Future Games: Anthology Part 24

She wondered what Grace Everett's eyesight was like.

They were calling Everett The Natural. No engineered virus, no stem-cell modifications, no Lab Rat. Just a wiry, quick second baseman, a freckled girl with a stringy red ponytail and a wicked bat. In the minors they called her Gracie, or Little Red. Now, coming up against Ricky Arendsen, Grace Everett had become The Natural.

"Okay, guys," the Skipper said. He stood in front of the chalkboard, where someone had scribbled the lineups, a few names crossed out, subst.i.tutes chalked in. Some of the players were chowing down from the buffet, but Ricky never ate right before a game.

Skip nodded to her. "You okay, Rick?"

She gave him a thumbs-up and pulled off her cap to scratch her scalp through her short scruff of brown hair.

"Good. So," the Skipper began. "Everybody. The main thing is, don't let it all get to you today, okay? Everett's just another ballplayer. Let's play it that way. Cool and calm."

Someone standing beside the row of open lockers snorted, "Yeah, Skip. That'll work."

The Skipper shot him a heated look. "I mean it," he growled. "No c.r.a.p out there."

"Hey, Skip, it's not us," someone protested. "It's the fans. Worse than New York!"

Ricky hunched her shoulders. Ray murmured, "Easy, Rick."

"Yeah."

"It's a stunt," he added under his breath. "I hear they brought her up just to face you. She'll fan a few times, fall on her face, and go straight back to Triple-A."

Ricky turned her head without changing position. "Where'd you hear that?"

Ray shrugged. "Talk around the office."

"I don't know, Ray. Her stats are solid."

Ricky didn't want to think about Everett, about what this game must mean to her. She had to concentrate on her own problems. Three straight losses after her twelve-and-eight last year. If they sent her down, she'd never get called up again, not after all the stuff that happened last season. She needed a W today as much as she ever had in her life.

"Listen," the Skipper said. "Anybody's out of line, in the stands or on the field, security throws 'em out of the park, okay?"

"If it's not too late," someone said from the back of the room. Ricky didn't need to turn to know who the grumbler was. Center field. Ditch Daniels, they called him, because he wore a ditch in the gra.s.s between left and right. Ditch had been struck by something when she was pitching her second game, a cup or a ball or something thrown from the outfield bleachers. He was touchy and hot-tempered on the best of days, and that really tipped him over. He never had a good word for her, not even when she came in on one day's rest to save the last game of the season, propelling the team into the playoffs. Ditch knew about every death threat she'd received since she came up. As if Ricky didn't remember them well enough without his quoting them word for word when he knew she could hear him.

"Look at it this way," the Skipper said finally. "The park's sold out, even the bleachers. For a regular season game. Management's happy, which is good news at contract time, right? Let's just get this one. Let security worry about the nutcases."

The team grunted a.s.sent and filed out of the locker room and up the ramp to the dugout. Ricky headed for the bullpen to warm up.

A solid wall of sound greeted her, defeating the announcer as he read the rosters. When Ricky trotted to the mound, tossed a few pitches to Ray, the volume dissipated, gradually, like a spent wave, leaving an electric silence in its wake. A familiar p.r.i.c.kle crept across Ricky's shoulders and up under her cap, as if something were pointed at the back of her neck or between her shoulder blades. Jackie Robinson had felt the same thing, she supposed. Like a great big target. Sometimes Ricky felt as if the mound was a bull's-eye, with her smack in the center.

Ray gave the ump a nod, and the first batter, a leftie, stepped into the box, bat describing semicircles above his shoulder. Ricky leaned forward, bent at the waist. She held the ball behind her back, turning it in the fingers of her left hand till she found just the right spot, the seams fitting perfectly between her fingers and her long, flexible thumb. Ray gave her the sign, curve down and in, and she nodded. She straightened. Her right leg lifted in the high kick, hands above her head. The windup. The throw. Strike one. Ragged cheers from the hometown fans, half-hearted taunts from the visitors, and the game was underway. The first two innings went hitless and scoreless on both sides, despite several long at bats that went the full count and a dozen or more foul b.a.l.l.s. Ricky rested after the second, her warm-up jacket tugged up over her left arm, her chin on her chest.

Everett would come up in the third, batting eighth in the lineup. She'd hit over .300 in the minors, Ricky knew, but otherwise the scouts hadn't had much to say about her. No one had expected Little Red to be sent up, not now, not ever.

When the second ended, Ricky stood and pulled the jacket off her arm. The crowd began to stir, a deep murmur rather than the usual calls and cheers. Camera flashes glimmered in the stadium like stars in a multicolored sky.

The first hitter grounded to third, and the murmuring grew. Ricky turned her back on the mound, walked a little way toward second, bent to tighten a shoelace. She caught some rosin on the way back. As she walked to the top and started to dig her toes into the dirt, Everett moved into the box, swinging her bat with one hand, eyeing Ricky over her right shoulder. Her red ponytail swung between her shoulder blades. Matching red freckles dusted her nose and cheeks.

She deserved to be called The Natural, Ricky thought. There was nothing unusual about her physique, except that she looked strong, a little bigger than most women. But lots of women were big, lots of women were athletic. It took a special combination of speed and coordination and eyesight, as well as strength, to make a major-league ballplayer.

Ricky shook off Ray's first sign. He wanted to surprise the batter, try the curve instead of the fastball she expected. But Everett was a fastball hitter. Ricky wanted to see what she had.

Ray extended a forefinger. Fastball. Ricky nodded, straightened, kicked, wound, threw.

The crowd's murmur broke into shouts as the radar flashed a one-hundred and five, but it wasn't the speed of the pitch that made the difference. It was that little kick at the end, the tail. Ricky's long fingers could hold the seams right where she wanted them, and her fastball was almost impossible to hit.

Everett watched it go by with just a lift of her elbows, as if she thought it might be inside. It wasn't. Ricky stared at her opponent and wondered if Everett felt like she did. Like a target. Like an outsider. Like no matter how well she played, it would never be enough.

Ray flashed the sign for the curve, and Ricky shook him off again. He tried the changeup, and she shook her head. She couldn't quite see his shrug before he extended the forefinger, but she was sure it was there. She didn't care. She wanted to play it this way Everett glanced at the third-base coach and then faced her again. Ricky threw. One-hundred and two. Everett's bat never left her shoulder.

She backed out of the box, shaking her head, talking to herself. She put up a hand to ask for time. The ump gave it, and Ricky stepped off the mound to shake out her arms.

The next pitch was another fastball, but Ricky missed with it, just inside, brushing Everett's thighs so close her uniform rippled. A roar of fury erupted from the stands.

Ricky caught her breath at the sound. She had learned to tune out the jeers that greeted her trips to the mound, but this surge, when the fans thought she might have hit Everett, was staggering. Lew had talked her through it all the first few times, and by the end of her first season she hardly heard the chants and catcalls. But this was different. She glanced up into the colorful ma.s.s of people, banners waving, hands in the air, hand-lettered signs dancing here and there. Were they hoping Everett would show her up, or hoping Everett would fail? Was there anyone out there just rooting for their favorite team, the way they used to?

She caught sight of a placard with her name on it, and beneath it a circle with "Jackie Robinson" inside, a black line crossing the circle. Ricky Arendsen is no Jackie Robinson. She'd seen it before.

Lew had told her to laugh it off. "They're right anyway, kid," he had said. "You're no Jackie Robinson-you're bigger, faster, and stronger than he was. You'll show 'em."

Now Ray was jogging out to the mound, and she'd lost track of time. Not like her, to let anything interfere with her concentration.

"Hey, Rick," he said. The two of them turned their backs to the plate, and Ricky dropped her head to hear. "What's the matter? You got two strikes, one ball, you're ahead in the count. Nothing to worry about."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I just . . . " She breathed deeply, adjusted her cap, and then shook her head. "I'm okay. Sorry, Ray."

"Let's go with the splitter now, okay? Quit messing around?"

She shook her head. "No. Fastball. I can get her. Let's do it."

He frowned and tugged at his mask. "Well, Rick, you're the pitcher. Don't lose her though, or Skip will be p.i.s.sed."

"I won't lose her."

Ray slapped her back with his mitt and jogged back to the plate, pulling his mask down as he went.

Grace Everett chewed on her tongue, trying to get some moisture into her mouth as she faced Ricky Arendsen once again. Arendsen didn't look like someone whose career was in trouble. She looked unbeatable, her long form perfectly proportioned, her face calm, her eyes like steel. And the fastball!

Grace wished she'd taken the bubble gum someone had offered her. Her mouth felt like a desert. She stubbed her toe into the dirt, wiggled it, set her foot. She'd hit a hundred-and-five before, she reminded herself. Just the other day, down in Triple-A. Today was no different. Just another ballgame, the beginning of a long season . . .

But still, as she faced the Newsmaker, her heart pounded in her throat. She glanced up at the coach and saw the signs. The splitter: he thought Arendsen would throw the splitter. It didn't seem right to Grace. She looked back at Arendsen, at the poker face, the forward-leaning posture, the hand hidden behind the back. Well, the coach was the coach, and this was her first game in the bigs. It was no time for independence. She lifted her bat from her shoulder, let it describe small, tight circles, watched Arendsen straighten, kick, wind, and throw.

Fastball! Again!

At least this time Grace had a swing at it, but she was looking for the splitter, and the fastball surprised her. It smacked into the catcher's mitt before her bat crossed the plate. With a grunt and a gritting of her teeth, she turned and marched back to the dugout, her cheeks burning.

She didn't look at the coach or her teammates. She didn't know them yet, didn't know what their expressions meant, what they might be thinking. Just thinking about their own at bats, probably. She took off the batting helmet and picked up her mitt. She pulled her cap out of her belt as she trotted out to second base. Arendsen was walking in the other direction, to the home side, her lanky height making Grace feel like a half-pint. She pulled on her cap and settled into her place between first and second.

So she struck out. Everybody struck out once in a while, right?

But you only get this chance, Gracie. This one chance. She sighed and smacked her fist in her mitt. She knew they'd only brought her up to face Arendsen. Her Triple-A coach told her so.

"You're playing great, Little Red. None better. But it took guts for those guys to take Arendsen on. It's cost 'em plenty. Extra security, vandalism to the stadium, bad press. Only way they got through it was they made the play-offs. Our guys don't want to risk all that."

She had protested. "I'm hitting .326!"

"Yeah, but we're not the show, Gracie."

"So what, they're giving me one game, and that's it?"

"Depends, Red. You do well, get a couple hits, they might give you another shot."

"A couple hits? Against Ricky Arendsen? That's hardly fair."

"You're right. It's a stunt, is what it is, but I couldn't talk 'em out of it. Arendsen's a fastball pitcher, and you're a h.e.l.l of a fastball hitter. And the boss is an old-fashioned guy. I think he wants to prove you can't do it, that The Natural can't cut it in the bigs."

Grace had pounded the cement floor with the heel of her spikes. "I hate that name. They only call me that because Arendsen-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, kid. Tough breaks all around."

"And so what, the boss wants me out?"

The coach shrugged. "All I know is, he's been whining to the commissioner ever since Arendsen signed. Doesn't believe in women in baseball. Not in the majors."

Grace stood up and fixed the coach with a direct stare. "Arendsen's a great ballplayer." He stood up too, and grinned. "d.a.m.n straight, Gracie. And so are you."

Neither team scored until the bottom of the sixth, when Ray manufactured a run by stealing second and then scoring on Smitty's double. Ricky gave him the thumbs-up as she shrugged out of her warm-up jacket. He grinned, pulling on his chest protector and reversing his cap. As he pulled down his mask, he said, "Hold 'em now, Rick, okay?"

"Do my best."

Ricky knew her pitch count was already at eighty-four, but that didn't concern her. Among the gifts her mother's engineered virus had bestowed on her was stamina. In her first season she'd pitched five complete games, to the astonishment of the coaches and the envy of the rest of the pitching staff. Now, in the top of the seventh, she sent down the first batter on four pitches. She was beginning to breathe easier, feeling as if her season could turn around at last. The ump was giving her the called strikes, keeping the hitters honest, unlike the earlier games of the season. She didn't let the last batter of the inning rattle her, though he got a single and advanced to second on a fielder's choice, then stole third while she was dealing with their cleanup hitter. She eyed him before her last pitch. Ray flashed the splitter, and she nodded. It was her signature pitch, fast and smooth, toppling out of its trajectory just as it reached the plate. No one could read it, not even the umpire half the time.

This time the pitch was perfect. The hitter spun on his heels as he tried to adjust, but he was about an hour too late. Ricky grinned at Ray as they headed back to the dugout, feeling a burst of confidence. It felt like last year, with Lew. "Good work, Catch," she said as they stepped down into the shade and she folded her lengthy frame onto the bench. She pulled the warm-up over her arm.

Ray said, "Yeah. Some long at bats, Rick, but you can get six more."

"Let's hope."

The Skipper glanced over at her. "How you holding up, Ricky?"

"Great, Skip."

He indicated the pitch counter with his chin. "You're at a hundred and three."

"I'm fine." She looked across the field to the bullpen. The relievers still sprawled on the bench, none of them throwing, which meant Skip was going to let her stay in.

She knew what would happen as her pitch count went up, into the eighth, into the ninth. A hundred and twenty. A hundred and thirty. The catcalls would grow louder, more frantic. Lab Rat, Lab Rat.

Had her mother known, when she was perfecting her virus? When she was injecting it into her own womb, targeting her unborn child's stem cells?

It could have failed, after all. Ricky Arendsen could have been some sort of monster. The others-the other experiments-had all had terrible problems. She was the only success, out of a dozen modified fetuses.

Involuntarily, Ricky glanced out at the infield, where The Natural danced between first and second. She wondered if Everett knew what it was like to be Ricky Arendsen. She might even have preferred to be like her, to have her genes modified within days after conception, her body engineered to be bigger, stronger, faster. If today was Everett's only chance at the bigs, her only shot . . . that was tough.

Ricky hunched her shoulders and slid further down on her long, pliable spine. She didn't want to feel sorry for Grace Everett. She had to work hard enough not to be sorry for herself, not to be wounded by the nasty articles, the placards, the threatening letters.

It didn't matter now. Let them yell what they wanted. She would turn it off. Tune it out. Just six batters, and the whole season would turn around.

The rancor of the fans stunned Grace when she came out for her third at bat, at the top of the ninth. She read the sports columns, of course, like everyone else, but even those criers of doom hadn't prepared her for the insults that were shouted at Ricky Arendsen, for the hysterical screams of fans waving signs that said things like "Baseball, not biology." She'd spotted one that read, "Put the b.a.l.l.s back in baseball," but security had escorted the bearer of that one from the stadium before the first pitch. The din rose at her own appearance, rhythmic shouts of The Natural, The Natural, at a volume that banged inside her helmet as if someone were beating it like a drum. There had to be supporters in the stands, people shouting encouragement for Ricky Arendsen, but Grace couldn't hear them. Hate had a stronger voice.

Something unwelcome and surprising twisted in her belly, and she recognized it as a surge of sympathy. She thrust it aside. Her team was down two to zip, ninth inning, one down, one on. And Grace's gut told her, in a cold voice, that this was it. Now or never.

And yet, if Ricky Arendsen weren't out there on the mound, she, Grace Everett, would still be riding the bus with the Triple-A team. No big league team ever gave a girl a chance before Arendsen. Ricky Arendsen stood alone on the mound, awash in antagonism, when all she wanted was to play ball.

Grace wanted to play ball, too. She swung her bat as she walked to the plate, trying to push away the useless thoughts. The coach was flashing her signs, and she nodded obediently, but it was a sham. No point now in sucking up. Her opportunity was slipping away. The coach didn't know what Ricky Arendsen was going to throw. Grace thought she just might.

It was because they were facing each other, she thought. Arendsen could get her with the splitter, that evil slicing arc that made veterans look like Little Leaguers. Or she could fool her with her changeup that looped over the plate like a turtle on Valium. But Arendsen had thrown her nothing but fastb.a.l.l.s. She wanted a test, head to head, Lab Rat against The Natural. And she would do it again.

Grace dug in her toe, lifted her bat above her shoulder, flexed her thighs in her stance. Arendsen bent at the waist, nodded to the catcher, and went into her high kick, that incredible kick that made her look like a seven-foot ballet dancer.

Fastball. Grace swung, pivoting on her heels, the bat whistling. Miss.

She stepped out of the batter's box and took a couple of swings. Arendsen circled the mound, bent to the rosin bag, stretched her shoulders. Grace saw the coach flashing signs at her, and she nodded again. He wore a glum look, and she knew he thought the game was already over. The runner took a long lead at first. Arendsen glanced at him from under her cap, but didn't bother with a throw. Her eyes came back to Grace, gleaming with determination across the sixty feet and six inches' distance. Grace paused at the edge of the batter's box. She felt the ump's questioning glance, but she was transfixed by Arendsen's gaze.

She knew all about the Newsmaker's stem-cell modifications, her incredible speed, coordination, the flexibility in her hips and knees and shoulders. She knew her height was enhanced, her musculature, her vision.

But Ricky Arendsen's mother's patent had failed. The other recipients of the engineered virus had been failures. One child was born with a beautiful body and incredible strength but with a brain that never matured. Another grew so fast in infancy that her bones deformed. One volunteer gave birth to twins who became implacable compet.i.tors-with each other. They had to be inst.i.tutionalized when they were five.

Ricky Arendsen-and only Ricky Arendsen-had grown into a superb athlete, with a mind to match. But the gleam Grace saw in her eye was all hers. No virus had made her the compet.i.tor she was. She was a ballplayer. A gamer.

And so was Grace.

Grace's nerves vanished as if they never were. As if this was just another game, another ballpark, one in a long season. The din seemed to fade from her hearing as if someone had turned down the volume on a radio. She nodded to the umpire, glanced briefly at the coach, turned her face to Ricky Arendsen. She wanted-really wanted-that fastball.

The second pitch missed way outside, and Grace raised her eyebrows. Arendsen tiring? The catcher fell to his left, barely spearing the ball before it escaped to the wall. The runner dashed to second base. Scoring position.

Grace grinned and lifted her bat, painting air circles. The coach stared at her, eyes hopeless. She watched Arendsen shake off her catcher's signs, one, two, three.

She'd thrown nothing but fastb.a.l.l.s to Grace. But now it was the ninth inning, a runner on, only one away. Would she do it again? Grace dug her feet into the dirt and eyed the pitcher.

The kick, the windup, Arendsen's impossibly long arms high over her head . . .

Time slowed, in that way it sometimes did, that way that let Grace Everett know the pitch that was coming was all hers. Great ballplayers, she knew, saw pitches differently, understood their speed and trajectory and spin in a way no ordinary mortal could. Grace didn't know if she had it in her to be a great ballplayer, but once in a while she experienced that perfect moment of perception, that pinnacle of sight and sense and instinct. This pitch, turning seam over seam on its sixty-foot-six-inch path, was no fastball. Grace couldn't have said how she knew, but she knew. It was the splitter, Arendsen's famous, nasty pitch, that fell over the plate as if it had run into a wall.

Grace's heels braced, her gut tightened, her thighs flexed as she wheeled on that ball. She knew exactly where it would be. And she connected.

She felt the impact from her shoulders to her toes, that sweet, hard jolt that sent the baseball leaping for the infield, bouncing in the base path, dodging the shortstop as if it had eyes.