Mariano walked to the back of the empty locker room. Their season was over, early. No playoffs this time.
He
entered a seven-digit code into the keypad and waited while his eyes
were scanned. The door hissed, made popping sounds as cylinders
retracted, and slid open. He stepped over the shallow bulkhead into the
chamber of arms.
There
were seven of them on the wall, each plugged into power and diagnostic
cables. Three of the hands were twitching their way through preset
limbering routines; they would be used on the practice range in the
morning. By other pitchers, though. Or perhaps just technicians
probing the outer envelope – a hundred and twenty miles per hour
fastballs, metachaotic knuckleballs, recursive sliders . . . things that
couldn't be used in League play. They were beautiful to watch,
though.
He
stepped onto the platform before the empty space where the eighth arm
should hang. He unbuttoned his shirt, marveling at how his fingertips –
not really "his" at all – could feel each thread in the weave of the
cloth. He disconnected the fluid hoses and sensory cables, feeling the
arm go progressively more and more numb. Finally he pulled it from the
stump, sickened a bit as he always was by the wet sound of broken
suction when it finally came off. The orifices in the arm and stump
retracted their frills and fronds in reluctant farewells, finally
clenching shut.
One
last time he hung the arm on the wall. The fist opened wide and
relaxed, the calloused palm still dusty from the last few pitches.
Somewhere in the dugout there was a baseball that was still a bit warm
from it.
"Goodbye," he said.
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