Carina's instructions were executed efficiently and silently. The "Mimic" reconnaissance unit separated from her drop-shaped spacecraft hidden in the shadow of Kuiper Belt, like intelligent dust with life, slid silently towards the earth.
They are not physical missiles or detectors, but clusters composed of countless nanoscale machines, which can perfectly simulate space junk, meteorite particles and even the refraction of light. The dense network of satellites and space stations in the earth's orbit is like an undefended courtyard for this creation that surpasses the current earth materials science and stealth technology.
These nano-units easily evaded the old earth radar and optical monitoring systems, attached to the shells of several satellites from different countries and for different purposes, and even drilled directly into the heat dissipation holes or gaps in some non-critical parts. Once in contact, they began to silently absorb the satellite's solar power, synchronized its internal clock, and, like a virus, extended its tentacles to the satellite's data bus.
In the Helicarrier monitoring center of S.H.I.E.L.D., a technician frowned as he watched the data flow on the screen that occasionally jumped and quickly returned to normal.
"Sir, there is a delay of about 0.3 seconds in the downlink of the GEO-7 communication satellite, and the signal strength fluctuates slightly, but the self-test system shows that everything is normal." He reported.
Maria·Hill was reviewing the global abnormal event report without raising his head, "It may be interference from solar wind activity. Record it and continue to observe." Such small fluctuations appear in endlessly in the huge satellite network, and are usually attributed to space environmental factors.
"Yes." The technician classified this record into the "to be observed" folder, and his attention was quickly attracted by other more "significant" alarms.
No one noticed that in that 0.3 second delay, the communication data backup stored in the GEO-7 satellite in recent months had been quietly copied, compressed and transmitted. Similar tiny "accidents" were happening simultaneously on dozens of key communication and observation satellites around the world, and each time they were short enough to be ignored by the system's own error correction mechanism, or classified as insignificant background noise.
These massive, fragmented data - including public news broadcasts, lightly encrypted military communications, Internet traffic metadata, scientific research reports, and even internal emails of some private companies - are collected by the nanounit and sent back to the Kuiper Belt mother ship through extremely short, directed laser pulse beams. The data stream is deliberately broken up, the encryption method is changed tens of thousands of times per minute, and the pulse duration is measured in nanoseconds, perfectly hidden in the earth's own busy electromagnetic background radiation.
In Droplet Ship, on the holographic screen in front of Carina, data is being gathered, organized, and analyzed at an astonishing speed. The puzzle of the existence of "Xiao Han" is becoming clear bit by bit.
She saw a blurry mobile phone picture: On the top floor of Empire State Building, a figure was suspended in the air, with panicked crowds and dense police cars below.
She intercepted the military's encrypted communication fragments: Desert Rescue Tony·Stark, incomprehensible speed and power.
She analyzed the internal assessment report of S.H.I.E.L.D. after Battle of New York (obtained in part by hacking into a downgraded database): multiple increases in the threat level of unknown individuals, and the ultimately helpless "observe but do not contact" strategy.
She searched the global news database: sporadic reports on "Stark Industries mysterious partners", "Malibu abnormal weather phenomena (referring to microclimate changes caused by energy absorption)", "unexplained building damage (some villain bases that were flattened)".
She even captured some discussions on the deep web and hacker forums: various speculations and conspiracy theories about "gods on earth", "corporate bodyguards", and "the world's ultimate weapon".
All this information points to a conclusion: This individual, known as "Xiao Han", possesses unimaginable physical strength, has an extremely egocentric behavior pattern, and shows a strong sense of territoriality in a specific area (Malibu Villa). Its motivation seems to be ridiculously simple - the pursuit of absolute quietness and sunbathing.
He has no interest in the earth's civilization itself, but will ruthlessly and crushingly destroy those who "disturbing" its purity. All forces on the earth have a highly consistent attitude towards it: awe, fear, and will never take the initiative to provoke it.
"The behavioral pattern is initially established: absolute power, low sociability, and the core needs are 'energy absorption' and 'quiet environment'. Threat triggering conditions: 'noise' and 'invasion of territory.'" Carina calmly summarized and sent the report back to Knowhere.
"Interesting creature." The Collector's reply came quickly, with an excited vibrato, "Such a powerful force, but with such... simple needs. Continue to observe, Carina, I need more details! His energy absorption The limit of efficiency? His tolerance threshold for different forms of 'noise'? His deep pattern of interaction with those specific indigenous people (Stark, etc.)? Maybe... we can create an irresistible, absolutely quiet 'collection environment' for him..."
Carina executed the command expressionlessly. The "Mimic" nanounit began to adjust its strategy, no longer stealing data on a large scale, but focused more specifically on the Malibu area.
The focal length of the lenses of several remote sensing satellites and meteorological satellites passing over the area was slightly tampered with, and an extra code was injected into the data compression algorithm, which increased the detailed resolution of the beach and villa areas in the photos and sensor data transmitted back to the ground station by 400% without being noticed.
At the same time, other nano-units began to slowly and cautiously penetrate into the atmosphere. They simulated ice crystal dust in the upper atmosphere, slowly falling with the airflow, and scattered in the stratosphere and troposphere, building an invisible and extremely fine monitoring network, focusing on recording any energy fluctuations coming from the Malibu Villa direction - no matter how weak.
All this is done in absolute silence. There is no additional energy emission, no abnormal signal transmission, and all snooping is covered by the earth's own technological infrastructure and natural environment.
On Malibu Beach, Xiao Han moved his eyebrows slightly.
The feeling of being spied on is still there, and it has become more refined and more ubiquitous. It is no longer peeping in one direction, but it is as if the entire environment has become a silent eye.
He can feel the tiny machines attached to the metal creations in space, and can sense the spy particles mixed in the atmospheric dust. Their technological level is obviously higher than the previous Kree sharp knives, they are better hidden and more patient.
But they are still operating. Countless minute to extreme mechanical movements, energy conversion, signal processing... all of these converge into an extremely low, but extremely wide-ranging, unpleasant buzz.
It's like countless mosquitoes hovering in your ears, but they don't make a sound, they only flap their wings.
This is even more irritating than Kree's previous direct attack. The attack can be slapped to death, but this kind of pervasive and lingering peek is like a continuous, low-level provocation.
He was a little impatient.
Don't these bugs understand what "quiet" means? Or do they think that as long as they are hidden enough, they can do whatever they want?
He considered whether to look up at the sky and use Heat Vision to vaporize the snoops in space together with their parasitic satellites. Or take a deep breath and freeze and blow away all the damn nano-dust in the atmosphere.
But the noise of doing so is a bit loud. It may destroy the "toys" (satellites) of Tony, and it may also scare the real natives who occasionally pass by (such as the waiter who delivers ice cream). Moreover, it seems a bit troublesome to clean up, because those small things are too scattered.
More importantly, he vaguely felt that the bugs that came this time were different from the previous ones. They seemed to be more inclined to observe rather than directly make noise. If he did it now, would he give them an excuse to make more noise?
(If Tony knew that Xiao Han would actually consider "too much noise" and "scare others", I'm afraid his jaw would drop. But this is just a simple calculation by Xiao Han based on the principles of minimum energy consumption and maintaining existing comfort.)
He decided to wait. As long as these things continued to remain absolutely quiet, didn't get closer, and didn't try to do anything more extreme, he could tolerate this low-level background noise for the time being.
But he remembered the "flavor" of this snooping method. It was a cold, unemotional, and purely technology-driven desire for observation. It was different from the aggressive energy characteristics of Kree, as well as the clumsy energy fluctuations emitted by the idiots who tried to imitate him before.
This is a new kind of bug. Perhaps from a place more... interested in collecting rather than destroying.
Xiao Han turned over to let the sunlight shine on his back more evenly, trying to ignore the ubiquitous and subtle sense of prying eyes.
In the laboratory, Tony·Stark sneezed violently.
"Friday, is there something wrong with the air conditioning system? Why do I feel like there is dust?"
"The air filtration system is operating normally, and the boss particulate matter index is at an excellent level." Friday replied.
"Strange..." Tony muttered, rubbed his nose, and continued to immerse himself in the design of his new armor. He tried to add more technical inspiration from the Chitauri and Kree spacecraft wreckage (obtained some samples through S.H.I.E.L.D.) to deal with alien threats that may be more frequent in the future, but the progress was slow and frustrating.
He was completely unaware that at this moment, there were countless nano-spies from extraterrestrials, in orbit hundreds of kilometers above his head and in the atmosphere more than ten kilometers high, quietly watching all this, and continuously sending all the information about him, this villa, and the person on the beach to the distant deep space.
Carina's observation continued. She noticed that the target individual seemed to be aware of the more subtle prying (its energy field had extremely weak, targeted disturbances), but did not react.
"The target has a high tolerance for passive observation, but is sensitive to monitoring technology. It is recommended to maintain the current distance and concealment level, and avoid any active detection behavior that may be interpreted as 'noise' or 'intrusion.'" She updated the action log.
The Collector's collecting habit is testing Xiao Han's bottom line for "quietness" in an extremely cautious and secretive way. This silent battle of penetration and patience has just begun.