When the musty smell from the ventilation duct crept into Lin Xiu's nostrils, he was connecting the final section of Vibranium wire to the miniature quantum decoder.
The Nanite Swarm gathered at his fingertips into a gleaming silver stream and slipped through cracks in the pipe wall into the deeper circuitry—this was a technique he had learned from Stark Industries laboratory archives, using nanoscale conductors to simulate S.H.I.E.L.D.'s encrypted protocol interface.
"Both swarms have been deployed," he murmured to the nano-projection on his wrist, blue light scattering across his eyelashes.
The first swarm was currently attached to the tread pattern of Natasha's tactical boots, trembling faintly with each step she took; the second had become a Ghost in the data stream, slipping through a flaw in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s temporary command terminal.
Lin Xiu touched the burning Nanocore over his chest. It pulsed like a heartbeat—the Oracle System within the Balder Armor was analyzing the data returned by both swarms in real time, while a rain of green code flickered across his retina.
"Time to give S.H.I.E.L.D.'s technicians a little trouble." He smiled softly, his finger tracing the path of a Möbius strip across the decoder.
A shrill metallic screech suddenly came from outside the duct. The air pressure from a Quinjet sweeping over the rooftop had shaken the vent loose.
Lin Xiu looked up through the grille and saw the white command vehicle at a distant street corner—Natasha was climbing in through the rear door, a lock of her black hair tossed up by the wind, while her tactical glove held the sheet of Vibranium foil.
Inside the command vehicle, the cold glow of the fluorescent screens made the faint lines at the corners of Natasha's eyes especially clear.
She tore off her headset and tossed it onto the console. The