September 2009
The decision to join the basketball team wasn't planned. It hadn't been part of any path I had mapped out, nor a skill I had developed with the system. It was, like many things in my new life, a coincidence.
It happened on a Tuesday afternoon, walking through the school hallways after classes. The basketball coach, a tall man named Coach Henderson, stopped me at the gym door.
"You, the tall one," he said, pointing a finger at me. "Do you play?"
"Basketball?"
"No, chess. Yes, basketball. You're about five-foot-seven and you have long arms. Do you play?"
I had never played basketball in my life. In my previous existence, my sport had been watching screens and taking painkillers. But in this new body, with legs that could run without tiring and arms that could throw without trembling, the idea didn't seem far-fetched.
"I wanted to try football," I admitted. "But I think I'm still too skinny."
"Football?" Henderson let out a dry laugh. "With that frame, they'd snap you in two on the first tackle. Come try basketball. It's a sport of height, not muscle. And you have height."
And so it was that three days later, I found myself in the school gym at 6:00 AM in borrowed sneakers and an oversized t-shirt, trying to do something I had never done: throw a ball through a hoop.
Week 1
The first day was a disaster. My arms, which could hold a robotic arm with millimeter precision, didn't know how to calculate the force needed for a free throw. My legs, which could run five miles without tiring, didn't know how to plant my feet for a pivot. And my hands, which could draw a horizon line with accuracy, couldn't control the dribbling without the ball veering off to the side.
"Bennett!" Henderson shouted from the sideline. "You've never played?"
"It's my first time," I replied, the ball slipping from my fingers.
"It shows."
The other kids on the team looked at me with a mixture of pity and amusement. They were shorter than me but stronger, faster, more confident. They had been playing since childhood. I barely knew how to hold the ball.
"You're going to have to practice," Henderson said with an expression I couldn't tell was discouragement or challenge. "A lot."
"I know," I replied.
And I started practicing.
Week 2
By the second week, something began to change. It wasn't sudden. It was gradual, like the gears of a clock beginning to mesh after being adjusted.
My Athlete path, which had been latent since the system left, began to manifest. It didn't give me superpowers or superhuman abilities. It just gave me something more valuable: consistency.
My legs learned to move in patterns. My arms memorized the arc of the shot. My fingers found the texture of the ball, the exact point where it needed to rest for the shot to be accurate.
On the third day of the second week, I made my first free throw. It wasn't an accident. It was the result of hundreds of failed attempts, millimeter adjustments in the position of my fingers, watching how others shot and copying what worked.
"Better," Henderson said without smiling. "But still a long way to go."
"I know," I replied.
And I kept practicing.
Week 3
My mother began to worry. I came home with sore arms, scraped knees, fingers bandaged after a ball hit them wrong. I looked in the mirror and barely recognized myself: taller, leaner, with muscles appearing where bone had been before.
"Leo, aren't you going too far?" Susan asked one night as she put ice on my shoulder.
"It's just practice," I replied. "The coach says if I keep it up, I could be a substitute in the first game."
"Substitute?"
"The one who goes in when the starters get tired."
Susan looked at me with an expression mixing pride and concern. "Are you sure this is what you want? You could keep going with robotics. With programming. With the things you're good at."
"Basketball is starting to be something I'm good at too," I said. "And I want to try. See how far I can go."
That night, while sleeping, I dreamed of my hands gripping a ball, my feet moving on the court, the sound of the ball hitting the backboard and going through the hoop. It wasn't a dream of points or systems. It was a dream of movement. Of being in a place I hadn't chosen but was beginning to feel like my own.
Week 4
One afternoon after practice, Alex found me in the empty gym. She hadn't come before. She had never shown interest in sports. But there she was, sitting in the bleachers, a book on her lap she wasn't reading.
"You're early," I said, wiping sweat from my forehead with my shirt.
"My mom wants to know if you're coming to dinner tonight," she replied, her tone trying to be casual but not quite succeeding. "She says you haven't been in weeks."
"I've been practicing. The first game is Friday."
"I know."
She looked at me. In her eyes was something I couldn't decipher. Not worry, not boredom, not the usual analysis with which she observed the world.
"Do you want to see me shoot?" I asked.
"I don't know anything about basketball."
"Neither did I. But I learned."
I took the ball. I stood at the free-throw line. I closed my eyes for a second, remembering the position of my feet, the arc of my arms, the pivot point of my wrists.
I shot.
The ball spun through the air, tracing a perfect parabola, and went through the hoop without touching the rim.
Alex opened her eyes. "That was... luck."
"Probably," I said, smiling.
I shot again. It went in.
Another. It went in.
Another. It went in.
"How do you do it?" she asked, with a curiosity she didn't fully hide.
"It's physics. Launch angle, wrist rotation, release point. Same as calibrating a servomotor. Just faster."
"You're comparing basketball to robotics?"
"I compare everything to robotics. It's the only thing I understand."
She laughed. It was a small laugh, but genuine.
"Are you coming to the game?" I asked, shooting again. It went in.
"Do you want me to?"
"If you don't have anything better to do."
She thought about it. "Can my family come too?"
"Your family wants to come?"
"My mom wants to keep an eye on you. She says if you're going to play sports, she wants to make sure you don't get hurt. My dad wants to see you play because he says he's never seen anyone learn so fast. And Luke wants to come because there's a soda machine at the gym."
"And you?"
"I want to see if all this applied physics stuff works in a real game."
"And Haley?"
"Haley doesn't want to come. She says sports are boring. But she'll probably come anyway because she has nothing better to do."
"So the whole Dunphy family is coming to watch me play."
"Looks like it," she said, and in her smile was something I hadn't seen before: pride. Not for herself, but for me.
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Leo joined the basketball team. Not knowing anything. Never having played.
A hundred missed shots later, he made the first one. And then another. And another.
Alex came to watch him. And for the first time, she didn't bring a book.
What was more impressive? Leo's shots or Alex leaving the book at home? 🏀📚😮
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