Chapter 10 — Paper Guillotine
Dawn rolled over the Potomac like a tired bailiff.
Victoria Neuman stood in her office with sleeves already pushed, reading the line one more time to no one but the coffee: "Babies are not a brand segment." She underlined β-Complex twice, added a dot after evidence, and smiled at her punctuation. Staffers orbited with folders and fear.
Grace Mallory leaned in the doorway like a cautionary tale. "You've got process. Don't get cute."
"Cute is a child's word for tactical," Neuman said. "We have receipts."
"Then read them like scripture," Grace said, and left to chaperone courage down a hallway.
---
The Rayburn hearing room woke up mean.
Cian got there early and taught it to behave. He stroked the wall panel until the broadcast mics learned to outlive the house cut, patted the private cell repeater into a mild headache, and whitelisted fire alarms and defibrillators because he's not a monster. He tucked a static fish into the corner of a truss camera frame—a tiny private emoji for a myth who doesn't text.
He tasted the building. It tasted like paper and performance. Somewhere above the city, altitude pressed—Homelander's weather—then drifted toward a VA ribbon-cutting that came with flags and minimal scrutiny. Good. Stay mascot.
Hughie and Mother's Milk slid into the back row like honest sinners. Frenchie carried a legal pad he'd never write on and the air of a man who loved a good courtroom like a confessional with microphones. Kimiko ghosted into the aisle seat behind the witness table, hoodie up, small and utterly unmistakable. She didn't look at the door. She looked at the angles.
The nurse sat at the end of the first row with Grace on one side and a staff counsel on the other, hands flat on her skirt, knuckles rehearsing courage. Two rows back, a junior engineer from WellSpring—hair in a hurried bun, blazer like borrowed armor—stared at her own shoes as if they knew the law.
In the side aisle, Ashley Barrett pretended to be staff and texted furiously: AUTHENTICITY / DON'T SAY V. Stan Edgar did not attend; his lawyer did—jaw like a non-disclosure clause. Black Noir did attend, in the sense that a shadow stood beyond the doorway, perfectly still, an apostrophe cut out of the day.
Cian drifted to the wall near the shadow and murmured without moving his lips, "Not on marble."
Noir didn't nod. He didn't breathe. But his attention shifted—not the witness—and that was a language between storms.
---
Gavel. "We'll come to order."
Neuman's voice was clean steel. Panel one—for background—went by like oatmeal. Panel two was the meal: Patients First Logistics (VPL), WellSpring Data Partners (Kwan), St. Brigid counsel, nurse, junior engineer.
Neuman didn't smile. "We're not here to regulate superheroes," she said for the record. "We're here to regulate invoices."
A chuckle, the good kind.
She lifted Exhibit H. "Mr. Voss—'R. Cole' on internal routing. Is that you?"
The VPL blinked. "I— our system uses aliases for security."
"Great," Neuman said. "Here's your alias." The screen behind her lit with Route C, arrows crawling from Cardinal Blend to PhysioPlus to St. Brigid Auxiliary to Community Pantry West. The dotted line pulsed. "Is this your path?"
Voss tried the corporate shrug. "We deliver nutraceuticals."
"And telemetry belts," Neuman said. "Ms. Kwan, do your devices transmit neonatal data in real time to WellSpring and contracted analytics partners?"
Kwan's smile had TED Talk teeth. "We create value by helping hospitals—"
"Yes or no."
"Yes," she said, because sometimes truth is cheaper.
"Thank you. Which partners?"
"Proprietary—"
"Ganymede Capital is on your invoice," Neuman said, sliding Exhibit I across. "Help me with the spellings."
Kwan went still in that small way executives do when a revenue stream gets called by its Christian name. "G-A-N—"
"Great," Neuman said. "Ms. —, your testimony. Process only."
The nurse kept her voice where nurses keep bad news that must be said. "The belts are not hospital inventory. They arrive in contractor boxes. I saw them on infants. I cut them off." She didn't look at the cameras. She looked at the word she'd chosen. "I threw them away."
Silence dropped into the record like a brick into a well.
Neuman let it echo once. "Thank you for your professional concern." She turned to the junior engineer. "Ms. Salas?"
The WellSpring engineer licked her lips. "We built the pipeline. 'Anonymous' goes to Broker, then to 'Wellness Insights,' then to Strategic Partners. There's a match key under the anonymization—shipping tags from Patients First. We said it was QA. It's… not QA."
Kwan inhaled to interrupt. Neuman held up a finger without looking. The room obeyed the finger.
Neuman set her pen down. "Since we're all being honest: They strapped fitness trackers on newborns and mailed the data to a hedge fund." She didn't raise her voice. She blessed the sentence. "Exhibit D enters the chat."
On cue, a staffer in the control truck—loyal to craft, not brand—reached for MUTE. The house dipped. The broadcast did not. The STREAMING light glowed like a little sunrise. Cian's thumb hummed on a panel; the building purred not today.
Edgar's lawyer rose. "Madam Chair, proprietary data—"
Neuman smiled pleasantly. "We love that word. It's going to meet subpoena and perjury."
Phones in the press row began a soft cascade of pings. Not Twitter. PDFs. The mirror feed from WellSpring—the pipe diagram, the match keys, the anonymization lie—published itself to three public health listservs and one cranky journalist who collects PDFs like pets. A reporter mouthed "holy ****" and then remembered C-SPAN etiquette.
Kwan's counsel leaned in hard; Kwan's mouth went a millimeter wrong. Voss tugged his collar like it had lied to him. Ashley texted AUTHENTICITY BUT SAD and then TINY TEDDY and then stared into middle distance where careers live or don't.
Back at the doorway, Noir pivoted one degree. Not toward the witness. Toward Cian. Cian lifted a finger: stay myth. For the length of a blink, the shadow seemed amused.
Neuman shuffled the next packet. "Mr. Voss, did Cardinal Blend add a component labeled β-Complex to its pediatric drizzle packs?"
"Our vendors assure us—"
"USDA has your recall on paper," Neuman said, flipping Exhibit J. "We'll get the rest under oath."
Cian felt altitude skate the city's skin. Homelander finished his flag appointment and turned lazily toward the Hill like a man checking windows for his reflection. Cian teased a thunderhead over the river into grumbling. Cameras like clear skies. Gods like cameras.
Grace slid a throat lozenge across the nurse's palm—silent sacrament. Kimiko's foot touched the chair leg twice—ready / ready.
Neuman capped her pen. "Recess, twenty minutes. Do not destroy documents. The shredders in this building are very loud."
Gavel.
The room exhaled like a lung after a held breath. The press row exploded into quiet efficiency. Ashley flitted at the edge of the staff scrum trying to install regret into a lawyer's face. Voss stared into a future full of subpoenas. Kwan hid her hands under the table so no one would see them practice trembling.
In the back, Hughie sat very still, phone facedown. He'd promised public and kept it. He caught Frenchie's eye and got the smallest, proudest shrug.
Cian slid into the wall's seam and felt it: a pressure change in the south corridor—maintenance door unlocked without a badge, elevator choosing a floor it wasn't told. He stepped between frames, tasted nickels, and grinned despite himself.
"Spell-check," he told the building, and went to fix a dangling modifier with a storm.
The south corridor had the heartbeat of a bad idea.
Two "maintenance" guys in fresh blues moved like choreography learned yesterday. One shouldered a tool bag that clinked wrong—less wrench, more payload. Behind them: that familiar absence—the semicolon in human form. Black Noir. White floors. No blood.
Cian slipped into the seam between seconds and let the hallway breathe molasses. He palmed the sprinkler riser access, kissed the panel with a coin of charge, and taught the brass to love shut. He skimmed the tool bag—EMP puck, glass ampule, USB labeled FIRE DRILL with a Vought smile.
Cute.
Time stood up. The first blue reached the janitor's closet. His keycard found religion and refused temptation. The second blue tried the breaker panel. The latch thought about its childhood and decided to squeak very loudly.
Noir cocked his head.
Cian tapped a ceiling can light—pop. Capitol Police, two doors down, looked up on reflex. He slid the EMP puck from the bag into the recycle bin without moving the bag. He loosened the ampule cap one turn and set it upright in the gray's breast pocket like a boutonnière from hell.
The first blue went for the pocket at the exact speed of a man about to make his day worse.
"Don't," Cian said, voice quiet, not to the blues—to the air. The static in the vent sang enough.
Noir placed two gloved fingers on the blue's wrist. He didn't squeeze. He removed the idea of squeezing. The man forgot what hands do.
Capitol Police rounded the corner. Noir was already negative space. Blues got to rehearse the sentence, "We're lost," and practice being escorted.
Cian and Noir faced the empty air between them. "No marble," Cian murmured. "Thanks for the assist."
Noir did not nod. The helmet angle changed one degree—spell-check accepted—then he vanished into a fire door that sighed like a co-conspirator.
Cian walked the corridor once, tucking cameras back into average and braiding the building's nerves into behave. He passed the junior engineer—Salas—leaning against the wall, mouthing her testimony. He slid a peppermint into her palm without stopping.
"For the shake," he said.
She blinked. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me. Thank paper."
---
Gavel. "We reconvene."
Neuman's tone could have split wood. "Let's refresh. Exhibit H—routing. Exhibit I—partners. Exhibit D—telemetry pipeline. Exhibit J—recall."
She stacked the next blade. "Exhibit K—internal emails from Patients First. Mr. Voss, please read the subject line."
Voss found his tiny voice. "Re: β-Complex pediatric drizzle—value add."
"And the first sentence?"
"'Per Vought Prime directive, route beta complex through Cardinal Blend packaging for optics; toddlers test well in Q3.'"
A sound moved through the room—half snarl, half sermon.
Neuman didn't look up. "Ms. Kwan, Exhibit L—your invoice to Ganymede Capital for 'Wellness Insights—Neonatal.' You blacked out the fee. Our mirror didn't. Care to say the number out loud?"
Kwan stared at the paper like it had betrayed her in public. "Six point eight million."
"Per quarter?" Neuman asked, the way you ask whether the patient is still breathing.
"Yes," Kwan said, very small now.
Neuman capped her pen. "This committee will refer criminal matters to the Department of Justice and civil violations to HHS OIG and the SEC. We will also transmit a document preservation order to all named parties and their contractors. Babies are not a brand segment. They are people. Consider your calendars subpoenaed."
Edgar's lawyer stood to object to the concept of nouns. Neuman smiled thinly. "You'll get your time." She turned to the nurse and Salas. "You will receive whistleblower protections and escort. Thank you for being professionals in a room of brands."
The house board hiccuped. The broadcast did not. The STREAMING light glowed like a tiny, stubborn dawn. Cian kept his thumb on the panel until the room's arteries remembered their job.
"Final question," Neuman said, eyes on Kwan, then Voss, then the camera. "When you call surveillance 'wellness' and fraud 'innovation,' what do you think you're selling?"
Silence.
"Right," she said. "Hearing adjourned to Friday at 9 a.m. Do not destroy documents. The shredders in this building are very loud."
Gavel.
---
Hallways became rivers. Reporters eddied. Lawyers pretended to be weather. The nurse and Salas moved with Grace Mallory between two Capitol Police like a small, portable church.
Noir appeared at the crossing—half a sentence, all threat. Kimiko slid from a blind angle to stand between myth and civilians, chin up, mouth amused. Cian leaned against the cinderblock, hands in hoodie, the storm in his bones humming lullabies and don't.
Noir's helmet turned, mapping futures. He lifted two fingers in a spare salute—not to them. To the line he wasn't crossing. Then he let the crowd swallow him whole.
"Bless him," Grace muttered dryly. "He knows the carpet budget."
They got the witnesses to the elevator, to the garage, to a sedan driven by a woman who looked like an aunt and carried three passports under the floor mat. Doors shut. Safety became a process, not a promise, and sometimes that's enough.
---
Vought's thirteenth floor did post-op with donuts.
Ashley spun on a chair. "Okay, bad contractor angle is a little crispy, but we can salt with 'we're mothers too' and maybe a hospital wing—"
Stan Edgar didn't raise his voice. "We announce an internal ethics review, we suspend Patients First, and we fund a maternal outcomes study at St. Brigid. Homelander brings a teddy bear."
"Adorable," Ashley breathed.
"Not a real one," Edgar said again.
On a side monitor, C-SPAN replayed Neuman's line about fitness trackers and hedge funds. The room pretended not to listen.
Edgar's gaze slid to a feed of the hearing-room rafters—a static fish glimmered in the camera corner for a frame before it vanished.
"Let the storm tire itself," Edgar said lightly. "Then we buy the thunder."
Black Noir stood in the corner, silent grammar.
---
The workshop was a church that swore.
Butcher dumped the Pelican and grinned like a wound that chose mischief. "Paper did its job."
"Paper's just getting warm," Mother's Milk said, already sorting PDFs like ammo.
Frenchie lit a candle for no god in particular and set a chocolate square beside it for all of them. Kimiko rolled her eyes and ate half.
Hughie came in with his tie crooked and his heart untangled. He set his phone face down and didn't check it. Progress tastes like cinnamon sometimes.
Cian dropped from the rafters, cheek cut pale and clean. He set a thumb drive on the table—WellSpring Mirror—Failsafe—and a folded card—USDA SITE VISIT—Cardinal. "If they kill a feed," he said, "the mirror screams to three listservs and one raccoon."
"Bless the raccoon," Butcher said.
"Be nice to the raccoon," MM corrected. "He bites."
Grace called. Butcher put her on speaker. "Friday we sharpen," she said. "Monday we file. Try not to commit murder on camera."
"No promises," Butcher said.
"Promises," Grace said, and hung up.
Cian's phone buzzed with a scent you can't send over text: Lilac.
UNKNOWN: You broke our kitchen.
CIAN: You fed it babies. Paper's hungry.
Another buzz. NEUMAN: Get some sleep. Tomorrow we tie money to capes without using the word 'cape'.
CIAN: I'll tuck the building in.
He looked out the busted window at a city learning how to say no without flinching. Over Queens, Homelander drew a heart with contrails for a camera he loved more than God. Over the river, a storm stacked itself into something serious and then, at the last second, remembered its manners.
Cian traced a tiny lightning sigil under the edge of the workbench—graffiti for places that keep their promises—and let the Speed Force settle like a dog circling a rug.
"Guillotine's built," he said to the room.
"Then we drop it," Butcher answered.
"After dessert," Frenchie added, and pushed the last chocolate square toward Kimiko.
She took it, bit it, and signed: after.
The clock with teeth smiled. The paper sharpened. The myth stayed myth.
For now.