Transmigrated into The Boys, Starting as Soldier Boy

Neuman finally managed to become vice president.

But she was already moving toward the presidency.

...

Several more months passed, and before anyone realized it, time had slipped to the eve of the presidential election.

Neuman’s approval ratings had left the other candidates far behind. Only one person still counted as a serious challenger, a man named Steven.

But Steven was one of Neuman’s people. More accurately, he was one of Soldier Boy’s people. Even if Steven won, it wouldn’t matter. Either way, one of Soldier Boy’s people would be elected president.

The media had even started calling Neuman the "president-in-waiting."

In the corridors of Vought headquarters, everyone looked at her with a little more careful awe than before.

Everyone knew Neuman would soon be moving from her seat on Capitol Hill into the Oval Office.

And behind her stood two of the most powerful Supes in the world.

No one with half a brain would piss her off at a time like this.

...

But deep in some forgotten industrial ruin in the United States, the mood was the exact opposite of all the excitement around the presidential election.

Inside Mallory’s safe house, the air felt so heavy it might as well have solidified.

Over the past few months, the place had only gotten worse.

To avoid being tracked down by The Deep and Black Noir II, they had moved at least four times. Each move meant less space, worse equipment, and supplies running thinner than ever.

One tube in the fluorescent light overhead had already burned out. The remaining one buzzed as it flickered, throwing a sickly white glow over the room and leaving everyone’s face an unhealthy gray.

Sameer sat at a shaky lab bench in the corner. On the laptop open in front of him, strings of complex molecular structure models kept shifting across the screen.

He had lost an entire size since a few months ago. His eyes had sunk deep into their sockets, and his cheekbones stuck out so sharply they looked like they might tear through his skin.

The lab coat that used to fit him now hung loose on his body, its cuffs stained with blotches of every color from various chemical reagents.

When Mallory once again stood in front of him and asked about his progress, he lifted his head. There was no expression on his pale face. He only shook his head weakly.

Mallory’s brow tightened slightly. She had been working with Sameer for a while now.

She had seen him exhausted. She had seen him shaking in terror because of The Deep.

But she had never seen this look on his face before.

That bloodless despair. It sent a bad feeling crawling up her spine.

"How’s the virus coming along?" Mallory asked.

Sameer didn’t answer right away.

He lowered his head and looked at his hands.

Those hands had once operated countless precision instruments in Vought’s most advanced labs. Now they were trembling.

Finally, he said hoarsely, "If we make a virus that can kill Soldier Boy or Homelander, do you know what that means?"

"What?" Mallory asked.

Sameer drew in a shaking breath.

He turned the laptop screen toward Mallory. It was packed with dense biochemical formulas and simulated transmission models.

Mallory wasn’t a biochemist. She couldn’t understand the formulas, but she could understand the red zones in the simulation, the parts showing the spread.

They covered the entire North American continent.

"It means this virus is powerful. And it would be a large-scale contagious virus. Its transmission mechanism means it can’t be limited to a single target."

"Once it’s released on Soldier Boy or Homelander, the virus will spread through the air, through droplets, through contact, through every damn route you can think of, and it’ll infect everyone..."

He paused, looked away from the screen, and stared straight into Mallory’s eyes.

"Even if the virus I develop only specifically kills Supes, and I’ve already optimized its targeting as much as I possibly can, that still means tens of thousands of people will die."

"Because there are far more Supes in the world than you think. Vought has plenty of them registered on paper alone, never mind the unregistered ones, the ones hiding among ordinary people, or even the ones who don’t know they’re Supes at all."

"And that includes Neuman. Neuman is a Supe too. She has Compound V in her body."

Mallory froze.

This old veteran, who had spent decades fighting through the CIA and had seen every kind of shitstorm, couldn’t get a single word out.

How could this be...

Of course she knew how many Supes there were.

Mallory knew better than anyone. During her years overseeing Supe affairs at the CIA, she had personally built their tracking files.

She had simply never connected "developing a virus that could kill Soldier Boy" with "killing every Supe."

Once Sameer laid out that chain of logic, it seemed so obvious that the fact she hadn’t thought of it earlier made a chill run through her.

She had always thought she was building a precision sniper rifle.

Sameer had just told her it wasn’t a sniper rifle at all. It was a nuclear bomb capable of wiping out an entire species...

"So this is Supe genocide?" Mallory asked.

Sameer nodded.

Then his expression suddenly collapsed, and he pleaded, "Mallory, I can’t do this. I started researching this virus to deal with Soldier Boy. For revenge. To take back what was supposed to be mine."

"But Neuman. Neuman is a Supe too. If this virus is really released, Neuman will die too."

"She’s done a lot of fucked-up things. She betrayed me. She abandoned me. But... but I can’t kill her. I can’t do it. She’s the mother of my daughter."

"So I can’t make something with my own hands that will kill her."

Mallory fell silent.

Adana had been leaning in the corner the whole time, arms crossed, without saying a word from beginning to end. Under the flickering light, his expression looked especially grim.

It wasn’t that he had no thoughts of his own. He just knew nothing he said right now would be appropriate...

Now that Butcher and the other two had once again been placed under house arrest by Vought, they had no options left.

The three of them stood in the cramped safe house, all choked by the same question.

If they continued the research, they might become the people behind the largest massacre in Supe history. No matter how righteous their intentions were, the final result would still be tens of thousands of lives wiped out.

If they abandoned the research, their most effective weapon against Soldier Boy and Homelander would be dead, with no replacement in sight.

The silence lasted a full two minutes.

Finally, Adana broke the deadlock. "If there’s really no other way, I’ll release all the dirt."

Mallory and Sameer turned to look at him at the same time. Adana continued, "Every piece of dirt on every superhero at Vought is stored on our servers."

"Once it goes public, Vought’s entire public image will collapse within twenty-four hours."

"By then, public pressure, congressional investigations, mass protests, all of it stacked together might be enough to drag Soldier Boy and Homelander off their goddamn pedestals."

Mallory was just about to respond when footsteps sounded outside the door.

All three of them froze.