CH 6 - Revelation of the New Normal

"So you see, Clark, this is how we got here." She smiled smugly and convincingly, sure in her completeness of bringing me up to speed. "You are now in service to me, and don't go anywhere, because there's more to tell." She walked across the room once again out of sight to do something, and I then noticed the pulsing, slight burning feeling on my forehead, which reminded me of the symbol still there.

She reappeared, with a chair and sat down next to the table on which the Tiffany box (and I) rested. A new waft of cinnamon scent crested over me, causing me to squint slightly as my nostrils flared. I tried to avoid any excess movement, in light of my predicament, because everything seemed to hurt if I didn't. Angi continued her explanation.

She furrowed her brow, as if momentarily unsure of what to say or how to go about saying it, taking a deep breath to buy some time, then continuing.

"As you know, I told you I'm an Agent of Fate. Well, there are twelve of us. We are greater than man, but not quite divine, as it were. That title lends itself more or less to what you'd expect, except we are the contract enforcement brigade of it; this includes wagers, oral or written. Colloquially we're referred to as 'The Dirty Dozen' because what we do as enforcers often involves, heh, getting our hands dirty, like in your case." Her tone was clinical, but the expression was a bit warmer. I returned her gaze with one of rising incredulity, remaining silent, as she kept talking.

"The majority of my team save for a few of our bench players was all agents." She started counting them on her hands while absent-mindedly rattling off names... "...me, Tabitha, Kelly, Alicia...on and on" then waving her hand dismissively returning to the explanation.

"See, we had this idea. With what we do, there is a palpable amount of down time, so we wanted to occupy it. We're a tight knit group, and we are huge fans of this...baseball...you and your ilk play. We watch the pros play, and we are fans of different teams. Often times, we of course are incognito with our daily lives, including me, which brings me to you. So as we got to know each other, we made our bet." Her expression got very serious for a moment, then she spoke again.

"Your chicken shit antics are in direct violation of everything we stand for, but more to the point, you crossed me directly, and I chose to be petty and hold you to it! What we do we consider important, as it offers accountability to a world with increasingly less agreeability." Her reasoning was almost bordering on lecture at this point, and I began to pay more attention to the different nuances of pain and uncomfortability I had thus endured.

I shook my head shocked, as I had thought this woman to be clearly out of her mind. I cleared my throat as she paused briefly, though my voice still came out raspy. "Are you out of your damn mind?!" As I got louder, the raspiness seemed to fade, but the strain on my body increased the pain. I fought through it, incensed by her dialogue to this point.

"What kind of nutcase--" I started, but she immediately cut me off with a gaze, as her eyes flashed red for just a second. In that time, my cumulative bodily pain had amplified to such a point, simply opening my mouth felt like a monumental task. I shut my eyes tightly as an attempted panacea to withstand the excruciation, in hopes it'd either subside, or, for a fleeting moment, I figured she'd give me the release of death and end the suffering.

I slowly opened my eyes, body still pulsing slightly from the pain, to find her huge face ever so close to me, air expelled from her nostrils, eyes fixated on my now tiny form. That same familiar cinnamon scent absolutely dominated the air, like I was swimming in a candle. She simply said, "I own you now. Don't forget that." Her words were loud enough that I had to cringe while they were spoken. She quickly pulled away after that.

Again she continued. "Enough about us and our mission. As passionate baseball fans, we decided we wanted to do a fantasy baseball thing, but that became boring after a couple of years. We were looking for something a little more...real.  We decided to put our heads and abilities together, and we came up with this." She paused for effect, beckoning my curiosity.

Swallowing hard, I indulged. "This...what...exactly, is this?"

Smiling like she just finished a useful invention, she explained, "We created...reality baseball. At first we wanted to take players from the pros, but we eventually decided that to be too risky. After all, many would notice them suddenly missing from day to day life, so we focused more on...other pursuits, moreso people who wouldn't be noticed missing as much. We formulated an algorithm to filter everyone that lives on Earth into a draft pool of sorts, factoring out obvious disqualifiers like certain ages, a level of renown like I had mentioned, and other metrics, and left the program to its own devices. What followed was rosters of 30, among 12 teams, with each agent being an owner."

She beamed. "And here's the best part. We all did our duties in order to snap them up, catching them red handed in enforcement actions, similar to yours. They all became thralls, just like you! Best of all, each of the players fit into these awesome stadium carrying cases." She disappeared from view and I heard a faint rummaging in the distance.

I felt a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach as the gravity of what she was saying started to weigh on me. This...this couldn't be possible; it just couldn't. But she's gigantic, so apparently that was possible.  Was she saying what I think she was saying? The rummaging stopped and I heard footsteps heading back my way. She once again appeared in view carrying what looked like a large dollhouse type structure, but in the vague shape of a stadium. I began to feel sick, because this was pretty much what I had dreaded.

She set it down and came back closer to me. "So, this is where you'll be living, bunking with 29 others, your teammates. You were my newest algo draftee," she said, flatly, through gritted teeth, "and also my toughest to enthrall." She grinned again.  "Hopefully that means you just have more potential. I have to say I was impressed with your knuckleball, even if the ending to our game was essentially preordained, bet you didn't know that, heh. Most of the random algo selections have little to no baseball ability. There's a fun element to that, but when you have to train EVERYONE, it's a bit of a drag, so it's nice to get a break once in awhile."

My head was spinning at these revelations. I had so many questions, and all I really wanted to do was hope this could be just a dream, or nightmare, and I'd wake up drenched in sweat breathing heavily thinking about what a wild ride it had been. It was real, however, and I began to feel very, very indignant.

I yelled up at her, still very much in pain. "I won't do it! Whatever you're doing here, holding people against their will, it's wrong! Whatever shady operation you have here, I won't be a part of it! I demand you return me to my normal life and my normal size, you crazen psycho! You're nuts!"

She simply smiled wryly, "Are you done yet? I had a feeling you'd be this way. Your request has been declined." She said, matter of factly. "You will suit up, you will play to win, and if you don't, I'll just kill you. What do you think your defiance will accomplish? Do you think rebelliousness such as yours hasn't been attempted before? Of course we've had others here try and be heroes, try to topple what we've created, and the reprisal for such antics was swift and severe. Now understand I don't want to kill you, but if you don't do as you're commanded, you won't leave me with much choice. In your current condition, it really wouldn't take much."

She had all the answers, it seemed. Angi had me dead to rights. What could I do? I didn't know where we were, and I'd soon be holed up in what amounted to be a glorified stadium...dollhouse. I reluctantly decided to choose life, because I didn't see another way out right now. It is baseball, so maybe it wouldn't be so bad. I then asked, "Well, what about this? I...I can barely move. You basically destroyed me when you drove me into the asphalt."

She nodded. "Ah yes, that. Well, I can get you most of the way there, say about 80% healed. All of us have the ability to heal injuries, but, we made a rule stating this ability couldn't be used to fix anyone fully and have them just pop back out onto the field; keeping things fair and all, the injury was my doing. We run all of this just like a league, complete with medical professionals and such, so you'll be rehabbed the rest of the way with them. Oh, and I almost forgot, you'll be resized...much smaller. You'd be a giant compared to the current size of the players. Have to fit inside the stadium, you know!" She laughed at that thought.

She brought her face close to me yet again and said, "Who knows? You could merit your way out of here in...a year? 5 years? 10 years? It's possible. I called you 'Baseball Star' before, but now you're my Baseball Star. Let's see if you live up to the hype."

She produced a gaudy looking pendant with a caduceus symbol on it and opened it up. It almost looked like a miniature studio apartment, complete with bed and furnishings, though not much room. "You'll stay here until you're about 80%, should take a week or less" she said. "From there you'll rehab with stadium facilities." Before I could react, I was resized to fit the pendant. If Angi was gigantic before, she was truly monolithic now. Her red hair looked like many giant ropes, and it suddenly dawned on me, since I was headed for the pendant, that she would be wearing it, and subsequently how busty she actually was. She floated me gently, telekinetically, into the pendant and the waiting bed, closing and locking it. Inside things were serene, and as she donned it, the rhythmic beating of her heart was soothing, and as I looked to either side, her ample breasts held the pendant in place, which gave me an amazing view. It wasn't long before I feel asleep, the worst seemingly over.