[Brackets] (26 page)

He hoped that Jason was watching
from whatever hole he was hiding in
. He hoped that Jason had
seen
the pi
tiful victim of his “Typhoon150”
prank lose his mind. Jason’s horse was out of the race
, and Neeson was in for the win
. As for the other two, he had no reason to fear them. The frat
kid
was merely riding
his school’s wave of success. There were probably thousands of people projecting Nebraska to get that far; someone was bound to get lucky
. The other one, the secretary, he just looked like he wanted to go home. He clearly had no real stakes in the game
; they clearly weren’t plants of Jason’s
. Both Cole and Tucker had chosen UCLA to win the next game, but BC had the best player by far in the Williams kid, and
they’d
had
a more dominant tournament run. With the win, Neeson was guaranteed the million dollars, half of which would be a nice little floater for the company. In a few weeks, after business picked up, he might even pay off Graham and finally cut that awful chain from his neck. His company, including OPUS, would finally be his alone.

He hadn’t heard from Graham that whole week. He didn’t care.

His inbox cleared, h
e checked the time. He would have to be getting back
to
the arena soon. He wanted to be on time for his big game.

Neeson finished his sandwich, left a nice tip in the jar on the counter, and walked back
toward
the arena entrance in no hurry. All kinds of people, tourists and street vendors and homeless people, bustled around him on the sidewalk. No one seemed to recognize him, but that would change, he knew. Two more games.

Just outside of the entrance, Neeson saw someone that he recognized. Someone wearing a UCLA baseball cap.

“Nice h
at, Mr. Graham,” Neeson smirked, “b
ut I think that you’re cheering against the home team.
”

“Maybe,” said Graham, eating a fist full of something from one of the vendors. “You think OPUS is going to prove itself tonight?”

“I think it’s proven itself well enough for the past t
hree
weeks. Why are you here?”

“You didn’t think I would miss your moment of glory, did you?” Graham asked as he sidestepped some pedestrians.

Neeson waited for a real answer. W
hen it didn’t come, he asked, “H
ow’s Jason doing?”

“He sends his regards.”

“You saw that his puppet bracketeer took a nasty fall a while ago? That’s why you don’t buy the knock-off version, Mr. Graham, you buy the real thing.”

“You seem awfully confident for someone who still has a game to watch.”

“I am. And when I win, I will declare this proof of principle a success, and I will expect you to hold up your end. My company is on the verge of a boom, and your
continued
investment will be just what we need to push us over into a sustainable profit margin.”

“What makes you think that we even need OPUS anymore when we just bought the designer?”

Neeson’s smile faded. “You don’t need him to reinvent something that I’ve already perfected.”

“Jason seems to think that your success isn’t as guaranteed as you’re making it out to be.”

“Jason is a liar,” Ne
eson barked, drawing a few startled stares from people walking by. Neeson noticed the attention and walked Graham around the corner where they were less visible. “Jason is a traitor and a back-stabber. He can’t be trusted.”

“We’re not in the business of trusting, Neeson. We’re in the business of acquiring. We acquired Jason because he has a skill set that we need. Who knows, perhaps someday we’ll acquire you as well.”

“I’m not for sale, Graham.
And w
e had a deal.”

“Calm down,” Graham ordered. “Our deal still stands. You just might be an investment that could pay off.” Graham took a step forward and leaned uncomfortably close to Neeson’s right ear. “But I want to remind you of something you seem to have forgotten. You
are still in our debt. You still haven’t finished your end, and you still have no buyers for your highly risky product. In other words, you are still sitting squarely under my shoe. And if you find yourself on loser’s row at the end of the day, then my foot comes down hard. I will own you.”

Graham took a step back and
brought another handful of food to
his mouth.
“Enjoy the game,
”
Neeson sneered at him, then walked away.

Neeson quickly entered the arena, his good mood totally spoiled. The game was about to start
. He was going to win this game
just
as he had won the previous
sixty-one
. Graham would have to make him an offer, and Neeson would
tell him to shove it.
No, no actually he would take the money.

When he sat down, he was excited and determined. He barely acknowledged Cole or Tucker or the pretty girl that to whom Tucker had generously offered Perry’s seat. Neeson clapped loudly and vigorously as the game started.
He remembered that he actually liked basketball.

He ended up applauding for most of the first half. Boston College came out strong and held a solid lead. Tucker leaned
forward to see Neeson
and yelled, “Man, Good Williams is killing it for you.” On cue, Good Williams banked in a jumper with no time on the shot clock to put BC up by ten. The crowd roared as Tucker began to explain
to Cole
the difference between G
ood Williams and Other Williams.
Other Williams, sitting at the end of the bench, jumped up and waved his towel to hype up the spectators behind him.

Neeson was so happy that
he stood up to give an ovation. He looked around the arena and saw laid out before his eyes all of the variables at play in winning and losing—all of the variables he had harnessed and quantified in OPUS. The BC coach with his 40 years of experience and his previous NCAA championships, both as a player and as a coach. The BC team with its seniority and high assist-to-turnover ratio. Even the BC fans, who had sold out every game in Boston and had come out in much stronger force than the west coast UCLA fans.

He was having fun. He thought about setting up an arena in Chlorophyll Valley—nothing too big, mostly for regional events.
WindSkin Arena. That sounded good. He looked over at the younger man, Cole Kaman, whose face was a mask of tension.

“Come on Cole, you should be enjoying this more,” he nudged. Cole looked back at him acidly.

“Whatever.”

Neeson backed off without pressing. After all, he didn’t want to give Cole any unwarranted confidence. Cole was riding on
pure
luck;
it couldn’t be a comfortable feeling
. Good Williams stole the ball and passed it up for an easy lay-up. Boston College was up by 12 at the half, and Neeson felt good enough to buy himself a
beer
. On the way up, he was stopped by a reporter.

“What do you see going into the second half?” the reporter asked.

Neeson smiled.
“I think Boston College is showing what I thought they would. They’re poised, they’re confident, they look like they want it more. My kind of people. I think, by the end of the night, we will each be a win away from one big celebration on Monday evening.” The reporter thanked him and left.

Coming up behind him, Tucker overheard their conversation. “I don’t think you should be so sure yet, man. There’s still a lot
of time in this half. A twelve
point lead is nothing.”

Neeson laughed it off. “Come on, BC is destroying this team. Williams almost has a double-double already. Do you really see those guys making some miracle comeback?”

“All I’m saying is that you may be jinxing yourself by claiming victory this early.”

“I’m not Perry. I don’t do jinxes. Winning, on the other hand… ” He left Tucker and went to buy himself a beer.

The second half began much like the first. BC continued to dominate, but UCLA didn’t completely go away. With five minutes left in the game, BC was up by eight—enough for Neeson to begin strategizing what he was going to do for the final few minutes. The cameras would be on him eventually, if they weren’t already, so he had to make a good showing. Applause during the final two minutes, then standing applause for the final minute. And he had to be smiling—not like an idiot, but satisfied, assured, vindicated. He thought it would be good to find some BC fans somewhere close by so that he could hand out high-fives and clap victoriously. He saw a
clump of them two rows back and estimated how long it would take him to run up conspicuously.

He snapped back into focus when the crowd around him gasped and stiffened. Looking down, he saw a BC player on the floor, crumpled on the ground and holding his knee.

“Whoa,” Tucker exclaimed, “did Williams just go down?”

“Wait, which Williams?” demanded Neeson. But he didn’t need to ask.

“He’s not getting up,” Tucker said, with hints of both remorse and sinister glee at the sudden loss of color in Neeson’s face. “I think you’re in trouble, man.”

A sudden panic gripped Neeson by the throat
.
His
mind began ticking back through his data
he had fed to OPUS
. Had he included injuries in the massive data sweeps that had created the brackets program? Of course he had—he couldn’t have left off something like that. BC had a very low injury rate. Good Williams hadn’t been out with injuries during the regular season. Could this possibly have been taken into account? With a swift mental kick, Neeson brought himself back to the game. He couldn’t lose it now. Yes, there was an accident—but that didn’t affect any of the other
myriad
factors still at play, still accounted for, still under control. The coach was the same. The other players were the same. Just under four minutes left—what could happen in that space of time? Good Williams probably would have been benched for the last minute anyway since they were so far ahead. Neeson focused on deep breaths as two teammates walked Good Williams off the floor.

But as soon as play resumed, the feeling of the game began to change. UCLA got a quick steal out of a timeout and scored an easy lay-up. BC took a bad shot that clanged off the rim and directly into the hands of the UCLA point guard, who sprinted back up t
he floor and shot a quick three-
pointer. Thirty game seconds after Good Williams was out, BC’s lead was cut in half. Neeson watched all of this without speaking. Tucker, on the other hand, spoke quite a bit.

“I
told you! I told you!” he crowed
. “You
don’t call it till it’s over, t
hat’s why you play the game. There
is change in the wind, my man
.” The last remark
made Neeson go rigid.

UCLA made another strong drive and got fouled. Neeson breathed easier when they missed both free throws. Everything was
okay; this would play out correctly.
T
housands of data points and
hundreds
of
hours of intense computation
could be depended on. Four minutes left.

Both teams traded baskets for the next minute and a half. Neeson found himself cheering anxiously every time BC did something even remotely good. “Come on, come on!” he yelled. To his horror, BC responded by making a bad pass that led to another UCLA shot. Three-point game.

Tucker leaned over and started quipping. “You sure BC stands for ‘Boston College’ and not ‘Big Chokers?’” Cole laughed until he saw Neeson’s glower, which remained stubbornly focused on the court.

With 1:42 left to play, UCLA rebounded another BC shot and launched it up
court to a guard, who went in to make a lay-up and was fouled in the process. “Ooooh!” Tucker stood, “And one! And one! Tie it up, baby!” UCLA made the shot. Tie game.

This is impossible
, Neeson thought. He couldn’t have come this far only to lose because of a freak injury. OPUS couldn’t have missed the possibility that the team would completely collapse without one player. BC called a time out. With the crowd on its feet, Neeson leaned in to Cole.

“So, Cole, you said at the press conference that you didn’t have a system for picking the teams, right? Just between you and me, you have one, right? Or someone gave you suggestions?”

Cole raised his eyebrows and glanced at the engineer sideways. “Really, I didn’t even think about it. I was just doing it for a girl. Why, you have one?”

The teams were back on the court, and Neeson left Cole’s question unanswered. Just a minute and a half to go. Anything could happen.

BC got the ball out of the time out and made a jump shot. Back on top. UCLA brought the ball down, taking their time and passing a lot at the top of the three-point line. With five seconds left on the shot clock, the guard forced up a three-pointer that was contested. The shooter fell backwards on the floor with his hand in the air as the ball barely missed the fingers of the blocker, arched, and went in. The shooter jumped up and pumped his fists as his team tried to refocus him. BC came back fast and took advantage of the
momentary lapse to drive up court. The ball went to Other Williams, who crashed straight into the chest of the UCLA center as he rolled the ball high off his fingers. The ball dropped into the hoop as the referees whistled a foul.