Rays vs. Orioles GDT 3: Something's up

Heflin pulled the long, iron emergency brake and cut the wooden steering wheel towards the cliffside. The steel and iron behemoth settled.

"Sogal! I'm going for a swim!" Heflin tossed the knotted rope out the pilot's window and descended from the metal monster's left eye. His boots hit the soft sands of the river bank.

"Wait for me!" Sogal's voice echoed down the canyon.

Heflin tossed his boots in the sand. He threw his scarf, his leather gloves, his steel breastplate, and his Byron Leftwich shirsey into a pile on top of the boots, then he rolled his black dress pants up to his knees.

Zephyrs rippled across the placid surface of the river. Heflin dipped his toe in the water and shivered.

"It's cold!"

"I've got a pill for that!" Sogal trotted toward Heflin with a blue-and-white striped pill in his outstretched hand. "It makes the water feel warmer. I'm not sure if the water gets warmer around you, or if you just think it does."

Heflin placed the pill on his tongue and drank it with a palmful of crisp river river water. The crystalline water dribbled down his red and gray beard.

"Ach! I feel hot!"

"I think it's supposed to do that," said Sogal. "Let's get in the water then."

They waded halfway into the water. The river touched the naked skin of their legs and lifted in a thin, translucent cloud of steam.

"Oh! That feels better." Heflin splashed water on his face and sizzled like a sauna. "How long do these pills last?"

Sogal did not answer. He raised a trembling finger towards the enormous dark shadow in the heart of the river.

"Is that--?!"

Heflin and Sogal turned to run towards the shore as an enormous left-handed pitcher from New Mexico burst from the river. It's many-voiced throat roared and trembled the valley. The iron behemoth on the cliff jostled in it's tenuous perch. The soil under the two furthest hind legs gave way, and the iron behemoth rolled and tumbled towards the bank in a calamity of sound.

A Matt Moore loomed behind the travelers, a brassling, collapsing machine before them.

"We have to fly." Heflin pulled a green orb from his pocket and raised it toward the sky.