Chapter 27: THE MEDICAL TRAP
Ashley Barrett's assistant called at 7:03 AM.
"Mr. Vaughn, this is Christina from Ms. Barrett's office. Ms. Barrett would like to schedule a medical evaluation at Vought facilities. Standard procedure for anyone displaying enhanced characteristics. Would tomorrow at 2 PM work for your schedule?"
I'd been expecting this call for eighteen hours. Frenchie's disinformation had bought time, but not enough to prevent the request entirely—just enough to make it seem routine instead of urgent.
"A medical evaluation," I said carefully. "What exactly does that involve?"
"Standard health screening. Blood work, physical assessment, cognitive baseline testing. Nothing invasive. Vought provides these services free of charge to public figures who may have been exposed to enhanced individuals."
"Blood work," I thought. "That's the trap."
I knew from the show exactly what Vought's "standard health screening" involved: Compound V detection panels, genetic markers for synthetic enhancement, a full workup designed to identify anyone who'd been dosed without authorization. If my blood showed no V—which it wouldn't, because my powers weren't V-based—Vought would know immediately that something unprecedented was happening.
And if their scientists looked closely enough at my biology, they might detect the Narrative Field's physical effects. The system was woven into my cells now, part of my structure. Advanced testing would find... something. Something that didn't match any known enhancement protocol.
"I appreciate the offer," I said. "But I'm going to decline."
A pause on the other end.
"Mr. Vaughn, this is standard procedure. It's for your own safety as well as public health considerations. The evaluation is completely confidential."
"I understand. And I'm still declining."
"Ms. Barrett will be disappointed. She—"
"Tell Ms. Barrett that my medical information is private. If Vought wants my blood, they can get a court order."
I hung up.
The tweet went out at 7:47 AM:
@HarleyVaughn: Vought just asked me to come in for a "medical evaluation." Translation: they want my blood. I'm not their lab rat. Are you?
Eighty thousand engagements in four hours. The anti-corporate left retweeted it with commentary about medical privacy. The conspiracy right shared it as evidence of Vought's sinister intentions. The Mythmaker community rallied around the narrative of their hero standing up to corporate overreach.
[BELIEF EVENT: PUBLIC DEFIANCE]
["ANTI-VOUGHT HERO" SEED: 4,200 → 4,890 (+690)]
["MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN" SEED: 1,100 → 1,340 (+240)]
The seeds climbed. The engagement spread. And somewhere in Vought Tower, Ashley Barrett was probably watching the same metrics and calculating how much this would cost her.
"She'll escalate," I knew. "But first, she'll try to control the damage."
I called Nadia Kazan at 11 AM.
She answered on the second ring, voice flat and professional. "You're calling me. That's new."
"I have something you might want."
"A story, or information?"
"Both." I kept my voice steady. "Vought is pressuring me for a medical evaluation. They want blood samples. I refused, and I'm expecting them to escalate. I thought you might be interested in the privacy angle."
Silence for three seconds.
"You're using me as a shield," she said.
"Yes."
"You're not even going to pretend this is about journalism?"
"Would you prefer I pretended? You'd see through it anyway."
A sound that might have been a laugh, muffled quickly.
"You're right," she admitted. "I would." A pause. "The story is real. Vought demanding medical access to a private citizen is newsworthy, regardless of your motivations for telling me. But you understand that I'm still investigating you. This doesn't change that."
"I know."
"And you're giving me this anyway."
"Because right now, your investigation is less dangerous than Vought's medical lab. I'd rather you ask questions I can deflect than let Vought take samples that answer questions I can't."
Another pause. Longer this time.
"That's... remarkably honest," she said. "For you."
"I'm trying something new."
Nadia's article went up at 4 PM:
"Vought Demands Medical Access to Viral Hero — Privacy Advocates Respond"
The piece was balanced—it included Vought's statement about "routine health screening" and Harley Vaughn's refusal citing "personal medical privacy"—but the framing favored the privacy angle. Comments filled with people sharing their own stories about corporate overreach, medical data concerns, the principle of bodily autonomy.
[ARTICLE IMPACT DETECTED]
[NARRATIVE FRICTION: 9.2% → 6.4% (-2.8%)]
[NOTE: KAZAN'S AUDIENCE RESPONDING TO CIVIL LIBERTIES FRAMING, NOT MYTHMAKER INVESTIGATION]
I watched the Friction percentage drop in real time.
For months, Nadia's skeptic-heavy audience had been a constant drag on my belief generation—people who doubted the Mythmaker narrative, who asked uncomfortable questions, who generated negative pressure against my growth. Now that same audience was defending me. Not because they believed I was special, but because they believed Vought didn't have the right to demand anyone's blood.
"Principles over personalities," I realized. "She's most useful to me when she's defending principles, not investigating me."
The text from Nadia came at 6:30 PM:
Nadia Kazan: You owe me an honest answer to one question. I'll collect later.
I stared at the message for a long time.
"One honest answer." To a journalist whose entire purpose was finding truths I couldn't afford to reveal. To the woman who'd been investigating me since before the crystallization, who'd noticed inconsistencies nobody else had, who'd asked "how did you know?" about the V-kid and never gotten a satisfactory answer.
She could ask about the system. About the meta-knowledge. About how a stunt coordinator knew things only Vought scientists should know. About the real reason I'd refused the medical evaluation.
I couldn't afford to say no. She'd done me a favor—a real one, with real consequences for her professional reputation. Refusing to pay the debt would burn the bridge entirely.
But I couldn't afford to tell her the truth either.
"Which truth?" I thought. "Which piece of the puzzle can I afford to give her?"
I typed a response:
@HarleyVaughn: Fair. I'll be ready when you ask.
Then I put the phone down and tried to figure out which lie would sound enough like honesty to satisfy her.
The encrypted line rang at 9:47 PM.
"Harley Vaughn." The voice was rough, British, familiar from a hundred hours of watching a television show that had been my favorite before I died. "Frenchie says you're interesting. Kimiko says you smell wrong. I say I want to know what the fuck you actually are."
Billy Butcher.
"The big man."
"I've been wondering when you'd call," I said.
"Yeah, well, I've been busy. Turns out there's a lot of Supes need killing and not enough hours in the day." A pause. "But you—you're a different kind of problem. A bloke who takes hits he shouldn't survive, knows things he shouldn't know, and tells Vought to go fuck themselves on national television. That's either very brave or very stupid."
"Which one do you think?"
"Jury's still out." Another pause. "But I'm curious enough to meet face-to-face. Somewhere public, broad daylight, lots of witnesses. You understand why."
"You want to see how I handle being observed."
"I want to see how you handle me." The roughness in his voice shifted, something almost like amusement underneath. "Tomorrow. Noon. That diner in Astoria you met Kazan at. Come alone—but you already know that."
He hung up.
I stared at the phone.
Billy Butcher wanted to meet. The man who'd killed more Supes than anyone alive. The man whose hatred was so pure it had become its own kind of superpower.
And I was going to walk into that meeting carrying secrets that would make him either my greatest ally or my most dangerous enemy.
"No pressure," I thought.
The system offered no advice. Some decisions, apparently, were mine alone.
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