Head On

by John Scalzi

  “Your story doesn’t make sense,” Parker said. “If this supplement mix was meant for Silva, it wouldn’t have affected Chapman at all. You said yourself it has to have another component to work.”

  “An electrical component,” I agreed. “And this confused me at first. So I asked my friend Tony to help me with it, to find the one thing Silva and Chapman and Salcido had in common. And the answer was, they all used Labram creches for their bodies during play. The creche monitors every system in the player’s body. And a year ago, right before the Salcido incident, every Labram creche had its operating system updated to offer mild intermittent electrical stimulation. The update notes say it helped to offer more accurate information for the data feeds the league sells to fans. And it did, enough so that the other creche manufacturers updated their operating systems with similar stimulation. But that’s not why you did it.”

  “So I’m tweaking a player’s creche during games now, is what I’m hearing. That still wouldn’t explain Chapman.”

  “Well, see, that confused me, too,” I said. “Because any creche that acted substantially differently from all the rest would stand out. But Tony reminded me that only the players with Attentex in their supplements would be affected. The same electrical stimulation could be sent to every creche. If all the creches are operating the same way, it masks the problem. It’s pretty ingenious, as long as you’re not stupid or greedy about it. Target one or two players on a team for any game, make them play below their general level—or make sure they don’t break out in any one game—and you change the game. You can dictate winners and losers. Or keep the same winners and losers and just mess with the spread.”

  I walked over and sat down in the chair across from Parker. “It’s a great idea, except of course it’s unethical and illegal and you entirely screwed it up and killed a player by accident. Now you need to smooth things over with your potential MobilOn investors, the ones you promised that you could fix Hilketa games for in return for their investment.”

  “These would be the same investors who are also investing in the foreign Hilketa leagues with Labram, right?” Parker said. “And they’re going to bet on their own games. Because that won’t be blindingly obvious.”

  “Not all of your investors are investing in the foreign leagues,” I said. “Even if they have a history of working with Labram. And those that are, well. If they’re smart enough to know how to launder money through your family’s company, they’re smart enough to place their bets without getting caught. The problem isn’t who is betting, Amelie. The problem is that what you promised them became a mess, and every time you tried to fix the problem, it got worse. Chapman died. Kaufmann died.

  “You learned through Keshia Sanborn that Kim Silva had information implicating Labram in money laundering, which would bring more eyes on what you were doing. So you leaked Silva and Chapman’s affair to the Hilketa News and called in a favor from Martin Lau to make it look like Marla Chapman tried to kill Silva and then killed herself. You paid to have Rachel Ramsey contaminate the IV sample and when another bag showed up out of the blue you bribed Ramsey to get it and then killed her. You killed her, Amelie. The threep that was used to kill her and the tank that came through my window were both made at Van Diemen. When the Baltimore FBI showed up with warrants, they rolled right over. You were piloting both of these threeps.

  “And when you finally realized you were in too deep and it was time to get the hell out of Dodge, you pointed Lau and his flunkies at Lena Fowler, your Integrator. You used to think her history made her silent and reliable, but she also knew more of your secrets than you preferred she knew. Lau would keep silent because his company had business with Labram, but Fowler was a loose end. And that catches us up to right now, and you on a plane to a country that doesn’t have extradition.”

  Parker looked up at me for a moment, eyes full of confusion.

  And then, finally, she couldn’t keep a straight face any longer.

  “It’s a nice story, Chris,” she said. “It’s too bad you can’t prove it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We both know what that means. You talk a good game but it’s speculation. You don’t have proof of anything substantial.”

  “You mean because the cat is dead, and so is Fowler and anyone else who could give you up.”

  “I don’t know anything about any of that,” Parker said. “What I do know is if you had anything, you’d have arrested me by now. And as it stands, the point is moot. I’ll be in Sarajevo in less than two hours. And I think I’ll stay for a while in the country. It’s beautiful there.”

  “It is,” I said. “I’ve been.”

  “You can come visit,” Parker said, and smiled. “I’ll still need a celebrity spokesperson for MobilOn.”

  “So,” I said. “You won’t be turning yourself in voluntarily.”

  “No I won’t. There’s no reason for me to be doing that.”

  “Here’s the problem,” I said. “One, the cat’s not dead.” Parker’s smile dropped. “In fact, he’s by all indications quite popular with the FBI’s forensics accountants, who are combing through Labram’s finances quite thoroughly, including its purchase of your previous company. Once they’re done running through that information, Donut the cat will be reunited with Kim Silva. Isn’t that nice? But it means you wrecked our house for nothing. Our insurance will pay to fix the damage to the house and our threeps, and is putting my roommates up in a hotel for now, but I assume they’ll come after you for it later. Be ready for that lawsuit.”

  Parker didn’t say anything to that, so I continued.

  “Two, before Fowler died—and before she killed Martin Lau, which I’m sure Richu Enterprises will be quite upset about—she left a very large pile of documents addressed to me and Agent Vann. A whole lot of it is about you, Amelie. She saw you flailing about and realized how much at risk she was from you. She wanted to return the favor.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Parker said. “And it wouldn’t matter now even if I did.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t believe me, so I’ve saved this part,” I said. “While I was busy coming to visit you, my partner was having a chat with your father, catching him up on everything you’ve been up to. It turns out you weren’t forthcoming with him about what you were offering as an extra enticement to invest in MobilOn. In fact, it doesn’t seem like you clued him or any other family members in to what you were doing. And as a result, you’ve exposed Labram to intense government scrutiny and damaged the company’s reputation with its investors, and with the North American Hilketa League, who it values as a key strategic partner. Your father isn’t happy, Amelie. And it turns out, you’re on his plane.”

  Parker blinked at this. “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’re not going to Sarajevo. In about thirty minutes, in fact, you’ll be on the ground outside of Venice. There you’ll be greeted by some nice Americans who will arrest you and, once your plane is fueled and your flight crew rested, take you back to Washington, D.C. Your dad’s cutting you loose.”

  “He can’t do that,” Parker said.

  “He is doing it,” I said. “He’s also putting Labram’s money-laundering schemes—the really outrageous ones—on your plate. Along with the funding for those anti-Haden protesters that show up at every Hilketa game. Apparently Labram was funding them through some dummy public interest groups. Trying to push Hadens out of the game to open the non-Haden market faster is not a good look. And now that’s on you, too.”

  Parker gaped. “That’s all complete bullshit!”

  “I don’t disagree,” I said. “But I’m not the one who has to deal with it.” I stood up and looked around. “This is a beautiful room, Amelie. And a beautiful house. And if I were you I would spend the next several hours enjoying it as much as I possibly could.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” she said, coldly.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. I walked to the doorway to the library. When I got
there, I turned. “Oh, and, Amelie?”

  “What?”

  “Thank you for the job offer. I must decline.”

  Epilogue

  THE IMAGE OF Duane Chapman went up on the giant scoreboard and the fans of the Boston Bays, present for the Friday night season opener, let out a cheer. And from the field Kim Silva, present but on the injured list, waved to the fans. The cheers became even louder, both because Silva was the Bays’ star player and because by now every Hilketa fan on the planet knew she and Chapman had been star-crossed lovers.

  Vann and I watched all of this from the owner’s skybox, guests by way of the Bays thanking us for solving the murders of Duane and Marla Chapman.

  “It’s a nice tribute,” I said, gesturing to the field.

  “It’s all right,” Vann said.

  I glanced over to her. “Don’t get too excited,” I said.

  She nodded her head toward the field. “This isn’t why I’m here.”

  The door to the skybox opened and Bob Kreisberg walked in with Oliver Medina. Kreisberg spied me and Vann and steamed right over, extending a hand to both of us in turn and thanking us for our efforts. At one point he became weepy talking about Duane Chapman. We listened politely and offered our condolences. After a few more minutes of thanks and a gentle refusal of season tickets, Kreisberg bade us farewell and wandered over to say hello to my parents.

  “What just happened,” Vann said to me, under her breath.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “You’re fine. You’ve made an old man very happy.”

  “Remind me not to do that again,” Vann said, and then Oliver Medina came up to the two of us.

  “Agent Vann,” he said, nodding to her, and then to me. “Agent Shane.” Medina stopped and cocked his head at me. “I was sorry to hear your father decided not to invest in our Washington franchise,” he said.

  “I think he had questions about the long-term stability of the league,” I said.

  “He’s wrong about that, but right now I can’t say I don’t understand his position,” said Medina. “In any event, thank you for everything you’ve done for the league. Both of you. It’s been a hell of a week around here.”

  “It certainly has,” I agreed.

  “It’s not over yet,” Vann said.

  “Oh?” Medina looked at Vann with interest.

  “We still have a death outstanding,” Vann said. “Alex Kaufmann.”

  Medina pursed his lips. “Well, I thought he was collaborating with Amelie Parker,” he said. “She was working to fix the games and he was facilitating the Labram deal for supplements and creches that would have let her do it. A deal we’ve canceled now.”

  “Yes, that would have looked bad for everyone,” Vann said.

  “As I understand it Parker had her Integrator kill Kaufmann and then make it look like he’d been hanged,” Medina said. “You said she was in his room before he died. She was trained by the army. And Parker needed him out of the way.”

  “All true,” Vann said. “Except the first part.”

  “Lena Fowler wasn’t in Kaufmann’s hotel room to kill him,” I said. “She was his lover. They met when she was integrating for Parker but then they started a relationship on the side. He got her the room next to his for the Washington game. And she didn’t kill him. Kaufmann hung himself and she found him a few minutes later.”

  “And you know this how?” Medina asked.

  Vann nodded to me. I handed Medina a piece of paper I was carrying. “This is a copy,” I said. “Obviously.”

  Medina frowned and glanced at the page.

  “It’s a suicide note, addressed to Fowler,” Vann said. “The sentence I want to bring to your attention is the first one. ‘Medina says all of this will fall on me.’”

  Medina frowned. “You think this implicates me in what Alex and Amelie were doing?”

  “I think when Kaufmann saw Chapman drop dead he knew exactly what was happening,” Vann said. “The drug that was supposed to slow Silva down killed someone else instead. I think he panicked and pulled the data feed. Then when he figured out he just made things worse, he put in a call to you.”

  “So you knew,” I said. “Either you knew what was going on with Parker and Kaufmann beforehand because you were involved, or you learned about it then.”

  “Either way, you did nothing while other people died. Including an FBI agent,” Vann said.

  “And if you knew what Parker and Kaufmann were up to, then you probably knew that Keshia Sanborn was feeding Parker the whole time, too. And that she was setting up Alton Ortiz to take a deal to take the heat off her.”

  “And the league,” Vann said.

  Medina took this all in and handed the suicide note back to me. “Why do you think Fowler took the note out of the room?” he asked me.

  “She took the note because it was hers,” I said. “It was addressed to her. It was for her.”

  Medina gave a small shrug. “If she had left it, or just not come into the room at all, she would have saved you a considerable amount of trouble trying to piece together Alex’s death. Why do you think she chose not to stay in the room? Or to call the police?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “And now we’ll never know, because both of them are dead.”

  “You should tell us what the two of you talked about before he hung himself,” Vann said to Medina.

  “Of course I won’t,” he said. “A deputy commissioner of the league was talking to the league’s general counsel about a league matter. A matter which I note is not yet entirely resolved. Aside from the obvious issue of attorney-client privilege, it would be irresponsible for me to discuss an ongoing concern.”

  “Kaufmann said you said all of this would fall on him.”

  “‘All of this’ is a very inexact term, Agent Vann.”

  “You could narrow it down for us.”

  “I believe I’ve already explained the concept of attorney-client privilege,” Medina said, and smiled. “Agent Vann, Agent Shane, this will sound odd, but I appreciate your antagonism right now. It means that you want to do right by Alex. I think he’d appreciate that. He’d also tell you to stop wasting your time concocting conspiracy theories. But mostly he’d thank you.”

  “If we find out you had any involvement with what Parker was up to, your attorney-client privilege goes out the window,” Vann said.

  “Then I better hope you don’t find anything,” Medina said, genially. “And if you do, I better hope you can’t make it stick.” He nodded at the both of us. “Agents,” he said, and headed to join Kreisberg.

  “Well, he’s a smug bastard,” Vann said to me.

  “Do you buy what he says?” I asked. “That he didn’t know?”

  “He didn’t say he didn’t know. He just said he wouldn’t tell.”

  “So you think he did know.”

  “If he didn’t, then he’s bad at his job,” Vann said. “I don’t think he’s bad at his job.”

  I looked down at the field, where the first half of play had begun. “Dad says the league’s finances are about to implode,” I said. “That the foreign teams are the league’s plan to stay alive long enough to get non-Hadens into the sport, and the league into financial stability. The league had to know Labram’s foreign team companies were money-laundering shells.”

  “Yes,” Vann said. “They knew.”

  “If they knew that, then how much further a step is it to what Parker was planning? To fixing games for profit?” I asked. “If they knew they could get away with it and no one would care, do you really think they wouldn’t?”

  On the field, one of the Boston Bays wrenched the head off an opponent.

  The crowd roared.

  “I think I need a cigarette,” Vann said.

  Acknowledgments

  First and as always I want to give attention and appreciation to everyone else involved in the production of this book. At Tor, this means of course my editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, assisted by Anita O
koye; Irene Gallo and Peter Lutjen, who have once again created a simply wonderful cover; Sona Vogel, who had to catch my errors and inconsistencies, of which there are unfortunately many; Heather Saunders for the feel of the book on the page; Alexa Saarela and Patty Garcia, who let people know my books exist in the world. And Tom Doherty, as ever.

  Thank you also to Bella Pagan and her team at Tor UK, and to Steve Feldberg and everyone at Audible.

  Many, many thanks to “Team Scalzi”—Ethan Ellenberg, Bibi Lewis, Joel Gotler, and Matt Sugarman. Agents and lawyers are wonderful.

  This novel took me rather longer than usual to write, for a number of reasons but one big one being simply that 2017 was a raging trash fire of a year, filled with horrible people trying to do horrible things and often succeeding. It’s harder to bear down creatively when the world is burning.

  Head On is important to me, not only because I like the world and love the characters who are in it, but also because, simply, it’s here and done. Every novel I try to do something new with my writing—push a boundary of some form or another to keep growing as a writer and a creative person. This time around, it turns out the “new thing” is writing a novel when an entire planet is trying to pull focus. I think this is going to be a good skill to have, because I doubt 2018 will be any better on this score. I’d really, really like to be wrong! I guess we’ll see.

  With that said, friends and family helped me get through the year with sanity intact. There are too many of you to list in the acknowledgments, but if you consider yourself a friend of mine, know your friendship was appreciated in this year more than ever. I’d like to particularly thank Mary Robinette Kowal, however, who gave me encouragement on this book at precisely the right moment.

  Finally and inevitably, thanks to my wife, Kristine. The process of writing books is opaque to most people; you can’t tell from a book cover whether the book took six weeks, six months, or six years to write, or what the state of mind of the author was while it’s being written. I suspect that will be the same with this novel. The only reason you’ll know it took me longer than usual to write is that I’m telling you now.