The Second Floor | Unhappy Accidents, pt. 3 (63.12)

[mragland]

3.28.2063 – Richmond upon Thames, Greater London

Grant was sitting behind his desk, in his office, looking out at his subordinates, and still felt like a naughty school boy getting lectured by the principal. Objectively, none of this affair was even remotely his fault, why had things taken such a turn?

Arlo had quickly moved on from establishing that the machine had been sabotaged to looking for a possible motive. Kun was taciturn, reserved, and had almost no social media presence (probably good practice for someone from the PRC). He expressed no controversial opinions and had no known enemies. Arlo concluded from this that whoever initiated the brush back protocol for the Pilots pitcher Bryan Hall wasn't interested in hurting Kun in particular, but doing damage to somebody, anybody, in the Monarchs lineup.

The machine mimicked Hall, a right-handed reliever who featured a 99 mph fastball and a curveball that would run away from a right-handed hitter, such as Kun. Everybody knew that the PitchPath 3000 was programmed not to hit batters in the cage by default, for fairly obvious reasons of liability in case a hitter got beaned. Although Kun could not recall the events just before his injury, it was fairly easy to reconstruct the events that led to it. He saw a ball, apparently up and in. Knowing that the machine wouldn't throw him high cheese, Kun dove in on what he assumed was a curveball that would be middle-middle by the time it crossed the plate.

But the machine did contain vestigial code for a brush back pitch, known within the company as the Ryan Express, a fastball up and in that a batter would need to get out of the way of in a hurry. Only someone well versed with the machine's software could activate it, which someone did, and apparently only for this one pitcher. The company's tech estimated it would take a person who knew what they were doing a couple of minutes.

Kun did not get out of the way of the pitch, but instead took a 99 mph fastball to the ear hole of his batting helmet. It could have been worse, though the team trainer was concerned that Kun was not being entirely forthcoming about the after affects of the concussion.

And now Arlo, in all seriousness, had asked Grant if he had ever been sued for libel for anything he wrote as a freelance journalist.

Grant replied truthfully that he had not.

Arlo brought up an article that Grant had co-written with seven others a couple years back. It was a Brewster piece, the sort of thing that Grant contributed to fairly infrequently over the years. An article in which Grant had compared certain owners and executives at handful of clubs as “prospective inmates at an asylum for the criminally insane.”

“It was properly sourced, and I gave specifics,” protested Grant. “And if you think that's hyperbole, let me just tell you about the FL Pacific,” he went on. “I was there, man.”

Arlo raised a hand. “And do any of these individuals strike you as the vindictive type, that might like to see you fall flat on your face here in London because of what you wrote about them?” he asked.

Grant took a slow, sober breath, and another. “Damn,” he said, quietly. “Arlo, I've got some bad news. Your list of suspects … it ain't gonna be short.”

Grace cleared her throat. She spoke softly and carefully. “Grant, why don't you write down a list of names. If I know Arlo, he's already got his in hand,” at this, Arlo nodded. “You two compare notes and then he and I can discuss next steps. Can you do that?”

Grant nodded and pulled out a notepad from his desk drawer.

[JRamirez]

Love Hall's intangibles.