Compound V. The mayor of Baltimore. And they have others.
Translucent was vibrating with excitement.
He knew Superman was hiding something. The pieces were finally coming together into a picture that grew more fascinating by the second. He had never dared eavesdrop on Vought's senior management meetings—the risks were too high, and the building's motion sensors had kept him at bay ever since Homelander made his position perfectly clear. But Superman had just done the work for him, entirely by accident, out in the open, while trying to mask a covert meeting as a casual drink between friends.
An unknown organization was using Superman as an inside asset against Vought International.
The thought made his skin tingle. An invisible game was being played at a level he hadn't imagined, and he had stumbled right into it in a dive bar just because he was bored, bitter, and happened to own a cheap hoodie. The coincidence was perfect.
What kind of operation was this? And he had walked straight into the center of it.
He kept enough composure to think instead of blindly reacting, which was the most rationality Translucent usually managed. He pulled out his phone.
He sent two messages to Homelander.
Why Homelander? Because everyone in the building knew exactly how Homelander felt about Superman's arrival. The man wanted Clark gone. An excuse, a justification, any thread to pull—Homelander would take it immediately. He was also the only member of The Seven capable of actually handling a problem of this scale.
But Translucent kept the first message brief. He wasn't ready to share everything yet. He wanted to uncover more details on his own: who this mysterious group was, what Compound V actually meant, and what dark secrets Superman was keeping from his new teammates. Gathering the leverage before handing it over was the only way to stay in control.
He gave Homelander just enough to serve as a safety net. Superman was drinking with an old friend at a bar and currently walking toward a specific neighborhood. It was nothing sensitive—just a general location rather than a precise destination, letting Homelander know where he had been without revealing exactly where he was going.
If anything went wrong, Homelander had enough to trace his last known position. That was the backup plan: hold out long enough for help to arrive, and rely on his defensive skin to buy the necessary time. His hardened diamond skin had stopped attacks that would kill most metahumans. He wasn't afraid of an ordinary human, and he wasn't afraid of whatever non-powered associates this organization used.
He pocketed the phone and followed Jude down the street.
The pace was strange.
Jude walked at an even, unhurried rate, covering ground with absolute patience. No taxi, no rideshare, no transportation at all. Just footsteps on concrete, block after block.
It should have been an easy tail. In fact, it was too easy. That was the problem.
Something felt wrong. The unease had started about four blocks back and hadn't gone away. Why was he walking so slowly? It felt deliberate, like he was pacing himself to an exact interval to make himself easy to follow.
Translucent stared at Jude's back. He looked like an ordinary man. No visible powers, no enhanced senses recorded in any Vought file.
But ordinary people didn't notice Translucent. Nobody noticed Translucent unless they already knew he was there.
He was still trying to work through the logic when Jude stopped.
The building was narrow, wedged between two older structures in a way that made it blend into the background. The windows were dark, no interior lights were visible, and it looked completely abandoned. Jude walked up the steps and knocked.
No response.
A mysterious organization, Translucent thought, that apparently can't afford a light switch.
He surveyed the front carefully. The building looked completely empty. Jude didn't seem bothered. He knocked a second time.
Then a car turned onto the street.
It pulled up to the curb, and the man who stepped out was recognizable instantly by his heavy build and sharp posture. He moved with the guarded energy of someone used to threats. He smelled faintly of alcohol from a bar.
Billy Butcher.
Translucent knew him from the surveillance footage—the man who had met with the police contact and stolen dispatch records from under a table.
Butcher froze when he spotted Jude at the door. His hand moved toward his waist, his eyes instantly scanning the full length of the street with practiced efficiency.
"You?" Butcher's voice was low and sharp. "How in the hell did you find this place you bastard?"
Jude turned away from the door and walked back to the curb calmly.
"Nice to see you too," Jude said. "Last time you called me a bastard I let it slide because you were having a bad day. But I did tell you my name. You usually have a good memory, Butcher—the arm is proof of that."
Butcher's jaw tightened. His hand twitched toward his forearm, a brief reflex over an old, healed injury, before he stopped himself.
"Listen to me very carefully," Butcher said, his voice dropping lower. "I don't care how you found this place. I'm telling you right now: if it happens again, I'll deal with you before I deal with Vought. Are we clear?"
"We're clear." Jude glanced back at the building. "Not a great place to talk out here. Should we go in?"
"I don't particularly want to—"
"It's about Vought."
A silence hung between them for a few seconds.
Butcher stared at him.
"Your Superman friend," Butcher said, his tone flat and ungratified, "still hasn't seen through you? He has x-ray vision and somehow the one thing he can't see is what you actually are?"
"Do you want to hear what I have or not?"
The words reached Translucent perfectly. He had moved to the side of the building, close enough to hear everything without stepping into their line of sight.
Translucent studied Butcher—the set of his shoulders, the coarse language, the careful calculation beneath his rough exterior. The organization clearly recruited a specific type of person.
But what mattered most was what Butcher had said during the argument.
Deal with Vought.
That was all the proof he needed. Whatever questions remained about Jude's ties, Butcher had just answered them with words loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. This was an active anti-Vought operation with at least two known members, a link to the Baltimore political situation, and intelligence on Compound V.
Translucent pressed his back against the wall and pulled out his phone again.
He wasn't worried about Jude—no powers, no special detection, nothing to sense him. His main concern was the other members of this group. An organization running a covert operation against Vought wouldn't survive with just normal humans. Supes had to be involved, and at least one might have abilities he hadn't prepared for.
He typed in the safehouse address and sent it to Homelander.
By then, Butcher had made his choice. He drove the car into the garage in a wide, deliberate arc, the vehicle disappearing into the structure. Translucent moved quickly, slipping through the narrowing gap as the garage door rolled down.
The interior was dim, smelling of oil and old concrete. Jude was already standing inside.
As the garage door hit the floor with a heavy metallic thud, Jude looked directly toward the corner where the invisible Translucent stood.
Jude smiled.
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