Thorne leaned back in his uncomfortable chair, the buzzing fluorescent light overhead doing little to soothe the tension coiled in his gut. The screen in front of him showed the recent job listings, a digital haystack where he sought the needle of opportunity. Shane's small subcontracting operation always posted odd jobs, usually unremarkable, but the current need for steady hands, coupled with the impossible deadlines Miller had relayed, felt like a crack in the foundation Shane was trying to build. A chance to insert influence, perhaps even cause the collapse before the next snowfall.
He considered the Marcos angle. A multi-person disruption was messy, too many variables for the delicate balance AN insisted upon. If one low-level operative slipped, the entire operation surrounding the immigrant worker could be compromised, drawing unwanted celestial attention. Thorne mentally scratched that plan. Keep it clean, keep it focused on the linchpins. Gary was still the easiest target, a raw nerve Apex Negativa could easily press.
Three applications had come in almost simultaneously, a promising spike in responses. Thorne had flagged them immediately as potential assets, though he wouldn't know Shane's burgeoning ability to see through celestial manipulation until it was too late. He quickly vetted the candidates against the internal files—no obvious ties to the old guard, no immediate red flags suggesting allegiance to Veritas Alpha. He flagged two of the applicants as acceptable assets, knowing they would naturally gravitate toward the chaos AN desired, perhaps subtly speeding up minor failures, but the third was a clear plant, intended to cause significant disruption if hired.
The interviews were held in the small, dusty trailer Shane used as an office. Shane, looking surprisingly composed for a man who just won a life-changing sum, sat across the folding table. Calvin, ever the picture of quiet competence, leaned against the wall, observing.
"Gentlemen," Shane began, his voice steady, "Miller's new deadlines are absurd, but we're going to meet them. I need workers who can deliver, not excuses."
Thorne's operative, a man named Rex, spoke first, radiating aggressive confidence. "Deadlines are just suggestions, boss, unless you start cutting corners. And I don't cut corners." Rex was primed to take shortcuts that would compromise safety, aligning with AN's goal of manufactured disaster.
Shane's internal interface flickered subtly, visible only to him. Rex's profile showed faint, almost imperceptible chaotic eddies swirling around him—a signature of influence, though not strong enough for Shane to immediately identify AN's direct control, only the pull toward disorder.
"Corners are what stabilize a roof, Rex," Shane countered, a faint smirk touching his lips. He looked down at his notes, ostensibly reviewing Rex's file, but in reality, applying a subtle cognitive nudge, a trick Calvin had shown him—a small burst of mental interference that made fabricated data seem utterly convincing to the recipient. "Your background mentions a significant delay on the Henderson job last year. Cost the primary contractor time and material. What happened there?"
Rex stammered, Thorne having supplied him with vague excuses that didn't account for this level of scrutiny. Shane leaned in, injecting just enough doubt into Rex's mind about his own fabricated memory. Rex ended up contradicting himself twice within three minutes, his narrative dissolving into panicked rationalizations. Shane made a neat, almost invisible notation of 'Rejected' beside his name.
The second applicant, a quiet man named Dave, seemed competent but unremarkable. His profile showed no celestial interference whatsoever—a blank slate, exactly what Shane needed to meet the immediate production demands. Shane nodded. "Dave, you're hired. Welcome aboard."
The third asset sent by Thorne, Martha, sat down last. She possessed an almost magnetic, distracting presence, carefully calibrated by Thorne to appeal to Shane's immediate desires or, failing that, to generally introduce discord. Her profile blazed with a distinct, though unfamiliar, celestial signature. It tugged at Shane's focus, trying to steer his attention away from her questionable references and toward her superficial charm. Thorne had prepared her to subtly sabotage the payroll system if hired, creating financial confusion.
Shane felt the pull, the system warning him of deceptive influence. He toggled his sight, focusing the clarity he'd gained. "Martha, your work history is extensive, yet you have no W-2s or 1099s listed for the last three years. Where did you *actually* work?"
Martha, relying on Thorne's implanted narrative about 'freelance consulting,' faltered when Shane pushed the legal inquiry. Shane then presented her with a fake onboarding packet, filled with dummy tax codes and obscure compliance regulations he'd managed to absorb overnight thanks to the AI system pushing necessary procedural knowledge into his operational memory. Martha, unprepared for this level of detail, looked genuinely confused, her carefully constructed facade crumbling under the weight of invented bureaucracy.
"I think we'll hold off on you," Shane concluded smoothly, standing up abruptly. He had planted enough distracting, misleading information in her mind during the cross-examination that she would report back to Thorne only partial, confused, and inaccurate data about the job's actual financial stability and schedules.
Shane shook hands with Dave for the second time, officially welcoming him. With Rex and Martha dismissed, Shane had hired only one operative connected to chaos, and that one was already operating under false premises designed by Shane himself.
He looked over at Calvin. Calvin gave the slightest, almost imperceptible nod of approval. The two new hires, entirely clean of celestial influence, were precisely the reliable additions needed to counterbalance the expected failings of the existing crew under Miller's pressure.
The moment Shane stepped out of the trailer, the world seemed to shift perceptibly. A ping echoed in his mind—a system notification. *Funds Transferred. Balance Updated.* The winnings had landed. Exactly when the impossible deadlines had been set.
Shane didn't savor the moment. He felt the weight of responsibility immediately. He pulled out his burner phone, the one he kept for sensitive calls, and dialed Gary.
Gary answered on the second ring, his voice surprisingly clear. "Yeah?"
"It's Shane. Up for work this morning?"
There was a beat of silence, a struggle audible even across the line. "Yeah, Shane. I'm clean. I went to that meeting last night. I'm here. I'm ready." Gary sounded raw, but resolute. The brief taste of clarity Shane had forced upon him at the gas station had clearly resonated deeper than expected.
"Good man. Saul and Ben are already on site. I'll swing by to pick you up in ten. We're going to hold the line today."
Next, Saul. Saul answered with a respectful, professional tone. Shane quickly confirmed that he would escort Marcos and Ben straight to the site, ensuring no stray temptations or traps would snag them on the way. Saul's reliability was a bedrock Shane intended to build upon.
That left Calvin. Shane looked toward the staging area where he'd seen Calvin standing earlier. Calvin wasn't there. He always seemed to materialize precisely when needed and vanish just as effectively.
Shane grabbed his thermos and headed to the small gas station two blocks from the site—the necessary stop for his pre-work ritual, which now included checking Gary's sobriety firsthand.
As Shane pulled his truck up to the pump, Gary was already waiting at the entrance, looking pale but remarkably composed. Shane got out to approach the station entrance, but before he could make it, a woman materialized seemingly from the air near the convenience store entrance. She was distracting by design—tight jeans that clung to every curve, a loose top hinting at cleavage, hair perfectly layered. She was Thorne's bait, angled directly toward Gary, the newly sober weak link.
Shane's system immediately flared red around the woman. *Celestial Interference Detected: Apex Negativa Agent.*
Shane moved instantly, crossing the distance between himself and Gary, effectively placing his body between Gary and the temptation. "Hold up, Gary."
The woman smiled, a professionally practiced beam of false warmth. "Hey there, handsome," she purred, shifting her attention to Shane with practiced ease, testing his defenses. "You look like you could use a break from all that hard work. Forget the job for a day. There's a party down by the river. Anything you want."
Shane felt the AI analyzing the temptation patterns, matching them against the goals stored in his knowledge base—the goal being to derail Gary's recovery and thus Shane's localized stabilization efforts. Shane gripped Gary's shoulder firmly, drawing on the authority he was rapidly realizing he possessed.
"Gary, listen to me," Shane ground out, keeping his voice low and intense, directing it solely at his employee. "This isn't a break. This is the devil offering you poison. She is literally the embodiment of every downward spiral you've been running from. Do not look at her dress, do not hear her words. She wants you drunk in a gutter by noon."
The effect on Gary was immediate and dramatic. His eyes, previously clouded with the effort of remaining sober, snapped wide open. He looked past Shane at the woman, and the artificial allure seemed to shatter. He shuddered, recoiling physically as if struck.
"God," Gary whispered, stumbling back against Shane's truck. "Shane, what the hell was that? It was like… like I could see through it for a second."
The system chimed in Shane's mind, louder than ever before. *Choice Threshold Met: Successful Defense of Local Asset Against Direct Temptation. New Skill Unlocked.*
A prompt flooded his vision:
**LEVEL UP REWARD: CHOOSE ONE**
**[A] Discernment (Mind Skill):** Enhanced ability to cut through deception, illusions, and ingrained falsehoods across all senses, including technological and psychological manipulation. Permanently reduces the difficulty of identifying agents of AN.
**[B] Super Speed (Physical Skill):** Allows manipulation of localized temporal physics, resulting in extreme acceleration of physical movement for short bursts. Requires significant focus and rapidly depletes energy reserves.
Shane looked at the woman, who was now giving a practiced, pouty scowl, realizing the attempt had failed spectacularly. He looked at Gary, who was shaking his head, trying to process the abrupt shift in perception. If he chose Discernment, he might never be fooled again. If he chose Super Speed, he could react to immediate physical threats.
He didn't answer the prompt. Not yet. He needed to see the day through. "We'll discuss it on Monday, Gary. Right now, we go to work. You got this?"
"Yeah," Gary breathed, straightening up, the sobriety now fortified by sheer adrenaline and terror. "I got this."
They got back in the truck. As they pulled away, Shane glanced in the side mirror. The woman hadn't moved, still projecting manufactured disgust, already receiving silent commands from Thorne about the next phase.
The drive to the job site was tense but productive. Gary was quiet, visibly processing his close call.
As they neared the construction zone, Shane scanned the site with his internal overlay. Saul, Ben, and Marcos were there, clustered near the scaffolding, apparently discussing a beam placement. And by the materials staging area, standing near the large mobile crane, was Calvin, looking like another day laborer waiting for instruction.
It was just as they parked that the next crisis erupted.
Shane saw it happen in slow motion, driven by the system's predictive capabilities overlaid on immediate reality. A rough, panicked shout went up from the crane operator high above. The safety rigging holding the massive bundle of prefabricated roofing trusses—a load already overloaded, likely due to Miller's haste—was slipping. The angle was critical. The load, dozens of heavy metal sections, was swinging catastrophically inward, its trajectory aimed precisely at the base of the crane where Calvin stood.
The system screamed danger, highlighting Calvin as the primary target of the imminent, fatal impact. Thorne had set the trap, hoping to eliminate the unknown variable.
*If Calvin dies, he will reincarnate. If he avoids it subtly, his presence here remains unexplained. If Shane intervenes in a physical, undeniable manner, the focus shifts to Shane.*
Shane didn't hesitate. The decision on the skill choice was made in a millisecond of pure necessity.
*Activate Super Speed.*
The world didn't slow down; Shane accelerated beyond normal perception. The air around him seemed to solidify, tearing slightly as he broke the sound barrier locally. He launched himself from the truck cab before the door had fully swung open.
To the naked eye of Gary, Saul, Ben, and Marcos, it looked like Shane sprinted like a madman toward Calvin. Gary saw a blur; the others saw an impossibly fast lunge.
Shane reached Calvin, grabbed the back of his heavy work shirt, and shoved. It wasn't a gentle push; it was an exertion of maximum force, propelling Calvin twenty feet horizontally toward a stack of unused drywall pallets.
The heavy load of trusses crashed exactly where Calvin had been standing a fraction of a second before, impacting the steel base plate of the crane with a deafening, bone-jarring clang that shook the entire site and sent metal fragments skittering across the asphalt. The sound was overwhelming, the visual impact terrifying.
Shane landed awkwardly near the disabled load, bracing for the impact, but he was already outside the danger zone, propelled by the kinetic energy of his own burst. He stumbled, catching himself on a stack of lumber, gasping for air. The world snapped back into normal time, the sounds rushing in five times louder than they should have been.
Gary stared, frozen, his jaw slack. Saul yelled something incoherent, rushing toward the wreckage, Ben right behind him.
Calvin, sprawled atop the soft drywall, sat up slowly. He brushed a speck of dust from his shoulder, looking directly at Shane. A slow, profound smile spread across his face—a smile that held eons of understanding and relief. He was unharmed, confirming his celestial resilience, but he was also deeply grateful for the mortal action.
"Shane!" Calvin called out, his voice raspy but clear over the lingering ringing in everyone's ears. "That was… decisive. Thank you."
The other workers converged, seeing Shane standing near the impact zone, breathing heavily, while Calvin was miraculously unscathed among the debris.
"What the hell was that, Shane?" Gary demanded, rushing over, eyes wide. "You moved like you teleported!"
Shane managed a shaky grin, leaning heavily on the lumber. "Just trying to keep the crew safe, Gary. I saw it shifting, reacted fast. Saved Calvin's hide, looks like." He deliberately downplayed the speed, masking the Super Speed activation, knowing that even this limited display would raise eyebrows.
Saul, ever practical, immediately began directing the panicked workers. "Everyone stay back! Check the rigging cable integrity! Ben, call Miller and tell him we have a serious incident!"
The impossible deadlines suddenly seemed secondary to avoiding OSHA inquiries and potential fatalities. Miller rushed over, his face the color of chalk, already picturing the meeting with his superiors collapsing.
Despite the near-catastrophe, the day closed with an undeniable victory in terms of productivity. The two new, clean hires—Dave and the operative Shane had fed misleading data to—proved to be exceptionally diligent. They worked without complaint, driven by Shane's clear urgency to finish the compromised sections before the day ended. By the time the whistle blew, they had miraculously cleared the impossible quota Miller had imposed.
Miller was beside himself, pacing between the wreckage site and the completed staging area. He knew the main construction company brass—the ones AN used as conduits—would be furious that the day was successful. AN had engineered the tight deadline hoping for disaster, a fatal accident involving Calvin, or at least a catastrophic failure forcing a complete halt. Success despite sabotage was a slap in the face.
As the crew packed up, Shane felt the adrenaline fading, replaced by a clear, focused energy. He had just used a game-breaking ability—Super Speed— to save a celestial, and the world hadn't ended. He had choices now.
He addressed the crew, his voice carrying new authority, backed by the recent, colossal windfall that was set to clear in his account the next cycle.
"Listen up, everyone. I meant what I said on Thursday. We're moving beyond just roofing. Gary, you look solid, but we're talking long term. Saul, I need your advice on structuring things for Marcos and Ben."
Shane pulled Gary aside as they walked toward the truck, intentionally leaving Calvin and the others behind to allow the celestial operative time to assess the fallout of the failed assassination.
"Gary. That woman. You saw her for what she was," Shane stated, not asking.
Gary nodded grimly. "I did. It was like clarity. I don't want that poison again. I won't."
"Good. Because when the money hits tomorrow, the first chunk of it isn't for me. It's for you. We're going to set up an accountability system, maybe sponsor you into a full-time recovery program, not just a substance test cheat. We are making an example here, neighbor."
Shane's system registered the move: *Stabilization of Local Asset: Success. XP Gained.*
He pulled out his burner phone again and called Saul. "Saul, hold off on bringing Ben and Marcos directly to my truck. Wait ten minutes. I need a private strategy session with you about mentorship scaling. Think bigger than just Ben. Think about structuring a support network for the whole crew regarding life stability."
Saul's measured response carried respect. "I can do that, Shane. I've already seen the positive shift in Gary this morning, despite the threat."
As they drove away, leaving the worksite buzzing with confused but impressed murmurs, Shane felt the weight of the million dollars—which was now officially his, though inaccessible until banking hours cleared—as a tool, a tangible resource for initiating widespread good in his immediate orbit. He had stabilized the crew, saved his celestial ally, and unlocked a physical superpower.
The world was still tilting toward the chaos AN dictated, but Shane Albright, the construction worker, had just successfully debugged his own small corner of the blueprint using nothing but a newly acquired system and sheer will. The journey from normalcy to greatness had just moved from theoretical training to active, high-stakes deployment.