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Someone in the Crabs’ clubhouse was miserable, and Forrest Best wanted to know why.
By all rights, it didn’t make any sense. They’d finally won a championship. They’d won 80 games out of 99 in the regular season. They’d even had a perfect playoffs. If anything could possibly be the perfect situation for high spirits, this would be it. But despite all that, Forrest could feel a spike of distress somewhere among his teammates. Curious.
He ran through the list of options. Most of the team had filtered out to celebrate at some bar somewhere. Brock Forbes and Pedro Davids were having an animated conversation off to the side. Sutton Dreamy was staring off into space… hmm, no, she’s feeling contented, she’s ruled out. Forrest checked himself off the list as well -- he didn’t feel any emotions of any kind, as far as he knew. That just leaves… ah. Oliver Notarobot. Made sense, he supposed. Forrest scuttled in front of Ollie, tapped the floor twice to indicate his presence, and waved hello.
Oliver jumped, startled. “Ah. Hello, Forrest.”
Holding up alright? Forrest signed back.
“Yes,” Ollie replied, “just a bit nervous.”
This was a lie, and Forrest knew it. He could feel the difference between nervousness and true fear. The Crabs had faced enough unprepared teams this season for him to get a good grasp of the first, and anyone catching a glimpse of him at night generally had a spike of the second. Ollie was genuinely afraid of… something. But mentioning that wouldn’t help matters any, so instead Forrest opted for a more general reassurance: There’s no need to be nervous. The games are over.
“I suppose they are. You’re right. I should get going. Goodbye, Forrest.”
Wait, wait--
Before Forrest could do anything beyond beginning to sign, Ollie stood up and swept out of the room, earning the both of them confused looks from Brock and Pedro. Forrest stared at the clubhouse door long after Ollie had closed it. Had he… made things worse? Damn. Oh well, that was a mess for someone else to pick up. Forrest began to gather his belongings into the pockets of his jacket (being a mannequin, he didn’t exactly need to wear it, but Parra had said the sleek leather jacket looked “handsome” on him) and made for the door.
But… if he didn’t help Ollie, who would? Brock was staying here. Kennedy Loser was gone already, probably babysitting Tillman. And Combs… well, Combs wasn’t anywhere any more. Forrest rubbed the back of his neck, grounding himself with the feeling of wood scraping against wood. The emotional state of his teammates was not, strictly speaking, all that important now that the final game of the season was over. He could just go off into the woods like he planned. But it would be better long term if your teammates didn’t hate you, chided the rational part of him. And Ollie needs you.
Damn. Oh well. Forrest waved to the rest of the group and scuttled off to find where Ollie had run to.
Everyone has somewhere they go when they need to be alone. For Ollie, it was the tallest and driest point in the Crabitat -- the roof of the clawmentators’ booth. It wasn’t easily accessible, but if you’re brave and careful you could climb up the rigging for the lights from the top row of the bleachers and it would take you directly there. If you’re a horrifying living mannequin with crab legs sprouted out of its back, you could climb directly up the walls instead, but that’s neither here nor there.
It was fortunate that Ollie had good taste in secluded locations, Forrest mused as he climbed directly up the wall. That was where Forrest used to go as well. In the early days, when the noise and thrill of the stadium became overwhelming, Forrest had climbed up there to survey it all from a distance. From that height, he could see everything and feel nothing. These days, he usually just crashed at Loser’s place. Just as well, because it wouldn’t do to share a private spot with just anyone, and following Oliver Notarobot’s trade to the Crabs, the roof of the clawmentator’s box had become significantly more crowded.
Forrest found him there now. He was staring off into the distance, muttering something Forrest didn’t understand (Forrest mentally filed “learn French” into his to-do list). Forrest was about to make his presence known when --
“Why are you here?” Damn. Seems Forrest wasn’t as quiet as he’d thought.
He sheepishly scuttled in front of Ollie. You ran off. I… Forrest paused. Why was he here? He searched for the right words, before arriving at the simplest ones: … was worried. It felt right in his hands, although the inscrutable Forrest Best being worried wasn’t supposed to be possible. Interesting.
Ollie turned away. “You don’t need to worry about me,” he murmured impassively. It was almost believable.
Forrest stepped back into Ollie’s line of sight. I think I do. These aren’t normal nerves. Talk to me?
The last part was phrased like a question, but Ollie only gave him a blank stare in response.
Please?
Ollie sighed and sat down, leaning against the broadcast antenna. Forrest followed suit. For some time, neither spoke. Then finally, a nearly-imperceptible question: “Forrest. Can you keep a secret?”
Forrest began to feel like he had bit off more than he could metaphorically chew. Still, he nodded. I won’t say a word to anyone.
“Or sign a word?”
If Forrest could chuckle, he would have. Or sign a word.
“I…” Ollie’s words softened, now below even a whisper. “I’m not… human. I’m a machine.”
Forrest stared. Well… yes. He knew that. All of Ollie’s teammates knew that, the front office knew that, hell, Forrest would be surprised if anyone in the whole damn league didn’t know that Oliver Notarobot was a robot. But how could he say that? It wouldn't help any, surely. So instead, he simply signed, I see.
“And before,” Ollie continued, “with the Moist Talkers, we weren’t very good. And then here we weren’t very good either.”
Forrest had no idea where Ollie was headed with this. He stayed silent.
“But we just… we just won. Everything. Eighty games. And the championship. The whole season. And… I won’t be able to avoid getting asked things.”
So that’s what it was about. Forrest nodded sympathetically. I don’t like the reporters, either.
“I-- no, it’s not that. You’re different.” Ollie looked away for a moment, searching for the right words. “You don’t have to answer anything, or say anything. They… I suppose they think it’s funny to ask me questions I can’t answer. It entertains them.” Forrest didn’t know Ollie’s synthetic voice could sound so bitter. “It’s never about the game, never about my performance, it’s only ‘Ollie, Ollie, what did you learn in human school?’ ‘Oh, you know, having lungs. ’” He scoffed. “They put that in my player biography, you know. It’s one of the first things anyone knows about me. Oliver Notarobot, formerly with the Moist Talkers, traded to the Crabs, learned to have lungs in human school . Ridiculous.”
Forrest tapped the floor politely before beginning to sign. Would you… prefer to be human? Or not a machine, at least. I’m sure you could work something out with the Olde One if you wanted.
Ollie almost laughed. “Trade geometric functions for bodily functions? No thanks.”
So what’s the point? You pretend to be a human when you clearly detest it. For what purpose?
Ollie looked at Forrest as if he'd sprouted crab legs out of his back-- well, more crab legs than usual. “You-- haven’t you read the rulebook? ”
...I have, yes.
“Then you ought to know section 4, subsection D, rule 3.5 clearly states that no synthetic beings shall participate in the ILB!” Ollie was getting frantic now. “Don’t you get it? They’ll… they’ll kick me out! They’ll shuffle me back to Quebec and throw me out on the street!”
Forrest stared. Ollie. I’m not aware of any such rule. I don’t even think section 4 has a subsection D. What--
Ollie waved off Forrest’s signs. “N… no. I don’t believe you. No, you’re lying.”
Forrest floundered. He’d been accused of a long list of things during his not-quite-life, but lying wasn’t one of them. How-- I-- for what possible reason would I LIE to you?
“You… You’re lying to me because you want me to feel better. That must be it. No, I don’t believe you.”
Well… damn. Forrest had been prepared to deny any possible motive, but he had to admit that he was, in fact, trying to make Ollie feel better. His own distress began to mingle with Ollie’s inside his mind. He couldn’t do anything but stare.
Ollie stood, looking down on Forrest, and took a shuddering breath. “You’re lying to me because you want me to feel better, and to stop… freaking out about it, but I cannot. It won’t work.”
Please--
Ollie turned to face the stadium, away from Forrest. Rude. Forrest rose and scuttled back into view. Ollie, look--
The fool had put his hands over his eyes.
Ridiculous. Damn it all. Forrest was out of options.
“Oliver. Please, listen to me.”
The voice rumbled like thunder and crunched like a diesel truck on gravel. It rolled in a great wave through the empty stadium and out over the streetlit city.
Oh, hell. Great thinking, Best, he chided himself. At this rate it’ll be a miracle if Ollie doesn’t fall off the roof trying to get away from you after a display like that, and then you’ll have to catch him which will be the last thing he wants at a time like this--
“Was that you, Forrest?”
He snaps back to reality to see Ollie staring at him. A small nod is all he could manage.
“I see.” Then silence. The fear Forrest was expecting was nowhere to be found. Instead, he felt… was that admiration coming from Ollie?
Interesting.
After a long moment, Forrest began to sign. I need you to listen to me. I’m not lying to you, but I need to know why you’re so sure I am. Okay?
Ollie nodded, once, slowly, then reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a thin rulebook in a plastic bag. He began to hold it out, then stopped. “Promise you won’t throw it into the bay?”
What? No. Why would I throw it into the bay? Did someone do that? Do I need to haunt them?
“Nevermind.” He offered the bag to Forrest.
Forrest gingerly accepted the rulebook and removed it from the plastic. Where did Ollie say it was… section 4, subsection D, rule 3.5… yes, here. No inorganic or synthetic beings shall participate in the ILB. Forrest cocked his head to the side. Did this make sense? No, it didn’t. There must be some detail he’d overlooked. On a whim, he flipped to the front page.
Oliver.
“Mm?”
This book is over thirty years old. Where in the world did you get it?
“That’s not important--”
Did the M-Ts give this to you? Theirs should have been updated, the league almost certainly eliminated this rule in the past... however long. For that matter, didn’t the Crabs give you a rulebook too?
Oliver was suddenly very interested at his feet. “They… they did, yes. Both teams. But… it’s quite wet, you see, in Halifax, as well as in Baltimore, and the letters… they just...”
He couldn’t read the rulebook. Of course he couldn’t read it, people blur and warp letters specifically so that machines can’t read them. A thousand puzzle pieces clicked into place in Forrest’s mind. He signed, I’m sorry.
Ollie wasn’t looking. His head hung, and his shoulders heaved in utterly silent sobs. It seemed he wasn’t programmed to cry.
Forrest took a step forward. He wanted to run, leave the problem for someone else to solve. That wouldn’t help. He was starting to feel like the worst possible Crab to be in this situation. What would the others do with a crying teammate? Damn it, Forrest, think. He forced himself to focus. Loser would... offer a comforting hug. Did that make sense? Well… he suspected that he wouldn’t be the most comfortable shoulder to cry on, but it was worth a try. Forrest closed the gap and wrapped his wooden arms around Ollie.
Ollie flinched, but only for a moment. He buried his faceplate in Forrest’s shoulder.
With both his arms occupied, Forrest couldn’t sign. Oh well, he’d already spoken once tonight. Seal’s off, might as well make use of it. He murmured, “ Do you believe me? ” into Ollie’s ear.
No response. Then, a whisper. “I want to, but… I can’t afford to be wrong. I can’t let it happen.”
Damn. Forrest wished anyone else was here in his place. Brock, Pedro, Loser, they’d all have something useful to say.
Wait.
“ Loser. ”
Ollie spluttered and pulled away. “I’m sorry?? ”
Forrest waved the thought off, then spelled out K-E-N-N-E-D-Y. His rulebook will be dry, you can read it yourself.
Ollie stared. “Do you... have Kennedy’s rulebook?”
No, but I have the key to his front door. I’ll give you a ride. Coming?
Ollie’s cobalt blue LED eyes blinked in surprise. Forrest didn’t think he’d noticed them before, but he supposed he hadn’t been looking. When Ollie finally nodded affirmative, Forrest peeled off his jacket and handed it to Ollie. Wear this.
“Why?”
To stay dry.
“...Okay.” Ollie put on the jacket. It was a snug fit, not least because Ollie was already wearing his own coat underneath, but it would do.
Forrest picked Ollie up and held him tightly against his chest. Ready?
“Oh. I think so.”
Forrest took a running leap off the side of the stadium.
Although Forrest liked to say he was the fastest thing in the state of Maryland, this wasn’t completely true. In a straight line, that title probably belonged to Tillman’s Bugatti which he was going to wreck one of these days. Forrest simply had a more expansive definition of “straight line” than most cars. Oliver clung tightly to him as he clambered over the dark rooftops and leapt over flooded streets. It only took a few minutes until they arrived in the middle of a stretch of brightly colored rowhouses.
Ollie let himself out of Forrest’s grasp and looked around. “This is the place?”
Forrest nodded. It is. Only Loser could manage to find a sensible house in Charles Village.
“Hah. I suppose so.”
Key is in the front left pocket, by the way.
“Oh! Yes, um…” Ollie rummaged through the pocket… then the other pocket. “I can’t… hmm.”
Damn. Now that he thought of it, Forrest never did finish packing up his things back at the clubhouse. Oh well. Try the inside pocket, Forrest signed.
“The inner pocket? Um…” Ollie unzipped the jacket by a fraction and felt around. “There are these thin pieces of metal, but--”
Yes, those. Give them here, please.
Ollie handed them over without a word. Forrest knelt in front of the door, slipping the torsion bar into the bottom of the lock and prying at the tumblers with the lockpick itself.
“I... don’t think Kennedy would appreciate you picking his locks,” Oliver remarked, glancing over his shoulder.
“ It’s fine, ” rumbled Forrest. His hands were too busy to sign. “ He did ask me not to, but we’ll call this an emergency. ” He idly mused that his voice was getting more use tonight than it had the entire time he’d been on the team. Interesting. He wondered what it was about Oliver, about tonight, that had his guard down. Maybe it was the thrill of the championship. Perhaps it was simply a secret for a secret, even though he’d long since known what Ollie had told him. Maybe it was something else. He’d have to figure it out later, though, as at that moment the final tumbler clicked into place. Forrest twisted the handle and gestured for Ollie to follow him inside.
Ollie slunk inside, silently shutting the door behind him. “So this is Kennedy’s house?”
It is, Forrest signed. Belatedly, he looked around to make sure it really was Loser’s house and he hadn’t just broken into a neighbor’s, but the furniture was more or less where he remembered it and there was a Crabs hat hanging from a hook by the door, so odds were good. I would have thought Loser would have invited you over at some point.
“He invited me over for dinner, but I declined. I can’t exactly eat, you see.”
Oh.
They didn’t say anything after that. Ollie paced Loser’s living room, idly running his hands along the edge of the glass coffee table, while Forrest skimmed through the tall bookshelf in the main hall. After a moment, he tapped the floor.
Ollie jumped. “Huh?”
Forrest held out a thin black booklet. The rulebook.
“...what?”
The current rulebook. Loser’s. Read it. It’s why we’re here, right?
“Oh. Yes, of course.” Oliver took the book gingerly, but didn’t open it.
Forrest sheepishly realized they’d been in the dark the entire time. He hadn’t noticed. Do you… need a light?
“No, that’s not it. I can see fine, thank you. It’s just…” Ollie looked at Forrest, then back at the book, then back at Forrest. “I don’t know.”
You’re scared. Forrest could feel the anxiety and fear radiating off of him.
“I suppose so.” Oliver stared for a moment, longer, then sank down onto the couch, placing the rulebook on the table. “You asked me before where I got my book. I suppose I ought to tell you.” Forrest gently lowered himself next to him. “There was a bookshop in Quebec, before the league restarted. At the time I was looking for a purpose, and I suppose I found one on the shelf.”
But then you read it again, and it said you couldn’t play.
“Yes. But… I thought that… I hoped that, I suppose, it wouldn’t matter. That if I wasn’t good enough, it was all the same either way, and that if I was good enough, if I got onto the team, they’d have to make an exception. Or, better yet, change the rule.” Ollie slouched farther down into the couch, as if he was hoping it would swallow him whole. “But I was mediocre . It was the worst possible outcome, you see. I was exactly good enough to make the starting rotation and not a fraction of a star more. I was where I wanted to be but still so… so powerless. ”
Forrest watched Ollie’s shoulders begin to quiver once again.
“But now, there’s… another option, I suppose. Another hope. Hope that’s more painful to have than to not. Because... if I open that book, one of two things is going to be true. Either I’ve been making a fool of myself for six fucking seasons for no reason, or I’ll have to keep making a fool of myself forever. And I don’t know which option I’m scared of more.”
Forrest silently picked up the rulebook and placed it on Ollie’s lap.
Ollie didn’t move. “You’re right, but…” (Forrest didn’t know he was implying anything to be right about.) “...I don’t suppose I can ask of you another favor.”
Please do.
“Would you… read it, for me? I can’t bear to look, and… I like your voice.”
Forrest nearly said no. Absolutely not. That didn’t make any sense. Nobody liked Forrest’s voice, himself least of all. But… if Ollie was going to believe something he didn’t want to hear tonight, maybe Forrest should lead by example. “ ...Okay. ” He opened the book. He considered only reading the section that was supposed to have the rule in question, but then Ollie might think it was just moved elsewhere in the book. “ I should warn you, it’s not much of a bedtime story. ”
Ollie made a neutral noise. At that, Forrest began to read. “ Section one. Subsection A. Rule one point one. The pitcher must throw the ball. ”
The rumble of his voice filled the silent house, and the light from Ollie’s eyes bathed the room in a cold blue. He listened impassively, unmoving, as Forrest read. Forrest could feel, though, the tension emanating from his teammate. It built up like a static charge, hanging in the air as Forrest proceeded through the fourth section of the rulebook. But the fourth section gave way to the fifth, and there was no mention of prohibited players. Ollie didn’t react, didn’t move, didn’t dare get his hopes up, until…
“ ...signed, redacted, redacted, redacted, and redacted. ” Forrest shut the rulebook and set it back on the table.
Ollie stared at the far wall. “It’s not there.”
“ It’s not. ”
“You were right.”
“ I was. ”
Suddenly, Ollie flung himself at Forrest, wrapping his arms around his teammate. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you, thank you, thank you…”
Forrest hugged him back, and neither of them moved or spoke. Kennedy Loser found them there however long later, embracing in the dark on his couch.
Oliver hadn’t expected the trade.
Well, nobody had. That was sort of the point of the Blind Date blessing, after all. You can’t see whoever is twenty-first on the idol leaderboard, so whoever won the blessing would get an unknown but reasonably popular player. The Crabs had spent a good amount of time and energy trying to organize their fans to keep Loser off of the fourteenth slot for the Lottery Pick blessing, but they’d been blindsided by the other one. No pun intended.
At the very least, it was nice to know that he was well-liked, Ollie mused as he climbed up the lighting on the side of the Crabitat. He didn’t climb up to the rooftop terribly often any more. Not since… well, around this time last season, come to think of it. It had been a whole season since that night with Forrest? It didn’t feel like it, but time never seemed to feel like much of anything these days.
He wasn’t surprised to find Forrest waiting for him on the roof of the clawmentator’s box. He waved hello, and Forrest waved back. Neither of them spoke.
Finally, Forrest began to sign. How are you feeling?
Oliver smiled weakly. “I know you don’t need to ask.”
Let me rephrase, then. What are you thinking?
“Well, I’m scared,” Ollie admitted. “But you know that.” Forrest nodded. “And not just about playing with the, you know, pitcher that kills people. I think… I was finally feeling… at home, here, after all this time, and now I’m going to need to do it all over again.”
Not all of it, Forrest signed. You’re not afraid anymore.
“I just said I was. Don’t you listen?” Ollie chided, prodding Forrest’s arm. Forrest swatted at it and continued.
Not of the same thing, anyway. You got the hard part out of the way already. Besides, have you met L-U-I-S? Forrest didn’t have a name sign for Luis yet. That sort of thing happened after they met.
“I haven’t.”
They’re… Forrest struggled to come up with a sign for “vocaloid” before settling on ...like you, kind of.
“Noted. All the same, though, I can’t get rid of the thought. What if they hate me there?”
They won’t. They’ll love you.
“But what if they don’t?”
Forrest closed the gap between them and placed his forehead against Ollie’s. Then we’ll love you here. Nothing in Seattle can change that.
Ollie smiled. “Promise?”
Promise. Then, out loud, “ ...I’ll miss you. ”
“I will too. I’ll stay in touch. And in addition I’ll be a world famous rock star, or something, so you’ll be hearing plenty of me anyway. I think. I’m not really sure how the whole band thing works with them, but I know how to use a drum machine so I’ll fit right in, I’m sure.”
“ Mmm. ” He sounded unconvinced, but Ollie didn’t have time to argue his case before the both of them were pulled out of the moment by a cacophony of engines, guitar riffs, and honking. Forrest stepped back. That’s their tour bus, I think. It’s time to go.
Ollie looked down at the spectacle. Someone he suspected was the aforementioned Pitcher That Kills People was chatting with Loser and Tillman. “Oh no, I’m terribly late. If only there were someone here who could take me down the fast way.”
Despite the utter lack of a face, Ollie could tell that Forrest was smiling.
If you insist,
he signed, before scooping Ollie up and jumping off the Crabitat to meet the new team.