2063.22 Birth of a Scandal

[Trebro]

The man knows he could read the results of his work online, but there's something satisfying about seeing it in black and white, with spots of color. He pays the coffee shop clerk for the pair of donuts, black coffee with extra sugar, and the most recent copy of the Yellow Springs Journal.

He sits down to eat, tossing the rest of the paper aside and going straight for the sports section. Despite it being the off-season, the primary focus is, as always, on baseball. In a giant headline, the news is exactly what the man wanted it to be:

"Breaking News: Under HIS Thum? McMonigal Keeps Family Ties Under Wraps"

Smiling, the man scarfed down his second donut and left all but the sports section behind. He wanted his trophy. He exited the shop and walked seemingly aimlessly down several blocks until he found a street with no one else on it. Pulling out a burner phone, he dialed the number.

"It's me. I assume you saw the headline."

"No, I made it myself. Less authentic and more likely to be caught, but now there's no trail other than the laptop currently being mailed to a dropbox I'll access later to wipe and send it to a watery grave. Boating accident."

"Yes, it will have the desired effect. Everyone reads the headlines – no one reads the correction on page twenty-seven. I've done this before, all right? It was never going to get everyone. Valerie wouldn't go for it, I didn't even try. But Wardman will force it into the news cycle and just enough people will believe to have them turn on Jordan, no matter what he's meant to them."

"I know, this is a great stroke of luck. McMonigal really should have let Thum take the major league hitting coach job over. Gave me the opening I needed for this."

The man senses someone coming from the cross-street.

"Time to go. We'll talk soon. This team will be yours before you know it."

He disconnects the call, pockets the phone, and meanders back towards the crowded but short city streets of Yellow Springs, being careful to deposit pieces of the phone in several trash cans in an erratic pattern.

Now to sit and wait for the fallout.