Direction

“Wha’s this?”
“They’re animated clips with impressive animals in them. Apparently they’re all the rage these days.”

I put a video on my phone and held it out to Amos without preamble. What played was a children’s cartoon with nothing much to it, the ordinary kind where the hero climbs into magnificent animal-shaped giant robots and beats down monsters. The clip I’d picked was a compilation of nothing but the protagonist’s robot-boarding scenes, so it showed each type off nicely. Tiger robot, lion robot, rhino robot, gorilla robot, and on and on. A feast of powerful animals, the sort small children go wild for.

Amos’s eyes, fixed on the phone screen, lit up. Before I knew it she was sunk deep in the animation I was showing her.

“Sooo cool!”
“Aren’t they, though?”

From an angle where Amos couldn’t see, I clenched my fist tight. She had taken the bait I’d cast so carefully, and taken it beautifully. All that was left was to reel her in gently, gently enough that she would never notice it was bait.

“If you could make a Villain that looked like this and show it to the world, wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Sounds like it’d be fun… But big Villains are hard to make! Makin’ big strong ones gets me all tired…”

Amos’s gaze slid to the human-faced octopus. The man who had been raging and roaring only moments before had gone quiet, watching the two of us with unease. Hoping, probably, that I would work hard at coaxing her.

She was almost all the way over, so I worked in a little push and pull.

“Then there’s nothing to be done. I’m sure a Villain made by Director Amos would have looked better than anything in this clip, though…”
“Ngh…!”

“If Director Amos says her strength isn’t up to it, then it can’t be helped. We’ll just have to make do with this octopus.”
“I-, I never said I couldn’t!!”

Face flaring, Amos snatched up the human-faced octopus.

“I’ll show ya! Jus’ how amazin’ I am…!”

— Fwoooosh—!!

In her hands the human-faced octopus began to swell.

This is…?

The shape that turned your stomach at a glance shifted, slowly. Eight tentacles thickened into muscular arms and legs. Fur swept over the torso, black and orange stripes coming in with it. And for the finishing touch, a face gone wholly animal, and a shaggy mane besides.

“Done…! It’s a sooper strong Liger Villain!”

A liger: the hybrid of a lion and a tiger. Whether such a thing actually exists I couldn’t say, but the Villain in front of me was genuinely impressive. Well over two meters tall, and that was before you got to the tiger’s stripes and the lion’s mane. Set beside the animation it lost nothing at all; the look was magnificent.

“That’s Director Amos for you! Everyone, a round of applause for Director Amos, please!”
“Uh, uhh…?”
“Quickly, now!”

— Clap, clap-clap.

The people who had been staring blankly at the Liger Villain clapped for her, one after another. Moments earlier they had been screaming, running, sunk in panic; now, having watched Amos’s Gift work, they had their awe back. Without my ‘Future Observation’ Gift, no such turnaround would have been possible.

“Uuugh… I’m all worn out… I’m sleepy an’ hungry…”
“Director Amos!”

— Flump.

Amos swayed, and I caught her just before she hit the floor. She was so small and light that it hardly felt like I was holding anything at all. Eyes half open, she spoke as though mumbling.

“Did I do good…?”
“Sorry?”
“I said… did I do good.”

Her question pulled a small laugh out of me. That craving to be praised was no different from any other small child’s. One use of her Gift had laid her out flat, and I carefully swept the bangs back off her forehead.

“You did very well.”
“…”
“I’ll be counting on you from here on, too. It may be a little hard on you, but the TF team’s results rest on you, Director.”

“Cheeky… for jus’ a No. 1…”

“Sorry?”

The words were chilling enough that I looked down at her before I could stop myself. Her eyes were already shut. Sleep-talk, maybe, that last line? The thought that she might wake up and turn my arm into an insect left me a little on edge.

“Director Amos is tired today, so we’ll be halting the experiment here. Does anyone have an objection?”

I kept my voice low so as not to wake her. The others, none of them daring to make a sound either, shook their heads hard. Their faces said they knew perfectly well what would break loose if anyone woke Amos, breathing soft and even as she was.

As long as I have Amos with me, I’m invincible.

…Let’s push one step further.

I swallowed hard and crossed to Jo Eunhye. Team leader of Team 3 in the Villain Research Office, and the person appointed overall team leader of the TF team. She looked back at me with a dazed face.

“I’ll take the Director out first. Team Leader, would you take the researchers and explain the schedule to the test subjects. Please note that Villainization will only be carried out once every day or two.”
“Y-, yes?”
“Would the Combat Analysis and Evaluation Office people take the man who was Villainized today and measure his combat capability. And I’d ask the Villain Planning and Management Office people and the Strategic Analysis Office people to go along as well.”

The looks from the people around me turned strange. Jo Eunhye was plainly the team leader, so did they have to do what this man told them? You could see them weighing it. And of course there was one who flared up without weighing anything at all.

“Got the Director behind you, so now you’re staging a little insubordination?”

Hong Jangwoo, dragging that limp octopus leg, barely managing to plant himself in front of me. One look at those bloodshot eyes and I knew exactly what he wanted to say. Was Team 2 of the Strategic Analysis Office supposed to take orders from the likes of Team 5?

“I judged that to be the plan with the highest chance of actually working.”
“Chance of working, my ass… You think you’re somebody now, don’t you?”

— Jab.

Hong Jangwoo’s index finger dug into my chest.

“You’re nothing. The moment this TF team gets disbanded, you won’t even get to look me in the face.”
“…”
“Let’s know our place and quit showing off, shall we? Hm?”

“Senior Hong Jangwoo.”

— Snatch.

I caught the hand jabbing at my chest, and laid it down on top of Amos’s. I felt Hong Jangwoo’s hand flinch, then start shaking in spasms. He had something he badly wanted to say; I watched his face and smiled broadly.

“Shh. Stay still. What are you going to do if the Director wakes up over this?”
“…You.”
“I imagine our senior here wouldn’t manage so much as a squeak, and would keep perfectly still.”

I let go of his pitifully trembling hand.

“Let’s not do this while the Director is asleep — we’ll talk again when she’s awake. I’m curious myself what sort of reaction she’d have.”
“…Don’t go thinking the TF team is the end of it.”
“I’ll take my senior’s advice to heart, dutiful junior that I am.”

Hong Jangwoo shot me a glare and shambled away. He knew it too. What sort of reaction she would have if I woke Amos right now and let her hear what he had said. No. 1, childcare detail, whatever they wanted to treat me as. The one with Amos’s wholehearted backing right now was me.

“Team Leader Jo, I’m sorry. You’ve had to see something you shouldn’t have.”
“…”
“What do you think, Team Leader? About the direction of the Villainization.”

Team Leader Jo Eunhye’s throat moved faintly. Her eyes went uneasily back and forth between Amos and me. She had a great deal on her mind, most likely. Anyone who had made team leader of Team 3 in the Villain Research Office had to be a seasoned hand in her own right, which meant she knew roughly how the company worked. And if she was still weighing it, still not trusting me…

“Team Leader Jo Eunhye.”
“Sorry? Yes.”
“If we make good use of Director Amos’s Gift, the TF team will do well for certain. You saw it yourself, Team Leader.”

I raised a hand and pointed at one of the Villains. The huge Liger Villain, a shade over two meters. The man who had been on the verge of tears only moments before was already looking himself over in a frenzy.

“At team leader level, the incentives that come with successful results must be considerable.”
“…”
“I won’t ask you to hand those over, so would you let me take the lead on this TF team?”

A statement that used the TF team’s success as bait to grab the wheel. Arrogant, looked at one way. Fortunately she was neither part of my office nor my direct superior, and she was the kind of talent who would have been knocking around this absurd company for years.

— Bow.

Jo Eunhye abruptly bent at the waist and bowed to me.

“Director Amos, I’ll be in your care from here on.”
“I’ll do my very best.”

— Click-clack.

The sound of Jo Eunhye’s heels receded. Which also meant she had yielded the TF team’s real leadership to me. As team leader she would take home the bigger share of the incentives that came with results, but so what.

Results matter more than money.

Money, if it came to it, was something I could simply make through Hero Gamble. About a quarter of that money had already gone into the stock account Scorpion had gotten hold of for me. Watch the stock news in spare moments, buy and sell, and the money makes itself.

Results over money. That would be my motto at this company.

A week had passed since the day I took the actual running of the team over from Jo Eunhye.

“No. 1! I drawed another one!”
“Oh, really? Now I’m looking forward to this.”

I was in the middle of work when Amos came scurrying over. She had a sheet of paper in her hand, torn out of a sketchbook by the look of it, and there was a drawing on it.

“Hmm… that’s a fine cockroach monster, isn’t it?”
“Nuh-uh!! It’s an eagle monster!”
“Ah, aha! So it is. My eyes haven’t been good lately…”

The drawing, crayon-colored by Amos herself, was in fact a ‘Villainization Forecast Sketch’.

The Villainization Gift consumes imagination. And it consumes it on a monstrous scale.

I had been observing Amos’s Gift steadily from beside her. It manifests only if she touches the body part she wants. If she pushes past that one part to affect the whole body, it costs ‘concentration’, much the way my Future Observation brings on a headache when it fires several times in a row. Use the power too much and she gets sleepy. And if the direction of the Villainization isn’t concrete, ‘concentration’ goes the same way.

To keep the concentration spent to a minimum, I had bought Amos a crayon-and-sketchbook set.

“It’s an eagle, but it shoots fire outta its feet. So it flies through the sky an’ fireballs come rainin’ down, pitter-patter-patter.”
“That does sound like fun. So how should the feet look?”
“Feet? Ummm… can’t they jus’ be pointy, with three toes?”
“How about putting a hole in the middle of each foot so the fire can come out?”
“Ooh! Fun! Fun!”

With that, Amos went back over the feet of the drawing with a crayon.

Split the imagining up by body part like this, let the Gift fire in matching pieces, and a Gift that could only manage one person a day can manage as many as two. Never having had my own Gift measured by the Hero Association, I’d sharpened an eye for observation instead.

— Click-clack.

Just then the sound of heels came from behind.

“Director, our TF team Villain’s first deployment day is almost here.”
“Oooh! Really? I wanna watch too! I wanna watch too!”

Amos beamed and gave my chest a little tap.

“No. 1! It’s launch time! Go whoooosh over to the TV!”
“As you command.”

I scooped her up in my arms. I used to carry her piggyback; at some point that had changed to carrying her in front. People’s stares stung, but so what. Maybe I had taken so many stares at the month-end evaluation that it didn’t bother me anymore.

“It looks as though the whole TF team is here.”

Ten-odd people had all gathered in the meeting room. Jo Eunhye switched on the TV set off to one side and adjusted the volume. The name of the TF team Villain making his first deployment today: ‘Liger’.

The moment the TV came on, the announcer delivered breaking news in an urgent voice.

“Beginning monitoring of the TF team’s first deployment.”

The picture switched to the area around Yangjae Station. Inside a camera shot that looked to have been taken from a helicopter, a savage two-meter bulk revealed itself.

It was the moment the TF team’s first Villain finally showed himself before the world.