Head On_A Novel of the Near Future

by John Scalzi

  “Anything that wasn’t metal is burned down into ash.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably no good, then.”

  “I can still have them shipped down if you want to try.”

  “You mean, if you want to try, Chris. This is on your dime.”

  “Keep at it some more and see if you can find another way into the data vault.”

  “Will do. Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “I’ll try to contain my upcoming disappointment.”

  “That’s the spirit. That said, I do have some good news for you. Well, good news in a particular context.”

  “That sounds exciting,” I joked.

  “You asked me to look at Clemente Salcido’s data feed from his last game and see how it compared to Duane Chapman’s. I looked.”

  “And?”

  “Long version or short version?”

  “Start short.”

  “There are some similarities.”

  “Okay. Now go longer.”

  “There was the same sort of ramping up of brain activity that we saw with Chapman. Not as much and not with the same severity, but it was there and led right into his seizure.”

  “And no one noticed this before?”

  “You’d have to ask the medical people who dealt with him. But even if they did, there’s not much there that looks so out of the ordinary that it’d get tagged. Or maybe it’s better to say that it’s possible someone looked at the data, went, ‘Yup, that’s what it looks like when you’re about to have a seizure,’ and didn’t think about it after that. I mean, I noticed it specifically because you asked me to go looking for it.”

  “I didn’t tell you what to look for,” I reminded Tony.

  “No, but you did tell me to look. Which was enough for me to be paying close attention. I doubt that anyone else is looking at Salcido’s data with the same eyes we are.”

  “I think I’m going to need to talk to Salcido.”

  “I would if I were you,” Tony agreed.

  “Keep at the data vault,” I said.

  “I will,” Tony said. “When are you going to be back home?”

  “Probably tonight. Why?”

  “We’re going to have to have a house meeting about Donut. The twins are totally hogging him for themselves.”

  I chuckled at that.

  “Amelie Parker did what?” Mom asked.

  We were in my bedroom at my parents’, and Mom, as was her inclination, was trimming my hair. Although I was presenting mostly threep forward, I could still feel her hands moving over my hair, picking it out before working the trimmer. Mom always felt it was practical to keep my hair short, and I was inclined to agree. Some Hadens didn’t worry too much about appearances—their bodies typically weren’t going anywhere—but I didn’t see any reason not to look decent in all my iterations.

  Besides that, I liked when Mom trimmed me up. She could obviously have someone else do it for me. We had two full-time caretakers for me, and my mother and father both had a stylist who would come to the house on an on-call basis. Any one of them could keep me in my basic trim without too much of a problem. But it was something Mom chose to do.

  Hadens sometimes suffered a deficit of human touch. When your body is immobile and you use a threep to get around in the world, people sometimes forget you’re still actually in your body, and that immobile or not, you can still sense and feel. Haden bodies respond to touch. Hadens need touch like anyone else.

  My mother cutting my hair was one way she kept in touch with me, literally and figuratively. There were others, of course. But this one was special in its way, precisely because it was such a simple, mundane task, one mothers do for their children all over the world.

  And fathers too, of course, let’s not be sexist about it.

  That said, my father tried to trim my hair once. It ended . . . poorly.

  “She offered me a job,” I said. “Celebrity spokesperson for MobilOn. Salary plus equity. Told me I could be a billionaire in my own right.”

  Dad, sitting on the couch in my room, snorted. “She’s ambitious, I’ll give her that.”

  “You don’t think it’s going to be a hundred-billion-dollar business right out of the gate?” I asked Dad, mock shocked.

  “I think she’s underselling the competition to you,” Dad said. “Several of the major threep manufacturers are already working on their own subscription threep services. Unlike MobilOn, they already have the infrastructure in place to get their threeps to the public quickly. It’s going to take Amelie at least eighteen months to get her production output at the level she needs.”

  “She’s subcontracting to some specialty threep makers,” I said. “I was at Van Diemen yesterday and one of their people let slip they had a contract with her.”

  “The sex threep people?” Dad said.

  “Marcus,” Mom said.

  “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with sex threeps,” Dad said, holding up a hand. “But I also know they don’t have near the capacity Amelie would need, either short-term or when non-Hadens start finally using threeps.”

  “Which is why we suggested to her that she try to partner with one of the threep manufacturers directly when she came to us for funding,” Mom said.

  Dad nodded. “She said she didn’t want to do that. She thinks they’re going to crater and then she can get better deals from them to complement the threep stock she’ll manufacture in-house.”

  “Which is optimistic,” Mom said, working the trimmer. I felt the buzz through my head.

  Dad motioned at Mom. “What she said.”

  “Why is it optimistic?”

  “It’s optimistic because all the major consolidation in the field’s already happened,” Dad said. “It was happening before Abrams-Kettering passed into law, and it finished up within a few months of its passing. Some of the mergers are still in process because of regulatory issues, but they’ll get done soon enough.”

  “And in the meantime the market’s already priced the downturn in the sector into share price,” Mom said. “The remaining companies have also pared down in terms of workers and production.”

  “Which I take it means there’s no crater coming,” I said.

  “No new crater, no,” Mom said. “Which means Parker is making a bad gamble not pairing with an existing manufacturer.”

  “So I shouldn’t count on being a billionaire, is what you’re saying.”

  “You weren’t planning on it anyway, were you?” Mom looked up at me, which meant that she looked away from me, since she turned her attention from my physical head to my threep. Well, the threep I was currently in, since my other threep was sitting on its induction chair in the corner. Having multiple bodies could be confusing until you got used to it. “I thought you liked your job.”

  “And you’re not exactly hurting for money,” Dad added.

  “I do like my job,” I said. “And I agree I’m fine with what I have. But I have to admit she knew which buttons to press. When I was visiting her personal space she was talking about how she built it with her money that she made from her first company, not family money.”

  “Did she,” Mom murmured, returning her focus to my head.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that Amelie might have been minimizing the fact that her first company’s primary investor was the family business,” Dad said.

  “And then it bought it from her a couple of years later, at a very comfortable premium for her,” Mom continued.

  “Entirely legal, possibly defensible from a business standpoint, and definitely nepotism at its finest,” Dad finished.

  “What’s the family business?” I asked.

  “Labram Industries,” Dad said.

  “I know them,” I said. “They’re doing business with the NAHL.”

  Dad nodded. “Creches and some other specialized hardware. Not just for the NAHL. They have an entire ‘active lifestyle’ hardware line devoted to Hadens. It’s a sideline to their
primary business, which is heavy equipment for shipping and construction. But after Amelie was born a Haden the company moved into that market.”

  “So where do their sports supplements fit in?” I asked, remembering the IV bag in Chapman’s house. “That’s not exactly hardware.”

  “That’s Amelie’s previous business,” Mom said. “When Labram brought it in-house the argument was that it was complementary to their sports hardware.” She shrugged. “It might even be true.”

  “What did the investors think?”

  “They don’t think anything,” Mom said. “Labram’s a private company. Family owned.”

  “If they bought her previous company, they might buy this one, too,” I said. “Once she’s drawn it out long enough.”

  Dad chuckled at this. “If they do, it won’t be for a hundred billion dollars, Chris. I’d love to get a look at their books.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I want to know more about them before we do any potential business with them.”

  “I didn’t know you had anything planned with them,” I said.

  “It’s to do with the Hilketa league.”

  “I knew Amelie Parker was looking to be a partner in the Washington franchise.”

  “That’s a little different,” Mom said. “That’s out of her own money. But Labram itself is about to make a big investment in the NAHL expansion plans into Asia and Europe.”

  “It’s a defensive move,” Dad said. “They want to make sure they stay a preferred supplier for player creches, and they want their supplements as the default in the foreign leagues.”

  “It’s pay for play,” Mom said. She was done with my hair. She put the trimmers down and began brushing off my neck. An automated vacuum would show up soon to clean the hair off the floor.

  “Why do you care about the foreign leagues?” I asked Dad. “The Washington franchise would be in the North American league.”

  Dad nodded. “Yes it would. But the corporate structure is built so the actual leagues are subsidiaries of the NAHL corporation. All the money from franchising and merchandising and everything else goes into the parent corporation. All the leagues’ profits go into the same pot.”

  “Which the league needs right now,” Mom noted.

  “I thought you told me the league’s finances were fine,” I said to her.

  “I said they were marginal. Over the last couple of days I’ve gotten a closer look at the books.”

  “And?”

  “And the league is marginal today. In the next couple of years it’s going to go over a financial cliff.”

  “A big ol’ cliff,” Dad chimed in.

  “Okay,” I said. “Why?”

  “Because of real estate and taxes, for one,” Mom said. “And because of Abrams-Kettering, for another.”

  I looked at Mom and then Dad. “I’ll bite,” I said. “What does one have to do with the other?”

  Dad smiled and looked at Mom. “Educate our offspring, my dear,” he said.

  “The league doesn’t own any of the stadiums or arenas it plays in, Chris,” Mom said. “It’s been leasing them either from local governments or other sports franchises. And it’s been doing it that way because prior to the passage of Abrams-Kettering, the federal government had an incentive package for organizations that promoted, quote, the health and welfare of Haden citizens, unquote. Which Hilketa technically does. So it got tax breaks and credits and even some direct funding for the sport by Uncle Sam.”

  “And that wouldn’t cover arenas or stadiums?”

  Mom shook her head. “Real estate investments or construction was only covered if the resulting business was only used by and for Haden-related purposes.”

  “So you could build a stadium for Hilketa, but you could only ever use it for that,” I said. “No revenue from other uses.”

  “Right,” Dad said. “But if you rented or leased an arena, you’d get a tax break on what you paid for the rental.”

  “Not only that,” Mom said, “but the entity the league was leasing from got incentives if they gave the league a break on the cost. If it was a state or local government it was reimbursed by the federal government. If it was a private entity it got a tax credit. So it was in the interest of the league to rent, not build, and in the interest of stadium owners to give the league low rental fees.”

  “That . . . kind of seems like an abuse of what the federal government meant for a program like that to do,” I said. “I’m guessing it was meant for things like summer enrichment programs for Haden kids, not an actual moneymaking professional league.”

  Dad nodded at this. “And now you understand why Abrams-Kettering got traction in Congress. For every program that was quietly beneficial to Hadens, you had a boondoggle like this.”

  I turned back to Mom. “And now that Abrams-Kettering’s passed, all those rents are going up.”

  “Yes.” She looked down at my neck, frowned, and picked a stray curl of hair she found there. I felt her nails delicately tweeze it away. “Most of the league’s stadium contracts are up at the end of this season. And when they’re renegotiated they’ll go up by anywhere from two hundred to one thousand percent.”

  I let out a low whistle. It’s not a natural thing for one to do in a threep body, but it seemed appropriate.

  “That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Dad said, and then looked at Mom. “Tell Chris about salaries.”

  “They had tax breaks for salaries, too?” I asked.

  “They had tax breaks for everything,” Mom said. “Salaries. Support staff. Medical and caretaking supplies. Training facilities. Transportation of the threeps to and from games.”

  “The tax credit for Haden view is my favorite,” Dad said. “Because it was created to help Hadens experience the game, the cost of developing it and then implementing it on a game-by-game basis was credited to the league. Then it turned around and sold access to it. Every cent of that was pure profit.”

  “And all of it is going away in the next fiscal year,” Mom said. “The league has never been profitable in itself. It was profitable because it was an engine for tax avoidance, and even then it was only marginally so, as I said. That party’s over now. The Canadian and Mexican teams are still getting breaks. But most of the league is in the U.S. It’s going to get swamped.”

  I was quiet for a moment. Then I turned to Dad. “And you still want to become an investor in this thing?”

  “You think it’s a bad idea,” Dad said.

  “I’m suddenly very concerned for my trust fund,” I said. Dad laughed.

  I turned to Mom. “Well?” I said.

  “I’m not very happy with it, no,” she said. “And I’m not very pleased that the league is trying to soft-shoe around it. I confronted that odious twerp MacKenzie Stodden about it yesterday afternoon, and he tried to give me a runaround.”

  I recalled Stodden, the investor relations suit who was stunned to discover I was not on the catering staff. “What did he say?”

  “He tried to say that all of that was accounted for moving forward, which it isn’t, and then punted me upstairs to talk to the league’s general counsel.”

  “Oliver Medina,” I said.

  “That’s the one. He’s a piece of work. First he reminded me that our negotiations with the league are covered by a nondisclosure agreement—I think he was telling me about that because of you, Chris—and then he suggested that what the league’s done here to this point they’ll be able to do in the rest of the world.”

  “What? Scam tax breaks and government subsidies?”

  “It checks out,” Dad said. “If you look at the countries the league is looking at expanding into, it’s the ones who still have strong Haden-related programs and tax incentives.”

  “The league plan will be to shuffle costs around so that the hit they take in the U.S. is absorbed elsewhere,” Mom added. “But to do that they have to survive until they get the Asian and European leagues up and running.”

>   “How are they going to do that?” I asked.

  “You’ve noticed they’re expanding the league,” Dad said. “For investors in the Washington team, it’s a minimum of ten million dollars, all up front. For the foreign investors, it’s one hundred million minimum, with half of that up front.”

  “And you two think this will work.”

  “If the league meets its domestic and foreign funding goals in the next few weeks, it might keep the league afloat for a couple of years. Might. After that, it depends on whether other countries put the equivalent of Abrams-Kettering on their books. And if they do, how long it will take them to do it.”

  “Mind you, the league could look into how to make itself profitable without relying on government breaks,” Mom said.

  “If they did, they’d be the first pro league to do so,” Dad reminded Mom. She rolled her eyes. He turned to me. “I’m not a fan of the league business model, either. I don’t see it ever being a money spinner. I also don’t want to lose money. But I’d be fine with it being a long-term, break-even investment. I’d like to see a team in the area. I think it’ll be good for D.C., and I think it’ll be good for the Hadens here, too.”

  “For as long as that lasts,” Mom said.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “She means that part of the league’s long-term growth is to start more aggressively developing non-Haden players here in the U.S.,” Dad said. “They already have what they call developmental leagues that anyone can join. But now they say they intend to actually use them. Like they’ve been saying they’ve been using them all along.”

  “Once non-Hadens start playing in the NAHL, the league thinks the developmental leagues will really take off in participation and attendance. Another potential profit center there,” Mom said.

  “You said you wanted them to do something besides rely on government breaks,” Dad said to Mom.

  “I’m allowed to be conflicted,” Mom said. She turned to me. “Sorry, Chris. I’m not sure you were expecting a business conference while I was giving you a haircut.”

  “It’s not usual barbershop chatter,” I admitted. “But inasmuch as I’m about to head to Boston to talk to Kim Silva, surrounded by league officials, it might be useful context. Don’t worry, I won’t tell them you broke your NDA to talk to me.”