The Impostor's Ticket In

Lin Xiu stood before the floor-to-ceiling window of an old Brooklyn apartment. Raindrops the size of beans pelted the glass with a crackling patter, carving winding trails of water. The sound was like an urgent drumbeat.

He stared at the faint blue patterns on his wrist—the traces left by the Balder Armor's Nanobots flowing beneath his skin. With a light touch, he could feel a subtle wriggling under the surface.

The Oracle System's prompt sounded in his mind, its voice mechanically cold: "Stark Industries database security level has been raised to S.H.I.E.L.D. Level One. Conventional infiltration success rate is below 17%."

Was this really right? But perhaps this was the only way to obtain a Mind Stone energy sample and accomplish the greater goal. He loosened his collar, then turned toward the desk piled with electronic equipment.

The metal drawer screeched sharply as he pulled it open, as if protesting in pain, revealing half a crystal fragment glowing a deep blue. He had brought it back from an abandoned factory last night, and it had briefly resonated with the Nanocore.

The instant his fingertips touched the fragment, an icy sensation spread through him. The Nanobots beneath his skin suddenly stirred, gathering on his forearm into a tiny electronic signal icon.

"Simulating electronic signals..." Lin Xiu's pupils contracted as he recalled the pattern that had appeared when the armor heated up last night.

He grabbed the keyboard, his fingers tapping rapidly across it with crisp clicks. He quickly brought up the Nanocore's control interface and entered the crystal fragment's energy fluctuation parameters. "Oracle, try using the Nanite Swarm to simulate a S.H.I.E.L.D. technician's bioelectric signal."

"Low-grade energy fragments will be consumed." The system's voice remained mechanically calm.

Lin Xiu gritted his teeth. It was a risky move, but he could only press forward for the sake of his goal. "Execute."

The blue crystal immediately dimmed. The Nanobots under his skin darted toward his fingertips like living creatures, forming a faint blue mist in the air that was nearly invisible to the naked eye. It flickered with a trace of chill.

He watched the streams of data jumping across the computer screen—the Nanite Swarm was parsing S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal biometric authentication protocols.

When the screen suddenly displayed the words "Temporary Authorization: Technical Support Specialist - Evan Hawke," he lightly tapped the edge of the desk twice with his knuckles.

At 2:17 a.m., Lin Xiu stood beside an electrical box outside the Avengers' temporary command center.

Rain dripped from the brim of his cap onto the shoulder insignia of his S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform. The metal badge dug into him, hard and cold.

He pulled out a modified electromagnetic jammer. The instant he pressed the switch, every light on the block went out at once. Darkness swallowed the area, leaving only the hiss of fading current.

"Power outage successful." The Oracle System's prompt made him breathe a sigh of relief.

In the darkness, he crouched and slipped through a gap in the maintenance area's fence. He had corroded the metal joints with Nanobots during his reconnaissance that afternoon. A faint burnt smell still lingered there, filling his nose with its pungent stench.

The first security gate was thirty meters away.

Lin Xiu could see the red scanning light above the gate glaring sharply in the darkness like a wary eye. The shadows of two guards shifted behind it. One of them was complaining into a radio, "This damn rain's got even the power system acting up."

Just as he was about to reach the security gate, the scanning light flickered several times. His heart suddenly tightened, and his steps faltered slightly.

He lowered his head and looked at the Nanite Swarm around his wrist. It was vibrating at a specific frequency, simulating Evan Hawke's bioelectric signal.

As he reached the security gate, his heartbeat suddenly sped up. A thin layer of sweat formed on the back of his neck and trickled down, carrying a faint chill.

The instant the scanning light passed over him, he heard a beep, and the red light turned green.

"ID."

The guard held out his hand.

Lin Xiu handed over the forged work badge, his fingertips trembling slightly.

The guard's flashlight swept over the photo and name before he looked up at him. "Never seen you before."

"New transfer. I'm here to support Mr. Stark's equipment maintenance." He recalled the speech pattern the Oracle System had simulated in advance for technical personnel—slightly fast-paced, with the impatient air of a professional.

The guard's gaze paused on the badge lanyard hanging from his chest.

The black lanyard was condensed from Nanobots, rising and falling faintly with his breathing.

Lin Xiu could practically hear the hum of blood flowing through his veins until the guard frowned and waved him through. "Get in there. Don't hold things up."

The moment he passed through the security gate, the uniform on his back was already soaked through with cold sweat, clinging icily to his skin.

The maintenance area's pipe system was three floors underground. The damp smell of mold filled his nostrils and made him nauseous.

Emergency lights hung overhead every five meters. Their dim yellow glow faintly illuminated the old markings on the walls. The pipes were weathered and covered in rust, gray and dull, their shadows stretched long.

As he climbed along the pipes to the ventilation shaft, a conversation between two agents suddenly drifted up from below.

"That guy Loki is locked in the quantum isolation chamber on the lowest level," said a hoarse male voice. "The director said the Mind Stone's energy fluctuations are too abnormal. Even the doctor's instruments can't measure them accurately."

The other voice lowered. "I heard Stark is researching how to extract the stone's energy?"

"I saw Dr. Banner carrying a Vibranium case into the data control room this morning."

Lin Xiu stopped at the edge of the vent.

He slowly crouched against the metal pipe wall. The Nanite Swarm spread along the ventilation duct, relaying the conversation to the Oracle System. "The Mind Stone..." His Adam's apple bobbed, and his nails nearly dug into his palm. "This is exactly the quantum entanglement sample the Nanocore needs."

The Oracle System's projection unfolded across his retina—the building's structural map was being scanned by the Nanite Swarm in real time.

A red marker flashed over the data control room. The route required passing through two surveillance blind spots and one biometric lock.

He touched his chest. The Nanocore there was faintly heating up from excitement, and a Tactical Form activation prompt sounded in his mind: "Switch to low-noise mode?"

"Energy consumption will increase by 30%."

"Switch." he said softly.

The Nanobots beneath his skin surged like a tide. His previously tight uniform suddenly became lighter, and even his footsteps were filtered by the sound-dampening module into nearly inaudible whispers.

When he reached the data control room door, the biometric lock on the wall suddenly lit up red. An electronic voice tore through the silence: "Identity verification failed." The alarm blared at the same time.

Lin Xiu's pupils shrank sharply, and he turned to dive back into the pipes.

The moment he entered the pipe, he encountered an automated defense device. Several laser beams swept toward him in rapid succession, and he quickly twisted aside to evade them.

Running footsteps and shouts came from behind him. "Catch that fake support technician! His badge is forged!" In the images fed back by the Nanite Swarm, three guards armed with stun guns were charging around the corner.

He gritted his teeth and switched back to Basic Combat Form. Nanobots on his arm condensed into a protective shield, snapping into place just before the guards' stun guns hit him. "Bzzzt—" Blue arcs of electricity burst across the shield, carrying a pungent burnt smell.

Using the recoil, Lin Xiu smashed open the vent cover. As he fell, he grabbed a pipe support and flipped himself over.

The corridor below lit up brightly. He saw more guards pouring out of the elevator lobby, while the leading agent roared into his radio, "Seal all exits! That kid might be connected to alien technology!"

Just as he prepared to retreat to the second underground level, an icy chill suddenly spread across the back of his neck.

The feeling of being watched made him more wary than the alarm. It was not a guard's gaze, but something more like... an inhuman stare.

He spun around, but only saw a blurry figure in the shadows at the end of the corridor.

The figure did not move, yet it made his Nanocore emit a piercing warning: "Unknown energy fluctuation detected. Immediate evacuation recommended."

Lin Xiu did not dare linger and sprinted through the pipes.

When he hid in a maintenance room, the Oracle System suddenly projected the data control room's terminal interface across his retina—it was something the Nanite Swarm had scanned moments earlier.

The encryption symbol on the terminal screen flashed, and a line of small text enlarged before his eyes: "A Mind Stone fragment is required as a key."

He wiped the cold sweat from his face and listened through the door as the guards' footsteps gradually faded away.

A cracked mirror hung on the maintenance room wall, reflecting his pale face.

The Nanite Swarm gathered in his palm into a tiny ball of light. It was the electromagnetic residue it had collected near the terminal earlier.

"Looks like I'll have to find a way to get some Mind Stone energy samples." He spoke under his breath, gently pressing a finger against the light.

The ball of light suddenly burst into blue stardust. One particle fell into the Nanobot patterns on his wrist and vanished in an instant.

In the distance, a dull impact echoed from the direction of the data control room.

Lin Xiu held his breath and heard the sound of some mechanical lock being forcibly broken open. That was not a sound the guards' equipment could make.

He clenched his fists. The Nanocore burned against his chest as a thought took shape in his mind: Whoever is after the data control room... maybe I can use this opportunity...

The maintenance room door was suddenly smashed open.

Lin Xiu instinctively rolled aside, only to see that the person who rushed in was a woman in a S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform.

Her blonde hair was tied into a neat high ponytail. She held a gun in her right hand, and a tracker flashing red was strapped to her left wrist.

"May Phillips?" Lin Xiu blurted out. It was a name the Oracle System had memorized when it hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal files that morning. She was a technical analyst responsible for tracking abnormal energy fluctuations in Brooklyn.

The woman's gun barrel shifted slightly, her eyes sweeping over the badge on his chest. "Evan Hawke? Your bioelectric signal disappeared from the security system for seventeen seconds." Her voice was ice-cold. "Explain. Now."

Lin Xiu considered whether to keep deceiving her or explore the possibility of cooperation. The Nanite Swarm stirred restlessly beneath his skin.

He stared at the wariness in the woman's eyes, then suddenly smiled. "I can explain, but first you need to tell me... was the disturbance in the data control room just now related to the Mind Stone?"

May's pupils contracted slightly, and her finger tightened on the trigger.

Behind them, within the ventilation duct, the blurry figure slowly raised a hand. The deep blue glow gathering in its palm resonated somehow with the Nanobot patterns on Lin Xiu's wrist.