Fiction River: Risk Takers, page 4
However, the imprint of her fingers remained.
That moment, right there, wasn’t the Heather he’d known. The Heather who’d been on the mound for ten years.
Brett yanked off his hat. Practically pulled out the few, small remaining hairs there.
“Damn it.” He called up Ethan on the network. “Put a bid out on Heather.”
There was a pause. An intake of breath.
Brett understood why, completely.
“How much?” Ethan asked.
“Five million.”
Again, there was that breath. “That’s a lot, sir.”
“It is.”
But GEF had put a lot of hype and promise on that girl. Hopefully, maybe, enough to pull her off whatever cocktail they’d dosed her with. Before her next treatment. Before she triggered. Maybe even to do their due diligence and figure out what they were doing to these girls.
What they’d done to his girl.
But, he knew, the end result would be the same. Always would be.
“Put the bid in, Ethan.”
“They’ll want to talk with you, you know. Once they see her name on the charts, and that the bid came from you.”
“I know.”
“You know they’ve been playing nice, but if you push too hard… Brett, they’re putting two-and-two together. Everyone is. They’re going to get a warrant to search Golden Touch. They’ve threatened you before with that, sir. That if you know something that could help these girls—”
“Because they suddenly care so much? That they suddenly see these girls as humans and not a commodity? Not a property to control?”
“They’ve used both arguments before.”
They had.
They’d also won, with both.
Brett fitted his hat back on. Pulled the brim low until it practically hid his face. Not that there was anyone to see.
“It won’t matter,” Brett said. “They get the warrant, and what? See the 27 ranking we gave her?”
Again, another pause. “How did you know, sir? About Heather?”
“I don’t know anything yet. She’s still alive, after all.” Hopefully, she could be alive for a bit longer.
“But your percentage… no one’s come close to predicting the rate you are.”
Brett tuned Ethan out. It was a conversation they’d had a dozen times, ever since he’d first approached the kid to build him the program and mathematics plugged into Golden Touch.
Instead, Brett brought up the image of Carrie. Watched her watch him.
GEF, the government, anyone they wanted could search his computer, his files, and they wouldn’t find anything.
Couldn’t.
Not when it lived in his gut.
Haunted, him, with every breath.
Brett had found only one way, since taking out GEF hadn’t worked, to live with himself.
He touched the small Bluetooth in his ear. “Isn’t it about time for my appointment?”
“He’s in your lobby now. You sure about this? You know… no one’s making you do any of this.”
Again, Brett looked at Carrie. At that wild look in her eyes. The dark, hard glare she gave at the batter, at the world.
“Just send him up.”
Brett cut off the view of Carrie and the Los Angeles stadium. Blinked as the sudden, harsh light from his overhead glared down at him. At his large, empty office. An office overlooking the pier of Manhattan Beach and the bright blue Pacific Ocean—none of which he could see, or ever did, as the windows were blinded up. Not a single glint of light creaking in to distort his videos.
The empty chairs by his desk and phone—a phone which now blinked red.
Fast.
Like a pile of messages were suddenly thrown on it and the poor thing was thinking of imploding.
Most likely true. Especially with the bid on Heather having just gone out.
He could bet, pretty comfortably, on who the first call would be from.
The steel elevators to his office chimed. The light there blinking once, red, in warning, and then slowly, sliding open with barely a sound.
Brett stuffed his hands into jean pockets. Felt the weight he always carried, seem to pull at him, at his feet as he dragged his attention to the man—the father now striding in.
Fists clenched at his sides. Forehead crinkled toward his eyes, nose. Face tanned as if he spent every waking day of sunlight out on the field with his little girl, helping her practice, to hone her skill so that perhaps just one day, she might get the call from GEF.
A call which she’d, finally, received.
From the corner of his eye, a screen, from Ethan, lifted up. It was a tiny screen, lit only in his direction. Showed Brett all the stats and facts they had on this man, and his daughter.
As if Brett needed the reminder.
He blinked the screen away. It did so.
Brett didn’t need any of that. He never did.
Their stories, really, were all the same.
Just different names, different girls and different fathers, but the recipe, always, stayed the same.
Dan R. Holte, father of up-and-coming Lauren Holte, pitcher and league star for the Crescenta Valley Softball League. The league really was as small as it sounded, a regional group just north of Los Angeles, barely a blip on Brett’s radar if not for good ol’ GEF who’d learned—and learned quickly—to find them young. These girls only had so much time that their bodies could handle the enhancements. They might as well get the most bang for their buck.
Receive an education? Play college ball?
Only pansy girls played in those Ivy Leagues and Pac-12s.
The girls who were good, who held promise and spark, all those were drafted into the One and Only League that mattered.
Just like Lauren.
Brett came forward. Held out a hand. His sneakers squeaking on the brown tile floor. He missed the hard-packed dirt of the field—even though he hadn’t actually stepped on a real field in years.
Not like this man.
“Thank you for coming. I understand this may seem a bit forward and—”
“You have a lot of nerve, Mister.”
Brett lowered his hand. Had hoped, this time, it might be different. “Yes. I’m afraid I do.”
Holte took the two steps separating them. Shoved his hands, using the force of his whole body behind him. A quite considerable force, with that extra girth around his middle. Shoved it all right into Brett’s chest.
Brett saw it all in the seconds before it happened. But he didn’t move.
Instead, he let his body take the hit.
Brett stumbled back. Nearly tripped on an unlaced shoelace he hadn’t noticed until now.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Holte demanded. Face flamed and red. The need, the desperate need to lash out and hit someone, taking over.
He came again.
And again, Brett didn’t move.
He understood, all too well, that need.
“Calling my family at home?” Holte shoved. “Watching my daughter?”
Yet another, shove.
“You think you’re gonna put some bid on her? She’s not even thirteen—you goddamn monster!”
But when Holte moved in for yet—another and final—shove, Brett slid to the side.
Simply pivoted on his shoes. Sneakers gave a final, loud, screech.
The larger man rushed by.
“You must understand, Mr. Holte. I have spent every day, every waking moment since my daughter died, watching these girls. Assessing them. Studying them. But what I have not done, ever, is place a bet on a girl before she’s even in the League.”
“You expect me to believe that? That as soon as we receive the contract I get a call from your office. That you want to meet me?”
Holte spun toward him. Spit sprayed from his mouth. Clung to the few whiskers of beard holding onto his chin.
By the time Lauren was in the League and playing, truly playing, not an inch of hair would be left. Not on the man’s chin. Not on his head.
“I know all about you,” Holte sneered. “Everyone knows about you and your crusade against GEF all because your daughter couldn’t hack it. I’ve read the reports on her.”
Brett flinched. Couldn’t help it.
He’d seen those reports. All doctored, and not a one actually explaining what had happened.
What had triggered his daughter, both for her eventual death, and the first murder in the League.
A murder that had made the League’s numbers, and values, soar.
But Holte wasn’t finished. “I also know you get your stats before the girls even get to the League. Before they even receive treatments!”
GEF had armed him good, this time. Learning, finally, how to hit Brett in the one place it actually hurt.
And the one place that made him stand there, again and again, against Ethan’s and his lawyers’ advice.
Time and time again.
“I do watch the girls, same as GEF.” Brett was glad, this time, he hadn’t kept the image of Carrie up. That had always made this worse. “It is what I do. Just the same as GEF.”
Holte seemed like he wanted to make another go at it—as if he needed to—but sort of froze there, one foot still in the air. As if he’d finally heard something other in Brett’s voice.
The pain that never left him.
The pain of letting his daughter down.
Brett kept his hands at his side. “You want to protect her. That’s what’s eating you, isn’t it?”
Calm as always. Studied this angry, fearful father as closely as he had Heather.
“That’s the question tumbling through your mind, again and again. You keep asking yourself. You keep wondering. You read that contract, that very carefully worded and phrased contract, and you don’t like what you saw.”
“It’s Lauren’s dream.” Holte’s voice broke.
“It was Carrie’s dream too. She’d worked so hard. Had dreamed, since she could throw a ball, of being like the boys. Playing for the Majors.”
God, how he remembered that dream. Remembered that still hopeful glint in her eyes. The declaration that she was going to be the first girl to do it.
“I couldn’t deny her that.” Brett yanked off his hat. The Strike Team hat. Carrie’s team, the one he’d coached, when they’d finally been approached by GEF. “I couldn’t. Even though I didn’t like it.”
He fingered the worn, red and white sticking. The small, fraying strings hanging loose, coming off the curled letter ‘S.’
“You want to know why I watched your Lauren? Why I watch all those girls like her, up and coming stars, same as I do with the League?”
Brett risked a glance. Saw, instead of the towering, enraged man who needed to protect his daughter… there was a man who shook from his very core. The thought, the realization that he needed to protect—and that he might not be able to.
Holte’s eyes were shadowed now. As if they’d sunk further into his skull. Finally showing the dark, heavy gray lines surrounding them. From those worrying, sleepless nights.
Finally, Holte let out a shaky breath. It rattled right out of his chest, somewhere between a sigh, and a cry. “I heard out those fellows from GEF, seems only fair I hear you.”
Fair enough. More than Brett had ever expected.
Brett tossed his hat onto the floor. “I couldn’t protect her. And I should have. I should have.”
The hat landed with a quiet flop.
Holte stared at Brett for a long time, then finally glanced around the room, and finally seemed to see what was there. And not what he’d probably imagined.
The bare, lifeless room, a room nothing like the famous sports bettor Brett Attwood was rumored to have. A room that didn’t at all fit with the money picture a man like Brett Attwood had.
“You sign that contract and you’ll lose her,” Brett said. “Forever. And I’ve got to tell you, that wasn’t the contract I signed when I decided to be a father. Not for any money. Not for any dream.”
Holte didn’t move. “You’ve probably got all the vids. All the stats and all the papers backing up your claim. GEF had those too. But what they didn’t have is knowing when a girl’s about to be lost. You seem to have that.”
Brett breathed in.
Long. Deep.
Felt that twisting again in his gut, but this time like it wanted to reach up through his throat and strangle him.
“I do.”
“How?”
“It’s something GEF never factored in. Something they should have. Something I called the F Factor.”
“F Factor? You mean, like some kind of code? Some gene those crazy smart scientists of theirs missed?”
But Holte wasn’t mocking him. Instead, he seemed to turn inward. Forehead wrinkling in thought. Glanced down, as if he felt that same twisting of gut that was trying so hard to eat Brett alive.
“Christ.” Holte shook his head. “That’s all… that’s all it is. It’s not about stats or performance. Not even genetics. That’s your big secret, except it’s not much of a secret is it?”
“No. Not if you ask any parent. It’s no secret at all.”
“And the rest of it?” Holte motioned to the big, empty office. “All the millions you make or break every day. Where’s all that going? Jets? Private islands?”
“You want to know about the money. About where it goes.”
Brett reached into his pocket. Held out the small piece of folded paper. A check. Completely foreign in this new world of live videos and genetic enhancements.
But it had been handwritten, by him.
“GEF’s offered your family a lot. This is no pay-off. Not what the lawyers and lawsuits can, and do, try to make of it. You can take it and sign that contract anyway. It’s just something to help you think, maybe, that you don’t need all that fame. All that money.”
“We don’t need the money.” Holte held out his hand to Brett. “Just our daughter.”
“I understand.”
And he did. Completely.
Instead of handing this father a check, Brett instead shook the man’s hand. Gripped fingers long since calloused from throwing softballs. From smacking balls hard into the field so his girl could field them, again and again.
Neither man needed to say another word. Just an understanding in that simple shake—a shake that wasn’t simple at all.
“Sir,” Ethan’s voice cut through the bare, empty room except for two fathers and that lonely office desk. “I’ve got GEF on the phone. Actually, it’s their lawyers and they’re pretty insistent—”
“It’s all right, Ethan. I’ll take the call.”
Holte tipped his head to him, then turned for the elevator doors—even now opening for him at Ethan’s programmed code.
Brett didn’t immediately answer the phone. Just watched the other man, whose shoulders seemed to lift a bit more. His head, not quite so bowed and beaten.
Brett couldn’t help himself. He needed to watch, to see, one father do what he couldn’t.
Protect his little girl.
Before Holte got into the elevator, he turned, one final time. “You call it the Father Factor, don’t you? That’s how you know.”
“It could be M too, but Sarah… she had to stay with Carrie. One of us had to. She could never leave her daughter.”
Not like Brett had. Like he’d needed to.
Holte gave him another nod. Said nothing else, because really, nothing else needed to be said.
Because in the end, truly, Brett had never actually left.
Couldn’t.
He was, after all, still a father. Always would be.
Introduction to “No Free Lunch”
Anthea Sharp has only appeared once before in our pages, in Hex In The City, edited by Kerrie L. Hughes. While that statement is true, it is also false: Anthea appeared in our fourth issue, Christmas Ghosts, under another pen name, Anthea Lawson. Since she wrote this story for us, Anthea Sharp became a USA Today bestselling author with her YA series, Feyland.
About “No Free Lunch,” she writes, “I sometimes find myself pondering those small turning points in the day—the places where the ‘what-ifs’ reside. Going left instead of going right. Saying yes instead of no. Making a bet that can unexpectedly change a life, or save one.”
She adds, “The seed of this story came from my husband, Lawson; one of the best choices I’ve ever made.”
No Free Lunch
Anthea Sharp
Yvonne Clark leaned against the stained linoleum counter of Joe’s Café. Her polyester uniform kept in the heat, and her feet hurt, but it was almost the end of her shift. As soon as the middle-aged fellow in Booth 5 cleared out, she’d be off for the afternoon. Just in time to get the kids from school, and then start her second job typing up medical transcriptions.
The diner smelled of fry grease, overcooked coffee, and the ghost of cigarette smoke. No matter how much bleach Joe used on the cracked vinyl booths, on the counter and green-tiled floor, that smell still snuck back out eventually—like a teenage boy meeting a girl. Decades of people smoking while they ate breakfasts, lunches, and dinners couldn’t be eradicated by a new law and gallons of disinfectant.
Outside, it was a perfect fall day. The sun loitered, not ready to say summer was done, and the sky held that clear blue that only came around in September. Soon as she got home, she was opening all the doors and windows in the single-wide and letting that freshness blow through.
Booth 5 lifted his slightly-balding head and pushed his plate toward the middle of the table. With a sigh, Yvonne hefted the coffeepot and went over.
He’d left the ends of his French Dip sandwich, the crusts where the meat ran out. Also, the limp pickle spear. But he’d eaten all the macaroni salad, Joe’s signature dish.
“Get you anything else?” She lifted the coffee pot.
The man put his thin hand over his mug. “Just the bill. I have a ways to travel today.”
She’d known he wasn’t a local. Probably not even from the state. There was a foreign-type air around him, despite his plain features and thinning brown hair. Maybe it was his button-down shirt, a red that tipped too close to pink for a resident of any town situated on Route 12.
