbows. Around his waist hangs a long crimson garment embroidered with diamonds. His crown looks like a relic from a future empire: a fusion of Sahelian goldwork and modern tech.

He does not wave. He stands with his chin high and his arms out from his sides.

Skye

A green, windswept cliff stretches out over a foggy sea. Twenty-five thousand people stand gathered on the high ground, wrapped in tartan, wool, and weatherproof black. The sky is neither day nor night.

Angus MacAskill-X sits silently atop a fifteen-foot wicker throne — constructed from twisted ash, rowan, and oak. The woven structure rises behind him like the ribcage of something ancient and huge. He sits utterly still, draped in a deep green wool cloak that’s fastened by a stag-headed brooch.

His posture is perfect. His face is solemn and unreadable.

Abuja

Beside Wilt, a Griot robed in indigo and gold steps to the front edge of the platform and lifts both hands to the square.

“Let Africa rejoice, for her gold has returned in human form!”

Skye

The Archdruid begins his slow ascent up the narrow wooden ramp to the wicker throne. The singing goes silent.

He turns and lifts his staff towards the crowd. The wind tugs at his robes.

“Behold! The King of Men!”

Angus’s eyes drop to his hands.

Abuja

A young girl is lifted gently onto the edge of the moving platform, holding an eagle feather upright in both hands.

Wilt lowers at the waist and extends an open palm.

Skye

A young girl begins the climb up the narrow wooden ramp to the wicker throne. She’s carrying a small white flower in both hands — securing it lightly against her dress.

Angus shifts forward on the throne, looks down at her, and smiles. She lays the flower across his palm.

Abuja

A chant begins somewhere near the front and spreads outward.

“Wilt! Wilt! Wilt!”

His smile widens by a fraction. His arms stretch out a little farther. He closes his eyes and inhales through his nostrils as fireworks light up the Nigerian sky.

Skye

Four robed figures pull a low wooden cart over the uneven ground. On the cart, lashed upright with rope, stands a twenty-foot-tall wicker man.

The cart rests on the high ground directly behind the throne. Two druids step forward, each carrying a long bronze torch. They lower their torches into its base, and fire races upward through the woven body.

Angus stands without looking back. His shoulders rise over the throne’s silhouette, crowned in flame and mist.

The stage is set like a diplomatic summit. Black floor. Black backdrop. A long LED screen overhead. A scale stands alone at center stage, lit by a single pillar of light.

Fenwe laughs.

Wilt is wearing black track pants that hang low on his hips, gold sneakers, and a sleeveless warm-up top that he peels off as he approaches the scale, never breaking stride.

The official leans in as Wilt steps on the scale.

“Three hundred and fifteen pounds.”

It’s a smaller number than you were expecting, but that doesn’t look like the body of an underdog to you.

Wilt steps off the scale and turns toward the cameras, spreading his arms out as flashes erupt through the hall.

Angus emerges in a gray hoodie, hood up. He removes the hoodie, hands it off, and steps onto the scale.

“Five-hundred and five pounds.”

The crowd gasps. Wilt smiles.

Angus and Wilt walk toward center stage. They stop at a respectful distance away from each other. Hands hanging loosely at their sides. Not staring. Not analyzing. Just seeing.

Photographers wait for a flexed jaw, or a step forward. Nothing.

Wilt nods, and Angus nods back. They turn, each toward their own side of the stage, and walk off.

It’s just you and sixty-thousand empty seats. The LED roof is at a neutral gray.

You walk the perimeter of the Octagon, brushing your fingers along the cage.

You sit down. Then you lie back.

You think about Mickey disappearing into the tunnel. You think about Joan. You think about Wilt and Diego and Angus. Then you stop thinking and just lie there. The canvas is firm against your shoulders.

[BLACK]

[THE SLOW RISE OF ANGUS’S CHEST. WILT’S TAPED HANDS OPENING AND CLOSING.]

[ANGUS’S BLUE EYES UNBLINKING UNDER A HEAVY BROW. WILT, MID-LAUGH, GOLD MOUTHPIECE FLASHING.]

[ANGUS LIFTING VALUEV-X OVERHEAD. WILT SPINNING MID-AIR, NO TENSION ON HIS FACE.]

[ANGUS IN COLD BLUE LIGHT. CHALK DUST PUFFING OFF HIS HANDS. HIS NECK MUSCLES TIGHTENING AS HE LOWERS HIS CHIN. A GLIMPSE OF HIM SMILING — ALMOST GENTLE.]

[WILT IN GOLD LIGHT. A GLOVED FINGERTIP TRACING THE TOP OF THE CAGE. A ROLL OF THE SHOULDERS. A BLURRY WHIP OF THE LEG. HIS ARMS SPREADING OUT WIDE TO DRINK IN THE ROAR OF THE CROWD.]

[ANGUS CRUSHING A MAN INTO THE FENCE. WILT SPRINGING INTO A FLYING KNEE. ANGUS BLEEDING. WILT SMILING. ANGUS BOWING. WILT DANCING BACKWARD. BLUE LIGHT. GOLD LIGHT. THE OCTAGON WAITING.]

You’re hovering over the center of the canvas at couch height. You’ve never sat for a fight before.

The LED canopy is black. Not “night sky” black. Vantablack. It reads more like absence than darkness. The only light in the Prometheum is emanating from the Octagon itself.

Sixty thousand people surround you. You can see them moving, but you hear almost nothing. Somewhere in the distance, the clink of gold on gold. Somewhere else, bare feet step onto a tunnel floor. A breath. You don’t know whose.

Jaxton’s voice comes through your headset like he’s sitting on the couch next to you.

The canopy ignites with rapid glimpses into live feeds around the world…

[A CLONE CAFÉ IN LAGOS. EVERY FACE PAINTED GOLD. THE HELIX X GLOWING ON EVERY HEADSET.]

[A PACKED PUB IN GLASGOW. FACES PAINTED WHITE WITH A SINGLE BLUE STRIPE. THE HELIX X GLOWING ON EVERY HEADSET.]

[A CHURCH IN MISSISSIPPI. THE WHOLE CONGREGATION SITS HAND IN HAND WITH THEIR HEADSETS ON. GOLD RIBBONS PINNED TO SUNDAY DRESSES AND SUIT JACKETS.]

[A CLONE CAFÉ IN TOKYO. HALF THE ROOM IN GREEN TARTAN. HALF IN GOLD LYCRA.]

The Prometheum goes black. Aisles, railings, celebrities — all gone. There’s nothing left but the feeling of being inside something enormous that you can’t see.

For one suspended moment, nothing.

Then: The opening brass of Also Sprach Zarathustra.

High above the stadium floor, at the mouth of a tunnel carved into the upper bowl, six white columns of light detonate all at once. Six silhouettes appear inside them. Six magnificently built men standing shoulder to shoulder in a perfect line.

A seventh light erupts dead center in the line, brighter than the others. The silhouette it reveals makes the other six look not just smaller in scale, but poorer in symmetry. They look like prototypes. Like side columns beside a central pillar.

Then the figure at the center steps forward into a front blaze, and there stands Angus MacAskill-X.

The platform beneath his feet begins to move. Not up or down. Out. The black causeway extends from the upper tunnel mouth into the open air, ushering Angus out from the heights toward the cage. Light pours from behind him until he is too radiant to look at head-on.

He stands at the edge of the extending platform with his arms at his sides, cutting through the void like a statue at the prow of a ship. The music swells. The bridge carries him level with the cage door.

Angus steps onto the threshold of the cage. Behind him, the causeway retracts, piece by piece.

By the time he reaches the center of the cage, there is no bridge. There is only Angus, standing in an empty Octagon, floating in the abyss. The music cuts.

From the opposite side of the upper bowl, a great wash of gold light begins to bloom. At its center, Wilt Chamberlain-X stands alone. Verdi’s “Esultate” fills the Prometheum. Wilt stands with arms open, eyes closed, hip cocked forward, like he’s been waiting for this music his whole life.

The light follows Wilt as his platform begins to extend, a molten halo of gold moving with him into the empty heart of the arena. The aria gives way to “Love Me” by JMSN.

Wilt opens his eyes, and Angus is already meeting his gaze. Wilt nods, and Angus nods back.

The bridge carries Wilt level with the cage door. He steps through.

The bridge retracts, piece by piece, and by the time Wilt has reached his position opposite Angus, there is no bridge. There is only the cage, and the two of them inside it, and the abyss.

Your daughter has set down her margarita.

A third figure crosses the canvas. It’s the referee.

“Touch gloves if you want. When the bell rings, you fight. When I step in, you stop. When I tell you it’s over, it’s over.”

They nod.

The referee steps back.

Their gloves hover across from each other. A pause. A world inside it. The gloves touch.

They back up. The bell sounds.

Round 1

Angus steps. One placement of the lead foot. Wilt does not retreat.

Angus steps again. Wilt floats his left palm out and rests it against Angus’s forehead.

Angus doesn’t swat it away. Doesn’t back up. Doesn’t slip outside it. He tilts his head forward. Closes his eyes.

…Oh no…

Angus lowers himself. No slowness. No deliberation. He simply goes down. Wilt goes with him.

Two men kneel at the center of the canvas. The referee steps back, finds the cage wall, and stays there.

The Prometheum is silent.

Wilt’s thumb brushes across the ridge of Angus’s brow. Slowly. Then once more, in the other direction.

…Shit… Angus is pressing his cheek into Wilt’s palm now. Eyes sealed shut. Dimples deepening at the corners of his mouth.

Wilt’s hand finds Angus’s sternum. The hair parts between his open fingers.

Angus exhales. He squeezes his eyes tighter and leans in, pushing his lips out long before they close the space with Wilt’s.

The crowd waits a second to make sure it’s real. Then someone in the upper bowl screams, and gasps roll outward from there. Deep boos come from the lower bowl behind you. Cheering comes last. A small group at first. Then more.

They pull away for air, foreheads touching, breathing into the small space between them. Wilt’s smile is gone. Angus’s is too.

A gasp near the cage. Then another behind it. Gasps ripple up the lower bowl.

Angus doesn’t look down.

He keeps his eyes on Wilt as the shape of him begins to change. Slow at first. Then undeniable. A private thought becoming architecture.

The gasps climb to the cheap seats.

Wilt sees it. Of course he sees it. But he doesn’t look down. He looks into Angus’s eyes with a tenderness so complete it seems to shame the whole arena.

The referee takes one step forward, then stops.

Your daughter hasn’t made a sound. Neither have you.

Angus lowers himself backward. The whole length of him meets the canvas in one enormous surrender.

Wilt’s hands settle at Angus’s sides. Not gripping. Just resting there.

Angus nods. Smiles. Lifts his hips. An inch. Maybe less.

The referee is frozen.

A sound that is neither a boo nor a cheer comes out of the crowd. And suddenly, the Octagon feels smaller.

Horn.

The horn is still fading in the air when Angus sits up. Wilt steps out of gold fabric, and Angus’s face disappears into the only shadow in the Octagon.

Wilt’s hand finds the back of Angus’s neck. Not pushing. Lifting. Angus rises slowly. Wilt turns away from him, then leans back.

The referee steps in, both hands out, trying to wedge himself between them. Angus brushes him off without looking, and the ref bounces off the cage wall.

Their fingers interlock. Angus lowers their joined hands to waist height and braces — elbows bent, feet planted. Wilt tests the platform of him with a small push through the locked hands. Angus absorbs it, and Wilt’s feet leave the canvas. His legs wrap backward around the waist. His spine arches back toward Angus like a swan choosing the hand that catches it.

Then Wilt’s head falls back, opening his throat to the lights.

Throughout the Prometheum, hands go over eyes. And throughout the Prometheum, fingers spread. People are climbing over seats to get out. Some are screaming commands into the cage. A few are applauding in the upper bowl. Then another pocket near the cage.

Wilt slips free. He turns inside Angus’s arms, chest to chest now, forehead tucked beneath the chin.

Angus steps backward. Wilt steps with him. Another step, and the black chain link fence takes Angus’s back with a dull rattle.

Angus cradles the back of Wilt’s head. Then he palms it. Draws it slowly out of his chest. He looks down at him, eyes wet and open, just seeing.

Angus raises one knee. Wilt hooks it. Angus raises the other. Wilt hooks that too. The cage has Angus’s back. Wilt has the rest.

Angus is the first to see it. Wilt tries to keep his smile and fails. The corners of his mouth give way. His face seizes around a sound he doesn’t make, but his eyes do not close. He doesn’t look away. He just lets Angus watch.

You turn to look at your daughter but all you see is Octagon. You yank the headset off.