Something seems off about Duckett, you think as you see him writhing around in the jorts crate. You hesitate. Duckett seemed off when he tackled Wump. You’re not sure what you would be supposed to do if you ever caught him. Duckett sits up, peeling jorts off his face.
“You idiots, unhinge those jaws and go get him!” he yells. “Get him! Get him!” Duckett is screaming and shaking his fists. You back away. He whirls on you. His eyes seem insane. But suddenly there’s a flood of light from outside the warehouse. You turn to look at the commotion and when you look away Duckett is gone.
Dozens of NCAA agents flood the warehouse. A short, mustachioed man grabs you. “Where is he?”
“He bolted when you turned up,” you say. You feel a hand on your shoulder. It’s Wump.
“You lads did well,” he said. “He can’t be far now.”
The man with the mustache is directing his agents to “secure the perimeter” and you hear crackling radios as they fan out. But no one can find him.
“It’s ok now,” the mustache man says. “You’re safe. I’m Jick Jackett, NCAA Internal Investigations. We’ve been looking for Duckett for a long time.”
Duckett, you learn, is a former NCAA investigator who was forced out years before after getting dropped into a vat of chemicals at an illegal pants manufacturing facility. They suspected that he had gone insane, and he had spent the last several years stalking Wump. Wump had decided to turn to the NCAA for help and became an NCAA asset, running pants for them up and down the eastern seaboard in an attempt to flush out Duckett.
The fact was that the NCAA had stopped emphasizing pants as the courts closed in on its investigative branch. Eventually the supreme court ruled that it was very stupid for a college sports organization to control a large army of detectives attempting to stop athletes from getting free pants. Duckett did not agree. He was determined to get Wump, and what that meant terrified the pants baron and the NCAA. This was their last shot. The NCAA was days away from legalizing pants, and Duckett would probably vanish into the underground.
“You JACKHEADS, find him!” Jackett said. But somehow Duckett vanished.
Wump sat down next to you, scraped up from his tussle but no worse for wear. “We have to find that lunatic. There’s no telling what he’s capable of. We were pretty close last time on a big deal down south. We were lying in wait for him with a cache of capris. But he must have gotten wind of us and bolted on an airboat. What he left behind, with this corkboards was bone-chilling.”
They found Wump’s car abandoned on the interstate a few hours later.
Jackett took down your entire story about meeting Duckett in the woods, his motel room, the plan, all of it. And then he let you go. You were a pawn in two simultaneous operations to catch a notorious pants-booster and also to catch his deranged pursuer, but you got neither. It was not your fault. You were caught in a treacherous web of forces you didn’t understand. But you and Moods got to go home and play your senior season.
At practice a few days later, you are startled to see Wump standing with Coach Mansz. Pants have been declared legal and your team is the first to partner with a booster as an official pants supporter. Coach Mansz is already wearing fancy sweatpants with a message on the buttocks. And Wump is holding up a pair of the most outrageously fancy trousers you’ve ever seen that have “Captain” bedazzled onto them and he’s handing them to you.
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