Chapter Four: Beyond the Template

The club climbed from last to third. Beat reserve leaders Red Star and they would reach the promotion playoff. Emma also found seven duplicated examination numbers on discarded blood labels Lin recovered. Each belonged to a transfer worth more than thirty million euros. Every player had become miraculously free of an old injury and mechanically consistent after moving. The eighth number belonged to Vega. The ninth had only an appointment: the Monday after the fifth round of the Coupe de France, at Étoile's first-team medical center. “They're replacing someone else,” Lin said. The tablet lit. The real Vega sent one sentence. [During synchronization today, I saw through his eyes. He was looking back at me.]