Divine Celebrity 90

I wasn’t surprised when everyone turned toward me the moment I walked inside, though the intensity of their emotions — evidenced by the intent that flowed toward me, only to be devoured by my guide, who was still reading the book I held to my side — surprised me. 

It was enough to rival the intensity I received during the most heated moments of the game that I saved. 

“Sorry I’m a bit late, guys, I didn’t have my car,” I said with a casual shrug as I walked toward the center of the room, and took the seat that was usually taken by the starter quarterback. But since he was absent, along with every single offensive player, I doubted that anyone would care to argue against my decision. 

It wasn’t that I missed the great oppressive feeling that filled the room, or the absence of most of the players. The defense was here to the last player, but considering we were gutted by Coach Bill’s aggressive poaching before his departure, it didn’t exactly create an imposing crowd.

I didn’t need the assistance of the Traits to know that the morale of the team was tethering on the brink. The reason, I was yet to discover, but the state of the stadium, combined with the absence of that many players, didn’t paint a pretty picture. 

It was the reason for my calm and uncaring movement. The team was already tethering on the edge of a collapse, and while Coach Juana was skilled, she lacked the trust of the players, preventing her from handling the mood.

I was the only pillar they could rely on, making my calm not just a cosmetic choice, but a vital thing.

It was a sign of the mood of the team that no one said anything as I settled on my seat with deliberate slowness, thinking that I should have checked the news after waking up. A vital thing that I neglected due to another assassination attempt. 

I flicked my phone carefully as I sat, quickly going through the hottest local topics, which immediately revealed the mystery of the situation. 

The first news was about Coach Spencer, a long, heartfelt statement about how he was greatly sorry about his lapse of judgment, and he wanted to step away from the field for a few weeks to contemplate his mistakes, taking a leave of absence to do so. 

It was an excellent piece of statement, somehow managing to show him as a victim, paying for the exhaustion after the sudden resignation of his defensive coordinator, with a long mention of poached players and other problems — mostly imagined, but hard to disprove. 

I would have loved to meet his public relations expert. Whoever was responsible for the statement, managed to handle things excellently. 

Though, the timeline of the declaration was rather interesting, an hour after I had left the hospital, just long enough to pen such a long discussion. It was bad, because I was relying on the fact that Coach Spencer would do his best to pressure the hospital to reverse the decision, not wanting to be blamed for my concussion. 

Instead, he decided to retreat decisively, showing that the professor might be a little harder to deal with than I had assumed — but it was a problem for the future.

The other news around the issue was more immediate. There were many reports from the offensive players, about the recklessness of the defensive team, and how they had been injured by our viciousness. 

It was ridiculous. Not only most of them — the starter quarterback included — didn’t take the field in the first place, but also they had not been fighting against us but against the practice squad. 

But the truth was a malleable thing, especially when declared by someone like Coach Spencer, whose family — and his fiancee’s family — could put him in a position that commanded great respect and income through sheer nepotism despite his glaring incompetency. 

Compared to that, manipulating a few local newspapers was nothing too difficult. If they were as rich as everything suspected, just the threat of temporarily suspending their advertising would have been enough of a reaction.

Even at a glance, I could see many tear-jerker pieces about the catastrophic injury a player suffered, but none of it mentioned that it was not a student of our college — or a student period. 

I had to admit, it was an excellent strategy, so much that, I would have actually started to respect Coach Spencer, if, for a second, I believed that he was the one that came up with it, and not just listening to his family’s arrangements like a little bitch, probably while moaning about his undeserved misfortune. 

It was excellent, because, on any reasonable scale, by gutting both the roster and the coaching team, they had consigned the team a few weeks of humiliating defeats, the kind that would earn their place in the record books. 

And after a few such defeats, Coach Spencer would ‘reluctantly’ return to save the team, any detail that didn’t conform to his tragic story already written out thanks to the constant media buzz, unable to be countered long term by social media, which relied on people’s attention, which was a more scarce community that most assumed. 

It was an excellent strategy. It would have taken a miracle to turn things around. 

A divine intervention, even. 

Luckily, said the divine intervention was sitting in a corner, busy reading her book, and her miracle long reached its destination. 

I had no intention of letting that asshole win. 

First, I sent a quick message to an ever-helpful sexy blonde and her redheaded friend. I didn’t want to owe another favor, but things were intense enough to act quick. With that done, I raised my head.  

“Coach, what do you say if I take the tactics session today, as a change,” I offered. “It would be a fun change, right?” 

“I’m sure your teammates will appreciate it,” she said, quick to get what I was driving at. I stood up, watching the team shuffle in their place, a soft murmur breaking the earlier silence as they started talking. 

I had delivered too many miracles in a short week for them to dismiss my sudden declaration as a pointless bravado. 

I reached for the remote, to turn on the screens, but Coach shook her head. “The network is down, but I have the printouts,” she explained as she showed the huge pile of paper on the desk. 

“I see,” I murmured. The absence of the janitorial staff and the messy state of the locker room were enough to show that the school management was fully behind Coach Spencer. Locking us out of the network to prevent us from using our tech further confirmed it. 

I glanced at the small computer on the side, considering hacking to turn everything on. I had no doubt that they were particularly well-defended, but still, there were many ways to bypass even the greatest security, especially with physical access. 

But after a moment, I shook my head and walked toward the whiteboard instead. I didn’t want to reveal that my computer skills were better than people expected. Not when I had already used them to commit many crimes. 

I pulled the board toward the middle of the room, then spent a moment checking Coach’s printouts. An impressive number of details was included, though with the glaring exception of the last week’s match. 

She probably printed those from the backups she took before Coach Bill left. Though, with Coach Bill’s obsessive security awareness, none of his tactics was a part of the document. They were strictly about the opponent’s capabilities. 

“We don’t have access to our tactical files,” Coach Juana whispered, soft enough to avoid the attention of the other players. 

I shrugged as I grabbed a marker pen. It didn’t really matter. Even if we had access to those tactics, they would have been completely useless. The offensive team was gone completely, and the defensive team had dangerous gaps. Based on those, any earlier tactic was completely useless. 

Not that I cared. With my Traits, I was confident to ad-lib a full tactical book that would rival Coach Bill’s genius strategies. The pure computational power granted by the Traits was not a joke. 

“Silence,” I suddenly declared as I slammed my hand on the table. “We’re at a tactical meeting, act like it!” 

After my achievements, my role as a leader was undisputed. But, empowered by both my Intimidation and Leadership traits, the order exploded like a gun, making every single player freeze. 

I wanted to chuckle as more than thirty men, each near-peak specimen, froze in one simple order, but it would have ruined the mood it created, forcing me to spend time to get their attention. 

And, with the nearest match just a few days away, time was too precious to waste. 

I spend a second, glancing at every single player in the room, their training performance flashing in my mind, the beginnings of a strategy taking root….. 

“Now, let’s first analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing team…”