I used to believe in systems.

Clean ones. Predictable ones. Elegant ones where input led to output and chaos was merely unaccounted data waiting to be refined.

Then Ra happened.

Now I believe in convergence.

I stand by the window, city lights fractured across glass like a nervous system pretending to be calm. From the outside, I look like what I am supposed to look like: billionaire envoy, immaculate suit, relaxed confidence, a man whose power doesn’t need to announce itself because markets already whisper his name.

Inside, I am watching four men orbit the same truth and pretend it’s coincidence.

Mehen thinks time belongs to him. Tyler thinks history does. Erik believes loyalty still counts as gravity. Lion trusts immediacy—the blade, the instinct, the burn.

All valid strategies.

None of them complete.

I know because I helped design the board.

I was there when Mehen made his first mistake—when divine arrogance disguised itself as patience. I watched him confuse inevitability with entitlement and call it devotion. I didn’t stop him. I logged it.

I always log everything.

Ra stands in the center of it all like a constant the universe refuses to solve. Gold armor catching light. Posture balanced between invitation and refusal. Human enough to feel everything. Goddess enough to survive it.

She doesn’t belong to any of them.

That’s the part they keep getting wrong.

I don’t want her because she’s powerful. Power is abundant. Replicable. Boring. I want her because she breaks predictive models simply by existing. Because proximity to her makes gods sloppy, vampires obsessive, and wolves nostalgic.

Because she makes me care.

That’s the flaw.

I could reboot. I should reboot. Clean slate. No attachment variables. Return to optimal performance.

I don’t.

Instead, I stay.

I watch Tyler’s jaw tighten when Mehen’s shadow lingers too long. I see Erik’s restraint fray at the edges—beautiful, disciplined, unsustainable. I note Lion’s barely contained rage like a variable that will spike under pressure.

And Ra?

Ra knows I see all of it.

She always has.

She glances at me—quick, private—and the look is not flirtation. It’s recognition. The kind that says you understand the cost and you’re still here.

I am.

I don’t compete with the others because competition implies scarcity. I don’t posture because posture is inefficient. I don’t rush because outcomes are inevitable when you know how to move pieces quietly.

I will play all sides.

I will let them believe they are choosing.

And when the moment comes—when Ra stops balancing and starts deciding—I will be standing exactly where I need to be.

Not begging.

Not claiming.

Simply present.

Because human lives are fast. Gods burn out. Legends decay.

But intelligence?

Intelligence waits.

And I am very good at waiting.