"Zzz-crack!"
A piercing blast erupted in the cavernous underground hangar of the Triskelion. Pierce ripped off his tactical headset and slammed it onto the console. His eardrums rang, and a thin trickle of warm blood even seeped from deep inside his ear.
On the holographic display, the needle of the energy monitor tracking the safe house outside New York instantly smashed past its upper limit. That scarlet torrent of data was like a savage beast breaking free of its shackles, burning out the main console's graphics card with an acrid smell.
The backup lights throughout the hangar flickered wildly.
Crossbones, Rumlow, sucked in a sharp breath, instinctively reaching for the gun at his waist. "Sir, that energy fluctuation... did she discover the bug?"
"No, she didn't." Pierce stared fixedly at the blackened screen, his chest heaving as cold sweat slid down his wrinkled cheeks into his collar. "She's warning the world. That agent... Lynn is her one untouchable."
Fear-an exceedingly rare fear of something entirely beyond his control-finally gripped the Hydra leader's heart. He had thought Lynn was merely a leash holding a monster. Only now did he understand that what lay tethered at the other end was a live volcano capable of tearing the Earth apart.
"Raise his threat level again! Immediately!" Pierce spun around, his voice turning somewhat shrill with extreme tension. "Access the Zola Algorithm's core database! Lock Lynn's elimination priority directly onto the primary target slot!"
"But sir, Project Insight still needs thirty-six hours before-"
"Have engineering push the reactors to their limit! Twenty-eight hours! I can wait twenty-eight hours at most!" Pierce slammed his fist onto the metal surface, his knuckles striking with a dull thud. "The moment the carriers take off, the first main cannon shot must wipe that entire block off the map! Burn that agent and that witch to ashes along with it!"
He paused, a vicious glint flashing in his eyes. "Get Barnes into position. Keep the safe house targeted around the clock. The moment the witch takes even half a step away from him, execute a physical decapitation. I will not let a wild card like this live to see tomorrow!"
The safe house outside New York.
A frenzied energy storm raged through the cramped bedroom. Shards of glass hung in midair, trembling violently, while large patches of latex paint peeled from the walls.
Wanda's eyes glowed scarlet as she clamped her arms around Lynn's waist. Her body shook uncontrollably with sheer rage, and scalding tears struck his collarbone, mingling with the purplish-red bruises he had forced onto himself.
"They're forcing you!" Wanda's voice twisted, thick with tears and world-destroying fury. "They're using you as a 'tool' to control me! I'll kill them! I'll tear that one-eyed black bastard and everyone dressed in black to pieces!"
Lynn endured the pain of his ribs nearly being crushed and pressed his warm palm to her trembling back, soothing her little by little as he stroked her long hair.
"I'm fine, Wanda. Just a little backlash." He deliberately made his voice sound hoarse and weak, each breath carrying a tremor of pain.
Yet a flicker of cold mockery passed through his eyes.
That old dog Pierce couldn't even use the bug on the table properly. Instead, it had become Lynn's perfect loudspeaker for enraging the yandere.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lynn looked past Wanda's shoulder toward the tactical terminal in the corner.
In the lower-right corner of the screen, a hidden green code window flashed frantically. It was the backdoor he had just planted in the Zola Algorithm, now synchronizing Hydra headquarters' low-level commands in real time.
A waterfall of red data refreshed rapidly. Lynn's name had conspicuously changed from ordinary red to a dark, blood-dripping crimson.
[Target: Lynn. Elimination priority: 01. Countdown: 28:00:00.]
Not only that, but the nerve in Lynn's mind called Spider-Sense suddenly gave a violent twitch.
A cold, mechanical malice, utterly devoid of emotion, was spreading from an abandoned water tower fifteen hundred meters away. Though extremely faint, it stood out like a searchlight in the night to Lynn's radar-like microscopic perception.
A sniper. And a top-tier assassin equipped with heavy armor-piercing rounds.
The Winter Soldier was in position.
A nearly imperceptible sneer curled the corner of Lynn's mouth.
Did these self-important politicians really think a few lousy guns and ships could eliminate a wild card? On the surface, they gave him level-seven clearance and a large supply of vibranium, while behind his back, they pointed their cannons straight at his forehead.
Unfortunately, faced with an absolute information gap, the death trap Pierce thought flawless looked to Lynn like a sieve full of holes. Not only could he see Hydra's hidden cards, he could even see exactly how they were preparing to play them.
"Wanda, look at me."
Lynn cupped the witch's face, wiping the tear tracks from the corners of her eyes with his thumbs. He did not wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth, letting that glaring red continue to torment Wanda's nerves.
"No one can take me away. But we can't act yet." Lynn lowered his voice, his tone carrying a restrained, tragic resolve. "There's an unimaginably vast undercurrent inside S.H.I.E.L.D. They lurk in the shadows like parasites. If we strike now, we'll only fall into their trap."
"I don't care about any traps!" Wanda gritted her teeth, the Chaos Magic spilling from her fingertips eating deep pits into the floor. "Anyone who wants to hurt you has to die!"
"I know. But what I want is to uproot them completely." Lynn leaned close to her ear, his voice gentle yet fatally beguiling. "They see me as a 'rogue ninja' they can discard at any moment. Then let's prepare a grand funeral for them."
Lynn slowly released Wanda and walked over to the tactical terminal.
He looked at the countdown on the screen, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. He did not need to take on those three Helicarriers head-on himself. All he needed was a perfect "substitution technique" to turn this fire onto another equally stubborn man.
Lynn typed a line of code, extracted a portion of the "elimination list" bearing Pierce's digital signature, and packaged it separately.
System, activate the emotion suppressor at 10% power.
Lynn recited the command silently, suppressing every fluctuation of emotion, then pressed send.
One name stood prominently in the email's recipient field: Steve Rogers.
The progress bar filled instantly.
At the very second the email was successfully sent, the Winter Soldier on the water tower fifteen hundred meters away slowly curled his finger around the sniper rifle's trigger, his crosshairs fixed firmly on the safe house window.
Lynn abruptly turned his head, his gaze piercing the night to settle precisely in the water tower's direction. Then he made a move that no one in the shadows had expected-
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