The first lecture of the day started with people pretending to be productive. Laptop screens glowed with half-written notes and streaming tabs, earbuds twitched with playlists, and the guy across the aisle typed as if his final grade depended on the speed of his keyboard.
Daniel's stomach did a nervous little flip. Group project week. The professor wanted a real viral case study; their group had Brick Guy material in spades, whether Daniel liked it or not.
Emily flopped into the seat beside him ten minutes before class, a paper cup of coffee in hand and a notebook already full of ideas. She was efficient in a way that made Daniel admire her more than he let himself think.
"You did the reading, right?" she asked without looking up.
"I skimmed?" Daniel admitted. "Mostly the part about attention economics."
Emily shot him an amused look. "That's the part we need. Your video is literally a testing point for attention economics. Use it."
Olivia arrived after them, walking carefully but smiling as always. She set a neat stack of printed academic articles on the desk and a highlighter that looked brand-new.
"Good morning," she said. "I found some statistics on bystander behavior and caption engagement—figures that tie engagement spikes to shock value."
"See?" Emily said, tapping the stack. "We'll build a case: trigger moment, platform mechanics, audience reaction, and the PR management plan."
Daniel's mouth went dry. "PR management plan? You mean, like—control the narrative?"
Emily shrugged. "We spin the story. Make the dataset ours. Show how a prank, an honest reaction, and a narrative frame affect viewership."
Daniel opened his mouth to say something clever—something about algorithms and thumbnail psychology that lived in his head, ready to spill—but then the class began and his courage dissolved.
Halfway through Kessel's brisk explanation about virality metrics, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it at first, then felt the vibration again. He slid the phone to check—just a glance, purely tactical—and his chest tightened when he saw the small blue box appear for a second before he locked the screen.
A mission.
He swallowed. He had learned enough to know missions liked to pop up when the system wanted something obvious done. He didn't show anyone; he slid his phone away and pretended to take notes.
Class ended with instructions: drafts due in two days, and each group must perform a three-minute public "field pitch" — an on-the-street test of their framing—at a public campus spot and record audience reaction.
Daniel's heart dropped.
"Professor Kessel wants us to perform live?" Olivia whispered, stunned.
"Yep," Kessel said. "Real world testing. That's the point."
Emily met Daniel's eyes. "We can do it around the student plaza. Short, controlled environment. I'll run the pitch script."
Daniel mouthed, "Public?" No one else needed clarification.
After class the three of them clustered under a maple tree and pulled out their plan. Emily sketched bullet points at lightning speed; Olivia recommended gentle phrasing for empathy; Daniel suggested a thumbnail-driven hook and a question to provoke engagement.
They rehearsed the pitch twice, thrice. Daniel's hands shook the first time he practiced actually speaking lines out loud. In private he could describe every detail of how networks amplified content, but standing with a microphone and a clipboard made him feel small again.
When they finished their first full rehearsal, Emily said, "We need to test live. The project requires real response—likes, comments, engagement time. That's data."
"Can we… can we do it later? Maybe tomorrow?" Daniel pleaded.
Olivia's eyes softened. "It's better to do it while impressions are fresh. We'll keep it short. We'll be formal. I'll be the calming presence."
Emily looked at him with something like a challenge. "You're the variable. People reacted to you. That's data. If you can keep composure for three minutes, we get better results."
Daniel imagined a three-minute spotlight with several dozen phones pointed at him. He pictured the comment section. He pictured Rocco's face in a parked car somewhere, and the idea of being more visible to the underworld made his skin prickle.
He agreed.
He said yes out loud and the sound surprised him more than anyone else.
"Okay," he whispered. "Let's do the plaza in one hour."
They set up the plan: a friendly opener, a brief recount of what happened, a poll question for audience engagement, and Olivia to step in when things got emotional. Daniel rehearsed his lines until they felt mechanical. He practiced smiling without looking like a trapped animal.
An hour later the student plaza was mercifully busy: tables, umbrellas, a campus radio DJ in the corner. A smattering of students lounged, texting, scrolling, and minding their own business. Two of them recognized Daniel and pointed; he felt the old heat of embarrassment, but Emily wound her arm through his and steered him forward with an authority he both resented and needed.
They recorded on Olivia's phone and a borrowed tripod. Daniel's voice doubled at first; he felt his fingers tingle. He focused on a marker on a distant building—something visceral he could cling to while his mouth moved. He spoke about the incident plainly: the fear, the object he found, the instinct to act. He stuck to the wording Emily and Olivia chose—neutral, without shame, framing the event as an unplanned reaction that sparked discussion about bystander behavior.
The first minute passed. He heard the soft beep of a successful take in his head like a metronome. People watched. A few students smiled. One or two recorded on their phones. A small crowd gathered.
And then, toward the second minute, a lanky senior in a hoodie pushed through the fringe and shoved their phone up to his face without a word for a recording—eyes flicking like a vulture picking his angle. Daniel recognized that movement. Something in the angles and the phone-on-his-face impulse made his breath hitch in a way the system had taught him to notice and the hostile student's stares in the halls had trained him to fear.
Daniel kept talking.
Three minutes felt like a lifetime. He said the final line about "what attention does to stories" and Olivia, gently, stepped forward and thanked the audience. Applause. A few likes registered in the comments on the phone recording. They had a dataset: three different emotional responses, ten comments within the first minute, several shares.
Back under the maple tree, Daniel slumped. His heart thudded like a drum. A mission notification blinked the tiniest sliver of blue in his pocket again. He checked it when no one was looking.
[Mission Generated — Field Test: Plaza Pitch]
Objective: Complete a 3-minute public pitch & collect live audience responses.
Reward: +3 SP
Bonus Objective: Maintain composure (no panic) during pitch and avoid physical exhaustion.
Bonus Reward: +1 Endurance, +1 Charisma
Penalty: Temporary Fatigue
Daniel's breath fogged. Three SP. That was meaningful. SP could upgrade the skills he had—helpful, practical. And endurance and charisma as bonuses? Those were exactly the soft attributes he needed. But he didn't show anyone the message. He slid the phone back into his pocket, shook his head to clear the static of adrenaline, and smiled at Emily and Olivia like the slime on his teeth had not nearly choked him.
"Good job," Emily said. "You were fine."
"You looked… calmer than the first time," Olivia added.
"Yeah, I didn't almost fling a brick this time," Daniel said, trying for lightness. They laughed. Daniel absorbed their laughter like oxygen.
They uploaded the footage to a private group drive for their analysis, collected the early metrics, and wrote the skeleton of their case study. Results were promising; the pitch had modest engagement immediately and a small cluster of discussions bubbled up on campus chat forums. Nothing that would make anything explode—but a measurable seed.
While they worked, Daniel texted his mother. He sent a simple message: Finished a thing today. I'm okay. Going to study later. Love you. She replied instantly: Good. Don't overwork. Come home early if you can. Dinner at 7. The text warmed him and he typed back a clumsy ok before setting the phone aside.
He was in the middle of typing another observation when he noticed a shadow at the edge of the quad. A car idling. A man in a gray hoodie scrolling a phone—just as he'd seen before. The same quiet watching. The same sense that someone outside the campus bubble had cataloged him.
Rocco flicked the screen once more. He'd watched the plaza pitch from his car across the street on a lower-angle recording; the data looked good. He filmed a clip and sent it to his contact with a note: Pitch done. He held. No panic. He's trending slightly. Keep an eye on comments — small influencers picking it up.
The reply came back: Continue surveillance. No contact.
Rocco exhaled and leaned his head back. "Patience," he muttered. "Kid's useful."
That night, Daniel sat at his desk and copied down the early metrics. His group had a draft of slides, an outline for their presentation, and enough real numbers to make Kessel raise an eyebrow. He also had three flashing, glittering little SP somewhere on a system window he kept like a secret coin. But he would not mention that to Emily or Olivia. Not now. Not ever.
He knew, painfully and clearly, that the system helped him—nudged him; rewarded the exact things he needed to do. But it was his secret. He'd keep it that way, harmless small-town superstition to everyone else.
He closed his laptop and texted his dad: Got a bit of public speaking in today. Didn't totally embarrass myself. The reply was an encouraging emoji and a single line: Proud of you, kid.
Daniel smiled, sat back, and for the first time in a long while felt as if the slow, methodical climb might actually be possible. The path was awkward, the steps tiny, and the fans (or critics) numerous. But he had allies, a system that pushed him, and a stubborn little will to be better than his last life.
Outside, a car door clicked, a headlamp swept past the blinds, and someone else took notes into a black phone. Daniel didn't know what they planned—but he had finished the pitch, earned a mission reward waiting in the wings, and learned that he could speak without collapsing into a puddle.
That was enough for tonight.