MF-Man

Based on the release rate, there were approximately five to seven years left until the lethal threshold.

In other words, if no one discovered this micro-capsule, Black Widow would suddenly suffer a nervous system collapse and die for no apparent reason in five to seven years.

And she herself had absolutely no idea.

Lynn's hand moved away from the back of her neck, and he circled back to sit down in front of her.

He looked into Natalie Rushman's eyes.

"Ms. Rushman, your body is much more dangerous than you think."

"What do you mean?" Her tone remained that of an ordinary person who had come in for a routine physical.

"Next to your seventh cervical vertebra, there is a very small object," Lynn said, enunciating every word clearly. "It's about the size of a sesame seed. It was placed there when you were very young."

Her pupils constricted.

It was only for a split second, but Lynn saw it clearly.

"If it isn't removed," he continued, "you likely have five to seven years left to live."

The clinic was silent for a full three seconds.

That silence was not a normal silence.

It was the silence of a highly trained top-tier agent re-evaluating the entire situation in an extremely short amount of time.

"What are you talking about?" She smiled slightly, her tone still trying to maintain a casual air. "I just came in for a routine physical—"

"It is a slow-release neurotoxin micro-capsule," Lynn finished for her.

"The release cycle is roughly fifteen to twenty years. It has already released seventy-two percent. Once the remaining twenty-eight percent reaches the critical threshold, your entire nervous system will collapse within forty-eight hours. It is irreversible."

She stopped smiling.

The facade of an "ordinary woman coming in for a physical" developed its first crack.

It wasn't because of fear—a woman raised in the Red Room would not be afraid of death. It was because of shock.

She didn't know this thing existed.

"How could you possibly know this?"

Her voice dropped half an octave, and her right hand had already quietly reached for the inside of her cuff.

Lynn's tactile sense detected a faint electrical pulse—a taser.

Her fingers were already resting on the trigger.

"Because I am a doctor," Lynn said, leaning back in his chair.

His tone was so calm it didn't sound like he was announcing someone's death date. "This is my job."

"Something zero-point-three millimeters in size, how did you see it? You didn't even use any equipment."

"I did," Lynn pointed to his head. "This is my best instrument."

She stared at him for five seconds.

Lynn maintained his smile throughout those five seconds.

He knew what she was doing—she was using every reading skill she had been trained in to analyze him.

She was analyzing his micro-expressions, his breathing rhythm, and his pupil dilation, trying to determine if he was telling the truth or bluffing.

Five seconds later, her right hand moved away from her cuff.

"You know who I am." This was not a question.

"Ms. Rushman, I only know that there is a ticking time bomb next to your seventh cervical vertebra," Lynn stood up. "As for who you are, that is not my concern. What I care about is—do you want it removed?"

She did not answer.

She stood up, smoothed the hem of her sweatshirt, and walked toward the door.

She paused for a moment when she reached the doorway.

"Aren't you afraid of me?"

"I am a doctor," Lynn said. "Being afraid of a patient is unprofessional behavior."

She glanced at him.

There was a lot in that look—scrutiny, assessment, and a hint of an emotion he didn't fully grasp.

Then she pushed the door open and left.

The six men in dark suits outside the clinic immediately followed her and disappeared around the corner.

Frank lifted his head from his folding chair: "Who were they?"

"Here for a physical."

Frank grunted and didn't press for more.

Lynn returned to the front desk, sat down, and picked up his coffee, which had already gone cold.

She would do two things after she went back.

First, contact Fury to report.

Second, have S.H.I.E.L.D. verify if what he said was true using the highest-spec equipment.

If the verification results matched what he said—Fury's assessment of his value would jump three levels.

By then, the initiative would be entirely in his hands.

Lynn took a sip of the cold coffee and the corners of his mouth curled up.

The first thing Natasha did upon returning to the safe house was not to change her clothes or remove her gear, but to pick up the encrypted communicator.

"Romanoff to Control Center."

"Copy, Agent Romanoff. Director Fury is online."

"Play today's recording for him, starting from the seventh minute."

There was silence on the other end of the communicator for about forty seconds.

During those forty seconds, Fury was listening to the recording.

Natasha stood by the window of the safe house, her right hand subconsciously touching the spot on the back of her neck near her seventh cervical vertebra.

She felt nothing.

That spot felt no different from any other part of her body.

"How do you feel about it?" Fury's voice came through the communicator.

"I feel like he wasn't lying."

"Feeling isn't enough. I need data. Return to District 3 Base now and perform a full quantum-level imaging scan, highest specification."

"Understood."

Natasha hung up and left the safe house.

She didn't call a car on the way, walking two blocks before hailing a taxi.

Sitting in the back seat, she touched the back of her neck again.

The Red Room.

She thought she had severed all ties with that place.

She thought that after defecting, aside from the memories in her brain that couldn't be washed away, the only things the Red Room had left on her were her trained instincts and a body full of scars.

But the Red Room was more thorough than she had imagined.

They didn't kill you, but they installed a timer.

You thought you were free, but in reality, your death date had been written the day you left.

Natasha's hand dropped from the back of her neck and clenched into a fist.

Three hours later, the medical laboratory at the S.H.I.E.L.D. District 3 Base.

The quantum-level imaging equipment had been running for forty-five minutes.

A full-body scan, accurate to the micron level.

When the senior technician in charge of the equipment pulled up the results, his hand trembled.

"Agent Romanoff, at a position two-point-one millimeters to the side of the seventh cervical vertebra... there is indeed a cyst-like foreign object. The diameter is approximately zero-point-three millimeters. Composition analysis shows... it is not any known medical implant."

Fury stood behind the technician, his one eye fixed on the tiny, almost invisible bright spot on the screen.

"Zoom in."

The image was magnified to the highest setting.

The structure of the cyst was clearly displayed on the screen—the outer shell was a super-high-density bio-metallic alloy, and the interior was filled with a viscous liquid substance. Densely packed micro-molecular chains were dispersed throughout the liquid.

The technician's voice trembled: "Director, we have no match in our database for the material of this cyst's shell. But preliminary analysis of the internal liquid shows it contains an extremely complex neurotoxin. The purity is very high."

"What is the release progress?" Fury asked.