By Lisa Timpf
“I’ve got it!” Marc waved off the left fielder and pursued the fly ball.
But his synthetic body, like his physical one in years past, had its weaknesses. As the baseball’s path took it past the sun, Marc’s eyelids closed to keep his vision sensors from burning out, and he lost track of it.
Still running, Marc accessed his android calculation abilities. Given the ball’s speed and trajectory, it should be landing right about—
There! Regaining sight of the ball, Marc leapt forward, arm outstretched. The baseball smacked into his glove and stayed there as Marc’s torso and legs hit the artificial turf. He skidded a few inches. I’d have a bad case of turf burn in my old body.
Now, though, a tear in the knee of Marc’s uniform pants was the only side effect of his diving catch.
Marc jumped to his feet. That’s the third out. He turned to toss the ball into the stands.
When he spotted the kid in the third row, Marc smiled. I remember coming to games at that age. Before…
He tossed the ball to the kid, who caught it in a tattered glove.
Marc jogged toward the dugout. Here he was, still playing the game he loved, thirty years after that magical World Series. Living the dream.
Damon, the left fielder, caught up to him. “Catches like that make it hard to give it all up, huh?”
Not this again. “Dude, I’m never gonna give it up.”
***
Marc stepped up to bat in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs and his team trailing by one run. Damon, standing on second base, yelled encouragement. “Hit me home, buddy.”
A chance to be a difference-maker. Just the way I like it.
Marc studied the pitcher. With his enhanced memory, he could call up all the stats on this guy, how often he threw his fastball, what pitches he favored in which counts. But the pitcher also knew Marc’s weaknesses as a hitter. It all came down to guesswork, just like the old days.
With the count at three-and-two, the pitcher pawed the mound, reared back, and threw.
A fastball, right over the plate.
When Marc began his swing, his body locked up. He watched the ball zip past.
“Strike three!”
Game over.
Able to move again, Marc walked back to the dugout. With anger crackling through his circuits, he drew his arm back to throw the bat.
He couldn’t do it.
Of course, Marc thought bitterly. Broken bats were costly, so a prohibition against such behavior had been built into his programming.
What else has been done in the name of money?
He glanced at the batting coach, expecting some advice for next time, but Straker refused to meet his eye.
And just before Straker closed his tablet, Marc caught a glimpse, not of an action replay, but of a control panel.
***
Meeting with the fans, win or lose, was part of the deal Marc signed when he’d agreed to have his consciousness transferred from his aging body into this android model. Normally he didn’t mind this duty. Today, though, his ego still smarted over the indignity of that last at-bat. All he wanted to do was slink away somewhere to process what had gone wrong.
“Can’t believe I missed that,” he mumbled to Damon.
“It figures.”
“That I missed it?”
“No.” Damon paused. “That you haven’t wised up to what’s happening.” Damon glanced around, then continued. “Don’t you find it strange how balanced the league is? How everyone gets their turn winning a pennant, taking the World Series?”
“That’s because of skill balance, right?”
Damon shook his head. “Wouldn’t happen without interference.”
Marc thought about the control panel he’d glimpsed on Straker’s tablet. “Like, for example, a batting coach locking somebody up?”
“That, and more. Coach is coming. Better zip it for now.”
Marc started signing some programs when, suddenly, the kid from the stands stood in front of him.
“Can you please sign this?” Shyly, the kid handed Marc the baseball from earlier.
“Sure.” Marc scrawled his signature on the ball and handed it back. “Maybe someday you’ll be out there, huh?”
“Me? Naw. You guys will still be playing.”
As the kid walked away, Marc stared at his back.
He saw it now. How the dreams of countless kids had been crushed. How the league had been distilled down into a bunch of has-beens in android bodies playing because they couldn’t give up the game they loved.
The owners didn’t have to pay big salaries anymore. All they had to do was shell out for the synthetic bodies, and guys like him played for free. The mind-body blend provided the perfect mix of game savvy—something difficult to program in—and injury-resistant durability. If Damon was right about rigged games, the owners shared the additional wealth generated by winning the World Series by manipulating the outcome of games.
Marc thought back to childhood pick-up games with his pals, with the sun on his back and the smell of newly mown grass in the air. He’d dreamed about making it to the big leagues one day, and he’d done it.
But because of guys like him, kids didn’t have those dreams anymore. Meanwhile, the owners just got richer.
After the last autograph-seeker drifted away, he followed Damon toward the dugout. Marc paused at home plate, remembering the walk-off grand slam he’d hit in the 2035 World Series. That moment had been pure, undistilled magic.
He could cling to his dreams, relive past glory, but knowing the games were rigged tainted the fantasy.
Marc thought about the kid in the stands and about all the other kids whose ambitions were denied by his presence.
It’s time other people had their turn.
“Damon, wait up.”
His friend smiled, a gesture that, despite the android body, contained much of the old warmth. “I knew you’d come around. Let’s talk.”
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A canadian doctor watches Marc’s wistful pause at home plate. He runs up to Marc, hands him a business card. “Couldn’t help notice you staring at the stands from home plate. I’ve seen that look before. I’ve met a lot of androids like you. You’re thinking about giving up your reason for living. Well, you’d be a great candidate for our government-endorsed MAID program – medical assistance in deactivation! “
It wouldn’t surprise me if something like this came about. That statement is praise for a science fiction story. Nicely done.