Chapter One: The Deleted Name

Three weeks later, Lin arrived at Seabridge United's Carlton Training Centre. Not as a player. Seabridge had advertised a six-month scouting-analysis assistant contract. The job involved standardizing reports from twelve scouts, tagging video, and entering handwritten notes abandoned beside the coffee machine. Two hundred and seventy-four people applied. The final assessment required them to watch forty-five minutes of footage and submit a recruitment recommendation within two hours. Data director Elena Ward sat at the front, red hair tied with geometric precision. Chief scout Malcolm Banks sat beside her, as did executive vice-chairman Viktor Salin.