An abandoned subway maintenance tunnel in Brooklyn smelled entirely of rust, rat droppings, and stagnant water.
It was a miserable place to hide, but it was completely off the grid, buried beneath sixty feet of concrete and steel.
Billy Butcher sat on an overturned milk crate, staring at the folding table in front of him.
Sitting in the center of the table was a jagged piece of concrete and a torn slip of paper that read: BLACK NOIR.
TWO MINUTES.
Frenchie was sitting a few yards away, quietly unwrapping bandages for Kimiko, while Hughie paced nervously along the rusted tracks.
“I don’t understand,” Hughie muttered, his voice echoing off the curved tile walls.
“If Vought found us, why didn’t they just send a SWAT team?
Why send a ninja?
And who threw the rock?” Butcher didn’t answer right away.
He picked up the piece of concrete, turning it over in his calloused hands.
“It wasn’t thrown, Hughie,” Butcher grunted, his voice thick with a dark, simmering anger.
“It was fired.
Like a bullet.
But there was no gunshot.
No muzzle flash.” He tossed the rock onto the metal table with a heavy clatter.
“To generate that kind of force with a blunt object, from a street-level angle, and bury it two inches deep into a solid brick wall…” Butcher trailed off, his jaw clenching.
He looked up at Hughie, his eyes cold and hard.
“A human didn’t do this.
A Supe did.” Hughie froze in his tracks.
“A…
a Supe?
A Supe saved our lives?” “Don’t call it that,” Butcher snapped viciously.
“Supes don’t save people.
They don’t do bloody charity.
If one of them tipped us off, it’s because they’re playing a game, and they need us on the board to win it.” “But who?” Frenchie asked.
Butcher leaned back, staring into the dark tunnel.
He didn’t know.
But whoever it was, they had eyes on Vought’s deadliest assassin, and they had immense physical strength.
“We have a ghost,” Butcher muttered.
“Someone inside that tower is watching us.
And until we figure out who it is, we don’t trust a single bloody shadow.” Fifty miles away, Annie January was standing in an elevator inside Vought Tower.
She was completely alone.
She had cut off the men from the alleyway, determined to carry the weight of Vought’s secret by herself.
But the reality of what that actually meant was beginning to crush her.
There was no grand crusade.
There was no exposing the company.
There was just the agonizing, suffocating reality of waking up every day and pretending everything was fine.
Ding.
The elevator stopped on the 70th floor.
The doors slid open.
I stepped inside.
I was wearing a tailored charcoal suit, holding a cup of artisan coffee, looking like the absolute picture of relaxed, corporate perfection.
“Morning, Annie,” I said with a warm, easy smile as the doors closed behind me.
“Good morning, Invincible,” Annie replied automatically, forcing a bright, PR-approved smile onto her face.
She stared straight ahead at the brass elevator doors, but my Viltrumite hearing picked up the immediate change in her physiology.
Her heart rate steadily climbed.
She wasn’t thinking about Billy Butcher.
She was simply trying to survive the elevator ride.
She was standing in an enclosed metal box with a being who could punch her through a building, a being manufactured by the exact same test tubes she was.
To her, I was just another corporate monster wearing a friendly mask.
“You look tired,” I noted casually, taking a sip of my coffee.
Annie didn’t flinch.
She had spent the last two days practicing how to hide it.
“Just getting used to the schedule.
The patrols take a lot out of you.” “They do,” I agreed smoothly.
“The first month is always a trial by fire.
Everyone is watching you.
Homelander, Stillwell, the press.
It feels like you have to be perfect every single second.” I turned my head slightly, looking down at her.
“But you don’t have to carry it all on your own, Annie,” I said, my voice dropping to a softer, more genuine tone.
“If the pressure gets to be too much…
you can talk to me.
We’re a team.” Annie looked up at me.
She smiled.
It was a perfect, pageant-winning smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Thank you,” Annie said flawlessly, giving nothing away.
“I appreciate that.
I really do.” Ding.
The elevator reached the lobby.
I offered her a polite nod and stepped out, walking past the security desk.
Thirty minutes later, Annie was standing on a brightly lit soundstage on the 40th floor.
“Okay, Starlight, hold the can higher!” the director yelled from behind the camera.
“Make sure the logo is facing the lens!
And give me that big, Midwestern smile!” Annie stood in front of a green screen, holding a can of Vought-A-Burger branded energy drink.
Ashley Barrett was standing off to the side, aggressively tapping on her tablet.
“Come on, Annie, energy!
We need the youth demographic to believe this drink gives them superpowers!” Annie looked at the cheap aluminum can in her hand.
Superpowers.
She thought about the medical files in the archive room.
She thought about her mother cashing Vought’s checks.
A lump formed in her throat.
She felt completely hollowed out.
There was no glory here.
She wasn’t saving the world.
She was just a billboard that could glow in the dark.
She swallowed the lump, pushed the horrific reality of her existence deep down into her chest, and raised the can to her cheek.
“Vought-A-Burst!” Annie said cheerfully to the camera, her eyes flaring with a perfectly timed, harmless burst of golden light.
“For when you need to power through your day!” “Cut!
Beautiful!
Print it!” the director cheered.
Annie let the light fade from her eyes.
She handed the can to a production assistant and walked off the stage, disappearing into the chaotic crowd of makeup artists and lighting technicians.
She was completely alone in a building full of people, trapped inside the machine.