"Hi, I'm Tim Jacobs, and this is my partner, Ron Grubald.  And San Francisco 
Giants baseball is on the air!  It's a beautiful day here at Pacific Bell Park 
here in San Francisco, as the Giants host the Colorado Rockies in a mid-season 
game.

"Right now, the Giants are mired in a four game losing streak as they end a 
disaterous East Coast road trip. Now, let's see if they can turn it around as 
they return home and face their division rivals.  First up is the  Colorado 
Rockies, who, if that's possible, had a worse East Coast swing than the Giants 
did, losing all but one of their games."  

"They even lost to the Pittsburg Pirates, who just suck."

A voice crackled in the announcer's earphones.  "Watch the snarky comments, 
guys, we had to use the three second delay on that last line.  And could we get 
to the starting lineup sometime in this millennium?"

Tim smiled at his partner.  "All right, today's pitching match up matches Russ 
Ortiz of the Giants versus Al Coughlin of the Rockies."

"Ortiz makes a surprise start today, Estes was injured in a bizarre accident at 
the grocery store involving a runaway shopping cart, a bag of ice, and a window 
display of Rice-A-Roni."

Jacobs winced.  "Ouch.  Anyway, the Rockies lead off with Chris Cianaro at 
short.  Second is Will Hofstader, playing third base.  Third is Jacky Williams 
in center, and cleanup for the rockies is Mitch Tyan in left.  Fifth is Jose 
Delgado at second, sixth is Thomas Hartfield at first.  Doing the catching and 
batting seventh is Rod Quentin, eighth and right field is AJ Leiter."

"And we got through that fairly quickly, as Cianaro approaches the plate.  
Cianaro is batting two eighty eight at the moment with five home runs."

"Only one stolen base, though, that's horrible."

"Sucks as a base-runner, but I guess the Rockies don't need that."

*crackle* "Ron, I told you to watch it.  Three second delay."

Gruber looked appropriately chastised.  Tim picked up the patter. "Ortiz leans 
back for the first pitch, and he delivers.  It's a... HOLY SHIT!"

"It wasn't that good of a pitch."  Gruber said over the crackling of his 
earphones.

"I...no...I..mean...look...left...bottle...dragon...SHIT."

"What are you on about, man?"

Tim pointed a shaky hand towards the giant coke bottle overshadowing left field.  
"That."

"It's a giant coke bottle, Tim. And there is nothing unusual about...a...umm, 
what the hell is that?"

***

Katze put down her binoculars, pressed a finger to her earphone and looked down 
at Aris.  "Ummm...I think we've been spotted."

Aris turned her head and blinked one giant draconic eye at Katze.  "What do you 
mean, 'spotted'?"

"I mean, they're talking about us on the radio.  And the leadoff batter is 
apperantly hiding behind the umpire."

"Aren't we invisible?"

"Uhhh... I THOUGHT you had that covered."

"Me?  I don't know how to do an invisibility spell!  You're the one in JPV."

"Ummm, well, it's been the one failing of my career."

"One failing of your career?  And you decide to tell me NOW, when it could be 
the one failing of our lives?"

"Well, I'm the one that wanted to get tickets and go into the ball game like any 
normal person would do."

"Tickets?  On my salary?"

"Don't give me that.  I know you're paid well."

"Well, for a human. But HUMANS don't have to buy three herds of cattle a month 
just to eat."

"I'll talk to Payroll about getting you a raise.  But don't count on it.  
Anyway, now that we've been spotted, want to go to some nice, inconspicuous 
Chinese restaurant?"

"What, to eat?"

"To eat at, yes."

Aris looked up in the sky.  "Not to change the subject or anything, but what's 
that green thing with the word 'goodyear' written on it floating rapidly in our 
direction?"

Katze was still concentrated on the action on the field, where a thousand 
screaming fans had just rushed it.  "The Goodyear blimp.  And it's supposed to 
be gray, not green."

"Well, it's green.  And not just any green, but THAT green.  And it's got jet 
engines and rockets.  So what do we do now, boss?"

Katze looked up at it and blinked.  "Uh...umm...SCRAM!"

***

"This is the KGO news chopper.  Traffic at this hour is flowing well, all 
outlets from the city are moving at normal speeds.  There's an accident near the 
Giants ballpark at 4th and King, so if you're late to the game, watch that.  
There is a dragon perched atop the Golden Gate bridge, and that may have some 
affect on the traffic to Marin.  This is your KGO news chopper, with the traffic 
report from across the bay."

The producer shrugged.  "Did she just say dragon?"

The sound technician nodded.  The producer said, "I thought so."

***

The dragon was, at the moment, glaring in the direction of the rapidly advancing 
blimp. "Didn't I see this in a James Bond movie somewhere?"

Katze was gingerly sliding down Aris' neck to stand on the top of the tower. 
"Did I ever mention that I hate heights, Aris? Especially when there's nothing 
to hang onto?"

"It was one of those Roger Moore ones..."

"This is meant to be a HINT, Aris..."

"View to a Kill! That's the one! With the really cool Duran Duran music!"

"Do you *want* my job, Aris?"

"Huh?" Aris swiveled her head around to stare at her CO. "What's eating you?"

"Let's get out of here."

Aris motioned back at the blimp with a wing spar. "I can't outrun that thing. 
Someone paid a lot for those engines."

"I'm not asking you to. I'm asking you to turn human so I can teleport us out."

"Ohhhhhhhhhh." Aris closed her eyes, got a tighter grip on the cabling, and 
started to shimmer in and out of focus. In a matter of seconds, a six foot tall 
female human in Jihad fatigues was balancing where the dragon had stood.
She walked up the cable to the tower and smiled in Katze's direction. "Fine by 
me."

"Okay." Katze took ahold of Aris' shoulder and closed her eyes. "A nice, 
*inconspicuous* Chinese restaurant." She took a deep breath, and they vanished.

***

"Well, the dragon seems to have departed, and we can get back to the game. 
Cianaro grounded out to shortstop, which brings up Will Hofstader.  Hofstader is 
batting three twenty at the moment, and is third in the NL in batting average."

"He's a left-handed spray hitter, which means Bonds has to be on his toes," Tim 
noted.

"Speaking of Bonds, it appears there are three people in left field, and only 
one is in a Giants uniform..."

***

Katze blinked blearily around at the scene before her, nothing registering on 
her features (or her optical nerve, for that matter) but shock. "Um. Did you get 
the plates on that
truck?"

"Gee," Aris said, looking around. "The park sure looks nice from this point."

"This..." Katze rubbed her eyes. "Park? I missed? We're in Golden Gate Park?"

"Not... exactly," Aris said. "Hey! Yo! Mr. Bonds, can I have your autograph?"

The words 'Bonds' and 'autograph' finally registered in the 'oh shit' department 
of Katze's brain. "... you mean..."

"*What?!*" exclaimed a certain incredibly confused left fielder.

In an action of total panic, Katze grabbed Aris by the collar on her jumpsuit. 
"Not now!" she said, then pulled them both out of realspace.

Barry Bonds blinked repeatedly at the empty space on the field, where two pairs 
of footprints still marred the grass. He turned toward the dugout, where Dusty 
Baker was shaking his head in bewilderment. He only received shrugs from his 
teammates.

"Enough of this," he growled under his breath. "Someone turn off the LSD and 
let's get back to the ball game."

***

The waiter manning the door looked up as the two women appeared in the doorway. 
To be more precise, they appeared inside the doorway, but he wasn't about to 
quibble with spatial relativity with customers waiting.

"Table for two?" he asked the more coherent-looking of the two.

She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it as her friend faceplanted into a 
nearby diner's chow mein. After a hesitant smile, she said, "Better make it a 
booth."

Katze woke to the smells and sights of a hungry human-formed dragon making her 
way through a six-course Chinese dinner. Aris looked up from her plate full of 
dry-roasted chicken and grinned. "Ah, you're awake again." She reached out and 
picked up another plate. "Egg roll?"

"Um," Katze said, taking the proffered food and staring at it blankly. "Okay. 
Three things." She held up a finger. "First, how did we end up in PacBell Park?" 
Pause. "Again?"

Aris shrugged. "Dunno. Teleporting's your department, not mine."

"Which leads nicely into my second question. What did I run into while doing 
that?"

"You said something about a truck. Do you have to deal with pan-dimensional 
traffic while doing that trick of yours?"

"Never before. And I hope never again, either." Katze took a breath. "Three... 
what in the name of Kyrill is the Wyrm up to now?"

Aris took another bite of chicken and frowned. "Can we go back to two?"

"I guess. Why?"

"Well, I have the bizarre feeling that three will end up sounding like a plot 
from a James Bond movie, and I've already had one weird Roger Moore flashback 
today."

"Well, maybe you can have a Sean Connery one this time."

"Better make it Pierce Bronsan. Connery can't speak Japanese."

Katze went "..." and then ate her egg roll. It tasted good. "Question two it is. 
What happened? One moment we were teleporting here, and the next I was having 
weird hallucinations involving you trying to get Barry Bonds' autograph."

"Oh, that really happened."

"Urgh." Katze shook her head. "I don't want to know."

"Well, I didn't *get* it. And we got here the second try. So what did you do 
differently that time?"

"Accounted for a rather big pan-dimensional truck, thank you very much."

"Oh." Aris blinked a couple times. "Ohhh."

"What?"

"Um... have you ever teleported a dragon in human form before?"

"Shad, a couple times."

"Doesn't count. He's got some sort of goofy symbiotic relationship with Rens."

"Well, then, no."

"Ahh." Aris shook her head. "Do you know anything about conservation of mass?"

"E=mc^2. Anything else, prof?"

"Yeah. Look, when I become a human, I don't suddenly become an incredibly dense 
human."

"Some would argue that point."

Aris sent Katze a look of 'kill, stuff, and mount.' Katze shrugged. "Consider it 
revenge for the Bonds incident. So as you were saying..."

"Well, all that mass has to *go* somewhere. And where it goes is the same place 
stuff in my backpack goes."

"Into your backpack?"

"No, into a little pocket dimension that I rented out for $30 a month. Can I 
continue with my physics lesson, Grasshopper?"

Katze made little 'go ahead' motions. Aris nodded and took a drink of Jolt. 
"Okay. Now unlike my backpack, I can't sever the connection with the rest of me. 
I mean, that's *me*, after all. It's just not here any more. I've still got a 
tether to it. It's like," she said, suddenly getting an 'I've got a cool 
metaphor' look in her eyes, "It's like I'm a ping-pong ball connected to a big 
bowling ball by one of those expensive recoil dog leash things."

Katze stared at her cross-eyed. "I'm listening."

"Well, the bowling ball's on another plane of existence, right? So you can move 
the ping-pong ball around
however you want, extending and recoiling the leash..." Aris moved around her 
chopsticks and a plate of shrimp fried rice to illustrate her point. "So 
everything's fine, unless you want to teleport. The leash tripped you up."

"I tripped on your inter-dimensional dog leash and hit my head on your inter-
dimensional bowling ball?"

"Yes!" Aris exclaimed, then frowned. "I mean no. I mean... something like that. 
We can go back to JPV and ask that cat Will to put it in physics equations for 
us if you want something *truly* incomprehensible."

"Uh, no, that's okay." Katze shook her head a couple times. "Can we go back to 
question three now?"

"What was question three again?"

"The James Bond one."

"Oh. Well, I always liked Roger Moore because of the exploding vehicles factor--
"

"No, no, the 'what does the Wyrm want this time' James Bond one."

"... oh." Aris looked down at her plate. "Um... pizza?"

"No, carrots. You know darn good and well that the Wyrm does not eat pizza. And 
*we* won't be eating pizza either if he catches us!"

"Fine, fine." Aris frowned at her plate. "Hmmm."

"What?"

"Well, not to belabor the obvious, but that could be just what he's after. 
Catching us, that is."

Katze blinked and swallowed another piece of egg roll. "But how would he know we 
were going to be in the City?"

"He probably didn't. They probably just spotted us at the game when you didn't 
cast an invisibility spell on me."

"I didn't--" Katze sighed. "Never mind. Okay, next question. What do we do now?"

"Call in a squad of ViBs with anti-aircraft guns to blow the Bad-year blimp out 
of the sky?" Aris suggested hopefully.

Katze stared across the table at her. "We're not blowing up the Great Mall this 
time."

Aris sighed. "Right, that subtlety thing again."

"Not to mention that 'Don't let the Mundanes see you' thing."

"Well, we've blown that one. How do you explain the presence of a dragon flying 
over San Francisco Bay?"

"Generally, I try not to." Katze stared at her plate and toyed with her 
chopsticks for a couple seconds. Then she started grinning. "But I have an 
idea."

"An... awful idea?"

"A terrible, horrible, awful idea. Get... ahh, who's the spin guy up here? We 
need to get Leonard on the 'Linker and start a rumor. Then you need to take out 
that blimp."

"Katze... Katze, that blimp has rocket launchers."

Katze smiled. "It's taken care of. Last question... can you breathe fire?"

"Uhh... no?"

"Okay, have to do that through illusion. Shouldn't be too hard." Katze rubbed 
her hands together. "And if we move fast, we might be able to catch the end of 
the game."

***

"I should mention," Aris said as Katze mounted her half an hour later clutching 
a wizard's staff, "that this isn't my normal form. The wing thing, I mean. I'm 
not *used* to flying."

"Come on," Katze said, buckling herself into the improvised harness. "You're 
about to be a part of the biggest Goodyear/Giants publicity stunt in history. 
Don't you feel proud?"

"As long as Lennie--"

"That's *Leonard*--"

"... Leonard is standing by with the news folk, I'm keeping my onrushing wave of 
panic to myself." Aris flexed her muscles, and Katze hung on, feeling the straps 
that bound her to the dragon's neck creak. "Set?"

"Set!"

"Then let's get the battle scene over with!" Aris launched herself into the air, 
the backwash of her wings blowing Leonard off his feet.

They had positioned themselves on top of the Bay Bridge, just south and east of 
the Golden Gate, where they had left the bright green Badyear blimp hovering 
after their departure. Aris couldn't see the blimp anywhere in the area, but she 
hadn't expected it to be in evidence.

"Okay, Ortiz just struck out Delgado," Katze said, her voice crackling in Aris' 
earset. "They're changing over, heading into the bottom of the 4th. Ready for 
move one?"

"Ready when you are," Aris said, turning south. The sun was dipping into the 
water to her right, sending waves of golden light over the city by the bay. She 
cupped air in her wings and waited.

"Go for it!" Katze said.

Aris snapped her wings shut and dove, roaring toward Pacbell Park at draconian 
speeds and ignoring the shrieks of adrenaline coming from somewhere just behind 
her skull. When she was less than a block away she snapped her wings open again, 
braking hard and coasting over 24 Willie Mays Plaza with just enough torque to 
send her spinning in a gentle spiral over the heads of the Giants fans assembled 
below. Katze, for her part, gulped down her recent meal and concentrated on the 
first spell she'd set up.

Ozone crackled behind the spinning dragon, and as Aris snapped out of her roll 
and started climbing into the air again she could see shining letters glittering 
with enough light to be visible over the sinking sun. "GIANTS" was now 
emblazoned over the park in huge, if backwards from the dragon's perspective, 
letters.

"That should get their attention," Aris muttered.

"Ready for pass number two?" Katze asked. She sounded slightly green around the 
edges.

"Sure thing," Aris agreed.

"No spinning this time, please?" Katze asked as Aris turned around and swooped 
down her backtrail.

This time, the starbursts evaporated as Aris flew through them, then reformed 
behind her to read "KNBR 680: THE SPORTS LEADER." Members of the crowd actually 
broke out into spontaneous applause.

"I see it!" Katze cried as Aris pulled up for more altitude. "Coming in from the 
northwest. Augh!"

"What? What?"

"I need sunglasses. This glare is killing me."

Aris circled a couple times about the park, gaining a little altitude on each 
turn. "Yeah, I see it. Those jet engines are nasty."

"Think you can dodge those rockets?"

"Welllll... as long as I have carte blanche to dive into the stands and buzz the 
crowd, yeah."

"Not *too* close, Aris."

"Well... what if Bonds is batting and he gets a really wonderful home run that's 
sailing right under me and I could reach out and--"

"We're supposed to be special effects, dwagin. Keep your mind on that blimp. 
Besides," she added, "I want a Barry Bonds home run ball as much as you do."

"Fine," Aris sighed. "*I* dodge the rockets, *you* nab the home runs. Okay?"

"Deal. Here they come!"

Aris circled over McCovey Cove as the blimp came sailing in over the park. The 
fielders for the Rockies trotted out onto the field with occasional glances at 
the sky. Jeff Kent stepped up to the plate, stopped just outside the box, and 
took a couple of warmup swings. Aris watched the blimp edge closer, eyes on the 
rocket tubes strapped to either side of the cabin, almost unnoticable under the 
huge mass of the envelope.

Just as she thought that, a rocket launched out, heading about ten degrees due 
east of her present position. She easily rode out the warm air caused by its 
passing, and nearly ran straight into the second rocket fired from the other 
cannon. True to form, she tucked her wings in and dove for the water, snapping 
out to skim over the heads of determined splash-hit seekers and pleasure 
boaters. Kat threw out a few sparks as they passed, and Aris desperately pumped 
her wings to regain the lost altitude.

"Remind me our brilliant plan, again?" Aris gasped as she climbed.

"You get me close enough to throw a lightning blast into the cabin of the blimp, 
putting the spongies inside our of commission before we tow the thing away."

"That only works if the car isn't metal, you know."

"Well, yeah." Katze clung tight as another rocket sailed past Aris' left 
shoulder, eliciting an 'oooh' from the crowd below. "But if it is, I can just 
breach it and put 'em all to sleep."

"'Just'?"

"Okay, it's complicated. Try to circle in close?"

Aris sighed. When the next rocket sailed in her direction, instead of diving, 
she twisted, and then used the warm air to give her a slight updraft and height 
advantage. The bulky dirigible was turning to follow her path as she spiraled 
north and then west of the ballpark. She waited, dodging another rocket, as she 
slowly built up altitude until she was just over the blimp instead of under it.

Speaking of rockets... "Kat?" Aris asked. "What happens to those rocket shells?"

"Cleanup squad's handling it. Don't worry."

"Right," Aris said. A teltale light flared from the right side of the gondola, 
and another rocket hissed through the air toward them. Aris tucked her wings in, 
missing the casing of the rocket by inches, then dived straight along its 
backtrail toward the cabin of the blimp. She was about to drive her claws into 
the side of the gondola when Katze yelled, "Damn!"

The shock sent Aris' claws skidding, and instead of planting all four feet 
safely on the wooden(Relief, thought Aris) craft, her left forefoot flailed at 
the sky for purchase--and found it by ripping open the mesh covering of the gas 
bag. "What?" she called, trying to keep purchase.

"They walked Bonds--hold still! You're ripping the bag open!"

Aris shook her head. "Damn wussy Coloradans. Can you hit 'em?"

The spongies in the gondola were cowering on the other side of the box. Katze 
raised her staff, pointed it, and chanted a brief stanza. The three stiffened, 
then collapsed to the floor, comatose. Katze nodded in satisfaction. "That 
should hold them."

"... I meant the Rockies' pitching staff, but hey, that works. Remember the 
lightshow!"

"Oh, yeah." A moment later, a dazzling explosion burst over the now-twilit sky, 
congealing to form the Goodyear Hermes'-flying-shoe symbol. Again, the crowd 
below burst into applause, rendered to Katze's earbeads via three-second delay.

"Right. Let's haul this out of here before it crashes on the stadium," Aris 
said. Already, gas was starting to leak, slowly, from the hole she'd gashed in 
the underbelly of the balloon.


Slowly, Aris cast off and circled the balloon. Once she'd gained enough 
clearance, she hovered in front of the balloon before the mooring ring on the 
nose, and delicately threaded her tail through the hole.

Beating her wings against the drag of the massive weight, she towed the gas bag 
north over the bay. The park faded behind her as she pulled out of reach.

"So where can I dump this thing, Kat?" she asked.

"Not in the bay, Katze replied quickly. "The environmentalists would have a 
fit."

Aris grumbled. "So where do I go to hide this thing?"

"Um... keep going, I'm sure we'll find a place."

--

"... so that's how the blimp ended up in the wildlife refuge, sir."

Aris was slumped back in her chair with her gaze firmly fixed on the ceiling as 
she said this, arms splayed over the armrests and feet sticking out like 
impotent oars on a beached longship. Katze, for her part, was tucked into as 
much of a ball as a basketball player could hope to get, feet under her chair 
and shoulders slouched almost to the conference table. As Aris finished relating 
the story, she looked up into the gaze of her superior(in seniority, wisdom, and 
experience, though not in title,) a sheepish look on her face.

Malcalypse the Seeker, for his part, was massaging his temples very lightly with 
the tips of his forefingers. A few seconds of silence later, he removed his 
fingers and folded his arms delicately across his chest. "That," he repeated, 
"is how the Goodyear blimp ended up in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge."

"We figured it might discourage the drilling teams."

Mal unfolded his arms and went back to massaging his temples.

"Um," he said after a couple seconds of silence.

"But the Giants won," Aris said in a slightly happier tone of voice. "Only we 
had to get that by radio because by that way we were halfway through Washington 
and didn't want to turn back."

"Um," Mal said again. He was quiet for a long time more. "Look, you two," he 
finally said, "through various applications of luck and bold confusion, you've 
managed to make a flash-in-the-pan appearance that has slipped past Mundane 
radar. For the most part. Even stashing a blimp in the wilderness has managed to 
land off the scope. But if you ever, and I mean *ever*, do this again... I'll 
think of a threat bad enough to actually use on you. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yessir," the two contrite Jihaddi said.

"Good. Now get out of here."

Aris and Katze were soon standing outside the doors to Mal's office, blinking in 
chagrin. Finally, Aris turned to Katze and grinned. "Well, wing strain aside, 
that was fun. We'll have to do that again sometime."

"Deal," Katze said. "But this time, we buy tickets like normal people. Okay?"

"Fine."

And they strolled off into the sunset, confident in the knowledge that they 
would live to seek Barry Bonds' autograph another day.

- END -