The Impossible Pitcher

by Charles Curtis

  Alex: K.

  For a second, I thought about telling him Sophi and I were quarreling, but she was his friend too. I suddenly felt alone.

  ***

  I needed to do a workout to continue my pitching training on Monday, so the timing to watch their game worked out. I made my way to our state-of-the-art gym after my final class of the day and found Dex dribbling and taking shots by one of the eight baskets set up along the sides of the main court. He went in for a layup and got some serious air to make it look easy as he got about eight feet up … except the ball rolled off his fingers and clanked off the side of the rim.

  “How’d it look?” he asked.

  “Awful. When’s the last time you played basketball?”

  “No, I mean, I didn’t try to jump as high as I can. I don’t want to make it look too suspicious, especially to someone as tall as her.”

  “Oh, sure.” As if a couple of feet lower would make my five-foot friend’s cat leap look slightly less athletic. “Why are you doing this again?”

  He took a jumper from the foul line that was nearly an air ball. I grabbed his rebound and fed him again. This time, he hit a shot, then looked around the mostly empty gym, save for a basketball coach wheeling in a rack of balls at the other end.

  “When I’m around her or talk to her on the phone, I feel this weird sensation in my body,” he said in a hushed tone. “Like my powers just disappear.”

  “You guys talking smack about me?”

  Dex and I jumped back as Huma entered the gym with a grin.

  “Oh, hey, Huma,” I waved and stepped aside as she came over.

  “Hey, Alex. Just messing with you, Dex. You have to relax,” she said. As she came in for a quick hug, she smacked the ball away from him and began dribbling. This wasn’t the same shy girl I’d seen at Winterfest or in the weight room. I guess dating Dex had given her new powers while potentially taking away his.

  “Sorry, I get a little competitive before games and practices.” She must have read the expression on my face.

  “Like I said to you last night, no mercy,” Dex cut in. “Play to seven. You shoot for ball.”

  “Are you sure?” she said. “This seems like a really bad idea.”

  “Even if it’s 7-0, I promise it isn’t.”

  She responded by swishing a jumper from the free throw line.

  I felt a slap on my back and whirled around to confront the attacker … only to look up and see Kenny. What was he doing here? Then I saw Sophi behind him.

  “Bruh, what’s going down? Is this game about to get started or what?”

  I couldn’t respond with the millions of thoughts running through my brain. Sophi came over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

  “Dex invited me, I told Kenny about it,” she said into my ear. “Yesterday is behind us. Kenny’s a friend, nothing more.”

  I swallowed and nodded.

  “Hey Ken, what’s up?”

  “I came to watch our boy get trounced by his lady friend!” He laughed.

  “You never know with Dex,” I said, trying my best not to smile back.

  We grabbed a seat in the nearby stands as the game began. Dex checked the ball to Huma, who immediately started backing him down. That meant her butt was basically in his face as he tried to get low enough to stop her. Her height was too much for him to handle as he was bumped all the way back to the basket. Huma whirled around and put in an easy layup. It was an easy 1-0.

  Dex bounced it to Huma behind the free throw line. She decided to take pity on my smaller friend and pulled up to take a jump shot. Dex jumped a hair too late and, to the naked eye, it looked like he’d barely gotten off the ground. Swish. A 2-0 lead.

  “Why is he doing this again?” Sophi asked, shaking her head.

  “It’s a test,” I said. “He thinks his powers shut off when he’s around her.”

  “How is that even possible?” Kenny asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  Dex checked the ball again, but this time, he got his body right up to Huma’s, swatting at the ball as best as he could. She held the basketball above her head, not taunting him as much as she was just trying to keep it out of his reach. Finally, she dribbled with her right hand and took a couple of lateral steps.

  Dex finally got a hand in and knocked it away, grabbing it near the foul line. Finally, he had a chance at something. He must have figured he had no shot at driving to the basket given how much taller she was than him, so he took a jumper. Huma knocked it back with ease, but not far enough for it to go out of bounds. Dex ran back and grabbed it. Now he was behind the three-point line and lined up to take a shot I knew he wouldn’t be able to hit. Huma stepped up and jumped to block it.

  It turned out not to be a shot at all. Dex had pump-faked and left Huma out of position behind him. He had nothing but space and the basket in front of him. He took a bunch of dribbles as Huma watched from behind the arc.

  I fully expected one of those ten-foot jumps he’d been known for, maybe even a surprise slam dunk. But as he stopped his dribble and took two big steps, he jumped and only lifted a couple of feet. Clearly, he was expecting a higher jump too, because his would-be layup banged off the bottom of the rim.

  “Yaarrrgh!” Dex came down from his failed layup holding his ankle and yelping in pain. We jumped down from the stands and raced over.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” he said as he flexed the ankle and as Huma looked on with wide eyes. “I just turned it when I landed. It’ll swell, but I’ll be fine.”

  We heard a whistle blow and turned to see the girls’ basketball team was about to start practice.

  “Dex, I’m so sorry. This was a mistake,” Another whistle blow, more urgent this time. “I have to run, text me as soon as you’re home.”

  “Help me to the locker room,” he said with a grimace. Kenny and I leaned down and helped him up, putting his arms around our shoulders, which meant we both had to stoop low. Sophi indicated she would wait in front of the athletic center since we were off to the boys’ locker room. “Feel better, Dex!” she called after us.

  As soon as we reached the locker room, Dex hopped off us and walked without a problem over to one of the wooden benches in front of the lockers.

  “Wait, you’re fine?” I asked in shock.

  “No, I’m not,” he said, irritated by the question. “What happened to my powers?”

  Kenny and I exchanged relieved looks.

  “Dude, you seriously put a scare in us,” Kenny said. “Plus, your girl up there isn’t going to be too pleased when she finds out you faked it.”

  Dex glared at him.

  “I know that. But what if we’re in real danger and I can’t run away fast enough or climb up somewhere when someone’s chasing me?”

  A little shiver ran down my spine. He was right.

  “Do you think it could be her fault?” he asked quietly.

  “I don’t know, but I know who would—my dad,” I answered. “Come over tomorrow after school and he’ll figure it out.”

  Dex nodded. I noticed how quiet Kenny had gotten.

  “What does your dad know about this?” Kenny said, his eyes filled with the same fire I’d seen on the football field not too long ago. “Why haven’t I gotten an invitation like that?”

  Shoot. I forgot I hadn’t told Kenny my parents were involved. The awkward silence hung in the dank air of the locker room.

  “Look, man,” he said, his icy blue eyes boring holes in my head. “I don’t know how many ways I can say it. You can trust me. What happened on the football field is over. We’ve got real life to deal with now, and if we don’t stick together, something really bad is going to happen.”

  I glanced at Dex to see his reaction. His head was lowered, his gaze averting either of ours. Suddenly, Kenny’s hairy hands grasped my shoulders. It took all my mental strength not to fling them off of me and take a swing at him.

  “You need to k
now something else: I am not trying to steal your girl. We’re just friends, I swear. But if you keep acting like a jealous jerk, she’s totally gonna end it with you.”

  What do you know about her and me? I shouted in my head. Have you been giving her relationship advice too? But I gritted my teeth and nodded.

  He let go of my shoulders.

  “You know, after the game, I was so bummed. I stayed out on that field for like 30 minutes. Then I was told about you guys, how there were kids out there just like me who could help me discover who I am. Yeah, I was still angry about how the game ended, but I realized there was something bigger I was involved in and maybe you all could help me feel a part of that. I hope you can still make that happen.”

  “Now, I’m gonna go hang out with Sophi,” he continued. “Come join us after your workout. You too, little dude.”

  He walked out of the locker room, past that enormous creepy picture of Vance Strange staring at him.

  “Are you going to go?” I heard Dex ask. But I wasn’t paying attention to him again.

  “Did you notice something weird about what he just said?”

  “No.”

  I turned back to look at a confused Dex.

  “Who told him about us?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Which would you like first, Dex?” My dad asked a couple of days later. “The good news or bad news?”

  It was Dex’s first visit to my dad’s underground laboratory below our house. The basement pipes opened to reveal a long metal tunnel that led to a door which only my mother and father could open using a password that changed every two minutes. My best friend had just finished a battery of tests that included some blood drawn and a run on the treadmill I’d used during football season when Dad figured out what triggered my powers.

  “Bad, first,” he replied.

  “Okay,” Dad said, as we sat across from him at a metal table. “The problem is, I never had baseline blood readings from you before, so this is merely a theory. Because all your powers work thanks to the increased hormones in your body chemistry, it looks to me like you’ve thrown everything out of whack with a recent increase in testosterone.”

  “In other words,” he continued, “you already had an increase in certain hormones when puberty began, but with this new girlfriend, your body has started sending some of those hormones into overdrive. In turn, that’s begun to interfere with your powers kicking in.”

  Dex put his forehead on the table and gave it a couple of gentle bangs.

  “There’s good news about this?” he said through his muffled mouth.

  Dad brightened a little.

  “I believe this is temporary. The only thing is …”

  “I’d have to break up with her,” Dex said as he looked up at my father, who shrugged. “It’s possible.”

  My best friend moaned and banged his head a little harder. “But I really like her!”

  Dad gave Dex an awkward pat on the head.

  “The things we do for love,” Dad said. Dex grunted in response.

  “Now,” my father said, turning his attention to me. “How have you been feeling?”

  I shrugged. “Fine. Just focused on school and pitching.”

  “I’m still working on a modified, more powerful sensor to implant, but it’s going to take a little while longer. Any activations I should know about?”

  I averted his gaze for a moment. I didn’t want to tell him what I’d learned recently when I pitched for Kieran given how adamant he’d been about me not controlling my powers. For a second I wondered if I could use my nanobots to help me lie, that somehow they could keep me from smirking or sweating or even keep my heart rate down, but I ignored that and looked back up.

  “Not really. I thought there were a few times the bots were kicking in, but nothing happened.”

  “Even when you were pitching?” he asked, staring at me over his glasses. Dex looked up at me with confusion.

  “Yeah, nothing yet.”

  “Alright. Once I get this sensor fixed, we’ll get all that squared away. Speaking of pitching, you know I made some modifications to the robot to help you practice pitching, right?”

  I sat up in my chair and grinned at him. He was referring to the robot he’d built that caught footballs and critiqued my quarterback technique. “Thanks, Dad! That’s awesome. Is it okay if we try it out now?”

  “It’s on you if your hands turn into icicles.”

  Dex and I put on our jackets and hats and headed outside to the garage. When we opened it, there was the robot. It stood on a pair of tank treads and usually had a football helmet on its head covering a pair of red eyes along with yellow gardening gloves on its hands. This time, it had a catcher’s mask and a large leather mitt on its left hand with a shiny new baseball in it. I reached out and touched its metal “shoulder.”

  Suddenly, the red eyes illuminated and the LCD screen on the front snapped on with the words “BATTER UP” flashing. Dex and I stepped back and watched it roll out to the backyard. We followed as it stopped and “squatted down” (really, it just lowered its torso down like an elevator) and flashed the glove out just like a catcher, tossing the ball to the spot where I’d throw from.

  “Alright, now, here we go, let’s see that heat!” The only thing my dad didn’t modify was the voice—it still sounded like Peyton Manning, my favorite quarterback of all time. Its left metallic hand pounded the glove as it waited for a pitch. I walked back, shook off my jacket, and picked up the ball.

  “Uh, warm up first?” I wasn’t sure what commands it would obey.

  “Confirmed,” it squawked.

  I started playing catch with it as a silent Dex watched from the side. I glanced at him as the robot softly threw back a ball. He was looking at the ground and seemed distracted.

  “You okay?” I asked. “Sorry the news about your powers wasn’t good.”

  He stayed silent and avoided my gaze. I took another few steps back and threw another warmup pitch.

  “Why did you lie to your dad?”

  Startled by his confrontation, I barely caught the ball thrown back to me.

  “Why wouldn’t you tell him about what’s going on with your powers?” he continued.

  “Keep your voice down!”

  He stepped closer and glared at me with those slits for eyes.

  “It’s none of my business. But I’ve never seen you do that before. You know he’s just trying to protect us.”

  “We’re fine!” I said in a loud whisper through clenched teeth. “Nothing’s happened since the mall. Who’s going to be in danger if I use my powers occasionally in a baseball game? No one!”

  His eyes softened and he frowned.

  “You were the one who told me a few months ago how wrong it was to use our powers to win a football game,” he said, his voice no longer sounding high-pitched as usual, but low and grave in tone. “What we did and what Kenny did was wrong and it’s too late to change that. You can’t do the same thing now and hide it from everyone.”

  He paused and looked down at the ground again.

  “You’ve changed. Sophi and I both see it. This stuff about Kenny and who told him about us is just crazy and paranoid … and what’s going on with you and Sophi is the same.”

  Bile rose in my stomach. I clenched and unclenched my left fist.

  “I gotta go home and study for a history quiz tomorrow. I’m just trying to tell you all of this because we’re friends. I want to help.”

  He walked away, while I was rooted to my spot and too stunned to say anything. Dex, of all people, sided with my girlfriend and Kenny. Practically everyone I cared about was against me. The anger welled up in me, with my arms shaking as I turned back toward the robot.

  “Warm-ups are over.”

  “Confirmed,” it said with Manning’s voice. The robot positioned its glove perfectly in the strike zone. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and exhaled. Channel all that an
ger into this next pitch. I went into my motion.

  POWER.

  Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

  POW!

  The echo of the ball thumping into the robot’s mitt echoed around my backyard. The baseball dropped out and the machine waved its gloved hand as if its palm stung.

  “Strrrrrrrrrrrike!” it said like an umpire, still with Manning’s drawl. “That had some mustard, kid.”

  That’s better.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THWACK!

  Four-seam fastball (with my two fingers across the stitches), inside corner on a righty. Strike one.

  I grabbed another baseball, twirled it in my hand to position the seam away from my palm, and put my index and middle fingers on the stitches. My thumb gripped the smooth part underneath.

  THWACK!

  A slider that broke in toward a right-handed batter. It landed outside the strike zone, but I bet someone would have swung and missed at it. Strike two.

  I turned another ball in my glove to get my all my fingers around the surface, while the stitches ran parallel to my fingers. I aimed to the outside left corner and high. Changeup. A deliberate wasted pitch to bring the count to 1-2. Since my first meeting with Kieran, I’d spent weeks learning and practicing a couple of other pitches besides the fastball.

  THWACK!

  I stepped off the mound inside the fieldhouse and wiped my brow with my gloved arm. I turned my back from my target, closed my eyes for one second, took a deep breath, and exhaled. Back on the mound with the ball behind my back as I stared at the square taped off on the tarp—Kieran had finally added one after I’d advanced in my training. Step back, feet together, ball in my glove as I found the four-seamer grip again.

  Thoughts began to swirl in my head as I prepared for my strikeout: Sophi and Kenny together. The words Dex said to me the other day about how I’d changed. Lying to my parents about what I’d learned in the last few weeks. My body shook a little as the anger and fear coursed through me. Come on, Alex. Channel it.