I’m sitting cross-legged right on the edge of the Chrysler Building’s gargoyle, midnight wind screaming all around me.
The city below—a mess of golden lights and endless noise—looks almost peaceful from way up here.
If I close my eyes and dial in my Viltrumite hearing, I can shut out the sirens, the subways, and the millions of voices.
I can pick out exactly what I’m hunting for.
Tonight, I’m listening to a chess game.
Not your usual kind.
First heartbeat, slow and angry, belongs to Billy Butcher.
I can hear it thumping inside a cargo van, heading north—away from Manhattan, toward Yonkers and the empty industrial sprawl.
Second heartbeat?
Annie January.
Hers is quick and shaky, adrenaline pouring through her veins.
For three hours, I’d been tracking Annie.
She’d snuck out of The Seven’s conference room after digging through Vought’s old servers, chasing some ghost: “Asset K-89.” That burned manifest from the warehouse, it must’ve spooked her for real.
She slipped out of Vought Tower in street clothes, ditched security, and now her heartbeat’s racing north.
She’s headed for Yonkers.
Same place Butcher’s going.
Perfect.
I open my eyes, grin at the skyline.
The pieces are moving themselves tonight.
Annie touches down without a sound in the wild parking lot of the Vought-American Psychiatric Center.
Place has been abandoned for years.
Windows boarded up, chain-link fence clogged with dead ivy.
The files she’d decrypted said this was the last spot K-series cargo was sent before ending up at the Triad warehouse.
She shivers, pulls her hood tight, and yanks the padlock off the back door.
Easy.
Inside, the place reeks of mold and old paper.
Her phone’s flashlight cuts through the darkness as she follows signs to the basement archive.
She isn’t sure what she wants—maybe a name, maybe a face.
Maybe some explanation for why her beloved company locks people in steel boxes.
She finds the archive room: big, windowless, walls packed with rusty cabinets.
Vought wiped their servers, but paper trails?
They linger.
She tears open drawers.
Flashlight jumps over dusty folders.
H-Series…
J-Series…
K-Series.
Her breath hitches.
She pulls out a thick folder: K-89—The Female.
First page—a medical chart, clipped to a blurry photo of a terrified Asian girl.
The same girl who wrecked the warehouse, no doubt.
But the notes are insane: cruel bone tests, trauma experiments, endless injections of ‘Compound V.’ “What the hell is this?” Annie whispers, staring at a dosage chart.
CRACK.
Annie freezes.
Glass shatters overhead.
Someone’s heavy footsteps stomp toward the basement.
Not good.
She kills her flashlight.
The room goes pitch-black.
She backs up, hands raised, not itching for a fight—especially not against Vought’s goons.
The basement door groans open.
A tactical flashlight sweeps the room, slicing through darkness.
“Check the cabinets, Frenchie,” a British voice grumbles.
“The Triad logs traced the girl’s intake here.
There’s got to be baseline data around.” “I’m looking, Butcher,” comes a second voice.
Boots scrape over concrete.
“Vought probably torched this place years ago.” Annie’s heart is pounding so loud she’s sure they’ll hear it.
Not Vought, though.
These are the warehouse guys.
The ones Vought’s hunting now.
She sneaks back, tries to hide behind the cabinets, but loose gravel crunches under her shoe.
The flashlight snaps to her, a blinding beam pins her in place.
“Well, well, well,” Butcher says, stepping closer.
There’s the hard click of a revolver cocking.
“Looks like Vought sent a bloody cheerleader to handle it.” Annie doesn’t bolt.
Stays right there.
Eyes narrow.
She taps into the electricity humming upstairs in the old generator.
Her hands flare up—bright, scorching gold.
The basement lights up like a sun.
Butcher and Frenchie flinch, shielding their eyes.
Butcher keeps his gun up, aimed dead at her chest.
“Drop the gun,” Annie says, her own voice sounding stronger than she expects.
“I don’t know who you idiots are, but you’re trespassing on Vought property.” “Trespassing?” Butcher laughs, harsh and empty.
“That’s rich, coming from the bird caught with a stolen file.” Annie glances at the folder she’s gripping, her right hand glowing.
“You were at the docks,” she says, piecing it together.
“The cameras were blind, but security said a tactical team hit the warehouse.
That was you.
Why?” Frenchie lets his flashlight drop a bit, hands open.
“Because, mademoiselle, we want to stop the monsters your bosses create.” “Monsters?” Annie almost laughs, but her voice is shaky.
“Vought saves people.
They don’t make monsters.” Butcher looks at her.
Takes in her glowing hands, the lost panic in her face, and the folder she’s clutching.
Slowly, he lowers his gun.
And now he sees it—a girl who’s totally out of her depth, not some killer.
“Oh, you poor, stupid girl,” Butcher mutters.
“Shut up,” Annie says, light flaring brighter.
“Tell me what this file means.” “You really have no clue, do you?” Butcher steps to her, not scared of her hands, and points at the folder.
“You think God picked you?
That he gave you your powers to fight crime?” “Stop,” Annie says, voice trembling.
“Open the bloody file,” Butcher snaps, his words sharp as knives.
“Look at the chemicals.
Check the injections.
Go home, dig up your childhood medical charts.” Annie stares.
Her hands flicker, confidence bleeding out.
“God didn’t make you, Annie,” Butcher says, driving it home.
“A pharma company did.
You’re not special.
You’re a lab rat.
Same as the girl in that file.” It’s deadly quiet.
The truth hangs there, thick enough to choke on, tearing into every lying fairy tale Annie ever believed.
High above the skyline, a blue holographic screen flickers into my view.
[CRITICAL CANON DIVERGENCE DETECTED.] [The Whistleblower Awakens.] [Fated Encounter Successfully Bridged.] [Reward: 25,000 System Points.] I smile.
The wind bites, but I don’t care.
Looks like the alliance is finally starting.b CREATORS’ THOUGHTS entertainment_king_3820 Enjoyed the chapter?
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