Puppet

"Damn it..."

After Translucent agreed to Rorschach's demands, Rorschach had kindly shown him the state of his digestive health.

When Translucent realized the sensations in his stomach matched the little demons' movements on the screen perfectly, he broke down.

He promised to obey Rorschach's orders, then leaned weakly against the wall as he left.

"You..." Butcher was too stunned to speak.

They had watched Rorschach pour those damned things into Translucent's mouth.

"Don't worry, I won't use them on you. This technology is expensive."

Yes, quite expensive. But it had cost only two hundred points.

Rorschach didn't need enough to cover his entire body and form a flashy, multifunctional suit of armor like Iron Man's.

That would have multiplied the cost several times over, even for the same number of robots with more limited functions.

What Rorschach had bought amounted to no more than forty milliliters. Each milliliter of nanobots had cost five points.

But to Translucent, those nanobots were a death sentence.

If Rorschach gave the order, he died.

If Rorschach died, he died too.

But Homelander had personally given him this assignment. How was he supposed to report back? Rorschach hadn't told him that.

"Stay calm... Stay calm..."

Translucent kept taking deep breaths. From the shadows, he had seen more than enough sincerity and deception to know how to make the right expression.

I can do this. If only for the one waiting for me at home...

He encouraged himself, rehearsing what to say as he slowly made his way back to Vought Tower.

"How much else are you keeping from us?"

Butcher's voice was cold. To him, nothing mattered more than whether Becca was alive or dead.

Revenge came second.

If Rorschach was hiding something that kept Butcher from seeing his wife, whose fate had been unknown for eight whole years...

Butcher wouldn't mind losing control again.

"Kimiko." Rorschach merely beckoned, and Wolf Girl shoved Butcher aside with force.

Butcher's face twitched. Then he raised both hands.

"Any news of A-Train being discharged?"

With the tension running high, Rorschach decided to speak.

"He seems to be out. I saw him post about it, but his popularity has dropped too much. It didn't even trend."

In the land of the free, practically every action a hero took came with publicity and a trending spot bought by the marketing department.

The aim was to maximize profits.

That was why Vought plastered its superheroes' logos everywhere.

But for them, what should have been a profitable season wasn't going smoothly at all.

Two heroes had been replaced in quick succession, and the National Defense Act had failed.

Vought's tower was beginning to sway.

The clearest sign was that they were spending more on publicity but seeing little return.

Even the heroes were earning less.

That was something Vought International, still riding its meteoric rise, could not tolerate.

It had already monopolized the superhero industry and become a leader in several related industries.

Yet it was still taking hits in the market?

Madelyne was deep in thought. It felt as though someone behind the scenes was playing a long game.

Was the target Homelander? Vought International? Or the entire superhero industry?

She tried to think it through, but the breast pump was extracting her baby's milk, making it hard to concentrate.

There were two soft knocks at the door. Madelyne removed the device and hurriedly lowered her clothes.

"Come in!" she called once she was sure she looked presentable.

The door opened, then closed a moment later. Translucent's muffled voice followed.

"I went to investigate, but he teleported away almost immediately. I don't know where he went."

Translucent sounded natural, though only his head was visible.

"Do you think he could be one of those supervillains?"

That was what worried Madelyne most.

Lately, Vought International had been pushing the Superpower Divine Gift Theory hard: the claim that superpowers arose naturally.

But every Supe was a product of Compound V.

Vought International had signed confidentiality agreements with their parents when they were young.

Coupled with a large payout for their silence, this "god-making model" had worked remarkably well for decades.

But the recent strange events had given Madelyne a hint that something was wrong.

The uneasy feeling wouldn't leave her, though the figure behind it all remained impossibly vague.

"Is Starlight still here?"

"She seems to have gone home. She wasn't happy about today's Faith Expo."

"She's still young. She doesn't understand how this works yet."

Madelyne understood how a small-town girl would feel after coming to the city.

What Starlight didn't realize was that saying only the right things wasn't nearly enough to resonate with people.

Only impassioned words could move them and drive sales of Vought's products.

"Thanks for your work. Go home and spend some time with your son."

It was nearly midnight, and Madelyne knew Translucent was a single father, so she spoke kindly.

"Okay." Translucent rose heavily. He didn't need to repeat his report to Homelander; Homelander was just on the other side of the wall.

This report had been for both of them.

"What do you think that Rorschach really is?"

Homelander strolled into Madelyne's office, pretending to be relaxed. He had just spent nearly an hour watching her with his X-ray vision.

"Probably one of those kids whose parents ran around doing whatever they wanted and abandoned him. Then he awakened his powers and started scraping by with them?"

Madelyne shrugged. They still didn't know exactly what Rorschach could do.

But some parents only wanted that large cash payment.

They felt nothing for their children. If a child didn't become a cash cow later on, they abandoned them without hesitation.

Clearly, Rorschach's abilities weren't something he could have mastered overnight.

They were extremely dangerous, in fact.

From that angle, Madelyne's guess wasn't unreasonable.

"But why did he come to the Seven's tower at that exact moment? And how could he see what The Deep was doing to Starlight?"

"Well... you can't expect to be the only man in the world with more than one superpower, can you?"

Madelyne went back to studying the footage of The Deep being swapped out in front of Starlight that day.

"Sixty frames in a single second. One frame later, he was standing where The Deep had been."

Madelyne sounded excited.

"If we could bring this man into Vought International, it would only be a matter of time before he joined The Seven."

Seeing Madelyne staring intently at the screen, Homelander pursed his lips in displeasure.

"The look in his eyes... makes me very uncomfortable..."

Homelander spoke while searching for the right words.

"So... I don't think he's cut out to be a hero."

After a brief train whistle sounded, a breathless A-Train appeared in the doorway.

"The place where I... handled Compound V before—something's happened there!"

The expressions of both people in the office changed sharply at the news.