“Did you hear?
Starlight might be coming to HQ today.” “The one from that talent show?” “What talent show?
She’s an official member selected through the Superhero Draft.
Marketing is already building a whole new female hero angle around her.” “I saw her interview yesterday.
Pretty sweet.” “Sweet or not doesn’t matter.
What matters is she’s young, clean, and marketable.” “You talk about her like she’s a box of cereal.” “At Vought, isn’t everyone?” The two finished their exchange and chuckled in unison.
The laughter was soft, not harsh at all.
It wasn’t malice—it was more like a cynical instinct that naturally grew on you after staying at this company long enough.
Lynn’s fingers paused over his keyboard.
Starlight.
Annie January.
The name dropped into his mind like a small pebble, casting outward ripples.
The plot had begun.
Not with the thunderous score of a movie opening, nor with strange signs descending from the heavens.
Just a ordinary morning at Vought HQ, with two employees gossiping by the printer.
It felt all the more real for it.
The world wouldn’t stop and wait for a transmigrator to get ready.
Everyone kept moving along their own tracks.
Starlight would walk into this building.
Hughie would stand on a street corner holding his girlfriend’s hand.
A-Train would streak through crowds like a blue disaster.
Butcher would drag ordinary people into deeper mud with a mouth full of profanity.
Homelander would still stand in the sunlight, smiling.
And Lynn…
Right now, he was just an archives clerk.
On his desk sat a stack of incident files dumped on him by someone else; in his inbox sat passive-aggressive emails from his supervisor; in his bank account lay figures sobering enough to keep anyone humble.
He couldn’t rush.
People who rushed died fast.
Especially in a world like this.
“Lynn.” A sharp female voice cut through the air.
The open office area quieted down a notch.
Lynn looked up.
Martha Green stood in the doorway of the supervisor’s office.
In her mid-forties, with a blonde bob, black-rimmed glasses, and a sharply tailored dark gray suit, she held a tablet pressed against her chest.
The corners of her mouth were pulled tight, as if perpetually disappointed by the mere existence of her subordinates.
She was a low-level supervisor in Archives.
Not true upper management, but easily powerful enough to decide whether low-level employees left work on time.
Martha glanced at the stack of documents on Lynn’s desk.
“The Queen’s Elevated Bridge file—you took that?” Kevin, wearing headphones with his eyes glued to his screen, visibly stiffened.
Lynn noticed.
He didn’t expose him.
Now wasn’t the time.
He nodded.
“Kevin mentioned you assigned him something more urgent, so I offered to help organize this one first.” Martha frowned.
“I didn’t tell him to reassign it.” Kevin took off his headphones with lightning speed—so fast it was obvious he hadn’t been listening to music at all.
“Uh, Martha, I thought you meant for us to coordinate within the team,” Kevin said, wearing an awkwardly innocent smile.
“I really do have an urgent request from Marketing about archiving complaints for The Deep’s aquarium event.” Martha remained silent for a second.
She seemed to decide it wasn’t worth wasting much energy on.
She turned her gaze back to Lynn.
“Then handle it.
Upload it before ten.” With that, she turned and walked back into her office.
Kevin let out a sigh of relief and held out his hands to Lynn, giving him an “I know you get it” expression.
Lynn offered a faint smile in return.
He got it.
Of course he got it.
He understood all too well.
This was the most common magic trick in the workplace: a task vanished from one person’s desk and reappeared on another’s.
No applause.
Just overtime.
Lynn lowered his head back to the files without further argument.
For now, he needed to maintain his predecessor’s persona.
Soft.
Quiet.
Useful.
But he couldn’t stay useful forever.
A blade didn’t have to be drawn on day one, but it could certainly be sharpened.
He opened the document system and began reviewing the Queen’s Elevated Bridge incident file.
Vought’s internal system interface was simple to the point of being cold.
Every incident file had a serial number, category, risk level, recommended action, and liability assignment.
Yet the words here were separated from the real world by a thick sheet of glass.
“Casualties” became “Public Loss.” “Civilian Collateral” became “Unintended Contact.” “Minimizing Compensation” became “Settlement Cost Optimization.” “PR Manipulation” became “Emotional Guidance.” Lynn read through them line by line, his fingertips sliding lightly over the mouse.
The more he read, the more he felt this company wasn’t managing heroes.
It was managing disasters.
More accurately, it was managing the narrative rights to those disasters.
As long as the phrasing was pretty enough, dead people could be transformed into nothing more than an unsightly metric on a quarterly report.
From nearby came the sound of the printer jamming.
Someone cursed softly.
“Damn it, jammed again.” Another colleague chimed in, “Don’t be so harsh on it.
Maybe it just needs a mental health day.” “Then I need one too.” “You don’t qualify.
The company already bought you coffee.” A few tired chuckles echoed through the office.
Lynn smiled along.
There was no joy in the sound—only the tacit understanding of working stiffs confirming they were still alive.
At 9:53 AM, Lynn finished organizing the Queen’s Elevated Bridge incident file.
No errors.
No delays.
He had even conveniently flagged two instances where the original file numbers were inconsistent.
He didn’t upload it immediately.
Instead, he took a screenshot of the workflow log and recorded the system timestamp of Kevin’s handoff alongside Martha’s verbal instruction in his work diary.
Only then did he click submit.
The email sent automatically.
CC Martha.
CC Kevin.
CC Department Shared Archive.
Kevin’s computer chimed almost instantly.
He glanced at the email, his expression freezing for a fraction of a second.
Lynn didn’t look at him.
He simply picked up his completely cold cup of coffee and took a calm sip.
Small wars between adults didn’t require slamming tables.
Sometimes, putting the right people on the CC line was more than enough.
At 10:03 AM, a subtle commotion rippled through the entrance of the Archives Department.
Several colleagues looked up at once.
Lynn followed their line of sight.
Outside the glass doors, a team from Marketing and Hero Management was escorting a young girl down the hallway.
Blonde hair.
A white coat.
Her expression was somewhat nervous, though she tried hard to maintain a smile.
She looked younger and more real than she did on television or in promotional photos.
No studio lights.
No filters.
Her eyes still held a kind of expectation that hadn’t been ground away by this building yet.
Annie January.
Starlight.
She seemed to hear something and turned her head to glance toward the Archives Department.
Through the glass.
Across the busy crowd.
Her gaze lingered for less than half a second before she was swept forward by the people around her.
In the office, colleagues were already whispering.
“She’s actually pretty cute in person.” “Marketing is going to have a field day with her.” “I heard her brand angle is pure, sincere, faithful, and wholesome Midwest girl.” “Those four words sound like a brand of low-fat yogurt.” “Hey, come on—low-fat yogurt at least has an ingredients list.” Lynn didn’t join the chatter.
He merely watched Starlight disappear down the end of the corridor.
His hand squeezed the coffee cup slightly, denting the paper rim inward.
He knew what she was about to face.
He knew how this blindingly bright tower would strip away her illusions about heroes, piece by piece.
He also knew he couldn’t rush out right now and tell her the truth.
No one would believe him.
Even if someone did, it would only drag him into a far more dangerous position.
A low-level archives clerk suddenly showing unusual concern for a new member of The Seven was a massive risk in itself.
Lynn slowly relaxed his grip.
The paper cup didn’t fully spring back into shape, leaving a faint, irreversible crease behind.
*Don’t rush,* he told himself.
Not to Starlight.
To himself.
There wasn’t much he could do right now.
Observe.
Record.
Hide.
Survive.
And then, when the time was right, give a gentle push.
Not too early.
Not too late.
The office area returned to the rhythm of clicking keyboards.
Vought HQ kept spinning.
On the promotional screens in the visitor area, Homelander was still smiling radiantly.
Marketing was busy packaging a new female hero.
Archives was busy folding old disasters into pretty vocabulary.
Kevin continued to slack off.
Martha continued to frown.
The printer continued to jam.
And Lynn sat at his desk, opening a fresh, blank document.
The document’s title was utterly ordinary—so ordinary that any auditor skimming past wouldn’t pause for a second.
*Personal Efficiency Log.* On the first page, he typed out the first line: “Vought is not a company.” Pausing briefly, he tapped out a second line: “It is a machine that commodifies gods, formats disasters, and digitizes ordinary people.” The cursor blinked.
Rhythmically.
Like a heartbeat.
Lynn looked at the screen, the corner of his mouth curving up slightly.
“And right now,” he whispered softly, “I am sitting inside the machine.” Outside the window, sunlight cut through the cloud cover and struck the glass curtain wall of the Vought Building.
It was bright to the point of being blinding.