The Autumn Engagement

by Stephen Cote

  Part 2: A Conversation About Baseball

  "Franko," the synthetic with the grizzled voice said and motioned to the suite door. Victor Welch’s security team took great care in designing a socially acceptable bodyguard, but Janus readily identified the war chassis under the faux human skin. The behemoth’s integrated arsenal left few sinuous lines. Janus placed the voice to the face, recalled the guard from various games.

  Upon entering the palatial suite, Janus stepped into the world he rued losing. Alcohol wafted from an open decanter, fine ornamentation embellished the walls. The room appeared empty and he asked, "Mr. Welch?" Then he realized he could not remember what Victor Welch looked like, or if the voice even belonged to the same family. The word fool came to mind.

  "In the game of baseball," the voice of a potential Victor Welch said from the door. He shut it and walked to the desk on the opposite side of the suite.

  Janus found the words meaningless as he watched the pasty-skinned, very obese Victor Welch waddle across the room.

  Victor dabbed at his perspiring forehead with a well-used handkerchief. "The question, Janus, is in the game of baseball… I am having difficulty with a physics calculation." He offered an enigmatic expression. "Pardon me for drudging up a subject I’m sure you would prefer avoid. I have an economic interest in the outcome of many politically-centric sporting events, and I have spent a considerable amount of time studying the games."

  "You want to know why my pitch sank early." Janus swallowed in an attempt to quell an onrush of vertigo. Why indeed. He knew why. There were a thousand reasons why. Ten thousand minute facts adding up to why. After losing so much, he reasoned only a decent explanation kept his mind together.

  "Yes," Victor said. He walked behind the desk and, with some difficulty, sat in an oversized chair. "And no." Again, he wore an enigmatic expression. "Putting aside all visible external factors, what physical condition caused the ball to sink at that precise time?"

  Ten thousand reasons. And the best ones that came to mind included, "Dust on my finger tips, a draft, particles adhering to the ball."

  Victor shook his head and his expression cleared, becoming calculating and precise. "You are a doctor in kinetic energy and motion. Very specialized. Your thesis analyzed random disturbances of a known trajectory. Your body was so finely tuned the moment you threw the ball that no machine on the planet could have matched your accuracy."

  "Yes," Janus whispered, taken aback by the sudden change in Victor’s attitude. "But not this time."

  "What do you mean not this time? What I want to know," he raised his thick hand and pointed a knobby finger at Janus, "And what I want you to tell me is: In the game of baseball, is there margin for chance?"

  "No," he said. "Maybe a thousand or so years ago when the game was first invented. Maybe five hundred years ago when baseball players were first genetically engineered. But not now."

  Victor mopped his forehead again. "Good. We agree on that fundamental point. Baseball is game of strategy. It is one reason humans have not turned to war since it was first used to settle political and economic disputes." He peered at Janus, his expression lost within the sickly-white layers of flesh.

  Janus felt revolted at Victor’s appearance. Every party he had attended catering to the pretentious had been hosted by the Welch family. And now, with the host standing in front him, those parties were laughable. People spent months preparing themselves to be as beautiful as possible, and for what? This disgusting individual.

  "My dilemma, Janus, is if baseball is a game of strategy, and not a game of chance, then how should your throw be classified?" Victor sat back in the chair and folded his thick arms over his chest. "If baseball isn’t a game of chance."

  Janus found himself speechless. Accusations of fraud began the moment the pitch resulted in a connecting swing, and persisted over the intervening eight months. Is he implying some other misfortune, foul play on behalf of a third party? Or, like everyone else, he assumed Janus meant to throw the pitch.

  Before Janus could offer a reply, Victor continued. "But I didn't intend to discuss your misfortune. I asked you here to apply your scholastic abilities in determining the outcome of a theoretical pitch." He made a gesture with his hand to engage the 3D environment.

  A pixilated representation of a baseball diamond enveloped the room. A pitcher, catcher, and batter, all featureless, stood or squatted in their respective positions.

  "Assume these are national teams," Victor said. He beckoned Janus towards the 3D mound. "And assume the catcher and pitcher have solid statistics. Unknown batter at the plate," and Victor gestured to the model. "What conditions would this pitcher need to strike out that batter?"

  "Drop the Wisomin," Janus said at once, pointing to the pitcher’s mitt. "Hans and Kluudner."

  Victor frowned, perplexed. "Yes, yes. Very expensive, but not the most popular."

  "A good pitcher needs a low profile mitt with a shielded jammer to block all the noise and radio interference." Janus stood next to the 3D model. "But only the Hans and Kluudner mitts dampen electrical noise. They aren’t meant to be stylish, which is why most pitchers don’t use them. You can count on any national league pitcher to use one because their job is to perform, not to look good."

  Victor nodded an acceptance of the explanation.

  "Shoes are ok, and the optic visor is a good choice. Just make sure the dominant eye isn’t covered." Janus pointed to one of the model’s eyes. When Victor looked skeptical, he added, "As you said, we’re finely tuned. Better than a machine."

  He gave the model another quick survey, and then pointed to the pitching hand. "Lose the pitching glove." He rubbed his fingers against his thumb. "Genetic engineering trumps polymers. There shouldn’t be anything between the pitcher’s hand and the ball."

  Victor nodded. He withdrew a remote device from a pocket and sent updated instructions to the 3D display. Janus’ suggestions were incorporated into the pitcher model.

  "A hypothetical scenario, then. It’s the fifth inning. Doesn’t matter what half, doesn’t matter who is ahead. One team adds a legal side stake on the next pitch. The other team accepts. Given these three models, and using your knowledge in this field, what are the expected results of the next pitch?"

  Janus nodded slightly to affirm he understood the question and then walked around the pitcher model. The fiscal variance complicated the calculation, but, did it matter? Next, he walked towards the grainy representation of home plate and studied the batter and catcher. Finally, he looked to Victor. "What is the intended pitch?"

  "Would it matter?" Victor asked.

  Janus paused, and then shook his head. "No, I guess it wouldn’t."

  "Then you’ve made your estimation?"

  Janus nodded. "The batter will miss. If this model is an accurate representation, the batter's posture suggests it wants the pitcher to think it will swing high, but the axis of its body puts the hardest contact on a low pitch. Either way, he’ll miss."

  "How can you be sure?" Victor asked.

  "Batters, much like pitchers, are very well learned. Unlike pitchers, batters don’t have the luxury of time. They study the posture of the pitcher and attempt to deduce where the ball will break. This batter favors a line-drive hit." Janus pointed to the representation of tensed triceps on the batter’s arms. "But it's already torqued to swing low. You can tell by the muscle use. The pitcher is going to throw high and this batter won’t have the reflexes to hit a fair ball."

  "I agree," Victor said. "A solid preliminary analysis, although I don't agree with the part about favoring a line-drive. That could simply be a ruse."

  "It could be," Janus said. "Is this what you needed my help with? Baseball 101?" He felt annoyed at the simplicity of the question.

  "Not exactly. Let’s play through this pitch." He tapped the device and the pitcher erupted into action. The pitch flew perfect, as expected, and the batter swung low, as Janus predicted. But where he expected to hear the sim
ulated sound of a baseball snapping in the catcher’s mitt, he only caught the sharp crack of a bat.

  Janus blinked. "Apparently I missed something. Again."

  "Yes," Victor said. "But no one could have gotten this one." He walked towards the plate and stopped halfway between the pitcher and the batter. "You thought the batter would swing and miss. Either the pitch was off, or you were wrong. But, as we discussed, baseball is not a game of chance. At least not anymore. That clears you and the pitcher, leaving only the ball."

  "It would show up in the playback," Janus argued. "I know. Do I ever know. I’ve watched my last game hundreds of times, walking with the ball through each frame. If something disturbed the ball, it would have been caught."

  "Something did disturb the ball, at least in this scenario." His voice tapered.

  Janus shrugged. "The ball is perfect, the pitch was perfect. Heck, even the batter did a crackerjack job, assuming this was a real game."

  "And assuming we can ignore an unexpected drop in height at the time it crosses the plate. But, we can't ignore such a result. That pitch should have been higher. You thought so, I thought so." Victor, then exasperated, said, "This kinetic field thinks so!" He manipulated the control a wafer-thin red field rendered off the pitcher's mound.

  "No human and most machines can’t see it. Very few people know it is possible. And yet here it is."

  "In all its 3D splendor," Janus said.

  "In 3D splendor, yes." Victor changed the view to an actual ball game.

  "That wasn’t a scripted play, was it?" The game looked recent, possibly in the last month judging by the advertisements animated in the outfield. Though, he had not afforded much attention to entertainment, or anything else for that matter, beyond his misery.

  "Are you beginning to understand, Mr. Franko?" Victor asked. "Chance is not a factor."

  A translucent pink veil hung between the pitcher and batter. And, for the first time since the game, Janus entertained a reason other than his own shortcomings and errant abilities.

  "Why?" he asked.

  "Money," Victor said.

  "Someone ruined my life for money?"

  Victor flashed a wicked grin. "A lot of money. Diamond mines lead to diamond-carbide bonding, which lead to faster synthetic brains, and that is a stratospheric amount of money." His anger returned. "My money!" He turned off the 3D display. "In the last year, I’ve lost fifty diamond mines to extraterrestrial rights disputes between Cascadia and other countries. All determined by a game of baseball. Each game decided by a single pitch." He gestured wildly around the room. "Caused by a kinetic energy field no one can prove exists."

  "And you can prove this?" Janus asked.

  Victor said matter-of-factly. "When it comes to my money, I’ll go to great lengths to find out who is stealing from me."

  "You know who did it?"

  He shook his head. "The only public entities involved in political disputes are the countries. In your case, Britain. However, international law stipulates property seized from the resolution of a dispute must be sold at public auction. In order for me to claim a conspiracy, both saboteur and prospective buyer have to be identified before the first transaction is completed."

  He sighed and walked behind his desk, sat in the overstuffed chair. "A kinetic energy field disrupted at least one pitch in multiple games. And, the public auction for the first properties ends in two days. The prospective buyer will most likely attend my party to claim the titles." Victor adjusted his girth around the chair arms. "I lost the first set of mines to your pitch and commenced investigation. In three days the party is over for both of us. The transaction will be complete, Britain will receive the proceeds, and I will have no legal recourse to regain ownership. Any facts I discover afterwards would be considered inadmissible. My proposal to you is straightforward: Attend my party, find out who is responsible, and I will see you regain employment, recoup your status and salary, and reimburse you for any personal losses."

  "And if I say no?" Janus asked.

  Victor shrugged. "I’ll pay you for your service."

  "This party," Janus said, almost choking. "It’s a synthetic party."

  Victor nodded.

  "I hate these," he admitted. "The goal is to be seen with the best looking companion. You can’t turn around without running into someone swapping out parts, either a bigger bulge in their pants or inflating their chest."

  "Quite sick." Victor said.

  "Then why do it?" Janus asked.

  "Because the distance traversed by the wealthy to maintain their pretense amuses me," he admitted.