The President sat in the Oval Office in heavy silence, staring at the stack of folders scattered across his desk.
Six months. That was how long the current wave of superhuman "incidents" had been escalating across the country.
He flipped open the top file, jaw tightening at the photographs — leveled city blocks, highways melted by heat vision, bridges snapped in half by metahuman brawls.
He turned to the financial breakdown. Reconstruction costs were bleeding billions out of the federal budget just to keep major cities functional.
The government was practically bankrupting itself cleaning up after the capes.
He closed the folder and looked at the calendar. Eight months until re-election.
If voters kept watching their tax dollars get vaporized by costumed freaks throwing cars through skyscrapers, he was going to lose in a landslide.
The public was exhausted, angry, terrified. They didn't see these people as heroes anymore — they saw them as walking natural disasters.
He leaned back, rubbing his temples. He needed to do something.
He couldn't just keep signing disaster relief checks and giving speeches about resilience. He had to put a leash on the superhuman community, and fast.
The intercom buzzed. "Mr. President," his secretary announced. "Lex Luthor is here for his appointment."
He closed the relief file and shoved it aside. "Send him in."
The doors swung open. Lex Luthor walked in, sharply tailored suit, a sleek silver laptop under one arm. He didn't wait for a greeting — just crossed the room, pulled out a chair opposite the desk, and sat down, setting the laptop open in front of him.
"Mr. President," Lex said, leaning back with a calculating smile. "I have a very good deal for the military."
He turned the laptop around, pushed it across the desk, and tapped a key.
A video started — a classified military testing ground, a man in a sleek black tactical suit, none of the bright colors or logos the vigilantes favored.
The soldier lifted off the ground, hovering with no visible propulsion. An armored transport drove into frame. He dropped out of the sky, landed in front of it, grabbed the steel chassis, and with a screech of metal bent it into a knot, flipping the entire vehicle onto its roof with one hand.
The President stared at the screen.
"Meet Project Ultraman," Lex said.
"As you can see, he isn't an alien playing god, and he isn't a loose cannon in a cape. He's a fully genetically engineered soldier."
He tapped the keyboard, pausing on the image of the soldier standing over the wrecked transport.
"He can fly. World-class super strength. Fully tested, ready to hit the market right now." He leaned forward, elbows on the desk.
"And most importantly, he takes orders. If you want to fix your PR nightmare, cut your disaster relief budget, and put these metahumans on a leash before the election, he's exactly the kind of strength you need."
The President narrowed his eyes at the frozen image. "So what is this, exactly? How was he created? Is he even human?"
Lex smiled coldly and closed the laptop with a soft click. "He's the pinnacle of human engineering, Mr. President. No random mutations, no mystical lightning, no vigilante complex. Cultivated entirely inside a LexCorp laboratory."
"Cultivated?"
"Derived from baseline human DNA, optimized with proprietary genetic enhancements," Lex said, steepling his fingers.
"No childhood, no family, no secret identity. He's a corporate asset. He has a patent."
He leaned in, voice dropping into a harder pitch.
"You have eight months to show voters the government still controls its own cities. You can't do that outsourcing national security to masked liabilities who treat our infrastructure like a boxing ring."
"You need an operative who answers exclusively to the chain of command. Project Ultraman doesn't monologue, doesn't grandstand for the press. He takes orders, neutralizes the threat, and saves your election."
"He's the perfect soldier," Lex said. "A definitive leash on the metahuman community." He let the silence hang a moment.
"It's time you show these self-appointed saviors that this planet belongs to the people, Mr. President. Not them."
The President rubbed his jaw, staring at the closed laptop. The financial burden was one thing — public perception was another.
"But they have immense popularity," he said, shaking his head.
"If we openly criticize them, or move against them, the political blowback will be immediate."
"Voters complain about the property damage, but they still cheer when one of those capes catches a falling helicopter. Declare a sudden war on the heroes, and I tank my own campaign before it starts."
Lex chuckled, standing and smoothing his jacket. "You don't declare war, Mr. President. And you certainly don't criticize them. You simply regulate them."
He walked to the window, looking out over the White House lawn. "You introduce a bill requiring strict government oversight and accountability."
"You hit the public with the hard truth: the government — and by extension the taxpayers — are footing the bill to rebuild what their little hero business destroys." He turned back, eyes cold.
"Frame it as basic liability. The government needs to know their secret identities to ensure proper oversight for the damage they cause."
He stepped back to the desk, leaning over it.
"When they inevitably refuse to unmask — because they value their unchecked power over the law — the narrative shifts. They become outlaws by their own choice."
"The public realizes these vigilantes are just dodging the bill, and the voters turn on them without you firing a single shot. And when the people demand a hero who actually answers to them, you introduce Project Ultraman."
*****
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