The thing about running a baseball franchise is you need a baseball team. The thing about running a baseball team is you need baseball players. More importantly, it would help if anyone around you also knew anything about baseball. Or, better yet, if they knew that such a thing existed. I wasn’t even sure anyone in Moonlight had even heard of a thing called ‘sports’.
Mind you, I figured if you knew how to throw a rock, you could be taught to throw a ball. Likewise, if you could swing a sword, certainly you could swing a bat, right?
Proctor and I sat gaping at each other for a minute, and I guessed he was thinking the same thing I was which amounted to ‘now what?’.
“Right,” Proctor said. “The roster.”
“My list of players,” I said, clarifying that’s what he meant by ‘roster’ (like I said, I didn’t know what I was doing). “There’s no such thing. I haven’t found anyone worthy of bringing on board. Even if I did, where am I putting them? No field, no practice facility. I’m assuming I need these things.”
“You do,” Proctor said. “The sooner the better.”
“So you’ve said.”
“You’re going to be starting in League 17,” Proctor said. “I’m not sure if you knew that.”
My thoughts shifted back to the ‘restricted’ file I’d opened. There were 20 leagues. Promotion and relegation. I remembered that. Did it say I was starting my franchise all the way down in League 17? Geez, that’s awful.
“Is there a big advantage to being in the top league?” I said.
Proctor’s eyes widened. “Of course, yes,” he said. “You want the nine dragons sewn to your uniforms. It brings a world of advantages playing in the top table.”
“Such as?”
“Better weather for a start,” Proctor said. “The System will reward you for your successes. They’ll award your entire area. Everyone who lives here stands to gain from the team.”
“And lose,” I said. “That’s the other part. If I fail, the entire population suffers.”
Proctor’s lips flattened. “True,” he said. “Which is why it’s important we don’t fail.”
Wow, no pressure or anything. Proctor calmed me, but at the same time he had a way of framing things that didn’t leave a lot of wiggle room. Things ‘must’ be this way, or that. Perhaps it was better to have our philosophy of building a championship team framed in such a way. If you allow for mediocrity, you invite mediocrity.
“The time crunch concerns me,” I said. “You seem anxious about it. I don’t even know the date here.”
Proctor frowned slightly. “How do you mean?” He said.
“I mean, I don’t know what day it is, right here, right now,” I said. “Couldn’t tell you. What month is it? How do they measure these things in the stone age? Is there a sun dial somewhere in the village? I barely remember the date when I was standing in the laundromat when everything happened. That giant earthquake rocked my brain. Wait… summer… 2024. That, I remember.”
“Yes,” Proctor said. “It was August when the world went away.”
A rather delicate means of describing an apocalypse, but customary for Proctor.
“You lost everything you’d known,” Proctor said, “and, everyone. And, you’ve been given no time to grieve. It’s something to reckon with.”
What’s crazy is I hadn’t even given the idea a moment’s thought since it all went down. I’d been so overwhelmed by the speed, and breadth of change, I hadn’t stopped long enough to contemplate the completeness of it all. But, I wasn’t necessarily interested in a Proctor pity party either.
“First off, I should tell you,” I said. “I didn’t exactly have a lot of people in my life left to grieve.”
Which was true. My parents both died when I was really young. I had no siblings, at least none I was aware of back on ‘regular’ Earth. No aunts, no uncles, no surviving grandparents. And, friends? I had a best friend in high school, but I lost touch with him ten years before the giant cataclysm. Other than that, it was a few work acquaintances, but nothing to write home about. And, love life? Dating back in the ‘real’ world was a nightmare.
“How silly of me,” Proctor said. “I’d forgotten a key part of the System’s modus operandi. The only survivors were the unattached.”
“Probably makes sense from a System standpoint,” I said. “Fewer people psychologically shattered by the trauma of it all.”
“Quite wise,” Proctor said. “It was the same for me.”
That comment caused me to raise an eyebrow. When I questioned him on it, he quickly changed the subject. I didn’t pry, but that was a curious thing to say.
“In answer to your question,” Proctor said. “We’re in ‘System Plus Time’. We can call it SPT. This would be the first year of it. So, it’s SPT 1. The time before you got here would be ‘Time Minus System’. Last year in Moonlight would’ve been TMS 1. Having said that, the ancient people inhabiting this land would call their chronological time prior to your arrival something else, something I couldn’t even presume to know. But, for our purposes, and in the eyes of the System, this is SPT 1. The days and months will remain as they were in our modern age. Your first day here was January 1st.”
“January 3rd, SPT 1,” I said. “That’s today’s date then.”
“Yes,” Proctor said. “Tuesday.”
Immediately, I felt less dizzy, if you get my meaning. Sure, we were both seated on my bed in the inn, but I’m talking about something intangible. Not knowing the date had a disorienting effect where every moment had me in a state of vertigo. Not having that anchor of an established place in time made the whole enterprise in front of me resemble a kind of chaotic soup.
“Great,” I said. “So, how long do I have to get things completely set up?”
“One thing at a time,” Proctor said. “We shouldn’t focus on getting everything set up. Merely going through one piece at a time will pay greater dividends. But, yes, time is of the essence.”
“Can you give me a general idea though?” I said. “I’m starting, we’re starting, in League 17 you said? How long do I have until I have to be in League 1?”
Proctor held up his hands. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself,” he said. “First things first, we need to be ready to play our first season in the league. It’s January. That’s good. We have a bit of time. But, only a bit. The season starts in April.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Whoa,” I said. My mouth made a perfect circle, and it froze there for a minute.
“Indeed,” Proctor said. “There’s a long way to go, and as a wise man once said, ‘we have a short time to get there’.”
“Okay, so… players,” I said.
“Players,” Proctor repeated. “Your competitors are already off and running, I’m afraid.”
“How many competitors are we talking about?” I said.
Maybe I should’ve delved deeper into that ‘restricted’ file. Oh, no, it did show how many clubs were in each league. Blast my stupid short term memory. I would’ve looked it up then and there if I could’ve. As it turned out though, I could no longer see it as an option in my vision. It had to have been a momentary System error which gave me access to the file in the first place. Yes, yes, I know, nothing like stating the obvious.
Proctor’s gaze turned upward toward the painted white ceiling of my little room at the inn. He was running back through his mind, no doubt.
“Yes,” he said. “League 17. Where you are in the hierarchy determines the size of the table, understand. So, a league that low-”
“Rub it in, why don’t you?” I said, with a bit of a chortle.
Undaunted, Proctor continued. “With a league that low,” he said, “you’re looking at… 47 other clubs.”
“Ah,” I said, a flicker of remembrance catching light in my mind. “Yeah, there’s 48 teams in League 17. Man, that’s a lot.”
“There are,” Proctor said. “But, gaining promotion to League 16 means 46 teams. And, so on. Of course, being relegated to League 18 has you facing 49 other competitors.”
“Where are all these teams?” I said.
“Other towns, villages, walled cities, counties, kingdoms,” Proctor said. “It’s a big world out there.”
“And they’re all signing players?”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to need a lot more gold.”
“Yes.”
With baseball starting in April, I’d need players, an entire team of players at least a month in advance. Probably even before that… scary.
“I’m going to need an entire roster, as you put it, in place before March,” I said.
“Before February, preferably,” Proctor said. “Fifty, sixty people which you’ll cut down from there.”
So much for getting rid of my figurative case of vertigo.
“Where am I going to find sixty potential baseball players in a month?” I said.
Proctor shrugged. This did not instill confidence. “You’ll have to find a way,” he said.
No kidding.
“I’m here to help,” Proctor said. “I believe we can get there.”
We agreed to step outside the inn for some air. Sure thing, I was glad to have Proctor around, but in a short period of time he’d put a lot on my plate.
Down the creaky stairs, and out the inn’s front door we stepped into the chilly January morning, breath clouds in full view.
The sun languished behind banks of clouds, but it was bright enough we squinted at the contrast with the dim confines indoors.
“I must remember to give your friends their new clothes,” Proctor said. “Before we leave, you may have to remind me.”
The Moonlight Inn & Ale sat in front of a small patch of forest which rose up to a ridge higher than the inn’s structure itself. With our backs to the inn, we faced the entirety of the village. All of the residential structures, stone huts basically, lined the road in front of us, and sat like muddy lumps extending away from us a good half mile toward a tree line on the horizon.
“They’re staying over there?” Proctor said, waving his arms toward the huts at the rear of those assembled before us.
“One of those places belongs to a woman named Hag,” I said. “Yes. Aubrey, Zane, Chai, they’re staying with her. Oddly enough, they got here a month or so ahead of me.”
Proctor appeared confused. “Strange,” he said. “And they are documentarians.”
“Yep.”
“Rings a bell,” he said. But, he didn’t elaborate.
Not that I had much time to worry about it, because both of us were startled by three men who burst from the trees behind the inn grasped on to the reins of a horse. The men were coated in mud, and dressed in sacks. Each had a meaty hand wrapped around the leather bridle. The horse appeared stressed, jostling back and forth, sputtering loudly.
“Whoa,” one of the men grunted. “Ay, ay. Stop.”
“Stop ‘em,” said another of the men.
The horse brayed, and gave the impression it wanted to rear back on its haunches perhaps to raise its front legs in a bid to escape.
“Ay ay ay!” Yelled one of the brutes.
Both Proctor and I took a defensive posture. Arms outward, half crouched.
“Stop!” I hollered.
The men hadn’t even noticed us in their dealings with the rowdy horse. Once I’d yelled, they turned their ruddy faces toward me, eyes bulged like bullfrogs.
“Who you?” Said the stockiest of the three men.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “What are you doing with that horse?”
Wait, a minute, I remember thinking. I recognized the horse. It was Flint’s… the one he’d released to the woods when the T. Rex came running through. Poor thing had been left to wander while his owner lays inactive in a secret room.
“‘Tis our horse,” said the smallest, and wiriest of the men. “Keep out of it.”
“That horse doesn’t belong to you,” I said.
Proctor murmured to me under his breath, “perhaps best to stay out of it.”
“That’s Flint’s horse,” I whispered back. “Flint, the android.”
“Oh, dear,” Proctor said.
“Let him go,” I yelled to the men.
I could see from the corner of my eye, Nimothy watching from inside the inn, no doubt having heard the commotion.
“We won’t,” said the stocky man. “He’s ours. We found ‘em.”
“That horse belongs to my friend,” I said. “He’s not yours. Let him go, right now.”
The impression I got in that moment, based on the defiant snarls on each of their faces, I wasn’t sure those men had ever been spoke to in such a way before. I didn’t care, I was worried about Flint’s horse. I had a feeling these guys weren’t going to be kind to him.
“Attributes,” Proctor mumbled.
“Huh?”
“You have the magic scouting ability,” Proctor said. “You’d already mentioned it. Check their ‘Tool’ ratings.”
Man, even in a stressful situation, Proctor proved to be a committed pragmatist.
I had an in depth look at the stocky guy first.
[Tools:
Hitting 25
Power 35
Fielding 20
Running 25
Throwing 25
OFP = 26]
Another bust, for the most part.
Then I checked the wiry guy.
[Hitting 30
Power 30
Fielding 25
Running 30
Throwing 35
OFP = 30]
This guy might as well be a superstar compared to the ratings I’d encountered up until then.
Here were the last guy’s numbers:
[Hitting 20
Power 20
Fielding 20
Running 20
Throwing 20
OFP = 20]
“Not a lot here with any of them,” I said to Proctor.
“Discouraging to hear,” Proctor said.
“You and you,” the stocky man bellowed. “You git, or we’ll flatten ya cold.”
“What are your intentions with that horse?” I said.
Predictably, the men glared at me, and I had little doubt they didn’t understand the question.
“What are you going to do with him?” I said.
“He’s food!” Shouted the wiry man. “Back off ‘til you’re food too!”
Adrenaline surged from the pit of my stomach.
“Perhaps we should check in on your friends across town,” Proctor said.
Was he mad?
“I’m not abandoning this poor horse,” I said to Proctor. “No way, I’m leaving him with them.”
“They’re proposing to attack us,” Proctor said. “Think carefully about what you’re doing.”
I understood the man’s more rational impulse, but no way I could leave the poor creature with those cretins. Which is when a thought struck me, and I knew exactly what to do.