Number Seven

“Fifth pitch, foul tip. Eighth gets behind the catcher.” Cheng wrote the predictions and folded the page. Both came true. Before the tenth pitch, his face changed. “Gao, move!” The pitching machine exploded. A ball shot at Gao's injured right shoulder. The catcher threw himself down; the ball punched through a thin board behind him. A shriek filled Cheng's skull, and he caught the wall to stay upright. Tang opened the paper. Its last line read: Pitch ten—right shoulder injured. “From now on,” he said tightly, “only the four of us know.” Lin crouched beside the broken machine and extracted a rice-grain-sized black module. “Not factory hardware. Someone changed the speed remotely.”