Lynn frowned. "I guess I don't understand why you have to use statsofts when you play."
Valerie's eyes brightened. "It's really not that hard to follow, Lynn. Back toward the end of the twentieth century baseball started slipping in popularity. A devastating players' strike and a number of betting scandals rocked the game. Because players and managers were betting on games and seen as grossly overpaid, fans started deserting. Baseball officials reacted, taking serious steps. For example, one of the greats, Pete Rose, was banned from the game and initially barred from election to the Hall of Fame because of gambling. Baseball also tried expansion, interleague play, and radical realignment to bring the fans back, but it only slowed the slide. They needed something to reverse it and that need, coupled with two other things, set up the current system."
Her earlier nervousness banished as we got into a discussion of baseball, she laid out the thinking behind the current system like a professor lecturing from her dissertation. "When the world changed and magic came back, and with the rise of bioware and cyberware, the potential for rigging games really spiked. Something had to be done to combat that eventuality. At the same time sabermetricians had managed to reduce the game to a stack of stats, and with the proper program you could produce a box score that would be very close to what the true outcome of the game would be."
Val held her left hand open, palm up, then made the same gesture with her right hand. "At roughly the same time a great nostalgia for baseball hit. Old-timers' games and replays of old championship series became very popular. The filmField of Dreams and its holovid sequels made lots of money. Suddenly the corps that owned baseball got a great idea."
She brought her hands together, her fingers interlaced. "The Hall of Fame produces statsofts for all the players who ever played the game. Teams bid for the services of players in certain years of their careers- guaranteeing a statistical level of performance-and the teams play. It's possible to have Babe Ruth from 1916 pitching to himself from 1927, for example, and that makes for a very exciting game."
Lynn shrugged. "But that could be done with a computer simulation. Why do they need players?"
Jimmy nodded. "Good question. They use us mules because we can get broken, which introduces an element into the game that a computer simulation can't really cover."
"Even so, aren't the outcomes preordained- statistically speaking?"
I gave Lynn's hand a squeeze. "They would be except for players like Jimmy here. He's a Legacy player."
"What's that?"
Jimmy hesitated and Val answered for him. "There are some players in the annals of major league baseball who never had the chance to play enough games to pro- vide a solid statistical base to make them a good player. The teams bid a lot of money for the headline players, like Babe Ruth and Tom Seaver, then fill out their roster with lesser known players. Legacy players come after that, and their identities are kept secret. That injects more chance into the game and allows folks to guess at who their favorite players are."
She reached over and gently slapped the back of Jimmy's hand. "Last year I thought you were playing Luscious Luke Easter from 1953, but this year, I don't know. This season you could be Red Lutz in 1922 or Bobby Lowe from 1894."
"Good guesses all." Jimmy smiled at her and I saw Val blush. "Luke Easter was a great player. I'd like to think,if I were playing him, I could do him justice."
So would management, and that was the basic problem I'd been asked to help solve. The team wasn't playing up to their averages. Everyone was off their statistical average and even though a few players, like Jimmy, were doing better than they should have, the overall effect was to take the edge off Seattle and that spelled disaster in the upcoming pennant battle with the San Diego Jaguars.
Jimmy leaned forward and brought his voice down into a conspiratorial whisper. "Look, this place is making my skin crawl. Shall we get out of here?"
"Sure. We can catch something to eat down the street."
Jimmy's face brightened. "You know, I'd just as soon head over to that pizza joint on Westlake you talked me into visiting."
Val looked slightly stricken. "The Dominion place across from the Jackal's Lantern?"
I waved her concern off. "Don't worry, Val. The prevailing breeze blows from Dominion toward the Lantern and not vice versa." I stood and pulled Lynn's chair out for her. "How did you get down here?"
"Val gave me a ride."
Valerie smiled as Jimmy held her chair for her. "Lynn, why don't you go with Wolf. I'll drive Jimmy, if that's okay with you?"
"I'd be delighted," he replied to her and I had no doubts he would indeed.
II
I arrived at the Dome late in the afternoon the next day because of the night game. I found Jimmy already there and dropped to the bench in front of the locker I'd been assigned. "Jimmy, thanks for going out last night. Valerie is on cloud nine, or so I was told when Lynn called me after talking to Val."
"Good. She was a lot of fun." He smiled pleasantly. "She drove me back to my place and we talked for a long time. She knows baseball and a lot more, too."
I pulled my street shoes off and set them beside the spikes in the bottom of the locker. "I was directed to communicate to you, through means subtle but effective, that Val would be willing to go out with you again."
He nodded. "Yeah, I'd like to see her again, too.Did you manage to get Lynn back to her apartment in the tower before her folks called Lone Star?"
I shook my head. "They called, but I have a friend at Lone Star who intercepted the report, calmed them down, and gave me a call on my car phone." Lynn and her parents work for Fuchi and share a family suite of apartments in one of their corporate towers downtown. Because she is an only child and because the corp encourages close familial ties, her parents tend to worry a bit. I get along well with them, but come the witching hour, her mother gets anxious. "Lynn said her mother wanted to know if we had a nice time, what with the evening being so short and all."
I pulled off my leather jacket, then shrugged my way out of my shoulder holster. As I turned to hang the Beretta Viper-14 beneath the jacket in my locker, my right shoulder popped audibly. Jimmy looked up and I worked my shoulders around, eliciting a similar pop from the left shoulder. "Batting practice left me stiff."
Jimmy waved Thumper over. "Wolf, take off your turtleneck and that kevlar vest. Thumper, work some of that Atomic balm into his shoulders."
"Relax, Wolf. Relief's here."
I pulled off my shirt and vest as Thumper dipped his index finger into a squat white jar of red gel. It came out with a big gob pungent enough to make onions weep, and the Old One started howling because of the way it smelled to him. I did my best to ignore his whining and just let myself luxuriate in the warmth as Thumper worked it deep into my shoulders and neck. "Man, Thumper, that's great."
Jimmy smiled, then nodded at a grizzled dwarf bearing a black case. "Time already, Coach? We got a couple of hours yet before the game."
The dwarf shrugged. "The league's got someone here to go over things, so I expect the whole process will take longer." The dwarf reached over and bent Jimmy's right ear down, exposing the chipjack set into his mas-toid bone. From the case he drew a small chip and slotted it into the jack with a click.
Jimmy let his head droop forward for a moment, then he hummed faintly while the chip coach moved on toward the ork4who played third base.
I glanced back at Thumper. "What's Jimmy doing?"
"Warm-ups. Letting the software blend with the wet-ware. Transition's not easy all the time."
"Right. I should have figured." Activesofts become active the second they're inserted into a chipjack, but to assume that every user has instant or perfect command