"Counting start"
Manhattan, 1:40 a.m., the president's office in Vought Tower.
The latest financial report lay on Stan Edgar's desk, while various data analysis charts filled his screen.
The screen's white light illuminated his face. His silver-gray hair was neatly combed, with a faint oily sheen.
This was already Edgar's third time checking the calculations for the theme park expansion budget. The funding was set at around 17.5 billion.
By now, the entire skyscraper had gone to sleep.
The executive floor, bustling with voices during the day, was now deserted. Only this office still had its lights on.
As the man at the helm of the Vought empire, Edgar was accustomed to reserving his most clearheaded hours for late at night.
Just then, the internal phone rang.
The ringing was especially shrill. Immersed in his work, Edgar furrowed his brow ever so slightly, then set down his pen and pressed the speakerphone button.
"This is Stan Edgar."
"G-good evening, Mr. Edgar. I'm terribly sorry to disturb you."
The secretary's voice carried a rare note of panic.
"Security Director Reynolds says there's a level-one emergency he must report to you in person. It's about... Ms. Stillwell."
Madelyn Stillwell?
It seemed things had gone somewhat beyond expectations...
"Send him in."
The secretary froze for a moment on the other end, then hurriedly acknowledged him and hung up.
A minute later, the office door swung open.
Reynolds stumbled inside and stopped before the desk, his Adam's apple bobbing.
"Mr. Edgar, Ms. Stillwell... is gone. On her office floor."
Edgar raised his eyes to look at him.
He simply sat there in his custom-made leather chair, his dark gray suit pressed without a single wrinkle, the knot of his silk tie square and precise.
His gaze was calm, like a deep pool that had accumulated for decades, its surface unruffled.
He said nothing, merely watching Reynolds and waiting for him to continue.
"The fatal injury was Heat Vision. It entered through both eyes and pierced her skull.
Our people checked the surrounding surveillance footage. Homelander entered the office at 12:08 and left at 12:27..."
With that much said, the killer's identity went without saying.
Silence settled over the office.
Reynolds lowered his head, his heart hammering in his chest.
In his twelve years as Vought's security director, he had seen superhumans accidentally injure people and internal scandals leak.
But nothing this big had ever happened.
The company's second-in-command, its executive vice president, had been killed in her private residence by its own star superhero.
If this got out, Vought could very well face an unprecedented public relations crisis.
He had imagined countless possible reactions from Edgar:
Rage, smashing things, ordering Homelander imprisoned.
But after waiting three full seconds, all he heard was the older man's quiet reply:
"Understood."
Reynolds snapped his head up, thinking he had misheard.
By then, Edgar had already reached for the desk phone.
"Hoffman, be in my office in fifteen minutes. Bring the complete legal contingency package for a class-A personnel incident."
"Carter, wake your core team. Activate a level-one public relations response. Our initial public statement:
Ms. Madelyn Stillwell suffered a sudden heart attack and was transferred overnight to Presbyterian Hospital for emergency treatment.
Tomorrow, all information will be released exclusively through public relations. No one is to make any unauthorized statements."
"Have an assistant pick up Ms. Stillwell's child and family immediately.
Charge all expenses to the special account. Seal their lips. If necessary, arrange for them to recuperate in Switzerland. They aren't to return for six months."
Setting down the receiver, Edgar looked at Reynolds again.
"How many people have been in contact with the scene?"
"Four from security. Five, including me."
"Keep them all here to sign lifetime nondisclosure agreements. Two hundred thousand dollars each in hush money.
Confiscate their communications devices temporarily. Until this is suppressed, none of you may take a single step outside headquarters."
Edgar tapped the desktop lightly with a fingertip.
"Oh, and clean the scene thoroughly. Before dawn, I need to see it looking exactly as it did before."
Reynolds took out a notebook and recorded each instruction. A certain uniformed figure suddenly came to mind. After hesitating for several seconds, he braced himself and asked:
"What about Mr. Homelander... should we send someone to follow up? Or... at least ask him about it?"
Edgar suddenly smiled.
"Follow up? Reynolds, could those sixty security guards with assault rifles under your command stop him, even together?"
His gaze fell on the distant spire of the Empire State Building outside the window.
"Don't look for him. Don't ask. And certainly don't go demanding an explanation. Treat this as though it never happened."
Reynolds opened his mouth, but ultimately swallowed all his questions. He saluted, turned, and quickly left the office.
The moment the door closed, silence returned to the office.
Edgar leaned against the back of his chair and closed his eyes, his fingers resting lightly over his abdomen.
Madelyn was dead.
Killed by Homelander's Heat Vision.
It was unexpected, yet understandable.
It was also time to introduce some countermeasures...
He opened his eyes and pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk.
Inside were a crystal whiskey glass and a bottle of The Macallan that had remained sealed for twenty years.
He poured a little less than half a glass and dropped in two ice cubes.
Then he lifted the glass and swirled it. The amber liquor slid down its sides, leaving a fine layer of droplets.
Then he took a small sip.
In fact, he had long since noticed Homelander's tendency to lose control.
During last year's hijacking incident, he had deliberately let the plane crash, solely to cultivate his heroic image of having "done everything he could."
Madelyn had suppressed the incident.
She had concealed it, covered it up, and painted a picture of peace and prosperity. There was nothing wrong with that.
But trying to whitewash someone whose power was so disproportionately great was bound to end in a loss of control.
This round of checks and balances had failed, so a new round was needed.
At that thought, Edgar put down his glass, stood, and walked to the wall on the east side of the office.
A huge oil painting hung there: the official group portrait of Vought's original Payback team from 1972.
The canvas had some age to it, its colors slightly darkened.
At the center, Soldier Boy wore a Stars and Stripes uniform, a cigar between his teeth, his grin flamboyant and defiant.
His eyes held an unrestrained viciousness.
The painting had hung here for over forty years. Countless people had passed it and looked at it, and no one had thought there was anything special about it.
Edgar reached out and pressed lightly on the lower-right corner of the frame.
With a soft click, the entire wall recessed inward, revealing a hidden alloy door.
Fingerprint verification, iris scan, eighteen-digit dynamic passcode.
After the three locks were disengaged, the heavy door slowly slid open, revealing a secret room of less than ten square meters.
Cold white ceiling lights came on, illuminating the ranks of encrypted servers all around.
A metal workstation stood in the middle of the room, with a computer on top.
This was Vought's shadow archive.
All the secrets that could never see daylight were here.
They included records of early human experiments with Compound V and files of compromising material on successive generations of superhumans.
There were also erased death lists and contingency plans that even the board had no authority to know about.
No one besides Stan Edgar had ever set foot here.
He walked to the workstation, entered a lengthy password, and opened a folder labeled [Top Secret].
It contained only one file.
Filename: Soldier Boy.
With a click of the mouse, densely packed information unfolded across the screen.
From the 1944 Original Compound V experiment logs to the report of his "death in action" during the 1984 Nicaragua operation.
Then to the precise coordinates that had only been conclusively confirmed three years ago.
In a cryogenic containment chamber 120 meters underground, at an abandoned Soviet Union military base in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Siberia.
No one knew that this "capture" had been a transaction from the very beginning.
It had also been jointly orchestrated by Edgar and Dr. Godolkin back then.
In 1984, the Homelander development project was officially approved.
The report submitted by the laboratory stated:
Through targeted development, this product would possess the most powerful superpowers in history, but would have congenital defects in emotional development and extremely low controllability.
And by then, Soldier Boy had become increasingly difficult to control.
He was defiant, violent, a workplace bully, and frequently opposed the company.
He was their original icon, with far too much influence to kill openly or lock away.
Keeping him imprisoned at Vought headquarters would become a hidden danger sooner or later.
So Edgar had come up with a solution that offered the best of both worlds.
He and Godolkin secretly contacted Soviet Union intelligence and struck a deal:
Under cover of the Nicaragua operation, Vought would deliberately deliver Soldier Boy into Soviet Union hands. The Soviets would take custody and handle his "safekeeping" and experimentation.
They could study Soldier Boy's body however they wished and test the limits of his abilities.
But they had to guarantee that he remained alive and permanently frozen in a controllable state.
When necessary, Vought retained the right to retrieve him at any time.
And he had been left there for nearly forty years.
Everyone on the board believed Soldier Boy had truly died in action. Even Madelyn had not known the truth.
Until just now, he had never considered activating Soldier Boy.
Not because he did not want to, but because the time had not come.
A chess piece only had value when placed on the board at the moment it was needed.
And now, that moment had arrived.
In terms of strength.
Soldier Boy was the pinnacle of Original Compound V, with strength and durability that were no weaker than Homelander's.
In particular, the concentrated energy burst from his chest that the Soviets had developed could directly disperse the Compound V inside superhumans, temporarily stripping them of their powers.
The thing was practically a countermeasure tailor-made for Homelander.
Then there was his identity: he was Homelander's biological father.
The innate bond between father and son was a restraint etched into their genes, even if neither knew of it.
Of course, the risks were just as enormous.
Soldier Boy had never been anyone to trifle with.
He was violent, arrogant, and intensely controlling, carrying the cruelty and paranoia of an older era.
After nearly forty years frozen, once released, he would inevitably seek revenge, wreak destruction, and turn the superhuman world upside down.
But so what?
Disorder made things easier to put in order.
Only with two superheroes checking and fearing each other could Vought regain absolute control.
As for the chaos, casualties, and public relations disasters along the way?
No matter.
Public relations would craft the stories, and legal would wipe their asses clean.
After all, the public was forgetful.
The fiercer the fighting, the greater the buzz, and the higher the IP's value would become.
Movies, merchandise, theme parks-Vought had plenty of ways to earn back twice what it lost.
Edgar had also worked out an even finer calculation.
Once Soldier Boy got out, his first order of business would certainly be taking revenge on those who had betrayed him.
The remaining members of Payback-Crimson Earl, Gunpowder, Black Noir... not one of them would escape.
Those old-timers had long since lost any real commercial value. This was the perfect chance to use Soldier Boy's hand to clear them out, make room for newcomers, and save a fortune in pensions.
Each link locked into the next; every move accounted for ten moves ahead.
On the surface, Madelyn's death looked like a loss for Vought. In reality, it marked the beginning of Edgar drawing in his net.
At that thought, Edgar picked up the encrypted satellite phone on the workstation.
"This is Stan Edgar. Activate the thawing plan."
The call ended.
Edgar returned the phone to its place, took one final look at the file on the screen, and pressed the shutdown button.