The flashing blue and red lights of the NYPD cruisers turned the rain-slicked street into a chaotic disco. Officers were shouting, yellow tape was being unrolled, and old Henry was being wheeled out on a stretcher, clutching his bandaged shoulder. He looked ten years older, but he was alive.
I stood across the street, tucked into the shadows of a laundromat's awning, watching the scene play out exactly as the red text in my vision had predicted.
My hands were still shaking, but for the first time in my life, it wasn't from fear or cold. It was from the weight of the thing sitting in my pocket. My phone.
I pulled it out. The screen, which had been a mosaic of jagged glass just minutes ago, was now as smooth as a mirror. I swiped the screen. It felt… different. It wasn't just a Samsung anymore. The interface was obsidian black, with a single gold icon flickering in the center: [Fate Archive].
"It worked," I whispered, a nervous laugh bubbling up in my chest. "Five Fate Points for a full repair. Best trade-in deal in history."
But as I stared at the phone, a sudden, sharp pain stabbed through my temples. It felt like someone had driven a cold needle into my brain. I groaned, stumbling back against the brick wall.
[Warning: Cognitive Strain at 45%. Host is over-utilizing the Data Layer.]
The message popped up in my vision, then faded.
"Okay," I rubbed my eyes, blinking away the static. "Rule number one: looking at the 'Code' isn't free. My brain is the hardware, and apparently, I'm running on a low-end processor."
I didn't stay to talk to the cops. I was a delivery guy with a broken bike and a phone that shouldn't exist; the last thing I needed was to be a witness in a police report. I turned and started the long walk back to my apartment in Queens, my mind racing faster than a New York subway.
I needed to test this. I needed to know exactly what I could—and couldn't—do.
As I walked, I kept my eyes peeled. The world was no longer just buildings and people. It was a sea of data.
I looked at a stray cat sitting on a dumpster. [Target: Stray Cat. Fate: Will catch a rat in 3 minutes. Reward: 1 FP.]
I looked at a drunk man staggering out of a bar. [Target: Unknown Male. Fate: Will lose his wallet in the next alley. Reward: 2 FP.]
I looked at a massive, shimmering skyscraper in the distance, the headquarters of some global conglomerate. [Target: Titan Corp HQ. Fate: ACCESS DENIED. Insufficient Authority.]
I frowned. "So, I can't just scan anything. There's a hierarchy. Small fates are easy, big fates are locked."
I focused on a nearby fire hydrant. [Target: Fire Hydrant. Fate: Will be hit by a car in 12 days.]
I stared at it, trying to see more. I wanted to know which car. I wanted to know the exact second.
The moment I pushed for more detail, the headache returned, ten times worse. My vision blurred, and I felt something warm trickle out of my nose. I wiped it with my sleeve.
Blood.
"Rule number two," I panted, leaning against a lamp post. "Don't get greedy. Deep-diving into the future drains me like a faulty battery."
It was simple, really. The system was like a flashlight. I could shine it on anything to see the surface, but the longer I held it and the deeper I tried to peer into the darkness, the faster the batteries died. And in this case, the 'battery' was my own life force.
I decided to try something else. Something active.
A block away from my apartment, I saw a young kid, maybe ten years old, bouncing a basketball. He was headed toward a busy intersection, eyes glued to the ball, oblivious to the world.
I scanned him. [Target: Leo Woods. Fate: Will trip over a loose cobblestone and drop his ball into the street. The ball will be crushed by a truck. Reward: 1 FP.]
I watched him. He was ten feet away from the loose stone.
If I did nothing, the kid would be sad, a truck would keep driving, and the world would continue its pre-written script. But I wasn't just a delivery guy anymore.
I hurried forward. I didn't say anything. I didn't warn him. Instead, I just reached out my foot and gently kicked a small, empty soda can into the kid's path, a few feet before the loose stone.
The kid saw the can, swerved to avoid it, and missed the loose cobblestone by an inch. He kept bouncing his ball, humming a song, and crossed the street safely as the truck rumbled past a second later.
The red text over his head flickered, turned grey, and then vanished. A new notification chimed in my mind.
[Fate Diverted. Minor Butterfly Effect created.] [Reward: 5 Fate Points.] [Note: Direct intervention consumes stamina. Current Stamina: 30%.]
I slumped onto a nearby park bench, gasping for air. My heart was thumping, and my legs felt like lead. It was a tiny change—just a kid and a basketball—but it felt like I'd just run a marathon.
"Changing the script is harder than reading it," I realized. "And it's more expensive."
I sat there for a while, watching the city breathe. New York was a machine, a giant clockwork orange where every gear was a human life, grinding away in a predictable pattern. And here I was, the only loose screw in the entire mechanism.
I looked at my Fate Point balance: 10 FP.
I had earned 10 from the 7-Eleven incident, spent 5 to fix my phone, and earned 5 back from the kid.
"Ten points," I mused. "Enough to fix a phone. But what else can it do? Can it fix my bank account? Can it fix my life?"
As I finally reached the door to my crumbling apartment building, a black Cadillac Escalade was parked at the curb. It looked out of place in this neighborhood—too shiny, too expensive, too dangerous.
A man was standing by the car, dressed in a suit that cost more than my four years of college tuition. He was looking at his watch, his face a mask of cold professionalism.
I didn't even think. I scanned him.
[Target: Marcus Vane. Status: Bodyguard/Enforcer.] [Fate: Will be involved in a high-speed chase tonight. Outcome: Fatal.]
My breath caught. This wasn't a petty robbery or a dropped basketball. This was the "Big League."
Marcus Vane looked up, his eyes meeting mine. For a second, I felt like he could see through me, like he knew I was looking at his death sentence.
I quickly looked down and hurried into the building, my heart hammering.
I climbed the five flights of stairs to my room, locked the door, and threw myself onto my creaky bed. My head was still throbbing, but my mind was spinning with possibilities.
I had the power to see the end of the movie before it even started. I could nudge the world, change the ending, and get rewarded for it. But I was still Silas—a guy who lived on instant noodles and had a hole in his shoe.
"I need a plan," I said to the empty room. "I can't just run around New York kicking soda cans. I need a way to make this pay off. I need a way to scale this up."
I thought about the 7-Eleven clerk, the kid, the bodyguard. People wanted to know their future. They'd pay anything to avoid the red text.
I looked at my phone. The gold icon was still there, waiting.
"If the world is a script," I smiled, a dark, ambitious spark ignining in my eyes, "then it's time I started taking some commissions."
I opened a laptop I'd salvaged from a dumpster months ago. It was slow, but it worked. I didn't start my CS homework. Instead, I started looking into how to build a website that couldn't be traced.
A place for the desperate. A place for the rich. A place where the All-Knowing Master could sell a glimpse of the truth.
But first, I needed more points. And I knew exactly where to find them.
I looked out my window at the glowing skyline of Manhattan. Millions of lives. Millions of fates. And all of them were just lines of code waiting for me to hit 'Edit.'
"New York," I whispered, closing my eyes. "Let's see what you're worth."