“Whose orders were you following?” That question revolved in his head all day.
By the time his four o’clock session ended, Luke had filed it away in a place where no immediate answer was required.
The next morning, Madelyn’s secretary sent an email.
The phrasing was polite, but non-negotiable: *This Thursday at 7:00 PM, Vought Executive Private Dinner, 80th Floor Executive Banquet Hall.
Attire: Business Formal.
Dr.
Luke Vance, Department of Psychological Evaluation, is cordially invited.* At the bottom of the email was a handwritten-style note, rendered in the exact script Madelyn used when signing documents: *Let everyone get to know you.* Luke closed the email, unzipped his spare suit hanging on the side of his wardrobe, and checked to see if the cufflinks were still there.
At 6:58 PM on Thursday, he stood at the 80th-floor elevator bank.
When the elevator doors slid open, the doors to the banquet hall were already wide open.
A scent of truffles and roasted beef hung in the corridor, underlaid by the delicate alcohol vapor released from swirled red wine.
Madelyn stood by the entrance greeting guests, wearing a fitted burgundy dress and holding a freshly poured glass of white wine in her right hand.
“You’re here.” “Thank you for the invitation, Ms.
Stillwell.” “Don’t stand on ceremony with me.” She stepped aside to let him in, resting her left hand lightly against his back in a gentle, guiding motion toward the long head table in the center of the hall.
“There are twelve of us tonight—all VPs and SVPs from various departments.
Sit on my right.” “On your right?” “Edgar isn’t coming, so the left side is empty.
Sitting on my right won’t draw too much attention.” Madelyn’s lips twitched slightly into a smile as she shifted her wine glass to her left hand.
“You only need to do one thing: be seen by them.” Luke nodded without asking further.
By 7:15 PM, nine of the twelve guests had arrived.
The long table followed standard board dinner layout, with exactly forty-five centimeters between each seat.
The place cards featured Vought’s uniform gold typography.
Luke’s place card bore a few words: *Chief Psychological Consultant.* Not Department of Psychological Evaluation.
*Chief Psychological Consultant.* His title had been changed.
As he sat down, he swept a gaze over the surrounding faces.
Three seats to his left sat a white-haired man wearing a Vought veteran lapel pin—a diamond embedded in a gold base, signifying over twenty years with the company.
Opposite him was a younger Asian woman with shoulder-length short hair.
Sarah Townsend.
When she saw Luke, her eyes registered no extra reaction; she merely gave a faint nod before continuing to cut the appetizer on her plate with her fork.
When the first course was served, the white-haired man spoke first.
“Dr.
Vance, I hear your consultations with HL-001 never pass through the formal logging system.” “They do pass through the system.
There’s a summary log for every session.” “Summary logs.” The man enunciated the words slowly, as if tasting them on his tongue.
“Meaning you personally decide what goes in and what stays out.” “I decide what holds reference value for the company.” “And the parts with no reference value for the company…
where do those stay?” Luke took a sip from his water glass.
“Inside my head.” A three-second silence fell over the table.
The white-haired man laughed—a short snort from his nose.
“No wonder Madelyn likes you.” He raised his wine glass, tipping it slightly toward Luke.
“I’m Walter Cohen, Head of Legal.
If you ever need to clarify legal boundaries, come find me.” Luke nodded, without touching his glass.
By the third course, the conversation shifted from HL-001 to quarterly budgets and ad contract renewals.
Luke didn’t join the discussion, responding only with precise, bare-minimum answers when directly addressed.
He observed three things.
First, Sarah Townsend spoke no more than five times during the entire dinner, opening her mouth only when asked for specific figures regarding the Asian market.
Her numbers were exact, her tone entirely unembellished.
Second, the place card at the first empty seat on the left remained untouched.
It read *Stan Edgar*.
Third, near the end of the third course, a man at the far end of the long table had drunk too much.
His tie hung half-undone across his chest as he whispered to the person beside him.
His voice wasn’t kept low enough.
“Madelyn thinks she runs the show.” Soaked in alcohol, his tongue had grown heavy, every consonant slurring with extra moisture.
“In reality, she’s not even qualified to shine Edgar’s shoes.” The person next to him nudged him with an elbow, and he finally shut his mouth, though his eyes drifted toward Madelyn.
Madelyn either hadn’t heard or pretended not to.
She was discussing the wording of a content moderation clause with Walter Cohen from Legal, her glass nearly empty.
Luke stored the remark away in a specific folder in his memory and indexed it.
At 9:20 PM, the dinner drew to a close.
As Luke stood up, Madelyn rounded the table from the other side and walked out into the corridor with him.
“How was it?” “I learned a lot.” “Don’t play word games with me.
You were in there for an hour and a half, didn’t say more than fifteen sentences, but your eyes were moving the entire time.” Madelyn set her wine glass on a decorative pedestal in the hallway.
“What were you looking at?” “Looking to see who’s really in charge.” Madelyn’s lips tightened slightly.
“And did you figure it out?” “The person in charge wasn’t here tonight.” Madelyn stared at him for three seconds, then gave a single nod.
“Come to my office on Monday.
It’s time you knew a few things.” She turned and headed back into the banquet hall, the sound of her heels largely absorbed by the hallway carpet.
Luke pressed the elevator button.
While waiting, he unbuttoned his top collar, his fingertip touching the old scar on his neck that had faded to pale yellow.
The elevator arrived.
The doors opened.
Stepping inside, he pressed the button for Sub-level 3 to retrieve his briefcase from his office.
The elevator paused on the 52nd floor.
No one boarded, and the doors closed again.
It stopped again on the 30th floor.
The doors opened.
Light from the floor’s lobby spilled in, illuminating the interior walls of the elevator.
Homelander stood in the center of the lobby.
In full uniform, cape smoothed flat, hands hanging at his sides, standing impeccably straight without the slightest tilt.
His face was completely devoid of expression.
It wasn’t the relaxed state that followed putting away his signature sunshiny smile, but the hollow blankness of every facial muscle ceasing to function altogether.
His pupils were contracted roughly two millimeters smaller than normal.
Luke stood inside the elevator, his finger hovering over the door-close button without pressing it.
The two locked eyes across five meters for three seconds.
Homelander spoke.
“You went to their dinner.” His tone was flat—no interrogative rise, no wounded sink.
A simple statement.
Yet Luke heard what lay beneath the statement.
He withdrew his hand from the door-close button.
“Madelyn invited me.” “I know she invited you.” Homelander stepped forward, the strike of his boot echoing briefly in the cavernous lobby.
“You didn’t tell me.” “It wasn’t something I needed to tell you.” Homelander’s jaw tightened, the contours of his facial muscles sharply defined under the cold white light.
“You sat with them, drank with them, talked with them for an hour and a half.” He took another step.
“While I was up on the 72nd floor waiting for you to text me.” The elevator chime began to sound, an alarm triggered by the doors being held open too long.
Luke held down the door-open button, silencing the chime.
“Did you come to the evaluation room today?” “You weren’t there.” “Because I was at the dinner.” “So you chose them.” Luke looked him in the eye.
The constricted pupils were slowly expanding back to normal size, but at an uneven rate—the left expanding half a beat faster than the right, a physiological indicator of emotion battling reason for control.
“John.” Homelander’s shoulders gave an almost imperceptible rise and fall.
“I haven’t chosen anyone.” Luke released the door-open button, stepped out of the elevator, and stood on the lobby floor.
The distance between them narrowed to less than two meters.
“Tomorrow at four o’clock, in the evaluation room.” His voice carried the exact same volume and timbre as his usual closing remark.
“I’ll be waiting for you there.” Homelander stared at him, his lips moving slightly without making a sound.
Luke turned toward another elevator nearby and pressed the down button.
From behind came Homelander’s voice, lighter than the lobby’s ventilation system.
“Next time they invite you, tell me.”