Shane stared at the number ticking down on the lawyer's electronic calendar screen. Three weeks. Maybe four weeks at the absolute outside before ElToro faced deportation. It was a tight window, thin as a sheet of roofing felt and just as precarious. He felt the familiar, unsettling tug of conscience. Helping ElToro felt like walking right into the glare of Apex Negativa's spotlight, a direct declaration of war that Veritas Alpha had cautioned against. Yet, the thought that ElToro might hold the key—not just to why they needed Olaf out of the spotlight, but perhaps something deeper about the Raven God's influence or absence—was too compelling to ignore. He pictured the celestial's cold fury when ElToro lost, the almost petty use of federal immigration services to punish perceived failure. AN was using society as his personal hammer, and Shane was about to poke the back of the hammer's head.
"So, three to four weeks," Shane repeated, tapping the screen lightly with a knuckle. The lawyer, a sharp woman Shane barely knew beyond her firm's retainer status, nodded professionally.
"That's conservative, Mr. Albright. We can actually slow things if we file the correct hardship waivers immediately, but that draws significantly more attention. We'd be flagging ourselves."
"Right. No flags. Keep it quiet. Ambulance chaser level visibility. Just keep tabs on his status. Let me know if anything shifts on your end, no need to call me unless we need to swing into action." Shane forced a reassuring breath. He imagined Calvin watching, judging this calculated risk. Calvin—Veritas Alpha—needed patience, the slow, meticulous grooming of Shane's localized world first. Shane nodded to the lawyer, already sliding the concern to the back burner, a task to be managed by the system and the immigration team when the time came.
He pulled his rental minivan onto the highway, the mid-morning sun already warming the dashboard. The new city's administrative team—Londo, who handled initial site setup, and two supervisors Shane was grooming—were already tackling the initial phase of operations. It was working. The structure Calvin had helped him build was self-sustaining enough that Shane could focus on these external, celestial-tinged problems.
He checked his phone. Saul had already sent an update. The main original crew, the foundation, was solid. The work was ahead of schedule, even without Shane's constant presence. Miller, bless his terrified heart, was back to assigning normal, achievable deadlines, likely terrified of whatever cosmic entity had temporarily possessed his supervisor a few weeks prior. The crew was thriving, building the necessary conditions for stability. Good pay, dependable work, opportunities for advancement—these were the antidotes AN couldn't easily counteract with mere chaos.
Shane glanced over to the passenger seat. Gary was supposed to be back on site today, managing the initial intake and vetting for the new branch with Amanda. Gary had called earlier, voice clear and steady, reporting he was clean, sober, and eager to get to work. Shane felt a genuine swell of pride. Gary was one of his greatest successes. He wasn't just an employee anymore; he was a testament to the fact that people *could* climb out of the holes AN dug for them.
And Gary had Amanda. Shane smiled faintly at the memory of the MMA event. The way Gary's eyes followed Amanda, the slight awkwardness that masked a deep, shared understanding of struggle and recovery. They were two damaged pieces recognizing they fit perfectly together, a small, self-stabilizing anchor against the tide of addiction and societal drift. Shane knew that part of his job, the part the system emphasized, was fostering environments where these connections could bloom. Love, loyalty, shared commitment—these were the most resilient conditions against brute-force nihilism.
He pulled over at a quiet coffee shop near the new site—not his usual spot, no coconut flavor here—to go over some paperwork before heading out to meet the team. He opened the digital ledger on his tablet. Finances were screaming upward. The initial contest winnings were just seed money now; the ongoing contracts were fueling exponential growth. He was insulated, powerful in the human realm.
As he was reviewing payroll adjustments, his system chimed softly in his mind, a private alert that caused a momentary ripple in his concentration. It was an awareness of localized political chaos brewing back home, the epicenter of his first company. Saul, Ben, and Silas were handling it, but the alert was linked to AN's general influence map. Just before the alert, however, Shane sensed something else—a subtle, almost imperceptible shift in the air around Amanda and Gary—a faint, positive resonance indicating strong favorable conditions forming between them.
Meanwhile, across town, the atmosphere in the temporary operations center felt thick with malice. Apex Negativa stood before his two primary human operatives, Thorne and a different, newer operative who was the one dealing with ElToro. AN utilized William Dowe's possessed form less frequently now, saving it for critical external signaling, preferring to project through these two proxies for internal strategy meetings.
"ElToro is gone about to be Deported. A failure who couldn't even score a victory with borrowed power," AN spat, his voice modulated through Dowe's supervisor persona, making it sound simultaneously bureaucratic and utterly deadly. "The loss to Olaf was supposed to remove him from the board before Veritas Alpha could even smell him. Now, Olaf is louder than ever."
Thorne, ever the pragmatic instrument, shifted his weight. "AN, the objective was achieved partially. Olaf is popular, yes, but not yet a central focus. Veritas Alpha is still preoccupied with the reservation—a phantom search. His movements are predictable based on the 'good works' requirement."
AN waved a dismissive hand. "Predictable does not mean harmless. He uses structured stability as his energy source. Albright is the physical manifestation of that stability. He fixes the mess we create. He enables their recovery. He binds them with loyalty. Every roof shingled correctly, every addict sobered up, every immigrant secured—that is power denying me structure."
"We must attack Albright directly, then," Thorne urged. "Physical elimination is too risky; the world is watching his ascent too closely after the contest win residuals. Emotional fracturing—we hit him where he builds trust."
AN leaned forward, a predatory glint in his eye, which only Thorne seemed to truly perceive. "Exactly. Albright is isolated socially. He has built loyalty, not affection. He has no anchor, no weakness tied to romance. That is an opening. We introduce temptation. We introduce a connection that will either lead him to make a choice predicated on self-interest rather than group betterment, or we use the inevitable fallout when that relationship shatters his focus on the crew, which he has worked so hard to stabilize."
The third operative, pale and fidgety, was Leo, the one tasked with infiltrating management structures near ElToro before his collapse. Leo stammered, "Sir, what about Olaf? Should we push the operative closer to his management structure?"
AN regarded Leo coolly. "Keep watching Olaf. If Veritas Alpha starts poking too hard, we need him off the board quickly. Suggest to your contact near Olaf—the one who manages the ancillary staff, perhaps the one managing training or logistics—to engineer a complication. Create a situation where he can step in as a solution, get close to Olaf's inner circle, either as a new manager or a key trainer. But do not commit fully yet. We need to see Veritas Alpha's next move. Right now, Albright's expansion is a higher priority threat."
AN straightened, his projected aura of divine impatience filling the room. "Albright is dangerous because he creates *choice*. He gives mortals the means to resist the predictable entropy I engineer. As long as he builds safe harbors, my chaos struggles to take root. We stop the harbors. We poison the foundations.
The meeting broke up, the operatives dispersing to enact the subtle sabotage. AN knew that outright destruction only created martyrs. Slow corrosion, the kind that made good people doubt their own good choices, was far more satisfying and effective.
Back in the minivan, Shane sealed the financial documents. He trusted Saul, Ben, and Silas to keep the established territory humming. He trusted Gary, right now, to maintain his sobriety and support Amanda. He trusted Calvin's unseen guidance. But the feeling of impending escalation settled heavy in his chest. This quiet period, months of steady, almost miraculous growth, felt less like success and more like the deep, tense calm before a massive storm front broke. He had corrected his local world, built his fortress of normalcy, but the Apex Negativa was flexing on a global scale, and Shane was soon going to find out just how powerful a celestial could be when using the mundane machinery of the whole world as a weapon. He knew, instinctively, that the next move wouldn't be about roofing contracts; it would be about tests of character, tests of loyalty, and tests of the very foundations he'd poured just months ago. He just hoped the concrete had set hard enough. Outside, the city hustled along, oblivious that its stability was being measured, scored, and manipulated by forces unseen, with one humble construction boss caught squarely in the middle of a divine tug-of-war.