Chapter Three: Eighteen Catches and an Invoice from the Future

The system flared painfully bright. [ESTIMATED CATCH PROBABILITY: 7.2%.] [ZERO-POINT REACTION WILL INCREASE PROBABILITY TO 91.6%.] [UNLOCK?] Numbers flashed through his mind—seven, ninety-one, failure, success. Instead, Lin remembered the empty training facility before dawn, the red good-luck knot inside a paper bag, and the ten extra routes he had run alone after every practice for three years. If he stepped back now, his future was an invitation to a development-league tryout. “Unlock.” The world stopped for eight-tenths of a second. Sweat hung at the edge of Hall’s facemask. The safety’s pupils were shifting left. The football’s laces turned one thread at a time.