Joanna's Change

The blanket was small, but it was more than enough to cover two children. They sat a little closer together.

Joanna sat down on the rug, her shoulder touching Lin Mo's arm.

Then she pulled the other side of the blanket over them both.

Lin Mo looked down at the blue fabric covering his legs, surprised. She hadn't attacked him for touching the blanket, nor had she merely accepted its return. She had given him half of the thing that mattered most to her.

The observation room fell silent.

Barbara was the first to react, her voice excited.

"She's sharing. That's an unexpected choice. Joanna has included Lin Mo in her safe space."

Vogelbaum moved slowly toward the glass. For the first time, he looked almost unable to hide his astonishment.

In the past three years, Joanna had never willingly shared her blanket with anyone. Even when a caregiver merely reached out to touch it, she immediately went on guard.

Yet now, she had covered another child with it herself.

Beneath the blanket, Lin Mo turned to look at Joanna.

She wasn't looking at him. She sat quietly beside him, hugging her knees.

But their shoulders were pressed together.

Lin Mo stayed silent. What did this mean? Had she accepted me?

Or did she see me as... one of her own?

He couldn't tell what was going through her stubborn little head, but her gesture still brought a faint smile to his face. This was good for him, too. He had just been worrying about how to get close to her. Now it seemed he didn't need to.

He wasn't about to be foolish enough to push the blanket away. After a show of hesitation, he raised a hand and pulled the fabric back up where it had started to slip off Joanna's shoulder.

Joanna looked up at Lin Mo again...

No attacks occurred during the second contact experiment that day.

The struggle over an object that the researchers had prepared for never happened.

They had wanted to test whether Joanna would attack Lin Mo to protect her blue blanket.

Instead, they got their answer:

She was willing to share it with him.

After the experiment, Researcher Vought quickly adjusted the original plan.

Joanna and Lin Mo began meeting every three days instead of once a week.

The time they spent together gradually increased from twenty minutes to an hour.

Lin Mo understood what Vought really wanted: to use him to make Homelander easier to control. But he didn't necessarily see that as a bad thing. It meant Vought would keep the two of them together, which suited his goal from the start.

Besides, over the following weeks, and for reasons he didn't know, the time he was allowed aboveground each day grew longer. He could spend more than an hour in the sun.

He didn't understand why, but he didn't push his luck by asking for more time. To Vought, he was only an excellent test subject.

The extra sunlight also made Lin Mo's strength grow rapidly. At this rate, he figured another five or six years in the sun would let him unlock Super Vision and Super Hearing.

And with Super Vision, Heat Vision couldn't be far behind. Who wouldn't want eyes that could kill someone with a glare?

Lin Mo was happily lost in that fantasy.

Meanwhile, Joanna—Homelander—had attacked caregivers noticeably less often since their second meeting.

It wasn't that she had begun to trust them. She was gradually learning to control her strength before reaching out.

When a caregiver set food in front of her, she no longer grabbed their wrist. When researchers examined her pupils, the light no longer made her immediately swat their equipment away.

The improvement wasn't enormous, but for Joanna, who had once been almost impossible to care for consistently, it was enough to excite the entire research team.

An even clearer change appeared whenever they met. As soon as the isolation door opened, Joanna hurried into the Game Room.

She ignored the new stuffed toys and colored pencils. Instead, she immediately found Lin Mo sitting in the corner.

She stood in front of him for several seconds, making sure his face hadn't changed.

Then she reached out and lightly touched his wrist before sitting beside him.

Once, Vought deliberately dressed Lin Mo in dark-blue children's clothes and changed his hairstyle.

Joanna stopped short when she entered. Instead of approaching, she stood several meters away and watched him for a long time.

Only when Lin Mo raised a hand and said, "It's me," did she slowly come over.

Vought tried other methods as well.

For example, they sent Joanna into the Game Room first, then had Lin Mo enter a few minutes later than scheduled.

The surveillance footage showed that she touched none of the toys. She simply stood by the door, staring in the direction Lin Mo usually appeared.

When several minutes passed and the door still hadn't opened, her heart rate began to rise and her fingers slowly clenched.

Her heart rate only returned to normal after Lin Mo entered the room. Seeing her like that left him both helpless and heartsick, so he spent some time playing with her. Afterward, though, he felt that the way Joanna looked at him had changed.

From then on, Joanna gradually developed a fixed routine.

Every time she entered the Game Room, she found Lin Mo first. She looked at his face, listened to his voice, and touched his wrist.

Only after doing all that would she pay attention to anything else in the room.

Lin Mo didn't stop her. For a child whose life was full of people who might suddenly disappear, repeatedly checking wasn't unreasonable. It was a sign that she felt unsafe.

To Joanna, Vought's caregivers were all temporary.

Some worked for a week, some lasted a month, and some refused to enter her room again after their first injury.

She didn't know where they went. No one explained it to her. All she knew was that each time she woke up, she might see a complete stranger.

So she had to make sure Lin Mo was still there, that he hadn't vanished like the others.

"What do you want to play today?"

Lin Mo asked her one day as he sat in front of a pile of newly delivered toys.

Joanna sat beside him, holding her blue blanket.

She looked at the blocks, puzzles, and stuffed toys on the floor but didn't answer. She didn't know how to choose. Playing had never been part of her life.

Vought had given her toys before, but mainly for testing.

They tested whether she preferred certain colors and whether different shapes would trigger her powers.

Whenever she touched an object, the people behind the wall recorded data. If she broke it, the experiment ended. No one sat beside her to explain the rules of a game, let alone play with her.

Lin Mo picked up a little red car and smiled.

"Then let's have a race."

Joanna looked at him and asked curiously,

"A race?"

"We'll see whose car gets over there first."

Lin Mo pointed to the other side of the room. He picked out a little blue car for Joanna and placed it in her hand.

"Don't throw it."

"Put it on the floor and push it."

Lin Mo patiently explained the rules until he thought she understood.

He sighed inwardly. Lately, he had almost felt like crying. Spending every day cooped up in Vought's underground facility, with nothing to do except occasionally go up and get some sun, was driving him crazy.

Joanna looked down at the toy car in her palm.

Her fingers were visibly stiff. If she used even a little too much force, the car would break like the red block had last time.

Lin Mo showed her first. He placed his car on the rug and gave it a gentle push.

The wheels turned, and it rolled more than a meter.

Joanna watched the car for a while, then crouched down and copied him.

Her first push was too light.

The car moved less than ten centimeters.

She looked up at Lin Mo again, at a loss.

"A little harder," Lin Mo encouraged her.

Joanna pulled the car back.

But on her second try, she pushed too hard.

The blue car shot forward like a bullet and struck the opposite wall. A crack appeared in its front.

Joanna went rigid. She stared at the cracked car, certain the experiment was about to end.

In the past, once a toy broke, the door would soon open and she would be taken back to her room.

But Lin Mo simply walked over and picked up the car.