1st January, 2023
The click-clack of President Victoria Neuman's high heels echoed through the corridor as she trudged through the White House, superhuman secret service agents at her wings and in front of her. Had Victoria been born with a more of a sadistic streak, she would've been hailed as one of the most powerful supes in the world. Arguably matching Homelander himself in sheer lethality.
But she didn't want to be a hero, nor a soldier. Instead, she followed her adopted father's footsteps and pursued a career in politics.
She was ruthless, determined, a living force of nature manifested within a woman in a three piece suit.
And right now, Victoria wanted nothing more than to lie down and take a deep, long sleep. Because she hadn't been able to get any rest at all for the past month, and was operating solely off of three gallons of coffee. Supe precogs had been warning of a possible terrorist attack for weeks, stating that there was going to be a devastating assault on a major city sometime in the coming months. Problem being that precogs countered other precogs, which made future sight more unreliable the more precogs that were active. The fact that "Federal Seers" couldn't get a clear bead on when the attack was going to happen meant one thing; someone with serious pull was conspiring against the United States.
Her advisors had told her to take their predictions with a grain of salt, but still recommended that she kept her guard up. And she did. She'd increased federal supe presence near big cities, which meant calling upon supes from rural areas to temporarily move away from their homes to patrol in and around L.A, New York, Chicago, and other big population centres. She'd halved resources and supes to foreign aid efforts just to keep them on American soil. The military remained on high alert. And monitoring of the public increased tenfold.
The past few weeks had been torture for Victoria. Waiting for a nuclear pin to drop.
And now, it finally happened.
She was scheduled for press releases, interviews with news outlets, a meeting with Congress on the matter of superhuman defence, national addresses to assure the American public that all was well and that they had NOTHING to worry about. She'd done more frantic speed walking in the last hour than she had for the last 36 years of her life.
But there were a few positives, she had to admit. She'd taken solace in the fact that, at the very least, this attack on New York probably wasn't going to result in another Global War on Terror. On account of the fact that the supe-terrorist was a mentally-ill, 28 year old white woman named Sandra Mulligan who was born and raised in Houston Texas. The crazy bitch had gone on record to state that she did it to "become the star she'd always wanted to be."
Whatever that meant, her statement had only encouraged more people to call for her death. As of now it was the only issue in America where both the left and the right mutually agreed on something. And that was good. Unity was good. As long as she danced to the people's tune, she'd get approval and clout from both sides that would hopefully help in the next election.
Dreams of grandeur aside, she had an aftermath to deal with.
Victoria stepped into the situation room, scanning the faces of her top advisors and military leaders as she took her seat at the head of the table. Tension rattled the air around them.
"Good afternoon," she began, her voice steady despite the fatigue that gnawed at her. "Let's get to it. Updates on the Times Square situation?"
The Director of National Intelligence, Robert Harmon, spoke up. "We're still piecing things together, but we do know Mulligan's mother, Lina Mulligan, appeared to have been exposed to V at some point in her life."
"How do you know it was from her mother?" Victoria asked.
"Lina used to work in a V production facility in Britain throughout the late 80s and the early 90s, right around the time the West managed to get their hands on the K strain from the Soviets and began replicating it. There was an incident which happened in 1992 that led to a chemical explosion. It killed most of the staff, with Lina and 3 others being the only ones to survive. She later moved to Texas that same year, met Noah Mulligan, and they had Sandra in 1994."
Victoria hummed quietly as she tapped her fingers on the table. Hushed whispers erupted around the table as everybody tried to process the information.
"So Lina was a victim of one of the K-incidents?"
"Yes."
Victoria sighed. "I want a full profile on Sandra. Psychological evaluations, known associates, any social media activity that might give us a clearer picture of her motives and potential connections. Whatever you can find."
"Understood," Harmon replied.
She turned towards her Communications Director, Jenna Haynes. "How are we doing on the publicity side of things?"
"People have been crying bloody murder, but luckily no one - or at least not many - have been pointing fingers towards you. For now we've been pushing a narrative of resilience and unity, highlighting the heroism of those who responded to the attack and honouring those who've passed. But…"
Victoria raised her eyebrow as she stared at the director. "But..?"
"But there's a growing demand for harsher measures against superhumans. People are scared, and now it's only emboldened certain groups like the Church of the Collective to… Call for mandatory de-powerment of supes…"
Victoria clicked her tongue in annoyance, but kept her expression firm. "Ignore them. Those crazies aren't a threat. Only thing I'm worried about now is whether or not there's going to be any follow up attacks…"
The day trudged on as she travelled to and from military bases, FBSA facilities, and communicated with America's top military advisors. Precogs and intelligence had informed her that there wasn't going to be another supervillain attack for the rest of the year. Or at the very least, not another at the scale of the one that'd happened today.
Victoria hunkered down in her comfortable abode after a lengthy day. Collapsing onto her bed as soon as she could and snuggling up against her already-asleep husband, Sameer Shah.
He grumbled as he roused awake.
"Hey baby…" He mumbled as he kissed her gently on the forehead, "busy day?"
Victoria buried her face into his bare chest as she made an "mmph" sound.
Sameer scratched her head as he pulled her in closer. "You looked amazing on TV," he whispered.
Victoria scoffed. "The public named me 'finest president since JFK,' of course I looked amazing."
The two laughed, a comfortable silence taking over as they stayed in eachothers arms.
"Sameer…" She whispered as she looked up at him. "Remember when you told me you used to be a genetic engineer? Before you worked for the FDA?"
Sameer looked at her, confused. "Yeah, why?"
Victoria averted her gaze, her eyes glazing over as her mind seemed preoccupied with something else.
"Did you ever… Hear about V experiments on kids?"
Sameer mulled over the question for a bit.
"Yeah. I wasn't involved in those kinds of things." He finally replied. "But, I mean, the government stopped experimenting on kids in the 50's, no?"
Victoria remained silent for a bit longer.
"If you had to give an estimate, just how many kids do you think they…" She trailed off.
Sameer's expression morphed into one of worry. "...Is there something on your mind?"
Victoria sighed again. "Yeah. It's been on my mind for a long time."
Sameer could guess why.
"Vic…" He said softly
Victoria continued. "There's always something that comes up. If it isn't another terrorist group somehow getting their hands on V, it's a civilian supe accidentally killing 10 people after snorting an entire bucket full of cocaine. It's starting to feel like there's… Something is going on."
"And what would that be?"
"Maybe I'm just being paranoid…" She said tiredly.
"No no, I'm listening."
"Well, I don't know. I just feel that V has been frequently ending up in the possession of people who shouldn't have it in the first place. Hell, our Phantom supes have been running up and down the Global South killing Rogues left and right. Just last year Black Noir had to assassinate a superhuman cartel boss in Mexico."
Sameer raised an eyebrow in confusion. "I don't remember hearing about that."
Victoria chuckled. "It was overshadowed and buried under the news of Homelander battling that V'd up Elephant."
"So how does this-"
"It's a distraction."
Sameer's eyes widened. "How?"
"Lately I've been noticing that whenever there's a noticeable spike in missing children's cases, there's always some… V-related incident that happens around the same time. Last month, there was a Russian convoy carrying Compound V that was attacked by an armed militia and one unidentified supe that they've yet to track down. The convoy beat them back, but the attack sent the Russians into a panic, and the government put all of their supes on high alert. They spent all of Christmas looking for a super with blue laser eyes and super strength. But it's no coincidence that around 200 Russian kids disappeared over the course of that same month."
"Surely that was just an isolated incident?" He said.
"You would think that…" Victoria grinned, before launching into a rant that made her look like a paranoid conspiracy nut trying to share their crackpot theory. "But our Phantom supes have been drawn into third world countries more often than usual. Sure, we use them to destabilise a nation from within, or assassinate a dictator. But we've been getting more and more reports of hostile NGOs in South America and Africa having supes of their own, and that shouldn't be happening. Homelander putting down those V'd up zoo animals and the cartel supe? Happened same week."
Victoria paused, her expression shifting into one of contemplation.
"Vic?" Sameer said gently. "Something up?"
"You don't think…" She paused. "You don't think that today's attack might've been a ploy to-"
She began to feel uncharacteristically sleepy.
"Uhm… Sameer?" She slurred. "I feel…"
"Feel what?"
"Feel… Sleep…"
"That's the point, Vicky. Have a good rest, you need it."
Victoria's eyes glazed over before the sweet embrace of unconsciousness overtook her. She let out a small breath and shut her eyes completely.
Sameer checked if she had really fallen asleep, before getting out of bed and walking out of the room. His footsteps reverberated across the oak floor in the hallway, and he stopped in front of his daughter's bedroom, peeking through the small crack in the door as he observed her sleeping form.
He sighed and shook his head. He wondered if this was what it took to protect his child from those who wanted to hurt her, having to brainwash his wife into believing his 'associates' hadn't been pulling at any string for 3 years straight. He'd maintained this charade for a long time, but he could still remember when it started as if it happened yesterday.
He remembered having to babysit that night because Victoria was working late. He remembered a dozen shadowy figures miraculously appearing in the living room as he cradled his baby daughter in his arms. He remembered stifling a scream in order to prevent waking up his sleeping child. And he remembered the moment they'd overwhelmed his psychic defences before making him an ultimatum: He would work for them, manipulating Victoria into helping further their goals, and simultaneously steering her away from looking into what they were doing when she got too hot on their tail. And in exchange, they would let him and his daughter live.
It was an ambitious plan that had the risk of falling in on itself if Neuman ever brought up her curiosities with somebody at work. But they knew that she had a tendency to share her plans with Sameer before proposing them to any of her advisors, she loved him that much. And he'd done some work as a political consultant even before he became a genetic engineer, so asking him for some small advice wasn't that out of the question.
Sameer had considered letting Victoria or the authorities know, but there was no doubt in his mind that those men, his "associates," probably had bugs planted in every nook and cranny of his home. Along with a team of supes on deck to get to his location fast and slaughter him the moment he snitched.
He figured they'd had a teleporter, or a speedster, or at least a super with a stealth-oriented ability. Because there was no way they could've possibly been able to get through their house's security system without triggering an alarm that night. And Victoria, dangerous as she was, couldn't be everywhere at once.
Over the years, he began to realise that he couldn't trust the authorities either. He'd heard of the things his associates had done over the years, and he figured that with the scale they were working at, they had to have some people on every level of government working for them just to make what they did feasible.
And that scared him, a lot. Knowing that the people who could do something about his problem were compromised turned him into a paranoid mess. He started to look over his shoulder more often, and started sleeping less. Victoria had begun to worry about him, but he brushed her off and told her it was work getting more stressful. Not like it stopped her from insisting that he retire and just be a stay at home parent like every First Lady before him.
He walked downstairs and headed straight for the kitchen, opening the fridge and reaching inside for a six pack of canned beers. He opened the door to their backyard and closed it behind him as he made his way to the rocking chair they'd placed on the patio for convenience's sake.
Sameer dug into his pocket for his phone then scrolled through his contacts list. His eyes shifted as he spotted one name: Snatcher.
He sat there in silence as the phone rang in his hand.
"What is it?" A person with a modified voice spoke.
"She's getting trickier."
There was a long silence. "Elaborate."
"Victoria's been getting some sort of… Resistance to my powers. Every time I try to compel her to avoid thinking about you guys, she comes back even sooner than the last talking about what she suspects you're people have been getting up to."
Sameer tried to make sure he didn't sound like he was proud. Because he was, in fact, very proud of his wife.
"We enlisted you to help us because we thought you were as powerful as Mindstorm." Snatcher grumbled. "And because you were close to Neuman. Are you telling me you've outlived your usefulness?"
"No." Sameer said angrily. "If she's working her way through my influence then she can do the same to anyone you care to replace me with."
"But?"
"But we can still hold her under our sway if you send some windbreakers to stack their powers on top of mine. Just like you guys did the night you showed up at my house. I can still keep her on a leash for now, I just called to ask if your people can help me with that. "
Sameer heard a sigh coming from the other side of the call. "The entire point of forcing you to work for us was because having a group of our psychics and telepaths near her, in her own house, at all times, was too impractical."
"Well you've gotta figure something out then. Because once she breaks free of my influence there's jack shit any of you can do to stop her from coming for you besides killing her outright. And we both know that no matter how many connections you have to the people up top. Assassinating the U.S president is going to make your decrepit smuggling operations harder to do with the Phantoms breathing down your necks."
Snatcher's tone began to shift. Sameer could only assume he'd become agitated. "You know, for someone who has a daughter we're holding at gunpoint, you've been getting more and more cocky recently-"
"You people decided to make a move on the second deadliest superhuman in history." Sameer said through grit teeth. "So I expect you to deal with the consequences of that action in full. You should've known the potential risks and costs of that when you decided to threaten me and my daughter. You say it's too impractical to keep a couple of mind breakers near her? Well I'm saying you can swallow your fucking complaints because they won't matter when my wife starts GUNNING for you. This isn't a threat, this is me warning you of what's to come so you can prepare against it. All I'm saying is that since I might not be good enough to keep her sedated anymore, you should make moves to remedy that. If anything, you should be THANKING me for even bothering to tell you about this in the first place, you stupid prick!"
Sameer realised he was breathing in and out far heavier than he intended to. He was angry.
Snatcher stayed silent.
"I'll take your comments into further consideration, thank you, Sameer."
The call ended, and Sameer inhaled as much as he possibly could before letting all of it out in one, mighty blow.
He brought an opened beer can to his lips and took a long, deep sip, then rocked back and forth on his chair as he stared up at the night sky.
"Snap out of it faster, Vicky…" He muttered. "Your daughter needs it…"