I raise my head to the sky and consider Terra’s one moon, comparing it to the 9 I had previously known when I was at Gelstaik. It had a certain charm to it — knowing it was out of chance and not a need to keep my species perfect that one moon floated above me certainly improved my view of it.
The game began in about 5 minutes, enough time for me to remember what I was going to say to all the to-be-witnesses. As far as I knew, these people had never tasted the sweetness of resurrection–surely this would be a surprise untold to them.
And for what reason had they left us? Why had they wanted to harness the energy they knew had the power to stretch space? It was the deepest tragedy, seeing the lust for space travel and innovation overtake all other cognitive thought. Luckily, I now had the chance to rectify this.
I then hear the onset of the primitive, silicon technology, and I realize it’s time for me to enact my role in the beautiful, divine play
“NIGHT13 IN POSITION NEAR LEFT SIDE OF FOOD COURT OVERHANG.”
“COPY–NIGHT8 IN POSITION NEAR RIGHT-CENTER EXIT. HE’S NOT GETTING OUT.”
“COPY.”
Allred collapsed into his seat, a middle-aged couple on his right; a father and screaming child on his left. Working for the Office certainly had some of its moments, he recited to himself, and he looked closely through the magnified glass lens to see each player. None of them looked outwardly suspicious, but he knew that one of them was definitely the anomaly known as Bertrand Vert.
The player first came to the Office’s attention in the late 80s, as he’d died in a car accident that was meant to be covered up by his legal team until the start of the next season. Of course, the Office had complete access to most digitized records ever put on the Internet, so it was easy for the monitoring bot to notice and log the information. Normally, logged information was never used again, but with some anomalies, they were vitally important.
Bertrand was a great example of this: a human who matched all available biometrics and who introduced themselves as Bertrand Vert had inexplicably appeared one day before the news was set to break at the opening of the season. It had been noted to just be one comment for a newspaper reporter who literally ran into him, but it didn’t matter to most people–he was alive, and that was an unacceptable security risk.
Allred touched his right ear instead of his left, and the line between him and the supervisor of this operation opened.
“‘Ight, when’re we going to neutralize this thing?”
“You don’t worry about that Agent, you sit there in the bleachers with your cool toy, alright?”
“I’m just going to wait until the dead person starts doing whatever the fuck dead people do?”
“Yes!”
He closed the line; it was clear the stressed supervisor would be no help. Bertrand was not supposed to be appearing so soon into the season, and they’d had to round up meme-erasers at a rate that seemed nigh-impossible until it was done. Now, it seemed all that was necessary was to be able to aim the device that had been created for Bertrand at his reanimated clone’s head and kill him a second time as soon as he stepped out.
I am invincible as I step into the outside world and breathe in new fresh air–unpolluted by putrescine and gasoline. The one moon gazes down on me, and the seventh inning ends as I take my microphone and activate it on the stadium.
“GODDAMNIT ALLRED, SHOOT HIM NOW!”
“THE COOL TOY WON’T FUCKING WORK, NEITHER WILL MY PISTOL!” It was true, the concealed pistol didn’t fire, and he looked stupid aiming an umbrella at the stadium, as the umbrella didn’t produce any bright, sun-hot radiation.
“FUCK!” The supervisor buzzes out of Allred’s ear, though he can imagine the screamed commands to distribute and activate as many memory-erasers as possible.
I speak the words of dignity: “Hello, welcome to the ballgame everyone!”
The crowd roars in cheers.
“You know, it’s funny coming down here after so long away, it really does remind me how truly universal and great sport is. Even in my perfect society, there is still room for the ballgame!”
Some of the crowd falls silent at the strange remark, but most don’t realize exactly what I said; they’ve become enamored with me, and they do not hear what I say.
I suppose I must encourage them to hear me.
“When I was but a little boy, sport had just been introduced into the world. It was a sacred pastime for all the people who had newly made it, and my village was pleased at the games which we children could imagine and create with a ball and a shared objective.”
The crowd falls silent as they realize that I am not saying the ordinary preamble to the traditional song.
“Sport is more than just a game; do you all know? Sport creates superiors and inferiors. Those who win at sport, would win at life when I had first seen it, and those who lost… those who lost at sport, would lose at life.”
Murmurs break out throughout the crowd. What was I getting at? Oh, I would tell my children, but all in due time.
“I have heard the tales of those who came to me and asked me what truly lied as a similarity between heaven and hell. And, oh, my sons and daughters, I have seen heaven. There is sport.”
“OMNISCI, GET THE FUCKING PLANES UP NOW! DON’T LET THIS BROADCAST, GET THE AI ENGINE–NO TIME TO GET HUMANS FOR ANY ANOMALOUS IMAGES.”
“But, my dears, I tell you now, I see there is also sport in hell.”
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