The Alchemical Law

The seventy-second floor of Vought Tower.

Chu Hang's double walked down the corridor in a suit, tablet in hand.

He had changed his face with Form Mimicry. Now he looked like a white man of about thirty-five, with a receding hairline and glasses perched on his nose. Just another midlevel employee.

Telepathy stayed active. His mental network covered the entire floor.

The receptionist was wondering what to wear on her date tonight, a department head was worried about quarterly reports, and a security guard was scrolling through news about The Seven.

No one noticed him.

Form Mimicry changed more than appearances. It could mimic a person's air, too. Chu Hang's double now gave off the unmistakable vibe of a Vought employee: exhausted, anxious, and eager to flatter his superiors.

He fit right in.

At the archive door, he swiped a card.

Access granted.

He had lifted the card from a department head's pocket ten minutes earlier. Thanks to the Law of Space, he had taken it without touching him. The man still hadn't noticed.

The archive was spacious, with metal cabinets lining the walls and several computer terminals in the middle.

Chu Hang's double sat at the innermost terminal and entered the department head's username and password.

The screen lit up.

He opened "Compound V Research Archives."

Document after document stretched from 1971 to the present, more than fifty years of experimental records.

He skimmed through them.

Compound V had first been developed by a scientist in Nazi Germany named Frederick Vogelbaum. After World War II, the United States recruited him to continue his research with government funding.

The military eventually abandoned it. The death rate was too high.

Vought Corporation took over and changed course. It didn't want stable Super-Soldiers. It wanted superheroes with maximum commercial value.

A high