Archive of Our Own

The Wapakoneta Air, Space, and Worm Museum and Ballpark is huge. The hallways are full of gadgets and display cases, every single one labeled with a placard of when and where it was used.

Lani doesn’t stop to look at any of them, as much as she would like to; she’s been here before, on field trips for school and the occasional trip up with her family. And anyway, she needs to keep pace with the manager. He’s shorter than her, but he knows the routes better, and it’s a conscious effort to stay in line with his quick, confident steps.

“We’ll update the systems with your biometrics later,” he says, “and then you’ll be able to access the equipment and appropriate rooms. Only the ones you’re approved for, obviously.”

“Right.” Lani nods. Something passes over the glass roof, casting them both in shadow for just the briefest of moments. She looks up to see, but it’s gone too quickly.

“Practice eclipse,” the manager offers. He waves a hand. “We do drills of every weather, here. You get used to it.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“You’ll need to attend those drills, at least for the first pre-season. We have to make sure you know how to adjust the camera for quick lighting changes.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Lani offers. “I did a lot of that with the news team at BGSU, and when I interned at the local NWS branch. They had me chasing down storms all the time.”

The manager hums in acknowledgement, but doesn’t ask any questions. Instead, he flips through the papers on his clipboard for a moment.

“We just a few more things to go over, Operator,” he says.

Lani opens her mouth to correct him, to remind him of her name, but she doesn’t get the chance. He stops walking suddenly, and she finds herself stumbling on the slick tile floor.

“Here we are,” the manager says, gesturing to the blank wall.

He tucks his clipboard under his arm and presses a hand to the tile; it takes her a second to see the outline of an indentation there, shaped like a hand. Then an entire panel recedes, revealing a door that swings open on its own.

“This is where the Scorekeeper stays,” the manager explains. He gestures to the room, a narrow space with just a desk and a chair. One wall is adorned with a huge corkboard; the other, dozens of television screens. “You won’t need to come here, but they’ll be keeping an eye on all of your footage. If they ask you to focus in on something, you need to do it.”

Lani leans forward onto her toes, peering into the dark space. “Are they here yet?”

“No,” the manager steps back, raising one arm to stop Lani from getting too close. The door closes with a sudden whoosh that makes her eyes water. “The Scorekeeper doesn’t arrive until the first day of the season. You won’t meet them.”

“Oh,” she says. “That’s… Okay.”

The manager either doesn’t notice her confusion or doesn’t care. He pulls the clipboard back out to check his notes, and then starts walking again. Lani hurries to catch up.

“I’ll show you to your station,” the manager says. “Right this way, Operator.”

“You can call me Lani, actually,” she corrects him, trying her best to be polite. “Allan is fine, too, but I prefer Al if you’re going for that.”

For the first time since he walked into the atrium to greet her, the manager seems confused. He looks at her with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow, pen paused halfway through making a note on his paperwork.

“We do not use names here,” he says. The words are slow, as though he is trying to explain trigonometry to a kindergartener. “I am the Manager. That room belongs to the Scorekeeper. You will be the Operator.”

Lani does her best not to be offended. “That’s it?”

“That is all we need.” The manager doesn’t wait for her to respond to that, even as more questions collect on the tip of her tongue.

It’s a good thing the job pays well, anyway.

--

Jebediah Kranch made his name as a handyman. His back ached from hours spent bent under sinks and standing in cramped spaces, his broad hands ached with undiagnosed arthritis, and, perhaps most importantly, he had very little patience for problems he could not fix.

This, though, isn’t a problem. Lani reminds herself of that over and over; she chants it under her breath on the walk into the restaurant, and keeps thinking it even after her mouth stops moving. She spots her father sitting at the counter with a fork in one hand and a knife in the other, eyeing up plate upon plate of bacon, scrambled eggs and pancakes.

“Hi Dad,” Lani chirps. She hops up onto the stool next to him and reaches over to snatch a piece of bacon, before he even has the chance to greet her; he grunts, doesn’t protest. “Thanks for meeting me.”

It’s just one step too formal. Jeb sits up a little straighter, frowning deep enough to show every wrinkle in his tired face. “What’d you do, Al?”

She’s heard that phrase hundreds of times over her lifetime. Somehow, it’s still terrifying; no matter how old she gets, Lani thinks, she might never hit a point where his narrowed eyes don’t make her feel like a toddler up past her bedtime.

“I got a job,” she offers.

“You got a job.” His voice is level, monotonous. He picks up a slice of toast and piles it high with eggs. “That it?”

“It, uh.” Lani realizes, fairly abruptly, that she would rather run straight into the Cuyahoga River than have this conversation. She would rather launch herself off the shores of Lake Erie and swim to Canada. “It’s with the ILB?”

Jebediah Kranch chokes on his toast. “The what?”

“I’m not playing!” Lani says. She holds both hands up in front of her, as much a surrender as an apology. “I’m just operating the camera. It’s completely safe.”

“Nothing safe about blaseball,” Jeb says. He turns his attention back to his food, but Lani can still see the cogs turning in his mind. “How’s your mother feel about all this?”

“Why not ask me yourself?”

Miriam Kranch exits the kitchens with a plate of waffles, piled high with fruits and whipped cream and powdered sugar. She sets it down in front of Lani and leans over the counter to press a kiss to her head, then sets about making coffee for them. Her apron is covered in floury handprints, spots of white visible in her close-shorn hair.

Sometimes it still catches Lani off guard to see her without the braids, extending well past her shoulders. She reaches up and plays with the beads in her own hair, pilfered from her mother’s jewelry box over the years. Miriam catches the motion and smiles, so she can’t possibly be too upset.

“Well,” Jeb says, “how do you feel about all this, Mimi?”

“I’m not happy about it, but our girls know how to take care of themselves,” she says. “I can hardly stop her now the contract’s been signed. So long as she keeps showing up for her shifts in the offseason, she can do what she wants.”

Miriam holds out a chipped white mug full of coffee with too much cream. Lani takes it gratefully and cradles it in both hands, eyes darting between her parents like a tennis match. Her father sighs and wipes his mouth with a napkin.

“Fair enough,” he mutters, even though she can tell he doesn’t agree. They’re going to be arguing about this later, she thinks, when she isn’t around to see or hear it. “Don’t go giving your sisters any ideas, though.”

“I won’t. Promise.”

Jebediah nods and grunts in something close to affirmation. He gestures with his fork to the plate in front of Lani. “Now eat your breakfast.”

All in all, Lani thinks to herself as she cuts her waffles, this could have gone a lot worse.

--

The first game is exhilarating. If Lani had any doubts about her decision to join the ILB, they’re dashed away by the sound of fans cheering, the rush of chasing around every play with her camera. She sits on her rig and feels almost godlike, hovering above the field.

“If there’s an incineration,” the manager had said, with the same businesslike tone he’d used when reciting the rules of the break room’s fridge, “you’ll need to point your camera at the crowd immediately after. Your priority is to find the replacement.”

But she was barely thinking about that at all, in the moment. As the moon crept its way across the sky, she focused on adjusting the camera’s specs and following the ball wherever it went. The players move at nearly superhuman speeds and it takes all of her attention to follow after them.

Occasionally, a quiet voice would come over her earpiece. Steady and even-keeled, backed by the sound of pen scratching against paper.

“Zoom in on Rivers Rosa,” the Scorekeeper would instruct her, and Lani would do so. “Show me Niq Nyong’o again,” and she’d train her lens on the outfield.

By the time it’s all over, Lani is fully wiped out. Her body has been so tense, her ears straining to listen to instructions over the roar of the crowd, her eyes focused on the tiny screen of the viewfinder. She melts into the chair of her rig like her bones are made of rubber, hand shaking as she reaches up to remove her headset.

There’s a moment of peace and quiet. Just one. And then, suddenly, Lani hears someone yelling from just behind her with a very familiar kind of rabid enthusiasm.

“Lani, Lani, Lani, Lani!” Addy cries. “Lani, this is so cool!”

She turns to find her sisters gathered in the stands near the base of her rig. Addy has her hands cupped around her mouth as she yells, jumping up and down. Beside her, Amelia picks delicately at a stick of cotton candy, peeling the sugary floss off with her nails.

When Lani climbs down the ladder to the roof of the dugout, Harper holds out a hand to help her over the railing. She’s wearing a Georgias jersey, the turquoise bright against her dark skin.

“Couldn’t you at least wear a jersey for the Worms?” Lani asks. “I don’t think my manager would like it if I’m running around talking to fans of the away team.”

“Ugh, no,” Harper says. “Your team’s colors are the worst, and anyway, you don’t have Flattery McKinley on your team.”

“We’ve got Kaz Fiasco,” Lani shoots back.

She’s proud of herself for remembering. The last few days of pre-season had been spent on the floor in Harper’s bedroom, surrounded by trading cards of every Worms player. It had been fun at first, something for the two of them to do together; by the end, though, Lani was about ready to throw all the cards out and quit.

“Fiasco’s fine,” Harper concedes. “I still like the Georgias’ uniforms better, though.”

“The Worms have better chants!” Addy leans into Lani’s side, and Lani wraps an arm around her shoulders easily. She and Amelia are both taller every day, it seems like.

“Are you going to play for them one day?” Amelia asks. And then, before Lani can answer, “They just move so fast. You can’t do that.”

“Hey!” Lani protests. “I could if I practiced a little. They have to do a lot of training to get there.”

“But you won’t play,” Harper cuts in, easily. “You promised Dad you wouldn’t.”

“Obviously not.” Lani snatches a piece of cotton candy from Amelia, ignoring her protests. “I’ll let you be the star athlete of the family, don’t worry.”

“Good.” Harper grins, rocking back on her heels. “Did I tell you I’m going to be the starting goalie this year? Coach Jackson finally posted the final lineup.”

“I did see the group chat, yes,” Lani says. She holds up a hand, counting off on her fingers. “And your Instlagram post, and the Flacebook status, and the skywriter…”

Harper laughs and shoves her shoulder, setting both her and Addy off kilter. “Let me have this! I’m excited!”

“Really. I couldn’t tell.”

That makes Amelia laugh, and then Addy. They don’t stop, even as Harper teases and pokes and tickles. It gives Lani a bit of a break from the conversation, a second to collect herself.

Lani notices, then, the way the stadium has cleared out. They’re the last ones in the stands. Landscapers are on the field patching holes in the grass and raking the infield. When she looks toward the box, she spots the manager; his eyes are trained on her, and his pen is hovering over his clipboard. Something about it unsettles her, but she can’t figure out what or why.

“Hey,” she says, interrupting her sisters’ excited chatter. The three of them turn to look at her expectantly, smiles and laughter at odds with the sudden chill running up Lani’s spine. “Let’s go get some food, yeah? You all have a long drive back home, and you should have more than just cotton candy and popcorn in you before you go.”

“I had a pretzel,” Harper says automatically.

“Vegetables, Harper,” Lani insists, and starts walking toward the exit. She’s more relieved than she can say when her siblings follow after, apparently willing to listen to her for once in their lives.

She feels the eyes of the manager on her back the entire time, right up to when she enters the tunnel to the museum.

--

There is no real way to get used to blaseball, but Lani does her best. She comes to work each morning with a coffee in one hand and a bagel in the other, walks to her rig and makes sure everything is in working order before warm-ups begin.

From there, it’s all up in the air; the players she has to focus on change every day, every inning and pitch and play. She learns their names, though, and memorizes their jersey numbers. Lenny Crumb, Rivers Rosa, Muse Scantron. Any number of people, some human and some not.

She waits with bated breath for an incineration or a feedback. She waits for a reverb, a full-scale event to tell everyone about later. That doesn’t happen; instead, Pitching Machine is swept Elsewhere on a wave of black immateria. Don Elliott, a player for the Dale, swallows a peanut and collapses to the ground until the paramedics can get him back to standing. Knight Triumphant marches onto the field from a haze of fog, dripping with water and barely able to hold a bat.

All the while, the voice of the scorekeeper prods at Lani through her headset. Zoom in closer and pan left and over there. The announcer’s voice calls everything out in loud exclamations from the box and the manager watches over it all with his clipboard. The ballpark runs like clockwork, not one thing out of place; Lani finds her place in it as best she can.

And then she trudges home at the end of the day, to an apartment she’s done her best to decorate and make a little more like a home. String lights dangle from the doorways and photos of back home hang on the walls: her mother behind the counter at Mimi’s Diner, her dad holding her on his shoulders in front of the elephants on a trip to the Cleveland Zoo.

Harper visits on the weekends, when she’s free. She spends the nights on an air mattress in the living room, alternating between watching soccer games on the television and doing homework. Sometimes Addy and Amelia tag along; sometimes they don’t.

She doesn’t have a lot of time to make friends, and the stadium staff aren’t exactly great candidates. But, Lani thinks, it’s not a bad way to be, at least for now. When the season ends, the manager leaves a new contract on the chair of her rig. She signs along the dotted line, just like the year before, and that’s it.

That’s it, she thinks. She’ll leave the stadium and return after the siesta, a year of working at the diner and spending time with her sisters. And she’s so busy thinking about it, the logistics of moving back home and what to do with her current apartment, that she doesn’t notice someone else standing in the hallway until she walks right into them.

“Oh!” Lani practically yelps, stumbling back. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t – I wasn’t…”

The words die in her throat. The person in front of her hasn’t reacted at all, that she can tell. They stand a full foot taller than her, but she can’t make out any features; they’re hidden in a heavy triangular cloak, colored the same chocolate brown as a Worms jersey. The hood casts their entire face in shadow except their mouth, the lips pressed into a tight, thin line.

“Um,” Lani starts, and then trails off. There is not much to say, other than that. She goes to move around them, but they hold up a hand; the sleeve falls back to reveal ink-stained fingers and nails bitten nearly to the quick.

“Operator,” the person murmurs, and Lani recognizes the voice even if she doesn’t recognize the person using it.

“You’re our scorekeeper,” she says.

“No,” they say. “I was the scorekeeper for your stadium, but now the season is over. I am a scorekeeper, unassigned.”

Lani thinks of the contract on her chair. It had said, in no uncertain terms, that she would be staying with the Worms for the next season. There wasn’t any mention of moving, of turnover.

“You have to leave?” she asks. “Why?”

The scorekeeper sighs and shrugs. The movement jostles their hood, and the fabric slips back just enough for Lani to glance blue eyes, a shock of blond hair. “The Scorekeeper must remain Objective,” they intone, like they’re reading a commandment or a law. “And so I must go somewhere else, next season.”

“Oh,” Lani says. She’s not sure what else to say. This isn’t someone she knows, really. They’re practically a stranger. But she’d gotten used to listening for their voice over the headset, had learned to tune out everything else to detect the sound. It’s weird to consider needing to learn a new voice, a new person. “Well. It was nice working with you. Good luck?”

“And good luck to you, Operator,” the scorekeeper says back.

“You can just call me Lani.” It’s a futile effort, Lani knows; no matter how many times she says it, no one listens. It is only ever Operator and it is only ever a command.

“I appreciate the offer, but I will not,” the scorekeeper says, and then steps to the side. One arm motions for her to go ahead, fabric swishing through the air dramatically. “Enjoy your offseason, Operator.”

A question pops into Lani’s head. It feels silly to ask, like crossing some kind of line. But she asks it anyway. “Where will you go during the siesta?”

The scorekeeper tilts their head, and again the hood moves. This time, Lani catches a flash of freckles across a cheekbone and the crooked bridge of a nose. “I will rest, as all scorekeepers do. Now go, before anyone notices you asking questions.”

Lani doesn’t wait to be told a second time. She nods and mutters a quick goodbye, then makes her way to the exit.

--

“A job’s a job,” her mother says, passing a tray stacked with plates through the window. “You can quit after this next season, if it’s that bad.”

Lani takes the tray in one hand. “I guess it’s good experience. Maybe I can go back to the weather service or something and actually get a job this time. Or freelance.”

“Freelancing is risky,” Mimi chides her. “If you go that route, I’m going to be calling you to cover shifts here. You know that.”

She shrugs. “I’m okay with that. At least I have friends here.”

“Well, then. That’s decided,” Mimi waves her off with a towel, turning her attention back to the griddle. “Now go serve the Uzanskis, they’ve been waiting a good twenty minutes. Laura won’t ever let me hear the end of it if the food goes cold.”

The restaurant is as busy as it gets, the Sunday afternoon crowd wandering in after church services. Lani catches the eye of plenty of people she knew in high school, they and their families crammed into the diner’s small booths and straining to hear each other over the clatter of dishware and waves of ongoing conversation.

She drops off her own tray of food at the appropriate table, and then spots Harper, leaning on the back of a booth and chattering away with a few other girls. Some, Lani recognizes from days spent filming Harper’s soccer games; others are strangers to her.

“Hey, slacker,” she chides, sliding up to bump her hip against her sister’s. “I see a lot of empty mugs around, if you’re looking for something to do.”

Harper lets out a loud groan and rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on. I’ve been checking on all my tables. Let me have like five more minutes.”

“You know if Mom catches you talking to your friends you’ll never hear the end of it.”

“And if Mom catches you talking to me, we’re both going to be in trouble,” Harper snaps. She nods a head toward a booth in the corner. “The Browns have been waiting for their bill for, like, half an hour.”

“This is so much worse than my real job.” Lani pulls the bill out of her apron and waves it at Harper, the closest she can get to a so there! as she makes her way to the booth in question.

She doesn’t mean it, though; sometimes she wonders why she bothered with college, why she’s even trying the whole camera operator thing, when she’s got an entire family and job set up for her here. Why she’s interested in anything at all, other than the home she already has.

--

The new scorekeeper is quiet. Lani had gotten used to the frequent instructions from the last one, the way they would come over the headset every few minutes to provide direction. But as the first game of the season continues, the line is eerily silent. It isn’t that it bothers Lani much; more that she wonders, however subconsciously, whether the silence is due to discomfort.

So, around the fourth inning, she presses the button for her own microphone. She’s never done it before, and she feels the uncertainty in the pit of her stomach as she speaks.

“Hi, scorekeeper!” she tries. In the viewfinder of her camera, she watches Rivers Rosa wind up for a pitch; she focuses on that, and tries to slow her breathing to match the rise and fall of Rivers’ chest. “This is Lani. I’m your operator. Let me know if you need to see anything specific and I’ll get it for you.”

But the line stays silent, no voice coming to respond to her. She wonders if the equipment is broken, momentarily, and then decides to ignore it for now. If something is wrong, someone else can figure it out; she can’t exactly do anything to fix it from her seat in the camera rig.

And then the line crackles to life, a brief spark of static. Lani gets just one quick moment of happiness, the satisfaction of having gotten through to whoever is on the other side, before the sharp voice of the manager greets her.

“The scorekeeper will speak when she needs something, Operator,” he says. It feels like being scolded by a teacher, and Lani bites her lip to keep from pushing back or protesting. “Until then, keep the line silent and focus on the job at hand.”

There isn’t a lot of room for disagreement or protest. Lani feels her face flush from the embarrassment, but she fights to keep her composure. In the viewfinder, she watches as Rivers throws a perfect pitch into Scratch Deleuze’s glove.

The umpire calls a strike, and the inning ends.

--

Eclipse weather hardly even scares her anymore. That’s probably a mistake, she knows. Incinerations are still just as possible as they’ve always been. But it’s been more than a year since she started, and really, the most she’s had to worry about is the white balance on her tape.

And, in fact, Lani is so focused on balancing the lighting that she doesn’t even notice when the crowd falls silent. She misses the way the shadows grow long, swirling with deep reds and purples. But it’s impossible to miss the roar of an umpire as its form grows, as it sheds its human form and becomes a beast of flame and smoke.

Lani can’t help it. She screams.

The sound is drowned out, though, by the lightning that arcs across the field. It’s so bright that Lani is blinded by it; she completely misses where it goes and who it hits, too busy ducking down and trying to shield her eyes.

The manager’s voice crackles over her headset. He is eerily calm, expectant. “Operator. Locate a replacement.”

It takes her too long. She knows the job, what she’s supposed to do. Lani should scan the crowd to find the one, the person marching toward the field as everyone else runs away. But the lightning had been so bright, and it’s nearly impossible to look away from the scorched earth where Hiroto Cerna had been standing just a few moments before.

By the time she starts looking, the stands are a mess of people, a chaotic tangle. There are too many people, and it’s not clear who is moving where.

“I can’t,” she says, barely more than a whisper. “I can’t see anyone coming toward the field.”

The manager sighs. It’s not forgiving; it’s impatient. “No, Operator. You have to choose.”

“What?” Lani yelps, and it sounds hysterical even to her. Her breathing comes quick, shallow. “No! I can’t— I won’t do that!”

“There are consequences.” It’s unnerving, how nonchalant he sounds. Like this is something that happens all the time, like it’s not a question of life and death. Lani hates him, in that moment; she thinks she has never hated anyone or anything this much, as the disgust and shock roils in her stomach like an ocean in a storm.

And then the announcer’s voice booms over the speakers.

“A Rogue Umpire incinerated Hiroto Cerna!” the voice calls.

Lani watches in horror as her camera turns on its stand of its own accord, the lens she’s stared through for the last season and a half coming into focus on her own face. She’s not sure how it’s moving, but she doesn’t have time to figure it out.

"Replaced by Allan Kranch!”

That’s her name. It comes to her like she’s underwater, hazy and unclear. It is the name her mother and father chose for her, well before she was conceived. The name of her grandfather, booming over the speakers and displayed on the television screens surrounding the scoreboard.

She gets one second, maybe two. Enough to make her way to standing and to will her feet to move, to run for the exit like everyone else. And then everything goes out of focus, like the transition in some cheap movie. Like a camera trick, one she’s executed thousands of times.

Once it clears, she’s standing in the outfield. Her cleats dig into the burnt grass where Hiroto Cerna had been standing just a few moments before, and a glove sits uncomfortably on her left hand. Lani feels dizzy and lightheaded. She drops to sit on the ground.

No one notices. Or at least, she thinks they don’t. Whatever happens after that, she doesn’t know, not until a woman in a green cloak is kneeling on the ground in front of her and looking over her face with brown eyes that flash gold in the sunlight.

“Operator,” she mutters, and Lani sees that the cloak she’s wearing is the same as what the scorekeeper wore, just a different color. “Operator, you need to come to the dugout. We’re batting now.”

“Lani,” she insists, even through the fog crowding out every other thought. “My name is Lani.”

The woman looks surprised, eyes widening just slightly. But after a moment she nods and holds out a hand. Her fingers are stained with ink, too. “Okay. Lani, then. But you do still need to come with me.”

Lani allows herself to be led. The scorekeeper – and Lani is sure that’s who this is, even if she can’t figure out how one ended up on the field – moves slowly, prosthetic legs picking out a path clear of debris and upset dirt as she leads Lani along. Lani does her best to keep up, despite the way the world is spinning.

They make it safely into the dugout, where a crowd of strangers she barely remembers the names of are gathered. The woman holding her hand shoos them all away and sits Lani down on the bench.

“Thank you, scorekeeper,” Lani mutters, the only thing she can think to say as a cup of water is placed in her hand.

The woman laughs. It’s a low and gentle sound, and Lani latches onto it, tries to hold that warmth inside her. She tucks a strand of brown hair tinged with burgundy behind one ear and shakes her head. “You don’t need to call me that, not now. I’m Scores. I pitch for the Flowers.”

Scores Baserunner. The name rings a bell, in the back of Lani’s mind. She doesn’t ask any questions, though, about the cloak or the game or the incineration. She doesn’t have it in her. Lani keeps her head down, and waits for someone to tell her what to do.

--

“I thought you said you weren’t going to play,” her father says. He sits at the kitchen table with his arms crossed over his chest, every inch of his body tense. Her mother stands at the counter with her hands covered in flour up to the elbow, hands smacking against bread dough hypnotically.

Lani struggles to keep her composure. “I didn’t think I was going to.”

“You know, I might’ve expected this from Harper,” he pushes on, ignoring her. “But you don’t even like sports, Al. What the hell were you thinking?”

“Jeb,” her mother warns. She doesn’t take her eyes off the dough, but it’s still enough to cut through some of the tension, to head off the worst of a rant before it really starts. “She didn’t sign up for it. They picked her.”

“They should’ve picked someone else, then,” her dad says.

Lani should speak up, should explain the part where she had a chance, a choice. The one who was supposed to pick someone else was her, and she didn’t do it, and now it’s her own fault that she’s on the field. But she doesn’t say any of that, staring resolutely at her hands. The conversation moves on without her.

“How are we supposed to move her all the way out to Boston?” Jeb asks, one hand rubbing at what little hair he has. “I haven’t been out there in nearly twenty goddamn years, Miriam.”

“They’ve got captains to help with that,” Mimi says. She thwacks the dough against the counter, sending up a cloud of flour. “Transfers happen all the time, from what I hear.”

Jeb sighs, and his hand comes to cover his eyes. “Never should have let you take this job in the first place.”

A movement catches Lani’s eye over his shoulder. Addy and Amelia, huddled on the staircase and peering through the gaps in the railing. Harper sitting just behind them with a baseball held in one hand. Lani wants to shoo them away and tell them not to listen to this, not to worry about her; but she knows she can’t do it without alerting her parents to their presence, and anyway, she doesn’t know what she would say to make them listen and believe her.

“I know,” Lani says instead, voice quiet. “I’m sorry.”

Jeb shakes his head. “It’s done, Al. We have to deal with it now.”

“I can come home over every siesta, still. I can help at the restaurant.” The idea is just as much for her as it is for anyone else. The idea of having to leave everything behind breaks her heart, and she won’t do it; she’ll be back, whenever and however she can.

Her mother nods. “Like I said. If you cover your shifts in the offseason, we can make the rest work.”

“Miriam,” Jeb mutters, in disbelief.

“That’s enough, Jebediah,” Miriam says, nodding her head toward the staircase. “We’ve got company. Let’s all make dinner as a family, while we’ve got the time.”

--

Lani has no idea how to feel about Scores Baserunner. She feels grateful, at least, for the offer of a spare bedroom and help adjusting to the city and the team. But the first time they enter the apartment and Scores removes the long green cloak, it feels like some kind of rule has been broken.

Not that Lani was ever an expert on scorekeepers and the rules they follow, but she remembers the words of the first one she met – the need to remain objective and detached, to discourage preferential treatment – and it seems alarmingly at odds with the woman in front of her.

“It seems like you have questions,” she says, leaning to rest her forearms on the granite of the countertop in the kitchen. The smell of garlic and onions fills the apartment; whatever she’s making, Lani’s mouth is watering already.

“I mean.” Lani feels out of place standing in the center of the living room. “I don’t really know where to start, even.”

The walls are decorated with whiteboards and old scoresheets, analyses of past games. There are framed blueprints of the Flowers’ stadium, and a few others Lani doesn’t recognize. It doesn’t leave much room for doubt; Scores certainly is a scorekeeper, or was, at some point before now. But it seems disconnected, separate from the person currently watching Lani with warm eyes.

“Let’s start with this, then,” Scores offers. “How long were you an operator?”

“Just since season sixteen,” Lani says. This part is easy; she knows her own part in this, even if everything else is a mystery. “I went to Bowling Green for broadcast journalism, and it seemed like a decent way to get some experience, I guess. It paid well.”

Scores hums and wanders over to the stove to check on their dinner. “So you’re new to all this. That makes a lot of sense.”

“How long were you a scorekeeper?”

“Oh, about nine seasons,” Scores calls back. “I started with the Fridays. Then they sent me to Houston, then Dallas. I ended up in Boston, eventually.”

It feels like prying to ask for details. But Lani is curious, and Scores doesn’t seem to mind talking about it, so she asks anyway. “Is that how you ended up playing? You liked it here?”

“Oh, no,” she says. “I made a mistake. They practically pushed me out on the field as soon as the postseason was over. It seems like they might still be doing that sort of thing, with what happened to you.”

Lani doesn’t like thinking about it. She still hears the manager’s voice echoing in her head, telling her to make a decision. She’s not sure how a scorekeeper could make the same call; by comparison, their jobs seem so simple. Counting the runs is easier than choosing replacement players.

She doesn’t stick to that train of thought. Instead, her eyes catch on the cloak hanging off the back of a chair at the kitchen table; that’s a safe topic, she thinks, and she jumps at it.

“I’m surprised they let you keep the coat,” Lani says. It comes out more like a question than she meant it to.

“Oh, please.” Scores scoffs, moving to lean against the doorframe. If not for the prostheses, Lani suspects she might’ve started tapping one foot in irritation. “I made that myself after the fact. You can tell from all the uneven stitches.”

“Why would you… want that?” Lani asks. She resists the urge to walk over and pick it up, to search for the stitches herself.

“I didn’t get to keep my name,” Scores says. She retreats into the kitchen again; Lani wonders how much of that is because the food actually needs attention, and how much of it is because this is difficult to talk about. “I didn’t get to keep my family, my personal belongings. I was a scorekeeper, and nothing else, for a decade of my life. Because they wanted me to be. They don’t get to take that away, too.”

It hadn’t occurred to Lani, that they could take away her name. She knows they tried; every time the manager and scorekeeper and announcer called her “operator” had proved that. But when her name was called over the speakers, it had been her own name. They’d let her have that much.

“Did you get to choose?” Lani asks. “The new name. Was it your idea?”

“Yep! That one’s all me.”

It doesn’t make much sense. Lani caves to the impulse and walks to the kitchen table, running her fingers along the edge of the cloak. Just as Scores said, there are uneven stitches and places where the hem frays. The thread changes colors partway through, from gold to purple, and she thinks she even finds a few spots of blood.

“Why didn’t you go with the name you had before?” she asks. Her voice comes out quieter than she means it to. “Before you were a scorekeeper.”

Scores reappears in the doorway with two steaming bowls. Lani can’t tell what’s inside from where she’s standing, but it makes her stomach rumble. She moves to sit at the table and Scores comes to sit across from her.

“I didn’t have much connection to it anymore. I figured I should go with something that suited me as I am now,” Scores says. She pushes a bowl over to Lani. “The Scorekeeper will count Runs. The Scorekeeper will keep Score. And, well. The players will score, and the players will run bases. It made sense at the time.”

“You keep saying they took things from you,” Lani says, slowly. She doesn’t have a delicate way to phrase this, a good way to put the pieces together. But Scores raises an eyebrow and motions for Lani to continue with a fork full of broccoli. “You didn’t choose to join the team, either. Did you?”

“Well.” Scores takes a moment to consider her answer. “Technically speaking, I did. But with the options they gave me, it wasn’t much of a choice.”

Lani thinks about the camera rig, moving of its own accord to point a lens at her. There was a choice; it wasn’t one she was willing to make. And then she tries to shift her focus, looking at the bowl of rice and vegetables in front of her. If it were left to Lani, the silence would stretch out forever, an endless and uncomfortable canyon; Scores doesn’t let that happen.

“They gave me time, though, which is more than they let you have,” she mutters around a piece of potato. “I had a day or two to consider my options before I had to leave.”

“Do you ever wish you could go back?” Lani asks, a question she didn’t know she wanted the answer to until it’s hanging in the air between them.

“No.” Scores shakes her head, resolute. “I won’t give them the satisfaction.”

--

Playing the game isn’t that bad. Lani learns to tolerate it, even to enjoy it sometimes. She’s not the best at what she does, and she knows it. But she plays, and nothing really goes wrong, and that’s worth something.

Anyway, Scores isn’t very good at what she does, either. She lets home runs go, goes almost an entire game without throwing a strike, and still stands on the mound with a bright smile and a challenge in her eye for everyone who steps up to the plate. Lani does her best to emulate that, when she can, to step into the batter’s box and dare the pitcher to strike her out.

They usually do. Lani hasn’t learned to judge the pitches as they come. It all moves too fast, and even on the rare occasion she hits the ball, it lands solidly in a fielder’s glove.

There’s no reason to expect anything different this time around. Lani steps into the box and taps her bat against the plate, if only because she’s seen other people do it. She meets the eyes of Silvia Rugrat, standing on the mound, and they nod at each other before moving to their positions.

It takes one pitch. One single beautiful throw, and Lani can feel the way it sings through the air with a confidence she doesn’t really think she’s earned. But it connects to her bat with a solid thwack and soars through the air.

Lani should be running. Instead, she stands in place beside the plate, watching the ball fly over the fence in center field. And then she hears it, Scores’ voice echoing through the infield of the Bucket.

“Run, Lani!”

She does. And Lani is still too slow, she knows that, but this time that’s not a concern. No one is going to tag her out or tap the base before she can get to it. She hit the ball out of the park, and she gets to enjoy her time running a lap. A few of the Wild Wings pat her on the back as she goes, and the Flowers are all waiting for her at home plate when she arrives.

It’s only the top of the third. There’s still so much more of the game to go, and they can’t waste too much time celebrating. But as Scores hugs her and Nic Winkler gives her shoulder a shake, as Salih and Jacob cheer her name, Lani thinks she could learn to be okay with this. Some of it, anyway.

And she says as much to Harper, later that evening, the phone tucked between her head and her pillow. The moon outside is huge, so close she feels like she could reach out and touch it; she wonders if Harper and the others can see it too, back home.

“What’s it like to hear everyone cheering for you like that?” Harper asks, voice low so she won’t wake the twins.

“Don’t tell Mom or Dad,” Lani mutters, “but I kind of get why people choose to do this, now.”

Harper giggles and Lani can almost picture it, the way she hides her mouth behind one hand. “Yeah. I know.”

“I promised I wouldn’t give you any ideas, though, so don’t sign up or anything.” Lani tugs the comforter up to her chin and settles in a little more, fighting back the urge to yawn. “Stick to soccer. It’s safe.”

Harper sounds close to sleep, too. Her words are coming slower now, quieter. “You don’t get to boss me around about staying safe and whatever. Not while you’re playing blaseball.”

“Sorry.”

Lani might not apologize if it were under different circumstances. She doesn’t want to admit how scary it is, to her sisters or her parents or anyone else. But she still thinks, sometimes, about the way that umpire had looked when she joined the game. She thinks about the giant, hulking mass of flame, of the lightning that tore through the stadium and took Hiroto away before anyone could even try to stop it.

She knows her family worries. And she knows that they have the right to, when it comes down to it. No matter what she does, she can’t exactly promise that she’ll get out of this any differently.

Harper does yawn, then. “It’s not your fault,” she murmurs, so quiet Lani can barely hear it. “We all know that. Even if you don’t, yet.”

Lani swallows back a lump in her throat. “Thanks, Harper.”

But the other line is quiet. Lani listens closely, pressing her ear to the speaker. On the other end, she hears Harper’s quiet snoring.

--

Jebediah Kranch is not the type to let his daughter move out without a toolbox. This, Lani had thought at the time, was a bit excessive. Apartments offer maintenance, and anyway, she wasn’t alone. But as it turns out, the Garden has plenty in need of repairs.

It’s not the carefully maintained museum of the Worms, not the professional stadium attached. It is a field, and there is a rickety fence lining the outer limits. Wooden bleachers going green with mold and plant growth sit just a few feet back from either baseline, and picnic tables provide extra seating further on.

The bleachers are what catch Lani’s attention. They lean and sway with every wave of immateria during the floods, and the boards creak and scream under the weight of the fans. So Lani, after the last game of the season, carries her toolbox into the Garden and sets about making repairs.

The rotten, soggy wood pulls away easily. Some of it crumbles like dust between her gloved fingers. She slides new boards into place and hammers away well into the afternoon and evening, the sound of hammers and nails echoing around the empty infield. Lani is so busy with her work, in fact, that she doesn’t even notice the shadowy form watching her from just a few feet away until a voice calls out to her.

“You planning on leaving any time soon, Kranch?”

Lani has heard about Margarito Nava. It’s almost impossible not to know that’s who it is, even though she’s never seen xem before. Between the shirt emblazoned with the name of xir restaurant and the sunglasses shielding xir eyes against the dusky evening sky, it could hardly be anyone else.

“Oh,” Lani says, sitting up so fast she very nearly bangs her head on the bleachers she’s spent all afternoon mending. “Hello, Captain.”

Margarito grimaces and shakes xir head, just a little. “Margo’s fine. I’m not even on the roster, remember? Hardly captain material.”

“You’ll be back soon,” she says automatically.

Not because she believes it, but because she’s heard it so many times. Every time Margo comes up, Nic or Glabe or someone else will look at the locker with Margo’s name and mutter something about the election. Whether it’s a promise or a request, Lani hasn’t really been able to figure out.

“I hope so.” Margo drops down onto the ground and slides under the bleachers until xe’s sitting right beside her. “Who signed you up for repair duty, anyway? You should be adjusting to being in active play right now, not helping out with chores.”

“Nobody.” Lani holds out a hand; Margo dutifully passes over a nail without a moment’s hesitation. “I’m used to having a lot to do, and it seemed like the field needed attention.”

Margo hums. “Is that because of the restaurant, or were you born an overachiever?”

“Who told you about the diner?” Lani asks.

“Your mother called,” xe says, and when Lani looks over in surprise, xe’s smiling to xemself. “Told me I needed to take care of her staff.”

“Sorry.” Lani turns back to the work at hand. She places a nail in the wood and readies her hammer, fights to keep her hand steady. “She… didn’t really like that I joined. But I didn’t think she’d say anything.”

“I’ve got family, I get how it is.” Margo hands her another nail when she needs it, even reaching up to hold the board in place as she works. “Look. I know this is coming a little late, but I wanted to apologize. It’s not fair you got pulled into all of this.”

It takes a moment for the pieces to click into place. Lani has seen fire eaters by now, and she knows what a risk it is not to have one on the team. She’d nearly forgotten the Flowers had one at all – that someone out there could have stopped the thing that brought her here.

“It’s not your fault,” Lani says, instinctively.

There’s a small part of her that wants to tag on a few extra words, to explain the way she put herself on the roster, but she holds back. It doesn’t matter; Margo sighs and shakes xir head.

“To hear Scores tell it, you all get to pick the replacements,” xe says. “The operators, I mean. And I’m thinking, between the two of us, we’ve got enough of a complex about all of this to line several therapists’ pocketbooks.”

Lani wants to stop the conversation in its tracks. She wants to keep the thoughts of the incineration out of her head, the way she’d struggled to make a decision and the way it got her to this place. She doesn’t want to be forgiven for it, and she doesn’t want to blame anyone else. She just wants to forget. But Margo keeps going, xir hand coming to take the hammer from her fingers and finish the work xemself.

“I don’t think there’s any reason to go putting that kind of pressure on anyone, especially not someone as young as you,” Margo says. The hammer thunks rhythmically against the wood. “Much like I don’t think it’s fair to make one person responsible for keeping everyone on the field safe from every ump who has a bad day.”

Lani has never felt smaller. She fights the urge to curl her knees up against her chest, instead opting to grab fistfuls of grass and dirt.

“I guess,” Margo says, apparently not quite finished, “my point is that you can’t blame yourself for what happened, and what will happen from here. That’s easier said than done, I know. But the game exists to hurt people, and we’re all just doing what we can to get by.”

“I don’t really know how to do that,” Lani whispers. The words are quiet enough to be carried away by the evening breeze; she almost wishes they were, so that she wouldn’t have to see Margo turning to look at her.

“You have your family,” Margo says. “Lean on them. And, you know, lean on us. It’s what we’re here for.”

Xe finishes hammering in the last nail and sets the hammer down. Lani sits quietly as Margo pushes xir way out from under the bleachers. Xe turns and holds out a hand; Lani takes it, and lets herself be pulled to standing.

“Come on,” xe says, reaching down to brush the plant debris from xir jeans. “Let’s get something to eat. If I don’t keep you well-fed, your mother’s going to have my head.”

--

Lani finds out her father has entered the Shadows from a note in Scores’ slanted handwriting, slipped under her doorway before the postseason officially starts. There’s an apology there, too, both written and in the form of the smell of brownies from the kitchen; but Scores doesn’t knock or intrude, which is probably for the best. Lani wouldn’t know what to say or do if she did.

There’s not enough time to travel home. Lani wants to, more than she wants anything. Instead, she has to settle for a phone call.

“Now, before you start with me,” Jebediah says, voice so tired Lani almost stops in her tracks. Almost.

“What are you doing?” she demands.

“Your mother and I were hoping they’d pull me for Boston,” he says, apparently not bothered by her outburst. “Los Angeli’s not what we wanted, but they play your team enough.”

“This is so stupid,” Lani mutters, more to herself than anyone else. She hears her father’s reprimands before he even says them, though, and corrects herself as quick as she can. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have room to talk, Al,” he says, but it’s quiet. “I’m making the best decisions I can under the circumstances, same as anybody.”

“I know,” Lani says.

Again, she feels small; she’d give anything for her dad to be there to tuck her in, to tell her everything is going to be okay. But now he’s in the Shadows for another team, one that’s all the way across the country. Her father could end up standing on the field one day, staring down a rogue umpire or a feedback or any other thing that happens to come through.

“I’m not leaving Ohio unless they ask me to,” he says, “so I’ll still be seeing you when you come home. This just means we might have a way for me to keep you safe on the field, too.”

“You shouldn’t have done it,” Lani mutters, and she wishes her voice didn’t crack on the last word but it’s not like she was trying that hard to stay calm, anyway. “There are already plenty of people doing that.”

“Nobody doing it right.” It’s the same voice Jeb uses when he watches someone else trying to make repairs on a roof. The same voice he uses when they have a renovation show on the television, or when someone else tries to make her mother’s chili.

Lani laughs despite herself. “I know. Nobody’s good enough for any of us. You’ve said it plenty of times.”

“And I meant every one of them.”

She can picture her dad, too, sitting in the light at the kitchen table with the paperwork spread in front of him. This would all be better, she thinks, if it had gone according to plan and he’d ended up on the Flowers after all. But blaseball isn’t that kind, and really, she could have told him as much before he ever signed up.

“I love you, Dad,” she says, instead of the million things she wants to say instead.

He sighs. “Love you too, Al.”

They stay on the phone for a while after that, although Lani won’t remember what it is they talk about. Drama with the neighbors over the new hydrangeas, maybe, or mishaps from the restaurant earlier that day. Her dad hands the phone off to Harper, and then to the twins. Eventually, finally, he hands it to her mom.

When the call is done, Lani lies in the dark on her bed and stares at the blank ceiling above her. She lets her mind empty out of everything, of camera lenses and moons and lightning and the way the Los Angeli skyline gives her headaches. Only then does she manage to drift off to sleep.

--

Scores is very quiet, most days. She spends her free time at the table, surrounded by papers full of data and statistics, with a cup of tea that goes cold well before she can finish it. The habit makes it easy to find her whenever Lani needs; it also makes her easy to avoid.

Lani goes through the trouble of taking up a shift at Margaritoville. She keeps herself busy with wiping down tables and carrying too many orders at once, and she doesn’t check her phone at all. But somehow, Scores finds her anyway. She wheels through the front door and asks for one of Lani’s tables, loud enough that she can hear.

Nic gets her settled initially, and Lani has a moment where she thinks she’s off the hook. But then Scores is waving her over, and Lani can feel a difficult conversation coming even though it’s the last thing she wants.

“Tea, please,” Scores says, with ease that Lani herself doesn’t feel. “One pot and two mugs. You’re joining me.”

“I have to work,” Lani says. She gestures to the tray balanced on her hip, as if to prove a point.

Scores doesn’t even look. Instead, she pulls a notebook and stacks of scrap paper from the bag on the side of her wheelchair. “It won’t take long. Besides, no one comes in on Election Day.”

She is right, as reluctant as Lani is to admit it. She does as she’s told, brewing the tea the way she knows Scores likes and carrying it to the table. When she gets back, Scores has already pulled out a notepad and is busy writing out strategies based on possible election results.

“I can’t figure out if we’re better or worse with Dunn in the lineup,” she mutters. She’s holding her pen between her lips; ink is already staining her fingertips. “You’d think with that many stars she’d be a killer on the mound. But no.”

She pauses her work long enough to pour them both tea, pushing one cup with too much cream over to Lani. Then she goes right back to it, pen scribbling furiously.

“Did you need something?” Lani prods, after a minute or two of watching her work. The tea is nice, she’ll admit, but sitting for this long is enough to let her mind wander and she’d rather be busy.

Scores hums, eyes flicking up to meet Lani’s. “Oh, you’re doing it already. I wanted some company.”

“Don’t you have, like, twenty other people you could pick?” Lani asks.

It comes out a little harsher than she intended, but Scores knows better than to mind by now. Much like Harper, the words seem to slide right off her.

“I like spending time with you,” she says, as if that’s enough of an answer.

Coming from anyone else, it might be annoying. But Lani doesn’t mind it, this time, not with Scores. There’s a moment where she wonders what it might have been like, joining the team without Scores there to welcome her. It seems impossible to be part of the Flowers without also being around her, surrounded by her notes and numbers and calculations.

She clearly enjoys the work. No one asks her to do it anymore, or tells her she has to. There’s no box lit up by television screens and no corkboard, no pile of Runs to be counted. How lucky for the rest of them.

And then Lani thinks of a question, one she doesn’t bother holding back. “What did you do?”

“You’ll have to be more specific.” Scores’ eyes flick up to meet hers again, pen poised just a centimeter or two above the paper. “I’ve done a lot of things.”

Lani sighs and rolls her eyes. “I meant, how did you end up on the team? For real, this time. What did you do that got you kicked off the scorekeepers?”

It gets Scores to set down her notepad, at least. She pushes her hair back and rests her chin on one hand. “It’s not that exciting, really. I snuck out of the Box to watch Day X.”

Lani had pictured a lot of things, though she wouldn’t have admitted it until now. Scores could have gotten attached to a team, or to a specific player. She could have forged a game log. She could have tried to quit, even. But this, of all things, seems absurd.

“They kicked you out for going to see another game?” Lani asks, and she finds it hard not to sound incredulous.

“Well, they kicked me out for acting based on advanced communications about a top secret game,” Scores says, holding up her hand to count the offenses on her fingers, “entering an ILB stadium in the incorrect uniform, attempting to enter a Box that was not assigned to me, and conducting interviews with active players.”

“Wow,” Lani mutters into her tea. “That’s a lot of things, Scores. Was it worth it?”

“My job was to document the happenings of the ILB,” Scores says primly. “I did exactly that, whether they’re willing to admit it or not. I did it again in season ten, and I’d do it again now. We all have our hills to die on.”

Lani gets the feeling it’s not that simple. She wonders if Scores was always this nonchalant about it, the decisions that turned her entire world upside down. But, she thinks, hardly any of it matters now. Scores made her decisions, and faced her punishments. She’d learned to live with them, in time.

Maybe Lani can do the same.