"Episode 33"
When Madelyn pushed open the office door, Edgar was standing before the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Night had not fully fallen, and the last light of sunset carved Manhattan's skyline into distinct layers of gold and gray-blue.
A hundred meters below, traffic converged on the city's heart like countless glowing blood vessels.
The lights in the financial district's towers were still coming on one after another, while the stock exchange's electronic screens kept scrolling...
An advertising airship drifted slowly past from the direction of the Hudson River, leaving a slender trail across the sky.
Beautiful.
Edgar knew that people inside Vought International liked to call themselves the "hero industry."
But as the man at the helm, he had never seen it that way.
Because in his eyes, Vought had nothing whatsoever to do with "heroes." Vought dealt in only one thing.
Power.
Power.
Superhumans were merely one vessel for power.
Humans worshipped heroes as the ancients had worshipped gods, and the only thing capital excelled at was putting a price on "gods."
Madelyn set two cups of coffee on the desk. Porcelain met mahogany with an extremely soft clink.
"Ed, your coffee."
Edgar did not turn around, his hands still in his suit pockets.
"Thank you."
His tone was steady and calm, commanding without anger.
Madelyn had worked under this man for many years.
So she understood better than anyone that what made Edgar truly frightening was not his anger, but the absolute composure he could maintain in the face of a storm.
It was terrifying.
Many people thought Homelander was dangerous because he had the power to destroy cities.
But before Edgar, he was, at most, an immature "product" that met the minimum standard.
Set the two side by side, and the difference was immediately clear.
She approached the desk and saw that the tablet's screen was lit, displaying a security department report that had not yet been closed.
The heading was short: Target, Black Noir.
The status field contained only one glaring red indicator:
Contact lost.
At the sight of this almost impossible news, Madelyn's heart tightened, and she frowned slightly.
"What happened?"
"We lost contact with him."
Only then did Edgar turn and slowly settle back into his chair, his movements unhurried.
"The last communication was recorded last night, on the outskirts of Red River. After that, his location disappeared, communications cut out, and his biological signals dropped to zero."
Madelyn fell silent for a moment.
Zero. The security department rarely used that word, because it meant one thing.
They could not confirm whether the target was dead.
Black Noir was Vought's most secretive cleaner. No name, no identity, no social network; even his files were stored under encryption.
To the outside world, he was like a ghost, but to Vought, he was a knife.
A knife sharp enough, silent enough, and never questioning orders.
And now, that knife was gone.
"What does security say?"
"They believe the other side has someone on the inside."
"What do you think?"
"An insider is merely the cheapest explanation."
Edgar took a small sip of coffee, his expression calm.
"What truly interests me is how they managed it."
Madelyn looked up at him.
Edgar's gaze was calm. Too calm.
There was no anger in those deep eyes, no agitation, not even regret over the loss of an asset.
Madelyn could read only one thing in those eyes-
Naked calculation.
Yes, Edgar did not care about losing assets at all. Money was nothing but a number to him now.
What truly deserved his attention was whatever could inflict losses on him.
"There's more."
Edgar pushed another file toward her.
Madelyn recognized the photographs of the Mangrove incident from some time ago.
The heavy blast door had been cut cleanly apart, its metal edges smooth from melting, as though someone had taken a precision scalpel and drawn a perfect incision through steel.
"Security's conclusion was a suspected high-temperature energy weapon."
"But no existing high-temperature energy weapon can produce this effect."
Madelyn was silent, because everyone knew the more specific answer.
Heat Vision.
Or rather... Homelander's Heat Vision.
But the problem was that Homelander had spent that entire evening on Vought's top floor, attending a media event. Every surveillance camera, every reporter, and every livestream recording could prove it.
Either the records had been altered, or there was a second person in this world with a similar ability.
If that was the case, the gravity of the situation went without saying.
It could threaten all of Vought, perhaps even more.
The office briefly fell silent. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, a helicopter swept through the night sky, its red navigation lights tracing a fleeting streak across the glass.
Edgar leaned back in his chair and suddenly spoke:
"Homelander has been under close surveillance all along, but the other members haven't... They've been very active lately."
Madelyn froze slightly.
"Pulling retired researchers' files, entering the archives late at night, accessing old experiment rosters.
Each step seems to skirt the edge of compliance, but put them all together, and it becomes quite interesting."
"Security investigated."
"And the result?"
"Nothing unusual."
The corner of Edgar's mouth moved almost imperceptibly.
"The Deep has never had a mind of his own. A man who's been stupid for half his life doesn't suddenly become clever. Fish can't learn chess."
Madelyn said nothing, because she knew Edgar was stating a fact.
The Deep might be stupid, vain, and insecure, but he certainly lacked the capacity for such systematic action.
Someone who always missed the beat could not suddenly get every step exactly right.
Unless someone was teaching him.
Or someone was using him.
"What about A-Train?"
"His leg is broken. He's been handling Homelander's petty personal business, but his movements haven't been consistent lately either."
Madelyn slowly took a sip of coffee.
She suddenly realized that, at some point, cracks had already appeared within Vought.
Normally, those cracks were insignificant, but when they connected, they spread like a spiderweb, enveloping all of Vought.
This did not look like an ordinary attack or retaliation.
It looked more like a planned, organized infiltration with a clear objective.
"It seems you've guessed."
Edgar looked out the window. New York's night lights had fully illuminated, like a sea of flowing neon.
"Madelyn, do you know how empires fall?"
"Not because their enemies are too strong, but because their rulers become arrogant and complacent.
Vought has been successful for too long. It's time for some self-reflection."
Edgar gently rotated the coffee cup in his hand.
"An asset's greatest value lies not in its existence, but in who uses it.
Black Noir is a knife, The Deep is a card, and A-Train has a good pair of legs.
Every member of The Seven has a price."
He raised his eyes to Madelyn.
"That includes you."
The office became frighteningly quiet in an instant.
Madelyn's expression did not change.
In Edgar's eyes, no one was special, and no one was irreplaceable. Not Homelander, and not her.
"If the enemy is weak, we eliminate them; if the enemy is strong, we assess them.
If they're strong enough to threaten Vought-"
He paused, the lights in the night flickering behind his lenses.
"Then I need to know whether they can weigh their own worth against decades of accumulated capital."
Madelyn slowly exhaled and finally asked the most crucial question:
"Who are you planning to send?"
Edgar merely watched Madelyn in silence. The answer went without saying.
Homelander.
Madelyn frowned immediately.
"What if he loses control? He's already acted on his own authority many times."
"Wouldn't Maeve work?"
"Have her investigate Black Noir's whereabouts. Aside from Homelander, she's the strongest fighter in The Seven, and her loyalty isn't an issue.
If the other side really possesses high-temperature energy on the level of Heat Vision, sending Homelander himself is too risky. Once he loses control, we won't even have room to maneuver."
"Maeve attends The Seven's weekly meetings, takes the second seat on the left side of the conference table, and is never late, never leaves early, and never speaks.
Every time she completes a mission or attends a press conference, her smile before the cameras is stiff at exactly the same angle. What do you think that tells us?"
"You and I both know she's enduring it. She's going numb."
"Madelyn, you know better than I do what happened between her and Homelander.
Now the Mangrove incident tells us that such a person may already have appeared.
If I send Maeve to investigate Black Noir's whereabouts, what she finds may not just be Black Noir, but someone who can match Homelander.
What do you think she'll do? Hand that person over to us, or see him as the opportunity she's waited five years for?"
Madelyn pressed her lips into a thin line. She had no way to refute him.
"Maeve is merely a peripheral pawn."
Edgar continued, his voice devoid of any emotional fluctuation.
"The only reason I keep her is that she serves as a deterrent when she's on our side.
But which side she stands on has never been up to us.
Until I've established their true strength, I won't send someone who might defect at any moment to make contact with them.
And you, Madelyn, are not stupid."
"The point of a nuclear weapon's existence is to be launched. Otherwise, it's merely expensive scrap."
After leaving Edgar's office, Madelyn did not go straight to the lounge.
She stood for a while before the floor-to-ceiling windows at the end of the corridor. The coffee in her hand had gone cold, and she did not drink any more.
Edgar was the core of the company and the originator of every decision. Here, his word alone ruled.
If she did not do it, someone would take her place and do it.
That was the worst outcome. She was unwilling to hand her success to someone else.
Nor was she willing to face a reckoning just like that. She still had a child to raise.
A child...
At that thought, she set the coffee cup on the windowsill, turned, and headed toward the top-floor lounge.
As she pushed open the door, she habitually adjusted her expression, lifting the corners of her mouth slightly, smoothing her brow, and keeping her steps unhurried.
She assumed an air of maternal kindness.
She had gone through these motions for so many years that they were practiced enough for even her to no longer tell whether she was acting.
Behind the door was another "child."
Homelander was sunk into the very center of the leather sofa, his Stars and Stripes cape draped over the armrest.
The remote in his hand pointed at the enormous television on the wall as he replayed close-ups from today's press conference over and over.
He paused, rewound, then paused again, repeatedly examining the angle of his smile.
Light fell from the side, casting a small shadow in his eye sockets. His blue eyes reflected a cold gleam in the dim light, and the corners of his mouth turned down slightly.
It was the sort of fastidiousness that slipped out unconsciously during intense concentration.
"Madelyn."
He did not turn his head, but lifted his chin toward the screen.
"Look at this shot today. I tucked my chin in better than last week. That angle last week made my face look a little round."
"Let me see."
Madelyn walked over and sat on the arm of the sofa, turning slightly toward him, her gaze making a round trip between him and the screen.
"The lighting's better than last week. Your features look more defined. I'll have postproduction readjust last week's set too."
Homelander gave a satisfied hum, his thumb hovering over the remote, ready to play it again.
Then his thumb stopped in midair.
His head tilted slightly, at an even smaller, more casual angle than when he had been watching the screen.
His pupils slowly contracted in the shadows of his eye sockets.
Something's wrong.
He had been listening to her heartbeat since he was a child.
After countless days and nights together, he could naturally tell when she was nervous and when she was lying.
When she was suppressing her emotions.
And now, her heartbeat was distinctly irregular.
She's keeping something from me.
Homelander turned to look at her, the shadows beneath his brow shifting away from the screen, those blue eyes continually scrutinizing Madelyn from head to toe.
They betrayed the irritation of primal possessiveness.
"Oh, my dear Madelyn, you have a headache."
There was no question in Homelander's voice, only certainty, his tone dropping half a degree at the end.
"And you stood in the hallway for a long time just now. You put your coffee down without even drinking it."
Madelyn blinked, the curve of her lips stiffening slightly.
"Black Noir is missing."
She took a photograph out of her suit and pushed it toward him, lowering her other hand from her temple to rest on her knee.
"His last communication was last night. Security has tried everything. They can't find him.
As she spoke, she unconsciously raised her hand to rub her temple, then stopped halfway through and put it back on her knee.
She could hide nothing from him.
Homelander's super hearing could penetrate her skin, muscles, and ribs to hear her heart beating directly.
The control over her expressions she had spent decades training was nothing more than a transparent sheet of paper before him.
Before him, only a pretense of almost genuine maternal affection could barely keep him in check.
"That mute never says a word, but he's been on more missions with me than the rest of The Seven put together.
If someone's touched him, they're making an enemy of me."
Homelander spoke with his arms folded.
"Tell Edgar to leave this to me. And tell him this.
Next time something gives him a headache, he should tell me directly instead of leaving you standing in the hallway for so long."
"There's no hurry. Come here."
She reached out and gently pulled away the cape draped over his arm, folded it, and placed it on the arm of the sofa.
Then she sat down and patted her lap.
Homelander glanced at her and lay down, resting the back of his head on her lap, his blond hair spreading across her skirt.
He rolled over and buried his face against her knees, resting a hand on her calf, his thumb unconsciously stroking her ankle bone.
Madelyn slipped her fingers into his hair, running them from roots to tips. His shoulders gradually relaxed beneath her fingertips, and his breathing slowly grew even, deep, and long.
Meanwhile.
Cate stood at the edge of the visitor parking lot outside Godolkin University's south gate, a canvas bag hanging from her shoulder, both hands tucked into her hoodie pockets.
The streetlights stretched her shadow out long.
It crossed the crack in the asphalt beneath her feet and trailed all the way to the pile of gravel at the edge of the parking lot.
Before long, a dingy gray old Ford turned the corner and slowly glided up beside the curb in front of her.
Its paint was peeling, its side mirror hung crookedly from a strip of tape, and its hood bore several dents left by a crowbar.
After Cate opened the door and climbed in, the old Ford's exhaust pipe spat out a cloud of gray-white fumes, and the car bounced away from the curb.
It left behind a small scattering of dead leaves and stone chips swept up by its wake.
On the old oak across the street, a crow perched on a branch, its head cocked, its pitch-black eyes following the retreating old Ford.
Until its taillights flashed twice at the corner and were swallowed by the morning light.
Then it lowered its head and nudged the extremely thin metal band around its left leg with its beak. A tiny word was engraved on it.
"Cipher (The Emissary)"
Then it shook its wings and flew back toward Godolkin University.
(The Emissary in the original comes from season two of Gen V. You can look up his real identity. The original writing was such a letdown, so let me write him a new story.)
(Fight!)