Decorative
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    The crowd was trying to decide if they should run or not, and if so how they could do so without moving and triggering the bombs. The players had scattered off the field.
    I gave him another shot of fatigue poisons. He staggered, levered himself back to his feet with the aid of his bat.
    "Look, Babe, you want to live to play again another day, right?" I prompted impatiently.
    "This game isn't over yet! I have another at bat coming to me!" He got another ball ready, swatted it, turned and saw the one Scott had just thrown back to him coming toward him fast. He ducked.
    I moved to avoid his unorthodox missile, but it moved too, and smacked into my shield with more force than anything that size should have. It didn't break through, but the gravity field whipped me upwards fast enough that I almost blacked out for a second. After a few moments I managed to wrestle the damn ball away from me; it kept going up.
    The Babe cackled. "That's another one out of the park! Yes! Badaboom, badabing!"
    "I think I'm really very sorry about this, Mr. The Babe, but I'm going to have to beat you up quite quickly before she gets back and hurts you a lot," Scott said politely, showing that he knows me pretty well by now.
    The Babe revealed yet another ball. There was something tied to this one. "Don't worry. By that point I'll be long gone." He hit the ball, grabbed hold of the handle, and was carried away at high speed.
    Scott, startled, chased him. I saw the movement below and intercepted the flying Babe and his unique conveyance.
    "You? But you were knocked out of the park!" he protested.
    "Surprisingly enough, I came back."
    "I'm sorry, I told you she was going to hurt you," Scott apologized behind us.
    Actually, the only hurt he suffered was losing a layer of skin from his palm when I simply reached out and stopped him, leaving the ball to continue on its way. When he realized that we were still pretty close to the park, he waved for the cameras.
    "So, how long have you been working with 1-800-HENCHMEN?" I asked resignedly.
    "What? What are you talking about?"
    "You've never heard of them?" This might be worse, actually.
    "Who?"
    "1-800-HENCHMEN."
    "I need no assistants! I am the greatest!"
    "In a moment you're going to be the greatest incarcerated person in Boston." I took us back down, outside the park where the police cars were gathering.
    "You caught him! All right, buddy, how do you disarm the bombs?" the nearest officer demanded.
    The Babe looked momentarily sheepish. "I lied, there weren't any bombs. I mean, do you really think I could have gotten in here and set up bombs? Please. People are gullible. You have no idea how stupid the average man in the street is. I mean—hey, he took my bat. Where are you taking me?"
    "Um, you're going to go get booked," the officer explained patiently. "You look like you've been pretty well beaten up, why don't we just take the bat and balls from you...."
    "My bat! My balls!"
    "I'll do something with your balls if you don't sit down in that car. You can keep your stupid little hat, though. You want to go make the announcement that people can get up?" he asked us. We headed in to let the attendees know that they were safe.
    "Well, that was easy," I remarked as we departed through the gently echoing stadium corridors. I really ought to know better; about then I saw a prone human figure out of the corner of my eye. It was one of the box office security guards.
    I took a quick look around to see if anyone was fleeing the scene, but there was only the unconscious guard. A trail of them, in fact, as we quickly discovered, leading to where the night's receipts had been stored. The lock was shattered, the money gone.
    "It looks like somebody with a clue might have decided to use the Bambino as a distraction," Scott observed, returning to the first guard, who groaned and moved.
    "Hey, you guys are the Revolution."
    "What happened to you?" I asked.
    v"We were guarding the house receipts, and these eight guys in Yankees uniforms came in...."
    "Oh, shoot. He did have a team," Scott said crossly.
    "... and this flying baseball that was giving orders. They called it Homer."
    "I hope they're really mean to him in jail," I muttered.
    "Well, he's gonna spend the night in a Boston jail wearing a Yankees uniform after having attempting to rip off Fenway Stadium. And he broke the wall. It's gonna be a long night."
    "Where'd they go?" the guard asked, still a bit dazed.
    "Good question. We caught their presumptive leader," I told him. "These guys apparently managed to make their way in undetected. What's the last time you remember being conscious?"
    "Middle of the sixth."
    Not long, then. "You want to go do an aerial survey, Scott?" I invited.
    "I'll go take a look. Double check and make sure that people's chairs really aren't about to blow up."
    There were no bombs. We headed out to see if we could find their getaway vehicle, but there was no sign of them.

[Aside: Various]

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© 2001 Rebecca J. Stevenson