Fernando Valdez had been many things in his seven years of professional baseball. Wunderkind. All-star. Social media darling. The first Ghost to be fined for “unlawful drone deployment” during a barbecue. No one, however, expected him to be the most controversial starter in PEBA. After a forgettable start to launch his 2042 campaign, Fernando strutted into the press room wearing mirrored aviators and a kimono. “I’m not a pitcher,” he announced. “I’m a performance artist who throws 100 with late arm-side run.” He wasn’t wrong. His next start began innocuously. Fernando was sharp – mixing sliders and his arsenal of fastballs with the intense precision of a neurosurgeon on Adderall. By the end of the fourth inning, he had fanned 6, walked none, and was working on a one-hitter. Then came the fifth inning, which Fernando later called “an artistic intermission.” During a mound visit, the Jumbotron lit up. “SWIPE RIGHT FOR LOVE”

Name: Reezy, 27

Occupation: Professional Baseball Player (No big deal)

Fun fact: Once ate sushi off a boat in Miami. Ask me about it.”

Beneath it all – a very real dating profile belonging to Ryuzaburo Mori, the Ghosts’ left fielder, complete with six shirtless selfies. The stadium exploded. Mori, standing in left, screamed into his glove. The Akira dugout roared. Fernando, to no one’s surprise, grinned on the mound like a war criminal at trial. The stadium speakers started blasting a pop song Valdez commissioned for the occasion including the refrain, “That Reezy? Swipe right!”, which included a dance that the stadium cheer team enthusiastically demonstrated in front of each section. The song played after every strike out or play involving Mori, and as Mori’s walk-up music.

“How?” the media asked post-game. “Timing,” said Fernando. “And a Bluetooth dongle I put in the control booth during FanFest.”

The prank might have been expected to hurt the team, yet the game didn’t fall apart. Fernando somehow got stronger after the prank. He finished seven innings, struck out 9, and winked into the dugout cam after every strikeout like he was seducing the broadcast team. The Ghosts won 6-0. Fernando earned Player of the Game. But behind the smiles, tensions brewed. Manager Nobuhito Hasegawa cornered Fernando outside the showers. “You’re a veteran now,” he said flatly. “Act like it.” Fernando nodded solemnly.

A moment later, he could be seen asking the entertainment manager if he could borrow a dry-ice fog machine.

That night, the first ghost of Oikake Maze appeared. It started with a locker tucked between the bullpen’s veterans.

A jersey with the name “Lucien”.  Cleats the size of pontoon boats. A taped note read: “Do not disturb.” It seemed like fog was turning up in the strangest places.

The next morning, handwritten notes began appearing in players’ lockers.

“Your slider breaks less than your voice during interviews.”

“Chin up, Harry. Confidence is a performance. Pretend better.”

“Trust your fastball. Or don’t. I enjoy watching you fail.”

Players were spooked. Who was Lucien? No one ever saw him. But he knew things. Specific things. Like batting cage stats and private comments made at dinner. Fernando swore he had nothing to do with it, and always had an alibi.

”The truth? Fernando had bribed the clubhouse janitor to plant the notes and installed a hydraulic control arm inside Lucien’s locker. It would let someone try to open it to a small amount before slamming shut on its own. It could also rattle, and often did, especially when a rookie was in the area. The team’s actual pitching coach, Antonio Aragon, had a minor panic attack, inducing stream of Spanish curses more colorful than the stands at a home game, after it triggered mid-conversation. The fogs, and the accompanying groans and creaks that had begun to accompany them, saw the entire bullpen refusing to use the back tunnel for a week.

The veterans knew better. Harold Stowe could not be convinced by Fernando’s alibis. As the story came out to the public, Stowe was quoted: “Fernando is either a genius or a psychopath… and I’m not sure it matters, because right now he’s throwing seven strong innings a night… despite only drinking from bottes with “Definitely not poisoned” printed on the label. I don’t know where they keep coming from, but only a few arrive in each case, and Fernando makes a big show of scrambling to find them when a new case is opened. These are factory sealed! I have no idea how he does what he does, but I know it’s him.”

The front office tried not to ignore the shenanigans, but Valdez was performing and after having been fined for the “Swipe Right” incident, he’d been careful about maintaining cover, so there was little that could be done.

Ghosts fans were obsessed. Ghosts players were exhausted. Things reached a breaking point when rookie catcher Dave Wilson opened his locker to find the back of it had been removed. Deep inside the large, supply-closet-shaped cavity that it opened into, inset lighting and a huge mirror with “YOU ARE ENOUGH” written across it in lipstick stared back at him. Inside his glove, a series of tiny speakers powered by piezoelectric strips played Sarah McLachlan’s Angel every time he shut the mitt. He cried. Twice. Once from laughter, and again weeks later from what he called “deep and existential confusion.”

Fernando knew enough to cop to the Wilson prank, claiming it was “emotional conditioning.”

“Baseball’s too full of dudes pretending they’re not scared. I’m giving them permission to feel,” he said, eating cereal out of his Wunderkind trophy.

In the final week of May, a gigantic crate arrived outside Fernando’s house. 12 feet tall.  Stenciled across the front in white paint: “PROJECT: FARGO”. The return label offered the only insight an interloper might glean: Animatronic Industries, Inc.