The Second Floor | Follow the Queen (63.05)

[mragland]

12.15.2062 – GBC Winter Meetings

Grant had covered a half dozen of these things as a freelance baseball reporter. Front office turnover in the consortium is unreal. There were always new faces to talk to at these things, and chances to get good copy if you timed your approach just right. Now he was a new face that sat in the hotel bar wearing his Monarchs quarter zip contemplating his life choices.

Alastair came back to the table with drinks (a beer for himself, and greyhound for Grant). “So,” said Alastair, “things kick off tomorrow. Anything I should know about the Rule 5 draft?” It was Alastair's first time, and he seemed eager to make a good impression.

Grant leaned over and pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pants pocket. He handed it to Alastair. “There's our draft list. Do us proud.”

Alastair unfolded the paper, looked at it, flipped it around, looked again. “This is a blank sheet of paper.”

“Yup.”

“So, I'm going to the ballroom tomorrow just to say 'Monarchs pass'?”

“Yup. And I'll be sleeping in,” said Grant with a grin as he raised his glass to give Alastair a mock salute. “But seriously, it will be good to get the experience and, fingers crossed, maybe somebody will take a couple of our guys so we don't have to pay them.”

The two of them enjoyed their drinks for a bit when Alastair asked, “what about the competition in the division this year? What do you make of the Pearls and that whole AI general manager project?”

“League Control 1, the Deep Blue of baseball management? It's a ruse.”

“A ruse?”

“There's no computer running Tokyo, it's just a smoke screen for their human GM, Marko.”

Alastair looked confused, “the Toledo GM?”

Grant nodded, “and Phoenix, and Tokyo. The guy likes running baseball teams.”

Alastair mulled this over for a bit. “I assume there are rules against that, and this AI manager cover exists to skirt those rules? Is this commonly known?”

“Yeah, not a big fan of rules, Marko, but the GBC and BBA are walled off from each other enough that there isn't really any room for shenanigans. Mostly I think they do it to give him cover in Phoenix, where a side gig wouldn't go down so well with ownership. Not well known, so far as I know, so keep it under your hat.”

“Isn't he,” said Alastair, “a bit of a clown, though?”

“Marko? No,” said Grant. “He wants you to think that he's a clown. In wrestling, they'd call it a work. He's like a street hustler running a three-card monte game, using patter to misdirect and distract you. Or maybe it's just for his own amusement. We dealt with Phoenix when I was in Valencia. Completely normal negotiations. No clowning.”

Grant looked down at his watch. “Shit, we better clear out before the karaoke starts.”

[Jwalk100]

Thanks, I'll take a zero.