Tactical Game of Midnight Phantoms

Lin Xiu's breath condensed into white mist on his goggles, spreading slowly across the lenses like a thin veil. The silver mesh of his Nano Armor adjusted its particle density with his heartbeat—Oracle System was automatically matching his physiological state to maximize neural response speed.

The silver mesh of the Nano Armor glimmered with a soft light, swaying gently as though dancing to Lin Xiu's heartbeat.

The blue glow of the server cluster flickered in his pupils like nimble little sprites, flashing restlessly in his eyes.

The Nanite Swarm at his fingertips had already seeped into the interface and was burrowing through the fiber-optic network toward the deepest reaches of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intranet.

Like a colony of tiny ants, the Nanite Swarm moved methodically through the fiber-optic network.

"Permission fragment located. Target database: 'Norse Mythology Energy Research.'" The system prompt pierced his ears like an electric current, sharp and clear, as if electricity had sliced past them.

Lin Xiu's thumb flew across the virtual keyboard. The forged report on a "new alien energy carrier" generated garbled characters at a rate of one million times per second, only to be reassembled by Oracle System's algorithms into text matching S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intelligence format.

The keyboard clicks were crisp and urgent, like a tense musical movement.

He needed the report to look real enough—and dangerous enough.

His fingers paused over the "coordinates" field. Lin Xiu recalled the tactical map he had picked up at the Avengers Compound three hours earlier—the mark on an abandoned refrigerated warehouse in Queens still looked as fresh as if it had just been drawn.

The mark stood out sharply on the map, its vivid color seeming to retain the warmth of the hand that had drawn it. "Here." As he entered the coordinates, the Nanocore at his wrist gave a faint tremor, as if stamping its approval on the choice.

The Nanocore's vibration traveled faintly through him, carrying a sense of solid power.

The instant the upload bar reached 99%, Lin Xiu suddenly bent down, his nose nearly touching the server's cooling vent.

The stench of scorched metal mixed with ozone flooded his nostrils, pungent and intense. It was the sign that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intranet had activated its Level Three defenses. "Right on time." He chuckled softly. The Nanite Swarm flicking from his fingertips immediately split into two groups: one continued the upload, while the other began searching the database for the keyword "Balder."

The Nanite Swarm split at once like well-trained soldiers, each rushing off to carry out its assigned task.

On the sixteenth floor of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, May Phillips's coffee cup struck the edge of her desk with a crack.

The crisp sound rang especially loudly through the quiet office.

She stared at the encrypted email that had suddenly appeared, her brow arching beneath her blonde hair. The sender was "07-39-AS," an account number she knew all too well—the highest-level temporary account personally authorized by Director Fury.

"A new alien energy carrier?" She spun the mouse wheel rapidly, and the energy spectrum in the report made the back of her neck tighten.

The mouse wheel rasped softly beneath her tense heartbeat.

That mass of ghostly blue light shared a 78% overlap with the Asgardian energy waveform detected in New Mexico last year. Worse, the coordinates pointed to Queens—less than five kilometers in a straight line from the Avengers Compound.

"Carter, get satellite scans on Queens Sector B-12." May snatched up her tactical headset, stripping off her lab coat with her other hand to reveal the tactical vest beneath. "Logan, get Squad Three to the garage in ten minutes." Her fingers left afterimages over the keyboard, and the encrypted channel soon delivered the satellite scan results: abnormal heat signatures in the target area, like the temperature output of several servers running at once.

Her keystrokes came fast and hard, as if racing against time.

"Director Fury, I need authorization to breach." May kept her voice low, her knuckles whitening with force.

Her voice carried determination and urgency.

The old director's trademark cough came through the communicator. "Don't make me regret issuing you a gun, Phillips."

The iron door of the refrigerated warehouse groaned beneath the tactical axe.

The sound was low and pained, as if the door itself were resisting being forced open.

May held her M4 as steadily as a precision instrument, its barrel sweeping over mold-stained walls as she followed her team inside.

The M4 was cold and hard, heavy and solid in her hands.

The smell of mildew mixed with rust rushed into her nose, rotten and biting enough to make anyone frown.

Her tactical visor automatically shifted to thermal imaging mode—apart from three old servers in the corner belching green smoke, there wasn't even the heat signature of a rat in the entire warehouse.

The green smoke rose slowly, carrying an eerie air.

"The servers are Dell T310s from 2010," the tech soldier's voice said over the communicator. "There's only... cat videos inside?" The transmission was somewhat noisy, but still clear enough.

May's temples throbbed.

She yanked off a tactical glove and pressed her fingertips against the server casing—the surface was merely warm, nowhere near the 42°C detected by the satellite scan. "Fake." She snarled into the communicator. "Every heat signature was fabricated. The coordinates are a trap too." As she turned, her combat boot crushed a shard of glass, its sharp crack especially piercing in the empty warehouse.

The brittle crunch of shattered glass was like a shrill alarm.

Meanwhile, on a Brooklyn street, an abandoned billboard suddenly lit up.

Its glow stood out starkly against the dark street.

Lin Xiu crouched in the shadows at the mouth of an alley, the optical camouflage of his Nano Armor blending him perfectly into the wall.

The Nano Armor's optical camouflage used special nanomaterials to adjust in real time to the surrounding light and colors, making the light reflected from the armor's surface match its environment and thereby creating an invisibility effect.

He felt as though he had merged with the darkness itself, while everything around him became quiet and mysterious.

Oracle System's projection flickered across his retina as he watched the "mysterious energy entity" video on the billboard. It had been synthesized from scan data of Chitauri warship wreckage, and the runes faintly visible within the blue vortex were precisely the Asgardian Energy Sealing Spell.

The projection's light flickered across his retina like dreamlike shadows.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. tracking signal strength has dropped to 17%." The system prompt made Lin Xiu loosen the muscles at the back of his neck.

He watched the crowd gradually gather before the billboard and listened to the distant sirens drawing nearer, their sharp, urgent wails seeming to tear through the night's silence.

A faint smile curled at his lips—Fury's people were surely dealing with both the warehouse farce and the street anomaly now. They would have no time to trace the signal source for a while.

On the streets of Brooklyn, Lin Xiu watched S.H.I.E.L.D. get led astray by his trap and silently calculated the time. He knew he still had one important thing to do.

So he slipped away from the crowd and headed for the old laboratory from his memory.

By the time the old laboratory's door hinges let out a harsh creak, Lin Xiu's Nano Armor had completely vanished from sight.

The long, grating creak seemed to tell of the laboratory's ancient secrets.

He stepped across the dust-covered floor. The vibranium components shaken loose during his last crossing still lay exactly as they had before, as if time had looped here and then resumed flowing.

Dust stirred beneath his feet, carrying a stale old scent.

The Quantum Field Generator's casing was covered in a thin layer of dust. He wiped the buildup from the display with his sleeve and rapidly tapped the controls—he needed to recalibrate the quantum entanglement parameters. The energy trail left behind by his last crossing was still hidden in Capacitor Seven.

The control panel's buttons were cold and hard, making crisp sounds beneath his fingers.

"Energy trail located. Recommended injection: 500 milliamps of quantum current." Oracle System's prompt suddenly changed pitch. Lin Xiu's hand froze above the activation button, and every hair on the back of his neck stood on end.

The altered prompt was sharp and piercing, making his heart tighten.

"High-density Asgardian energy fluctuations detected. Source unknown."

An alarm exploded inside his skull. The deafening sound felt as if it might blow his head apart.

Lin Xiu snapped his head up. The laboratory's only small window faced the night sky, yet it now looked as though someone had poured ink over it, blocking even the starlight.

The darkness outside resembled a thick wall, suffocating and oppressive.

He could feel the Nanocore heating up, an instinctive reaction to encountering a higher-order energy source—like a wolf catching the scent of a tiger.

The heat spread from the Nanocore at his wrist, bringing with it a burning sense of urgency.

"Who is it?" he asked the empty air in a low voice, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing the vibranium casing of the Quantum Field Generator.

The vibranium casing was smooth and cold, making a faint sound beneath his fingers.

The wind outside suddenly strengthened, sending the papers on the laboratory table rustling wildly. One sheet lifted into the air and happened to cover the energy readings on the display—beneath it, the keyword "Balder" flickered faintly through the data stream.

The wind howled, while the fluttering paper made crisp, chaotic sounds.