"Arthur?" he said again, his voice small, the contentment in his stomach already curdling into a cold, acidic dread.

The static hissed back at him.

"ARTHUR!"

He snatched the phone from the desk, his hands shaking. He looked at the screen. The call was still connected.

"Arthur?!" he screamed, his voice cracking, the panic rising in his throat like bile.

The line went dead.

A primal, animalistic terror seized him. He didn't think. He didn't plan. He grabbed his keys, bolted from his office, and sprinted through the building, his footsteps echoing in the empty halls.

He took the stairs two at a time, bursting out into the car park, the bright, cheerful afternoon a grotesque mockery of the horror in his head. He jumped into his Audi, his hands fumbling, jamming the key into the ignition. His phone. He needed his phone. He opened the tracker app, the one he and Arthur shared for logistics.

Arthur's dot. It was on the M1 motorway, about twenty miles north. And it wasn't moving.

Michael slammed the car into gear. His sensible, gray Audi had never been driven like this. He floored the accelerator, the engine whining in protest as he shot out of the car park, gravel spitting from his tires.

He drove like a madman. He was weaving through traffic, his mind a screaming vortex of

"no, no, no, no, no." The rain from Arthur's call had started here, too, a sudden, violent downpour that lashed against his windshield, the wipers struggling to keep up.

He didn't care. He sped down the motorway, his phone on the passenger seat, his eyes flicking between the road and the tiny, unmoving dot on the map.

He was ten miles out when he saw them. The flashing lights.

At first, it was just a faint, distant constellation of red and blue, painting the wet, dark motorway in a scene from a nightmare.

As he got closer, the full, horrific tableau came into view.

A police blockade. An ambulance, its doors flung open. And a mangled, unrecognizable hunk of metal that had once been a car.

Arthur's car.

It was... wrong.

It was compressed, like a tin can that had been stomped on.

A massive transport truck was parked twenty yards ahead, its driver on the side of the road, his face in his hands. It had rear-ended him. Or pushed him. He couldn't tell. He just knew it was bad.

Michael didn't park. He just stopped, abandoning his car in the middle of a live lane, not even bothering to turn it off. He burst out of the door, his suit jacket flapping, the cold rain instantly soaking him to the bone.

He sprinted towards the ambulance, his feet splashing in the puddles.

"That's my manager!" he screamed, his voice raw.

"That's my car! Is he okay?! ARTHUR!"

A paramedic, a tall woman with a calm, hardened face, put a firm hand up, stopping him just short of the wreckage.

"Sir, you need to stay back! This is an active scene!"

"IS HE OKAY?!" Michael roared, trying to push past her, his eyes wild, trying to see... anything.

"Sir!" she said, her voice sharp, grabbing his arm. "We are doing everything we can. He has severe head and leg trauma. He is unresponsive."

Unresponsive.

The word hit Michael like a physical blow, harder than any tackle. It knocked the air from his lungs, the strength from his legs.

Unresponsive.

He was still conscious of the world, but from a great distance. He felt the cold rain on his face. He heard the metallic thunk of the paramedics loading the stretcher into the ambulance. He heard a police officer asking him if he was the next of kin.

He was drowning. His one lifeline, his one source of absolute, empirical truth, was his system.

He stumbled back, his mind a frantic, desperate prayer.

"System. System, show me his stats. Show me his numbers. Tell me he's okay. Fix this. FIX IT!"

He focused, his gaze boring into the back of the ambulance as it began to pull away, its siren wailing. He tried to see Arthur's numbers, the beautiful, comforting [Managerial PA 91] that had been the foundation of his entire world.

The system flickered. But it wasn't blue.

For the first time ever, the screen in front of his eyes flashed a deep, alarming, blood-red.

[ERROR! TARGET IS IN CRITICAL CONDITION. BIOMETRIC DATA UNREADABLE.]

"No..." Michael whispered, his breath catching in his throat.

[ERROR! OWNER INTERFERENCE DETECTED. STABILIZE. STABILIZE.]

[NEW EMERGENCY QUEST ISSUED: 'SURVIVAL']

[OBJECTIVE: THE ARCHITECT'S LIFE IS IN DANGER. ALL SYSTEM FUNCTIONS RELATED TO THIS TARGET ARE LOCKED UNTIL CONDITION IS STABILIZED.]

It was gone. His one cheat code, his one superpower, had just failed him.

The system couldn't tell him if Arthur was going to live or die. It could only give him a quest that he had absolutely no power to complete.

He was, once again, just a helpless, terrified eighteen-year-old.

The ambulance's siren faded into the distance, leaving Michael standing alone in the rain, a ghost on the side of a wet motorway.

He didn't know how long he stood there. He just... broke.

All of it—his entire empire, his "straight line" path to promotion, his "villainous" laugh, his "money vs. hunger" speeches—it was all a fraud. It was all built on him. It was built on Arthur. His architect. His general. The one, single person in the world who understood his vision and had the genius to make it real.

All his plans, his young stars, his 'Wonder Twins' [PA 91], his 'Wild Fox' [PA 90], his 'Ghost' [PA 93]... they were all just potential.

Arthur was the one who was supposed to turn it into reality.

Without Arthur, the straight line was just a jagged, broken mess.

Michael sank down onto the wet, cold curb, the traffic still at a standstill, the flashing police lights illuminating his despair.

He put his head in his hands, the rain mixing with the hot, angry tears that were suddenly streaming down his face.

His perfect, controlled world had just been crushed, as easily and as senselessly as Arthur's car.

He was alone. It was over.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

It was a dull, annoying, irrelevant vibration. He ignored it. It buzzed again. And again. Persistent.

With a numb, shaking hand, he pulled it from his pocket.

The screen was cracked from when he'd dropped it. He looked at the caller ID, his vision blurry.

The "Barnsley Braves" logo.

CAPTAIN DAVE BISHOP.

He answered, his voice a dead, hollow croak. "Hello?"

"Sir? Mr. Sterling?" Dave Bishop's voice was cheerful, professional, and horrifyingly normal.

"Sorry to bother you, sir. The lads are all at the training ground, ready for the warm-up. We were just wondering... where's the Gaffer? We've got a massive game in two days, and we need to get started."

Michael stood up. The rain was soaking him to the bone, a cold, brutal, and clarifying shock. The reality of the captain's words hit him.

The club didn't stop. The world didn't stop. The games kept coming.

He looked down the dark, empty motorway, in the direction the ambulance had gone.

He was the owner. He was the boss.

And he didn't have a manager.

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