“Victoria Stone, Asian Market Strategy.” Lucas took her hand, applied moderate pressure, and released it after three seconds.
Her palm was dry, her fingers long and lean.
Her hand remained two degrees above horizontal throughout the handshake, without any extra wrist movement.
A trained handshake.
“Lucas Vance, Psychological Evaluation.” Victoria drew her hand back, her eyes moving from his face to the record player on his desk.
“Your office is more interesting than I expected.” “Would you like to sit?” “No, just stopped by to say hello.” She took half a step back with her briefcase, standing right on the door threshold—neither inside nor outside.
“See you at Wednesday’s asset meeting.” She walked away.
The crisp click of her heels drifted down the corridor at a steady, unhurried pace.
She didn’t look back.
Lucas stood where he was, deconstructing the thirty-second interaction in his mind.
Her gaze had scanned the room from the perimeter to the core—first the corners, then the desktop, and only then the person.
That was the visual habit of an evaluator.
He closed the door and sat back down at his desk.
Things three days away could wait for three days.
Right now, there were more pressing moves on the board.
On Starlight’s sixth day with the team, The Seven’s first joint patrol ran into trouble.
Lucas learned of the incident through a broadcast email from Ashley: during a hostage situation in Connecticut, Starlight had overused her light blasts, resulting in fractured arms for two hostages.
The media had already obtained field footage.
The bottom line of the email was highlighted in bold red: *The Seven Internal Debrief, 3:00 PM today, Conference Room B, 60th Floor.
Psychological Evaluation Department to attend.* At 2:55 PM, Lucas badged his way into the conference room suite.
The room featured floor-to-ceiling glass on three sides, with the afternoon sun streaming in from the west, splitting the long conference table into halves of light and shadow.
A one-way observation window was set into the eastern wall, backed by a narrow observation corridor.
Lucas bypassed the main room and slipped into the observation corridor, standing behind the two-way mirror.
The members of The Seven filed in one by one.
Queen Maeve sat near the middle of the table, arms crossed, staring at her phone screen.
Her thumb wasn’t scrolling, just fixed on a single static image.
The Deep sat at the far end, his chair deliberately pulled half a foot away from the table.
He leaned back against the seat, legs crossed, projecting an air of relaxation, though his left ankle rotated continuously at a rate of roughly one turn every four seconds.
Starlight was the last to enter, taking the empty seat closest to the door.
Her posture was a far cry from what it had been six days ago behind the press conference stage.
Her back was rigid, her hands rested tightly on her knees, fingers clenched so hard her nails dug into her palms.
At three o’clock sharp, the air pressure at the far end of the hallway shifted subtly.
Homelander descended from the ceiling ventilation shaft into the center of the conference room.
The flare of his cape was calculated to perfection, missing the chair backs on either side by inches, the draft fluttering the documents spread across the table.
“Let’s sit down and talk.” He pulled out the chair at the head of the table and sat, his signature smile fully in place.
Ashley’s tablet was playing the field footage of the hostage situation.
She glanced at Homelander and slid the tablet to the center of the table.
“Everyone’s seen what happened.
Now we need to—” “Need to what?” Homelander’s voice cut over the latter half of Ashley’s sentence.
His tone was buoyant, infused with the rich enthusiasm of a talk-show host.
His gaze bypassed everyone else and landed squarely on Starlight.
“Need our new teammate to explain why she can’t even manage something as basic as controlling her power output?” Starlight’s shoulders dropped by two millimeters.
“The suspect was moving.
I had to adjust my angle—” “Adjust?” Homelander rolled the word around in his mouth before spitting it back out with a smile.
“You said at the press conference that you’ve been a hero for twelve years.
Twelve years of experience, and your blast strays thirty centimeters off target and breaks an old lady’s arm.” Silence fell over the room.
Maeve put her phone down, though her eyes remained fixed on a water spot on the table.
The Deep’s ankle stopped rotating.
“I was fifteen when I used my heat vision for the first time.” Homelander tapped his index finger against the table.
“A bullseye three hundred meters away, zero margin of error.
Do you know why?” Starlight didn’t answer, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“Because I don’t make mistakes.” He stood up, pushing his chair back so fast the wheels let out a short screech against the floor.
“Next time something like this happens, I suggest you stand farther back.
Don’t get in the way of people who actually know what they’re doing.” He turned and left.
The moment his cape brushed against Starlight’s chair back, the seat trembled slightly.
The conference room door slowly swung shut under the pull of the automatic closer, sealing with a low hum.
Standing behind the one-way glass, Lucas pressed his right index finger against the pulse point of his left wrist.
Seventy-two.
His heart rate remained entirely steady.
He turned, walked out of the observation corridor, returned to his office, and spread a blank sheet of paper across his desk.
*HL-001 Behavioral Pattern Supplementary Record: When perceiving a threat of replacement, the subject actively establishes hierarchical dominance within the group, attempting to repair his fragile sense of superiority by belittling competitors.
This behavior is essentially an externalized defense mechanism against core anxiety; the target of his attack will not be the actual source of the threat, but rather the easiest, most vulnerable target.* His phone buzzed.
A text from Homelander: *Are you free today?* Lucas checked the time: 3:18 PM.
He replied: *Evaluation room, 4:00 PM.* At 4:00 PM, the needle dropped into the groove of the record player.
When Homelander entered, Lucas was already seated in his usual spot on the floor.
The throw blanket draped over the arm of the sofa, the floor lamp glowing gently.
Homelander sat down on the sofa, leaning his back against the cushion.
Thirty seconds of silence passed, filled only by the drifting melody of Chopin.
“You think I was too hard on her?” Lucas turned a page of his book.
“Are you referring to the press conference?” “Not the press conference.
The debrief just now.” “I wasn’t at the debrief.” Homelander tilted his head to look at him, a layer of scrutiny in his blue eyes.
“You’re lying.” Lucas set the book on his knee.
“What makes you think I’m lying?” “I heard your heartbeat.
Behind the wall.” Super hearing.
Lucas rapidly ran through every movement and breath he had taken in the observation corridor.
“I was present,” he admitted cleanly, his tone devoid of any dodge or hesitation.
“But I don’t intend to offer commentary on how you speak to your own team.
That’s outside my scope.” Homelander’s eyes lingered on his face for two seconds longer before turning away.
“Then what is your scope?” “You.” Lucas turned to the next page.
“Not how you act toward others, but how you feel.” The record moved past the first theme’s reprise into a soft, low transitional passage.
Homelander rested his right hand against the edge of the blanket, his fingertips lightly tracing the wool fabric.
“When I’m flying,” his voice suddenly dropped half an octave, “at forty thousand feet.
Nothing below but clouds.” Lucas stopped turning the page.
“There’s nothing there.
Nobody talking, no phones ringing, no Ashley reading lines in my ear.” He rested his head against the back of the sofa, his eyes drifting up toward the ceiling.
“Just me.” “Do you like that feeling?” “I don’t know.” “Then why mention it?” The corner of Homelander’s mouth twitched, though it wasn’t a smile.
“Because you won’t write a report about it.” Lucas closed the book and set it on the floor beside him.
“I won’t.” For the next ten minutes, Homelander spoke of three things: the air temperature at forty thousand feet, the pressure changes against his eardrums during supersonic flight, and the order of colors in the light spectrum when watching a sunset from the stratosphere.
Not a single detail was explicitly about emotional trauma.
Yet every detail was entirely about emotional trauma.
What did a child raised in an underground laboratory see when he first flew beyond the ceiling?
Lucas committed every detail to memory without interrupting once.
When the session concluded, he uttered his customary closing line.
“See you next time.
I’ll be here waiting for you.” Homelander reached the door, paused for less than a second, and pushed it open.
Once the office returned to silence, Lucas’s phone screen lit up.
Two messages from Madelyn.
The first: *Someone is leaking The Deep’s scandal.
Anonymous letters were sent to three media outlets.
We’ve suppressed two, still negotiating with the third.* The second: *The anonymous email didn’t follow our internal format.
It used an external server, IP traced to a public library terminal in Queens.* Lucas read the messages three times.
Queens.
A public library.
He opened his memo app and scrolled to a previously crossed-out line: *Butcher’s last location observed by CIA informant: Queens.* He didn’t add anything new to the memo.
He locked his phone and slipped it into his pocket.
The warm glow of the floor lamp was still on, the stylus drawing empty circles in the end groove of the record.
He walked over, switched off the lamp, and let the cool white fluorescent lights overhead reclaim the room.
A third party was already making moves.
And he still didn’t know how many cards they held in their hand.
His phone buzzed again—an internal email notification.
Sender: Victoria Stone.
Subject line: *Agenda Confirmation for Wednesday’s Meeting.
Attachment: Asian Market Supe IP Licensing Proposal for advance review by departments.* Lucas opened the attachment and scrolled to the third page.
In the licensing directory, the Asian market image rights for HL-001 were tagged with an unfamiliar reference code.
Beside the code was a line of fine print: *See Psychological Stability Assessment Reference, to be supplemented by Psychological Evaluation Dept.* She was asking for his report.