“Well, fuck,” Vann said.
“The protesters being funded?”
“No. I can’t find my lighter.”
“The motor pool staff will be happy to hear that.”
“We’re stopping at a convenience store.”
“You’re driving,” I said. “Stop wherever you want.”
“So these protesters are being funded,” Vann said. “So what?”
“I think Wise’s implication is that there’s something sinister about it.”
“And?”
“No other ‘and,’ just wondering if we’re investigating them as well.”
“I think we’re going to be busy enough. And anyway, the protesters aren’t wrong, paid or not. Hilketa is discriminatory.”
“Ah, that’s crap,” I said. “It’s the least discriminatory major sport in the country. There’s no gender or racial or sexual barrier to play.”
“It helps a lot to be a Haden.”
“That’s like saying that there’s discrimination in basketball because there’s no one on the Washington Wizards roster shorter than six feet tall.”
“An artificial neural network in your head isn’t a de facto requirement in order to play in the NBA.”
“No, you just need generations of genetic selection to make you two meters tall,” I countered. “In both cases something entirely not up to you has to come into play. Genetics or a virulent disease requiring you to get a dangerous implant in your brain to get along in the world. One of these is worse than the other.”
“None of which doesn’t mean Hilketa isn’t discriminatory,” Vann said.
“Jesus, Vann,” I said. “I’m getting the feeling you were one of those ‘I’m just playing devil’s advocate’ assholes in college.”
“I wasn’t, but I punched a few of them.” Vann carefully placed her cigarette back into her pack. “You interrupted me to be outraged before I finished my actual thought. Which was, the protesters weren’t wrong, it is discriminatory, and also, who gives a shit, because it’s not legally discriminatory, and it’s mostly discriminatory on the basis of skill, just like every other major sport. It helps to be more than six feet tall in pro basketball, but there have been enough players who haven’t been, to say skill can compensate. I’m pretty sure it’s the same for Hilketa.”
I was quiet for a moment. “So what you’re saying is that I yelled at you for nothing.”
“Pretty much.”
“But you argued back.”
“Yes, well…” Vann stuffed her cigarette pack back in her jacket pocket. “I’m a little edgy at the moment.”
“We need to find you that convenience store.”
“We really do.” Vann took back control of the car. “I know where one is near here. While I’m doing that, go visit your parents and have a talk with them. By the time you get back, I’ll be less jittery.”
* * *
So I went to visit my parents.
Which was easy to do because unlike most Hadens, I had more than one threep.
My “main” one, a Sebring-Warner 680XS, was the one in the passenger seat of the FBI car on the way to Philly. I’d gotten it when I traded in my 660XS, which had been relatively new, but which, thanks to my gig, I put a lot of wear and tear into. The 680XS had, as I noted to Vann earlier, all the bells and whistles.
My second threep was a Kamen Zephyr, a nice model although this particular threep was extensively refurbished. This one stayed at my parents’ house, because I liked visiting my parents and sometimes I didn’t feel like dealing with traffic in my 680XS. Also, my biological body was still at my parents’ place, even though I rented my room in D.C. and my main threep stayed there. If I needed to quickly engage with my biological body in some way, I’d pop into the Zephyr.
(I had a third threep, too: a Brummel Maier-Vonn III, which was kept in the family vacation home in the Jackson Hole valley. It was specifically designed for skiing and winter sports. The MVIII is essentially a snowmobile for Hadens. I’ve mentioned the family was wealthy. We do obnoxious wealthy things from time to time, like have vacation homes in Jackson Hole and own ridiculously specialized equipment. I don’t even like skiing all that much.)
The ability to switch from one threep to another almost instantly could be disconcerting for non-Hadens. It felt a little like teleportation to them. I explained it now and again by saying it’s not really any different from switching between a phone and a tablet, but admittedly there’s a scaling issue between looking at one screen and then at a different one, and seemingly moving one’s consciousness from one machine body to another. Which could be half a planet away. Which really was kind of like teleportation, come to think of it.
The secret is that neither I nor any Haden ever really goes anywhere. We’re always in the same place: in our bodies. Mine was in suburban Northern Virginia, in a sunny room at my parents’ house, in a top-of-the-line creche, with a full-time caregiver watching over it at all times, and a spare threep sitting in an induction chair, in case I want to use it. Which I did, now, to visit with my mother and father.
I didn’t just drop in. Despite the fact that my biological body was in the house, I now spent most of my conscious time at the home I shared with Tony and my other flatmates. Other than actual physical emergencies involving my body, I tried to give my parents a heads-up when I was coming over. There was always a risk of dropping in at an inappropriate time. This is a phrase that works on many different levels, but in this particular case it would mean popping in on Dad when he was trying to do business.
But when I pinged Mom about coming over, she simply said, “Do. I think your father could use your perspective with one of his visitors.”
I found out what that meant when I caught up with Dad and his visitors in the trophy room. It was the room in which Dad kept the memorabilia from his NBA career and his business life. The point of it was to humble the millionaires and billionaires he met with. It usually worked. Sure, you might be a billionaire. But were you a billionaire with four NBA championship rings, like Dad? Probably not. Sit down.
“Chris!” Dad smiled widely at me when I came in, and got up from the couch where he was sitting with his two visitors, an older man and a younger woman. Both looked somewhat familiar. He crossed the room and gave me a hug. “Good to see you, kid.”
“I know, it’s been so long,” I joked.
“You’re kidding with me, I get that, but I didn’t really get to see you yesterday, now did I?” Dad said.
“No, I guess not,” I admitted.
Dad nodded and motioned toward his guests. “You’ll recognize Wendell Gordon, the North American Hilketa League commissioner, and this is Amelie Parker, who is the CEO of a start-up named MobilOn.”
Now I recognized where I knew both of them. Gordon I’d seen yesterday, at the game. He’d been the NAHL executive who looked directly at me when his apparatchik was talking in his ear, telling him about Duane Chapman. It’s possible that he might not have known that threep was me at the time.
Parker I recognized not because of Parker, whom I had never met before, but because the woman in front of me was an Integrator, a person Hadens hired to borrow their bodies. Integrators had a neural net in their brains as well, which allowed Hadens to connect with their bodies and then control them, with some small assistance from the Integrators themselves. Integrators are fairly rare—there’s only about 10,000 of them in the United States—so they tend to have multiple clients who use their services at different times.
This particular Integrator was Lena Fowler, who was relatively new to the D.C. area. I recognized her because one of her clients was someone Vann and I investigated for wire fraud a few months earlier. That client pleaded guilty and was now serving three years in a Haden-specific federal penitentiary. She would not be using Fowler’s services again for a while, at least.
“Mr. Gordon, Ms. Parker,” I said, nodding to both. As was customary, I did not acknowledge Fowler, because she was working for a cli
ent, and the client was presenting. I looked over at Gordon. “My condolences on Duane Chapman and Alex Kaufmann, sir.”
“Thank you.”
“And thank you for the league’s cooperation with the Bureau’s investigation of their deaths.”
Gordon was momentarily surprised and then made the connection of what it was that I did, and the fact that I was in the luxury suite the day before. “Yes, yes. We’re happy to assist.”
“As a matter of disclosure, you understand I cannot give you any information about the current state of either investigation, nor am I able to share such information with either of my parents.”
“Yes, of course,” Gordon said. I nodded again at that.
“Both Wendell and Amelie are here to try to make a hard press for me to join the Washington Hilketa franchise as a minority owner,” Dad said. “And that’s ‘minority owner’ in more than one way. Isn’t that right, Wendell?”
Gordon looked nonplussed at what Dad said, but then recovered. “Yes, I suppose that’s correct.” He turned to me. “Hilketa is one of the nation’s fastest-growing sports, and we’re proud of the diversity of our players and fans. But one area we could do better in is ownership.”
“He means that nearly all the NAHL franchise owners are white and male, and almost none of them have any personal connection with Hadens in their own family,” Dad said, smiling.
“That’s an artifact of the early rounds of funding and ownership,” Gordon said, hastily. “We were ambitious but perhaps not entirely wise in those early days. We’re looking to this expansion round of franchise ownership to do a bit of course correction.”
“So you’re interested in my dad being a part owner of the D.C. team because he’s black and because I’m his kid,” I said.
“Yes,” Parker said, interjecting before Gordon had a chance to attempt to fumble through an answer to that question. “And if those were the only reasons we were interested in your father—in both of your parents, really—then you would be absolutely right to call the league out on its tokenism. Just like you could call them out on tokenism for me because I’m a Haden. But in both our cases, it’s not just that. I mean, come on, Chris.” Parker motioned toward Dad. “This is Marcus Shane. Four-time champion with the Wizards. If anyone’s an actual living icon of Washington, D.C., it’s your dad. He knows more about the city, and the business of the city, and the sports life of this town, than anyone else.”
“Now that’s what’s called a quality buttering up,” Dad said.
Parker smiled and laughed. “Thank you. I try.”
“Amelie, maybe you can tell Chris about MobilOn.” Dad turned to me. “Amelie’s about to do a second round of funding for her company, and independent of whatever happens with the league, I’m considering making an investment. I’d be curious as to what you think of her business model.”
I leaned in to Dad and got close to his ear. “I’m actually here to speak to you, you know,” I said in a low voice.
“I know. This is almost over.” We moved our heads away and then Dad motioned to Parker. “Do the elevator pitch, Amelie.”
“Two words,” Parker said. “Time-share threeps.”
“Come again?” I said.
“It’s simple,” Parker continued. “With the passing of Abrams-Kettering, we’re in a unique moment in the history of Personal Transports. Before AK”—I found myself slightly unsettled by the Abrams-Kettering Bill being referred to in a jargon-y acronym—“ownership of threeps was limited to Haden families, for the use of Hadens, and the purchase price largely subsidized through tax credits and low-interest loans. Now those subsidies are gone, which means the real-world price has gone up. That’s bad for a lot of Hadens, who now can’t afford a threep, and for the makers of threeps, who are seeing their sales fall through the floor. MobilOn helps solve both those problems.”
“By renting threeps to Hadens?”
“By offering a subscription that allows access to threeps.”
“‘Renting’ is shorter,” I said. “And there are already places to rent threeps.”
“That’s where the difference is.” Parker smiled. She was well into the meat of her presentation. “You rent a threep if you’re traveling to another city and you don’t want the expense of transporting your own threep, or if your primary threep is getting maintenance. With MobilOn, you get rid of the personal threep entirely.”
I had an internal shudder at that. “Why?”
“Because thanks to Abrams-Kettering, personal threeps are too expensive for a lot of Hadens,” Dad said.
“Right,” Parker acknowledged Dad’s point. “We could discuss the philosophical aspects of that and be here all day, but at the end of it, it wouldn’t change the fact that a lot of Hadens—a lot of us, Chris—can’t afford to buy and maintain their own threeps. Nor should they! How much time do Hadens actually spend in their threeps on a daily basis?”
“I’m in mine constantly. I’m an FBI agent.”
Parker made a motion with her hands, acknowledging the point. “You may not be our core user demographic,” she allowed. “But our studies show that more Hadens are spending less time in threeps. They’re spending more time in the Agora”—and here she acknowledged Dad, who a year ago made a major financial investment in the Haden community’s primary online space—“and otherwise doing their business through the virtual world. I know I do. I hardly ever use my threep anymore.”
I was tempted to point out that Parker was saying this while using an Integrator, the cost of which was exponentially higher, on a per capita basis, than using a threep with any regularity. I decided not to. “And you think this will be popular with people who have owned their own threeps all this time,” was what I said instead.
“We know that Hadens, like everyone, appreciate value. And we also know that the makers of Personal Transports would be delighted to have a mass buyer of threeps until the next market comes.”
“She means non-Haden users of threeps here,” Dad pointed out.
“Yes,” Parker said. “Now that AK has opened up the market to non-Hadens, it’s just a matter of time before they start using them. Older people. Those with non-Haden mobility issues. Able-bodied people who want to travel to faraway destinations but can’t take the time or make the financial investment for a full vacation. There’s an explosion of threep use less than a decade out. Some of these new users will want to own their own threeps. But others will just want access.”
“So your business model is to use Hadens’ reduced circumstances to reconfigure the threep manufacturing industry to your specifications, just long enough for the Hadens to become an afterthought to the threep manufacturing business entirely,” I said.
“I’m not the one who passed AK, Chris.” Parker was using a tone of voice that suggested she was often in a position of having to sound like she was very sorry that circumstances had come to this pass. “We work in the world that exists. In the world that exists, this isn’t just the reality, it’s an opportunity.”
“What do you think, Chris?” Dad asked.
I nodded to Parker. “I think you have your finger on the financial pulse of our times, Ms. Parker.”
Parker smiled at this.
“Now, what do you really think?” Dad asked, after he had said his goodbyes to Gordon and Parker and promised them they would hear from him soon about the franchise.
“I hate every single possible thing about it,” I said.
Dad nodded. “I thought you might.” He motioned with his head in the direction Parker and Gordon had exited. “But she’s not wrong, you know. Demand for threeps has cratered. Hadens are spending less time out in the physical world.”
“That’s because they can’t afford their threeps anymore,” I pointed out.
“Amelie does tend to gloss over the arrow of causation there,” Dad allowed. “But either way you point that arrow, it makes an argument for a service like MobilOn.”
“It feels like bloodsucking,” I said. “
She’s not doing this to help Hadens. She’s doing it to be first in line when everyone else wants to rent a threep.”
“You think Hadens will get pushed to the side with her business model, then.”
“We’re already being pushed to the side. And threeps are more important to Hadens than she’s saying. They’re not just a service.”
Dad nodded again, then looked over at me. “I knew you wouldn’t like it,” he said. “I told Amelie I thought you wouldn’t. She told me she was curious what you might think, which is why I made her tell you about it when you showed up today. But you seem to like it even less than I thought you would.”
“I’m in a bad mood,” I admitted. “Vann and I were talking about the people protesting Hilketa because there are no non-Haden players and I hear about this start-up, basically about making Hadens rent their meat world identity until the non-Hadens come around to marginalize them entirely. I feel like we’re slowly getting nudged out of our own space.”
“Join the club,” Dad said. “Well, sort of. You and I, we have some breathing room.”
“I’ve been thinking about that part of it, too,” I said. “So, you going to invest in the company?”
“I’m going to think about it some more,” Dad said. “Now, let’s you and I and your mother talk. What are you looking for?”
“The same thing you just wanted out of me, Dad. I want some perspective.”
Chapter Eight
VANN JUMPED A little when I popped back into my threep, causing the car to swerve until the lane assist kicked in. “Jesus,” she said.
“You knew I was coming back,” I told her.
“Right, but you’ve just been sitting there motionless for ninety minutes, and then suddenly you twitch.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. What did you get out of your parents?”
“The NAHL is definitely still pushing the ‘difficulty at home’ and ‘self-medicating’ angles.”