Cross-dimensional evidence gathering: shadows lurking in the abandoned base

The air was frozen.

This is not a metaphor. In this abandoned coordinate, cut from the TV series and with time completely drained, the wind and snow are frozen in mid-air, each snowflake maintaining its falling posture, forming a vast and lifeless three-dimensional painting.

Three figures appeared silently on this frozen snowfield.

Gwen Stacy stood at the front, wearing the standard black field uniform of the Management Committee, with a silver supervisor badge pinned to her chest. Hela was to her left and behind her, and Wanda was to her right. There was a full five meters between them, as if there was an invisible wall between them.

Hela, dressed in a long black trench coat from the Stability Maintenance Office, stood with her hands in her pockets, her gaze sharp as an icy blade, sweeping over the distant steel ruins lying prostrate in the wind and snow.

Wanda, dressed in the dark red researcher's uniform of the Department of Technology, had her Scarlet eyes slightly lowered, her gaze fixed on the frozen snow at her feet, lost in thought.

"According to Article 1 of the 'Operating Procedures for the Special Investigation Group for Historical Legacy Energy,' the on-site investigation of Case No. 01 shall now begin."

Gwen Stacy's voice broke the absolute silence of the place. Her tone was steady, and each word was enunciated clearly, as if she were reading an official document that left no room for argument.

No sooner had she finished speaking Hela moved.

She didn't take a step, but merely slightly raised her chin. An invisible chill spread out from her, not a physical drop in temperature, but a conceptual erosion. The aura of death swept over every inch of frozen soil, every piece of rusted iron, sensing every trace of death and echo of souls remaining in this ruin.

Almost simultaneously, a faint Scarlet light appeared at Wanda's fingertips.

The light split into countless red threads, finer than a strand of hair, silently seeping into the space, like the most precise surgical Probe, analyzing every abnormal energy reading and trace of distorted reality in this place.

Two completely different yet equally powerful forces intersected above the ruins, neither interfering with nor yielding to each other.

Gwen Stacy gripped the data Recording Board tightly; the real-time readings on it were jumping wildly, showing that two completely different scanning modes were operating in parallel. She didn't interfere, but faithfully fulfilled her duty as supervisor, recording everything.

An abandoned base, seven stories underground.

In a dark room physically partitioned off and erased from all the blueprints, the darkness was as thick as ink.

A figure sat quietly in front of the control panel, the old combat uniform clinging to his body, outlining clean lines.

As the two forces swept across the sky above the base, she slowly opened her eyes.

Those were a pair of green eyes that remained incredibly clear even in the darkness.

Natasha.

She didn't move, but simply gave a silent command in her mind.

"Silence protocol initiated."

On the outdated console in front of her, which only had a character-based interface left, a line of green code flashed silently for a moment before disappearing.

[Heartbeat: Terminated][Biosignal: Terminated][Energy signature: Zeroed]

In that instant, she and the dark room completely "disappeared" from this world. Neither Hela's death perception nor Wanda's reality scan would judge this place as an ordinary solid concrete block devoid of any life or energy response.

She was like a ghost lurking in the deep water, calmly watching the storm on the surface.

"High concentrations of residual energy detected."

Hela's voice came through Gwen Stacy's Communicator, cold and unwavering. "Location: Control Center. Suspected data source."

"Confirmed." Wanda's voice followed, with a hint of a technician's tone, "The energy spectrum shows a shallow correlation with sample S-01; the data is physically sealed within an older terminal."

Gwen Stacy glanced at the coordinates synced onto the Recording Board and immediately issued the command.

"Team leaders, please proceed to the target area according to the pre-arranged plan. I will be responsible for perimeter security and record-keeping."

The three men moved in a standard tactical formation toward the main control center deep within the ruins.

In the dark room, Natasha's fingertips tapped rapidly on the dusty keyboard without making a sound.

On the screen, the abandoned base's underlying logs were retrieved. Countless lines of data cascaded down like a waterfall. She precisely extracted a record of energy decay before the base's self-destruct program was activated, and from another encrypted folder, she extracted an energy signature code about "Timeline clipping" that she had previously obtained from a defector from TVA.

Her fingers danced, seamlessly recompiling, merging, and encapsulating two completely unrelated sets of data.

A brand-new, seemingly perfectly official TVA report was created out of thin air in just a few dozen seconds.

She looked at the blinking cursor on the screen, a very faint smile playing on her lips.

Then, she pressed the Enter key.

[Data packet "Decoy-01" has been deployed to "Master Control Center-03 Terminal".]

Inside the main control center, there were overturned equipment and frozen icicles everywhere.

Gwen Stacy directed a small hovercraft, carefully navigating around obstacles, and connecting it to a huge terminal covered in cobwebs.

The data reading progress bar slowly advanced on Gwen Stacy's Recording Board.

A few moments later, a file was successfully extracted.

"Energy Decay Investigation Report of Abandoned Asset (Red Room) in E-616 Timeline - TVA-778"

"It's a report from TVA." Gwen Stacy synced the document to Hela and Wanda.

Hela glanced at it, her gaze settling on the conclusion. "The report states that the anomalous energy eruption originated from ' Gamma-7 Zone ' on the ninth underground level, caused by a miniature Reality Bomb detonated during TVA's censorship process to erase all experimental data from the ' Red Room '."

Wanda's brow furrowed slightly; her Scarlet threads had already covered the entire Source Code of the report. "The data structure is correct, conforming to TVA's encryption practices. The energy decay curve also matches the theoretical model."

"Then let's go to Gamma-7 Zone," Hela said decisively, turning to leave.

"Etc."

Gwen Stacy's voice wasn't loud, but it made Hela and Wanda stop in their tracks at the same time.

"What?" Hela turned around, a hint of impatience in her eyes.

Gwen Stacy didn't answer; her gaze was fixed on a line of small print on her Recording Board.

It was an inconspicuous footnote in the main body of the report, used to mark a cited, higher-level Top Secret file. According to TVA specifications, such footnotes should begin with "TVA-SEC" followed by a serial number of numbers and letters.

But this particular trip is somewhat different.

[Reference File: Top Secret - Level 9 - LNH-001]

LNH.

Gwen Stacy's heart felt as if it were being squeezed tightly by an invisible hand.

This is neither TVA's designation nor that of S.H.I.E.L.D..

She was all too familiar with those three letters.

That was Lynn's unique naming habit, tinged with a touch of personal quirks, when he was still in the S.H.I.E.L.D. Logistics Department S. H. I. E. L. D. and dealing with his private research files.

Lynn's Note for Hela. No, that's not right.

It could also be...

Countless possibilities flashed through Gwen Stacy's mind.

But regardless of which one, they all point to a cold, hard truth.

This seemingly flawless TVA report is a forgery.

The person who forged this report not only knew TVA inside and out, but also Lynn... inside and out.