“They’ll be real, too?” Jackson asked.
“Of course. You’re playing each other.”
That relaxed them a little and justified their wisdom in cowering behind Jackson.
“But I play differently,” Cobb warned.
Ty wisely interpreted Puppy’s blazing eyes and stepped back.
“We’re getting real equipment. Not this crap.” Puppy took Mickey’s bat and tapped it on the ground. It cracked. He held it up as evidence. “Good stuff. Major league. Any more questions?”
Vern’s followers nudged him. “What about the pay?”
“You’re still getting paid.”
“For only hitting. And not a real ball. We should get more.”
Puppy sighed. “You know you can’t change an employment agreement, Vern.”
“We can if the employer agrees,” Jackson said stubbornly.
Puppy’s voice hardened. “I had to go to bat, so to speak, to get Fisher and Boccicelli to agree and then, then, I met with Third Cousin Kenuda.”
They whispered in the huddle. Mickey and Ty each picked up part of the splintered bat.
“We need more money,” Jackson insisted.
Ty and Mickey flanked the group, tapping the bats on their open palms. The huddle got a lot tighter. Puppy just watched.
“You got paid for doing this for how long?” Mickey asked.
Vernon lifted his chin in fake defiance. “Nine years.”
“Nine years?” Ty clucked his tongue. “Nine years pretending to be a baseball player.”
Bat slap, bat slap, bat slap.
“You stole money,” Mick accused.
“I never stole anything.” Jackson trembled.
Cobb edged closer. “You made fun of our game with your pathetic farce.”
Bat slap, bat slap, bat slap.
“Now we’re giving you a last chance and you want to steal more money?” Mickey yelled. “I’m gonna give you a whupping you never knew could be.”
Mantle chased Vernon around the infield landing blows until the chubby catcher collapsed between third and home. Puppy interceded before there was much more blood. Jackson moaned.
“What’s it going to be, Vern? You’re the team leader.” He gestured at the five remaining players holding hands and chanting Grandma’s Blessing:
“May our love always be for love
May we think of the Family as ourselves
May we work hard and reward effort
May we help those who cannot succeed.”
“We’re afraid of looking like shit,” Jackson whispered.
“So am I.” Puppy squeezed the catcher’s bruised arm; Vern groaned. “But I won’t let that happen.”
Jackson was doubtful. “And we won’t pay for our own toilet paper anymore.”
They shook hands on the deal; there had to be a lot of old napkins in the concession storage closet. Mickey and Ty began organizing fielding practice; they’d have to take turns sharing the glove.
Puppy saw a silver head glisten by the entrance to Section 116. Damn, he berated himself, catching up with the A29 just outside the stadium.
“Hey.” Puppy touched the robot’s shoulder. It turned with sullen metallic eyes. “I’m sorry. I should’ve given you a head’s up, but Fisher and Boccicelli got the letter of approval just late yesterday.”
“Fifteen years,” the A29 said. “We started the same time. You didn’t know anything. I showed you around. Pointed out where to go in the stadium. What to avoid. How not to fall in the rocket holes. Kept you from making mistakes.”
“Yes, you did,” he replied softly.
“Yes I did,” the A29’s voice rattled. “Was there ever a complaint about my work?”
“It’s not about that.”
“Oh, I know. I was being dry. This is because you need humans.”
Puppy pursed his lips. “It’s our last season.”
“And I can’t appreciate that? Who came up with the HGs running on the field together? All those acrobatic catches? Home runs bouncing off the brocades?
“They were great.”
“But not human.”
“No.” Puppy shook his head. “They’re just representative of humans.”
The robot’s eyes glittered angrily as it waved at the broken ballpark. “It’s the humans’ fault this happened, not ours.”
“Believe me, I know. Can I help somehow? What if we reassigned you to another job?”
“Take someone else’s position? Let’s collude and stab someone else in the back.” The A29 shook its head in disgust. “We don’t do that in the Little Extended Family. I thought you humans didn’t do that anymore. Oh wait, you just don’t do that to each other.”
Three ‘bots—ticket taker, concessionaire and janitor—stepped out from behind a beam, standing so closely they seemed one.
Puppy tried again. “If you ever need anything.”
“Anything what?”
He frowned. “I don’t understand…”
The robot tilted its head. “You don’t even know my name. You don’t even know I have one. It’s Harold. That’s my name. Harold.”
Harold joined its friends for a last collective glare before they remembered their place with rounded shoulders and lowered eyes, and shuffled up the subway steps.
• • • •
OUTSIDE THE ORPHANAGE, two Holy Warriors smoked cigarettes, leaning in casual menace against the silver van, machine guns slung over their shoulders. Azhar hurried past with a murmured greeting.
Hussein resentfully tossed silverware into the large plastic container, clearing the communal dining room.
“Why are the sex traders here?” Azhar jerked his hand at the window.
“Selection time.” Hussein leered.
“That was just last month.”
“Appetites, appetites.” Hussein plucked an uneaten fig from a plate.
“They took eight last time.”
“Now they take more.” Hussein’s lecherous smile grew. “Is there one they should put aside for you?”
Azhar raced up the stairs to the top floor, where he tapped on the square in the ceiling leading to the attic.
“Clary?”
Please be there. He rapped harder; voices passed in the hallway, heavy boots, dark laughs.
“Sweetheart, are you there?”
He forced open the door, blood dribbling under his gouged fingernails. A lonely doll with one eye stared back in the hiding place.
Azhar ran down the steps and tore open the first door on the left.
The barrel of a machine gun pressed against his temple.
A Holy Warrior stepped in front, the gun never leaving Azhar’s head. Two girls around twelve were tied naked to their cots as a doctor in a white robe examined them. Neither girl was Clary. Thank you, Allah. For what? For giving away two other children? Shame flooded his face.
The Warrior shoved Azhar into the hallway. He passed another Warrior with another pious greeting and tried the other bedroom. It was locked. Someone
