Chapter 116: Arrival at Sage Grove Center
After wrapping up A-Train’s situation, Benjamin didn’t stay long at Vought Headquarters.
A-Train had already been stripped of his place in The Seven. The follow-up PR statement, media response, and public opinion management were naturally Ashley’s problem now.
Besides, Benjamin wasn’t worried that A-Train would completely fall apart.
The Blue Hawk incident was coming up soon.
Sooner or later, A-Train would end up with Blue Hawk’s heart.
Sage Grove Center.
A place of sin carrying decades of Vought’s darkest history.
The people locked up there were not ordinary patients. They were the products of secret Supe experiments Vought had carried out for years, and every one of them was an adult.
The problem at Sage Grove Center had to be dealt with, and the sooner, the better.
Not just Sage Grove Center, either. Every secret experimental facility across the country where Vought was holding Supes had to be cleaned out along with it.
Those places were like time bombs buried underground, ready to blow at any moment.
Some of the test subjects had completely lost their minds, yet still possessed terrifying Superpowers.
Some were still lucid, but after years of imprisonment, all they wanted was to go home. Every single day, they wanted home. They wanted freedom.
Others did not even know who they were anymore, struggling in endless confusion and pain like wild beasts trapped in iron cages.
If these people were left alone, sooner or later, something big would go wrong.
A riot, a breakout, or even a test subject losing control and unconsciously unleashing their Superpowers could trigger a catastrophic chain reaction.
Before The Boys showed up to cause trouble, Benjamin planned to make a trip there himself.
His thinking was practical.
For the ones who could be managed, he would see whether they could be recruited.
His attitude toward Supes had always been utilitarian.
As long as they had power, listened to orders, and could be useful to him, it did not matter whether they used to be test subjects or street thugs. They could be given a chance.
As for the ones who could not be controlled, the ones who were completely gone mentally or simply too dangerous, they would have to be handled another way.
Erase their Superpowers.
Rather than keeping them locked behind iron doors for the rest of their lives, rotting away, it was better to turn them back into ordinary people and let them return to society.
It would be a release for them, and protection for society.
Before long, Benjamin arrived in front of a square, gray-white building.
From the outside, it looked like an ordinary office building.
But a closer look showed that every window had heavy iron bars installed, and security cameras packed the corners in dense rows. It was even more locked down than a prison.
Before the car had fully stopped, a figure hurried out of the building to greet him.
It was the Lamplighter.
Compared with his glory days in The Seven, the Lamplighter now seemed calmer and more composed.
The moment he saw Benjamin open the car door and step out, undisguised respect appeared in his eyes.
He had also heard about Mister Marathon’s homecoming event last night, and had seen those statues standing tall again on TV.
Those statues belonged to old-timers from his generation. Seeing them brought up a lot of emotion.
Benjamin had not forgotten them. He had not erased their history. Instead, he had put up statues for them in grand fashion and announced their former glory to the world.
The Lamplighter remembered that kindness.
"Mr. Soldier Boy, you’re here."
The Lamplighter hurried forward, his tone filled with genuine respect, even dipping slightly in a bow.
Benjamin nodded. Without bothering with small talk, he got straight to the point.
"I’m here to deal with these test subjects."
The Lamplighter stiffened slightly.
Deal with the test subjects?
The test subjects at Sage Grove Center knew far too many of Vought’s secrets. Their very existence carried the company’s most shameful, hidden history.
If Vought had decided to deal with them, then the most direct method was obvious.
Silence them.
The thought made the Lamplighter’s heart tighten. He hesitated for a moment, then finally worked up the courage to speak.
"Sir," the Lamplighter said, lowering his voice with a careful edge to it, "some of these test subjects have extremely powerful abilities. Their Superpowers are high-level. Used properly, they could become a serious combat force. If we just kill them all, that’d be kind of a damn waste."
The Lamplighter knew the experiments had been stopped, so he did not mention them. Instead, he talked about the benefits they could bring if they joined Vought in the future.
He kept his words measured, but his meaning was clear.
The truth was, the Lamplighter had gone a little soft on them.
Benjamin turned his head, glanced at the Lamplighter, and shook his head.
"I’m not silencing them," Benjamin said flatly.
Hearing those words, the Lamplighter froze.
He had already prepared himself mentally, assuming Benjamin had been sent to carry out a cleanup operation.
After all, with Benjamin’s strength, flattening all of Sage Grove Center would not take more than a few minutes.
But he never expected that Benjamin had no such plan at all.
"My plan is simple."
Benjamin started walking toward Sage Grove Center’s main entrance, and the Lamplighter hurried to keep up.
"Sort the test subjects. The ones whose mental state is relatively stable and who are willing to cooperate, we evaluate whether they’re worth recruiting. As for the ones who are completely broken, whose abilities are too dangerous, and who can’t be controlled at all, I’m going to erase their Superpowers and then let them leave."
The Lamplighter stopped walking.
He stood there, his face frozen as if he had just heard something impossible.
Erase their Superpowers?
Then let them leave?
That... that was nothing like how Vought did things.
Based on Vought’s usual methods, these test subjects would either be locked up until they died, squeezed dry of every last bit of value, or quietly disposed of, disappearing from the world along with Vought’s secrets.
Let them go?
Of course, there was a reason the Lamplighter was so shocked.
After all, he spent most of his time inside the lab.
He had not been at Vought, so he only had a vague understanding of the things that had happened there recently.
But his shock did not last long. Soon, he thought of another issue, a very real problem he could not help worrying about.
He quickened his pace to catch up with Benjamin, his voice filled with obvious concern.
"But... sir, after they get out, what if..."
The Lamplighter chose his words carefully.
"What if they start telling everyone what happened here? Wouldn’t that... make Vought look bad?"
Vought’s public image had only just started to recover. Under Soldier Boy’s leadership, the company was working hard to wash away its past stains and regain the public’s trust.
If these former prisoners ran out and spilled everything to the media, exposing the inhuman experiments, the years of imprisonment in total darkness, and the brutal torture they had endured, then everything Vought had worked so hard to rebuild might collapse in an instant.
But Benjamin just kept walking, not even turning his head as he tossed back one sentence.
"The people getting dragged are the old Vought. What the fuck does that have to do with me? Why the hell are you talking so much?"
The Lamplighter stopped again.
But this time, his face no longer showed worry. Instead, it showed sudden understanding, then relief, and even a trace of genuine admiration.
Right.
How had he not thought of that?
Vought had changed.
The Vought under Soldier Boy’s control was practically a completely different company from the Vought of Stan Edgar’s era.
Those filthy experiments, that dark history, those inhuman crimes. All of it came from Edgar’s era.
No matter how the blame was assigned, it could not fall on the current Vought, much less on Soldier Boy.
Even if the test subjects exposed every last scandal, the public’s anger would only burn toward the old Vought that had already been reduced to ashes.
The new Vought could even use this chance to distance itself further from the past and draw a clean line between them.
This move really was brilliant.
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