The next day, Lynn woke up in the new apartment Vought International had arranged for him.
It was no longer on the thirtieth floor, but on the top floor of The Seven Tower, right next door to Homelander’s suite.
Looking out from the floor-to-ceiling windows, all of New York lay beneath his feet, looking close enough to touch.
But it didn’t feel like being on cloud nine; it felt more like being locked in the eye of a hurricane.
He had just finished dressing when Ashley called.
Her voice sounded sleepless, carrying a businesslike coldness through her exhaustion.
“Dr. Lynn, come down to Crisis PR. Before you officially start your ‘consultant’ work, there are some things you need to understand first.”
Crisis PR was located on the seventieth floor of the tower.
Unlike other departments, which were bright and clean, this place was like a windowless, airtight fortress of intelligence.
On the massive wall of electronic screens, global public opinion data, social media trending topics, and positive/negative keyword analyses for every member of The Seven rolled in real time.
Dozens of employees sat in front of computers, numbly processing a mountain of information.
Only the dense clatter of keyboards filled the air.
“Welcome to Vought’s waste disposal center,” Ashley said with self-deprecating humor, leading Lynn to a separate room with a higher security clearance.
“To understand Homelander, you must first understand what we handle on a daily basis for him—and for all our superheroes.”
She opened an internal system.
The main interface displayed a striking title: [Hero Behavioral Anomalies Incident Files].
Ashley showed him the archive’s classification system.
“Class A incidents: marketable.” She clicked open a folder.
Inside was a record of A-Train crashing through a wall during a chase.
However, because there happened to be an undetected gas leak behind the wall, the PR department successfully packaged this destructive act as “heroic intuition averting disaster.”
“Class B incidents: compensable.” In this folder, The Deep had summoned a shark after getting drunk at a party, blocking shipping at the docks.
“Class C incidents: redirectable.” This category held far more files.
Superheroes accidentally injuring civilians during missions would be blamed on fleeing criminals, and property damage would be attributed to “terrorist sabotage.”
“Class D,” Ashley’s expression grew solemn, “non-disclosable incidents.”
She didn’t click it open, but Lynn could already guess what lay inside.
Sex scandals, substance abuse, flying under the influence…
and even murder, which no excuse could cover up.
“This is our daily work,” Ashley said.
“Ensuring these heroes always look flawless in front of the cameras.”
Lynn’s gaze fell upon an encrypted, crimson-marked folder at the very top of the archive.
The folder name had only one abbreviation: “HL.”
Homelander.
“You can’t look at that,” Ashley said, instinctively reaching out to stop him.
Lynn said nothing, merely looking at her calmly.
“This is a directive from the board. HL’s files are restricted to a select few…”
“Yesterday in the conference room, Mr. Homelander said so himself,” Lynn interrupted.
“My job is to ‘cooperate with him,’ not ‘interrogate him.’ If I can’t even review his basic ‘behavioral records,’ how do you expect me to cooperate?”
Ashley’s face turned pale.
“Besides,” Lynn added, “he doesn’t like me learning about him from other people’s mouths.”
This final sentence acted like a key, unlocking Ashley’s last line of defense.
She knew that if Homelander discovered she had tried to hide his files from Lynn, the consequences would be unimaginable.
She gritted her teeth and finally entered the authorization password.
Inside were no pictures or videos, only lines of text as cold as autopsy reports.
“Incident 73: During a diplomatic visit, dissatisfied with the comments of the host country’s representative, the target shot down their private jet at ten thousand meters. PR Action Plan: Fabricate a mechanical failure, release a joint statement of condolence.”
“Incident 91: While pursuing a low-level Supe traitor, the target sliced them in half in public using heat vision. PR Action Plan: Label the traitor as an extremist carrying a suicide bomb; state that Mr. Homelander’s actions were a ‘necessary measure to protect the public.'”
“Incident 114: The target lost emotional control due to a negative poll result, knocking out the power grid for half a block, indirectly causing three medical accidents and two traffic accidents. PR Action Plan: Attribute to solar flare activity; Vought Foundation to step in and provide ‘humanitarian aid’ to the victims.”
Lynn read through them one by one.
He felt no anger, only a bone-chilling cold.
He had always known Homelander was a monster.
But only today did he fully realize that Vought International was the massive system that provided the monster with its slaughterhouse and washed away the bloodstains.
They weren’t just covering up crimes.
They were normalizing them, routine-izing them, and even…
commercializing them.
Just as Lynn was about to close the file, his eyes were caught by a filename.
Inside the HL folder, there was an associated sub-file: [Port District Chemical Plant Incident Emergency Response Plan].
Intrigued, he clicked open the document.
Its contents were shockingly detailed.
From public opinion guidance after the accident to the order of appearance for members of The Seven.
From camera angles for the live rescue broadcast to standard talking points for comforting victims.
Even the “estimated casualties” and “recommended compensation ranges” were clearly marked.
It was a perfect, textbook crisis PR plan.
Lynn flipped through it quickly, but at a certain point, his breath caught.
His eyes locked onto a date highlighted in red text on the cover page of the plan.
[Simulated Date of Incident: Year XX, Month X, Day X]
That date was tomorrow.