The Blonde Girl

Lin Mo's heart sank slightly.

Other children.

In three years, Vought had never arranged for him to meet another test subject. Even when he occasionally heard other children crying during transfers, they were swiftly kept apart.

Vought did not want its test subjects influencing one another under uncontrolled conditions.

Yet now, the company was preparing to let him meet another child. It could not simply be worried that he was lonely.

The air around him seemed to congeal as the elevator began to descend.

The caregiver gently took his hand and said in a soothing voice, "Don't be nervous."

"The company just wants to find you a companion."

Lin Mo looked up at the changing floor numbers, wearing the bewildered expression of a child.

But a thought flashed through his mind. Vought never gave test subjects companions for no reason. Whoever they brought before him would not be an ordinary child. He only hoped they were not using him as a shield.

The elevator finally stopped on the seventh basement level.

It was nothing like the experimental floor where Lin Mo had lived.

The walls were a monotonous gray-white, with research equipment scattered about. Apart from that, there was not a single thing meant for children.

There was no strong smell of disinfectant in the air. If not for the hidden cameras everywhere, the reinforced alloy doors, and the armed guards stationed every ten meters, it would have been easy to let one's guard down here.

Seeing it up close, Lin Mo only found it ironic.

Vought excelled at dressing a prison up as a home and disguising experiments as education.

The caregiver led him through two identity checkpoints and into an Observation Room. Vogelbaum was already waiting inside.

Three years had passed, but the scientist in charge of his project had not changed much.

Well, his hair looked even thinner than before, and the exhaustion beneath his eyes was more pronounced. At this rate, he might go bald one day.

But when Vogelbaum looked at Lin Mo, his gaze was warm—not like he was looking at a child, but like he was examining a research project that had stubbornly refused to yield results. Either way, Lin Mo found it unsettling.

In truth, Lin Mo was only a few years younger than him. Having a grown man stare at him like that...

"Good morning, Lin Mo."

Lin Mo slowly looked up at him. Faced with the greeting, he could only force himself to answer.

"Good morning, Doctor."

Vogelbaum crouched down, trying to bring his eyes level with Lin Mo's.

"Do you know what a friend is?"

Lin Mo deliberately thought for a few seconds before answering.

"Someone you play with on TV?"

"Close enough."

Vogelbaum smiled again.

"Friends play together, eat together, and sometimes learn together."

"Would you like a friend?"

Lin Mo did not answer right away. He glanced at the caregiver, then back at Vogelbaum, acting both uncertain and curious.

"Really? Does he live here too?"

"She."

Vogelbaum corrected Lin Mo's pronunciation.

"She's a girl about your age."

A girl.

Several possibilities flashed through Lin Mo's mind.

Over the past three years, he could not have been the only child test subject Vought had raised in its underground facility.

Some came from families that had volunteered for the project. Others might have been born directly in the laboratory. Still others, like him, were probably abandoned infants who might not even have a legal identity.

The company might be bringing test subjects of the same age together to observe how they would socialize later. But it might also want to test how people with powers reacted to one another.

The most dangerous possibility was that they intended to use another child to stimulate the growth of his abilities.

"What's her name?"

Lin Mo followed up.

Still smiling, Vogelbaum pointed toward the metal door opposite them.

"You can try asking her yourself when you meet her."

He stood and nodded to someone outside the Observation Room.

The metal panel covering the glass ahead slowly rose, revealing a huge one-way Observation Window.

On the other side was an empty white room.

There was no bed, no table, nothing at all—not even the toys Vought usually used to test children's reactions. That piqued Lin Mo's curiosity, and his gaze moved toward the center of the room.

Only one girl sat there.

She looked about Lin Mo's age. She wore a loose white lab gown, and her bare feet rested on the cold floor. Soft blond hair fell to her shoulders, somewhat tangled from long neglect.

She clutched a blue blanket tightly to her chest. It seemed to be the only thing in the room that belonged to her.

The girl was not crying. Nor was she wandering around the unfamiliar room as an ordinary child might.

She simply sat motionless with her head lowered and half her face buried in the blanket, far too quiet for a three-year-old.

Lin Mo could not tell which character from the original story she might be. His mind raced. A blond girl... It couldn't be Annie, could it? The age doesn't seem right.

He studied the room more closely. A blue blanket...

Wait. A blue blanket—that could only mean... A possibility struck Lin Mo. Thinking back to the system's earlier hint, he wondered, Could this be Homelander?

The walls around the girl had clearly been reinforced a second time. Concealed nozzles were installed in all four corners, a miniature sonic device sat above the doorframe, and a separate line for delivering anesthetic gas ran through the ceiling.

None of that equipment could have been meant for an ordinary test subject. What was more, besides Vogelbaum and several researchers, six fully armed guards stood in the Observation Room.

Two of them carried not ordinary firearms, but the high-frequency sonic devices Vought used specifically to restrain people with powers.

Just to arrange a meeting between two children, they had taken precautions on this scale.

What had the girl behind the glass done?

A researcher handed Vogelbaum a file.

Vogelbaum made no attempt to keep it from Lin Mo. Or rather, they simply did not believe a three-year-old could understand the technical details in it.

Standing nearby, Lin Mo quickly scanned the open page from the corner of his eye.

[Test subject ID: HL-01.]

[Method of cultivation: artificial embryo cultivation.]

[Source of genetic sample: classified at the highest level.]

[Compound V compatibility: extremely high.]

[Observed abilities: enhanced strength, physical durability, enhanced perception.]

[Potential abilities: high-speed movement, aerial maneuverability, heat emission.]

[Psychological assessment: highly guarded, refuses contact, attachment bond formation failed.]

[Risk record: multiple caregivers injured.]

HL-01.

Lin Mo's expression darkened slightly when he saw the designation, but he hid it at once.

There was no mistake. The answer was obvious.

Three years ago, he had seen that designation in the embryo cultivation area.

Using Soldier Boy's genetic sample as its foundation, the HL Project had injected Compound V from the embryonic stage onward. Vogelbaum himself was in charge, and the project had only one full name.

The Odessa Project. In other words, Homelander.

Lin Mo looked again at the blond girl behind the glass. Three years had passed, but her features still matched those of the baby he had seen in the cultivation pod.

She was the test subject who would become Homelander.

But unlike the original story Lin Mo remembered, this world's Homelander was not a man. He was a blond girl.