Dawn bled up over Edinburgh, scraping frost from slate and stone. Under Dean Bridge the Water of Leith slid black and slow, a vein under masonry. Tom McKean's breath smoked in front of him as he hammered along the path, trainers whispering grit. He had no business being out this early on Christmas—twenty-seven, handsome, successful, three months removed from Barcelona and the World Cup 800, a clean, ruthless finish that still replayed when arrogance tucked him into sleep.
What had yanked him out of bed wasn't festive zeal. It was that noise: metal shrieking in the small hours, ugly against a holy morning. He'd left his windows cracked and Edinburgh's cold had crawled in with the cry. Crossing the bridge at first light he'd spotted chalky chips missing from the parapet, powder-fine on the walkway, a scatter of metal filings. Cities shed like old cathedrals, he told himself. Some stones fall; some don't. Life goes on.
He pushed on—until a glint snagged him. Down-river, under the arches, something like the dull back of a car roof tilted into the current. Tom slowed, pulse drumming in his ears. On the bank he caught a flutter in the water—a hand, maybe, or a trick of the flow—stuck beneath the dark, expensive shape.
"Bloody hell," he said, as Britishly as possible.
Two voices went to war in his skull. Runner-brain argued for tempo, for splits worth boasting about over turkey. Conscience, plodding and sensible, said: phone box, now. Runner-brain won in a landslide. Eight minutes forty-five seconds later he shouldered into his flat on a personal best, clock still ticking somewhere behind his eyes. Shower. Tea. Biscuits. Christmas cartoons: a righteous reward for a job well done.
Then the hand floated back into his head.
"Oh, no—oh, the telly—oh, bloody—fine," he muttered, and went to ring it in. He made sure, very politely, to mention he was Tom McKean, yes that one. Fame ought to count for something on Christmas.
Nearly three hours after the plunge from the bridge, sirens finally needled the quiet streets. Firefighters humped strops under the wreck and hauled it out of the river's mud onto the path. Paramedics leaned into the twisted saloon and leaned back out with the faces of men who'd seen worse but not today. Someone said, "Two deceased," and, almost as an afterthought, "Looks like… was there a birth? No infant present."
The duty captain ground his teeth. "Cut umbilical." A pause, a sigh that smoked the air. "Bloody hell. What a way to start Christmas. Get the search going."
Tape went up on bridge and path. Divers probed slow pools, then the scoured shallows beneath the parapet. Dogs snuffled in bramble and shadow, shook themselves dry, pulled handlers through mud. They found a snapped wing mirror, a glitter of glass, a woman's shoe, a man's wallet, even an abandoned bicycle that had been a secret for years. No tiny body. No blood-slick trail.
"Find the baby," the captain said anyway, because this was the only order there was.
By early afternoon they had exactly one living creature to show for hours of cold feet and paperwork: a sharp-chinned, red-haired girl of six playing house in a camo-green fold‑up play tent just off the path near Saint Bernard's Well. A sheepdog sat beside her like a shaggy bouncer.
"Name?" an officer asked.
"It's Anna—and it's none o' your business," she said, which is how you introduce yourself when you're six and incandescent with injustice. The dog's name, however, she gave them freely: Sheepy. The tent, she informed the police, was Camelot. Trespassers would be smited. Smitten. Smote. She had a plastic sword to substantiate these verbs and a paper crown to authenticate the regime.
The performance contained courage only in homeopathic trace. The hair, though—that foxfire red—was proof enough for the officers. "Hope girl," they murmured, and escorted (not "dragged," she would later insist) the queen of Camelot back to the Hope estate.
The welcome party—two parents, one brother, two grandparents—watched her with the kind of disappointment that curdles into policy. She'd already lost Christmas presents for "fighting boys again." (The boys always started it; she always finished it.) Now the punishments metastasized: room for the rest of the day; the Bible for company; ballet and gymnastics—her twin religions—canceled indefinitely.
On the way, she had told the police she wasn't afraid of them, which is what you say when fear sits on your ribs and taps a rhythm.
By late afternoon, the tape came down. Reports were typed. There is no box to tick for ghost baby born in a falling car. The captain, practical and tired, signed off: two deceased, recovery complete, nothing further. The river swallowed its reflections and pretended it was only water again.
Night arrived early and mean. Anna, dressed in black like a ninja—though even she suspected real ninjas didn't wear hoodies with frayed cuffs—slipped out of the estate. Sheepy padded at her heel. She'd stuffed a backpack with provisions: biscuits, milk, sweets, the dog's treats, and a teddy bear. She had a rebel's nose for absence, snaking through hedges and alley ribs, following the cold seam of path towards the water. Camelot breathed where she'd left it, nylon walls rising and falling like a sleeping animal. Inside: a red sleeping bag, a mug with bunny faces. She dumped her cache out to make room for treasure yet to be had.
Because it was Christmas, and a castle without a tree is only a tent, and a queen without a present is a peasant in a crown.
Sheepy sneezed. Anna scratched his head and peered out, measuring the dark for possibility. Edinburgh glittered with bins and secrets. Somewhere out there, something would be hers.
Not twenty paces from Dean Bridge, across the road under a halo of lamplight, a green wheelie bin waited. Inside, atop black plastic sacks, a baby slept. His blanket was loud with a green, furious man—the Hulk—an accidental purchase for six soul points that he'd somehow managed without knowing how to crawl. His body was too warm, his limbs already thickening toward a wrong kind of strength. He dreamed of whatever babies dream of when their first lullaby is a voice in the skull, a woman's scream, and a fall into the dark.
The System that had sung him into the world lay quiet, patient. All it required was a thought: a single word.
System.
Down by the river, the little queen cocked her cardboard crown, tightened her backpack straps, and went hunting the cold for treasure.
She slipped out from Camelot's bush-walls, crossed the Water of Leith by torchlight, Sheepy padding behind. Treasure meant bins: one-eyed dolls, headless knights, the "wrong" candies other people tossed—her favorites.
As she climbed toward the city above Dean Bridge, the baby in the council‑issue green wheelie bin woke. His tiny, obscene eight-pack growled. Tears gathered.
System.
Cold light unfurled across his mind; icons snapped into ranks:
> [SOUL SYSTEM — STATUS]
Owner: [UNNAMED] — Rogue (Lv.10)
Soul Balance: 3,000,000 SP
Recent Expense: Hulk towel-blanket — 6 SP
Spendable: 2,999,994 SP
He didn't read—he wanted. The UI obediently flipped to pictures.
> [STORE → BASIC GOODS → INFANT CARE]
• Bunny Sippy Bottle (240 ml, twin handles, bunny-ear cap; 20 cm × 12 cm) — 24 SP
• Enhanced Human Milk (x3 potency, 240 ml) — 240 SP
Defaults recommended for neonatal safety. Confirm?
A squeeze of intent answered yes.
A neat white flash. The bottle blinked into being above him—mint-green ring, two little ears on the cap, wide handles for clumsy hands. He snatched it mid-air, worked the lid, and drank. Warmth washed him; the tears retreated.
The ledger ticked:
> [LEDGER — PURCHASE]
Bottle 24 SP + Milk 240 SP = 264 SP
Running total (incl. blanket 6 SP): 270 SP
New Balance: 2,999,730 SP
In the green hush of the bin he drank, quiet as snowfall, while the System folded back to dark—waiting for the next command. Then beyond the green hush of the bin came the sound of paws—eager, careful.
The night held its breath. Click-click, searching.
An Old English Sheepdog shouldered into the narrow close, nose down, one eye lost beneath a grey curtain. He tested the air, rose onto his hind legs, planted both forepaws on the wheelie bin's lip, and shoved. The lid skated. The bin teetered, considered propriety, and went—over—spilling black liners like tuxedoed fish onto the frost.
Out with them spun a baby—bottle still clutched, a cheap cotton towel flapping like a cape. The print showed a green, muscle-mad brute flexing in triumph, which would have been overkill if not for the fact the baby had an eight-pack of his own. He slid until the curb disagreed and stopped him with a polite bump.
The dog licked his eyebrow once, solemn as a pledge, then gave a single boof.
"Sheepy?" A girl's whisper, bright and hungry. "What is it? Did you find—like—a present?"
She arrived at speed: all in black (hoodie, cap, gloves, puffer, joggers, trainers), red hair a signal flare even under the cap, eyes winter-blue. Six years old, stubborn as flint, powered by the same battery that had carried her out of a house that had "forgotten" her this morning—no present, no attention, not when there was a younger brother to polish for the family name. Hope by surname; not by experience.
She skidded, saw the dark little shape on the snow, and her voice turned to steam.
"Oh my God—little guy—what are you doing here? Where are your parents?"
She scooped him—wrong, by the ribs, head bobbing against her elbow the way only a child holds a baby. He proved dense, heavier than a newborn should be, towel-brute grinning across his belly. She blinked at the miniature muscles. "Whoa. You're… strong."
As if he disliked being handled like contraband, he wriggled. She gasped, fumbled, and—oof—dropped him.
He didn't cry.
He rolled to his stomach, planted both hands, and popped into a wobbly handstand. Two intent steps toward the bottle under the dog; a wobble; whump. Gravity signed the log.
The girl clapped both hands over her mouth to catch a squeal. "Holy—actual—Christmas miracle. What are you?"
The baby frowned at road salt as if insulted by it.
"Right—sorry—you're probably cold." She unzipped, tucked him inside her jacket, made a pocket of heat. He watched her from under the zip: freckles, blazing hair, astonished blue eyes.
"Drink," she said, finding the bunny-eared bottle and nudging the teat to his mouth. He latched with the grim, professional focus of a creature that intended to live.
"Good." She exhaled. Naming tidies chaos. "You're… Strong."
[PROFILE] Owner name set: STRONG.
"That's your name. Strong. I'm Anna—Anna Hope—I'm six years old just so you know. This is Sheepy—he's old. He's a good boy. Don't judge his name; I was four when I named him."
Something cold spooled open behind the baby's eyes, a ledger breathing to life:
> POTENTIAL PAWN DETECTED.
Candidate: ANNA HOPE — age 6 — proximity constant — loyalty vector: guardian.
AUTO‑ASSIGNMENT: ENABLED (Master protection priority).
EVALUATING PACK ASSETS… Sheepdog present: SHEEPY (male; temperament: stalwart).
CLASS MATCH: Hunter → Pawn: ANNA.
PET BIND: SHEEPY → Hunter.
LEVEL SYNC: Pawn/Pet → Master Lv.10.
STAT INJECTION: +9 to all cores (additive to base stats).
RESTORE ON LEVEL: HP/Stamina → MAX.
TEAM STATUS: [Owner: STRONG — Rogue (Lv.10) | Pawn: ANNA — Hunter (Lv.10) | Pet: SHEEPY (Lv.10) — Bound]
PAWN ACQUIRED. Congratulations, Master.
Anna didn't hear a voice. She felt release—as if a hidden latch had clicked and the day's ache poured out of her little body and away. Cold let go. Breath came easy. The baby in her coat went teddy‑light in her arms, warm as a hot‑water bottle with a heartbeat. Bones under her skin felt… true, like furniture tightened with a final twist. Reflexes sharpened; space between sounds widened. (Your L10 physiology: body rewrites to match numbers—denser bone/tendon, elite reflex loops.)
She glanced at her hands. The nicks, purpled smudges, and scabby crescents from "don't climb that" vanished like old pencil marks rubbed clean. Freckles paled to a dusting, skin smoothed, nails came up glossy as if scrubbed by angels with steel wool. It wasn't glamour; it was maintenance done by an uncaring god of math. (System equalizes the body to the stat line.)
Sheepy shook once. Muscle ran under his coat like a wave; age drained out of the joints. His chest broadened, shoulders set, and when his claws tested the street, the asphalt answered with a rasp that wasn't there a heartbeat before. He leaned his weight against Anna's shin—new strength, same vow.
Inside Strong's head, more numbers stamped themselves with clerkly satisfaction:
> PAWN CORELINES: STR/TOU/DEX/PER = 29/29/29/29 (additive).
PET CORELINES: STR/TOU/DEX/PER = 29/29/29/29 (additive).
REACTION LATENCY (pawn): ~169 ms recalculated.
MOVEMENT BONUS: +14.5% (DEX × 0.5%).
CARRY CAP (pawn): 107 kg (20 + 3×STR).
PACK PROTOCOL: Two‑heart formation online. Guard the lane. Hunt the angle.
Anna blinked, a little drunk on clarity. "Whoa. What's… happening? I feel—" She tested a breath, then a hop. "—good. Like I slept for a week."
She crouched and squinted at Sheepy. "Buddy… you look different. Handsome, even." He gave a single boof, proud and practical.
Her gaze dropped to the baby peeking from the zip. "And you—what did you do, tiny man? Is your strong… contagious?" She tried on a scowl and failed, grinning. "I don't get it, but I like it. Thanks, Strong. You might be the best Christmas present I ever found."
The ledger hummed with that ancient war‑herald amusement only Strong could hear:
> CLASS CONFIRMED: Hunter (Anna). PET: Sheepy bound.
PAWN BEHAVIORAL MODEL: Protector / Forager / Ambush‑resistant (PER 29; danger‑sense onset).
NOTE: Gendered expression honored—feminine musculature retained (definition ↑, bulk bias ↓); Pet (male) expresses mass/density ↑. Proceed.
Anna hugged the baby closer, feeling the new tough in her skin. No shiver. No tired feet from walking half Edinburgh. Hunger slid back into manageable. "Right," she said decisively, queen of a very small kingdom. "Since nobody else is stepping up, I will. I'll look after you. I'll be your mum, okay? Sheepy can be your dad." She considered this, nodded once. "We can play house. At Camelot."
She tipped an invisible crown. "C'mon, Sheepy. To the castle. In the morning we'll ask around for your real parents if they're actually looking. I'm not kidnapping you; I'm responsible." The dog took point with a new, quiet power; he walked the angles the way guards do in old stories, as if he already understood guard the lane.
They moved—girl, dog, baby—clean through the winter dark: a pack now, stitched together by a system that never says please and always pays on time. And Anna, perfect and human and something more, felt the world widen around her like a road finally cleared of snow.