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16: Rumored To Be

Vought News Network

“-Continuing development on the heist pulled by Eggman. Black Noir, who heroically fought to try and bring him in, is currently recovering in the hospital. Reports tell us he is healing well, and a fundraiser in his name is trending online.”

A very pretty Hispanic woman sat behind a desk, speaking earnestly to the camera, as video of the bloody crater Eggman had crashed Black Noir into played next to her, followed by shaky phone camera footage of the actual event.

“The store, Egon Olsen Diamonds, is currently investigating reports that one employee, Dave Mallory, may have been working with Eggman, as well as looking into why the stolen safe wasn’t attached to the floor in any way.”

Another image, this of Dave crestfallen as mics and cameras were shoved into his face. “I don’t know the guy! Seriously, it was creepy! Can someone please help, I think he knows where I live!”

“You invited him to your home? Are you in a sexual relationship with him!?” A man with a mic carrying a familiar ‘TMZ’ symbol asked eagerly.

“What the fuc-!” Dave squeaked before the news returned to the anchor.

“Damage done from the chase is still being tallied, with some estimates in the millions. Motorists' vehicles were destroyed or left stranded for hours in the streets, buildings had windows and walls destroyed, and some form of acid that melts metal has left large portions of the city damaged. Vought Industries Senior Vice President of Hero Management, Madelyn Stillwell, spoke today on the attack.”

Madelyn appeared, a confident smile on her face as she faced the camera. “While this ‘Eggman’ and his recent attacks have left many surprised, rest assured that the Seven and our resources are putting everything we have to prevent him from escaping again. While his weaponry and machinery make him a threat, our Heroes have faced worse. Together, they can take him down, long before the premiere of our latest movie.”

She smiled that confident, brilliant smile.

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Madelyn Stillwell

“No, we haven’t been able to track him,” Madelyn said, her smile nowhere to be seen. She stood in Crime Analytics. The nerve center of Vought’s hero operation. Where dozens of people worked to track down media worthy criminals and made strategic plans to have them taken down.

Except, for some reason, they couldn’t find the one bad guy who made the most over the top displays they’d ever seen.

Homelander stood beside Madelyn, his eyes tracking everything in the room as the pair watched over the group of analysts like hawks. She wondered, for a moment, what else he was seeing, hearing, smelling… What he saw that she missed. Or would rather he never noticed at all?

Pushing the thought down, she continued.

“They’ve been at it for hours. He has a near impossible ability to simply appear and disappear on our network. We think he might have hacked it.”

“I thought that was impossible.”

Madelyn looked over at Homelander. He was smirking. She didn’t like that. He’d been so damn angry before. Why did he look so smug now?

“Clearly it isn’t. We’ve had our best looking into this, but whoever Eggman is, he’s better at this than we are. Vought’s looking into pulling in supes with technological skill to help.”

“Sounds like he’s a real problem,” Homelander said happily.

Madelyn looked over at him, frowning. “And yet, you couldn’t be more smug about it if you tried.”

“Oh come on, Madelyn!” Homelander turned to face her fully, leaning in. “Think about it! Vought’s been pumping out heroes for years. Hell, I’ve stopped remembering their names decades ago. They might as well be numbers. But we’ve never had villains. Not real ones.”

“Real ones causing real damage,” Madelyn pointed out.

“Exactly! I can’t remember the last guy I took down who wasn’t some random gangster or idiot with a gun! But now we have something real. Flamboyant, over-the-top, just the guy to make the public remember why we’re needed! To make the military remember why we’re needed, eh?”

Homelander’s smile was brilliant. “And the best part is, he’s free! We let him roam around, stop him from doing anything serious, and we’ll be raking in the money. Hell, we can sell merchandise. Those robots are perfect for the kiddies.”

Madelyn’s eye twitched. Idiot. Such a massive idiot. Did he think he was the first person to think of this?

Vought was one of the most powerful organizations on Earth. They had more analysts, media managers, and strategists than Madelyn could count. Of course they’d thought about this.

But Stan Edgar had laid it out simply. They needed confidence in their heroes. Confidence was a currency. When people believed in heroes, they paid for them. There was a cold calculus to it all. And Eggman was an unknown. He had somehow hurt Maeve, someone who could stand in front of a train and come out the winner. He had gotten away from Black Noir, one of the most effective assets they had.

Funny enough, Homelander was partially right. Starlight and The Deep were more popular than ever since their fight. The Deep had shown more balls than she thought the insecure man had, especially after listening to his company provided therapy sessions.

That was all out of their control though. Who knew what this crazy fat bastard would come up with? Black Noir’s numbers rose out of sympathy, but Queen Maeve, A-Train, and Homelander had somehow lost points.

Of all heroes, the second most popular was Translucent, going by numbers alone. Because he had died in the line of duty, as Vought had explained to the public.

The point was, Eggman wasn’t some sort of controllable asset. He was a real danger. One dead hero was a tragedy. A wounded one was sad.

Dozens of them were a pattern. They had to nip this in the bud. Early.

Madelyn kept those thoughts inside. Homelander was happy. Proud. Lean on that. “I suppose that is a silver liningling to all this,” she said. “We can market it that way for a while. Make a campaign about our battles against him. Then, once you take him out, we make a movie series about your triumph. Maybe add it to Homelander: Brightest Night.”

His face froze a bit, but he hid it. “Exactly. We turn this idiot into our cash cow!”

Madelyn hid her thoughts. Idiot. Right. Patting Homelander and giving him her most seductive smile, she nodded slowly, drawing him in.

Keep him calm, relaxed. Don’t let him see the truth. Homelander was perfect.

Or else.

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Julian Ivo

At the desk in my office I signed another digital bit of paperwork, finalizing the purchase of land in Detroit. It was one of many purchases I’d had to make, usually land in places that were hungry for work and had skilled folk. The Appalachian Mountains, ghettos, cities and towns left behind by time.

I’d even started selling affordable gear in places like that. Things like coolsuits. I’d gotten the idea from a friend of mine that told me about them from Starcraft. Sealed clothing that was designed for absolute temperature comfort, with nasal oxygen tubes for the environments within.

And there were uses for coal. Less boring ones than burning for fuel.

Point was, I needed workers and land. Plenty of places needed work and had land. Still, it all signified another dip in my finances.

I did not have a limitless budget. Unlike Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark, my profits were modest. Of course they were. My business was new. While my products were incredible, and I’d created a series of bots that made sure my company's advertisements were widespread, it took time to establish a name in the tech industry.

My Ivotech phones blew any other out of the water, but the IPhone and its competitors had a stranglehold on the market that was tough to grab. Same with things like Intel, Nvidia, and other tech companies. Even my guns had to fight for attention.

It didn’t help that I was branching out so much. My genius was immense, but I was a master of all, and thus was aggressively dominating any one industry. Couldn’t do that either. I had to branch out as much as possible.

A single badnik required software, material, weaponry, and cameras. Despite how goofy they looked, each one was a complex system. And in order to purchase that stuff without the IRS freaking out, I had to have reasons.

Hell, I bought into the food industry for the same reason. Certain badniks and more advanced technology required material that came from certain foods. Including the Bigfoots and Bradleys I’d been commissioned to build.

Point was, I was signing papers to continue my rise in the technological power structure. I looked at the screen to my right briefly.

Code was compiling there. Five sets of it, each with a dedicated set of servers for making the required information. When I’d made Colin and Mechelle I hadn’t been able to put this much work into them. They’d become too advanced for their shells, a problem Colin was fixing himself while Mechelle was scheduled for an update later that day. These new sets of code would be in better shape, with my built-up infrastructure.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

A new body with the most advanced false musculature I’d ever created, another one with every bit of stealth tech I could feasibly create.

In my factory, a single room had been set aside for a piece of machinery shaped like an eye attached to a large arm. Someone, a random worker, said it looked like a bound woman.

One body was a smaller one with every possible tech I had made to interact with technology, including something I called ‘Ghost 1.0’.

The last one, I had to look up lagomorphs for. Embarrassing. But necessary. The website and app meant for that body were ready to go up any day.

And yes, they all had bodies. Technically, three didn’t need them. But I’d decided that giving them the option was fair. I was unsure if they would even want them.

Lastly, of the AI I was making, I was worried at least four would be liabilities in different ways. Two were based on a pair that had their idiotic moments. One had killed her creators. The last might be, funny enough, TOO nice.

But you don’t hire people without possible issues. The first two had been effective, the third had been effective, the last was perfect to help this world.

As for the one who wouldn’t be a liability, I trusted her. Completely. Like Mechelle, she would never betray me. With both of them, I could face anything.

But that was for later. For now I had more paperwork.

Turning back, I put a portion of my mind to reading the paperwork on the screen before me while the rest of my mind continued designing. How strange, in retrospect, that I was so brilliant. I’d like to think I wasn’t a moron before, but I wasn’t even a percentage compared to how amazingly smart I was now.

Memories didn’t do that. If you shove the memories of a thousand people into one mind, you don’t get a genius, you get a vegetable. Or at least a very insane person.

And yet, I was categorically smarter. Only growing in intelligence in fact. Likely something that Ahti had accounted for, that enigmatic old man/Finnish god. If I ever did upload my mind, I’d need to wait until I developed quantum computing followed by emerald computation, something I’d- ugh, something Eggman had figured out after extensive study of the Chaos Emeralds.

For now, I was feeling rather good about the amount of progress I was making on the technological front. Recruitment was going well too. My skills in engineering and science were beyond anyone else, but I needed experts to help me with those avenues I simply wasn’t interested in.

I’d been headhunting for that. Scientists, engineers, skilled workers, folk who knew a good deal. The nice thing about not giving a real fuck about money was that I offered great pay. As well as medical and dental.

Currently a man by the name of Tom Yang was heading up research into vacuum microwave MRE’s, to make more delicious foods for soldiers in a small package that still kept for quite some time.

I had convinced him after some tips on improving his process, and he was developing the idea for me while also helping with a snack division for the gamers and general public. MRE packs, sure, but also nutrient rich bars of food.

Tom Yang was a goddamn genius, and that was me saying that. Bradley was happy with his results thus far, and a happy Bradley was more work for me. At least his food tasted good, rather than just being the barely edible Bradley was used to from his own soldier days.

Although apparently the people from the Combat Feeding Division were pissed I’d sniped him. Sucks to be them, do better holding onto your people.

With all the tech and inventions I was making, I had to advertise it. So I had appointments set up for important media figures to take tours of my factory, try out my tech, and even drive my latest Big Foot designs.

No, not the news. Streamers. Gamers, Youtubers, even some Vtubers. People of the internet. I’d deliberately ignored several media outlets in favor of my own kind of folk. The first ones would be coming in soon enough. Mark Rober was one, Electroboom down the road, a few more.

I’d also bring in folk interested in one of my recent creations, the nuclear waste scrubber. It would take time to send those out across the world, but it would be good for the future.

Recruiting folk to work for me, whether directly or by advertising for me with their influence, was a big deal. Mechelle, for example, was getting me one more recruit before she’d have her update installed.

A specific one.

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Mesmer

The man known as Mesmer had seen better days. The Mesmerizer tv show had been incredibly popular, he was a household name, the kind of person who was treated like a rockstar since he was a kid.

Nowadays he was signing copies of DVD’s while Tara Reid was giggling in the corner, sometimes sleeping with slutty fangirls. For some insider trading. Martha Stewart did the same thing and she was still freaking popular! Granted, he’d made a lot more money than she saved, but it was the principle of the thing.

He couldn’t even visit his daughter. Just staring at her playing in the park like some creepy asshole. Foster care. She must have missed him as much as he missed her. What was he supposed to do though?

Maybe he could find a way back. If he got his shot, if he could reenter Vought. Then maybe he could get his life back. It had been a while since he’d used, he could still use his powers. Just one chance.

Someone sat at the park bench he was brooding on, to his right. He looked over at her, then double-taked.

Hot. Ridiculously so. She wore an elegant dress suit, had short cropped hair, and a pair of sunglasses. She looked like she’d walked out of a magazine. She looked over at him through her glasses.

“Hello, Mesmer.”

He stiffened. Shit. Hopefully this was good. “Uh, hi. You uh, looking for an autograph or something?”

“In a way,” she leaned back, smirking sexily. “My name is Mechelle Ivo. I work for Ivotech.”

Mesmer blinked, slowly. “Never heard of them.”

“We’re a relatively recent company. We work for the military, though we have some branches in the pharmaceutical, entertainment, and computer electronics industries, as well as a few others.”

“And I guess you want me to do some insider trading for you?” Mesmer chuckled. “Guess you haven’t heard. I don’t do that anymore. Can’t, really. Any stocks I’d try to touch? Fucking poison.”

Mechelle raised an eyebrow. “We don’t want you for insider trading. In fact, my employer does not care about money.”

“Bad way to run a business.”

“Depends on what the business is,” she said with a brilliant smile. “For example. We are willing to offer you six figures to work on our security team.”

Mesmer stilled. “Uh, like, per year or-”

“Monthly,” Mechelle said with just a hint of smugness. For some reason, he felt drawn in. Like it was just the right amount of smugness. “We want you to become the face of our security division. Someone who can make sure we aren’t flooded by corporate spies who somehow get through our background checks.”

He swallowed at the thought. “The face. Like, you what, put me on posters around the office?”

“Or you star in advertisements, have your face on our security products, that sort of thing.”

That was way too far. No way this was happening. “I uh, might need to see a-”

“Contract?” She took a manilla folder he hadn’t seen earlier out for him to take a hold of. “All right there. You can, of course, look us up as well, speak to our lawyers. All above board.”

He glanced at her hands. Gloved. Damnit. And she wasn’t likely to let him touch her face, though he really wanted to. “Are you sure about this? Not a lot of people would hire me.”

“My employer is not most people,” Mechelle rose from her seat, smiling down at him. “He believes in second chances. Even third ones, depending on things. Just take a look at those, and when you get a moment, give us a call.”

She walked off, leaving Mesmer to sit there, stunned. He opened up the folder, pouring through the contract.

He never noticed his daughter being picked up in the distance.

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As she left him behind, Mechelle raised a hand to her ear. “He’s in.”

“Didn’t hear a yes, there,” Julian’s voice said through her internal radio.

“Didn’t need one. I could tell. How about you?”

“Your upgrades are ready to go as soon as you get back.”

Mechelle smiled just a bit. “Wonderful. And the Eggman?”

Julian chuckled. “Well. I think it’s best I not keep his appearances too brief. I have some ideas for that.”

Mechelle smiled at the excitement in her creator’s voice as she got into a limo. Things would be moving again soon.

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Author's Note: Points for those who can guess which AI is which.

Beyond that, Dave's life is getting complicated, Homelander's Ego is getting massaged, Julian builds more things, and Mechelle recruits a man dumb enough to betray Butcher. So what else is new?

Next chapter, we drop in on the Boys and see what they're up to, followed by Robocop. Meantime, next chapter will be on my Patreon ahead of time, support me there if you like my stories. Have a good one ya'll!