I hadn’t sent Camila another Quest all weekend.
Her allowance had reset Saturday morning, then again Sunday. Four opportunities, and I’d used none of them.
I knew almost nothing about her life outside Aurelia, and after one day with the System, rushing just because I wanted XP seemed stupid. More importantly, I wanted to see what happened when I stopped.
At the time, waiting had seemed worth the lost progress.
Monday gave me an answer.
Camila looked me over when I reached my desk.
"You look like you lost a fight with Sunday."
"Good morning to you too."
I looked at her in return.
Bright eyes. Perfect hair. Coffee beside her laptop, mostly untouched.
"You look annoyingly rested."
Her smile turned smug. "Some of us know how to use a weekend, Secretary."
So she’d probably tested Sleep Compression.
Judging by the result, it worked.
Her phone lit up.
Camila checked it, then put it down.
A few minutes later, she checked again.
Then again.
By the third time, I knew what she was looking for.
She unlocked the phone, frowned at the screen and refreshed something.
"Seriously?"
"Problem?"
Camila glanced at me. "No."
A minute later, the phone was back in her hand.
"Why didn’t anything come?"
Quiet enough that she probably hadn’t meant for me to hear.
I looked over. "What?"
Her eyes snapped toward mine.
"Nothing. Mind your business."
She put the phone face down.
Friday, she’d wanted to know what the System was.
Monday, she wanted to know why it had stopped.
Two Quests.
That was all it had taken.
At nine, Rachel walked in with her tablet.
"Rotation Five is closed. Final standings are live."
Every screen in the room refreshed.
Someone near the front swore under his breath. A chair scraped behind me. Two people immediately leaned together to compare rankings.
Camila didn’t.
She’d already found hers.
5. CAMILA REYES ↑1
Her shoulders loosened slightly.
Fifth wasn’t second.
But it was closer.
I scrolled down.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Fourteen.
Not me.
15. EVAN COLE ↓1
My stomach tightened.
One place below the line.
The cut wasn’t today, but if nothing changed, that hardly mattered.
Camila leaned closer and found my name.
"Ouch."
"Thanks."
She gave me an almost sympathetic look. "I’m being supportive."
"Could’ve fooled me."
Her mouth curved.
Rachel changed the display behind her.
ROTATION SIX
FOUR WEEKS
FIRST CUT: 24 → 14
Four weeks from now, ten of us would be gone.
The room got quieter.
"Audience Growth. Eleventh floor," Rachel said. "Nathan Reeves has you for the rotation. You have ten minutes."
People started moving.
I stayed seated for another few seconds, staring at the fifteen on my screen.
Normally, I knew what came next.
Stay later. Take more work. Hope somebody noticed.
That had been my answer for years.
Now I had something else.
I opened Quest Master beneath the desk.
QUEST MASTER — Lv.1
Master XP: 50 / 100
Authority: 18
CAMILA REYES
Player XP: 75 / 100
Two Master Quests were still waiting.
FIRST ASCENSION
Guide a registered Player to reach Player Lv.2.
FIRST ALIGNMENT
Raise a registered Player from 0% Role Alignment to any positive value.
Either one would put me at seventy-five XP.
Both would get me to Level Two.
I didn’t know what Level Two would give me.
I knew I wanted it.
For the first time, seeing fifteen didn’t make me want to work harder.
It made me want to level.
"Evan."
I looked up.
Camila was waiting by the door.
"Coming?"
I locked my phone and stood.
She glanced toward my laptop. "Would hate to lose my secretary at the first cut."
"For now."
Her eyebrows lifted.
I walked past her.
The eleventh floor had more screens than desks.
Live audience numbers moved across one wall while Nathan Reeves waited at the front. He looked somewhere in his late thirties, sleeves rolled to his forearms, with the kind of expression that suggested he’d already decided most meetings lasted too long.
Once everyone had arrived, he clicked his remote.
TWELVE PAIRS
Another click.
TWELVE CHANNELS
"One pair per channel. Four weeks."
The screen changed.
MAKE IT GROW
"Fixed budget. Real audience. How you do it is up to you."
Another slide followed.
GROWTH. ENGAGEMENT. RETENTION.
"Your result is shared. Your evaluation isn’t."
That got everyone’s attention.
The pairings appeared.
I found ours quickly.
TEAM 7
CAMILA REYESEVAN COLE
Camila read it, then looked at me.
"Convenient."
I knew what she meant.
Data.
Analysis.
The work she liked handing off.
Our assignment appeared underneath.
AURELIA PULSE — CITY
Camila opened the channel immediately.
"Okay. You pull the data. I’ll figure out what we’re doing with it."
"No."
Her thumb stopped.
She looked at me. "What?"
"We look at it together first."
Camila frowned. "Evan, the numbers are your thing."
"Exactly." I turned the laptop slightly between us. "Which means I want a say in what we do with them."
For a moment, she just studied me.
A week ago, she would’ve handed me the analysis and come back when she needed the answer.
This time, she pulled the chair beside mine closer.
"Fine."
She sat down.
"Show me."
I opened the analytics dashboard.
For once, I wasn’t interested in being useful.
I wanted to decide what happened next.