BBA: The Book

[RonCo]

Off Topic

This is the thread in which I will be posting all the first draft work of the BBA book. Obviously, that won’t be the title, but since I don’t yet know what the story is, I’m not going to pretend I have a title. Bottom line, the story will unfold here.

If you would like to be included in the story line (or are at least interested in having the opportunity), please read this thread and grant me proper authority. No problem at all if you don’t!

In the meantime, here we go!

[RonCo]

Prologue


The beam of light that sliced through the window of Carlos Camacho’s dark bedchamber was as bold and as ephemeral as a Wullenweber curveball. It was silent. Timeless. Deadly. Its gray-laced beam came twisted with tones of purple and midnight as it splayed across the bed. Fairy-like motes of dust danced in the stream. Silver and gold. Between reality and fugue state, the hiss of spinning seams bit into humid summertime air.
Something else came to him then.

A beat, like a drum. Distant and warped, guttural and deep, more intimate than the quickening thrum of his own heart.

Close, too.

So close.

The sound rode on a swelling aroma of wild timothy, outfield breeze, and something else, too, something dark and coarse, something he hadn’t sensed since...

The Green-eyed Woman.

Her gaze flashed in his vision.

His eyes came fully open and a breath caught in his throat.

Gasping, he lurched up from the bed.

Alone in the bedchamber, his heart pounded and a chill froze his spine.

There was nothing here, though. No woman. No death-defining stare. No macabre laboratory filled with their flashing racks of the scientific equipment of her torture.

No nothing.

The room was, instead, silent.

It was the same apartment room he’d taken a month prior. Small, but comfortable—a short-termer he was paying for by the month, located in the distant reaches of Sacramento proper, pre-furnished and pre-packaged, bathroom nook across the way, small living office through an open rectangle of darkness to his left. He’d hated the place from the moment he got here, but it was the only thing available on short notice. Now, despite having finished the Commissioner’s investigation, he was still here because he realized he didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Sitting in the darkness, Carlos Camacho felt cramped.

Caged. Desperate.

He looked at the read-out that loomed at the foot of his bed.

2:33 now. Late. Or was that early?

Whatever.

The projection system was a feature of the apartment he thought he liked earlier, but now found annoying.

It turns out that sometimes you just didn’t want to know what time it was.

The numbers hung in midair silence, though, taunting him, translucent and white in the room’s gauzy darkness, maybe fifteen centimeters above the comforter. A perfect drop ball movement, he thought randomly. Maybe ten inches vertical. No one could hit that. No one except Carlos Camacho, anyway. Carlos Camacho could hit anything.

Back in the day, anyway.

Back when he was a ballplayer.

The lingering essence of the Green-eyed Woman’s gaze felt intrusive, still.

It made him feel like he was being watched, which was maybe silly, but which was something that he wasn’t going to hid from himself.

The closeness of the walls added to the sense of being penned in.

He felt easy to find here.

Pressure from the frightful image of the Green-eyed Woman seemed to cover him like invisible flypaper. A moment ago he’d been in that place where time does not exist, been languidly floating in that prickly, liminal state that was not wakefulness and was not sleep. Now the beam of light seemed to anchor him in place, and now he had the sense that he’d been fighting her. Working to keep her away. Pushing against something he did not understand.

Something feral prickled the hair at the back of his neck.

His gaze went to that beam of light, which was a confusing mix of a full moon and the damped LED streetlamp across the corner.

It felt big.

It felt dangerous.

Something was happening.

He felt it.

Something as big, or maybe even bigger than baseball, if such a thing existed.

That he couldn’t tell what that something was scared him more than he would admit.

Even just to himself.

[RonCo]

Chapter 1: Somewhere in Some Florida

I’m sitting on the home side, which is along first-base, on the painted bleachers at North Kenyon High School, which is in Boca Raton, Florida. The night is warm by standards of late March. Maybe eighty-five degrees as the sun’s fading. It’s something past six o’clock. Late enough that the lights are on, but not so late that the sky isn’t still that metallic gray shade of blue that is gets after the sun’s gone, but the light hasn’t totally faded.

It's a beautiful time of day, I think.

That moment when the gap between day and night is thin.

On the field, the kids are entering the bottom of the sixth inning. The score stands at Bayside High four runs, the Knights of North Kenyon three.

I’d come to Kenyon Heights because after a full spring of jotting platitudes for millionaire ballplayers, I knew I needed something different. A better game. A purer game, maybe. A game that was more fun, and a game that would recharge the batteries.

North Kenyon and Bayside had been the perfect ticket.

Watching the kids had reminded me of Yuni Ichihara and my time in Japan.

Reminded me of DK.

And, yes, reminded me, too, of Don-o.

I’d lost track of DK, but Yuni was a friend now. Ex-cop turned national hero, then hero turned understated baseball coach. “I want to make baseball better,” Yuni had said at the last game I’d seen him, which had been at the game where he’d told me he was retiring. We’re both busy, of course. But we share a text or two now and again. We’d saved baseball together, after all. That had to be worth something.

Watching the kids and their coach brought him back to me, though.

Reminded me of a picture I’ve got sitting on my living room table right next to a bobblehead of a Japanese player now one else here would recognize. The four of us are in that picture. Me, Yuni ichihara, Don-o, and DK. Smiling together. The memory makes me happy.

It’s been a good game, too, Kenyon Heights and Bayside. Enthusiastically played if not a little sloppy—which you can expect from high school kids.

It’s a feature, right? Not a bug.

Of which there are a lot flying around now, too.

Like it does everyday in Florida, it rained for half an hour earlier today, which means humidity is—give or take—off the freaking charts, and which means the springtime bugs that Florida seems to express on command were already out in force, but are getting thicker as the night comes in.

“Great game, isn’t it?” the lady next to me says.

She’s about my age. Maybe thirty-five. Attractive. Dark hair kept in a fashionably short stye that says she’s busy. She’s clearly got a kid playing for North Kenyon. I notice she’s not wearing a ring, and I suddenly wonder if she’s trying to pick me up.

“Except for the mayflies,” I reply, swatting three away.

“They’re not mayflies,” she so helpfully informs me, smiling to soften the blow.

“Meh,” I reply. “I’m a sportswriter, not an ichthyologist.”

“You mean you’re not an entomologist.”

“Humpf.” I glance my impatience at her.

“Ichthyologists study fish,” she says with a soft, almost lilting tone. Her eyebrows raise and the corner of one lip quirks upward.

Yeah. Maybe she is trying to pick me up.

“Ever heard of flying fish?” I reply.

Her chuckle is soft, and she smiles again.

A kid steps to the plate, waggling his bat. Voices call out from both sides, low-toned chatter than seems to rattle through the ages in ways that make the soul settle. The field smells of dirt and grass. An occasional gust of heavy air carries a whiff of heated hot dogs from the stand that’s posted out along the left field fence, and the big, rolling mound of hill alongside the ballpark raises up to the school building, which is solidly made of yellow brick and disappears off into the distance. There’s a set of concrete stairs that switches back and forth to let students get to the ball field.

The first pitch pops into the catcher’s glove, and the voice of the umpire rises to call a strike.

“Who do you write for?” the lady says, breaking the mood.

I hesitate for a moment, trying to decide how to respond. I’ve got my light jacket laid out on the bleacher beside me, not so much because it’s that hot—which it has been—but because I don’t want folks to see the logo for Baseball Now, Inc. I’ve been covering spring training for them, which is always fun, but also always draining. There are only so many ways to say, you can’t ever tell what’s going to happen with these guys, so let’s just have some fun and let the season play out. And even if you could my experience says that doing so would mean one Casey Neal would quickly become an unemployed sportswriter. No one I know sitting on this bench wants that to happen.

People want the juice, an earlier editor of mine used to say, so even if you ARE a goddammed celebrity, you gotta make a splash.

I hated that. Sure, people knew who I am now. Being involved in not one, but two high-profile cases will do that to a guy. Some know me, anyway, I think, glancing at the woman and realizing her question is sincere. But I’m here to tell you that while certain notoriety might get into a club here and there, it doesn’t do shit for you in anything that matters. Unless maybe you want to pimp out on the networks, which, just the idea makes me want to vomit battery acid.

I’m a writer, not a broadcaster.

And there’s only so much work to go around.

So I do what I need to do, write what I need to write, and work on my own stuff on the side.

Which is fine, I suppose.

It kind of sucks to be alone, but I’m okay with it.

I’ve had my chances, anyway, and I’ve mostly brought it all on myself.

Writing for the corporate grinder is, admittedly, wearing at times, though. And it’s bad for the soul, too. It turns out that having a true love for baseball means your tolerance for bullshit jobs only goes so far. That was why Don-o, who is a baseball shaman if ever one existed, would never be able settle down here like I had.

There was more to that, of course.

A lot more.

I missed my friend, though. Ever since he stepped into the void that last time, I’ve felt like I’m missing part of myself.

In certain moments, late at night if I stare out into the darkness just right, I still flash on the memory of Don-o standing in that physics lab gateway, purple tendrils of energy wrapping around his legs and arms as he holds that gate open for me. I can see gritted teeth, white against the wayward bristles of his dark beard. Head thrown back. Sunglasses covering his eyes. The tail of that Hawaiian shirt whipping in the multidimensional wind.

There are things you can’t write about, I think to myself.

That’s one of them.

Don-o had been a friend since my time in high school. We’d done a lot of baseball together, including … well … those were some epic times. But now he is a different thing, you know? Magical, I think. Human, but not human.

A cold shiver breaks my reverie.

I see the lady is still waiting for an answer to her question.

Who do you write for?

It’s a loaded question.

A trap, maybe.

“I write for myself,” I finally say. Which isn’t really wrong.

It’s this moment when, on the field, the pitcher releases a fastball.

The batter swings.

The ball cracks on the bat, and in that precise moment of perfect contact, a flash of light strobes in from centerfield. Then comes the thick, resounding whumf that rides on a ring of pressure that emanates from ground zero.

The rest of the observers are thunderstruck.

I am, too, I suppose, but while the players and the coaches and the parents and the girlfriends and boyfriends and other significant others are transfixed in place, I am already up and running. Racing a direct path diagonally down the bleachers, heart racing, mind churning.

Don-o, I’m thinking.

It’s Don-o.

I know the sense of him completely. There’s something wrong, I’m thinking as I hit the ground and take to sprinting. Something wrong.

When turn the corner and arrive at the backside of the center field fence I see my fears are not unfounded.

“Don-o!” I call as I race the last few steps.

He’s there, sitting propped up against the chain link. Panting hard, his cheeks and black beard glistening with sweat. His sunglasses are pushed up over his forehead, and a blue baseball cap with a logo I’m not familiar with is crooked cattywampus, barely clinging to the top of his crown. The shirt is still Hawaiian, also blue. Its pattern of palm trees and coconuts is ripped and tattered, and the short cargo pants are stained with mud and other debris.

“Casey!” he croaks. “Come quick! I need you!”

He reaches out his hand as I kneel beside him.

I grab his hand, because of course I do.

The bolt that comes on contact is sharp loud. It comes with the same odor of lightning I recall from my memory of the physics lab.

The gate, when it opens, is right behind Don-o.

My friend falls backward into it, and I, firmly gripping his hand, fall forward into the gap, into the light, into the sound of that bat cracking on that ball, then disappearing into a wall of white noise that might, or might not be the collective voices of every person across every universe who has ever cheered for a baseball team.

[recte44]

Off Topic

It’s a feature, right? Not a bug.

haha

[Dington]

Waiting for the Audible.

[RonCo]

Chapter 2

Aside: the events of this chapter happen mostly, kind of, during this game: https://statspl.us/brewster/reports/new ... ox_52.html

Andrés Gonzáles is a twenty-eight year old righthanded pitcher who plays for the Charlotte Flyers, which is a team I’d never heard of before—natch. He’s what my granddad would have called “a strapping lad.” Program says he stands 6’3” and sits around 200 pounds, though by looks you’d peg him heftier. Proof you can’t trust the program guides no matter what the hell universe you’re in.

He’s valuable to the story because at the precise moment I’m falling through this wormhole Don-o is straining like a bitch to hold open, fighting off snapping electricity and blinding heat to scorch my eyebrows—Gonzáles is on the mound in this “other Charlotte,” throwing a moderately filthy slider to Bae Pae, who is a lefthanded hitter from what I would just already know is some other South Korea than the one I’m familiar with.

Like it or not, that’s the thing about the world I came to grips with while in Japan. This place we live in is freaking weird. Universes over universes, as they say, turtles all the way down.

I understand this now, really, I do.

Even though my one semester of college philosophy wasn’t enough to let me figure out what it means (I think, therefore I am,” just doesn’t seem to cut it now, does it?), I’ve seen enough things to take it for a truth that there are universes everywhere. So it’s not a great surprise that my brain understands even though my body seems frozen.

Final point I’m getting around to is, I guess, that I’m scared shitless as Don-o’s grip plunges me through the passage.

As I’m coming out, Pae connects to Gonzáles’s slider, but the filth of the pitch induces a popup that the first baseman (that’s Dallas Dixon, for the record) catches without anything notable happening—except for the thing happening off the field…

…which is me, crashing through Don-o’s gate.

…and except for me, tumbling to fall into this place like a calf sliding from its mother’s birth canal, blind and unaware of the fist that is ready to meet my cheek.

…which it does.

…hard.

I go down in stunned heap, falling backward so suddenly I’m pretty sure I’ve bruised my coccyx. Which is high-minded academic-speak for saying I bruised my tailbone, which is civilized language for saying the guy, or whatever it was on the other side of that fist, busted my ass.

I fall in a daze, suddenly tasting fresh blood in my mouth and sensing three shapes cornering Don-o, and, of course, Don-o himself, slumped against a brick wall in essentially the same pose he was in when I saw him on the other side.

“Get away!” I scream, surprised that my voice isn’t warping.

I stand up. Admittedly wobbly.

The wormhole snaps out of existence, and suddenly the three forms shift their focus to me.

In the distance, a crowd murmurs, and suddenly I can smell popcorn and heated sausage on a breeze that seems to come from the crowd tunnel a distance away. It’s nighttime here. There’s a snippet of sky showing in the angle upwards, and the sky is black behind a dazzling section of field lights.

“I think we got another stiff to stiff,” said one of the three figures, who now that I’m stabilizing a little have formed into tallish folks in dark jackets. We’re in a stadium tunnel, tucked into a nook behind a concessions bank that’s been shut down. It’s dark enough I can’t really make their faces.

“I’m a reporter,” my brain says inanely.

“That’s good to know,” the closest thug says. He grabs my collar, and rears back.

Channeling my cop-friend from Japan, I kick his kneecap. The guy give a half-screech, half-grunt, and goes down in a heap.

Unfortunately, this is as far as my sneak attack skills will ever take me.

“Casey!” Don-o wails.

From the corner of my gaze, I see his arm whip about, and then a stick whirling my way.

It’s a bat, I realize. One of those twelve or fourteen inchers that the merch stores sell, helicoptering toward me. I snatch it from midair, and without thought, us its momentum to deliver a perfect swing to the skull of thug #2. With a hollow thud, he, too, goes down.

The third is the more cautious type.

Also a bit more lithe that the others.

The short blade of a knife glints in the dim tunnel light.

For an instant it appears that thug #3 is going to go all King Fu fighting on me, but then Don-o, who seems to be recovering, stands up.
“You’re outnumbered,” Don-o says, wiping the back of one hand against his lips. As he does so, I swear that a pulse of light snaps across his fingertips. I know my friend. Even after this time, I can see he’s tired. Working hard to stand firmly. But he’s doing a good job of pretending. Good enough to use his raw size to be intimidating.

If I’m being honest, neither one of us is in particularly good shape.

My head is beginning to throb and my stomach is getting nauseous as the taste of blood gets thicker inside my mouth. My cheek, too, is throbbing from the blow. A twitch of my lips sends a spike of pain across it.

Thug #3 pauses.

Looks at Thugs #1 (writhing in pain), and #2 (off in lalalala land).

I grip the little bat tighter and raise is in anticipation as, in the distance, the crowd roars. When I look at the game log later, I’ll note that this is when Gonzáles strikes out Don Colbert on three pitches, which, given the three thugs, I’ll think seems poetic of sorts.

Now, however, as the PA announcer speaks words I can’t decipher Thug #3 seems to decide that living to fight another day is a good idea.

“Go on,” the voice says, and I realize then that it’s feminine. Or perhaps androgynous is a better word. “Get out of here.”

It doesn’t take us two times. We take a few steps on our own, then, turning the corner, fall together to prop each other up.
“That way,” Don-o says, pointing to an exit gate.

We head off.

A moment later, I hear a sharp, distant crack of a ball on bat. The crowd roars with what turns out to be the third out of the inning.

Music starts.

Seventh-inning stretch, I think.

But we don’t stick around long enough for me to find out.

A moment later, we’re out of the stadium.

[RonCo]

Chapter 3

I give no salutations. No how the helluvyou beens?

Instead, I get to the point.

“All right, Don-o, spill it,” I say as we tumble into a booth made of scarred up, dark-stained wood.

We’ve found a place called The Aviator, a sports bar a block down the busy street from the ballpark where the Charlotte Flyers was finishing up a come-from-behind victory by pushing a run across in each of the last three innings. The coup de gras being a base hit from a guy named Jorge Trujillo that plated José Vargas. It’s a lot to be taking in, but I was already paying attention to everything because, from just the look on Don-o’s expression as he pushes his sunglasses over the bill of his baseball cap—which I now understand carries the logo of the home team, a diamond with an old biplane flying out of it—my stay in this dimension isn’t going to be a short one.

Around us, voices rise and fall in half-drunken waves.

The fans like what they are seeing. The jubilant release of relief that follows a victory snapped away from sure defeat is palpable.

“Those goons jumped me,” Don-o says in the lull. He’s leaned in to say it with a hard-edged, but conspiratorial tone.

“Those aren’t the beans I want to hear about.”

“Came out of nowhere.”

A server appears then. Younger than us. Trim. Dark skin and wide eyes that glitter in the dim light. She’s attractive, that’s for sure. She wears a Navy T-shirt with “Flyers” written in script across the chest. The shirt is tied tight enough on one side that it accentuates both the script as well as what lies below it. She walks with a stride that carries enough confidence that I’m sure she’s been doing this a while. Her name tag announces that her name is Denise.

“Welcome back,” she says to Don-o. “Usual?”

“Only been here twice,” he replies.

“Habits are hard to break.” She gives him a wink that I’m not sure how to take. Don-o’s not the most attractive of guys, but he gives off a vibe that I am certain is actually rooted in that magic that is the core of baseball. That’s who Don-o is after all. A man made of pure baseball.

Watching the server’s easy smile is annoying, though. The guy doesn’t even try.

“Two, Don-o replies, not even glancing at me.

“You got it.”

Then she’s gone and I’m looking at Don-o with enough vinegar that he knows what I want to hear.

“I don’t know, Casey. Something’s going on, though. I feel it.” He holds his hands wide.

“Don’t bullshit me, Dono. This is us, right? I’m not dumb. You weren’t just fishing for free popcorn back behind that concession stand, and even you aren’t idiotic enough to get yourself in a place where three thugs who are obviously on the same team just happen to jump you. So, tell me straight.”

He gave a laugh. “Yeah. I know.

“What the hell were you doing out behind a concession stand.”

“Investigating.”

“Crap.” Of all the answers, that was probably the one I didn’t hadn’t wanted to hear. “Investigating what, Don-o?”

“Investigating how Angelo Jimenez got fired.”

“Who?”

“I think it’s a long story, but I only know a piece of it.”

Denise returns then, and puts two mugs of a pale ale on the table, along with a plastic bowl of shelled peanuts wrapped in thin wax paper that is decorated in a pattern that includes the bar’s name and a pair of pilot’s goggles.

Don-o drops some kind of cube on the table. She scans it, and smiles at him again.

“I’m off at midnight,” she says.

“Sounds like it could be fun,” he says. “Not sure what to do, though.”

“We could investigate,” I break in, speaking each word boldly.

“I like investigations,” Denise said. He smile was deep enough this time that it brought a dimple out. “What are we investigating.”

“A missing manager,” Don-o said.

“Angelo,” Denise replies, not missing a beat.

Behind us the bar’s background grows more distant. Music fading into final cheers of the game. I’m figuring the bar is going to get full again as fans leave the stadium, but right now that’s not the main thing on my mind.

“I thought you said he got fired,” I say.

“Right,” Denise replies for Don-o. “No one knows the Ds, though.”

“The Ds?”

“Details,” Don-o says, shrugging. “Local slang, I guess.”

“I see.” I’m getting frustrated, though. “I don’t understand,” I say. Was he fired or is he missing?”

“Two things can be true at the same time,” Don-o says.

I grit my teeth. I’d forgotten how much of a pain in the ass working with Don-o could be at certain times. Whatever connection he had with the server wasn’t helping much.

“So,” I say. “Angelo Jimenz was fired, and is now missing?”

Don-o drinks from his mug. “Bingo. The thing I want to know is why.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s the part I don’t know, Case.” Don-o glances up at Denise then, hesitating. I can tell my buddy’s trying to decide how much to reveal while she’s here. She smiles at him, which seems to make a difference. “That’ why I was back behind the concession. There’s an office entry there. I wanted to get in to see what I could see.”

“And these guys just happened to jump you there?”

“Well,” Don-o squirms. “I been in Charlotte for a bit. And I mighta been looking into some other things first. Maybe they picked me out of a lineup or two here or there.”

I sigh Don-o is an amazing guy. Someone you want to see baseball with on a never-ending loop. But in real life he’s … well … he’s challenged. “Shit, Don-o,” I say. “You know better than go snooping around by yourself.”

“Yeah.”

Denise peers in, and sees the extent of the damage to Don-o’s face, and the stains of blood that have discolored his loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt.

“You got jumped?”

Don-o gives an embarrassed blush.

“Something’s not right,” he says in that way that teels me the action has offended his baseball sensibilities. That’s a thing with him. Baseball is a thing. A big thing. It’s got to be right. And given all the things I’ve come to know about him now, he’s got a compass for what is right and wrong that’s a few universes big. “I just wanted to know why he got fired.”

“Just ask the godamned GM,” I say.

“No one can get to him,” Don-o replies. “And he’s not talking to the press about it.”

“Nathan?” Denise says.

“Who,” I reply.

“The GM. Nathan Garrison.”

“Right,” Don-o says. “He’s not talking to the press, and I don’t know how to get to him.”

“That’s my job,” I say. “Casey Neal, sports journalists of the universes, right?”

Denise laughs out loud, and for a moment I want to laugh with her except that I know she has no idea what she’s laughing at.

“I can get you in contact with Nathan,” she says. The words hit like a bomb.

“You can?” Don-o says.

“Sure. He’s in here every few nights. I got his Ds.”

“Wow. When could I talk to him?”

“Well,” Denise says. “How about tomorrow?”

“Sounds great.”

I admit that at this point my brain is still catching up, but Denise gives a final smile, then as she turns to go back to the bar, says, “In the meantime, I’m thinking we could do a show tonight?”

“A show?”

“Midnight. When I get off? Sounds like a fair trade, right? You take me to a show, I take you to Nathan?”

“Ah, right,” Don-o says. “It’s a date.”

[RonCo]

Chapter 4

Aside: I think I know where I'm going with this story line...at least I have an idea what my brain is going to do with it. But it came kind of out of the blue. Which is great fun. I suspect it will need a lot of mushing when the whole thing is done ... but for better or worse, here it is

Cutter, down and away, Jose Torres muttered to himself as, resplendent in his blue Brooklyn Robins jersey with its crisp white “B” outlined in an olde English font, he began his windup. It was a smooth windup. Athletic and graceful. Left-handed. A windup that belonged to a lankier pitcher than young Torres, who at 20 years old stood only six-foot-even and weighed 175 pounds as long as you weighed him with his cleets on. His stride to the plate was as graceful as it was powerful. His transfer of weight belonged on stage.

The pitch, when it arrived at the plate, ticking the gun at a shade under 95 miles an hour—which was an antiquated metric if ever there was one in the year of our Lord 2061 (some things never change but baseball is not one of those things, tradition is tradition)—slashed violently down and away from the hitter, who, in the righthanded box, froze as the catcher plucked it from midair with a beautifully satisfying pop of leather.

Behind the catcher, the man in blue turned on his heel, his right hand pumping. “St-uh-riiike Three!”

As the catcher threw the ball around the horn, Jose Torres—the kid hitter had nicknamed “Satan’s Whip” a long time ago—yanked his pinstriped blue Brooklyn cap by the brim and adjusted it as he waited for the ball to return to him.

A sense of power came over him every time he touched a baseball.

A feeling of magic that welled inside him, a fire of a sort that he had never been able to put out.

People had been talking about Jose Torres for a long time. Saying they could hear his fastball as it screamed through the air. Saying he had to be cheating somehow, that getting his kind of velocity out of that kind of body was unnatural. Some said he was doped. Others that he’d sold his soul to certain dark forces no one wanted to name out loud.

Everyone agreed on one thing, though, and that one thing was that Jose Torres’s future was golden.

That’s how time is when you are twenty years old and gifted with an arm that may have sprung directly from the gods themselves. That’s how it is when the spring training ballpark is filled to the gills with fans who gasp with every twist of every pitch, and when the bullpen fence is lined with breathless young women offering inuendo with every breath, and just as many breathless young men offering just as much.

Jose Torres had been born to play baseball, everyone agreed.

Or, to be more specific, Jose Torres had been born to pitch.

And yet, as he caught third baseman Alfredo Trujillo’s return toss and as he stomped up the hill once again, Jose Torres fought a demon that, though he never spoke of it, was familiar to him.

He had known where the ball was going to end up.

But he didn’t know how he had known it.

This is because Jose Torres was one of the most rare birds of all rare birds—an absolutely pristine and true natural. A manchild now, though still considered precocious in his talent. A man-child who had always been able to throw a baseball where he wanted to throw it, even back when was eight years old and he’d spat on the ground when his dad asked him if he wanted to play T-ball, heading instead to the playgrounds where the big kids made fun of him until he struck out fifteen in a six-inning game.

Jose Torres pitched.

That was his truth.

His past was pitching. His present was pitching. His future was pitching.

That’s how time is when you’re 20 years old with stuff that codgers would claim they once had and a major league career spanning out ahead of him as certain as the horizon beckoned to ancient mariner captains calling for the sails to be fill and the mizen and the mast hauled and full speed ahead.

Standing on the mound, Jose Trujillo twirled the baseball, feeling the seams burn against his fingertips, listening to the sphere’s core as it whispered sweet things to him.

He leaned in to take the catcher’s signal.

Fastball, up and in.

He went into his windup again. As picturesque as any who ever threw in this universe or in any other universe, his Brooklyn uniform flaring in the midday sun, his high kick casting shadows through the ages and through the times and through the worlds where maybe another glorious lefthander had pitched in maybe another Brooklyn uniform. Or not.

The ball left his fingers, screaming as it always did, four seams spinning hard to hop over the swinging bat of the next hitter, left-handed this time, who swung so hard he fell over.

Jose Torres fought against smiling as the hitter braced his bat to help himself up, then dusted off his knees, remembering his coach’s advice and his response, nodding as if he understood.

Jose Torres had listened to coaches all his young life, but he had never been coached, and probably never would be. That was his secret, and that was his worry. His talent was his. It had always been his. He had done nothing for it, had done nothing to hone it. He was born to pitch, he knew. But that was all he knew, and every time a coach had tried to help him along, the advice would just tied him in knots so tight he couldn’t get the ball over the plate—and when by raw chance he managed to do just that, even grade-school kids scattered line drives like they were bazooka shots.

So, when his latest pitching coach, Coach Tony Torres (they had a fun time comparing last names when they first met), suggested he loosen his grip on the cutter, and when his coach talked to him about two-strike mentality, and all the other things pitching coaches tell their pitchers, the Whip had nodded and smiled and pretended to take on his mentor’s grip and his mentor’s thoughts and positions and everything else he was supposed to take on.

But he’d ignored it all.

Because he’d learned long ago that he was the one with the future that spread out before him like the Yellow Brick Road.

He was the one who had to throw the pitch.

But inside, where he tried hard not to look except in the darkest of nights, Jose Torres knew a secret no one else did. And that secret was the he had no idea how he could pitch the way he did. Only that, indeed, he could pitch like this.

That’s what he was thinking as he threw the next pitch—changeup, tailing in on the hands—and as the hitter swung, making tough contact, but weak contract that brought a popup that his infielders called for.

Jose Torres, however, did not see his second baseman wave the others off because instead Jose Torres, Satan’s Whip, ducked and flinched at the intense flash of light that flared out in the now empty Practice Field D, which lay off in the distance behind center field, accompanied by a clap of thunder loud enough if pierced his ears and made him cover his head with his glove.

A few seconds later, though, or as long as it takes a weak infield pop to crawl its way upwards to its apex and then fall in its lazy arc to the ground to give testimony to prove that, yes, gravity still exists, when the second baseman did, indeed glove the ball for the last out of the inning and then lead the team toward the dugout to begin their own half, Jose Torres was left standing alone, gape-jawed as he stared toward Field D and realized that he was the only person in the entire stadium who had seen that flash and heard that thunder, and wondering—as certainly as he wondered about his own talent, and his own past and his own future, what in the hell it all meant.

[RonCo]

Chapter 5:
The whumph of vacuum about pulled the drums straight out of my ears. The pressure wave froze my brain and blasted my thoughts into a million pieces of nothingness inside of nowhere. A sizzling heat toasted my skin and for a minute I wondered how big of a hole my fillings would make as they went all China Syndrome into my head.

Then came the thundering dirge of bending metal—an agonized and derelict grind so distant it might have come from a whale, lost and alone as it faded into explosive white noise.

Don-o’s call warbled away from me, too, his voice thick with preordained misery.

The thin triangle of Denise’s exposed abdomen warped and spiraled like as it got stirred into the realms of space. For an instant I could have told you the answer to Hubble’s equation on the size of the universe.

Red Shift, I thought.

Or is it blue?

The ground hit solid and hard.

The smell of chalk and dry dirt coated the back of my throat, and I chocked with a cough that bit as harsh as a spike against the cool, springtime breeze that wafted in the silence here that was so violent I had to shake my head to let the ambient sound in. The breeze cleared my head, though, and brought along a steady stream of muted voices and then the dull crack of a bat.

“What the hell?” I murmured as I pushed myself off a plot of grass so green and soft against my hands. My thoughts were muddled. Brain frazzled. I rolled over and my butt ground into a basepath—home to first, I thought, the chalk line straight but grainy against sunbaked dirt. My eyes followed dutifully to reach the white square of the base.

It was daytime.

Midday and warm. The humid breeze tasted lightly of sea salt.

I blinked and shook my head trying to get clear.

My shoes were the same Converse throwbacks I wore all the time, so at least I knew who I was even if I didn’t know much else.

“Don-o?” I called but got no answer from him.

“What’s happening?” Denise said instead.

She, too, had been sprawled on the ground—in her case on the pitching mound. She was standing now, brushing clots of dirt out of the side knot where her shirttail had been tied. Her bare legs caught the sun in ways that I couldn’t miss. The bar had been so dark I hadn’t noticed them before.

She looked to be afraid.

I stood, too, and dusted off my jeans while trying to create an air of confidence more like I’d slid into a base rather than been unceremoniously dumped there. I don’t think it worked, but at least I could stand up straight, so maybe I didn’t look like a total idiot.

The sound of a nearby crowd roaring snapped my head around and things began to come together.

“Where are we?” Denise said, now standing beside me. The strong confidence of her posture rolled off her made me feel smaller.

I turned in a slow circle, and as I took in the layout of the fields, recognition hit like a punch to the gut. “No way,” I muttered. But I knew, even as I said it, that there was most definitely a way. The field was unmistakable: we were at Talboom Park, the Brooklyn Robins’ Spring Training facility. If that was true, we were in Cocoa Beach now, which made the line of palm trees that separated off the parking lot make more sense. Something was off, though. Cattywampus. It didn’t make sense. Spring Training was over.

My heart double clutched as, hoping to prove myself wrong, I scanned the daytime sky to find not a wormhole in sight. Nothing but a blue dome, the blazing sun, and the sound of the baseball game underway on the field behind this one.

My gaze flicked over the field again, taking int in more fully.

I’d been here before, but back then it had been filled with baseball players. Kids, really. A phalanx of non-roster invitees, every one of them filled with the dream of making a big-league club or simply trying to hang on well enough to get a minor league deal that would mean that dream could live on for another day. Now it was empty. Freshly raked. Beyond it, the faint aroma of roasted peanuts and grilled sausage was like a beacon, wafting on the air as the crow groaned again. The faint, but unmistakable crack of a bat brought a swell of cheers. A man yelled out, “Go, go, go!” and I could picture a guy rounding first, his helmet falling off as he stretched a base hit to a double.

Wrong or not. Here I was, and as the great Sherlock said, once you dump the impossible, whatever is left has to be the truth. Or something like that. It’s been a decade and a half since I read him. Whatever.

“So,” Denise said with disdain stronger than mustard on a Robin Dog.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“I’ll be the judge of me.”

I laughed. Denise was reminding me of Mezzy, my “one who got away” all those years ago. “Pushy much?” I said.

“When necessary.”

“Fair enough. Fair enough.”

“So?”

I squinted at her.

“Where are we?” she repeated. “Or do I have to get pushy again?”

“I think we’re in another dimension.”

“Another dimension?” The tone of her voice allowed her unspoken “seriously” to remain unspoken.

“Or maybe just a different time,” I said. I pulled my PA out and checked the date. Three weeks. We were three weeks in the past. A chill raced down my back. I shaded my eyes with the palm of one hand. I’m not any kind of nuclear physicist, but I’d been through a multidimensional gate before. Best I could remember there’d been only one tunnel. And Denise came through as certain as I did.

Don-o had to be here someplace.

“Different time?”

“Did the explosion blow out your ears?”

“Sounds like hocus pocus bullshit to me.”

“If only,” I said. “Bullshit or not, we’re in Cocoa Beach. Brooklyn Robins Spring Training. And it’s three weeks ago.”

Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Instead, she looked at the field again as if seeing it for the first time.

“Don-o?” I called again, louder this time. No answer came.

I started toward the dugout on the edge of the practice field, hoping for a glimpse of his rounded shoulders or gaudy Hawaiian shirt, but not seeing anything.

“Where are you going?” Denise asked, trailing behind me.

“Looking for Don-o. He’s got to be here somewhere.”

We searched the field, the dugout, and the nearby bleachers, but there was no sign of him. Each empty corner we checked tightened the knot in my stomach.

He should be here.

Really.

He should.

By the time we circled back to the edge of the practice field, I could feel the weight of Denise’s stare, but I didn’t know what to say. What did it mean if Don-o wasn’t here?

“What now?” Denise asked when we finished our search, blowing a stray curl of permed hair from her eyes.

I hesitated, my hands clenching. “I don’t know,” I admitted, the words tasting bitter. “But something’s very wrong. Don-o wouldn’t just disappear.”

“I don’t know about that. Some guys will do anything to avoid taking a girl to a show.”
“If you knew Don-o you’d have asked him to a game.”

“Meh.” Denise shrugged. “He’d have just focused on the pitching.”

I gave an agreeing nod. “Maybe you know him better than I think.”

The crowd’s cheer swelled again. A corny organ played.

Denise folded her arms, her suddenly resolute expression filled with a mix of many states of unhappiness. “You’re saying we’re stuck here?”

“No,” I said vacantly, knowing the universes better than that.

There was something happening. Something big. And whatever it was had to revolve around Don-o and baseball. And more, probably. No, I thought as a baseball-sized pain grew in my gut.

My past with Don-o flashed before me: Duluth, the throaty roar of beautiful Annie as her engine revved and her tires raced us over the flat, straight highway, a night at Candlestick Park, mob gangs, guns pointed my way, games in Japan, Ichi, DK, the warn smell of tofu and sushi, and the chants of fans in round ballparks.

I didn’t have to understand multidimensional physics to know in my soul that everything in the world is connected in ways that us lowly sports reporters can never understand. And I didn’t need to do any in-depth digging to know Don-o never gets caught up in anything small.

Whatever was going on here was big.

Very big.

The idea pained me more than I wanted to say.

“No,” I repeated. “But we need to find Don-o. He’s the only one I know that can get us home.”

“All right. So where do we start?”

I smiled then, breathing in the smell of the ballpark and listening to the crowd as it breathed and sighed as a single entity.

“Run to the baseball,” I said. “That’s where we’ll find him.”

[RonCo]

All right... a quick note on the process. You really are seeing this happen in real time. After the last chapter I felt like I was moving into a new phase. Something in my gut felt like I needed to break this up a touch. So I'm now thinking of each chunk as a Book (in reality maybe they are "acts" but I'm calling them whatever I want...so "Books" they are). This means there's a reasonable chance every "Book" inside this book will have its own prologue and then chapters 1, 2, etc.

Until I decide otherwise, of course. Such is life.

So in my manuscript, I've gone back and labeled the first prologue through the last chapter as "PRE-GAME WARMUPS."

I then decided this "Book" is to be called "PLAY BALL!"

We'll see how it goes.

[RonCo]

PLAY BALL!


Prologue



The Commissioner gave an involuntary shiver as he stepped out of the blowtorch that was an afternoon in Phoenix, and into the wall of over-conditioned air that guarded the foyer of the Denny's restaurant. He hated that. The sensation of his skin prickling with cold made him think of death, and the sharp chill was like a knife against the back of his neck. So hard did the chill hit that the muscles of his shoulder nearly cramped. Three hours and a conduction rail ride ago he'd been in a perfectly fine Wisconsin world, sunshine and breeze rustling through the new leaves of spring. Now he was in this arid desert where nothing grew unless you had a gazillion dollars to spread a few drops of water over your yard of rocks. It was worse because this was always his favorite time of the year. Spring Training was done, and games were on. Real games. Ones that counted. On the whole he'd rather be at a ballpark.

Baseball had been in Matt Rectenwald's veins since the day he was born, after all, and God willing, it always would be. The game was his calling. It had sustained him through every bad time in his life and lifted him up to exalted heights in the good times. There was very little in his life that could compare to taking in a well-played baseball game with people he loved.

Now, as Commissioner of the Brewster Baseball Association, the game really was everything to him. The good and the bad. After a grueling off-season that had seen complaints from every corner of the globe and three times the normal administrative who-ha than normal (because that's what happens when you renegotiate to fix the entire structure of how the game gets broadcast with the blood-thirsty vipers who run broadcasting networks), all he wanted to do was to kick back in his office and watch the multi-screen display as the season played itself out.

Alas, this.

He pulled on his lapel to adjust his conservative dark suit coat as he walked into the dining area. The aroma of eggs, butter, and hot sandwiches reminded him he hadn't eaten since before the Speed Rail. The omnipresent logo of the restaurant was interspersed with screens that displayed flickering highlight reels of players, and pulsing images of the sophomoric but somehow perfect Phoenix logo. The Talons were playing in Austin today. The entirety of the wall that separated the kitchen from the customers displayed the game. A glance said it wasn't looking good for Phoenix. Shredders 2-zip in the bottom of the third. As he watched, it got worsefor Phoenix, anywayas Shredder hero Brent Gilbert drilled a 2-2 fastball into the left-field seats to make the score four-nothing.

The Talons were four wins on two losses so far. Looking a lot like 4-3, though.

Forcing himself to ignore the game, Rectenwald's gaze scanned the room intently before landing on the booth in the far corner, which was dark and shaded by the room's angles and in which the Commissioner could see a familiar outline of a familiar figure. Two nondescript but burly men stood before the booth, one on each side, well-muscled arms crossed behind their backs. Goons, Rectenwald knew. Protection. On one hand he rolled his eyes. On the other he took a deep breath to calm his nerves. When in Phoenix, he thought, preparing himself as he drew near, then slid into the far side of the booth, noting the plush softness of the leather seats and the fine polish of the tabletop, which were distinctly different in this booth than the norm. As was the fact that this booth was raised from the floor, maybe three inches at most, but enough to give it a sense of power. Settling in, Rectenwald swore he heard strains of cautionary classical music.

This time his shudder was for a different reason.

"Recte," the man at the back of the booth said. The man's hands were laid in a relaxed manner over the tabletop with a half-eaten plate of breakfast rolls slathered with grape jelly between them. The man lifted a single finger a centimeter off the table, and a holo-menu appeared in front of Rectenwald. "Order anything you want, my friend. Fifty percent off," the man said magnanimously.

"Hello, Sean," Rectenwald said. "Long time no see."

It was a joke, of course. Phoenix Talon General Manager Sean Marko was one of those kinds of GMs. Dedicated to the team and the town. Completely hands-on. Completely brilliant. But also a man who could be high maintenance even when he didn't need anything. And he was connected to the movers and shakers (read, politicians, CEOs, and crime lords) of this city in ways that meant that when Sean Marko wanted an audience, it was in baseball's best interests that he made this kind of appearance. And, of course, it was Marko who had played such a big role in the whole International Free Agent dust-up just two months before. They had been together many more times that Rectenwald had wanted for that piece of admin.

He liked the guy. They'd been adversaries on the field for a long time, and he was sure the respect between them was mutual. But man, oh, man.

Now Sean Marko sat in his shadow-draped seat of power and sipped coffee with a slow, confident motion that carried power, the man's pinkie lifting elegantly as he sipped. The white cup clattered softly as he placed it precisely back onto the saucer.

Rectenwald ordered a Grand Slam, because it was baseball season and why the hell not.

The menu faded away in a scintillating digital cloud of bits and sparkles.

"Your team's looking good so far," the Commissioner said, hoping to get out of Phoenix as soon as practical, but knowing that some degree of small talk was necessary before Marko would get to business.

"Bah," Marko said as a scowl darkened his face. "Totally unacceptable to split with Charleston in the opener."

"Charleston?" Rectenwald said before he caught on. "Oh, you're talking about Toledo."

"What other team would I be talking about?" Marko said.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe the Talons?"

Marko dismissed the idea with a backhanded wave.

The Toledo Liberty was a pet project that Rectenwald knew brought Marko a strange sense of machismic joy. The Single-A minor league team aligned with the Phoenix parent franchise. They had won their division 22-straight years, and 27 of the 32 that they had existed. They were such favorites to win again that you couldn't find a sports bookie anywhere who would lay a line on it.

"No one cares about the Talons," Marko said.

"Tell that to Denny's and Subaru," Rectenwald replied, wielding the Talon's two major corporate sponsors like a cudgel. "You don't call your field the Denny's Paul D. Lunn Field Presented by Subaru TM for nothing."

"Believe me," Marko said, his eyes leveling coldly on the Commissioner. "They don't care about the Talons unless the money stops flowing."

"I see," Rectenwald replied as the serving drone brought his Grand Slam to the table. He knew there was a certain truth to that position. Looking at the plate helped him though. The Slam smelled wonderful. Sausage, ham, bacon. Rectenwald waved his pay chip toward the drone and saw the transaction complete. Looking at the total, he glanced back at Marko. "I thought you said it was 50% off?"

The Phoenix GM shrugged. "I guess I got overruled."

With a shrug, Rectenwald buttered his bread.

"About the stadium, though," Marko said.

"What about it?"

"I think the league needs to absorb the building and upkeep costs."

Rectenwald almost choked on the biscuit. "Are you serious."

"They're bullshit fees and you know it. Totally unfair, and not conducive to a proper competitive environment."

"Since when do you care about the competitive environment?" Rectenwald asked, then, already knowing the answer, raised his hand. "Wait, don't tell me, you care now that your park is older than Hoot, and costing you four bills a year."

"That's four and a quarter," Marko said. "I'm hurt that you think that matters."

"You didn't complain when Nashville was chucking $5 Mil a year into the drink."

"The Bluebirds should pay that as a matter of principle."

Rectenwald sighed and inhaled a bite of the sandwich. Yes. At least that was glorious. As he chewed, he used the respite from conversation to think about his return trip. His Hustlers were on the docket to play The Rocky Mountain Oysters in Denver. If he worked things right, he could take in the match before heading home. Bret Harrell was scheduled to pitch. At 28, the lefty was a possible star in the making. Always on the edge of making it big, but not yet making it quite over the hump. Rectenwald loved him for the fact that he didn't throw hard, only 93 tops, but still managed to get guys out with a tricky curve that he threw a hundred different ways and a changeup that really shouldn't work, but could get hitters to freeze at the most inopportune moments.

Maybe 2061 was the year.

"Look, Sean," the Commissioner said, feeling buoyed once again by the power of baseball. "We both know you didn't bring me all the way out here to talk about stadium fees because we both know we're living in the middle of raw capitalism, and that nothing is going to change there. We both know the league is not coughing up four and a quarter million to pay for your park, and I've got a game I want to see. So, here's the deal I'm ready to make. You cut to the chase and tell me what's on your mind, or I'm going to wrap this delicious sandwich up and take it with me."

Marko sat back with a mischievous smile. He took a moment, then leaned forward so far his hooked nose almost caught the natural light the highlighted the rest of the dining area. "Well," he said, "There is one more odd little thing on my mind."

Concealing a grin of satisfaction, the Commissioner nodded for Marko to go on, took another mouthful of his Grand Slam, and settled in. Yes, Rectenwald thought with an oddly pleasant joy. Sean Marko was that kind of GM.

A moment later, though, he wasn't grinning.


@recte44 - @jiminyhopkins

[jiminyhopkins]

Hooked nose??? I may be from Toledo but I'm not Jamie Farr! LOL

[RonCo]

I guess I'll go with pierced?

[RonCo]

Chapter 1:


"Hey, that's Nathan," Denise said when the crowd calmed.

We were at a game. Flyers, Spring Training. I followed her gaze to see a man in a casual, open neck business shirt down behind the Flyer's dugout. He was pacing back and forth, talking with animation to someone on a tiny phone, his cheeks growing ruddy with the conversation. He was a tall guy, growing toward middle aged. Dark curly hair reflected a sheen of sunshine, and dark sunglasses gave him the look of a G-Man.

"Looks like he just got handed the check for a round on the house," I said, not really caring.

"We should go talk to him."

I shrugged. "We're not here to hobnob with rich baseball executives."

Denise's face darkened, but I didn't care. The point was to find Don-o.

And this--coming to a game--was literally all I knew to do. Go to a baseball park. Look around. See what happened. At first blush maybe you think this was dumb. Hell, I thought it was dumb. Senseless, even. A true fool's errand. That going to just any random ballpark to find a missing guy was as smart as trying to find a needle by inspecting any random haystack. I knew to ignore that feeling, though. If there was anything I understood after all these years living around Don-o it was that while everything about my friend was tied up in probability and uncertainty, the connection he had with baseball was unbending, and that for him, a baseball park was the closest thing to a holy ground that could ever exist.

Somehow, things would work out.

I just had to keep plugging.

At first, I figured I would do the usual, and use my press passes to bluff my way into a park, but when Denise reminded me I wasn't in the 2030s any more, and that these days press passes came via neural link it didn't take a Rhodes Scholar to see that that was a No Way, Jose kind of idea.

"Let's just buy tickets," Denise said.

"I don't have any money," I replied.

"Oh."

"That's what happens when you're in a totally different dimension, and a totally different timeline than my bank accounts are." I admit it was fun to turn the tables on her. She may be smart and sassy, but she could take as good as she got.

I was a total sad sack. Both penniless and homeless. Advanced tech or not, the link between my pay chips and their cash pools had been completely clipped.

"Hmmph." She didn't seem impressed, but at least she seemed to accept it. "I can swing it," she said, which she proceeded to do, pulling out a payment device and searching what games might be playing. As far as I was concerned, any game would have done as well as any other, so it was her choice to go to Kittyhawk to see the Flyers take on the Blazers from Montreal.

"How are we going to get there?" I asked, still discombobulated. We were in Florida, I could tell, and Kittyhawk was not.

Her delighted grin made me worry about being a hick, again. "Don't be silly. We'll just take a Door."

We made it to our seats with a few minutes to spare, each cradling a cup of beer that glowed golden under the bright Florida sun. Settling in, I looked out over the ballpark, enjoying the pristine green of the dark grass that was marked with perfect lines down both third and first. Wright Park. Kittyhawk. The home team, Charlotte, of course, was on the field taking their last warmups before the game started.

This was, I thought, always a favorite moment at any ballpark. The quiet before the storm.

I scanned the bleachers and dugouts, half expecting to find Don-o seated off by himself, munching intently on nachos as he absorbed every movement on the field. That's how Don-o was. Watching a game with him could feel like a religious experience. Nothing, though. Just the usual Spring Training crowd: retirees, die-hards, a few scouts trying not to look bored, and a flock of rowdy folks welcoming in springtime.

"You okay?" Denise's voice startled me despite its low tone.

"If I ever get to the point where sitting at a ballpark with an attractive girl on one side of me and a cold beer on the other isn't good enough to make me okay, just go ahead and kill me right there."

Denise blushed and giggled at the same time.

It was the first time I'd seen her embarrassed about anything, and it made me reconsider whether I should have said anything about her. She was attractive, though. Her skin glowed like dark gold in the sunshine. Her features were fine. Three light freckles on one cheekbone. I liked the sensation of freedom her gently permed hair gave as it flowed in the breeze she created as she walked. And she was interested in the ballgame too.

Turns out she's not just a girl who works at a sports bar, too.

When it came to the Charlotte Flyers, the girl knew her stuff.

She spent the whole time in line for the beer talking about Andres Gonzales, the guy who was going to start today's game. "He's a babe, but he can really pitch, too," she explained. "ERA at 2.95. And he's a great tipper. Comes into the Aviator after a lot of the games. Corned beef and horseradish mustard. Extra lettuce and tomato, and a Modelo on draft."

As we watched Gonzales warm up I could see why he was successful. Or, rather, I could feel that he was. He had that look about him. Controlled. Thoughtful. A guy who got the most out of everything he had. Denise said he threw a slider, sinker, and changeup--none of them legendary on the scale of "overpowering" but all of them good. The program said he was 28 years old. Six-three, maybe 200, give or take a couple of corned beef and Modelos. He threw right-handed, with a long, stretchy stride that made me think of a gazelle as he unwound.

We were close enough we could hear his grunt as he planted and released.

I may still be getting used to the idea that the calendar said it was 2061, but somethings never change. It was spring training, so Gonzales was scheduled to go two innings.

"I'm not sure what to think about that Door thing," I said to break the moment.

"What's not to like?"

Denise's smile grew wide lipped and toothy. Her eyes danced with humor, which made me flash back to the moment she first arranged for Transit Tickets, and described how the Come Together Door worked, something quantum about warping space to connect various dots so that you could go from place to place with a single step. I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. The Door, which was created by P. Moreau Westmoreland, a young, multi-trillionaire futurists--or at least funded by him, made instantaneous travel possible. Step into a Door in Dubuque, arrive at one in Mozambique.

Every major league park was outfitted with several by now.

It made attending games a breeze.

I sighed and sipped my beer. "I don't know," I said, thinking back on that first big road trip that Don-o and I took as fresh-faced kids straight out of college. Cross-country, over days and days. Every ballpark. That was the goal. Hit every ballpark in the league before it was time to go off to the college grind and then get real jobs and get lost in the real world. I remembered sitting in the huge bucket seats of the ancient--even then--Impala convertible we had named Annie for the most perfect woman in any baseball movie ever. I felt sun beating on us. Smelled suntan lotion that was out of its league. Felt our still long hair whipping in the buffeting wind as Annie's throaty motor took us to 80 miles an hour and beyond. The glow of Don-o shit-eating smile as it crawled over his face was etched in my mind. The tunes blasting from the radio.

I looked at Denise then, took in her youth and her future.

"I don't know," I said again. "Just seems like you can miss things if you go too fast."

She laughed. "Silly old man."

"Guilty I guess," I said, though I struggled at the words old man.

I wasn't old.

Was I?

I didn't feel old.

I was tired, though. Weary. Which was probably why Denise had asked if I was okay. I'm sure I was radiating Old Guy even though I'm only 36. Of course, if this was 2061, did that make me nearly 60? I didn't know. Multi-dimensional time warp math makes me woozy. All I could say is that a day ago I was sitting in Florida, at a high school park in a place called North Kenyon, and now, after a hop, skip, and jump through a futuristic Charlotte, here I was with a girl who wasn't even born my one-day ago, sitting in some alter-dimensional Kittyhawk, North Carolina, and watching the Flyers take on the Blazerstwo teams I had no idea existed until now.

"That Westmoreland guy sounds like the perfect foil for every dystopian Sci-Fi novel ever written," I said.

"I don't know," she shrugged. "His buddies call him Westy. How bad can he be?"

"I rolled my eyes hard. "The guy is ultra-rich."

"Yeah."

"That means he's ultra-powerful."

"Life's a bitch and then you die."

"Just the attitude he wants you to have."

"Don't be such a downer. There are good people everywhere."

"Yeah right."

Westmoreland would be a freethinker, which meant he wouldn't care much for the pesky details of anyone else's life as long as he was getting what he needed. "Progress at any costs isn't necessarily a good person."

"What's that?"

"I don't know as much about Westmoreland as I do Gonzales now, but I can guess he's the kind of guy who proselytizes progress at all costs."

"Spoil sport."

Gonzales took his last warmup and the ball got tossed around the infield.

Denise took a sip of beer, licked her lips, then turned to me.

"Do you know how much carbon he's kept out of the environment with just the Door?"

I gestured stupidly with my eyes, unable to give a reply.

"Or how much extra time he's given grandparents with their grandkids? How much more time he's given parents at home before they have to drive to work? How many road deaths he's kept from occurring? How many"

I raised a hand. "All right," I said. "You win."

On the field Montreal's centerfielder dug into the lefthanded batter's box. Denise's "Babe" threw the first pitch. Called strike. The fans gave an appreciative ripple.

This is when she first saw Nathan Garrison.

"Seriously," Denise said. "Let's talk to him."

"That's right," I said. "You two are bar-buddies, too."

"Hey. We're a good bar." Denise's glare told me she wasn't having any more of my snide asides. "People like to go there. Besides, I'd think you'd be desperate enough to take any chance you can get to make a connection. Maybe he can help. This is Nathan Garrison, after all. Runs the whole show here. If anyone's got his fingers on the pulse of anything weird going down, he's the guy."

"Touche."

She yanked my shoulder getting me up from the seat, but I didn't spill a drop.

"Midseason form!" I quipped, balancing the beer cup as Denise led me down toward Garrison.

On the field, Gonzales got the last out of the inning of a can of corn flyout that the centerfielder didn't need to move for. The crowd cheered.

Reaching the front row, Denise waved cheerily as she approached the general manager, who was still in deep conversation with whoever was on the other side of the line.

"I don't care what you say," Garrison said with too much force. "Something weird had to have happened. It was probably Jacksonville, I don't know. Whatever, though, we're paying you good money to find out what that something was. So don't call me again unless you've got something to say about it, and don't expect to be paid if you don't call."

Garrison clipped the conversation up, then froze mid-gesture when he noticed us standing there.

"Denise," he said, trying to regain his composure. He glanced at his phone, then back at us.

I got the impression he hoped we hadn't overheard, which got my reporter's ears burning.

"Mr. Garrison!" Denise said.

"Glad you could make it to a game," the GM replied. I could see him shifting to full Public PR Mode.

"You know I go whenever I can."

"I'm glad."

Denise turned to me. "This is Casey Neil." She leaned in and gave a fake whisper. "Be careful, he's a sports reporter."

We shook hands.

I felt Garrison brace again.

"Who are you with?" the general manager said.

"Probably no one you would know," I replied. I hadn't expected Denise to give up my profession--not that it mattered, I suppose. "I couldn't help overhearing, though. Sounds like you've got a problem on your hands."

"Always a problem, right?" Garrison said evasively.

"Probably about Angelo, right?" Denise said.

The blood draining from Garrison's face told me it was definitely something about Angelo. Whoever that was.

"Angelo?" I said.

"Angelo Jimenez," Denise replied, glancing at Garrison as if she had some kind of insider's information. "He was our manager last year."

"But you fired him?" I said to Garrison.

"Something like that," he replied, again, defensively. The dark lenses of his sunglasses couldn't hide the fact that his gaze flickered off to the horizon. He wanted to get out of Dodge, that was for sure.

"What did you mean when you said it was something weird?" I replied. The hair at the back of my neck prickled as I put two and two together.

"Nothing," Garrison said. "I need to get to the executive suite. So glad to meet you."
He took a step away, but I grabbed him by the crook of his arm.

"Nathan," I said firmly. "I've got a problem, too. And it's as weird a one as it gets. I promise you this is all off the record."

He waited. "How weird?" he finally said.

Calculations ran through my head. It was now or never though.

"I'm from a different dimension," I said. "And I'm looking for a friend who disappeared from right before my eyes. Maybe they are related," I said, the lost expression on Garrison's face making me suddenly desperate. "Maybe we can help each other."

I relaxed my grip on the Charlotte GM's arm and watched as, this time, the calculations went through his head. His gaze came sharp through the dark glasses. His jaw set. Then, finally, an almost imperceptible nod.

"All right," Garrison said. "Both of you come with me. I'll find a place we can talk."

Which is how Denise and I found ourselves in the Executive Suite of Wright Field, listening as Nathan Garrison explained the whole thing.

He had not, he said, fired Angelo Jimenez.

Yet he had. Or at least that's what the paperwork said.

And what an interview with Jimenez had reported.

Now, though, Jimenez was gone. Disappeared without so deeply and without a trace that every private investigator he'd hired couldn't find him. Nothing. Literally nothing.

"I don't know what to do," Garrison finally said, rubbing his long fingers over first his eyes then down his rubbery cheeks. "I think I might be going crazy."

"I understand," I said. "The good news is that I don't think you're going crazy."

"Thanks," he replied. "What's the bad news?"

"I'm not sure where to go next."

"Jacksonville," Denise said.

"What's that?"

"Nathan said it might be Jacksonville. Sounds like the place to go."

"That sound right to you?" I said to Garrison.

"We bounced them from the Geoghegan," he said. "I figure they 're sore about that."

I nodded. "I got no clue what the Geoghegan is, but it's as good of a start as any." I glanced at Denise. "Can you swing getting us there?"

Garrison caught onto the situation.

"Don't worry about funds," he said. "If you can chase this down, I got you covered."

"Music to my ears," I said.

And that's how we ended up as a dark line item on the Flyer payroll.

And taking a Door to Jacksonville.

@Krathan - @aaronweiner

[Krathan]

Fun stuff. Denise is impressive.

[RonCo]

I'm figuring out who Denise is as I go. When she first came into the story she was a bit player. I was surprised as anone when she got caught up in the Casey/Don-o transfer.

His is the kind of thing I love about writing into the dark.

Of course, it means I'll have to go back and clean up some when the whole thing is done...but that's cool, too.

[CTBrewCrew]

All right... a quick note on the process. You really are seeing this happen in real time. After the last chapter I felt like I was moving into a new phase. Something in my gut felt like I needed to break this up a touch. So I'm now thinking of each chunk as a Book (in reality maybe they are "acts" but I'm calling them whatever I want...so "Books" they are). This means there's a reasonable chance every "Book" inside this book will have its own prologue and then chapters 1, 2, etc.

Until I decide otherwise, of course. Such is life.

So in my manuscript, I've gone back and labeled the first prologue through the last chapter as "PRE-GAME WARMUPS."

I then decided this "Book" is to be called "PLAY BALL!"



We'll see how it goes.

Call them innings instead

[CTBrewCrew]

Hooked nose??? I may be from Toledo but I'm not Jamie Farr! LOL

A closet corporal klinger….

[RonCo]

Call them innings instead

I like that.

[RonCo]

This one is probably going to need a little clean-up in post, but I kinda like it.

Chapter 2: Sacramento
Slogging through the black mire, holding his electric flash high overhead to give what spare visibility it could, Carlos Camacho knew he was in the exact right place at the exact right time. He knew it in the same way he knew he could have been the greatest player who had ever played the game. It was somewhere deep in his gut—something that rang true despite what the numbers in any record book might say. Numbers lie, but his omnipresent sense of dread never did.

His certainty was—he thought grimly as he spit the fetid taste of mudded organics from his mouth, and as he sloshed farther through the heavy load of springtime sawgrass, and as he stepped over the knotted roots of mangrove that lay dangerously below the water line—in the way his mind kept fixating on the sharp green gaze that sliced through the distance and the darkness to weigh on his mind.

He felt her presence inside him: The Green-eyed Woman.

He felt it as surely as he would have if she was in the swamp with him. Which she was not.

He was alone—like he mostly always was now that he wasn’t a ballplayer and guys didn’t need to show up in the clubhouse for him. His lips pressed together in something that felt like anger but was really a desperate form of loneliness. He held the flash higher above his head as he sloshed deeper into the hip-deep swamp. Its blue light was sharp against the nighttime. Even so late, the mire held the heat from the day’s direct sunshine. It warmed his legs as he made his way toward the dark ring of Mangrove he had mapped out earlier in the day. The air was cold, though. Moist and clingy, its misty fog smelled sulfurous and stagnant. His waders were a bit too large, which made his legs feel heavier than they were, the pressure of the swamp molded around them to make crinkly folds where those crinkly folds probably shouldn’t be.

Saran wrap, he thought, remembering days when he was a kid, and fingerpainting with his hands glopped in plastic wrap because his mother didn’t want him to get dirty. To this day he felt odd anytime his fingertips touched paint.

This was Miner Slough.

South and west of Sacramento.

Miner Slough, he was thinking again as the toe of his boatship-big boot caught a knot and he nearly planted face-first into a wild clot of black vegetation. He grimaced, collecting himself.

Miner Slough.

Not Muskrat Slough—which he discovered was not even a place in Sacramento, though the ballpark the Mad Popes played in was named after such a place. Muskrat Slough. That was in Iowa, for God’s sake. Home of the Kernels.

Interesting how many things you accept without second thought.

It was something near two in the morning.

The sounds of bullfrogs in springtime heat covered most everything else, and the idea that he’d wade into a crocodile pit was never far from his mind.

Did crocodiles live in California?

He didn’t know for sure, but it didn’t really matter.

There were worse things in this swamp. Of that, he was sure. The essence of one of those things rose inside him, then. “This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,” he said out loud, noting how swamp seemed to swallow the sound, but still keeping his focus.

He’d done a lot of dumb things in his life.

It was not the first time he’d questioned the wisdom of coming to the overgrown tangle of a swamp so near the ballpark, yet so far from anything normal.

Camacho had a plan, though, even though he wasn’t sure it would work.

The advantage of this plan, however, was that it existed—which automatically made it better than any other he had concocted. He had never been one to deal with spontaneity, even on the field. He did not like making things up as he went. That was why he liked baseball, actually. Even as a boy. Baseball was a game of cause and effect. Throw ball, hit ball, catch ball. It was a game of preparation. A game of repetition every day until every basic movement was made instinctive in the way of pure muscle memory. The game had a symmetry to it that no other game had.

And he’d come up with the plan as he had been getting dressed in the morning.

Recalling the uneasy feeling of waking the night before.

Tossing and turning. Unable to get back to sleep as the Green-Eyed woman’s presence kept coming to him. The cold bore of the stare she would give him after he delivered the latest of his string of players to her “development laboratory down under the catacombs of Sacramento’s ballpark—the Basilica at Muskrat Slough, which legend said had been named for the swamplands that had been drained to make space for it. It had been that name, though, Muskrat Slough that had gnawed at him. And after the players in his lucid dreams all transformed into the pointy-nosed rodents, the work seemed to pulse at him through the haze until he got up, searched, and could not find it. Not now. Not ever.

Except for the other one.

In Iowa.

Staring at the map, though, Carlos fixated on Miner Slough, which was so close. And as he fixated, he felt the first inklings of that wave of dread that had grown into a full-fledged slew of swampy mire.

There was something here, Carlos Camacho knew.

Something wrong.

And as he drew nearer to the perfect geographical center of the Slough, as he feet sank deeper into the saturated swampbed made of peat and reed and decayed lumber, Carlos knew he’d been right.

A ring of mangrove lay just ahead, and as he drew near his eyes made out the green-gray glow of energy that radiated from whatever was there.

He pushed on.

Somewhere, the back of his mind was filled with a white noise that could be the sound of a crowd breathing between innings, the calls of an owl filling space, the croaks of amphibians adding a melody made in time. Around him, too, the odors shifted. Despite himself, underneath the organic rot of the swamp came the aroma of something he was certain was popcorn.

The copse of Mangrove was as tall as a batting cage.

Bent in a nearly complete circle, and as he approached Carlos was certain that the “nearly complete” wall spun and twisted, marched through the mire of Miner Slough such that the one path into the center spun his way. Traversing it was like walking through a stadium tunnel. Emerging on the other side was like stepping into a church.

Except, this was no church he’d ever seen.

There, embedded in a round cocoon of power that seemed to connect through a spider-web of sizzling tendrils, was a man, big and beefy, curled into a ball and with—as Carlos Camacho saw as he entered the wooded clearing and stepped onto the raised mound of dry ground, his waders dribbling ooze and mud as he came even closer—his eyes shut.

Camacho lowered the lamp, staring at the man.

He was a big man. Belly rounded, even as he was curled into a fetal ball. His beard was black and curled. The blue Hawaiian shirt he wore seemed to drape him, and he wore a Flyer’s cap tilted to one side, which Carlos could see were Flyer blue and red despite the green glow of power that surrounded him.

Close now, Carlos felt the power that flowed from each of the mangrove roots to connect in the center of this clearing to encase the man. The hair on his arms prickled with the energy that he felt flowing. What was that? He didn’t know whether to be awed or afraid, so his mind settles on both. He could not run, though. Not now.

He’d come too far to step away from this, and though unconscious, the man did not seem to be sleeping. Instead, he seemed to be in pain.

No. Not pain.

Stasis.

The man seemed to be simply there, neither sleeping nor not sleeping.

Standing before him, Camacho was drawn to the man. Felt a kinship that he had never felt before and could not now understand. All he knew for sure was that, as he stood on the mound Carlos Comacho felt that this man had more than something to do with the existential dread he’d been feeling since he’d risen 24-hours before.

He needed to save him.

Starting with the revelation, Carlos Camacho quickly put his electric torch on the ground, and knelt beside the man. Despite the green glow drawing down to a sickly tone, Carlos Camacho reached a tentative hand toward the man’s rounded shoulder.

“Wake up, Mr…” he said, uncertain what to call the man.

The palm of his hand grew warm as it neared the outer shell of the green capsule of power that encased the man. Camacho halted for a moment. He was afraid. This was the moment, though, he knew it. The shell’s energy snapped at his palm as it lingered tentatively there. He could still pick up lamp. Could still turn and walk away.

He waited, turning over the moment felt just like stepping into the box against Danya Tchekanov, or against Lorenzo de’Medici. Time stopped, but his brain churned. Be a man, his mind whispered, but now, for the first time, maybe, that voice was not the voice of his father, overbearing a pushing and caustic with its insinuation that, no, Carlos Camacho (all ten y ears of him) had not been a man. Now, though, for the first time that voice was his own.

“Be a man,” he said to himself.

Be that man you want to be.

Then, with a resigned breath, Carlos Camacho thrust his hand into the grid of power.