The main street was nothing special. A stretch of tired storefronts, a laundromat with a flickering sign, a pawn shop that looked like it had been robbed so many times the owner had just given up. But Jack knew this street. The original owner had walked it every day for years, head down, shoulders hunched, trying to be invisible. Now Jack walked it with a different kind of stride. Not hurried, not slow. Just… deliberate. Like someone who had nowhere to be and nothing to fear.
The shop was exactly where the memory said it would be. A narrow front wedged between a discount furniture place and a vape store that always smelled like burnt cotton candy. The sign above the door read Electronics & Repairs, but it was the kind of place that sold old DVD players to old people who didn't know how to use the internet. A relic. A front, maybe, for something else. Or maybe just a shitty business run by a tired man who had given up on his dreams and was just waiting for the landlord to finally evict him so he could stop pretending.
In the show, it had been Hughie's place. The boy with the sad eyes and the dead girlfriend, the one who had watched his love turn into red mist on a city street and then spent the rest of his life trying to make sense of it, trying to find justice in a world that had none, trying to be a good man in a business that ate good men for breakfast. But Jack didn't see anyone who looked like Hughie through the dusty glass.Just a fat guy behind the counter, a man who had settled into his body like it was a sofa he couldn't get out of, and a younger kid stacking boxes of cables.
He pushed the door open. A little bell chimed overhead.
The inside was cramped. Shelves lined the walls, packed with dusty electronics, components in unlabeled boxes, stacks of old phones that nobody wanted.
Behind the counter, the fat guy looked up. Forty, maybe fifty, with a gut that strained against a polo shirt that had seen better decades. His hair was thin, combed over a shiny scalp. He had the dead-eyed look of a man who had been watching the world pass him by for too long. He forced a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Yeah, man, what do you want to buy? We got best video CD players, stereo systems, we got—"
Jack didn't let him finish. He stepped up to the counter, leaned in close, close enough that the guy could see the new clarity in his eyes.
"Shove your fucking products up your ass," Jack said, his voice low and pleasant. He made a gesture with his hand, a little flick toward the shelves. "Now. Where's the computer? The one you record the cameras on."
The fat guy's smile froze. His eyes flicked, just for a second, to a corner of the ceiling. Jack followed the look. A camera angled just right to catch the front door and most of the counter. The kind of camera you put up to watch for shoplifters. Or to watch for something else.The kind of camera that saw things and kept them, that stored them away in digital files that could be reviewed and rewound and scrutinized.
The young worker, a kid maybe nineteen, with a patchy beard that looked like it had been glued on and too much confidence that came from never having been punched in the face, had been stacking boxes of cables nearby. He heard the tone, heard the words, heard the way Jack said shove your fucking products up your ass like it was nothing, like it was the most natural thing in the world. He straightened up, his face flushing red, the red of embarrassment and anger and the particular fury of young men who think they have something to prove.
"Hey, asshole!" the kid said, stepping forward. "Who the fuck do you think you are? You think you can just walk in here and talk to us like that? You think you're something? Huh? You think you're a big man? Why are you disturbing our business? You want me to call the police, huh? I'll fucking call them. I'll call them right now, and they'll come down here and shove your face through the fucking floor. You think you're tough? You think you can just walk in here and—"
The fat guy found his voice, too, emboldened by the kid's bluster. He pointed a stubby finger at Jack's chest, his jowls trembling with righteous indignation. "Yeah! Fuck off, man! Fuck right off! Don't come in here acting tough like you from the FBI or some shit. You don't want what comes with that. This is my shop. My fucking shop. I pay taxes here. I have rights. You don't get to walk in here like you own the place and—"
Jack smiled.
It was the kind of smile a man gives when he's already decided how the conversation is going to end. He let them run their mouths, let them get it all out, let them build up that fragile little castle of bravado.
Then he spoke.
"I was giving you a chance, you know," he said, his voice soft. Almost gentle. "I was being polite. I was being reasonable. I didn't come in here swinging my dick around. I just asked a question." He tilted his head, looking at the kid, then back at the fat guy. "But you two. You two want to act like you've got a pair. You want to puff up your chests and talk about police, about shoving my face through floors. Like you're something. Like you matter in this world."
He laughed with his arms opened a little, a gesture of what? Generosity? Contempt? Both? The laugh was short, a single syllable that contained no humor at all.
"Looks like you won't understand until you see a dick in your ass. So let me show you what happens when you say no to me."
He didn't even look at the kid. He just flicked a finger in his direction, a casual gesture, like he was brushing away a fly.
The electricity didn't arc. It shot. A thin, blue-white bolt that crackled across the space between them, faster than the eye could follow, faster than the kid could react. It was beautiful, in a way, the way lightning is beautiful, the way destruction is beautiful when you're the one holding the match. The bolt hit the kid square in the chest, right over his heart, right where his cheap t-shirt had a little logo for a band nobody had ever heard of.
The kid's body went rigid. His eyes flew wide, his mouth opened in a silent scream, and then he was on the ground. Not twitching. Not spasming. Just… down. Out cold. A thin wisp of smoke rose from the singed fabric of his shirt.
The fat guy stared. His face went from red to white in the space of a heartbeat. His mouth hung open, a perfect O, and for a moment he looked like a painting, like one of those old portraits of people who had seen something that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.His hand, still frozen in the air where he'd been pointing, began to tremble. Sweat broke out on his forehead, beaded on his upper lip, dripped down his temples. His whole body shook.
Jack watched him for a moment, letting the silence do its work. Then he let out another short laugh, shaking his head.
"Relax," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "I didn't kill him. I just sent a little jolt. Enough to make him take a nap. You know, like putting a dog to sleep. He'll wake up in a few hours with a headache and a story he won't tell anyone because nobody would fucking believe him." He leaned forward again, his elbows on the counter, his face close to the fat guy's. His voice dropped to a whisper. "But if you don't give me what I'm asking for… then I can't be sure. You understand? I came here for something. I'm leaving with it. The only question is whether you're conscious when I walk out that door."
The fat guy moved fast. Faster than Jack expected for a man his size. He dropped to his knees behind the counter, fumbled with something, and came up with a laptop. A cheap one, scratched and worn, that had been tucked away under the register, hidden from casual view. He placed it on the counter with shaking hands, nearly dropping it twice.
"Here," the fat guy gasped. "Here. It's all here. The recordings. Everything. Please. Please, man. I got a daughter at home. I got a little girl. Please. I didn't— I don't know what you want, I don't care, just take it, take it, just leave, please—"
Jack ignored him. He flipped open the laptop. It was already on, the screen saver a generic blue. He navigated to the recording software, found the file structure, and started scrolling.
Days. Weeks. He wasn't interested in the old stuff. He went back to a week ago, then five days, then three. The footage was grainy, the time stamps flickering in the corner. The camera only showed the front door and the counter. He watched sped-up footage of customers coming and going, the kid stocking shelves, the fat guy sitting on his stool and picking his nose.
Then he saw it.
Two days ago. A time stamp that read 3:47 AM..
The screen showed a car—a 1970s Chevrolet Chevelle pulling up to the curb like it owned the pavement. Inside the shop, that translucent cunt had Hughie backed against a shelf, fist already cocked back, his knuckles starting to materialize mid-swing. The car never slowed. It didn't even brake. It just drove straight through the glass front like the world was made of paper—glass exploding inward, metal frames twisting with a sound like bones breaking, the whole front end chewing through shelves and countertops until it came to a dead stop with a cough of dust and antifreeze.
Then Butcher was out the door before the dust even settled, and the fight that followed wasn't a fight. It was a butcher at work. He had Translucent on the ground in three seconds flat, boot to the ribs, fist to the face, the invisible cunt flickering in and out of sight every time a knuckle split his skin. It was ugly—the kind of ugly that makes you feel your own teeth. Hughie stood frozen at first, just watching with that look of a rabbit that's already been gutted but doesn't know it yet. But when Translucent got his bearings and threw Butcher off, when he started to rise with murder in his half-visible eyes, Hughie moved like a man possessed. He grabbed the jumper cables—the same ones from the back of the Chevelle—and jammed the clamps into the bastard's neck. Translucent seized up, his whole body going rigid, veins lighting up under his skin like cracked neon, and then he dropped. Just dropped. Face-first into the broken glass.
They put him down together after that—fast, dirty, efficient. Butcher caved his skull in with a tire iron while Hughie held the cables steady, the both of them breathing hard.
Jack watched them carry the invisible man into the billy car. Hughie was shaking, visibly shaking, his mouth moving in what looked like a constant stream of words. Butcher was calm. He was talking, too, leaning close to Hughie, his face a mask of cold reassurance. The body disappeared inside. Then Butcher came back out, said something to Hughie, something that made the young man's face go even whiter. Hughie nodded, got back in the car. Butcher glanced around the street, his eyes passing over the camera for a brief moment—Jack held his breath, but the man didn't stop—and then he got in the driver's seat. Then the charlotte pulled away.
Jack rewound it. He watched it again. Committed every detail to memory. The license plate. The make and model. The exact time. The way Butcher moved, the way Hughie looked like a man drowning in his own life.
He shut the laptop.
The fat guy was still there, still shaking, still sweating. He was staring at Jack like he was looking at a bomb that hadn't gone off yet. His hands were clasped on the counter, fingers laced together, white-knuckled.
Jack slid the laptop back across the counter. The fat guy flinched, then grabbed it, fumbled it, clutched it to his chest like a shield.
"I'm not taking it," Jack said. "I got what I needed."
He turned away. Took two steps toward the door. Then he stopped. He looked back over his shoulder.
The fat guy made a sound. A whimper, barely audible. His eyes were wide, his mouth trembling. He looked like he was waiting for the bullet.
Jack let the silence stretch. Let the fat guy marinate in his own fear. Then he smiled again. That same cold, terrible smile.
"One piece of advice," Jack said. "When someone comes in here and asks you a question, you answer it. You don't run your mouth. You don't get your little helper to threaten them. You just answer. Because next time, it won't be a nap. You understand?"
The fat guy nodded so fast his head looked like it might come loose. "Yeah. Yeah. I understand. I understand. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't— I didn't know—"
"You didn't know I could fry your brain through your eyeballs," Jack finished for him. "Now you do. Keep that in mind."
He walked out. The little bell chimed again, cheerful and stupid.
The street was the same as before. The same tired storefronts, the same distant sounds of traffic, the same blue sky pressing down on everything.
He had the license plate. And he knew that somewhere in this city, somewhere in one of the abandoned warehouses or forgotten buildings that littered the edges of this world, Butcher and his little team had an invisible supe locked in a cage, waiting for the end.
But Jack wasn't going to let them have that end. That end belonged to him.
He started walking, his mind already working. Tracking Butcher. Finding the hideout. Getting to Translucent before The Boys did anything permanent. Because the original owner's hatred wasn't going to be satisfied by a bullet to the head. It wanted something more. Something personal.
He pulled out his phone—the original owner's phone, a cheap thing with a cracked screen—and started searching for vehicle registration databases. There were ways. There were always ways, if you had the patience.
As he walked, he muttered to himself, the words lost in the noise of the street.
"One down. One to go. Then the milk-drinker gets his turn."
He thought of Translucent, the invisible bastard, the one who had stood there while Homelander burned two people to ash. The one who had watched and done nothing. The one who had the power to stop it, maybe, if he'd had the balls to try. But he hadn't. He'd just stood there, invisible, useless, a fucking coward in a shiny skin.
Jack's hands curled into fists. The air around them crackled, just for a second, just a whisper of blue light that made a passing woman look at him and cross to the other side of the street.
He didn't notice. He was already gone, already in his own head, already hunting.
The burning hatred in his chest flared again, feeding on the memory of the footage, on the thought of Translucent wrapped in a tarp, helpless, waiting. It was close. So close.
He needed to find that hideout. He needed to get there first. And then, when he had the invisible bastard alone, when there was no one to see, no one to stop him…
He smiled.
"I'm coming for you, you shiny cunt," he whispered. "And I'm going to make you wish you'd never been born."
....