My vision kind of tunneled in on the bag. I saw the second baseman cutting in toward it, raising his glove to grab the catcher's throw. I could feel my spikes like talons, digging into the carpet. My legs pumped, my arms swung. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I watched the base, prepared to dive beneath the second baseman's tag, and I even grinned at the prospect of sliding head first.
Then I heard the crack of the bat and a rising roar from the crowd. Nothing quite as clean and crisp and pure as the sound of a wooden bat catching all of a ball and then some. I saw a bit of blurred white to my left, then turned my head to the right and picked up this tiny pellet getting smaller and smaller by the second. It arced high through the Dome's darkened upper reaches, then rocketed down, over the wall in dead center.
Fireworks shot up from behind the Scoreboard and the Megatron, exploding brilliantly. Below, the score-board's graphics likewise put on a light display. The fireworks cannonade fill the Dome with red, green, gold, and blue sparks that drifted down as the Megatron showed a replay of Jimmy's hit. As the explosive echoes of the fireworks died, the pulsing cheers from the stands washed out over the fields, and I found myself howling with delight. I made sure to step fully on second, third, and home, then turned to welcome Jimmy home. He slapped both of my hands, then we butted chests and started laughing as the rest of the team collapsed in toward us. An army of hands and arms reached past and around me to congratulate Jimmy.
I managed to slip back out of the crowd and felt curiously alone as the team amoeba moved toward the dugout and locker room. I was as happy as anyone with the win-the Seadogs were as much my team as they were anyone else's-but I wasn't really part of the team. Yes, the run I'd scored helped lift us past the Lords, but I felt like I was poaching. I hadn't earned a place there, I didn't have a right to celebrate the way the rest of them were.
Yet being there, alone, was not the same as being lonely. I held myself apart not because I felt I wouldn't be welcomed, but because I didn't want to intrude. They had a camaraderie born of their battles the way I did with Raven and Stealth and Tark and Val; even with Zig and Zag. I respected what they had too much to want to impose myself on it. I was happy for them, happy for what they had done and happy to have contributed to it, even in a minor way. That was fine for me.
I drifted into the dugout as the last of the players squeezed into the tunnel back into the locker room. Bobby Kane stopped me with a hand on my chest. "Your attempt at stealing second…"
I winced. "I got the sign wrong, right?"
The manager shook his head. "You read it right, but that sign meant you could go if you wanted to. We needed you in scoring position, but I wasn't going to force you to go." He brushed some dirt from my jersey. "You got heart, kid. Sometimes, with all these wired guys muling for math-ghosts, it's easy to forget that's what's needed for playing this game."
"Thanks." I gave him a quick smile. "Any word on Ken?"
"Took him off to the hospital. He should be okay, but they'll want to balance out his electrolytes, get him some rest. Given that we've got the Jags coming in, and the nonsense that passes for Ken's lifestyle, having him bedridden for two days is a good thing."
"True, but he'll be vulnerable there. I'll call Raven. He can take a look at him and put some protection in place." I narrowed my eyes. "Assuming this was an attempt to take him out of more than just this game, I don't want to give whoever did this another shot."
"Amen to that." Bobby slapped me on the back. "Hey, Wolf, just in case no one else thinks to say it, thanks. And, welcome to the show. You scored a run, you're a statistic."
"Sure, someday someone will be using me as a Legacy player."
We both laughed and I headed into the locker room. I peeled off my uniform and hit the showers. I parked myself under a nozzle back in the corner, not out of any sense of modesty, but because that was far enough away from the entrance that random cool breezes and giddy players with towels spun into rat-tails couldn't easily get at me. The hot water felt good and even the Old One stopped growling when we heard the occasional snap of a towel and the resulting yelp of pain.
After much too short a time, I came back out and toweled off. A low growl and a shot of silver eyes kept a couple of jokers away from rat-tailing me on my way to my locker. I dropped down on the bench next to Jimmy and started dressing. "Nice shot."
"Thanks." He smiled at me. "Sorry to rob you of your stolen base, but when you went, Fitz hurried his delivery. Came in a bit higher than I like…"
"Not that you could have noticed from the hit."
His grin broadened. "Yeah, I suppose. I did kinda nail it, didn't I?"
The pure, unadulterated joy in his question brought a big smile to my face. I nodded and tightened my kevlar vest. "I'd bet one side of that ball is squashed flat."
"Maybe. All that counts, though, is that we won. Best the Jags can do now is tie us and we have a playoff to move into the pennant series."
"I'll slot that and run any day." I pulled my turtleneck on. "I'm thinking of heading over to see how Ken is. Want to go with me?"
"I was thinking of doing the same thing, and was going to take Thumper-he said he wanted to go." Jimmy jerked a thumb in the direction of the media office. "I have to go talk to the newsleeches, which will take a little while. Thumper's off changing a bulb in the Scoreboard-he says it's bad bulbs we're getting, or a bad socket needs replacing. He wants things perfect for the Jags."
"All right, I'll round Thumper up and we'll head over there after you get away from the media frenzy." I glanced at my watch, then slid it onto my left wrist. "I need to call Raven anyway. Twenty minutes?"
Jimmy nodded. "Works for me. If I'm not out by then, come in shooting."
"Full-auto." I finished dressing by pulling on a pair of jeans, and then some steel-toed boots, the right one with a slender stiletto sheathed in it. I shrugged my shoulder holster on, then pulled on a leather jacket over that. In my only concession to team spirit I wore the team cap, twisting the brim around so it covered the back of my neck.
I headed out into the network of internal corridors that allowed staff access to every nook and cranny of the Dome and found a public telecom. I briefed Doc on what had happened. He said he'd head out to the hospital immediately and make sure someone was with Ken around the clock. I asked him to exempt Val from that duty and, laughing, he said he would. I said I'd see him at the hospital, hit the Disconnect, and started looking for Thumper.
I asked around among the clean-up crew if they'd seen Thumper, and I was pointed in several different directions. None of those leads panned out, so I headed for the Scoreboard, which is where I should have been going in the first place. After a couple of false starts, I found the passageway to the area behind the Scoreboard and hurried along it. With the game over and the crowds clearing out, the lights had been reduced by half in the corridors and only a third of them still burned on the field. The air conditioning systems that handled the playing area and pretty much everything save the locker rooms had likewise been shut down, giving the Dome a warm closeness that made it easy to remember we were really just standing in a big hole in the ground.
As I came into the area behind the Scoreboard, everything looked normal. The space had been shaped into a little amphitheatre used to store rakes, shovels, a turf roller, and seats waiting to be repaired. The black outline of the rear access hatch to the Scoreboard and the Megatron indicated it was open, but I expected that. In the dimness at the base of the Scoreboard I saw the six short, organ-pipe style mortars that shot fireworks into the sky for a home run. A chair sat next to them, but it had been knocked over onto its side and I saw something half-hidden by the mortars.
In an instant I called upon the Old One to give me his senses. As my nose opened up, I caught a heavy whiff of blood and a hint of Atomic balm. I also smelled a couple different colognes and started to reach for my Viper.
A piece of shadow moved to my right. The truncheon my attacker wielded arced down fast.
I tried to move with the blow, but was too slow. It caught me at the base of my skull and would have dropped me cleanly, but the bill on my cap absorbed some of the impact. I crumpled to the left and rolled a bit, ending up on my back, with my throat exposed.
Given the phase of the moon and my being somewhat stunned by the blow, this was not the best position I could have ended up in. The Old One immediately determined that I was in jeopardy and already defeated, since I'd left my belly and throat vulnerable to attack. With fierce disgust echoing through his howl, he exerted himself, filling my limbs with energy.
/will save us, Longtooth.
I had all I could do to prevent him from warping me into a wolfoid monster, which meant my control over my actions wavered. The Old One spun me around and lashed out at my assailant with a foot. We managed to trip her up-the Old One snarled about fighting a woman- but the way she bounced up from the trip told me she had more wire in her than the sprawl power grid and that she had to be slotting KillaKarate 2.3 activesofts, Black Belt edition.
Unfortunately for her, there really aren't that many katas dealing with the fighting style Man-Who-Fights-Like-Wolf. The Old One bounded me up from the ground and drove me at her very quickly. She brought her hands up in defense, but I just lunged forward, my mouth opening for a bite that would crush her windpipe. Not having a muzzle, I knew that wasn't going to work too well, but the Old One didn't care. He jammed my face in at her throat, which meant I got her chin in my left eye, but her jaw did snap shut.
She fell back and managed to flip me over a hip, but I rolled into a crouch that kept me well below the sidekick she snapped at my head with her right foot. The Old One again lunged me forward and we went for her left leg. I got a mouthful of synthleather and hamstring, but, more important, managed to knock her off balance and to the ground. She landed on her belly and the Old One popped me up into a pounce. I landed on her back, with my knees hammering her kidneys and my hands mashing her face against the floor.
A kick to my ribs from her partner picked me up off her and sent me flying. I would have howled, but the kick knocked the wind out of me. I landed hard and rolled, but he came in at me and clipped me with a kick to the head. That twisted me around and dumped me by the mortars.
And into the pool of Thumper's blood. His blood covered me and the Old One went berserk. Here someone I had identified as being in my pack lay dead. My mission had been to protect him and the others, and these attackers had killed one of the pack members. This was not a crime, for the Old One had no sense of criminality, this was just an offense, an aberration. It was something that violated the way of things, and all reality cried out for things to be set to rights again. And set them to rights again the Old One would do.
Though the Old One had often lent me his senses, never had I seen things so clearly through his eyes, as I did now with our attacker closing with us. I saw the man coming in-a simple gillette, nothing special-as a collection of weaknesses and dangers. The flashing feet, the gloved hands, these could hurt us, but they could be avoided. I ducked my head beneath one kick, then, on all fours, leaned away from another. The gillette pulled back, preparing for a new flurry of blows, dancing around to cut me off from his partner, allowing her to recover, and further cutting me off from any avenue of escape.
Had I been a man, thinking like a man, that would have disturbed me. Had I been thinking strictly like a man, I would have pulled my Viper and drilled both of them, but the Old One had called the tune and he was leading, so all I could do was follow.
The Old One proved to be a master of the predator waltz. In his first attacks he directed me as he would have directed a wolf, having me fight as a wolf would. Now he shifted things, using my advantages to account for my shortcomings. While his inventory of my shortcomings would max countless chips, the one thing he does like about me is that I have a weapon he does not: a hand. Moreover, that hand comes equipped with a thumb and can be made into a fist.
The Old One launched me at the razorboy in what I would have classed as a bull-rush, but he howled away the notion that we were employing the tactics used by food to defend itself. I caught part of a kick on my left arm, then was inside on my foe. The Old One slammed my right fist into the gillette's groin. The man wore a cup, but the sheer ferocity of the blow compressed tender bits and surprised him. My head came up, crunching into his jaw, then the Old One stabbed my left hand into the man's throat.
The gillette gurgled and lurched into the shadows. I leaped for him, catching him on the right flank. He clutched his throat with both hands, so I levered his elbow up with my right hand and knifed my left hand into his armpit. My right knee came up, smashing into his stomach, then my left fist hammered down on the back of his neck. He grunted and rolled into the shadowed corner of the room.
I heard his partner get up and begin to stumble off, running, but the Old One did not turn in pursuit. He already had his prey and wanted a kill. His resolution to finish the gillette came powered with the outrage he felt over being trapped in the Dome, in this building that was, like the gillette, entirely against nature. This was a place where men sought to denature Nature, holding it captive to their whims, for their amusement. And this, too, was a hubristic aberration that demanded correction.
I pounced on the man and pummeled him, then felt the Old One make a final bid for power. He used the scent of blood, the whimpers of the man I sat astride, and my memories of Thumper as a bludgeon to shatter my control over my body. I tried to fight him, but a quick, backhanded blow by my foe caught me in the face. It surprised me more than hurt me, but it loosened my grip and the Old One ran wild.
I heard my bones snap with gunshot reports as the Old One remade me in his form. He was, in his mind, not denaturing me, butrenaturing me, making me over into what I should have been. Arm bones became truncated and muscle protoplasm flowed to new points of insertion. My hands tightened and knotted; my nails thickened and narrowed. Pain spiked up and down my jaw as my teeth grew, and my face crunched as a muzzle began to protrude from my face.
The Old One made me lunge at the gillette's throat, but I snapped my teeth shut well shy of the intended target.He is not prey you would kill and eat.
He must die for he is unnatural!
That, you mutt, is human thinking, not your way! You don't kill for sport.
Men do. Kill him.
Men may,Ido not! I reexerted control, stopping the transformation shy of where the Old One wanted to take it. With a quick backhanded slap, I stopped the gillette's strugglings, then rolled off his chest and sat with my back to the wall. I had control for the moment, but I could feel the Old One gathering his strength to contest me, and the stink of blood helped him. Thumperwas dead, and part of me cried out for revenge, but that was too simple for the situation that killed him.
Somewhere in the dark passageway back into the stadium I heard athwok, then the razorgirl came tumbling back into the small enclosure. A half-second later Jimmy entered the enclosure, a bat in his hands. "Wolf? Thumper?"
I tried to answer him, but the Old One growled.
Jimmy turned toward the shadows, raising the bat.
The Old One took that as a threat and tried to make me lunge at him.
I gritted my teeth, locking my jaw shut, and refused. "Go. Away. Jimmy." My voice came in a harsh croak, with lots of growl worked in and around it. "Go."
He, too, is unnatural, Longtooth. He is as bad as this place.
But he is my friend.I shaped my will into a stick and poked it at the Old One.You tried to play at man's games, and you lost.
It will not always be so, Longtooth.
One game at a time.
Jimmy lowered his head slightly, trying to pierce the darkness that shrouded me. "Wolf, is that you? Are you okay?"
"It's me, Jimmy. I need you to go away." I had to force the words out through my throat. "Call security. Thumper is hurt bad. Dead, I think. These two did it. Go. Now. Please."
"Are you hurt?" Jimmy took a half-step tow
ard me. "You look… different."
His eyes have been done, he can probably see me.I didn't know if his optical mods included low-light vision, but the shadows would only hide me if he stayed back. "I'm going to be fine.Please, just go. I'll catch up and explain. Get Thumper help."
He nodded. " 'Kay, if that's what you want."
"Thanks."
Jimmy turned and ran away down the passage, and the Old One relinquished his grip on me. I felt all the agonies of my body returning to normal, but I refused to cry out. Torturing me that way was beneath him, but the Old One had been thwarted so he didn't care. Grumbling like some guttercur, he retreated inside me and lurked like a hangover.
I shivered, then stood unsteadily. I might have been deep in the bowels of a building that mocked nature, covered in the blood of people who had denied their own nature, but at least I was myself again.
And, for the moment, that was a win.
III
As wins went, though, it was rather costly. Thumper's death nearly gut-shot the team. His enthusiasm had kept everyone loose, his gentle words had dispelled the negativism that could prolong a slump, and his sense of humor reminded everyone that since baseball was really a game, they should have fun out there. To have him killed stunned everyone, and at such a crucial point in the year, that could easily have spelled doom for the team.
Oddly enough, Ken Wilson helped turn that sentiment around. Against doctor's orders he left the hospital and came to the team meeting after Thumper's death. He looked around at those gathered and delivered a succinct and powerful eulogy. "Each of us," he said, "knows who we are inside. I'm not Babe Ruth, you're not Matt Williams or Pee Wee Reese. When we step away from the game, when we retire our statsofts, we will be someone outside the game. Thumper devoted his whole life to baseball and became a person who literally lived for it. And now he's died for it. He died making sure everything would be perfect for us, for our game against the Jaguars tomorrow. Our duty, our debt to him demands that we make that game as perfect as he made this place for that game. You know, you all know, he's still here, watching us. Well, I'm not gonna let him down."
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