A Bold Idea

The system's last message from three years ago surfaced in his mind again.

[The timeline has diverged.]

And not by some minor degree. One of the most important characters had changed, starting with her sex.

That meant the story he knew could only serve as a reference.

Even so, The Seven might still emerge in this world. So might Butcher, Hughie, and The Boys.

If that was the case, would Ryan, Homelander's biological son in the original story, still be born?

Maybe it was better if he wasn't. Lin Mo gazed at the blond girl beyond the glass, his thoughts racing. He'd never liked Ryan while watching the original story anyway. In the end, Ryan had joined Butcher against Homelander. He must have been blind, probably from staring at his phone too much.

But Soldier Boy might still disappear in Nicaragua. The girl's existence could change any of the key events to come.

As he thought about it, Lin Mo suddenly understood why Vought Researcher wanted them to meet.

It wasn't just because Lin Mo had appeared. It might also be because she was female rather than the male subject from the original story. Perhaps that had caused slight differences in her personality, leaving HL-01—Homelander, as her file identified her—unable to form a stable emotional bond with anyone.

Vought's brainwashing and the psychological pressure they put on her had probably begun to affect her differently.

Her powers had also grown too strong for ordinary psychologists to handle. Every encounter risked casualties.

And SOL-0, Lin Mo, happened to possess formidable defenses. One child couldn't control her strength; the other could scarcely be hurt by ordinary attacks.

Vought probably wanted to use him to see what would happen when they put the two together.

"Is she like me?"

Lin Mo stopped watching and turned to Vogelbaum, asking the question out of nowhere.

Vogelbaum looked down at him.

An ordinary three-year-old might not understand the atmosphere, but he could still sense something unusual from the room's layout and the guards' behavior. The question was hardly out of place.

"There have just been a few accidents," Vogelbaum said.

"She hasn't learned to control her strength yet."

"So you want me to teach her?"

Lin Mo's voice was still childish. Vogelbaum's answer had all but confirmed his suspicion.

Surprise flashed through Vogelbaum's eyes. He bent down, put on a kindly expression, and patted Lin Mo's head.

"What makes you think that?" he asked curiously.

Lin Mo raised an arm and feigned pride.

"Because I'm really strong."

The Observation Room fell quiet for a moment.

Several researchers exchanged glances. The smile on Vogelbaum's face grew a little more genuine. Lin Mo's thinking had surprised him. If Lin Mo met her, and things went the way he'd imagined...

"You're very clever. We only want you two to meet first."

"If you don't like her, you can stop whenever you want."

Lin Mo rolled his eyes inwardly. Who would believe that?

Since when had Vought let its test subjects decide whether an experiment ended?

Still, he had no intention of refusing. Looking at the child beyond the glass, he suddenly had a new idea.

For three years, leaving Vought had been his most important goal for the future.

He would wait until he was older, until he could reach the sun, until he had amassed enough power to break free.

Then he would leave this underground laboratory and find a life of his own in this world.

What became of Homelander had nothing directly to do with him. Even as a woman, she was just a character in the story of this altered timeline.

But the real Homelander was sitting on the other side of the glass.

She wasn't the madman on television, draped in the American flag with a fake smile plastered across his face. Nor was she the tyrant who stood atop skyscrapers and looked down on everyone.

She was just a three-year-old child.

Barefoot, clutching a blue blanket.

Pitiful. Tragic. Perhaps Homelander in the original story had been a tragedy from the start.

Unable to control her strength, she couldn't have normal contact with anyone. They had even locked her alone in a room with nothing in it.

For the first time, Lin Mo had a thought that had nothing to do with escaping Vought.

The Homelander from the original story had grown up in Vought's cold laboratory.

He had no parents, no friends, no normal emotional bonds. All he had known as a child were tests, orders, fear, false praise, and Vought's psychological manipulation.

In the end, he had become a monster desperate to be loved but incapable of understanding how to love anyone else.

But what if things changed?

What if, as this female Homelander first came to know the world, there was someone beside her whom she couldn't easily hurt—someone who wouldn't immediately flee in fear? Would she still become what Homelander had been in the original story?

Lin Mo didn't believe a few words from him could change a person. He didn't see himself as some born savior, either, or a Superman with Clark's sense of justice. At heart, he was an ordinary man. But he had an idea, and now he had the chance and the ability to try.

Maybe it was selfish, too. He wanted to see what good might come of this world having a chance to produce a decent Homelander.

He had time, and he could afford to make mistakes. At least the girl across from him couldn't easily kill him. Perhaps he didn't have to do nothing but wait until he was strong enough to escape.

He could stay for now and see what kind of person this female Homelander would become with him in her life.

The blond girl behind the glass still clutched her blanket. She hadn't looked up once, but just as Lin Mo was about to turn away, her body shifted slightly.

Slowly, she raised her face. Her pale eyes fixed precisely on the one-way glass. She didn't look around, nor did the equipment in the Observation Room draw her attention.

She stared straight at where Lin Mo stood.

The specially made glass was meant to allow observation only from the outside, and it contained a special material. Yet their gazes seemed to meet across it.

Lin Mo frowned instinctively. She shouldn't be able to see in here. At her age, she probably hadn't developed X-ray vision.

And given how the glass was made, she shouldn't have been able to see through it anyway.

Unless...

She had heard him. His breathing, maybe even his heartbeat.

The blond girl hugged the blue blanket tighter without saying a word.

But she never looked away again, as if she had known all along that behind the glass was another child like her.

"Are we really going to do this, Doctor?" In a laboratory inside Vought's Bunker, a young female researcher leafed aimlessly through a pile of experimental records.

"Of course, Barbara. We have to try, don't we?" Vogelbaum sat in a chair, still wearing that kindly smile.

"But can we really control Joanna? And with Lin Mo added as a variable, this may not be what Vought's executives decided..."

Barbara's face was full of worry. She feared something might happen to one of the test subjects. Lin Mo was an excellent subject, after all, and they hadn't subjected him to anything like the warped upbringing they had designed for Homelander. They liked him more than Joanna.

Vought's executives paid little attention to Lin Mo, either. Research on him had stalled, and over time they had mostly stopped asking about him. After Joanna was born, he had faded even further into the background. Vogelbaum, though, had always thought highly of him.

Most test subjects were bad-tempered, but Lin Mo was different. He was gentle, and compared with the others, he was someone they had watched grow up. Naturally, they had come to feel differently about him.

"That's one way to look at it. Of course I know involving Lin Mo could lead to unexpected results. But of all our test subjects, no one is better suited to this."

Vogelbaum sighed and continued, "Vought's executives want us to create a powerful superweapon that's easy to control. So deliberately building in a 'psychological vulnerability' is necessary."