Lock In (Lock In, #1)(74)

“A what?” Vann said.

“I know, right?” Tony said. “It’s a transmitter. It transmits the Integrator’s data signal, but not into the network. Instead it mimics the network.”

“Does it have to be the Integrator’s data signal?” Vann asked.

“What do you—” Tony stopped, apparently getting it. “Oooooooh,” he said.

“What?” I said. I was the only one in my own liminal space entirely left out.

“Fucking Hubbard,” Vann said. “We were asking why Johnny Sani was trying to integrate with Nicholas Bell. He wasn’t. He was acting as a goddamned relay station for Hubbard.”

I thought about it for a minute. “Then that means that when you were interrogating Bell—”

“It was never Bell,” Vann said. “It was Hubbard. It was always Hubbard. The bastard’s been playing us right from the start.”

“To get close to Cassandra Bell,” I said.

“Yes,” Vann said.

“For what purpose?” I asked.

“You’ve been following the news, right?” Vann snapped. “Rumor is, there’s a march on Sunday. Imagine what happens to that march when Cassandra Bell is killed by her own brother, who then spouts some sort of anti-Haden bullshit. D.C. is going to burn down to the ground.”

“Right, but what point does that serve?” I asked. “Why start a riot?”

“To tank the market,” Tony said.

We both turned to him again.

“I told you I follow the sector,” Tony said. “It’s how I stay employed. The Haden-related companies are already trying to merge or exit the sector because of Abrams-Kettering. Investors are already offloading their stocks. A full-scale riot in D.C. will scare the shit out of these companies and all their investors. They’ll flee the scene. And then Accelerant can pick and choose which companies to snap up and which to let die. It’ll be lauded for stabilizing the sector when what it’s really doing is sniping its competitors in the head. They’ll save billions on their merger with Sebring-Warner alone.”

“But what’s the point?” I said. “Abrams-Kettering is gutting all these companies’ profits. There’s no gravy train anymore. You said so yourself.”

“You know who AOL are, right?” Tony said.

“What?” Vann said.

“AOL,” Tony said. “Information services company around the turn of the century. Made billions connecting people online through their phones. A ‘dial-up’ service. Was one of the biggest companies in the world. Then people stopped using their phone lines to get online and AOL shrank. But for years it still made billions in profit, because even though the dial-up sector had died, there were still millions of customers who kept their dial-up service. Some were old people who didn’t want to change. Some were people who kept the service as a backup. Some probably just forgot they subscribed and when they remembered, AOL made it too hard to unsubscribe to bother.”

“Lovely story,” Vann said. “And?”

“And, when all is said and done, there are still more Hadens in the U.S. than people who live in the state of Kentucky. On average another thirty thousand people a year contract the disease and experience lock in. They’re not going away. Even a shrunken market can make a lot of money, if you milk it. And Hubbard’s the one to milk it.”

“Because he’s a Haden himself,” I said. “He’s one of us.”

“That’s right,” Tony said. “That’s what swooping in and saving the Agora is about. Establishing goodwill among Hadens.”

“Once he has that, he can roll over every other company, because he’s already got every single Haden as a customer,” I said. “He’ll use the Agora as leverage.”

“Right again,” Tony said. “And then Accelerant will be doing two things. Using the money he’s raking in from Hadens to diversify—even now Haden-related companies are the minority of its portfolio—and getting ready for the day the FDA says neural networks and threeps aren’t just medical devices for Haden use only. Because that’s the real end game. Hubbard’s looking to the day when everyone’s got a threep, everyone’s on the Agora, and no one ever has to feel old again.”

“That’s why Hubbard could spend a billion dollars on something he’d never take to market,” I said.

“And why he’ll spend a bunch of money now on companies that look like sucker bets,” Tony said. “He’s not looking at the shrinking Haden market. He’s looking at the market that’s coming after that. The market he’s going to make. The market he’s locking in right now.”

“You really think that’s what happening here,” Vann said.

“Let me put it this way, Agent Vann,” Tony said. “If you two don’t arrest him this weekend, on Monday I’m going out and putting everything I own into Accelerant stock.”

Vann stood there for a moment, thinking. Then she turned to me. “Options,” she said.

“Seriously?” I said. “We’re doing this now?”

“It’s still your first week,” Vann said.

“It’s been a busy week,” I said.

“And I want your thoughts, all right?” Vann said. “I’m not just asking you to have a goddamn teachable moment. All this affects you. This is about you. And people like you. Tell me what you want to do, Chris.”