The pre-game meeting for Game 2 did not take place in the locker room. It took place in the shower.
"Why are we wet?" Gorth asked, water cascading off his rocky shoulders.
"Acoustics," Cal said, fully clothed, standing under a nozzle. "And because the nanites might have bugs listening in the main room. Water creates white noise. Disruption."
Manager Xylos stood outside the spray, holding a waterproof datapad. "This is undignified. But Nex says we are proceeding with Operation: Calvinball."
"Correct," Cal shouted over the hiss of the water. "The Hive runs on predictive algorithms. They know what we should do based on one hundred years of baseball strategy. So, today, we do the opposite."
"Opposite?" Krix hissed from the steam. "You want me to throw slow?"
"No," Cal said. "I want you to throw hard... at the mascot."
"There is no mascot," Krix noted.
"Exactly. Imagine one. Spook the batter."
The team took the field for Game 2. The Celestial Stadium was as pristine and golden as ever, but the Wanderers looked... wrong.
Gorth was wearing his jersey backward. Gloob had shaped himself into a cube instead of his usual mound. Zix was wearing two hats.
The Hive team stood in their perfect line, their chrome faces reflecting the sun. Unit One stepped into the box.
Krix took the mound. The Viperian was vibrating with pent-up aggression.
"Play ball!"
Krix wound up. He looked like he was going to throw a fastball down the middle.
Mid-windup, Krix screamed.
It was a high-pitched, reptilian shriek that echoed off the marble walls.
Unit One froze. The sonic input wasn't in the database for a pitching delivery. The nanites rippled in confusion.
Krix threw a slider in the dirt.
Unit One swung.
"Strike one!"
The crowd murmured. The Hive never swung at balls in the dirt.
"It is working," Borp mumbled from behind the plate. "They are processing the scream."
Krix screamed on the next pitch, too. Then, on the third pitch, he was silent—but he hopped on one leg before throwing.
Unit One struck out looking.
The Hive dugout remained motionless, but the silver skin of the players seemed to lose its luster for a split second. Recalculating.
The real chaos started in the bottom of the first.
Zix led off. Usually, the speedster tried to slap the ball on the ground and run. The Hive defense shifted in—the third baseman and first baseman played on the grass to cut off the bunt.
Zix walked to the plate carrying Gorth's bat.
It was a log. It was huge. Zix could barely lift it.
The Hive defense paused. Input: Small speedster holding heavy power weapon. Probability of bunt: 0.00%. Probability of swing: High. Adjustment: Outfield depth.
The Hive outfielders backed up. The infielders moved back to standard depth.
Zix dropped the heavy bat. He pulled a standard bat out of his back pocket (a magic trick he'd learned on Station 9).
He bunted.
The ball rolled slowly down the third base line. The Hive third baseman, who had just moved back, charged. But he was too far away.
Zix sprinted to first. Safe.
"Error," Unit Five (the third baseman) said audibly. Its voice was a synthesized monotone. "Equipment deception detected."
Next up: Cal.
He wasn't pitching today, so he was playing DH. He stepped in.
The Hive pitcher, Unit Nine, stared at him. It was running simulations. Batter tendency: Opposite field contact.
The Hive defense shifted right.
Cal turned around and batted left-handed.
He had never batted left-handed in a game in his life. He looked ridiculous. He held the bat like a golf club.
Unit Nine paused. Stance unrecognized.
Unit Nine threw a fastball down the middle.
Cal swung. It was an ugly, chopping swing. He topped the ball. It spun wildly into the vacant shortstop position—vacant because the defense had shifted right.
Single.
Runners on first and second.
And then, the pièce de résistance.
Gorth stepped to the plate.
The Brontok was the league leader in home runs. He was a creature of pure kinetic energy. When Gorth batted, the Hive outfielders literally stood on the warning track. The infielders played back on the grass to avoid being killed by a line drive.
Gorth dug in. He growled. He pointed his bat at the center field fence—the universal symbol for "I am going to crush this."
The Hive adjusted. Every player moved back. They left the infield completely open.
Unit Nine threw a curveball.
Gorth didn't swing. He squared around.
He bunted.
A 400-pound Brontok bunting is a delicate operation. It looked like a grizzly bear trying to thread a needle. But Gorth had soft hands.
dink.
The ball rolled ten feet in front of the plate.
There was no one there. The catcher (Unit Two) scrambled out, but Gorth was already lumbering down the line. The pitcher (Unit Nine) charged, but tripped over the catcher.
Zix scored from second without a throw. Cal moved to third. Gorth stood on first base, giggling.
"Small ball," Gorth rumbled. "I am... sneaky."
The Hive manager—a larger, golden chrome figure—walked out of the dugout. It didn't argue. It just stared at the field, its head tilting rapidly.
"Their synchronization is breaking," Nex observed from the dugout. "Look at them. They aren't moving in unison anymore. Unit Four is twitching."
The game descended into madness.
In the fourth inning, the Wanderers executed a double steal where the trail runner (Gloob) stopped in the middle of the base path and turned into a puddle. The Hive second baseman tried to tag him, but his hand went through the puddle. While the robot was confused by the state of matter, the lead runner scored.
In the sixth inning, Krix got tired. Instead of bringing in a standard reliever, Xylos brought in Zix to pitch.
Zix threw 60 mph lobs. The Hive hitters, calibrated for Krix's 100 mph heat, were swinging so early they nearly fell over. They popped everything up.
By the ninth inning, the score was Wanderers 5, Hive 2.
The Hive was glitching hard. Their movements were jerky. They were making errors—dropping fly balls, throwing to the wrong bases. They couldn't predict the outcome, so they couldn't execute the process.
Bottom of the ninth. Two outs. Bases empty.
Cal was back on the mound to close it out.
The final batter was Unit One. The leader.
Unit One stepped in. Its chrome skin was dull, covered in static interference patterns. It looked at Cal.
Analysis: Pitcher is human. Pitcher has bionic arm. Pitcher is... smiling.
Cal wasn't just smiling. He was laughing.
"Hey, Tin Man!" Cal shouted. "I'm gonna throw a fastball. Right down the middle. I promise."
Unit One processed this. Statement: Truth or Lie? Human deception probability: 88%. Conclusion: He will not throw a fastball.
Unit One set up for the breaking ball. It sat back.
Cal wound up. He threw a fastball. Right down the middle. 96 mph.
Unit One watched it go by.
"Strike one!"
Unit One's head tilted. Paradox. Human told truth.
"Okay," Cal yelled. "Now I'm gonna throw a curveball. I swear."
Unit One processed. Statement: Truth or Lie? Previous statement was Truth. Pattern recognition implies alternating strategy. Conclusion: He will throw a fastball.
Unit One set up for the heat.
Cal threw a curveball. It started at the eyes and dropped to the knees.
Unit One swung over it by a foot.
"Strike two!"
System Error. Logic Failure. Unit One stepped out of the box. It tapped its helmet violently.
Cal walked halfway to the plate.
"Last one!" Cal announced. "I'm gonna throw... the Dead Fish."
Unit One froze. Dead Fish. Definition: Unknown. Physics model: Unavailable.
Unit One stepped back in. It was trembling. The collective mind of the Hive was frantically searching its database for aquatic life forms.
Cal wound up. He gripped the ball with his palm.
He threw the change-up.
It floated. It bobbed. It defied gravity for just a second too long.
Unit One's processors overheated. It tried to calculate the spin, the drag, the velocity. The numbers didn't add up. It was an irrational pitch thrown by an irrational species.
Unit One didn't swing. It shut down.
The robot simply powered off. It collapsed into a heap of chrome limbs in the batter's box.
The ball popped into Borp's mitt.
"Strike three! Game over!"
The Wanderers didn't dogpile. They just looked at each other and started laughing.
Gorth walked over to the fallen robot and poked it with his bat. "Did we kill it?"
"No," Nex said, walking onto the field. "We crashed its operating system. It's rebooting."
The series was tied 1-1.
As they walked off the field, passing the bewildered Hive dugout, Cal looked up at the pristine, golden sky of Primus.
"Entropy, baby," Cal whispered. "It gets everyone eventually."
But as they entered the tunnel, Nex stopped. He looked at his datapad, and his smile vanished.
"What?" Cal asked. "We won. Why the long face?"
"The Hive learns," Nex said quietly. "We introduced chaos. They crashed. But now..."
Nex pointed to the massive screen in the stadium.
The Hive logo was pulsing. The silver liquid was shifting, darkening. It was turning from chrome to a deep, matte black.
"They are uploading a patch," Nex said. "Game 3 won't be about prediction anymore."
"What will it be about?" Xylos clicked nervously.
"Adaptation," Nex said. "They aren't going to try to predict us next time. They're going to mirror us."
Cal looked back at the field. The fallen Unit One was standing up. Its chrome finish was gone. It was now jet black. It looked at Cal, and for the first time, it didn't look like a machine.
It looked like a predator.
"Well," Cal said, loosening his tie. "I guess we better learn some new tricks."