The handover inventory of abandoned assets, the liaison office chief's low-level tracing
Lynn's fingertip hovered for a moment over the title of the request report on the virtual screen.
"Request Report Regarding the Application for Self-Raised Resources Construction of Office Area"
"Self-Raised Resources."
He uttered those four words softly, but his voice did not echo in the empty White Bone Hall.
Gwen Stacy, standing to the side, had a somewhat subtle expression. She had just finished processing two rejection letters from the Stability Maintenance Office and the Ministry of Science and Department of Technology, and was well aware of this kind of subtle exclusion within the system. Now, this new request seemed like an unexpected move.
"Director, this application..." Gwen Stacy began, wanting to say something, but then felt it was inappropriate.
Lynn raised her hand, indicating that she didn't need to continue.
He certainly understood Gwen Stacy's concerns. An individual capable of paralyzing the TVA outpost, her "self-funding" could very well mean forcibly tearing off a piece of land from a certain Dimension, or directly creating a palace out of thin air. Either way, it would be another Impact to the existing rules of the Management Committee.
But Lynn saw the other side.
The joint resistance by Hela and Wanda stems from their rejection of a new force encroaching on their territory. Trying to resolve this resistance through conventional administrative means will only lead to endless wrangling.
Jean Grey's request provided a perfect opportunity to break the deadlock.
She proactively gave up competing for existing resources in the Core Zone, instead choosing to explore new growth opportunities. Politically, this represents a lowering of her stance.
"Approved." Lynn finally spoke, his voice not loud, but very clear.
Gwen Stacy paused for a moment.
"But," Lynn's gaze shifted from the screen to Gwen Stacy's face, "We can't let her go alone."
He leaned forward slightly, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"The Liaison Office will take the lead in immediately establishing a ' Special Task Force for Inventorying Assets Remaining from Timeline XN-734.' You will personally serve as the task force leader."
"Nominally, it's to cooperate with the Special Envoy's work and provide necessary administrative and technical support."
"Actually," Lynn paused, then said, emphasizing each word, "It's about oversight. All assets transferred from that Timeline, whether it's a stone or a piece of data, must be inventoried, evaluated, and registered by the working group, and finally incorporated into the Management Committee's asset register, to be managed by your Liaison Office."
Gwen Stacy immediately understood Lynn's intention.
This is like using the reins of procedure to tether a tiger. It gives the other party freedom of action while ensuring absolute control over the entire process. All "self-raised" resources will ultimately become the public property of the Management Committee, not Jean Grey's private domain.
"I understand." Gwen Stacy nodded, her expression regaining its usual competence.
"Go ahead and do it," Lynn waved his hand. "Send copies of the approval document to the Stability Maintenance Office and the Department of Technology."
Timeline XN-734.
This place was once a complete world, but now only the remains, burned by the Phoenix Force, float in the void, like a still, abstract painting.
Gwen Stacy, dressed in a standard white survey protective suit, stood in a hovering mobile command platform. In front of her, a huge holographic screen displayed various parameters of the ruins below.
Jean Grey stood beside her, not wearing a protective suit. She simply gazed quietly at her homeland below, her eyes filled with complex emotions.
"As per procedure, Special Envoy, please indicate the specific areas where asset inventory needs to be conducted." Gwen Stacy's voice came through the built-in Communicator, calm and formulaic.
Qin snapped out of her reverie, raised her hand, and pointed to several coordinates in the ruins.
"The former site of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, where there is an independent energy core and Vibranium building materials. Also... the S.W.O.R.D.'s base on the moon should still retain a complete space teleportation matrix."
Every time she mentioned something, Gwen Stacy would order a team of Technician in heavy protective suits to go down and conduct on-site surveys and data sampling.
The entire inventory process was tedious yet highly efficient.
High-density alloy plates are lifted by robotic arms, scanned for composition, and labeled. Strands of residual energy are collected into specially designed containers to analyze their stability and potential for use.
All the data is aggregated in real time on the light screen in front of Gwen Stacy.
"Director, the analysis of the building materials samples in Zone A-3 is complete. The main component is secondary Vibranium mixed with a small amount of Uru Metal, with a structural integrity of 73%, meeting the standards for Class C strategic materials."
"Chief, the B-1 energy core is offline, but it still contains approximately 30,000 standard units of energy that can be recovered."
Reports came in one after another, and everything seemed unremarkable.
As Gwen Stacy listened to the report, she quickly reviewed the compiled underlying Data Stream. She wasn't particularly interested in the visible supplies; what mattered to her were the unseen elements behind them.
"Wait," Gwen Stacy suddenly spoke, stopping the scrolling screen.
Her gaze was fixed on a data sector that had just been scanned.
"Retrieve the report on the energy Oblivion residue in this area."
Soon, a report appeared on the main screen. The report showed that this area was once a huge data center in this Timeline, which was completely burned when the Phoenix Force passed through, and the energy reading dropped to zero.
It appears there are no problems.
However, another set of data that Gwen Stacy retrieved showed a completely different result.
"The redundancy is wrong," Gwen Stacy muttered to herself.
According to the Management Committee's definition of energy Oblivion, when a physical entity is destroyed, the information it carries also collapses, which manifests as large-scale derailment and garbled data at the data level.
But the data layer in this area was excessively clean. It was as if... it hadn't been burned by raging flames, but rather neatly cut away by a precise Scalpel.
"Director?" The technical supervisor next to her noticed her unusual behavior.
"Bring up all the raw Data Stream for in-depth tracing," Gwen Stacy said firmly. "I need to know where every single bit of data here went before and after the Phoenix Force arrived."
Once the order was issued, the Core Server of the command platform began operating at full capacity.
Massive amounts of data flowed before Gwen Stacy's eyes like a waterfall.
She soon discovered that in the final thousandth of a second when the Timeline was cut, an extremely subtle, unknown algorithm, like an efficient cleaner, silently activated.
Instead of resisting the Phoenix Force, it managed to package, compress, and encrypt the most crucial part of the entire data center before destruction arrived, and then... teleported it out.
It's not being destroyed, it's being transferred.
Gwen Stacy's heart sank.
When TVA handed over this Timeline, the official statement was that it was "completely cut and shows no signs of life." But now it seems that someone stole the most important thing right under TVA's nose.
"Give me Highest Access Privileges to the Liaison Office." Gwen Stacy's voice turned icy.
The technical manager didn't dare to delay and immediately opened the port for her.
Gwen Stacy sat down at the Control Console, her hands moving like blurs across the Virtual Keyboard. She bypassed the usual tracking procedures and initiated a forced tracing of the unknown algorithm's transmission path directly from the underlying rules of the Negative Zone Management Committee.
This is an extremely high-risk operation, equivalent to driving against traffic on a highway.
The Data Stream on the light screen instantly became chaotic, triggering countless firewalls and logic traps, which Gwen Stacy forcibly bypassed one by one with her higher privileges.
Jean Grey sensed the energy fluctuations here and cast an inquiring glance.
Gwen Stacy ignored it; her entire focus was on this silent hunt.
Finally, after tracing back to a logical gap covered by three layers of disguise, a dormant root program appeared at the end of the Data Stream.
It lay there quietly, like a dormant egg.
Gwen Stacy didn't rush into it; instead, she began analyzing its code structure.
It's not magic; those codes don't possess any mystical characteristics.
It's not Divine Realm Technology either; its architecture lacks that natural elegance.
This code is cold, rigorous, and full of functional, brute-force aesthetics. Every module exists for maximum efficiency, discarding any superfluous embellishments. Its Underlying Logic is not creation, nor protection, but rather... copying, optimizing, iterating, and conquering.
A strong, non-organic life form is immediately apparent.
Gwen Stacy leaned back in her chair and slowly exhaled.
She had seen this style of code before.
Deep within the ruins of Sokovia, in the wreckage of the robot torn apart by Wanda.
Although the program in front of us is more advanced and more covert, the deep-seated mindset of viewing everything as data and threats and attempting to "format" it is exactly the same.
Ge put away all the publicly available data in front of him, leaving only a Private Terminal.
She glanced at Jean Grey not far away, who seemed completely oblivious to everything.
Gwen Stacy activated the encrypted communication, bypassing all layers and directly connecting to the highest-security line in the Director's Office.
The moment the call connected, she said only one sentence.
"Director, something terrible might have gotten into our scrap metal recycling station."