The sound of a career ending isn't a bang or a whimper. It's the sound of Velcro tearing off a locker for the last time.
Cal "The Cannon" Vance ripped his nameplate off the metal cubby in the visitors' clubhouse of the Tucson Saguaros. The cheap plastic snapped in half. It felt fitting. His rotator cuff had pretty much done the same thing three years ago. Despite two surgeries and a lot of cortisone, the fastball that once hit 98 mph now struggled to reach 87.
"Tough break, Cal," the manager muttered, not looking up from his clipboard. He was already changing the rotation, inserting a twenty-year-old kid from the Dominican Republic where Cal used to be. "Bus leaves in twenty. You catching a ride to the airport, or are you staying in town?"
"I'll walk," Cal said. He zipped his duffel bag, which held two gloves, a pair of worn cleats, and a lingering feeling of humiliation. "Keep the jersey."
He stepped out into the dry Arizona heat. Even at 9:00 PM, the asphalt of the parking lot was still warm, but Cal felt cold. He was thirty-two years old, with no college degree, a bank account nearing the low triple digits, and a right arm that felt like it was filled with gravel.
He passed the team bus and headed towards a flickering neon sign across the street: The Bullpen Bar & Grill.
The bar was empty except for a bartender wiping down the counter and a solitary figure in a booth at the back. Cal ordered a whiskey, neat, and stared at the TV in the corner. It showed highlights from the Majors. He saw guys he'd played against in A-ball, guys he used to strike out, now signing multi-million dollar contracts.
He downed the whiskey. It burned but not enough to numb the disappointment.
"You left your mechanics open on that slider in the third inning," a voice said.
Cal stiffened and turned slowly. The man from the back booth now stood right next to him. He was exceptionally tall and wore a charcoal suit that absorbed the dim light of the bar. He wore sunglasses even though it was night in a dark bar.
"Excuse me?" Cal asked, his voice rough.
"The slider," the stranger repeated. His voice was smooth, like water over polished stones, but there was something odd about the vowels. "You dropped your elbow. You tipped the pitch. The batter saw it coming before you released the ball."
Cal bristled. "Who are you? A scout? It's a bit late for that, pal. I just got released."
"I know," the man said. He placed a card on the sticky bar top. It wasn't paper. It was a thin, translucent piece of something that looked like obsidian glass. "That's why I'm here. My name is Nex. I represent a league that values experience over raw speed."
Cal scoffed and turned back to his empty glass. "Independent ball? Mexico? Japan? Save your breath. My arm is done. I can't throw hard anymore."
"We don't need heat, Mr. Vance. We need movement. We need strategy. We need the kind of spin rate you generate naturally." Nex tapped the glass card. "And in my league, the gravity is different. Your eighty-seven miles per hour plays like one hundred and ten in the Orion Sector."
Cal paused and looked at the man's reflection in the mirror behind the bar. It looked... wrong. It shimmered, as if the man wasn't quite solid.
"Orion Sector?" Cal turned around completely. "Is this a joke? Some kind of prank show?"
Nex removed his sunglasses.
Cal dropped his whiskey glass. It shattered, but he didn't hear it.
Nex's eyes were not human. There were no whites, no irises. Just swirling pools of violet, flecked with gold, shifting like miniature galaxies. The skin around his temples shifted, revealing faint, glowing scales beneath the human-looking makeup.
"No joke, Cal," Nex said, narrowing his violet eyes. "The Galactic League. We have six hundred teams across forty star systems. We have species you can't imagine playing positions you didn't know existed. But we have a shortage of pitchers who understand the psychology of the game."
Cal gripped the edge of the bar to steady himself. "Aliens. You're... you're an alien."
"I prefer 'Non-Terran Entity,' but sure. We've been watching you. Not the young you. The current you. The you that learned to pitch with pain. The you that knows how to cheat the strike zone." Nex slid the obsidian card closer. "The Galactics love the human game. It's become quite the trend in the Core Systems. But our species lack the finesse for the curveball. We throw hard, or we throw straight. We need a human artist."
Cal looked at the card. Tiny, glowing symbols etched themselves onto the surface as he watched. It was a contract. The numbers at the bottom were staggering.
"I can't breathe in space," Cal said, stunned.
"Stadiums are terraformed. The atmosphere is controlled. The pay is in Credits, convertible to gold bullion when you return to Earth." Nex leaned in. "And we have technology, Cal. We can fix the shoulder. Not just patch it. We can restore it."
Cal looked at his right arm. The throbbing ache was a constant reminder of every inning he'd thrown away in pursuit of a dream that had just ended in a parking lot in Tucson.
"Why me?" Cal asked. "Why not a Major Leaguer?"
"Major Leaguers have too much to lose," Nex said, a smile stretching his face a little too wide. "We need someone hungry. Someone with nothing left on this planet but a bag of old equipment and a broken arm. We need someone desperate enough to face a creature that weighs four hundred pounds and has four arms."
Nex extended a long, slender hand.
"The shuttle is in orbit. We leave in one hour. Are you ready to play in the Big Show, Cal? The real Big Show?"
Cal looked at the shattered glass on the floor. He looked at the TV, where the human world continued on without him. Then he looked into the swirling violet eyes of the scout.
He reached out and took the contract.
"Do you guys serve beer on the shuttle?" Cal asked.
Nex's smile widened. "Mr. Vance, we serve things that make beer taste like ditch water."
Cal Vance picked up his duffel bag. "Lead the way."