Head On: A Novel of the Near Future (Lock In #2)(13)

“Oh, that,” Hurwitz said. Her threep was one that had facial movement in it. She pulled a frown. “That was all Commissioner Kaufmann. I warned him against it.”

“What did he do?”

“He freaked out. Me and Taylor, my assistant director, were monitoring the player feeds in the broadcast booth when he came in and told me to pull Chapman’s feed out of the data stream. He slammed open the door and the first words out of his mouth were ‘Pull Chapman’s feed. Pull the whole thing.’”

“You saw that Chapman’s vitals were all over the place by then?” I asked.

“Sure, but we’ve had that happen before,” Hurwitz said. “I mean, we haven’t had anyone die before. But we’ve had players affected during games. Last season we had Clemente Salcido have a seizure during a game. He was with Mexico City. His threep just dropped and shook, and his brain activity was spiking all over the place.”

“And no one told you to cut the feed then.”

“We were told to highlight it,” Hurwitz said. “We can take any individual player data and pin it so everyone who has Haden view sees it. The broadcast director had us pin it and then feed it to our broadcast affiliates. He said it was great drama. He was kind of an asshole.”

“What happened to the player?” Vann asked.

“Salcido was benched for the rest of the season and then dropped. The league’s insurance carrier didn’t want to cover him for play. They were worried his next seizure would kill him.”

“Did what was happening to Chapman look like what happened to Salcido?” I asked.

“I don’t remember,” Hurwitz said, and spread her hands. “Sorry. It was a while ago. And I’m a tech person anyway, not a doctor.”

“Can you get us the feed for Salcido’s event?”

“Sure, but that’s my point. I don’t have to get you the feed for that. You can get it yourself. It’s in the league’s public data archive. We don’t pull feeds. Not before tonight.”

“So why now?” Vann asked.

“You’d have to ask Commissioner Kaufmann.”

“You didn’t ask why?”

“Of course I asked why. And he said, ‘Pull the fucking feed or you’re fired.’ He’s the boss. Or one of them, anyway. I wasn’t going to lose my job over it.” Hurwitz nodded to me. “You know why.”

I nodded back. A year ago Congress passed the Abrams-Kettering Bill, drastically cutting back government assistance and coverage for people with Haden’s. It’s not a cheap syndrome to have, even with government assistance.

A year isn’t a lot of time, but it’s enough time for a lot of Hadens to notice the economic floor was suddenly tilting out from under them. Hurwitz’s gig as a technical director for the NAHL probably paid well, and it wouldn’t do for a league that relies on Haden athletes to give its Haden employees a rough ride on benefits.

But these days she and most other Hadens were working without a net. The rationale behind the Abrams-Kettering Bill was that advances in technology and medicine meant Hadens were now playing on a more even field along with everyone else, and that the government could scale back the services it had provided them over the last couple of decades.

It was a nice theory. Hurwitz’s comment suggested in practice there were some issues.

But what did I know. I was a government employee with excellent benefits. And a ridiculous trust fund.

“You didn’t worry that you’d get in trouble for pulling the feed?” Vann asked.

“No,” Hurwitz said, then amended, “Well, a little. But there were six other people in the broadcast booth. They all heard Commissioner Kaufmann order me to pull Chapman’s feed. I figured it would be hard for him to pin it entirely on me if it became a problem.” She paused. “Is it a problem? I mean, I know it’s a problem, or you wouldn’t be here. But I want to know if it’s a problem problem. I don’t want to lose my job.”

“There’s a problem,” Vann said. “I don’t think it’s your problem. It might be Alex Kaufmann’s problem, though.”

Hurwitz seemed to relax at that. “Well, he’s staying here at the hotel. In case you wanted to ask him.”

Vann smiled at Hurwitz. “Did you just throw your boss under the bus, Ms. Hurwitz?”

There was the smallest of mechanical noises as Hurwitz’s threep made a smile. “He threatened to fire me today, Agent Vann. I think it’s okay to make him sweat a bit.”

Kaufmann didn’t answer his phone but texted back to me a minute later. Apparently he was screening his calls. I’ve been expecting you, he texted. I’m literally just about to hop into the shower. Can you come up in fifteen minutes? Room 2423.

“He’ll meet us in fifteen minutes,” I said, to Vann. We were returning to the lobby.

“Good, I need a smoke.”

“Have you thought about quitting?”

Vann gave me a look.

“You should quit, you know,” I said.

“I’m going to keep giving you this look.”

“Yeah, I know.” The elevator opened up and we exited the lobby so Vann could have her cigarette. The journalists who accosted us earlier were occupied with a league executive. We escaped the lobby unscathed.