Transfusion 5.7
Annie studied the old laundromat with open curiosity. The place had clearly seen better days. The taxi had gotten us here quickly enough that night still covered the street — which only helped a building whose primary function was to avoid being noticed.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" she said, stepping out of the car and helping me carry the unconscious fugitive. "It doesn't exactly look… reputable."
The driver left with an extra couple of hundred in his pocket, in exchange for not mentioning the man we'd loaded into the back seat.
My first instinct had been to take Annie home, but she had flatly refused to abandon the unconscious man and insisted we go to a hospital first. I managed to convince her that certain people who wished him harm might show up there — and that it would be safer to bring him to people I trusted.
Beyond that, I hadn't explained much about where we were headed. There were too many details for a girl I had literally met that day. She was plainly willing to help anyone who needed it, but some information was better delivered in measured doses, in locations where no one could listen in.
And however I felt about her personally, there were things it was simply too early to share. I liked her — of course I did — but you need to know where to draw the line between the personal and the professional.
"The building may have seen better days," I said, shifting the sleeping man on my shoulder. "But trust me — it's the people inside that matter."
Waiting for us inside was a girl I already knew — one who seemed to wear a smile twenty-four hours a day. In the year and a half since I'd last seen her, she appeared not to have changed at all.
"Oh, hi there! Long time no see!" She actually clapped her hands in "delight." "And who's this you've brought along? Has someone actually fallen for our little grump? You have to tell me everything — let me put the kettle on, I've got cake, and we can sit down and—"
She launched into her usual routine, clearly not about to let an unknown visitor waltz into a classified facility. But the moment she noticed the unconscious man, her reaction shifted instantly. The smile froze in place as her eyes moved from me to the body and back again.
Bringing Annie here — even showing her this much — was a risk. But after five minutes of conversation with someone, asking the right questions and monitoring their body's responses, I learn more about them than most people would in five months. And in all the time I had spent with Annie, she hadn't lied to me once. Every interaction she'd had with the fugitive had only deepened her concern and her desire to help.
But some secrets were still better left as secrets. For now.
"I already messaged the old lady that I'm coming with guests. Is there somewhere quiet we can sit and talk? The man with us needs help — urgently."
The girl's smile widened. She nodded and led Annie into a small room that resembled a kitchen combined with a utility closet. There was a narrow sofa where we laid the man down, and a small table with pastries, where my acquaintance invited Annie to sit. I didn't linger.
"Don't worry — I'll be back soon. I just need to discuss a few things with an old friend of mine. I think she's in a better position to help us right now than anyone." I said it calmly, then headed for the storage room I knew well — the one that concealed the passage to the real facility.
Out of habit, I was already monitoring the people deeper inside, hidden behind the thick walls. Judging by how quickly they were moving and how much activity was underway, something significant had happened very recently.
When I reached the old briefing room, the only person waiting for me was Mallory. She stood with her arms crossed by the door, watching me with an expression that was not particularly welcoming.
"Well — hello. It's been a while," I said, the moment I walked in. "Though I'll admit, the current situation doesn't exactly lend itself to a happy reunion. So let's get straight to it. Where do we stand?"
Grace had clearly been waiting for me. Her gaze was dark.
"We're in quite the mess." The older woman shook her head irritably. "I'm sorry I haven't been sending Christmas cards, but the things demanding my attention never seem to stop. Right now, the situation is genuinely critical, and any help would not go to waste."
"So what exactly happened?" I asked, looking at her directly. She exhaled heavily and began to walk.
"What happens when you accumulate problems and leave their resolution for some distant future. Eventually they pile up until they all go off at once."
She picked up several thick folders from the table and passed them to me.
"Over the past year and a half, Vought has lost significant ground — and with every passing day they're accelerating toward the edge," she began, her voice measured. "Their stock has been in freefall for ten consecutive months, and revenue has been declining literally every quarter. And after the recent passage of Newman's Superhuman Oversight Act — which places every super under permanent government surveillance and monitors the use of their abilities — the corporation's hands will be tied even further. Stan Edgar has, of course, managed to keep Vought from collapsing entirely. He's been aggressively redirecting all resources toward rebranding, clearly intending to cut the company loose from the 'hero' business and pivot to a conventional pharmaceutical operation. The problem is, he severely underestimated how much the heroes themselves would dislike that move. Arrogant old fool…"
I opened the first folder and found photographs of what had clearly been a CIA facility — now reduced to scorched ruins. There were also images of dozens of people whose remains had been hacked and torn apart. What stood out most were the shots showing a single hole punched through wall after wall — shaped unmistakably like a human silhouette.
"Our entire Washington facility was wiped out in a single day. The cameras were down for exactly five minutes. That was enough to kill everyone inside. Sixty-four dead. In five. Goddamn. Minutes."
I had never seen Grace this furious. She wasn't raising her voice — her tone stayed controlled — but buried beneath it was something arctic. A cold, unspoken threat that seemed to radiate from every syllable.
I frowned, turning the information over.
"Who is even capable of something like that?" I said, thinking aloud. "Even the best supers on earth would struggle to pull this off. Everyone I know is either strong and durable, or fast and flight-capable. Well — everyone except…"
"There were no surviving witnesses at the scene," she said. "But our perpetrator was careless. We recovered several strands of hair that can only belong to one individual." She pulled out another stack of papers and held them out. Her expression was the worst I had ever seen on her.
"Blond?" I said, stunned. "This is a joke."
Because there was only one super on the entire planet who could destroy a CIA facility in minutes and leave almost no evidence behind. And he wore an American flag for a cape.
"DNA analysis confirmed it," Mallory said, with a grim, mirthless smile. "The Patriot, in all his goddamn glory. We collected his samples a long time ago, but they've only become useful now. We can only speculate about what prompted the massacre, but the fact of it is beyond dispute. What makes it worse is that the facility housed the most important and valuable prisoner we've ever held." A pause. "A female prisoner."
The piercing look Mallory gave me was deeply unwelcome.
"Don't tell me," I said, as the understanding slammed into me, "that in a year and a half you not only failed to execute her — you didn't prosecute her for everything she's done, you didn't transfer her to a proper facility, and you couldn't even keep her location secret?"
Now it was my turn to be angry.
"Forgive me for failing to organize a defense against a demigod," she replied, voice dripping with sarcasm. "I arranged the best security the government could provide. Do you honestly think any of our other facilities could have done a single thing against the Patriot? I have no idea how he even learned where she was being held — none of my people would have talked. And to make your life even more entertaining, wait for Butcher and what he's bringing back from the assignment I sent him on. Because if he hasn't lost his mind and actually found who he claims he found, we might have at least a ghost of a chance against a deranged Superman and his deranged lightning queen."
I rolled my eyes.
"Right now I'm considerably more concerned about the unconscious super lying upstairs, and the unidentified armed individuals who had anti-super countermeasures," I said. "Does the CIA have any idea who they are? And I'm still waiting for an answer about why you did nothing with that psychotic Stormfront. I assumed that once Vought fell and the leash went on, she was no longer useful to you." My voice was hard. "If I had known you'd handle it this way, I would have killed her on the spot. There would have been fewer casualties."
"Give me a couple of hours and we'll have something. For now, I suggest you go back to your girlfriend and wait for Butcher, who is currently flying here from Russia at maximum speed with a present. He'll explain everything — I barely know anything myself, since the halfwit has been off comms." Her eyes sharpened. "And as for the prisoner — do you really believe it's that simple? Do you think I'm such an idiot that I didn't understand the threat she posed?" For the first time, Grace raised her voice. "Vought is still keeping its secrets, and our government doesn't like that one bit. I would have happily sent her for lethal injection, but my superiors won't authorize it until we've extracted every last piece of information she holds."
Despite being a professional CIA operative, Mallory was still an ordinary human being. A human being I read like an open book.
"You still haven't figured out how to replicate the Compound V formula, have you?" I said, with a thin smile. "Vought will guard that secret to the bitter end, just as the government will never stop trying to seize control of it. And so it goes until one side breaks first." I paused. "All right. I've heard what I needed to hear."
Not wanting to continue a conversation that had nowhere productive left to go, I turned and walked toward the exit. Mallory said nothing more and simply stood with her arms crossed, looking away.
***
Annie was upstairs, drinking tea with biscuits and talking with the girl who had been manning the laundromat's front desk, when I returned accompanied by a gray-haired old man of about eighty, dressed in the uniform of someone who worked here. He went immediately to the unconscious man and began examining him.
The old man introduced himself as the owner of the establishment and explained, with a gentle smile, how he had once worked in a hospital as a professional diagnostician with nearly forty years of experience. But retirement had called, and he'd decided to open the small business he had always dreamed of. The skills, after all those years, were still there.
A nice story. The CIA doesn't waste its bread, and I was confident his cover identity would survive any level of scrutiny — that he could answer every conceivable question as though he had genuinely lived every detail. But I could feel that every word, from first to last, was a lie.
"Hmm… Physically speaking, he appears to be in reasonable condition — aside from obvious signs of prolonged malnourishment, along with severe physical and mental exhaustion. I believe the accumulated toll of months, possibly years of hardship simply caught up with him. Let him rest and prepare a good supply of food, and he should recover well."
Annie had been watching the sleeping man carefully, but once she was satisfied he was stable, she relaxed and soon turned her attention to more pressing matters. She drew me into a different room — somewhere we wouldn't be overheard — and began speaking in a low voice.
"So… did you manage to find out who's responsible for what happened?" she asked, barely above a whisper.
"I spoke with some people who have eyes and ears where they need to be. They've promised to pull together everything they know fairly quickly. I'd suggest trying to sleep — by morning we'll have something concrete, and we can sort through it all with clear heads."
She shook her head.
"There's no way I'm sleeping right now. Back when I was still with the team, I used to go on patrols and deal with criminals — but that was child's play compared to this. Usually, the moment people saw someone in a costume, they dropped whatever weapon they had and gave up on the spot. Unless, of course…"
She trailed off slightly, but I understood.
"…Unless they're complete idiots," I finished, with a small smile. "I'll be honest — I rarely have to throw punches myself. Most of the time I'm helping people recover from the kind of injuries we just caused. But yes — I know what you mean. Fighting someone who genuinely intends to hurt you, and actually has the means to do it, is an entirely different experience. Adrenaline hits the brain, your vision narrows, and the entire world transforms into a battlefield." I paused. "Though I'll admit — if I could shoot lasers from my hands, things would be considerably simpler."
Annie clicked her tongue.
"It's not as useful as you might think. Without a nearby energy source, I couldn't do anything at all. And the beams can only destroy — they're useless for defense or precision work. Those liquid shields of yours, though, and those tiny needles — that's something else entirely. I've never seen an ability even remotely like it." She tilted her head slightly, smiled, and looked at me with an expression that carried something more than casual curiosity. "Care to share what it actually is?"
I was quiet for a while, studying the girl who was watching me with a shrewd glint in her eyes. Then I gave a quiet huff and answered.
"You know what… I think the time has come. Given everything that's happened, hiding isn't going to be an option much longer. I'm going to need every trick I have, and there's no keeping them in the sleeve anymore." My voice dropped. "All right — let's find somewhere to sit, and I'll tell you the story of a boy who saw the world in many shades of red."
***
"All right, you little shits… Daddy's home."
Butcher arrived at roughly six in the morning. We had been sitting near the cars, talking about everything and nothing all through the night, when he appeared. Judging by the smug, vicious little smile on his face, he had been up to something again.
"Back in my day, only men bluer than the sky stood that close together. Step aside and stop getting in the way."
An unexpected voice — low, rough, and male — came from behind Butcher's shoulder. Something about it felt familiar.
Butcher rolled his eyes and moved aside, making room for the new arrival.
A tall, powerfully built man with a long beard, unkempt hair, and brown eyes. He was wearing a tracksuit over a plain gray T-shirt — but that wasn't what caught my attention.
The Soldier Boy, risen from the dead, looked thoroughly beaten down by whatever he had been through — but he didn't appear to have aged a single day.
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