Chapter 3: No
Stormfront didn't remember the elevator ride.
One moment she was in the underground garage, Annie January's face still lingering in the edge of her vision like a burn after staring into the sun. The next, the private elevator chimed softly as its doors slid open onto the penthouse.
The city spread beyond the glass walls in a blanket of white and amber lights. Rain still clung to the windows, streaking the skyline into blurred ribbons.
Home.
Order.
Control.
She stepped inside without turning on the lights.
Darkness suited her.
The elevator doors whispered shut behind her.
For several long seconds she simply stood there, listening.
The building breathed around her. Air conditioning. Hidden servers beneath the floor. The distant vibration of helicopters landing somewhere below.
Nothing else.
Good.
She shrugged off her jacket and tossed it onto the back of a chair.
Her knuckles had already healed.
Of course they had.
A pity.
Pain was useful.
Pain reminded you something was wrong.
She walked to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, stared blankly inside, then shut it again without taking anything.
The silence followed.
It should have been over.
Cupid's power had faded. She'd said as much herself.
Chemical residue.
Residual neural excitation.
An involuntary response to an external stimulus.
That was all.
Her reflection looked back from the darkened window.
Perfect posture.
Perfect hair.
Perfect control.
"...Ridiculous."
She reached into her pocket and withdrew her phone.
Almost unconsciously.
She frowned.
Why had she—
The lock screen lit up.
A Vought promotional wallpaper.
The Seven standing shoulder to shoulder.
Homelander in front.
Maeve beside him.
A-Train.
Black Noir.
Deep.
Stormfront.
Starlight.
Stormfront's eyes stopped.
Not on herself.
On Annie.
The photographer had caught her laughing at something outside the frame. It was obviously staged—Vought workshops genuine smiles for hours before every campaign—but somehow this one had escaped them. One corner of Annie's mouth sat slightly higher than the other. A tiny asymmetry.
Stormfront had never noticed it before.
She stared.
...
No.
She locked the phone.
The room was suddenly too warm.
She crossed to the thermostat.
Twenty degrees.
Normal.
Her skin prickled anyway.
She lowered it to sixteen.
Still warm.
She lowered it again.
Fourteen.
The compressors groaned somewhere inside the walls.
Cold air poured from hidden vents.
Better.
───
She walked into the study.
Every wall carried history.
Photographs.
Maps.
Military reports.
Most people would have mistaken them for reproductions.
They weren't.
Stormfront stopped before an old black-and-white photograph.
Berlin.
She and Frederick.
Young.
Victorious.
Certain.
Frederick's hand rested lightly against hers.
She remembered the day.
She remembered believing history itself belonged to them.
"We were right."
The words came automatically.
Like prayer.
Like breathing.
She waited.
Nothing answered.
Her eyes drifted.
Not to Frederick.
To herself.
Trying, absurdly, to remember...
what love had felt like.
She remembered respect.
Admiration.
Purpose.
Loyalty.
Possession.
She remembered building something together.
She remembered children.
Loss.
Grief.
But the sensation...
that frantic tightening in the chest...
that unbearable awareness of another person's smile...
No.
Not like this.
Never like this.
The realization landed with quiet, horrifying weight.
This wasn't memory.
It wasn't nostalgia.
It wasn't even comparable.
Whatever Cupid had done...
...it was something entirely different.
Stormfront's jaw tightened.
"A weapon."
The word steadied her.
Yes.
A neurochemical weapon.
Nothing mystical.
Nothing meaningful.
Just biology forced beyond its intended limits.
Her pulse slowed.
Better.
Something understandable.
Something that could be fought.
She turned away—
—and caught herself wondering whether Annie had ever seen a city from this height.
She froze.
The thought had appeared fully formed.
No reason.
No trigger.
No tactical value.
Just...
curiosity.
About Annie.
Stormfront shut her eyes.
"Again."
She deliberately pictured Homelander.
Nothing.
Maeve.
Nothing.
Ashley.
Contempt.
The Deep.
Disgust.
Annie.
...
Warmth.
Immediate.
Effortless.
Like stepping into sunlight.
Stormfront opened her eyes so violently her neck cracked.
"No."
She tried again.
Annie lying dead.
The image came.
And with it—
—not satisfaction.
A crushing pressure in her chest.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Stormfront staggered backwards as though she'd been struck.
Her breathing accelerated.
She hated weakness.
She hated hesitation.
She hated sentiment.
But more than any of those...
...she hated losing ownership of her own mind.
Her fist slammed into the concrete wall.
The entire penthouse shook.
Glass trembled.
Somewhere downstairs, an alarm briefly chirped before automatically resetting.
The wall had a crater the size of a dinner plate.
Stormfront stared at it.
Then hit it again.
Harder.
Concrete exploded across the room.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Each impact louder than the last.
Dust drifted through the air like grey snow.
When she finally stopped, the entire wall looked as though artillery had struck it.
Her breathing was perfectly steady again.
Good.
Violence made sense.
Violence was honest.
Violence belonged to her.
She looked down.
Her hand was already healing.
No evidence remained.
Only the ruined wall.
Only then did she notice her phone lying on the floor where she'd dropped it.
The screen had lit up from the impact.
The wallpaper was still there.
Annie was still smiling.
Stormfront walked over.
Picked it up.
Looked at the screen for exactly three seconds.
Then changed the wallpaper.
Not because looking at Annie frightened her.
Because it was compromising.
She selected the plain black default.
The smile disappeared.
Better.
...
It didn't help
The phone remained in her hand.
Black screen.
Blank.
Anonymous.
Better.
She set it face-down on the kitchen island.
Three steps away.
Stopped.
Turned.
Picked it back up.
Not because she wanted to.
Because she had just demonstrated a loss of impulse control.
That required observation.
Stormfront crossed to her desk.
Unlike the carefully curated modern aesthetic of the rest of the penthouse, the desk was old. Solid oak. German craftsmanship. One of the few possessions that had survived almost every identity she'd worn.
She sat.
Opened the bottom drawer.
Inside sat a stack of black notebooks.
Paper.
No cloud storage.
No servers.
No digital trail.
She selected the newest volume and uncapped a fountain pen.
The nib hovered over the page.
For several seconds she simply watched her own hand.
Then she wrote.
Incident Report
Date: ██/██/2020
Subject: Unknown metahuman neurological attack.
She paused.
No embellishment.
Emotion contaminated reports.
Facts only.
Exposure occurred at approximately 1538 hours.
Immediate symptoms included involuntary sexual attraction toward hostile target (Annie January).
Symptoms persisted following removal from source.
She frowned.
Persisted.
Too imprecise.
She struck the word through.
Symptoms continue despite presumed termination of external influence.
Better.
She continued writing.
Current manifestations:
▪ Elevated awareness of target.
▪ Intrusive cognition.
▪ Emotional interference during hypothetical kill assessment.
▪ Reduced confidence in subjective perception.
Stormfront stopped.
The last line irritated her.
Confidence.
Not capability.
Important distinction.
She underlined it.
Her capability remained unchanged.
Only perception had become unreliable.
That could be corrected.
Everything could be corrected.
───
She leaned back.
Read the page once.
Twice.
Then quietly tore it from the notebook.
Folded it into quarters.
Walked to the fireplace.
Held it over the flame.
The paper curled black.
Ash drifted upward.
No evidence.
No weakness.
No record.
...
Her eyes remained fixed on the burning paper.
A strange thought surfaced.
Annie would probably complain about the smoke.
Stormfront shut her eyes.
There it was again.
No warning.
No trigger.
Not desire this time.
Just...
an observation.
One that came with a peculiar certainty.
Annie would wrinkle her nose.
Wave the smoke away with one hand.
Probably smile apologetically before asking her to crack open a window.
Stormfront's jaw clenched.
"Stop."
Silence.
She opened her eyes again.
The image remained.
Detailed.
Far too detailed.
She had never burned anything in Annie's presence.
She had no empirical basis for the assumption.
Her own brain was inventing behaviour.
Filling gaps.
Humanising the target.
She disliked that even more than the attraction.
Attraction was chemistry.
This...
This was narrative.
Her mind was constructing a person where there should only be an objective.
That was dangerous.
───
She crossed the room in three strides and opened another cabinet.
Inside were dozens of folders.
Paper.
Personnel files.
Contingencies.
Psychological profiles.
She found the one labelled:
JANUARY, ANNIE
Vought always kept copies.
Stormfront preferred paper.
Paper couldn't be hacked.
She carried the file to the dining table.
Opened it.
Page one.
Name.
Height.
Weight.
Blood type.
Power output estimates.
Psychological assessments.
Media approval ratings.
Weaknesses.
Stormfront smiled.
Better.
This was Annie January.
Not...
whatever the parasite wanted her to become.
She read.
Raised in Iowa.
Religious upbringing.
Pageant background.
High empathy.
Persistent moral idealism.
Predictable behavioural patterns.
Naïve.
Useful.
Weak.
The warmth receded.
Slightly.
Stormfront felt something close to relief.
Good.
Reality still existed.
She turned another page.
Photographs.
Professional headshots.
Combat stills.
Press events.
One image caught her attention.
Annie laughing.
Not at a camera.
At someone standing just outside the frame.
Stormfront frowned.
The report didn't identify the event.
It wasn't important.
Yet...
she found herself studying the photograph.
Trying to determine what had been funny.
Who had spoken.
How long Annie had laughed afterwards.
Her fingers tightened around the page.
"...No."
She shut the file.
Hard enough that the sound echoed through the apartment.
That wasn't analysis.
Analysis answered questions.
This was...
interest.
Unproductive.
Compromised.
She stood abruptly.
The chair tipped backwards and struck the floor.
Enough.
She had been approaching the problem incorrectly.
She was treating this like contamination.
It wasn't.
It was conditioning.
Conditioning could be broken.
She had seen it broken before.
Soldiers.
Prisoners.
Children.
Even adults.
The human brain adapted.
It could also be made to readapt.
Stormfront looked toward the clock.
8:11 PM.
Forty-nine minutes until patrol.
Good.
Field testing.
There was no better laboratory than direct exposure.
If the symptoms intensified...
she would know.
If they diminished...
she would know that too.
Either way...
she would begin understanding the enemy occupying her own mind.