"The players trusted me—"
"And you shot honest footage. What happens in the edit bay isn't your call. It never was." A pause. "Every clip is real, Adrian. They're not fabricating—they're selecting. That's editorial discretion. Fully legal."
"There has to be something. Some way to stop this."
"The footage is on their servers. Duplicated, backed up, distributed." Her voice softened slightly. "You can refuse further shooting. Pull your name. Some version airs regardless. The only question is whether it gets better or worse."
"How could it get worse?"
"They send someone else and build a longer piece. Interview teammates with leading questions." She paused. "Right now it's a three-minute proof of concept. Without you pushing back, they'll make it comprehensive."
"What do you want from me?"
"A decision as we discussed. You're down to twenty-four hours. Deliver something they can use, or walk away and let someone else shape it." I heard a sharp intake of breath. "For what it's worth—I watched your mentorship footage and the hockey sequences. There's a real documentary in there. Something that could complicate their narrative, but that means you'd have to stay at the table."
"You're asking me to feed them more."
"I'm asking you to stay in the game. The alternative is flipping the table and watching them play without you."
The line went dead.
7:14 a.m.
Pickle would be awake by now. He'd find my note—my ten vague words scrawled on the back of his grocery list. He would assume I was doing something mundane.
I could drive to his apartment. Show him the cut. Let him decide how to respond.
That was the right thing to do. I knew it in my bones.
Then I thought about his face—the grin fading, brightness draining as he understood what they'd made of him. What my footage helped make. He'd look at me and realize I'd known. That I'd held him last night and said nothing.
You should have told me.
The imagined pain was unbearable. Not his—mine. My inability to watch his face crumble knowing I was the reason.
I wasn't protecting Pickle. I was protecting myself.
I set the phone down and picked it up again.
There might still be a way.
Naomi had said I could shape the final product. I also had other options—Lenny Roth and the counter-documentary angle. If I had twenty-four hours to build something better, maybe I could present Pickle with a solution instead of a catastrophe.
I opened my contacts. Scrolled to Lenny's number.
The call connected on the third ring.
"Adrian. I was wondering when you'd call back."
"It's worse than I thought." The words scraped out. "The network sent a reference cut. They've turned him into a meme compilation. Circus music, sound effects, and his worst moments on loop."
Silence. Then: "How bad?"
"Bad enough that I can't sleep. Bad enough that I'm calling you at seven in the morning asking if there's any way to move faster."
Lenny exhaled slowly. "I've been thinking about what you told me. Kid finding himself, team dynamics, and small-town hockey—that's in our wheelhouse. There's a real documentary in that footage."
"Can you do anything with it?"
