About “The F Factor,” she writes, “I have a clear memory of my father telling me I had a chance to play in the 2000 Summer Olympic Games for the USA Women’s Softball team. At the time, I was only eleven years old. I’ve since written many softball stories, mostly from a teenager’s frustrated, rebellious view, but I’ve never written one from his. Or, what I imagined his would be. Throwing in the question of how softball could become a viable and profitable sport became the inspiration for a story that’s not really mine, but somehow came out my fingers….”

  The F Factor

  Chrissy Wissler

  Brett shifted his stance. Sneakers grinding and scraping on the field’s hard-packed dirt. The always-hot sun, even in the middle of December, made even his thin, holes-around-the-collar T-shirt feel heavy. Like thick scratchy wool.

  The sun, the heat, made it hard to breathe. Stole what little moisture was in the air. In him.

  He didn’t want to get any closer. But knew he had to.

  Just as he had every day, since that day.

  The still, mid-leap, frozen image of his Carrie on the pitcher’s mound. Ponytail splayed behind her. Her blue and white and neon-flashing pink uniform revealing long, muscular, perfectly honed-legs as she stood, launched, from the mound. Her right arm up in a perfect windmill action. Softball clutched both tight and loose in her grip. He didn’t even glance at her curved finger to know she was throwing a curveball.

  She was so real.

  Real, and alive.

  Could even see the tiny, small beads of sweat forming under her nose. Along the brow of her forehead. The darkened stain on her now off-white Los Angeles’s Slugging Angel’s hat.

  How her eyes, that deep brown that was only hers, shifted. Went from focused, intense, precise to… something else.

  Something other.

  And behind her, oh, that stadium. Every seat filled. Skyboxes and nose-bleeds reaching right for the sky. The thundering roar of applause, cheers, and wave-after-wave of bodies and arms rising up.

  The flash and snap of cameras. Videos. Announcers.

  The hundreds and thousands of viewers tuning in. Watching.

  Betting.

  The first Women’s National Softball League World Series.

  All for his Carrie.

  But right now, all was still. Frozen. In time, and in his heart.

  Brett shuttered his eyes. Made himself breathe.

  Swept a hand underneath his Strike Team hat—patched and worn and fraying—before rubbing the thinning hair there. Just like he had, every time, he needed to rewatch the video.

  He touched the Bluetooth in his ear.

  “Continue.”

  The video did.

  The very room he stood in became alive in sound. In movement. Movement from the stadium and that never-ending wave, from the flashing and snap of cameras, from his daughter.

  So fast.

  Over, really, in the blink of an eye.

  He stood in the center of it all and made himself, again, watch.

  Watch Carrie.

  How her arm snapped around. The softball sizzling out of her hand. The pitch, he knew, had clocked in at 96mph.

  Impossible, once. But no more.

  The girls and their softball, now easily outshining the men in money, in fame, and, in death.

  The ball did not curve outward, lightly brushing the corner of home plate as the catcher had intended. As the pitch she’d called for Carrie to throw.

  Behind him, at home plate, he heard the hard, thick, deep-boned thud of softball striking the batter—the girl, as she went down.

  Ribs crushed. Lungs collapsed. Heart stopped.

  And followed, almost immediately, by his daughter falling.

  Falling down dead.

  And what was worse, was the thundering grew. Louder. Deafening. Cheering, begging, for more.

  “Replay.”

  The video did.

  He motioned with his right arm. A screen, an off-shoot of the larger holo playing around him, brought up her vitals. Temperature. Everything, he knew, had been analyzed again and again by the Genetic Enhancement Foundation. By every computer program in existence. Even by himself. Had searched for some sign, some link between what had triggered here, with Carrie, with all the girls that came before her.

  And all the girls who came after.

  Knew, not GEF or him or any other, had found a direct link.

  A link between the genetic enhancements and the trigger.

  Brett called up different angles of cameras. At least two dozen more. The stadium, with its very real interest in profit and the potential of the League, provided its fans with exactly the right kind of information needed to make assessments, decisions, and most importantly, bets on who would trigger next.

  And when.

  Brett’s fingers flicked through each video. Fast as he considered, and then ultimately discarded. Just as he did, every time, until he had no choice.

  No choice but to go back to the main video. With him, standing in front of his daughter, and seeing that subtle, too-fast shift in her eyes.

  The decision—if he could even call it that—to throw at the batter. To unleash a moment of rage so intense it burned right through her. Burned through her light, her spark, leaving nothing behind but burnt, crisp and blackened wires of her neural network. Her brain.

  All for softball.

  His gut twisted. Turned.

  Just like it always did.

  This was the trigger moment. Nothing showed internally. No sudden spike in receptors from her speed or muscle enhancements. No increase in temperature or blood pressure. Nothing. Nothing but that little shift in her eyes. A change that fully shifted her from the erratic woman she’d become under GEF’s enhancements—but still recognizable, still his daughter, even if he’d watched only from a distance—to being gone from this world, and his life, forever.

  It was a change something only a father would notice.

  Or a mother.

  Sarah, he thought again, had probably seen these signs. Even though she had—and still—refused to take his calls. But she would have seen. She’d stayed with Carrie even after he’d been forced—paid off by GEF—to leave. She knew Carrie better than Brett ever could and still, he felt this moment in his heart. In the weighty and weightlessness of his gut.

  Sarah would have known.

  Known, and been unable to do anything.

  Just like he couldn’t do anything all those years ago when he finally understood the contract they’d signed for Carrie.

  For Carrie’s dream.

  All for a chance to play professional ball.

  “Maximum on facial feature.”

  The holo responded.

  Brett came, face-to-face, with his daughter. Gazed into brown eyes now black. Dangerous. Other.

  His parched throat suddenly became glued together. Like he couldn’t swallow or breathe. Stuck there. Holding him.

  He backed the magnification up.

  Felt breath, once again, pass between his lips. Hot and sticky, but breath.

  This, he knew, had been the moment Carrie’s genetic enhancements had enflamed. Exploded. Too fast to respond. To do anything. To save her.

  It was a moment he’d expected and dreaded for years.

  Except, there had been signs. Warnings. He knew. From watching video after video of her on the mound, at bat, going to clubs and publicity stunts. Behavorial changes. Small anomalies. Nothing more than a blip, really.

  But there were signs.

  Signs, and that feeling that churned in his gut.

  A quiet ring hummed in his ear.

  The holo of the stadium, of the field with its hard, gravel-like dirt, faded. Felt instead the hard, brown and reflective tile under his worn sneakers. Saw his lonely desk propped up beside the pitcher’s mound, the two images seemingly overlaid on the other, neither real but both there.

  His desk phone, a relic, really, from an older time but made him feel just a bit more real. The light on it was silent and clear.

  No messages.

  Good. Meant he could focus, could do what he could for these girls.

  Even if it wasn’t much.

  “Sir?” Ethan chimed in from further below in the office. “You ready for the video on Heather?”

  “I am. Send it through.”

  Brett wasn’t, but it really didn’t matter.

  A new stadium snapped into view, the brand newest-spanking addition to New York’s line of sports teams with its clear, see-through dugout and wireless screens streamed into every hard-backed plastic seat in the stadium. All the better to see and monitor and weigh on the athletes and their temperaments.

  He muted the noise.

  There was no need to hear the crowd, bloodthirsty and craving more.

  He minimized the video of Carrie. Pushed it to the side, but left the focus on her eyes.

  Kept the feeling in his gut close at hand.

  He called up the images sent by Ethan. Images that their computer program, Golden Touch, had assessed and analyzed. Heather, he saw in the far corner of his right eye, had only a ranking of 27. Meant 26 other girls before her were more likely to trigger.

  Brett waved off the number. Followed, instead, what his gut told him.

  The latest video of Heather expanded before him.

  Taller than him by nearly six inches, she was all leg, all muscle. Graceful. Athletic. She wore the Raging Tigers uniform like it’d been sewn on her. Didn’t even bother with the tight, black-fitted sliding shorts most girls wore under their uniforms.

  But, he noticed, he saw no signs of scars on those legs. No white or jagged marks from healing with a few bits of dirt still in them. Scars that he’d normally see on any player who often slid into home plate or made diving catches as often as she did.

  GEF, then, really was focusing more on image than just performance.

  Could it be… could the feds be rethinking their stance on enhancements? On these girls and the convenient label waffling between property or human?

  Brett shook his head. Couldn’t think about it. He’d played that dance with GEF and it’d cost him his family.

  Brought the image of Heather up closer.

  He’d known Heather. Almost ten years ago, back when Carrie was just joining the League. Sweet, kind, giving. Heather had been a bright girl then, almost as bright as Carrie but she’d taken a step back in the light. That was Heather’s way, even if it meant less light and fame for herself. She let Carrie shine for the whole League, to bring about the golden age of women’s sports and all that.

  “You sure about this one, sir?” Ethan chimed in.

  He normally didn’t bother Brett during his field walks, but Heather… well, she’d survived ten years in the League. Made her sort of a legend. Untouchable.

  “You know,” Ethan went on, “the Faras Brothers have been claiming her as a trigger candidate for going on five years now.”

  “I know.”

  There was a pause. “You know something the rest of us don’t?”

  “Maybe.” Brett cut the line.

  Focused, not on what Ethan or Golden Touch or even the Faras Brothers thought, and brought up the last ten vids of Heather in games. Of her before. And after.

  Went through each one, each image, sorting, thinking, calculating.

  This was what all WNS League bettors like him did.

  Assessed. Studied.

  Brett continued to pace the New York field with its bright orange and black tiger stripes cutting through the otherwise green, perfectly manicured and maintained outfield. Tucked hands into rough and patched, jean pockets. Walked behind Heather, who caught line drive after line drive from her position as short-stop.

  Her leather glove flying out, reaching, grabbing, snatching ball after ball that came her way. The dust from the leather lifted in the air. Sometimes, that dust was the only sign she’d even moved.

  Other than the hard, cold slap of ball striking leather.

  Heather was the favored. Not to trigger, but as the golden star of GEF. Their longest survivor, proof to everyone that players could survive the treatments and live a long and perfectly normal life.

  Except something wasn’t quite right with Heather.

  Something only his gut knew and not GEF and not some computer program either.

  And when he’d looked into her latest medical review—public record since GEF considered the girls more asset than protected individuals—he’d noticed the change in her treatment.

  A new cocktail of enhancements.

  What those exactly were, the file didn’t say. Wouldn’t. After all, GEF needed to protect some assets.

  The important ones.

  The ones that couldn’t be replaced.

  Once enhancements were received, even just one time, and it was enough to ensure the girls needed them for the rest of their life. That was all the genetic code needed to get screwed up. Once. And it was a short life, turned out. But a bright and famous one. Enough so that GEF had young, and younger girls, lining up to show what they could do, show off the genes they had already, hard at work, and how just a little bit of enhancements could send straight and true into the League.

  Except this didn’t make any sense. Heather still needed her daily dose of enhancements, same as any other girl, but why the change? Why risk her triggering?

  She’d been performing. Well, in fact. Her batting average had shot up over the past ten games.

  But… wait a minute.

  Brett brought up yet another screen. Had Golden Touch run the stats against new variables? Saw her averages and percentages. Not good. Not for their golden girl.

  For the past year Heather had been outshone, time and time again, by the newer blood. Rookies, all of them, even a couple veterans of two full years, and Heather wasn’t coming close to their scores—even though her temperament remained steady. Nothing at all like those rookies.

  Ten triggers in that group alone.

  Brett checked the date on Heather’s medical review.

  The performance spike had happened after the review. After the cocktail change.

  “Shit.”

  Spit burned in the back of his throat. The need to run to his trashcan by his unused desk nearly overwhelmed him.

  He flicked his fingers. He needed to check her temperament. See if she’d followed the same behavioral signs as those other girls… his gut kept on twisting. Twisting so hard he took a full step toward that trashcan before he swallowed, and got a hold of himself.

  He needed to focus, now. Not puke his guts out.

  Brett brought up yet another screen, but kept the main view, the stadium and Heather’s performance at shortstop, playing on.

  A smaller image of Heather striding down some street in Beverly Hills came to view. Red, curling hair slapping at her back with only the thinnest of fabric covering her. She moved with hard, drawn-out steps like she couldn’t get somewhere fast enough. Like she wanted to crush the pavement. Seemed to wear her heels down with each stomp, like they’d break any moment.

  Brett enhanced the screen.

  Followed close on her and the two other teammates with her. He ignored the other girls after a moment, and then the fans who suddenly swarmed around them. Brett focused only on her hands, how the veins, tendons, and bones seemed to stand out as she reached for some store’s golden-painted door handle.

  She didn’t look at either the doorman or escorts with her.

  Didn’t wait for them to open the door, as was their job.

  Instead, she yanked it open.

  “Zoom in.”

  The video narrowed in on the handle. Her hand, now gone, as she was now in the store.

  However, the imprint of her fingers remained.

  That moment, right there, wasn’t the Heather he’d known. The Heather who’d been on the mound for ten years.

  Brett yanked off his hat. Practically pulled out the few, small remaining hairs there.

  “Damn it.” He called up Ethan on the network. “Put a bid out on Heather.”

  There was a pause. An intake of breath.

  Brett understood why, completely.

  “How much?” Ethan asked.

  “Five million.”

  Again, there was that breath. “That’s a lot, sir.”

  “It is.”

  But GEF had put a lot of hype and promise on that girl. Hopefully, maybe, enough to pull her off whatever cocktail they’d dosed her with. Before her next treatment. Before she triggered. Maybe even to do their due diligence and figure out what they were doing to these girls.

  What they’d done to his girl.

  But, he knew, the end result would be the same. Always would be.

  “Put the bid in, Ethan.”

  “They’ll want to talk with you, you know. Once they see her name on the charts, and that the bid came from you.”

  “I know.”

  “You know they’ve been playing nice, but if you push too hard… Brett, they’re putting two-and-two together. Everyone is. They’re going to get a warrant to search Golden Touch. They’ve threatened you before with that, sir. That if you know something that could help these girls—”

  “Because they suddenly care so much? That they suddenly see these girls as humans and not a commodity? Not a property to control?”

  “They’ve used both arguments before.”

  They had.

  They’d also won, with both.

  Brett fitted his hat back on. Pulled the brim low until it practically hid his face. Not that there was anyone to see.

  “It won’t matter,” Brett said. “They get the warrant, and what? See the 27 ranking we gave her?”

  Again, another pause. “How did you know, sir? About Heather?”

  “I don’t know anything yet. She’s still alive, after all.” Hopefully, she could be alive for a bit longer.

  “But your percentage… no one’s come close to predicting the rate you are.”

  Brett tuned Ethan out. It was a conversation they’d had a dozen times, ever since he’d first approached the kid to build him the program and mathematics plugged into Golden Touch.

  Instead, Brett brought up the image of Carrie. Watched her watch him.

 

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