The top floor of Vought Tower, the Senior Vice President’s office.
Outside the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan’s morning rush hour traffic crawled like sluggish, glowing blood vessels.
Inside the office, the climate control system hummed almost imperceptibly, and the air was thick with the scent of expensive cold brew coffee.
Madelyn Stillwell sat behind her wide black desk, her fingers lightly tapping the leather armrest of her chair.
The electronic screen before her displayed a cross-referenced report rushed out overnight by the PR and data analysis teams.
The title of the report was highlighted in bold, bright red font: [Analysis of Recent Behavioral Trajectory and Psychological Threshold Fluctuations of The Seven’s Leader (Joanne)].
Standing opposite the desk was Ashley, the hands-on director of the PR department.
She was currently tugging nervously at a lock of her hair, her dark circles so heavy that even thick concealer couldn’t fully hide them.
“…According to the latest data compilation,” Ashley’s voice was slightly tight, her eyes darting between the screen and Madelyn’s expressionless face.
“Over the past two weeks, the duration of Ms.
Joanne’s public smiles has dropped by an average of fifteen percent.”
She swallowed hard and turned to the next page of the report.
“But that isn’t the most anomalous thing.
The most anomalous thing is…
her destructive-impulse threshold has risen significantly.”
Madelyn’s tapping fingers came to a halt.
She narrowed her eyes slightly, gesturing for Ashley to continue.
“Previously, when faced with negative media coverage or unruly fans at events, Ms.
Joanne would usually display intense anxiety.
Her heart rate and skin temperature would spike abnormally, requiring you to…
soothe her in person.”
Ashley was extremely careful with her phrasing when she spoke the word “soothe.”
“But in our recent crisis PR runs, her physiological data has been astonishingly stable.
She didn’t smash the green room mirrors over minor fluctuations in her approval rating.
She didn’t even show any signs of annoyance during yesterday’s tedious three-hour hearing.”
Ashley closed the folder and delivered her final conclusion: “She has become…
emotionally stable.”
For an ordinary person, emotional stability was a virtue.
But for Vought International, a “god” who didn’t need them for emotional validation and didn’t require Madelyn’s psychological intervention was the most lethal threat.
Vought’s core control over Joanne had never been those so-called genetic drugs.
It was her pathological, co-dependent psychological reliance on them, without which she couldn’t function.
Once this dependency was broken, she could tear down this star-making empire at any moment.
Madelyn leaned back in her chair, her long legs crossed.
Her face still wore that flawless professional smile, but a hint of a shadow flickered in the depths of her eyes.
“This makes no sense,” Madelyn said softly, yet with an unquestionable weight.
“When someone who is always starving suddenly loses interest in food, there is only one reason.”
She raised her eyelids, her sharp gaze locking onto Ashley.
“She’s being fed somewhere else.”
Ashley flinched, almost dropping the folder in her hands.
“Senior VP Stillwell, do you mean…
someone is secretly contacting her?
But how is that possible?
Her schedule is packed, and we have round-the-clock security…”
“Security?” Madelyn sneered.
“Do you think retired special forces operatives earning a few thousand bucks a month can keep tabs on a monster who flies faster than Mach two and can vanish into the stratosphere whenever she pleases?”
She stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, and looked down at the bustling city below.
“Pull the tracking data from her suit.
I want to know exactly where she’s been going during those blank spaces in her PR schedule.”
Ashley swallowed with difficulty, a layer of fine sweat breaking out on her forehead.
“We…
we tried that yesterday.
The GPS module on her suit has suffered seven irregular signal dropouts over the past half-month.
The tech department’s explanation is that Ms.
Joanne broke the sound barrier during flight, and the intense electrostatic field caused a hardware malfunction…”
“Idiots.”
Madelyn turned around, the smile entirely gone from her face.
“Do you really think that’s electrostatic interference?
She is actively jamming the signal!
She has a secret of her own, and we know absolutely nothing about it.”
The air pressure in the office plummeted to freezing.
Ashley kept her head down, not daring to breathe.
She knew Madelyn’s methods all too well.
This woman, who could domesticate the world’s most dangerous superhero like a dog, would absolutely take the most extreme measures the moment she felt her control challenged.
“Find out.”
Madelyn walked back to her desk and pressed the speaker button on the intercom.
“Mobilize all of Vought’s resources.
Traffic cameras, satellite surveillance, even her credit card records.
I want to know exactly who she’s been in contact with over these past two weeks.
Don’t miss a single detail.”
She cut the line, her cold and dangerous gaze landing on Joanne’s perfect smiling face on the electronic screen.
No matter what the source of Joanne’s “emotional support” was—whether it was a stray dog or some reckless ordinary human—she would eradicate it without mercy.
A puppet should stay on its stage.
At the same time, in Queens, in Zack Vance’s apartment.
The early autumn morning brought a hint of chill.
Zack, dressed in a loose knit sweater, stood before the kitchen island, holding a small peeler and focusing entirely on prepping some fresh potatoes.
That meal of tomato beef brisket had clearly hit the spot for that high-and-mighty lady.
Although she had still complained about the sofa not being soft enough before leaving, the satisfying green glow on the radar didn’t lie.
Zack cut the peeled potatoes into uniform julienne strips and soaked them in water to remove the excess starch.
He needed to prepare some light, refreshing side dishes to cut through the grease of all that heavy, high-calorie meat.
Hot and sour shredded potatoes was a solid choice.
The phone in his pocket vibrated.
Zack dried his hands and pulled out his phone.
An encrypted dark web message popped up on the screen.
It was the daily brief sent by an information broker he had hired on the black market using his Great Wall Capital account.
The moment he decided to live off this sugar mommy—a deal that could get him killed at any moment—Zack knew that Vought International was by no means blind.
The frequent changes in Joanne’s itinerary would sooner or later alert that old fox, Madelyn.
He needed an intelligence network of his own.
The message was short, consisting of just a few encrypted characters, but Zack understood its meaning at a glance.
[Massive abnormal queries detected in Vought’s internal surveillance system.
Target: Low-altitude airspace in East District/Queens, New York City.]
Zack put down his phone and glanced out the window at the sky.
What must come will come.
Madelyn had already begun tracking Joanne’s movements.
Even though Joanne made a conscious effort to avoid ground traffic cameras and even jammed her suit’s locator with electromagnetic fields whenever she flew to his apartment, as long as Vought was determined to search, no wall in this world was completely airtight.
His penthouse apartment would eventually be exposed to Vought’s sights.
Zack drained the soaked potato shreds and tossed them into the hot, oiled wok.
“Sssss—”
The moment the white vinegar hit the hot oil, a sharp, pungent, sour-savory aroma bloomed, instantly filling the kitchen.
Zack tossed the wok with practiced ease, his face completely calm.
He wasn’t afraid of being exposed.
From the very beginning, he had never expected to hide Joanne in this apartment forever.
In this game, his true trump card was never how well he hid, but how much he mattered to Joanne.
If Madelyn dared to touch him, she would directly trigger Joanne’s long-repressed protective rage.
But the prerequisite was that he had to be fully prepared to defend himself before Vought’s guillotine fell.
Zack plated the stir-fried potatoes and set them on the dining table.
He walked over to the coffee table, picked up his laptop, and logged back into Great Wall Capital’s backend.
Over the past half-month, the funds generated by the system had snowballed into an astronomical sum.
He had not only used these funds to quietly acquire a massive amount of Vought’s retail shares on the stock market but had also secretly invested in several key infrastructure projects in New York City through offshore shell companies.
Capital was the most effective weapon against capital.
Aside from that, he also needed a physical trump card to save his life in a critical moment.
Merely relying on the Body of Steel from the system—which only took effect in bed or during embraces—was clearly not enough when facing Vought’s professional assassins.
Zack tapped his fingers on the keyboard, pulling up an encrypted floor plan of an underground facility.
It was Frenchie’s underground lab.
In the original story, this French guy, who was an expert in chemistry and weapons manufacturing, was the technical backbone of The Boys.
As an anonymous benefactor, Zack had already funneled a massive amount of research funding into Frenchie’s account.
It was enough to completely upgrade that struggling underground lab from a scrap heap to a high-tech fortress.
What he needed was not just the anti-Supe gadgets Frenchie could invent, but also to use this connection to establish his own intelligence crossroads in this chaotic world.
While Zack was focused on the data streaming across his screen, a faint metallic scraping sound came from the apartment door.
It wasn’t a knock, but rather a sharp tool attempting to pick the lock.
Zack’s fingers froze over the keyboard.
He closed the laptop, held his breath, and locked his gaze onto the closed security door down the hallway.
The sound outside continued, carefully hushed to avoid making any unnecessary noise.
The intruder was clearly no ordinary thief.
Had Vought’s people found him this quickly?
Zack stood up, reached into the hidden compartment under the coffee table, and retrieved a heavy Glock.
He had purchased this through black market channels for self-defense, and a round was already chambered.
Leaning against the wall at the corner of the hallway, he gripped the gun tightly, his heart rate gradually climbing.
When facing Joanne, he could navigate the situation with psychological games and the system’s radar.
But when facing Vought’s professional agents, any fancy rhetoric was utterly useless.
“Click.”
The crisp sound of the lock yielding echoed.
The security door was pushed open a crack.
Light from the hallway filtered in, casting a long, narrow shadow onto the floor.
A man in a grey work jacket and a flat cap slipped into the apartment.
His movements were swift and agile, like a cat slipping into the dark.
The man shut the door, his right hand habitually reaching toward his lower back.
Zack held his breath, his finger resting on the trigger.
Just then, the man suddenly raised his head, his gaze locking precisely onto the corner where Zack was hiding.
From beneath the brim of the flat cap, a scruffy, extremely sinister face with a rough stubble came into view.
Butcher.
The leader of The Boys.
Zack lowered his gun by half an inch.
He hadn’t expected that at this critical juncture, the first to knock on his door wouldn’t be Vought’s assassins, but this incredibly sharp-nosed mad dog.
“Put the toy away, son.”
Butcher grinned, showing a malicious sneer.
He walked unceremoniously into the center of the living room, his eyes scanning the steaming plate of shredded potatoes on the dining table and the neatly folded thin blanket on the sofa.
“Looks like my nose didn’t lie to me.”
Butcher turned around and stared at Zack as he stepped out from the corner, a chilling, fanatical light in his eyes.
“You’ve got the scent of home cooking in here, sure, but there’s also the heavy, rancid stench of that bitch of a monster.”