Wolf and Raven

II

I arrived at the Dome late in the afternoon the next day because of the night game. I found Jimmy already there and dropped to the bench in front of the locker I'd been assigned. "Jimmy, thanks for going out last night. Valerie is on cloud nine, or so I was told when Lynn called me after talking to Val."

"Good. She was a lot of fun." He smiled pleasantly. "She drove me back to my place and we talked for a long time. She knows baseball and a lot more, too."

I pulled my street shoes off and set them beside the spikes in the bottom of the locker. "I was directed to communicate to you, through means subtle but effective, that Val would be willing to go out with you again."

He nodded. "Yeah, I'd like to see her again, too.Did you manage to get Lynn back to her apartment in the tower before her folks called Lone Star?"

I shook my head. "They called, but I have a friend at Lone Star who intercepted the report, calmed them down, and gave me a call on my car phone." Lynn and her parents work for Fuchi and share a family suite of apartments in one of their corporate towers downtown. Because she is an only child and because the corp encourages close familial ties, her parents tend to worry a bit. I get along well with them, but come the witching hour, her mother gets anxious. "Lynn said her mother wanted to know if we had a nice time, what with the evening being so short and all."

I pulled off my leather jacket, then shrugged my way out of my shoulder holster. As I turned to hang the Beretta Viper-14 beneath the jacket in my locker, my right shoulder popped audibly. Jimmy looked up and I worked my shoulders around, eliciting a similar pop from the left shoulder. "Batting practice left me stiff."

Jimmy waved Thumper over. "Wolf, take off your turtleneck and that kevlar vest. Thumper, work some of that Atomic balm into his shoulders."

"Relax, Wolf. Relief's here."

I pulled off my shirt and vest as Thumper dipped his index finger into a squat white jar of red gel. It came out with a big gob pungent enough to make onions weep, and the Old One started howling because of the way it smelled to him. I did my best to ignore his whining and just let myself luxuriate in the warmth as Thumper worked it deep into my shoulders and neck. "Man, Thumper, that's great."

Jimmy smiled, then nodded at a grizzled dwarf bearing a black case. "Time already, Coach? We got a couple of hours yet before the game."

The dwarf shrugged. "The league's got someone here to go over things, so I expect the whole process will take longer." The dwarf reached over and bent Jimmy's right ear down, exposing the chipjack set into his mas-toid bone. From the case he drew a small chip and slotted it into the jack with a click.

Jimmy let his head droop forward for a moment, then he hummed faintly while the chip coach moved on toward the ork4who played third base.

I glanced back at Thumper. "What's Jimmy doing?"

"Warm-ups. Letting the software blend with the wet-ware. Transition's not easy all the time."

"Right. I should have figured." Activesofts become active the second they're inserted into a chipjack, but to assume that every user has instant or perfect command

4There was a time, of course, when metahumans weren't allowed to play baseball, but that sort of prejudice pretty much ended fast when folks realized elves made great pitchers and having an ork blocking the plate made running through him something that didn't always work. Dwarfs and trolls, of course, weren't allowed to play because of strike zone problems, but they had their own spring and fall leagues respectively, and drew decent crowds. of them is absurd. If that were true, all golfers could slot and run Tiger 4.2 and smoke their friends. Fact is, though, that the wetware side of the equation is full of variables and unless someone is able to focus himself and integrate his physiology with the activesoft, he won't get the most out of it.

To use the activesofts, all players had to be chromed. Some went all out, getting their eyes done and, like Ken, altering their appearance to look like a player of old. Others, like Jimmy and Thumper, took a more conservative approach. Fiber optic cables had been worked into Jimmy's optic nerve bundle and implanted in his eyes so he could get the data presented by the batting helmet. His wired reflexes and muscles would then respond accordingly and hit or miss in a statistically appropriate manner.

The advantage to the conservative approach was that it left Jimmy and Thumper looking entirely normal. I'd known plenty of gillettes who reveled in the alien look their mods gave them, but not everyone wants to be a chrome-king. I suspected that having another person ride them during a game was disorienting enough for some that being reminded of it when not on the field was preferable.

Jimmy blinked his eyes, then covered a yawn with his hand. "Sorry about zoning on you there, Wolf, but I had to put my playing face on. I'm going to Verification. When you finish dressing, meet me there."

"Right."

Thumper slapped me on the shoulder, then went off to minister to another player. I hung my clothes, including my kevlar vest, in the locker and started putting on my uniform. Leaving my vest off did not please me, but kevlar isn't commonly worn beneath a uniform5and the Seattle club bosses didn't want me giving out any hints that something was wrong. So far the attempts at sabotage had been subtle to the point of being nothing more.

The exception being road trips to New York, of course. than vapor, so the danger quotient was low on this job. Otherwise, Doc Raven would have sent Kid Stealth in to bat clean-up.

Spikes, even the short ones for use on turf, feel weird on the feet when walking across cement. They lacked traction on the wet part of the floor where Babe walked out of a cold shower, naked except for the water sheeting off him and the pouches under his eyes. He sniffed the air as he walked past me, then drifted in toward the lockers, gently calling out Thumper's name.

Before I could get to software verification, Bobby Kane, the short, squat team manager pulled me into his office. "Wolf, I want you to meet Palmer Clark. He's with the League's Office of Verification. Mr. Clark, this is Wolfgang Kies."

Clark stood a centimeter or so taller than me, and where I tended toward being lean and wiry, he still carried a fair amount of muscle. "Very pleased to meet you, Mr. Clark. I remember when you played here in '43. Even though you were playing for Cincinnati and against us, well, I was one of 'Charlie's Hustlers' out in right field. You were great."

"Thanks." He smiled painfully enough that I guessed the last thing he wanted to deal with was a gushing fan, so I sobered up. "The club informed the Commissioner they had brought in an independent troubleshooter, and we applaud their initiative. I wanted to meet with you just to stress the importance that nothing about this be leaked to the outside world. Not a word of it. If any hint of scandal got out concerning our system, well, that would be the end of all of it."

"Wolf's the soul of discretion, Mr. Clark."

"I'm sure he is, Bobby, as is this Raven person he works for. Most impressive, the record they've racked up. I just need to be sure they understand the extent of our need for secrecy. This whole problem is utterly vexing, and I appreciate the help, but baseball must come first."

From the expression on Clark's face and the tone of his voice, I began to get a read on him and what his words really meant. "Look, I'm not here to grandstand or step on your toes. I'm just going over stuff and asking questions because everything that's obvious to you guys isn't so obvious to me. I'm just an interested observer, nothing more. And I won't say a thing about any of this-not only do I work with a baseball fan who would make my life miserable if I destroyed the game, but I've become friends with folks like Jimmy and Bobby and I'd not hurt them."

"Good, just so we understand each other." Clark's expression lightened. "Now what can I do to help you?"

I hitched for a second, my mind blanking as it sorted through a million questions. I started to backtrack through my short-term memory, then came up with a general query. "Jimmy's in Verification. Mind giving me a datadump on that process?"

Clark smiled as if I'd served up a fat curve with the bases loaded. "We use a simple, helmetlike device that flashes ultraviolet signals in through the player's eyes. His scalp, facial, and ear muscles react in accordance with the pattern sent to them, as it is interpreted by the statsoft. We read the electronic activity of those muscles and match them against the expected response. If there is a variation from the expected response, we test futher. If the statsoft is bad, we lock the player up with a coded message, then pull the software he's loaded. That's verified and if it's been tampered with, the player is out and the team dealt with if the modifications have enhanced the player at all and they are to blame."

"I take it that doesn't happen very often?"

Clark shook his head confidently. "The system is foolproof, so no one even bothers to try anymore. At least they didn't. This is why it's so vital we find out what's happening now, because the slippage in performances could jeopardize Seattle's playoff hopes."

"Got it." Despite the urgency in Clark's voice, I sensed a distancing between the two points in that statement: he wanted to know why Seattle's players were slipping, but he really didn't care that they were. Seattle had never been one of the strongest draws in the game. As far as merchandising went, they really bit; which was why the team's faux franchise stuff did so well. The San Diego Jaguars, for example, had a much better logo and better-looking uniforms that brought lots of added revenue for the team and the league. Clark, looking at things from a league perspective, wanted to stop the tampering, but perhaps only after things got to the point where Seattle would finish behind the Jags on their way to the pennant race.

I gave Bobby and Clark a smile. "I'll keep my eyes open, see what I can see."

Clark nodded solemnly. "Good. We need to stop this before any real damage is done."

Sitting in the dugout had me full of all sorts of conflicting emotions-all of them good and crawling through my brain like toddlers wanting to be in the front seat of a car. Lining up on the third base line for the national anthem was a real kick, especially with Valerie and Lynn sitting in Val's box and waving at me. I didn't see myself on the Megatron screen out in center, but I knew I could the replay of the game later at home. Being there was a thrill, the fulfillment of a dream I never really knew I had. Just knowing that something I might do on the field would rivet the attention of thousands of people all at once, well, that's really heady stuff.

Ken's always slotting the Babe Ruth statsoft began to make more sense.

Technically speaking Icould enter the game. Because we were in September, the teams carried an expanded roster and they had me on the active list to explain why I was practicing with the team and why I'd go on the road with them when we went to play for the Coastal League Pennant. The actual chances of my playing were nil, of course, because I couldn't really hit and, even if Idid get my glove on a ball, I didn't know enough strategy to know what play to make where. I had, however, paid close attention and mastered all the signs, so I had a vague idea what was going to happen in the game6.

We were even with the Jaguars and if we could get ahead of them, we'd have homefield advantage through the series, which would be a great advantage. We were up against the Portland Lords-our downcoast nemesis. Even though they were at the bottom of the league, they thrilled at the idea of playing the spoiler. On the mound they had an elf who was slotting Rosy Ryan, using his stats from the 1923 New York Giants. Rosy had given us trouble earlier in the season and tonight was no exception.

The seventh inning came and went with no score on either side. Our pitcher, Pete Weatheral, was playing Nomo from '03 and had a two-hitter going. Ryan had a five-hitter and hadn't been scored upon because of some great fielding by his third baseman. Bottom of the eighth Ryan began to tire, so Bobby Kane had someone pinch-hit for Weatheral, with one out and one man on. Sacrifice moved our runner to second, then our leadoff guy hit a double into the gap in right center, scoring the runner. Next batter up hit a worm-burner to third and the hitter was thrown out at first to retire the side.

Our 1–0 lead evaporated with a single and a homer to lead off in the top of the ninth. That left us down one after our reliever struck out one batter and walked the next, then caught out the fourth man in a double play. We were really lucky to get out of that inning so easily, and we all knew it.

Bobby Kane stalked through the dugout, clapping his hands. "We have a chance to win this one in regulation, men, so let's do it. Babe, you're up. Jimmy, you're on deck. Nothing fancy, just get on board and come home, got it?"

Babe winked at Bobby and donned his batting helmet.

Actually, Val had told me I'd better do at least that much, and I didn't see giving her any reason to be angry at me as a survival trait.

"Better put it out, Jimmy. I don't want to have to run fast to score."

"Yeah, just get on, Showboat."

I smiled as Jimmy came over to the bat rack and selected his bat. "You're handling the pressure well."

Jimmy shrugged. "Can't let little things get to you."

"Winning's a pretty big thing, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but the details are all small. For example, you check the Scoreboard recently?"

I glanced out at it there in center, beneath the Mega-tron screen. Save for a single, burned-out bulb, everything looked fine, then I saw that the Dodgers-Jaguar game had ended with the Dodgers winning by a run. "We take this game, we have a full game lead going into the game on Monday night."

"Yeah, that's one thing." Jimmy settled his helmet over his head and his voice became muffled. "Their pitcher is another."

The Lords had put an ork on the mound, and the Scoreboard reported he was slotting Fat Freddie Fitz-simmons from the 1939 Brooklyn Dodgers. The stats displayed weren't all that great, but Freddie had won about three times as many games that year as he lost. Since he dropped the last two games he'd played for the Lords, statistically speaking, he was due for a win.

I frowned. "Ruth ever face Fitzsimmons in real life?"

Spike shook his head. "Careers overlapped, but Ruth was mostly American League and Fitzsimmons was entirely National. Only place they could have faced each other was in the World Series, but they missed each other by a year. That's what's so sharp about how the game's played now-greats and near greats can face each other again, to decide what might have happened once upon a time."

Kane spat brown juice into a corner. "Ruth would have creamed him. Fitzsimmons never did well in series play."

"Let's hope that's true, statistically speaking." I watched Babe stalk toward the plate. He had the tight little walk down and seemed as natural there as the shouts of hotdog vendors and the smell of popcorn in the park. A couple of Lords' fans-standing out easily in their kelly green and teal jerseys, yelled insults at Babe as he gently tapped dirt from his spikes with his bat.

"Fat suet-sack, you couldn't hit if they delivered the ball on a tray!"

Ken smiled the way Babe Ruth would have, then pointed his bat toward centerfield. That brought a cheer from our fans and derision from the Lords side. Then Ken set himself, drew the bat to his shoulder, raised it a bit, and waited.

Bobby swore and kicked the bench beside me. "No! No, no, no! Of all the stupid…"

"What?" I looked at Jimmy, but he just pointed at the Megatron. It showed Ken's face as big as could be and his eyes were plainly closed. "What's he doing?"

Jimmy shook his head. "It's how he shows contempt for the pitchers."

"It's how he shows contempt for the manager." Bobby spat more tobacco juice into the corner. "Fine to do when we're a dozen runs ahead and he's hitting into a stat curve, but now?"

Jimmy shrugged. "Gotta believe, skipper."

Kane growled. "I believe I'm going to kick his butt over the fence if he strikes out."

The first pitch came in and Babe swung at it. He didn't get all of it, but he got enough to foul it off into the stands. He smiled serenely and got set again, then took a pitch that came in high. A second pitch was outside and he didn't go for that one either, which puzzled me.How does he know?

The Old One growled deep within me.It is his nature to know, Longtooth. As you know when trouble comes, he knowswhat is good and what is bad.

Somehow I doubted that. "He must be peeking." Jimmy turned and winked at me. "Doesn't see much through those lashes of his, but sees enough."

The fourth pitch came in and Babe nailed it pretty hard. It skipped off the infield between short and third. The leftfielder picked it up and threw to second, but Ken had barely rounded first and danced back to the safety of the bag. There he raised his hands and accepted the adulation of the crowd, tossing his batting helmet to the first-base coach and pulling on his uniform cap. He continued to smile and wave, then turned toward his image on the Megatron, doffed his cap, and began a bow complete with cap flourish.

He never straightened up from the bow and instead plowed face first into the infield dirt. Laughter started as if this were some joke, then his body twitched as if he'd landed on a high-power cable. He flopped over onto his back, his cap flying from nerveless fingers. Froth formed at the corners of his mouth, then another seizure shook him and he lay still.

Bobby and our trainer streaked from the dugout and joined the first-base coach standing over Ken's body. Bobby turned and waved urgently to the dugout, sending our chip coach scurrying onto the field, then from the bullpen I saw a golf-cart with a stretcher coming out. The dwarf chip coach pulled the statsoft from the chipjack, causing Ken to convulse one last time, then the trainer and Bobby lifted Ken onto the stretcher. The chip coach traveled with him off the field.

Bobby came jogging back to the dugout and pointed at me. "Take off your jacket, Wolf. You're pinch-running."

I blinked at him. "Me?"

"You."

"But…"

He waved me out of the dugout and draped an arm around my shoulders. "Look, you're fast, you can run the bases."

"So can anyone else." "Yeah, but you're not being ridden by some byteghost."

I felt a chill run down my spine. "What are you talking about?"

Bobby shivered. "I've seen that reaction one time before, in the minors. Someone had hacked a statsoft and that's what happens to the player when he's running bad code."

"But Ken went through verification."

"Right, something else caused the failure. Don't know what, but until I do, you're running for him." Bobby slapped me on the back. "Chance to live a dream, kid. Don't let us down."

"Nothing fancy, I remember."

"Well, that was for Babe.You I need in scoring position. Watch the signs and do what the coaches tell you to do."

I stripped off my jacket, tossed it into the dugout, and ran over to first base. The public address system announced, "Now pinch-running on first, Keith Wolfley7."

Had it not been for two wildly enthusiastic female voices, the singsong mantra of the hot dog vendors would have drowned out the cheer that went up for me. I got on first and smiled at Red Fisher, the first-base coach. "What advice you got for me?"

The grizzled old man narrowed his eyes. "Don't get out."

"Do my best." I took a little lead off first, slightly emboldened by the fact that Fitzsimmons had his back to me. I saw Bobby wave me out another step and heard Red growl, "It's called a lead for a reason, kid. Edge of the carpet."

I centimetered my way back out there, then jogged back to the sack after Fitzsimmons delivered a ball to Jimmy. I smiled at the first baseman, but he just spat at my feet. As the pitcher set himself again, I took a lead.

7That's the name they had me play under because it had parts close enough to my real name that I'd catch it, and it fit on the back of a jersey real easy.

Even though only 27.43 meters separated the bags, second base looked a full light year away.

/can give you warp speed, Longtooth.

I snarled at the Old One, and resolved never again to fall sleep in front of the trid when watching reruns of old shows. The Old One's grasp of technology faded about the time man began to make tools out of something other than stone, but occasionally he latched on to make-believe stuff. Someone once said that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic8, and proof of that was the Old One fully accepting as real the technobabble science pedaled as entertainment by the media. Of course, he thought of those shows as "Shamans in Space"-they were chock full of special effects he saw as magic-but the ratings folks never asked his opinion anyway.

A quick yip from the Old One warned me a half-second before I saw the pitcher step off the rubber and begin to turn toward me. I pushed off with my right foot and dove back to the bag. Dirt sprayed up into my face and my hands felt canvas as above me I heard the pop of the ball in the first baseman's mitt. A split second later the first baseman slapped me across the head with the ball, the resulting thud all but drowning out the umpire's call of "safe."

I suppressed the Old One's urge to bite the first baseman and stood slowly, always keeping in contact with the bag. I brushed some dirt off my shirt. "Fitz has a nice move to the bag."

The first baseman sneered at me. "Ear still ringing?"

"Yeah, but I've got call forwarding." I took a one-step off the bag. "I'll take it at second."

"Right, pal." The Lord shook his head. "In your dreams."

My dreams, your nightmare.Bobby flashed me the sign to steal. At least, I was pretty sure it was the sign to

8Raven said that was Arthur C. Clarke, some old guy who wrote way back when, back when they used ink and stuff. steal. It made perfect sense-on second I'd be in scoring position, and I did have good wheels. In fact, the only thing that spoke against my stealing second was that I'd not stolen a base since before my age was in double digits.

I almost expected my life to flash before my eyes at a moment like that, but I got nothing quite so serious. What did happen was that every conversation I'd ever had with Valerie concerning baseball ran back through my mind. She was just full of pithy bits of baseball lore, including the very applicable, "You don't steal on the catcher, you steal on the pitcher." I took another step worth of lead, then, as Fitzsimmons started to throw, I was off.

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 toward 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.