“Not until this works,” was his reply.
“You say that now,” Mitch said, “but you haven’t looked at these readings. Andrew’s serotonin levels are off the charts, and Heather’s not too far from them. One more loop through the sim and they’re risking brain damage.”
“Brain damage? From a virtual sim? That’s not even possible.”
“Tuck,” Mitch said, “you’re using the same nerve pathways. This isn’t just a sim, remember? Every time we restart, we run the same signal down the exact same neural path. You can’t keep reusing those neurons without risking problems later.”
“But we’re close! I can feel it!”
“Tuck, do you really want your best friend—and your potential girlfriend—reduced to babbling and drooling?”
Tuck hesitated for a long moment, his back to Mitch, but started the sim again anyway.
❦
Heather found herself walking dreamily through a forest. She could feel the beginning of a migraine building in the back of her head, and there was a red and gray haze surrounding her vision. She would have to tell Tuck that his simulation induced headaches.
Her foot caught on a root, and she tripped; when she put her hands up against a tree to catch herself, they went halfway into the trunk. She blinked several times, trying to clear her vision.
Mitch jumped when the alarm went off. Red lights started blinking all over his console. “That’s it, Tuck,” he said. “The built in safeguards are kicking in. If we don’t shut down the sim, it’s going to start shutting down the whole system—and we have no freaking idea what will happen if the sim crashes with someone still wandering around in it.”
Tuck hesitated for a very long moment. Then he sighed, long and loud. “Fine,” he said. “We’re done.”
Heather worked her way to her knees, and realized she was next to a small table, with a bottle on it that said “Drink Me.” She reached out, and found the bottle was actually about three inches to the left of where it seemed to be. “Eat and drink,” Tuck had said. She lifted the bottle to her lips and drank it down.
Tuck grabbed the microphone. “The simulation is ending,” he said. “Everything that happened here tonight will fade from your memory. As you go to sleep tonight, this will feel like it was just a dream, and it will disappear into your subconscious just as easily. You won’t remember a thing.
“Okay,” he said to Mitch. “Let them out.”
❦
When Heather sat up on the exam table, the first face she saw was Tuck’s. He stepped through the room, checking on each of them, helping them to their feet.
“I’m sorry the simulation failed,” he said. “Maybe we can try again some other time. I’ll let you know.”
Andrew stepped across the small room to help Holly down off the table. Their eyes locked, and she was leaning quite heavily on him as they left the room. Tuck noticed that Andrew’s hand was dangerously low on her hip, and she was leaning her head on his shoulder.
Mitch stepped up next to him. “Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall when they wake up together in the morning?”
Tuck frowned at him and said nothing.
“Tuck?” Heather said. He turned, offering a hand as she staggered a step, and then was surprised when there was something in his hand. “Would you... call me? Sometime?” She offered him a shaky smile, and headed out of the lab.
Tuck looked at the scrap of paper in his hand while Mitch let out a guffaw. “So, it really did work after all? Color me impressed. I take it all back. She’s never given her number to anyone at all. You did it.”
“Nope.” Tuck balled up the paper and pitched it into the farthest corner of the lab. “Tomorrow, when she wakes up, she’ll have never given her number to anyone. All forgotten, just like I told her to do. Just like a dream.”
Mark Corey
❦
PATRICIA SCOTT
“This, as you say, suggested
At some time when his soaring insolence
Shall teach the people—which time shall not want
If he be put upon’t, and that’s as easy
As to set dogs on sheep—will be his fire
To kindle their dry stubble, and their blaze
Shall darken him for ever.”
- SICINIUS, CORIOLANUS
It’s a modern day battlefield of carefully tended turf and pristine dirt, with unforgiving paint lines marking the boundaries. You step on that field with eight other guys that you’ve sweated with, trained with, probably bled with, if you’ve been working hard enough to be the best. The nine of you take that field and man your stations.
There are people that would tell you it’s just a game. It’s all chance. Nobody can hit the ball every time. Those people are the ones that have never risen above anything but mediocrity. They settle. They settle for having fun, they settle for the person they think they can get, just like everything else in their lives, they settle for the easy way. Not me. Not my team. We don’t settle. We fight. We walk out onto that diamond knowing that we’re the best and knowing that it’s our game to win. The other team is just there for us to take out while we make ourselves look good.
Baseball isn’t just about hitting the ball. It’s about playing your averages. You lead your batting lineup with the guy who hits consistently but not far. You don’t want to start with an out at the start of the inning. Your second guy, he’s better about getting those outfielders to have to chase that ball. Your third and fourth guys, you want them to be your power hitters—these are the guys that are going to get onto the bases and clear them without breaking a sweat. They’re fast and strong.
The other team has to strategize. Your first baseman, he’s got to have good reflexes and a strong throwing arm, so if that ball flies at him, he’ll get that out, then send the ball where it needs to go. He’s sharp and accurate when he throws. Your outfielders have to be able to get under that ball and whip it to your basemen, because a slow guy out there who isn’t paying attention? He’s going to be the death of your team.
Your pitcher, though, your pitcher has to be your strategist. He’s been studying the other teams. He knows how to break them apart. This guy can’t hit fastballs. This guy, he’s short, so his strike zone is practically microscopic. That guy has trouble with curve balls. That one, if you just get it fast and low over the plate, he’ll never even realize it passed him until the ump yells “strike”. There’s no time for the pitcher to get tired or sore. He’s got to keep that baseball in play. If you have to sacrifice a hit, you give it to that guy because he can’t manage to haul his butt to the plate fast enough to be safe.
I’m this team’s leader. I spend hours studying footage of the other teams, cataloging their flaws, because we deliver victories. Nobody celebrates second place. Nobody says that you were good enough. They don’t talk about that time you almost go to the State Championships. They don’t remember the guys who almost break records. It’s the guy whose name gets engraved on that plaque that hangs in the trophy case as you come in the front doors who gets all the glory. I am the one who works for it. I’m the one who deserves that glory. The other teams, they’re just stepping stones to my victory.
I’ve just finished my junior year of high school, and the baseball season is in full swing. We got started with practices at the end of February, keeping that focus on our own skills. I spend hours, every day, in my backyard throwing baseballs at cans and through a tire. That’s what it takes—dedication, practice, that willingness to do whatever it takes to get to the top. That’s how I lead my team. That’s how we win.
When I’m not practicing my pitching, I’m doing batting practice and reviewing footage from our games and from games of all of our opponents. My mind has become an encyclopedia of area baseball statistics. I can list the rosters, at-bats, RBIs, and anything else you want to know about the guys on my team and the guys on theirs. It’s all how I play that game to win. You have to know who and what you’re up against in order to def
eat them.
Luck happens sometimes in baseball. You get that guy that’s had maybe two at-bats all year who steps up to the plate and makes the grand slam. It’s the one shining moment of heroism he’ll ever have in his life. It may be good, but it won’t be good enough—not against solid skills, perfected over an insane amount of practice.
I know who I am on that field. I know the worth of what I do on that pitcher’s mound for myself, for my school, and for my team. Without me, our team would have been languishing at the back end of tournaments, barely managing to pick up an extra game or two during the season because they managed to go up against a team worse than they were in the initial round.
Now we’re two time state champions, and we’re headed for a third championship with an undefeated record. With me on this team, we’ve got recruiters coming to every game. I see them out there, wearing their polyester button-down shirts and their smashed fedoras, trying to blend in with everyone else. Except they’ve got binoculars and cameras and never have any family resemblance to anybody on the field with me.
I know. I’ve studied my team as intently as my opponents. I know them by their stances, by the way they hold a bat, the differences in their gaits, the nervous tics that show as they anxiously await the next play. Baseball is a reactionary game. The other side does something, you try to make sure that whatever it is they did doesn’t work to their advantage.
This is my third year taking the field with my army. They’ve been mine since I proved my freshman year that I could out-pitch and outlast Danny Keller, who was a senior. He’d get sore about inning seven and never did learn how to ignore the protests and twinging warmth of overused muscles. He’d get slower and more erratic, until the other team could start hitting consistently toward the ninth. It gave them all the opening they needed to storm our gates and lay waste to the lead that we had built.
Any given game, I treat those points as my castle. My job is to protect my fortress and tear down yours, pure and simple. If I can keep you from building at all, even better. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at. Everyone who’s ever played with or against me knows it, too.
Today is the first game of the state tournament. There’s a recruiter there that I recognize. He’s been coming to games since I was a freshman. First it was one game, then two. He’s been to three games already this year. This makes the fourth. He’s checking me over, trying to see if I’m showing any signs of burning myself out. Not a chance. I’m only getting better from here.
I’ve still got some growing to do. There’s still muscle to be put on. With access to better equipment and better coaches and trainers, there’s no doubt that as good as my game is now, it’s only going to get better. This isn’t arrogance. It’s the truth. There’s six other recruiters in the stands and they’re all watching me.
We take the field against the Taggert Tigers. They’ve got a guy who does okay taking first bat. I throw him a slider, dead down the center, and he swings a split second too late, ruining his chances to get a hit. He hesitates. He always hesitates. I know this because I’ve watched him overthink instead of trusting his instincts. He swings and misses more than he connects and it’s easy to pick him off. Three different pitches right in a row and he can’t anticipate what I’m doing next. I keep him off balance and he can’t manage to recover.
This is all-out, no-holds-barred war. I am playing for my future. Now is not the time to have pity or to show weakness. There is no place for mercy on this diamond. I throw with everything I have. Every point of fracture that I have cataloged becomes another place to exploit, getting me closer to my goals.
I love baseball. I’m good at it and have been for as long as I can remember. Ever since that first time I picked up a glove and played catch with my dad in the backyard, I knew. This game is all I want to do with my life. After high school, I’ll play in college for a while, until I can move on, probably to a triple-A team with a solid affiliation with the Big Show. They’ll call me up, I know this with certainty. The way my record stands right now, I’ll be ready. I’ll go in there when the time is right and show those guys what they’re missing.
First, though, is the immediate team at hand. They aren’t people. They’re an obstacle to my calling. I just have to pick them off, one by one. I’m in that particular mindset that I get into when I pitch where I know I’m doing well. My mind automatically brings up the strategy that will bring my team to the win and my body executes it flawlessly.
Coach and our catcher are giving me signals, which I acknowledge. Then, I give them a few signals of my own. We’ve played together long enough that they trust me. There aren’t any arguments if I indicate that I think we should go in a different direction.
It’s hard to explain what it feels like on that field for me. It’s higher than knowing I’m the king of this game right now in our area. There’s almost a godlike quality to it. I’m infallible here. I know what I’m doing, and what’s more, everyone else knows it, too.
Those other teams, they don’t want to go up against me. They know it’s a losing battle. When they see our name on the other side of that scoreboard, they already know they’ve lost. I just have to make it official.
One inning passes, then the next. Nine pitches at a time I kill their dreams. It’s simple. Throw this guy fastballs. Throw this one curves. That one can’t deal with knuckleballs to save his life. There’s no tricks here, just simple, honest strategy. One guy manages a hit, but it’s low and it bounces across the grass to smack securely into my first baseman’s glove.
I didn’t pitch a no-hitter, but it was close enough to being one that it sends the other team packing. They’ll go home still feeling proud, because they’ll get to say that they almost got a hit against me. Almost wasn’t good enough to advance them in the tournament, but that’s all they’re going to get from me and from my team.
The rest of the tournament goes pretty much the same way. I make them wish they’d never seen me, one throw at a time, and make sure my other teammates don’t have much to do. The thing is, when they have to hit and run, they do it just as well as I pitch. We don’t have to climb the rankings—we were first seed. We just have to defend, and we do. I get to bat once a game in the six games we play.
Every time, I get to home plate. I hit one home run, which the recruiter I recognized got to see. I pitch three no-hitters. It’s a new state record. I’m going into the local history books on this one, which is a good start toward getting me into the nation’s history books, and then to the world’s. State championships now, and eventually I’ll be on TV screens while fans watch the World Series in breathless anticipation.
The Bradenburg Bombardiers take the state championship for the third year in a row, just like everyone knew we would, and I’m awarded the MVP trophy for my superb performance on the mound. A couple papers interview me. They’re simple questions: when I started playing, what do I do in the off-season, do I want to keep playing. These are things I don’t even have to hesitate to answer.
It takes a day after the games before the recruiter calls my house and asks Mom and Dad if he can have a meeting with me. We’ve been expecting this. I’ve always known that this day would come. It’s never too early to start planning out the next stage of the game, especially one that’s laid out as neatly and predictably as this one is.
He introduces himself as Wally, and he’s from a school in California. Their team’s been consistently high-ranked for the last decade, and they’ve won the College World Series multiple times in that span. They want me. Like, full-ride want me. There’s just one little hiccup.
My grades are decent. They aren’t too bad, but they aren’t fantastic, either. Baseball rules my life; and that’s okay, Wally assures me, because the school has great sports medicine and physical therapy majors that would probably be right up my alley, as well as a program to train future coaches. There are abundant opportunities for me to gain all the skills I need to have a career in baseball and beyond. It won’t ne
cessarily be a walk in the park—after all, I’m going to have to maintain at least a C-average to compete on the team, and that will have to be on a full course load while I’m attending all required training and practices.
But I’m confident I can do it. It’s just college, it’s not like I’m going to have to deal with that much difference in what I do now. My grades are the way they are because there’s a nerdy kid next door. He fixes my homework, completes it when I don’t have time to, and in return, I act like I know him. It’s just enough credibility to keep him from getting pummeled every day after school by the rest of the jocks. He lives off our scraps, but to him, they’re a feast. There are even some of the girls that want to hang around with us who make the mistake of thinking that if they get in good with Roger, then they’ll get in good with us. It doesn’t work like that, but it’s funny to watch them try; and it makes Roger happy, so we let it go on.
Wally isn’t concerned about my grades, though. I keep it to myself that those are really more Roger’s Bs on my report card than mine, because that won’t look good. I’m a baseball player. That’s what I’m going to do with my life. I don’t need to worry about anything else. I’m waiting for Wally to get to his point. If the grades aren’t the issue, then what is?
I catch something about the university wanting to create “citizens of the world”, whatever that means. Just sounds to me like another word for “mediocre”. I keep that thought to myself. There are steps you have to take to get where I’m going, and if I miss one, the recovery will be almost impossible.
Finally, Wally says, “To guarantee admission, we want to see our incoming students be more well-rounded when they come in to our program. Your grades aren’t quite good enough, and your baseball skills won’t make up for that. You’ll have to do reasonably well on your SATs and, quite frankly, we’d like to see that you’ve developed an interest in something other than baseball.”
Perchance to Dream Page 12