Victory, I was learning, was not a destination but a temporary state of grace, purchased with a currency that eroded the soul. The ghost network held, but the cost of its preservation was a new, more profound isolation. I had looked into the abyss of Stan Edgar's pragmatism and had not blinked; I had mirrored it back at him. The lie I had woven was now a thread in the tapestry of Vought's reality, and I was tangled in it.
Kala was released forty-eight hours later. The official story was a "regrettable administrative error." A junior analyst had flagged her psychometric readings as "anomalous," triggering an automatic, overzealous security protocol. She was given a modest "inconvenience bonus" and a stern warning about the perils of "unreliable power fluctuations." The perfect, sterile cover-up.
She didn't contact us. The burner phone remained silent. Her psychic signature, which I could now faintly sense as part of the network's web, was a tightly coiled ball of fear. We had saved her from interrogation, but we had also confirmed her worst nightmares: she was being watched. The trust we had so painstakingly built was fractured. The shield we offered felt more like a brand.
Marcus was furious, his mental communications sharp with a sense of betrayal. We left her hanging! She thinks we set her up, that we used her as bait for your little power play with Edgar!
There was no other way, I responded, the justification feeling hollow even to me. The alternative was her mind being ripped open and the network exposed. This was the only move.
It was a cold move, he shot back. The kind of move they make.
His words struck a nerve deeper than any of Homelander's punches. He was right. I had leveraged a life as a strategic asset. I had become what I was pretending to be: a ruthless player in Vought's game.
The fallout wasn't contained to the network. Homelander summoned me to the Vought executive gymnasium, a cavernous space of polished chrome and imported hardwood where he enjoyed working out in full view of the sycophants and security cameras.
He was bench-pressing a stack of weights that would have crushed a tank, not a drop of sweat on his brow. He didn't look at me as I approached.
"Edgar's got a hard-on for this 'mole' of yours," he said, the weights clinking as he effortlessly re-racked them. "He's got Internal Security tearing the place apart. It's annoying."
I stood silently, feeling the eyes of the other Supes in the room. A-Train was on a treadmill, his speed a contemptuous blur. The Deep was pretending to do curls, his gaze slithering over me.
"He thinks you're useful," Homelander continued, finally turning his head, his blue eyes devoid of any warmth. "He thinks you have... insights. I think you're a lucky bastard who's good at creating chaos. Chaos can be useful. But it needs to be my chaos."
He stood up, looming over me. "This 'Shatterstar' pest. You've had enough time. I want him. In a body bag or in cuffs. I don't care which. But this ends now. Your little vacation is over. You're either my hunting dog, or you're the prey. Clear?"
The threat was absolute. He was reasserting dominance, pulling my leash tight. My "success" with Edgar had made me a political asset, and Homelander needed to remind everyone, especially me, where the real power resided.
"Crystal," I said, my voice flat.
"Good." He smiled, a flash of perfect white teeth. "Now get out of my sight. You're ruining my vibe."
That night, perched on the roof of the tower, I felt the walls closing in. The network was fragile. Homelander was impatient. Edgar was watching. And I was losing myself, one pragmatic, monstrous decision at a time.
Maeve found me there, as she often did. She didn't speak at first, just handed me a bottle of whiskey and stared out at the city.
"Kala won't talk to Marcus," I said, the words tasting bitter.
"Would you?" Maeve replied, taking a long swallow from the bottle. "You offered her protection and the next thing she knows, she's in a Vought interrogation room. From her perspective, you either couldn't protect her or you willingly sacrificed her. Either way, you failed."
"I saved her life."
"You preserved an asset," she corrected, her voice hard. "There's a difference. You're learning to think like them. It's how you survive. But don't confuse it for virtue."
She turned to face me, her expression stark in the moonlight. "This is the cost, Alex. This is the dirt that gets under your nails and never comes out. You want to beat them? You have to be willing to get dirty. You have to be willing to make the hard calls that leave people like Kala terrified and alone in the dark. The question is, when this is all over, if you win... will you be able to wash your hands? Or will you just be a cleaner, more efficient version of the monster you replaced?"
She left me with the bottle and her question, a poison that seeped into my bones. I had the Sibyl Code, a weapon to kill a god. I had a ghost network, a weapon to dismantle an empire. But I was beginning to fear that the most dangerous weapon was the one I was forging in my own soul—the capacity for cold, calculated cruelty in the name of a greater good.
Looking down at the city, I made a decision. Homelander wanted a show? Wanted me to hunt Marcus?
Fine.
But we wouldn't play his game. We would rewrite the rules. It was time for the ghost network to stop hiding and start speaking. It was time for "Shatterstar" to become a martyr.