The night air of the Thorne estate was crisp, but it felt like static against Arthur's skin. He had just decapitated a political dynasty in a single evening, yet his skin was crawling.
"Welcome back, Ghost."
The words of the Man in White played on a loop in his mind. Arthur didn't look back at the balcony. In his first life, he had been a prey animal, and a prey animal's first instinct is to bolt. But a ghost? A ghost has nothing left to lose.
He pulled out his Samsung. The $50,000 was no longer a pending transaction; it was a weapon. A small seed, perhaps, but in the hands of a man who knew the future, a seed was a forest waiting to grow.
[The Safehouse: 02:00 AM]
Arthur didn't go back to his mother's cramped apartment. He couldn't. Bringing this kind of darkness into her sanctuary was a mistake he wouldn't repeat. Instead, he used a portion of his funds to rent a luxury suite under a shell company name he remembered from a future financial scandal: Aether Holdings.
He sat in the dark, the city lights bleeding through the glass walls. He opened a laptop and began to map out the next decade.
• Phase One: Liquidity. (The Crypto Spike – 48 hours away).
• Phase Two: Intelligence. (Locating the "Anomaly" nodes).
• Phase Three: Enforcement. (Finding her).
[The Hunt for the Iron Widow]
The next morning, Arthur skipped school. He headed to the "Old Docks"—a place where the police didn't venture, and where the city's discarded people fought for scraps.
He was looking for Sarah Vance. In his first life, she had been known as the "Iron Widow," the most feared mercenary in the global underground. Right now, in 2015, she was just a twenty-year-old girl working in a rotting boxing gym, trying to drown her father's medical debts in sweat.
Arthur stepped into the gym. The air was thick with the scent of stale copper and old leather. In the center ring, a woman was obliterating a heavy bag. Her strikes were so fast they sounded like whip-cracks.
"Gym's closed to civilians," she snapped without looking back.
"I'm not a civilian, Sarah," Arthur said, his voice steady. "And I'm not here for a workout. I'm here to offer you a way out of the $40,000 debt you owe the Silvano Cartel."
Sarah froze. She turned, her knuckles raw and bloody, her eyes sharp enough to draw blood. "Who are you? How do you know that name?"
"I'm someone who needs a shadow," Arthur said, tossing a thick envelope onto the ring's apron. Inside was $20,000 in cash—half of his remaining capital. "That's the down payment. Pay the interest, buy yourself a decent suit, and meet me at the Meridian Hotel at midnight. Or, stay here and wait for the Silvanos to come for your father next week."
Sarah stared at the teenager before her, her jaw tight. "You're just a kid. Where did a kid get this kind of money?"
"I'm a kid who knows that on Tuesday, the Silvano warehouse is going to be raided by a task force they don't see coming," Arthur lied—or rather, he told a truth that wasn't scheduled to happen for another three days in the original timeline. "Work for me, and you'll be on the right side of the bars."
[The First Glitch]
As Arthur stepped out of the gym, his phone began to vibrate with a violent, unnatural rhythm. The screen didn't show a text. It showed a violet frequency wave that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
Then, a voice bled through the speakers, bypassing his settings.
"You're recruiting early, Arthur. Changing the timeline is expensive. Every 'save' you make requires a 'sacrifice.' Did you think saving the Greenwich District was free?"
Arthur stopped dead on the sidewalk. "Who is this?"
"I am the System Admin," the voice whispered, a thousand echoes layered into one. "And you, Ghost, are an unauthorized patch. If you want to keep your new life, you have to survive the first 'Event'."
[NOTIFICATION: EMERGENCY QUEST TRIGGERED!]
• Task: Survive the next 60 minutes.
• Threat Level: High.
• Reward: $1,000,000 / Unlock 'Spirit Vision'.
• Failure: Permanent Deletion.
Arthur looked up. At both ends of the street, black SUVs screeched to a halt. Men in tactical gear stepped out, but they had no faces—only smooth, black visors where their features should be.
The "Reborn" story had just evolved. It wasn't just about money anymore.
It was a war against reality.
"Sarah!" Arthur roared, spinning back toward the gym doors. "I hope you're ready to start work early! We have company!"
Why this is the perfect English "Hook":
• The "Iron Widow": Introducing a strong female lead/bodyguard adds a new dynamic and high-level action.
• The System Quest: Adding a "System Admin" and a countdown creates extreme tension. Readers will not be able to stop reading until the 60 minutes are up.
• The High Stakes: $1,000,000 or "Permanent Deletion." There is no middle ground.