The laboratory had changed. Where once it stank of death and failed experiments, now it hummed with industry and the low roar of celebration. Success brought money. Success brought attention. And success brought power.
Soldier Boy's face was everywhere. Posters plastered on factory walls. Radio broadcasts singing his praises. Comics, cereal boxes, even children's toys stamped with his grin. The brass treated him like a weapon of mass inspiration. The scientists treated him like proof their work was worth the blood.
Chris Reeves treated him like a reminder of compromise.
He saw the soldiers returning from the front, scarred and broken, and heard their muttered curses about "parade heroes." He saw Payback parading across stages, drunk on applause they hadn't yet earned. And every day he saw Frederick Vought, standing taller, his smile sharper, as though he alone had pulled victory out of the void.
"You've given them hope," Vought said one evening, gesturing to a fresh stack of Soldier Boy comics. "That is worth more than any battle won."
Chris stared at the cover, at the painted muscles, the staged heroics. "Hope won't win this war."
Vought smirked. "You still think wars are won on battlefields, Mr. Reeves? Wars are won in hearts and minds. In markets. In who controls the story."
Chris stepped closer, voice cold. "You're not building heroes. You're building an empire."
Vought leaned in, eyes gleaming. "And why not? An empire is stable. Eternal. Science brought to heel, serving not chaos, but order. That is what we're doing here."
The words settled like ice in Chris's stomach. He knew then that Vought wasn't simply perfecting Compound V. He was preparing to own it. To own the heroes it birthed.
Cecil found Chris later that night, sitting outside the barracks, staring at the glow of a lantern. The soldier dropped beside him with a grunt. "You look like someone told you Santa Claus ain't real."
Chris smirked without humor. "Worse. Someone told me they're going to use science to chain the world."
Cecil lit a cigarette, took a drag, and exhaled smoke into the dark. "Kid, that's been the plan since the first musket. You just got smart enough to notice it early."
Chris glanced sideways at him. "And you? You okay serving under men like that?"
Cecil's mouth twitched into something like a grin. "I don't serve men like that. I watch them. And I wait."
The words stuck with Chris. For the first time, he realized Cecil wasn't just a soldier tagging along. He was sharper than he let on. Watchful. Patient. The kind of man who'd rather bide his time than charge a machine gun nest.
The war pressed on. The Allies pushed forward. And in Germany, whispers grew of a final, desperate gamble — occultists digging through stolen texts, scientists probing the edge of reality itself. Something about tearing open a door that should never be opened.
Chris buried himself in work, refining formulas, cataloging mutations, trying to wrestle some measure of control from the chaos. But in the back of his mind, he couldn't shake Vought's words. Not about hope. Not about empire.
And then, one morning, the sirens wailed. Reports screamed across the wires. Germany had done the unthinkable.
They had opened a door.