Head On: A Novel of the Near Future (Lock In #2)(14)

“Have you looked at the data yet?” Vann asked me as she puffed.

“No,” I said. Hurwitz sent it to me directly, threep to threep. She pulled it straight out of the NAHL’s data cloud and I downloaded it directly into my threep’s local memory. “I was going to contract Tony to look at it. He’d know whether it’s been tampered with.”

Vann nodded. In addition to being my flatmate, Tony Wilton was a high-end computer nerd who regularly contracted with the federal government. He was smart, easy to work with, and already in the vendor system, and when he got paid, some of the payment went toward the communal rent. So in a way it was like getting cash back.

“But it’s all there,” Vann said.

“It’s all here as far as I can tell,” I agreed. “And soon enough we’ll see what it has to say about Chapman dying.”

“It’s going to show that Chapman had some sort of seizure, like that other guy.”

“Salcido,” I prompted.

“Right.” Vann puffed again. “Hadens have a higher incidence of seizures because of what the syndrome does to the brain and because of the neural nets we stick in there.” She looked at me. “Have you ever had one?”

“A seizure?”

“Yeah.”

“No. How about you?” When Vann was a teenager she had contracted Haden’s and suffered through both the early flu-like stage, and then the much more painful second phase, which resembled meningitis. Unlike many whose progression went that far, she was not locked in, nor did she suffer significant mental damage or cognitive impairment. To all outward appearances, she came out of it just fine.

Nevertheless her brain was rearranged by the disease. And she had a neural net in her head, a souvenir from her days as an Integrator, one of the fully ambulatory humans who could let a Haden borrow their bodies to do things for which human bodies were desirable, or required.

“No,” she said, and then held up her cigarette. “But then again I self-medicate.”

“So if the data shows he had a seizure, what then?” I asked.

“Then it’s just bad luck for Duane Chapman.”

“There’ll be an autopsy too. That was covered in the press conference.”

“Right. Which will likely confirm that it was a random seizure.”

“That doesn’t explain why Kaufmann freaked out like he did.”

“He’s probably an idiot, like the lawyer said. Saw one of his players dying on the field, remembered the league was wining and dining potential investors, including your dad—how did that go, incidentally?”

“Mom said that she and Dad went home. A league flunky was begging him not to leave yet. I think after this they need his credibility more than they did before.”

“After this, your dad could probably ask to be made commissioner and they’d give him the job and a parade.”

“I don’t think he’d want the job.”

“That’s because your dad is smart. So, we go visit Kaufmann, he admits he overreacted and is an idiot, which is sad for him but not actually a crime. And then we’ll be done with our end of things.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Which means you will have dragged me out here, on a Sunday, for nothing.”

“Sorry.”

“I was sleeping.”

“It was four thirty in the afternoon when I called. I’m not going to feel too bad about that.”

“I had a late night.”

“Mom says you might be having too many of those.”

Vann smiled. “She’s not my mom.” She dropped her cigarette and crushed it out. “Come on. Let’s go talk to Kaufmann.”

“We’ll be early.”

“I want to get back to sleeping. If Kaufmann’s not fully dressed he doesn’t have anything I haven’t already seen elsewhere.”

The door to room 2423 was unlocked. The bolt, which normally would have secured the door, stuck out, keeping the door from closing entirely. Behind the door was the sound of the shower, still running. “I told you we were early,” I said.

Vann ignored me and knocked on the door, calling Kaufmann’s name, and did both a second time when he didn’t answer. He didn’t answer the second time, either. Vann unholstered her sidearm and prepared to enter the room, then looked at me. “Where’s your weapon?”

“It’s at home,” I said.

“You’re working.”

“I wasn’t,” I reminded her. “Then I was. It wasn’t convenient to go home.”

She reached down to her ankle and produced a small pistol. She handed it to me.

“You actually have an ankle holster,” I said to her, after a moment of staring.

“Yes. Come on.” We entered the room, cautiously.

There was no one in the main hotel room, which didn’t entirely surprise me, as the shower was running. The bed was rumpled and slept in. On the floor by the bed were various articles of clothing: a shirt, suit jacket, slacks, tie. A wallet and a pair of glasses were on the dresser, by the TV.

Something was missing from that collection.

“Chris,” Vann said. I looked up and she pointed into the bathroom.

What had been missing was a belt. One end of which was knotted around the showerhead, still running, the pipe of which had been pulled out of the wall.