The first half was nearly over, and she had to admit, she was having a good time. Desirae was the quarterback for an all-female android team. She is not an android, and neither is her fellow agent, Lauren. However, they are both trapped, playing out the part of an android, and they are not even sure why it happened. Lauren is still pondering that as she sneaks past the Green Lightning front line to again, sack the quarterback. On the outside, she pumps her fists in the air, but on the inside, she is apologizing for tackling her friend, Desirae, again. Sorry, partner, she says to herself, I can't stop myself.  Lauren, Desirae thinks to herself with her friend gloating on top of her, you are killing me.

With only a few minutes remaining Desirae makes an amazing discovery. After receiving the ball, she back pedals, watching the lines in her vision predicting where she goes next. Ajax (technically, she is AJX-9, but Desirae calls her 'Ajax') runs across the field in a 'crossing pattern.' Desirae waits and then steps to throw the football. But as Ajax runs past a defensive player, her mask gets caught in the other droid's fingers. At full speed, the face guard is ripped off her. Desirae has already finished her motion and the ball has left her hand. But as soon as the face guard is pulled off Ajax, she stops in mid step and stands at attention on the bustling field.

Desirae can only watch helplessly as her beautiful pass goes right where she aimed, bouncing uselessly on the ground. What happened? Desirae thinks in disgust, I had her wide open! Well, at least no one on the Diamonds team caught it for a "pick 6", Desirae notes, as her display shows that as a  possible outcome. Getting over the pointless game, she notices Ajax just standing there. She then sees the tech crew rush out to her and pick up her face guard. As they snap it back on her, she starts running again, finishing her route. The light bulb goes off in Desirae's head: the face guard must control the droids. Desirae would smile if her face guard would allow, but at least now she knows what she has to do. The problem? Desirae asks herself, how will she do it?

The Lightning have to turn the ball back over to the Diamonds. This is where the cheer program comes in. When players are not playing, they are leading cheers from the sidelines. She has been doing the same 3 cheers all half. Since both Lauren and Desirae are on the field at the same time, they are also cheering at the same time. Lauren thinks to herself, well, it is not really cheering...more like suggestive dancing with pom poms in your hands.

The synchronized motion of both sides is quite stunning. Each perfect droid in matching uniforms dance and cheer, begging a reaction from the crowd. Truly, the biggest reaction is when the teams huddle up. There is no need to have 11 sexy droids get in a circle, bend over, and stick their butts out. Since they are programmed for each play, a huddle is not needed. Unless, you are in the stands, then a huddle is needed after every play. Lauren and Desirae can always tell when there is a huddle on the field: the entire stands just stare onto the field for those few seconds.

Whatever happened at the end of the half, Lauren and Desirae missed it. At the whistle to end the second quarter, they stop cheering and head to the red carpet. Once all the team members are in place, they start running back to the garage. A crowd of people line both sides of the carpet, high-fiving the lady-bots. They also give them a good slap on the spandex-covered butt cheek for good measure.

Back in the garage, the teams are cleaned up and lightly shined up for the second half. No pep talk here, just simple maintenance.  The hand held buffer of the wax feels really good on Lauren's and Desirae's sore muscles. The warm wax gets massaged in quickly, partially numbing the pain. Unfortunately, their face guards are not removed, so they are still at the programmer's mercy. They can see each lady-bot doing the same thing: standing at attention, getting 'skin' waxed, uniform brushed out, and software updated (if needed). Lauren had her entire college years archived in her memory to improve her performance. While she knows where she went to college, not a single memory is accessible at the moment. Desirae had a similar problem, but hers was a bit more personal. The tech noticed that too much memory went into making her male-preferred on interest. Why a droid needs that is up to the owner, but in Desirae's case, that is how she lives her personal life. For now, the switch has made her just like an android: no preference. She did not notice any changes in her thinking (thank goodness), but she did see more plays put into her head, more lines to be displayed in her vision, and now she has a faster "processor."

With halftime over, they all head back to the field. The stands are just as full, the sky is just as blue, and Baron Customs is happier than ever. With his money laundering scheme in full swing, he is the happiest man in town. And even if it wasn't perfect, how could you not smile at all those lovely, sexy lady-bots running out onto the field. The neat rows of blue and green pour into the stadium, with the roar of the stands.

The second half is like the first for Lauren and Desirae. Both are run all over the field for many minutes, then they are sent to the sidelines to dance for the stands, only to be sent back out onto the field. Desirae has gotten some more help, so she has not been "sacked for a loss." Lauren though is still in on most tackles, and she can tell she is not as fast as she was earlier. She can see error messages in her vision, as it tries to compensate for her inability to get to where she should be. I'm human after all, she winces after another tackle.

She wonders how much more she will have to endure. While she is in good shape (thanks to her training at the agency), she is not built to play tackle football with nearly indestructable droids. Desirae is not hit every time, but I like it when I tackle her: she is much softer to land on, Lauren giggles to herself. I figure at some point I get hurt, then maybe they will take me out. I thought about faking an injury (it's flopping or something, I think), but my stupid programmed body won't let me. Guess I will just press on, she says to herself as she moves in for another tackle.

On the other side, Desirae has been trying to figure out how to get the face guard off her and Lauren, but nothing seems to work. She is constantly under the programs control with no break. Nothing works, she resigns to herself. She cannot help but be a well-programmed football player at the moment. She turns to her left then right then makes another beautiful pass to Reb (technically, it's RB-3) for a first down. She can see Lauren trying to make the tackle. Ow, that looked like it hurt! Desirae wants to check on her friend, but she has already turned around and entered the huddle position.

On that play, Lauren came in to wrap her arms around Reb. Reb lowered her head and Lauren was unable to avoid her head colliding with Reb's (part of her safety protocol in her programming that is not keeping up). The android's super hard skull plate lands under Lauren's chin. The impact is so great, her neck is snapped. Lauren feels no pain, no fear. She goes from thinking how she is forced to make this tackle to absolutely nothing. Her limp form crumples to the ground, inadvertently tripping Reb to the ground. Reb gets up immediately, but Lauren's body does not move. The face guard is sending all kinds of signals, but her body is physically unable to move with her neck broken.

The tech crew comes out and sees that she looks broken. They figure they can pop it back in, so they put her on a hand truck and wheel her to the garage. As they pass a "cheerleader", they stop and connect them. Putting a wire from face guard to face guard, they transfer Lauren's position data to the petite Asian player. Unknown to them, Lauren's brain is failing from the fatal hit, so all that she is will be lost in a few moments. The data transfer wire immediately brings over all data just in case it is needed, since the power source for this android's database is failing. Taking longer than they expected, but not enough to really delay the game, the wire that was lit up during the transfer has now gone dark. "Ok, get her into the garage," and then turning to Asian droid, "You are in the game, go!"

Lauren has no idea what just happened. First she was making a tackle, then things went dark, and now she is running back onto the field. Hmmm, she thinks, something does not feel right. I seem faster? No, that's not quite right. I feel stronger? No, not quite there. As she ponders this, the play begins and as usual, she is in on it. She gets to her place as programmed, makes an amazing leap, and knocks the ball to the ground. Lauren says to herself, how did I do that? I feel so energetic, so full of life. And wait...no pain either! She can't believe how much better the game has gotten now. Whatever they did, she thinks, thank you!

The rest of the game goes as usual. Both teams scoring and stopping the other when they can. With a few second left, Desirae and her team get one more chance to score. If they do, it will seal the win, being up only 3 points. Desirae can't believe how excited she is to win this pointless game. The first few plays move them down field, but the next play confuses her. She is going to run right and pass the ball towards Ajax over Reb's head, and a Blue Diamond will intercept it. What? She screams, I'm going to throw the ball to the other team?! That makes no sense.

Sure enough, during the play, her display has her throw the ball so it looks like it could be caught by her team.  However, an Asian droid from the Diamonds is already running to intercept it. In fact, she can see his display showing the ball is to be caught by the other team. Unable to stop herself, the ball goes as planned from Deisrae's programmed hand, just beyond Reb and just short of Ajax, and right into the petite Asian's arms.

Without any hesitation, 'Lauren' runs it all the way back for a touchdown. She slams the ball down as programmed, and she is swarmed by her droid team with the stands erupting in screaming. Desirae looks on in disbelief as she just cost them the game. Well, she corrects herself, I was programmed to fail. I don't know why, but someone wanted the Blue Diamonds to win and that someone had the ability to program us to make it happen.  She can hear the announcer say with excitement, "And the Lightning lose the game, as the quarterback throws a pick 6 for the Diamond win!"  Oh, Desirae says to herself, so that is what that means.