MapleSAP Special: Hackers
Part 3: Hackers and Sports+ The Alysha Erickson Incident

For centuries, the inhabitants of MapleWorld have engaged in sports from simple entertainment to big events that brought communities together. 1200 years ago, the Angels and Balrogs held sports competitions every five years. The Sharenian tribes held massive tournaments every year in Perion that brought in sports teams from all over Victoria, even the fairies from Ellinia, and the Tauromacis tribes in the Dungeon. Even though competition and rivalry were fierce, the gatherings allowed ethnic groups to mix, mingle and get to know eachother. These traditions, dating back thousands of years, have kept hostilities low, and relations tight.
The same theory applies to the communities of purebloods and hackers, SEA Landers and Victorians all over Kerning and Yazhou counties, despite thick anti hacker sentiment still going around.
In 1977, already more than 2.1 million SEA Landers (and 26000 hackers) were living in the region. The same year, the Kerning City Sports Authority lifted a ban on hackers, and with some conditions, allowed SEA Lander sports teams with hackers to join the local leagues. This decision follows the 1965 approval for the construction of a massive community center right on the Janszoon River; the border between Kerning City and the southern area of Yazhou County.

Janszoon Fields, is made up of two major sports fields built on a wide bridge over the river marking a bridge of peace over the border and political wall between Victorians and Azns. Swimming pools were built on both sides of the river, as well a running track that goes around the fields. The sports complex’s administration decreed that anyone regardless of their status is allowed to play here and is allowed to pass freely accross the county border regardles of social-moral pressure not too.
The sports complex has seen more than 40 years of games, tournaments and events that sow the bond between all groups that would otherwise hate eachother. The achievement hall boasts trophies, pictures, pennants, cups with names of teams carved in English and Mandarin. The Heritage Hall displays pictures of people mixing with eachother at events like Chinese New Year, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanakuh, El-Fitr, Easter, and the national holiday. A huge banner hangs from the ceiling screaming bold words, “WE ARE ALL ONE”

In October, Janszoon Fields was hosting the playoffs for the Kerning City junior soccer championships. More than 35 teams were competing during the month long event that would determine who will go to the quarterfinals at Kensington Sportsplex later.
Alysha Erickson, 15, was one of the star players on Holly X High School’s soccer team and the Renfrew community team.
The young pureblood student athlete was raised by a close knit family and grew up on anti hacker morals and values.
The event that changed her life and caused public outrage took place during the soccer match between the Renfrew Grasshoppers and the New Xianggang Stars.
The event was televised because the Stars was a famous team.

28 minutes into second half of the match Alysha Erickson, number 17, was on offence. She checked a Stars player and was taking the ball towards the Stars’ net on the Yazhou side of the field. The county border crosses straight through the center line of the field. As Erickson’s teammates rushed in to assist her, Alysha was checked by Stars’ lead player Xina Wen, age 17. As the Stars’ players closed in on them both at remarkable speed (much to the dismay of the white spectators) Erickson battled like hell to take the ball from Wen. Just as she took the ball from Wen and proceeded to shoot, a gunshot like explosion echoed and Erickson was shot in the neck with a 15mm razor sharp double edged tipped arrow.
On impact, the tip of the arrow blasted sliced the cateroid arteries, and blasted through her windpipe before getting lodged in her neck. The sheer force twisted the girl’s head around so hard her neck broke. Her who body twisted violently in the air before she hit the grass.
As blood spilled out of the gashes in her neck, medics from the SEA Landers’ team rushed onto the field, accompanied by concerned hackers, including hacking cleric Malisa Cai.
The spectators all flew into rage screaming about the shot and why the Grasshoppers’ medics weren’t going out to see her. Normally, in any sports game, an injured player is left for 30 seconds on the field before the referees allow medics to be sent out.
Malisa Cai was the first to reach Erickson, and instantly realized she was bleeding to death, and the only time available was the fast two minutes it would take for her to bleed to death. Acting on instinct, Cai used her hack and heal powers to seal the wounds and stop the flow of blood. She was joined by other hackers and legit SEA Landers who cut off the ends of the arrow and used their hacks relentlessly to re-open her windpipe and seal the blood vessels.
The New Xianggang soccer team all crowded around, standing by to assist the hackers and their team’s medics. Referees had ordered the Grasshopper team to stay back, including their own medics. The coach was infuriated.
The spat was recorded on TV:
“You have to stay back lah! They taking care of her! They tell us they dun wan more people around!” the ref had said.
“Crockshyt! She’s our own damn player! What the hell gives you the right to deny access to one of my players?!!!!” the coach yelled.
“Medic’s orders! They have it covered lah!” the referee shouted back.
“They’re hacking her!” a guy in the bleachers shouted. “They’re bloody hacking that girl for Christe’s sakes!”
As the hack energy being exerted on Erickson became more visible, the Victoria pureblood spectators exploded with fury, and turned into a screaming mob. The hackers in the crowd also got pissed and full scale verbal war started, with racial slurs passing back and forth between the groups.
As a few people scaled the fence and rushed onto the field, hackers ran out to help the Stars team (who surrounded Erickson and the hackers) ward off the angry spectators.
“…it is about to turn into an overblown riot on the fields here as spectators from both sides are getting angrier by the second. It’s only a matter of time before they all storm the field…”
The Grasshopper team were the first to charge the SEA Landers. All 25 of them bolded accross the field and clashed with the Stars team and despite thier efforts to cut through them and get to Erickson, they ended up in the fight that triggered the most violent riot in Kerning City’s sports history.

The man who shot Erickson was arrested as he was trying to get away. KCP highway patrol stopped him on Wolf Spirit Freway, searched his car and found a high caliber illegal model xbow in the trunk.
Jack Swigger, 37, a convicted felon and oddjob man for the Justice Arrow fit the description of the suspect speeding away from the Janszoon Fields arena. In the interrogation, he told police inspectors that he hit Erickson by accident; he was trying to hit Xina Wen, and Erickson got in the way when he fired. Swigger said that the Justice Arrow wanted Wen dead because her hack powers made her wrongfully good at soccer and they were afraid that this hacker was a threat to Henesys’ soccer team, the Arrowhawks.

Erickson was rushed off by fly hackers and taken to the Wan-Chiang Medical Center in the city of Wutai, 6 miles from the border where she remained in critical condition. After surgery and an examiniation, the doctors said there was a 90% chance Erickson would die from the severe bloodloss, and the lactic acid that built up in her lungs. The patient was put into a stable coma for 24 hours while medical staff, the Stars team, and Malisa Cai all agreed to take the necessary measures to keep Alysha Erickson alive. At the end of the day as the girl’s condition worsened, they were given authorization from the hospital administration to inject a full pint of hackers’ blood into Erickson’s body.
The donors were all the members of the Stars team, and the hackers who pulled her off the field.

As the political fallout from the riot began to settle, Alysha Ericson recovered as her body restablilized itself with the hackium. When she woke up three days later, the doctors explained to her that she would never be going home again. as a result of the hackers’ actions, she too became a hacker.

Incidents like this wether in sports or not, are common occurences. Good-willed hackers often discover purebloods in need of assistance and either forget or ignore that they are hackers and only see them selves as humans helping fellow humans. Some hackers purposely hack other people, not to hurt them, but in a bid to increase their numbers and get others to see the world through a hacker’s eyes.

Public outrage over the incident at the sportsplex brought the soccer playoffs to a halt. Instead of being concerned about a terrorist shooting a soccer player, everyone was concerned with the medical procedures that placed Erickson in the hands of the SEA Lands medics and the hackers. While Jack Swigger was tried for murder and being sued by the girl’s family, many fans and players viewed the incident as a ‘fate worse than death’.
Death is the ultimate tragedy in sports, and is the result of gross error, recklessness, or rioting. Anyone in sports from players to the sports league authority sure as hell does not want anyone to die. Hackers uphold these values as much as purebloods do, but are shocked and outraged that the purebloods see being turned into a hacker is worse than death. The only way they would agree with that is because the purebloods, fed with hatred for hackers, would spit on Erickson. They would cut all ties to her and consider her dead to them.

After the incident, the medical procedures were also in question because the medics for the Grasshoppers did not rush out the minute Erickson was shot.