Behind each item, Hughie had noted the current intelligence gaps and the file numbers that needed to be retrieved from within Vought.
“The original formula for Compound V—Vought’s core database is locked down too tight.
We can’t even get close to it through external infiltration.”
Butcher handed the list over.
“On my end, I need Frenchie to set up a chromatograph for comparison.
We need time.”
He paused, then looked John in the eye.
“You’re in charge of getting Becca out.
Me and my people will handle getting the Compound V formula.
Once it’s done, the formula is yours, Becca is mine.”
John finally reached out and took the list.
He flipped through a couple of pages, and as he verified the contents, a thought crossed his mind.
The next second, a 3D information panel materialized before his eyes.
[Current World Distortion: 21%]
*Aha, it’s already risen to twenty-one percent?*
It seemed Compound V carried immense weight in this world.
He had chosen the right path.
A week had passed, and the progress was finally climbing.
Good.
He was one step closer to saving Jonathan.
With that in mind, John squinted and looked up, scanning the dark, brooding expression on Butcher’s face.
In his past life, it was this exact bastard who had ended his life with a crowbar.
But in this life, John held the thing the man cared about most in his hands, forcing him to work for him in humility.
He didn’t care about Butcher’s hatred, or how others maliciously speculated about his intentions.
What was there to fear from mere mortals?
When you walked down the street, did you care about an ant trying to attack you?
And yet, this feeling was surprisingly satisfying…
John folded the list with satisfaction, slipped it into the inner pocket of his leather jacket, and said casually, “Deal.”
By the time the two of them returned to the hospital, dawn was breaking.
“Frenchie?”
Butcher pushed open the ward door and saw Frenchie sitting on his hospital bed, twirling a polished pair of pliers in his hand, with a massive black toolbox sitting at his feet.
Mother’s Milk was leaning by the window, smoking.
Seeing them enter, he tossed the cigarette butt out, closed the window behind him, and said, “The nurse was just here.”
Mother’s Milk jerked his chin toward the untouched food tray on the nightstand.
“Asked why you weren’t eating.
I told her you had shit for brains, your emotional state was unstable, and you’d scream at anyone you saw.
She was too terrified to come in, left the tray at the door, and ran off.”
“Fuck.”
Butcher rolled his eyes and gave them both a friendly international middle finger.
Frenchie sneered, hopped off the bed, and popped open the black toolbox.
Inside, various parts and instruments were neatly arranged.
At the very top sat a disassembled, secondhand chromatograph, with even the screws sorted by size in little plastic baggies.
I stripped the machine down and brought the parts in disguised as a medical equipment kit.
Security didn’t even blink.”
Frenchie pushed his goggles up to his forehead.
His eyes were bloodshot; he had clearly stayed up all night too.
“I’ll assemble it in the bathroom later.
Good ventilation, and no one will disturb us there.”
“These sons of bitches are all here.”
Butcher slapped the list of Vought R&D server access permissions that Hughie had obtained onto the toolbox.
Frenchie glanced over the list, pulled a tube of freshly diluted Compound V from the foam padding of the toolbox, and held it up to the faint morning light filtering through the window.
“This little vial of blue shit is worth one point eight million dollars.”
The pale blue liquid swirled at the bottom of the test tube, casting a strange, ghostly glow in the dim light.
He put the test tube back into the foam padding and pulled his goggles down over the bridge of his nose.
His bloodshot eyes stared intently at Butcher through the lenses.
“So, Butcher, you just trust that Homelander-looking bastard like that?”
“Hughie told me he pinned you to the wall and almost beat you to death last week.
I saw your CT scans.
You’ve got three cracked ribs on your left side; the doctor told you to lie in bed for at least a month.
And you just turn around and team up with him?
Do you have shit in your head, or did he scramble your brains with that punch?”
Butcher went silent for a moment.
“I don’t trust him.”
Butcher’s voice was still raspy, but he spat out every word with immense weight, as if dragging them one by one through his teeth.
“Trust him?
I don’t even trust myself, for fuck’s sake.”
He took a cigarette from Mother’s Milk and lit it.
Smoke drifted past his chapped lips, carrying a faint tang of blood.
“But you can’t fake what happened…
A-Train willingly got down on his knees for Hughie, and that hypocrite got the shit beaten out of him by Hughie without making a sound.
What’s even crazier is that he’s collecting dirt on Vought.
Look at what we’re doing right now.
Which part of any of this looks like he’s siding with Vought?”
Butcher still remembered that John’s only term for his deal with Hughie was to get Compound V and analyze its chemical formula.
“If he wanted us dead, the three of us would already be buried in the same ditch.”
“If he was with Vought, he wouldn’t have told me about Mangrove, nor would he have put the news of Becca being alive right in front of me.
I don’t know who he is, I don’t know why he has Homelander’s face, and I don’t know what the fuck he wants.”
“But he is absolutely not with Vought.
That’s enough.”
He paused, looking at Frenchie, and said each word with deliberate force.
Frenchie was left speechless.
He picked up the case of chromatograph parts and turned into the bathroom.
Mother’s Milk followed, pulling the door shut behind them.
The bathroom door was left slightly ajar.
Inside, the crisp clicks of a screwdriver turning screws drifted out, along with the hushed voices of the two men.
“Do you really think he’s lost his mind?” Frenchie’s voice carried the metallic clinking of tools.
“Making a deal with a guy who looks exactly like Homelander, and wagering Becca’s life on him.
How is that any different from feeding a sheep straight to a wolf?”
“He isn’t mad.”
Mother’s Milk’s voice was very soft, nearly drowned out by the sound of running water.
“He just has no other choice.
It’s been eight years.
This is the closest he’s ever been to Becca.
If it were you, you’d gamble too.”
“A gamble?
This is betting with our fucking lives!”
Frenchie’s voice rose slightly before he quickly hushed himself.
“What if that bastard is playing us?
What if he kills Becca?
What if he’s a mole sent by Vought?
When the time comes, we’ll all end up dead with no one left to bury us.”
The bathroom fell quiet for a moment, save for the turning of the screwdriver.
“Then we die with him.”
Mother’s Milk said calmly.
“We’ve fought alongside him for so many years.
When have we not bet our lives?
This time, the stakes are just a bit higher.”
“Fuck,” Frenchie cursed, followed by the heavy thud of an object hitting the floor, likely the main unit of the chromatograph being set down.
“When this is over, I’m going to the Caribbean for a vacation.
Find some shitty island with no Supes, no Vought, and no Butcher, and drink rum for three months straight.”
Mother’s Milk chuckled.
“Alright.
Once we save Becca, I’ll go with you.”
The ward fell quiet.
Only the clinking of parts from the bathroom and the occasional beep of a nurse’s call button down the hallway broke the silence.
Hughie sat on the empty hospital bed.
He stared at the sky slowly brightening outside the window, lost in thought.
Butcher leaned against the wall and took another drag of his cigarette.
He looked at the photo of Becca laid out on the small bedside table, staring at her brilliant smile.
Amidst the curling smoke, his terrifyingly bright right eye showed, for the very first time, a faint, almost invisible trace of tenderness.
Less than a week left.
He had waited eight years.
He could wait a few more days.