"Cruel Summer"
On the New York State border, at the third experimental base of the pharmaceutical company owned by Shetty.
After the laboratory had been attacked by a "terrorist organization" last time, Shetty had relocated the entire base here at The Emissary's suggestion.
She had also added a large number of guards.
But no matter what, Shetty could never have imagined that their plan to "exterminate" supes had a mole in its midst.
As soon as the address changed, Lamplighter sent the information to John.
And so, they came.
John stood in the shadows at a corner of the corridor, with Cate beside him.
With a thought, he saw the entire experimental base's concrete structure clearly through his X-Ray Vision.
"Third floor, west wing. Five, fully armed.
Fourth floor, east wing. Probably office workers. First-floor lobby, about eighteen, also fully armed."
"As for underground... that panel is made of zinc. I can't see through it."
John looked at the "black blob" in his vision, a little surprised.
If he wasn't mistaken... Shetty had probably done this to guard against Homelander.
As for why she wanted to guard against Homelander, that meant whatever was inside was important.
The shitty part, though, was that John discovered he couldn't just not see through zinc. For some reason, he couldn't see through lead now, either.
"Then how do we get in?"
"Here's the plan. Take care of the security guards handling surveillance here first. Then I won't have anything to worry about when I make my move."
The surveillance room was at the end of the corridor. Three silhouettes moved behind its frosted-glass door.
Cate pulled back her hood, revealing her face. A few strands of short blond hair stuck up where the hood had flattened them. Then she pushed the door open.
Three security guards came into Cate's view.
One sat at the surveillance console with half a cup of coffee beside him, another leaned against a filing cabinet, and the third was stuffing a sandwich into his mouth.
His cheeks bulged. Halfway through chewing, he was just about to look up and take a drink.
Then he suddenly saw someone standing in the doorway.
Cate leaned prettily against the doorframe, raised a hand to wave at them, and gave them a sweet smile.
"Hi~"
"Sorry, gentlemen. I think I'm lost."
"Lost?"
The guard at the surveillance console stood first, placing his hand on the radio at his waist.
"This is a private facility. Unauthorized personnel aren't allowed..."
But before he finished, Cate had already walked past him.
Then she pulled a map she had casually grabbed at a gas station from the pocket of the hot pants beneath her slender waist, furrowed her brows, and pleaded pitifully:
"Come on, this place is way too remote. There aren't even any decent road signs~"
Then she pointed at a marked spot on it.
"Look, this should be where I am, right?"
A faint fragrance drifted into the guard's nose. With his thoughts running wild like an untethered horse, he relaxed his guard a little and lowered his head to examine the map in Cate's hand.
Seizing the opportunity, Cate laid her hand over the one he was about to use to press his radio.
Her fingertips pressed lightly against the skin on the inside of his wrist.
"Help me take a look~"
The instant their skin touched.
The guard's eyes suddenly changed.
"Master, what are your instructions?"
"Help me beat them up~"
Cate blinked her pretty eyes, then stepped back.
"Okay."
Guard One spoke blankly, then abruptly turned and punched the man leaning against the filing cabinet in the face.
"Fuck, Madon, what the hell are you doing?"
"She-she's a supe!"
"..."
As a security guard, he was very dedicated to his work. He said nothing.
He simply kept hitting. Number Two was dazed by the blows, and Number Three was forced to join the fight.
The next second, Number One drove his knee into Number Two's chest, his elbow pinning his throat. The water cooler was knocked over, splashing water all over the wall.
When the third guard rushed forward to pull them apart, Number Two, the only one with his head on straight, shouted:
"Fuck, Helu, the alarm button's right next to you! Fucking press it!"
Number Three froze for about two seconds.
He was new, and his work history had never included a case of "coworkers suddenly beating each other up."
It was while he was frozen, just as he came to his senses and prepared to press the alarm button.
An almost unfairly beautiful face popped into view. Then she caught his hand and pinned it against the wall.
"Nope~"
The next second, Guard Three completed his life's superevolution and immediately charged into the fray, taking the "root of all evil" as
Beside the water cooler, Number Two had just gotten up, clutching his forehead as he pushed himself out of the puddle, not yet fully upright.
By then, Cate had already crouched in front of him and patted him on the head.
With that, the battle ended.
"Done."
Cate patted off her pants, stood up, threw the map into the trash, and glanced back at the doorway.
"All right. Come in."
The three guards sat obediently in a row, their expressions very serious.
John walked to the doorway with his hands in his pockets, glanced at the three men sitting in a row, then at the playful Cate, who was looking for praise.
"Okay, have them turn off the surveillance here so I can get to work. After that, follow me in. Stay safe."
"Okay."
After leaving the surveillance room, John stopped before the blast door at the end of the corridor.
He tilted his head, listening through twelve centimeters of steel to the sounds behind the door.
There were boots scraping against the floor as people adjusted their positions, hushed voices over radios, and people bickering with one another.
The next second, John pressed his hand against the blast door, flexed his muscles, and shoved hard.
Thud!
The entire blast door tore free of the wall, along with its hinges, lock cylinder, and the embedded steel fittings.
The steel panel flipped more than halfway over in the air, like a dead leaf ripped from a branch by a gale, and slammed down at the end of the corridor.
"We're under attack!!!"
Noticing the sudden change, the five people inside instantly raised their guns and opened fire together.
They were all private security guards Shetty had handpicked, one by one, from the retirement lists of the Navy SEALs and Delta Force.
Most of them also had experience dealing with supes.
Bang, bang!!
A downpour of bullets shot toward John from five different directions at all kinds of tricky angles.
The 5.56-millimeter steel-core rounds each had a muzzle velocity exceeding nine hundred meters per second.
But John simply stood there, letting the bullets strike him with a dense series of metallic impacts.
Three to the forehead, one to the left eye, two to the throat, twelve to the chest, seven to the abdomen, and four to the thighs.
The bullets bounced away the instant they touched John, their tips flattening into irregular little metal pancakes that rained onto the floor.
Eventually, John grew a little impatient with being shot and willed a change.
The next second, a transparent, constantly vibrating membrane naturally formed around his body.
The incoming bullets all seemed to freeze. After being stopped, they hovered outside the transparent membrane, almost motionless.
"Finished shooting? My turn."
John snapped his fingers lightly. His Bioelectric Field vanished in response, and all the bullets spilled onto the floor as though they cost nothing.
John gave them no chance to fire a second volley. He stepped slightly forward with his right foot, gathering strength in his lower back.
Vmmm-
In an instant, a ring of spiderweb cracks spread across the concrete beneath his feet, and he became a blur streaking through the corridor.
As his acceleration surged, dust billowed through the corridor, and the blast of air instantly sent spent casings tumbling.
One punch.
Hovering in midair, John sent the two gunmen at the front flying together, straight into the pillar at the end of the corridor, smashing it apart.
Next, his figure kept turning into afterimages.
A slap, or a kick, or a courtesy execution.
A few short seconds later, John's figure returned to where he had started.
Snap-
As the finger snap rang out, the previously motionless shotgunner's head twisted nearly a hundred and eighty degrees. He spun twice on the spot before collapsing.
John had already snatched away the shotgun in his hands and swung it backhanded into another gunman's chest.
The stock shattered, ribs snapped under the force, and the man flew backward as though struck by a truck, slamming into the wall.
The M249 gunner beside him hadn't even had time to pull the trigger before John stood in front of him and brushed him aside.
Immediately afterward, the machine gunner likewise flew sideways, knocking over the metal storage cabinets stacked beside the corridor wall.
The cabinet doors burst open, and folders and fire extinguishers clattered down onto him.
He was clearly beyond saving.
Sensing the disparity in strength, those who remained made the wisest choice-run.
Several gunmen were still huddled beside the blast door, frantically swiping their access cards.
"Beep!"
The door opened.
John's eyes lit up.
In the blink of an eye, two scarlet-gold beams of Heat Vision erupted from deep within his pupils. As thick as arms, the beams cut a straight, scorching trail through the air.
Szzzz-
The beams landed precisely on the blast door's hinges. In less than two seconds, they went from dark gray to orange-yellow, then melted.
Molten iron trickled down the door, burning little holes in the floor.
Then, stripped of support, the entire blast door slowly tipped forward before crashing down with a tremendous, muffled boom.
Smack!
The smoke and dust cleared.
The corridor beyond the blast door was empty. The gunmen had already been sliced by the Heat Vision into several not-quite-complete pieces, which lay limply on the floor like convenience-store dolls.
"Perfect. The door's open."
Satisfied, John shut off his Heat Vision. The scarlet-gold glow in his eyes slowly faded back to blue, leaving only a wisp of fiery red smoke lingering at their corners.
Then he turned and called behind him.
"Cate, all clear over here."
Hearing John's words, a little head suddenly popped out from behind the concealing wall and looked left and right.
Then, pinching her pant legs with both hands, she stepped over the misshapen bodies and came to John's side.
"Let's go."
John led Cate through the fire door and into the base's main passage.
The corridor was wide enough for two forklifts to drive side by side. Farther ahead was a staircase leading down.
But the staircase was dark, without any lighting. Nervously, Cate placed her hand on John's shoulder.
John glanced at Cate without speaking, then turned back and continued walking.
He had X-Ray Vision as well as basic night vision. There was nothing to fear.
According to the information Lamplighter had provided, Shetty kept her things in the west wing of the first basement level.
But that floor was carefully encased in zinc, making it impossible to see clearly, so John told Cate to stay close and not get lost.
In front of the west wing's fire door.
John stopped.
"What's wrong, boss?"
John's expression was somewhat grave. Everything here was made of zinc, severely limiting his ability to scout.
But his five senses were far stronger than they had been before, especially his hearing.
Beyond the fire door, he could hear the squeezing sounds of people colliding, along with their incoherent growls.
Why call them a crowd? Because by John's rough count, there were at least a hundred people behind that door.
"Stay close. Don't run around. Follow my instructions in a moment, or I won't be able to keep an eye on you."
John turned, meeting Cate's beautiful eyes earnestly.
"What?"
"Because what's coming next is a tough fight."
John hadn't expected Shetty's ambitions to reach this far.
Back in his previous life, if the students of Godolkin University hadn't resolved the Shetty incident, it would have threatened him as well.
And there was absolutely no way Shetty could have launched a project of this scale on her own.
There was definitely someone else behind her.
Perhaps it was his former "lover," Clara, the "Storm" who had yet to show herself.
John's hearing was sharp, and his guess was essentially correct.
Behind their door, a crowd with vacant eyes surged.
It was like the morning rush-hour subway crowd compressed into a narrow corridor.
They wore identical gray hospital gowns. Some of the gowns had already been torn apart, exposing patches of scar tissue.
Some were barefoot; others had sunken eye sockets.
There were still more people.
At the end of the corridor, around the turn of the stairs, clinging to the ceiling.
That was a woman, with gecko-like suction pads growing on her fingers and toes.
Hanging upside down from the ceiling, she had twisted her neck a hundred and eighty degrees to stare at the fire door.
Her eye sockets held nothing at all. Her mouth opened and closed, muttering something unintelligible.
"Creeeak-"
Slowly, cautiously, the door opened.
Two figures, one tall and one short, gradually appeared before the crowd.
"Tap."
The instant John and Cate entered, every vacant eye turned toward them at once.
"Heehee... new test subjects."
An extremely thin but extremely tall figure swayed his spindly neck.
His bulging eyes fixed on John as he spoke in a shrill voice.
"Big idiot, don't cut in. Me first."
The person at the front moved first, but rather than running, he dropped onto all fours like a beast and charged forward explosively.
Cate guessed his ability was probably some kind of instantaneous burst of leg power.
Within three steps, he accelerated to nearly eighty kilometers an hour, swinging his right fist in a full arc at John's temple.
But John did not dodge. He did not even tilt his head.
The man's fist struck John's temple, and his finger bones shattered instantly.
The man glanced down at his crooked, mangled knuckles, not even managing to scream.
John had already clamped a hand around his wrist with a dark expression, hauled him bodily off the floor, and flung him at the wall farther down the corridor.
His body flipped several times in midair before striking the wall, leaving a shallow dent. Then he slid down it and fell unconscious on the spot.
John considered his temper much better than it used to be.
But whenever he saw some death-seeking dumbass come to provoke him, he felt especially pissed off.
He was John.
He was also the former Homelander.
These fucking crooked melons and cracked dates of superhumans thought they were worthy of showing off in front of him?
"Next."
John stood where he was, looking at the test subjects still packing the corridor.
Within his eyes, crimson-gold light spread and expanded, extending from his irises into the whites, tempering, burning.
Until, in the final instant, it turned blazing red.
The corridor fell silent for a second.
Then everyone lunged at him at once.
(If anyone wants to be an operations officer, feel free to apply.)
(The platform's traffic recommendations have dwindled to practically nothing. This story might flop before long, but that's okay. I'm powering this with love, and I hope you dears can support me.)