Lynn looked at the pop-up at the bottom right of his screen.
Someone in the office shouted, “Something happened at A-Train’s event?” Kevin immediately turned on the news livestream.
The footage was chaotic.
Police tape.
Crowds.
Screams.
The reporter spoke rapidly: “It is currently unclear if there are injuries.
Eyewitnesses at the scene report hearing a massive gust of wind…” A massive gust of wind.
Lynn’s fingers slowly tightened.
A few minutes later, Vought’s internal system popped up a red coordination notice.
[URGENT: Public Event Material Archival Initiated for High-Speed Mobility Hero.] Sender: Hero Management.
CC: Public Relations, Legal, Risk Records.
Martha rushed out of her office.
“Everyone, halt all non-urgent tasks!
Lynn, Amy, take incident screening.
Kevin, prepare templates.” Kevin turned pale.
“Which set?” Martha yelled, “High-speed mobility!” The atmosphere in the office shifted instantly.
The joking tone from moments ago was completely cut short.
Lynn opened the task.
Event ID generated.
Location.
Time.
Hero involved: A-Train.
Public loss: To be confirmed.
Eyewitnesses: Multiple.
Initial media risk: High.
The first site summary was soon synced into the system.
The victim’s name hadn’t been officially confirmed yet.
Only gender, age group, scene description.
Lynn kept refreshing.
The second summary came in.
Initial identity confirmed.
Robin Ward.
Lynn stared at the name.
The noise in the office receded into the distance.
Not shock.
Not surprise.
Just the dull thud of the other shoe finally dropping.
The main storyline from the original show had officially begun.
The System voice sounded simultaneously.
[Malicious Supe-related incident detected.] [Vigilance clue generated.] [Target chain: A-Train / Vought Crisis Response / Hughie Campbell] [Hint: Intervening in this event yields Kill Points and intelligence rewards.] Lynn didn’t respond to the System.
He just stared at the name on the screen.
Robin.
Someone he knew would die, yet lacked the power to save.
Now she had become a record being formatted inside Vought’s system.
“Public loss.” “Eyewitness pacification.” “Family support plan.” “Hero temporarily withholding response.” Vought’s machine had begun operating.
And Hughie Campbell was likely standing at the scene right now, left with nothing but a sliver of reality he couldn’t accept.
Ashley’s call came into Martha’s office shortly after.
Through the glass, Lynn could see Martha’s face growing tense.
A few minutes later, Martha came out.
“PR demands the initial file summary within thirty minutes.
Use the updated template wording.
Victim’s name is not to be leaked externally for now.
Hero liability is left unassigned.” Lynn looked down at the task box.
Hero liability left unassigned.
He suddenly felt like laughing, but he didn’t.
Because this was Vought.
Before the blood was even dry, they were already deciding the subject of the sentence.
Amy sat beside him, her expression grim as well.
“This is awful.” Kevin whispered, “Did someone die?” No one answered.
Lynn typed out the first line of archival text: [Incident Type: High-speed mobility non-target contact.] His hand stopped.
Deleted it.
Re-entered: [Incident Type: Civilian fatality resulting from A-Train high-speed operation; subsequent liability pending official confirmation.] Amy glanced at him.
“That’s not how the template is written.” Lynn said, “Initial internal screening version—write the facts first.
They’ll change the external version anyway.” Amy was silent for a second, then nodded.
“I didn’t see anything.” A small reversal.
Inside Vought’s machine, not everyone was numb.
Some people knew what the facts were; they just usually didn’t dare write them down.
Lynn continued typing.
He couldn’t undo Robin’s death, but he could ensure that within the initial internal record at Vought, at least one version had recorded the truth—even if it was edited later, even if it only remained in the system revision history.
That mattered too.
Archives were not justice, but archives made it harder for lies to pretend they had existed from the beginning.
At 4:05 PM, the first draft of the summary was uploaded.
Three minutes later, PR kicked it back.
The rejection note came from Ivan: [Please adjust “civilian fatality” to “occurrence of public casualties at the scene.” Avoid direct liability attribution.] Lynn stared at the rejection note.
Amy swore softly under her breath beside him.
Kevin didn’t dare speak.
Lynn didn’t argue.
He generated the external messaging version as requested.
But the internal initial version had already been created.
Even if for only three minutes.
Those three minutes were enough to form a revision trace.
And a revision trace was an archivist’s favorite thing.
At 4:20 PM, another name appeared in the files.
Hugh Campbell.
Identity: Eyewitness.
Relation: Victim’s boyfriend.
Status: Emotional breakdown.
Initial contact arrangement: Joint legal/PR compensation outreach.
Lynn looked at Hughie’s name.
The System prompt sounded again: [Key character has entered the event chain.] [Recommendation: Maintain observation.
Do not expose yourself prematurely.] The corner of Lynn’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.
“This time the advice is actually reasonable.” At 6:00 PM, Vought’s internal preliminary stance was finalized.
A-Train would temporarily refrain from public statements.
PR would prepare messaging around “pharmaceutical delivery / emergency task / force majeure.” Legal would prepare to contact Hughie.
The initial range for compensation had been generated.
When Lynn saw the number, his eyes turned cold.
$45,000.
A human life.
A romance.
An ordinary person’s entire world.
The initial price Vought offered was forty-five grand.
This wasn’t the final price; it was just the opening bid.
Like haggling at a flea market, except they were haggling over the dead.
Lynn committed the number to memory.
Not to tell Hughie immediately—not right now—but it would be useful later.
At 7:10 PM, Lynn left Vought Headquarters.
The streets of Midtown Manhattan were ablaze with lights.
On the massive display screens, A-Train’s sports drink commercial had not been taken down.
He stood in the frame with a confident smile: “Fast is an attitude.” Below on the sidewalk, crowds hurried past.
Nobody looked up for long.
The commercial kept playing.
The victim’s name hadn’t appeared in the news yet.
Vought’s PR machine was attempting to compress a death into a line of messaging.
Lynn stood by the curb as his phone vibrated.
An email from Marcus: “Debt dispute notice sent.
The other party halted escalation.
If Daniel contacts you again, report directly to the police.” That was today’s good news.
Immediately after, the System sounded: [Debt threat temporarily neutralized.] [Survival pressure reduced.] [Reward: Kill Point +1] [Current Kill Points: 4] Lynn was stunned for a moment.
“That counts too?” [Effective suppression achieved on vigilance target chain.] [Non-violent vigilance actions also qualify.] Standing in the crowd, Lynn suddenly let out a faint smile.
Very soft.
The System was more interesting than he thought.
It wasn’t just about punching people or killing.
As long as a vicious threat was stripped of its ability to continue doing harm, it counted.
In that case, its upper limit wasn’t just fists—it was order, layout, evidence, leveraging power, archives.
That suited him much better.
A second later, his phone vibrated again.
An unknown number.
“Daniel went off the grid.” Second message: “He took the money.” Third message: “We need to find him.” Lynn looked at the messages without replying.
A twist.
Daniel wasn’t merely pushed to a corner; he was genuinely planning to run.
And what he had taken might not just be other people’s trust.
This meant his debt line wasn’t entirely over.
But now, Lynn was no longer the one being pushed around.
He looked up at the Vought building.
Its glass curtain wall reflected the city lights.
High above, Homelander’s giant billboard still looked down over Manhattan.
Robin was dead.
Hughie was in the game.
Butcher would appear soon.
Daniel had fled.
The System confirmed non-violent strategies worked.
All the threads opened up on this single night.
Lynn tucked away his phone and walked down into the subway entrance.
The crowd swallowed him up.
Meanwhile, on another street in Manhattan, Hughie Campbell sat on the curb, his hands covered in blood, his eyes as hollow as if his soul had been ripped out.
Police lights flashed.
Voices buzzed around him.
Someone tried to drape a blanket over his shoulders, but he didn’t react.
Not far away, a man in a black trench coat stood at the edge of the crowd.
Unshaven.
Dark, brooding eyes.
Billy Butcher looked at Hughie, without a trace of a smile on his face.