Lynn carefully wiped the scalpel he had taken from Professor Pyg clean with a fairly clean rag, then handed it back to the silent madman.
"If you want something better, you'll have to get it yourself."
Professor Pyg accepted the scalpel and stroked its blade with the fingertips of his filthy glove, almost obsessively.
His touch was as gentle as if he were caressing a lover's cheek.
Handling this madman was much easier than handling Soldier Boy.
Soldier Boy wanted fame, reverence, and satisfaction.
Those were things of the mind, requiring Lynn to put considerable thought into weaving stories, guiding him, and manipulating him.
Professor Pyg only needed a stage where he could "create" to his heart's content and enough "raw materials."
The night was the best cover.
Without alerting anyone, Lynn led Professor Pyg silently through the security cordon around the camp and into the deeper darkness.
He drew a rough route from memory and pressed it into Professor Pyg's hand.
"Follow this river east and avoid the Allied patrols. After about thirty kilometers, you'll find a German forward outpost."
"From now on, remember your identity: Professor Lazlo Valentin, a genius who couldn't stand the Allies' stupidity and came to join Hydra with valuable surgical skills and intelligence."
Professor Pyg took it.
In the sparse moonlight, his stitched pig-head mask looked even more bizarre and terrifying.
"Go."
Lynn took a step back, putting some distance between himself and the nauseating smell.
"Go find your new stage and create to your heart's content. Don't disappoint me."
Professor Pyg turned and quickly disappeared into the darkness and jungle ahead without the slightest reluctance to leave.
Lynn stood where he was and watched him go.
Getting rid of a high-risk contaminant left him feeling relieved.
When Lynn returned to the barracks, the door wasn't quite shut.
Through the crack, he could see the firelight from the fireplace and hear Soldier Boy's coarse, alcohol-laden laughter, along with the muffled, coquettish protests of two women who were only half resisting.
He didn't go in and disturb the beast enjoying his "spoils of war."
Lynn turned and went back to his own bedroom.
Once the calm and decisiveness he'd shown in dealing with Professor Pyg faded, a deeper, grander idea began to grow wildly.
Soldier Boy was the "hero" he had pushed into the spotlight.
A banner to rally people around in exchange for status and resources.
Professor Pyg was the "villain" he had thrown behind enemy lines.
A hero...
A villain...
[Superhero Mutual Entertainment Achievement System].
"Mutual entertainment" meant interactive entertainment.
A show, a play.
No great drama was complete without a clash between good and evil.
What if... I held the trump cards for both sides of a war in my hands?
Lynn could direct one "perfectly timed" crisis after another.
He could even picture the front pages of future newspapers clearly in his mind-
"Hydra's demon! German army creates stitched-together monsters, soldiers at the front face a living nightmare!"
Have Professor Pyg create horrifying monsters in Hydra's ranks and spark panic.
When the panic reached its peak, when the Allies were at a loss, when despair shrouded the entire theater of war...
"A god descends! Soldier Boy arrives in the face of disaster and tears Hydra's blasphemous creations apart with his own hands!"
A perfect heroic epic.
The hero's prestige would reach its peak as a result.
Phillips, and even the generals behind him, would grow more dependent on Lynn.
The villain's "infamous reputation" would likewise become Lynn's achievement.
He was the sole director and screenwriter of this great drama of war.
Playing both sides against each other, winning either way.
Every sacrifice would be a number in the script, every victory a scene he had meticulously arranged.
He could reap achievements and draw rewards to the greatest possible extent.
Minimize the risks and maximize the gains.
The thought sent a shiver through Lynn, a thrill of controlling everything, born from the pinnacle of power.
He looked up at the night sky, stained gray-black by the smoke of battle.
From today on, he would do more than simply survive this damned war.
He would... become the master of this war.
Early the next morning.
The smell of a hangover and overindulgence still lingered in the barracks.
Soldier Boy lay sprawled on the bed, while the two laundrywomen he had kept busy all night were nowhere to be seen.
Only the rumpled sheets and countless empty whiskey bottles bore witness to the debauchery of the night before.
When Lynn pushed the door open and entered, the mingled smells made him frown.
Ignoring the "legend" sleeping like a dead pig, he turned and left this temporary pleasure nest.
The entire camp was in a state of excitement.
Soldiers gathered in twos and threes, no longer talking about casualties at the front or their fear of the war, but entirely about that miraculous performance.
The name "Soldier Boy" had become a shot in the arm more effective than any slogan.
Lynn wandered aimlessly around the camp, gnawing on a piece of bread.
He was observing and searching.
He had already set the Professor Pyg plan in motion; now it needed time to develop.
The Soldier Boy card had made a name for itself, but its foundations were still shaky.
He needed more chips.
Just as he passed Colonel Phillips's command tent, a heated argument erupted inside, drawing his attention.
One of the voices belonged to Phillips.
The other, speaking English with a heavy German accent, sounded somewhat unfamiliar, but was just as agitated.
Lynn stopped, pretended to clean the mud off his shoes, and quietly edged closer to a gap in the canvas tent.
"I absolutely disagree! Phillips! You're putting a grenade with its pin pulled in our own ammunition depot!"
A scholarly-looking middle-aged man wearing glasses had gone red in the face and was waving his arms forcefully at Phillips.
"Calm down, Abraham."
Phillips had a cigar clenched between his teeth and looked impatient.
"He's not a grenade. He's our trump card for winning the war! You saw it with your own eyes at Saint-Mère Town! He's worth an entire armored division on his own!"
"That wasn't a victory, it was a massacre! A thug venting his desire for violence!"
The man called Abraham grew even more agitated.
"My research, my serum, was meant to create a better man! A guardian who could use his character to master his power! Not a stronger bully!"
Serum?
Lynn stopped chewing.
Abraham... a German accent... the Super Soldier Serum...
Abraham Erskine!
The driving force behind the Captain America Project, the sole inventor of the Super Soldier Serum!
Joy surged through him.
He had still been wondering how to get in touch with the Allies' upper ranks, and now a key figure had delivered himself to his doorstep!
It was a windfall from heaven, and the biggest, juiciest one at that!