Luke Reed looked at the name “Edgar” on his screen, then flipped his phone face down onto the armrest of the couch.
Report first.
He pulled a blank evaluation form from the envelope.
Clenching the pen cap between his teeth, he stared at the first item: *Comprehensive Mental Status Rating*.
There were four choices.
Grade A: Stable.
Suitable for public appearances.
Grade B: Fluctuating.
Short-term observation recommended.
Grade C: Dangerous.
Restricted public appearances recommended.
Grade D: Out of Control.
Initiate emergency protocols.
Four choices, four dead ends.
Selecting Grade A meant endorsing Vought.
If Homelander had an emotional breakdown at tomorrow’s press conference, Luke would be the signed-and-sealed scapegoat.
Selecting Grade C or D meant the report would enter the system—and Homelander had the security clearance to review his own psychological files.
The consequences of a paranoid narcissist discovering he’d been labeled “dangerous” required no imagination.
Luke spat the pen cap into his palm and circled Grade B.
Then he set pen to paper in the remarks column, writing slowly, running every word through his head twice before committing it to paper.
“Subject currently displays emotional fluctuation that does not pose an immediate hazard; however, stress responses stemming from the aircraft incident remain in processing.
Recommend maintaining biweekly psychological consultations over the next two to four weeks to establish a stable baseline.
Reaching definitive conclusions before establishing a rapport will increase misdiagnosis risks and potentially trigger secondary trauma in the subject.” He paused and re-read it from the top.
Not a single sentence said Homelander had an issue, nor did a single sentence say he didn’t.
In plain English, the entire paragraph boiled down to eight words: *Don’t rush it.
You need to keep me.* Luke filed the report, stood up, and casually brushed his fingers over the five finger indentations on the couch’s armrest.
The deformed metal felt cold and sharp at the edges.
He withdrew his hand and walked toward Madelyn’s office.
The hallway still smelled of disinfectant mixed with cold metal, the downlights stretching his shadow long and thin.
Madelyn’s office door wasn’t fully closed; the rustle of shuffling paperwork echoed from inside.
Luke knocked twice on the doorframe.
“Come in.” He pushed the door open and placed the report on her desk.
Madelyn picked it up, glanced at the rating column, and knit her brows.
“Grade B?” “Yes.” “Dr.
Reed, I need a definitive conclusion, not a stall tactic.” She slammed the report onto the desk, her finger tapping the remarks section.
“‘Requires two to four weeks to establish an evaluation baseline’…
do you expect the board to wait an entire month for you?” “The board needs a press conference where nothing goes wrong.” Luke stood across from the desk with his hands in his pockets, his posture relaxed.
“If I write ‘Grade A: Stable’ right now and a reporter asks the wrong question tomorrow, sending Homelander into a meltdown on air, who takes the fall?” Madelyn’s finger stopped tapping.
“Me?
Or you?” Luke continued, keeping his voice strictly professional.
“Or perhaps the board will decide this was Mr.
Edgar’s error in judgment?” Silence fell over the room for a few seconds.
The AC vent blew toward the bookshelf behind Madelyn, fluttering the corner of an unsecured document.
“Are you threatening me?” Madelyn crossed her arms, her fingernails lightly scratching her elbow.
“I’m mitigating your risk.” Luke glanced at the framed family photo on her desk before looking back at her.
“You have two choices.
Option one: sign off on my plan and give me two to four weeks.
If anything goes wrong during that time, the responsibility is mine.
My name is on the report.” He paused for a beat.
“Option two: replace me with another doctor, have him sign off on Grade A, and pray everything goes smoothly tomorrow.” Madelyn stared at him for a long moment.
Her expression shifted, weighing options and calculating odds.
Luke recognized that look.
It was the neural circuitry unique to mid-level managers who had spent decades swimming in corporate politics: they didn’t fear making a bad decision—they feared making a decision without someone to take the bullet for them.
The core message of his words had been simple: *I’ll take the bullet.* Madelyn picked up the fountain pen on her desk and unscrewed the cap.
The stroke of her signature was sharp and decisive.
“Two weeks.” She pushed the report back to him.
“Not four weeks—two.
I want to see progress within two weeks.” “Fair enough.” Luke took the report and turned toward the door.
“Dr.
Reed.” He stopped.
“Your meeting with Mr.
Edgar is scheduled for ten tomorrow morning.
His time is extremely valuable.
I suggest you think carefully about how you speak to him.” Luke gripped the doorknob without turning around.
“I always know how to speak.” The door closed behind him.
He walked about thirty meters down the hallway before stopping at a corner.
To his left was the staff corridor leading down to the Sub-level 2 employee quarters.
Embedded in the wall to his right was a dome camera, its red indicator light blinking steadily.
Luke pulled out his phone, pretending to check a message while mapping the distribution of cameras at both ends of the hallway out of the corner of his eye.
He was memorizing the layout.
The dorm room unlocked with an electronic keycard.
Inside was a twelve-square-meter single room containing a bed, a desk, and a private bathroom.
Near the smoke detector in the corner, a tiny black dot had a shape and size that felt off.
Luke looked at it for two seconds, then averted his eyes.
Surveillance.
Expected.
He sat down at the desk, switched on the lamp, and pulled a spare pen and a piece of paper folded into quarters from his pocket.
He had torn it from the lining of the document folder while waiting on the couch in the evaluation room.
It lacked Vought watermarks or serial numbers, meaning it couldn’t be archived or tracked.
He angled his body, using the lampshade to block the line of sight toward his writing, his back turned to the black dot.
The pen tip touched the paper.
*Antisocial personality traits combined with dismissive-attachment patterns.* *Core trauma anchor: Arrested emotional development caused by early maternal separation.* *Behavioral pattern: Extreme sensitivity to external evaluation, using violent behavior as the primary defense mechanism against anxiety.* *When the subject perceives signals of rejection or abandonment, it triggers primal fear, which quickly escalates into aggressive behavior.* *Exploitable leverage point: Subject’s craving for ‘unconditional acceptance’ far exceeds initial estimates.* *During the initial encounter, the subject initiated physical contact—touching the shoulder—an act absent from all prior behavioral logs.* *Initial assessment: Subject is in a state of acute emotional deprivation.
Once a dependent trust relationship is established, his behavioral patterns will be highly malleable.* Underneath the final line, he drew two underlines and wrote a single word: *Domesticable.* He folded the paper and slipped it into a hidden pocket inside his suit jacket—a detail the previous owner of this body had specifically requested when getting the suit tailored.
Luke turned off the desk lamp and lay down on the bed.
The spring mattress was stiff against his back, and the harsh scent of disinfectant clung to the pillow.
He kept his eyes open, turning his head toward the window.
Sub-level 2 had no real windows, but the designer had installed an embedded light panel to simulate daylight.
Right now, it was set to night mode, casting a dark blue glow.
Above the dark blue light panel, through a gap in the ventilation ducts, light streamed from one of the upper floors of Vought Tower, glaringly bright.
That floor was ablaze with light.
At one in the morning, anyone still awake was either on Homelander’s private floor or in Edgar’s office.
Luke tapped his jacket’s inner pocket, confirming the paper was still secure.
These notes couldn’t stay in the dorm room.
He would find a safer place for them tomorrow.
He closed his eyes and regulated his breathing.
His last thought before drifting off: *Tomorrow at ten.
Edgar.* *What does that man want to hear from me?*