Head On: A Novel of the Near Future (Lock In #2)(6)

“He’s clueless,” Mom said. “I’m sure he was assigned to me because he was the only apparatchik the league could spare to babysit the spouse of the man they wanted to extract money from.” She motioned with her head to Dad, who’d grown another ring of admirers. “I’m sure they thought he’d be relatively harmless.”

“Do they not know who you are?” I asked.

“They know I’m Marcus’ wife.” Mom did a hand movement that was her rather more elegant version of a shrug. “If they missed out on what else I am, that’s their problem.”

Mom, that is, Jacqueline Oxford Shane, on the board of Shane Enterprises, executive vice president of the National Haden Family Association, ferocious fund-raiser, and scion of one of Virginia’s oldest and most politically connected families, who dated the current vice president before she met and married Dad. Rumor was the VP still regretted ever letting her go. I didn’t regret it. I wouldn’t be here if she’d stayed with him.

I tilted my head at Dad. “So how’s he holding up, anyway?”

“He’s fine,” Mom said. “He’s doing his thing.”

“His ‘special exhibition game experience’ is apparently being mobbed by international businesspeople.”

“You didn’t think we were invited to this because the league was trying to impress your dad, did you?” Mom said. She waved at the businesspeople. “We were invited so he could impress them.”

“Does that mean Dad is going to invest in the new franchise?” I asked.

Mom did her shrug wave again. “We’re looking at the numbers.”

“How are they?”

Before Mom could respond, two gentlemen appeared, gave slight bows, and then one spoke in Japanese.

“Mr. Fukuyama apologizes for the intrusion, and wishes to know if you are a player in the Hilketa game,” the second man said, clearly the translator.

I had known what Mr. Fukuyama said because my onboard translator had given me a translation as soon as it recognized Fukuyama was not speaking English at me.

I stood and gave a small bow. “Please tell Mr. Fukuyama that I regret that I am not.”

“This robot is not a player,” the translator told Fukuyama, in Japanese.

“Damn it,” Fukuyama said. “I was promised that I would get to meet players on this trip. Why they think I will invest in an Asian Hilketa league when they can’t even show me the goods is beyond me.”

“Perhaps you will meet a player after the game, sir,” the translator said.

“I better.” Fukuyama nodded his head at me. “Get this robot’s autograph anyway. I promised my grandson I would get one from a player.”

“But this is not a player,” the translator said.

“My grandson won’t know the difference.”

The translator reached into a suit pocket and produced a small notebook and a pen. “Please, an autograph?” he asked, in English.

“Of course,” I said, taking the pen and signing the notebook with it, adding “I am not a Hilketa player” in English below the signature. I closed the notebook and handed it and the pen back to the translator. He and Fukuyama bowed and departed.

“You’re famous,” Mom joked to me.

“It’s a step up from when I came into the skybox and someone shoved a drink glass in my hand.”

“Who did that?”

“That one—” I pointed to the suit, now in the outer ring of my father’s admirers.

“Oh, him,” Mom said. “I’ve met him. Smarmy little jerk.”

“You were talking about the league numbers before we got interrupted,” I reminded her, to get her off the topic of the smarmy suit. “You were about to tell me how they were.”

“They’re marginal.”

“Ah, that good,” I said.

“The NAHL likes to call itself the fastest-growing major sport in North America, but all the other major sports are decades old, so that’s just marketing,” Mom said. “Hilketa’s attendance and merchandising are growing but the league spends a lot. Your father has questions about the value proposition of investing in a franchise.”

“You mean, you have questions about it.”

“We both have questions about it,” Mom said. “The league just doesn’t appear to realize your father and I talk to each other.”

“That’s going to end well.”

“We’ll see.” Mom looked up at me as if she suddenly remembered something. “Where’s Leslie?” she asked. “I thought she was thinking of coming with you.”

“She’s busy,” I said. “Leslie” in this case was Leslie Vann, my partner at the FBI, where we were part of the Haden affairs division.

“She’s busy? Doing what?”

“Avoiding sunlight. It’s a Sunday, Mom.”

Mom snorted, delicately, at this. “Leslie needs fewer late nights, Chris.”

“I’ll let her know you’ve volunteered to be her life coach.”

“I just might take the job. Leslie is lovely”—and here I did an internal smirk, because in the year I’d been partnered with Vann, “lovely” was an adjective used about her exactly once, right now—“but she’s aimless.”