Vought protects you

"Too fast."

Lin Mo patiently explained again, privately marveling at how childish he had become. Since when had he practically become an expert at looking after kids?

Sure, Joanna was a little blonde girl, but... No, no, I can't think like that. Lin Mo hurriedly slapped himself a few times in his mind.

He was doing this for the future of this world. If not for him, this world would produce a Homelander who slaughtered people without batting an eye. People ought to thank him.

Coming back to his senses, Lin Mo pressed a finger against the cracked shell.

"But we can still play with it."

"Go a little slower next time."

Joanna took the damaged toy car and tried to control her strength for the third time.

This time, its wheels rolled steadily forward.

It was still much faster than Lin Mo's car, but it didn't hit the wall.

"You won."

Lin Mo spoke up suddenly.

Joanna looked at the toy car stopped near the finish line, her expression strange.

"Won?"

"It means you were faster than me."

Lin Mo picked up his red toy car.

"But I might win next time."

Joanna didn't seem to understand the fun of winning and losing, but she clearly reacted to the mention of next time.

"We'll play again?"

"Sure."

"You'll come back?" Joanna seemed a little uneasy and pressed him for an answer.

"I will."

Only after getting his answer did she lower her head to look at the toy car again.

Lin Mo breathed a sigh of relief as well. If only entertaining kids were always this easy. The game itself had flaws, and things could get tricky if Joanna decided to be exacting about it. But the fact was, she listened to whatever he said. Wasn't that so much better than those little brats from his previous life?

During their subsequent meetings, Lin Mo began introducing her to more games.

Building blocks, puzzles, matching picture cards.

Sometimes, they simply drew crooked lines on paper with crayons.

Joanna showed far more interest in these things than the researchers had expected.

Perhaps she didn't have any particularly strong preference for the toys themselves. What really drew her in was that these activities involved another person.

The blocks weren't there to test her grip strength. They were there so two people could build a house together. A broken toy car didn't immediately bring every activity to an end, either.

Every game meant a stretch of time she could spend with Lin Mo. During these brief encounters, Lin Mo also gradually taught her the most basic ways to control her strength.

"When you pick something up, use as little strength as possible first. If you can't lift it, slowly use more."

"Before you touch someone, think about whether it'll hurt them."

"When someone says stop, you should stop first."

"You can say you're angry, but you can't start by hitting someone."

These lessons weren't complicated. Ordinary children might learn them naturally through family life.

But Joanna had no family, and she was different herself. She could only try to work out the rules of the world through one experiment and punishment after another.

In the past, Vought had tried to teach her through commands, even bringing in psychologists to brainwash her. Researchers would stand behind the observation window, repeating instructions over the loudspeaker:

Control your strength, follow instructions, stay quiet, do not attack.

These words held no concrete meaning for Joanna. She didn't know why she had to obey, nor did she understand what this so-called control was actually for.

But Lin Mo expressed things differently. When she controlled her strength properly, he would keep holding her hand.

When she pushed the car too fast, the toy broke. When she eased up, the two of them could keep racing.

At first, Joanna would only listen to Lin Mo. When researchers asked her over the loudspeaker to put something down, she wouldn't react at all.

Only when Lin Mo repeated the request would she do it.

When the nursing staff told her to sit in the examination chair, she remained on guard. Only after Lin Mo told her they could keep playing once the examination was over would she approach it.

This change soon caught the researchers' attention. A new evaluation report contained a conclusion in bold.

[Lin Mo may have become Joanna's only stable emotional anchor at present.]

As Vogelbaum read the experimental report, a hint of a smile returned to his face. Everything was progressing in the direction he had envisioned.

Lin Mo could influence her emotions, guide her behavior, and even get her to willingly undergo examinations she had strongly resisted in the past.

This was an extremely valuable avenue of control.

If Joanna obeyed only Lin Mo rather than Vought, then the company had gained a new control system for an uncontrollable test subject.

That made the next step simple. Vogelbaum put down the report and addressed the assistant beside him.

"Increase Lin Mo's ideological education classes."

The assistant noted it down and asked, "In which areas?"

"Obedience, responsibility, and identification with the company."

"Make him understand that Vought provides them with shelter, food, medical care, and education," Vogelbaum said. "Make him believe the company is protecting them."

"Then have him pass those ideas on to Joanna."

The assistant immediately understood what he meant. Joanna refused to listen to the researchers, but she would listen to Lin Mo. As long as Vought could shape Lin Mo, it could indirectly shape Joanna.

They had found a more reliable means of control than anesthetic gas or sonic weapons. Besides, Lin Mo looked far easier to control than Joanna, both physically and mentally.

Vogelbaum looked at Lin Mo's file, silently thinking, Lin Mo, you're smart. You'll know what to do.

Lin Mo soon noticed that his lessons had changed. Previously, Vought had mainly arranged basic language lessons, number recognition, and simple general knowledge for him.

The teaching materials were strictly screened. There was no real news, no complete maps, and very little mention of life outside the underground facility.

The researchers wanted him to have enough cognitive ability to cooperate with the experiments.

But they didn't want him becoming too interested in the outside world. After his encounters with Joanna became more frequent, however, new material began appearing in his lessons.

"Who provides you with food?"

A female teacher sat across from Lin Mo and asked gently.

Lin Mo looked at the picture cards on the table. They bore the Vought Corporation's blue-and-white logo, along with the standard picture of those overgrown babies, The Seven.

"Vought."

"Who protects you from harm?"

"Vought."

"Who helps you learn?"

"Vought."

"Very good."

The teacher placed another card on the table. It showed a child in a white laboratory gown undergoing an examination, with smiling researchers standing nearby.

"Why should you cooperate with examinations?"

Lin Mo deliberately thought for a moment before answering.

"Because they need to know if I'm sick."

"What else?"

"To see whether my abilities have changed."

"Excellent."

The teacher gave him an encouraging smile.

"Examinations are meant to protect you and help the company understand your abilities."

"So, when the researchers ask us to do something, what should we do?"

Lin Mo looked at her and supplied an answer that satisfied her.

"Obey."

"That's right."

She made a check mark on her record sheet. Lin Mo watched the whole thing, a barely perceptible sneer flickering across his face before vanishing.

"Following reasonable arrangements is a responsibility."

"Vought takes care of you, so you should help Vought too."

Lin Mo nodded earnestly on the surface, but inwardly, his complaints only grew. Fortunately, his super brain was still doing its job. Otherwise, memorizing this stuff really would have made him throw up.

Teaching him these things was nothing more than Vought's attempt to control Joanna through him. The researchers had discovered that Joanna didn't care about the company's orders and wouldn't pay attention to instructions over the loudspeaker.

But she watched Lin Mo, listened to him, and imitated his behavior. So Vought began stepping up its indoctrination of him.

First, make him believe in the company. Then have him pass those ideas on to Joanna.

The whole process seemed gentle, without threats or coercion, but it still gave him no right to choose.

There were only picture cards, repeated praise, and simple logic a child could understand.

Vought gives you food. Vought gives you a room. Vought protects you.

So you should obey Vought and think of Vought as your home. If Lin Mo really were a child who had lived in an underground laboratory since infancy, this kind of education might actually work.

He would never have seen the outside world. He wouldn't know what a family was, or that normal children weren't subjected to impact, puncture, and drug experiments every day.

As long as Vought called experiments examinations, imprisonment protection, and obedience responsibility, he would find it difficult to establish any other standard of judgment.

His basic ethical framework would already have formed in childhood. Even if he grew up and learned that Vought was no good, he would be powerless to do anything about it. Besides, he would probably remain indifferent.

There was an even worse possibility, like Homelander. After growing up, he hadn't destroyed Vought. Instead, he had become the product Vought wanted. Only later had he gradually broken away from Vought, wanting to become the one in charge of it.

But in reality, he was still just in league with Vought.