Reconstructing history from fragmented footage, a high-risk variant's deal

The projection was cast on the white wall, with snowflakes layered upon each other.

There was no sound in the video. There was a long table and two chairs. Lynn sat in the innermost chair, her face turned to the camera, a document between her fingers. The document's cover glowed red, a dark red that stood out even amidst the noise on the screen.

There was another person sitting across the table.

The person only showed half of their shoulder and back; their uniform was crisp, but the outline of their epaulets was mostly obscured by snowflakes, making it impossible to tell who they belonged to. However, judging from their posture, the person was sitting very steadily, neither like a subordinate nor a visitor.

No one spoke in the Main Control Room.

The Light Membrane was still suspended three feet from the wall, frozen. The three energies that had been battling just moments before had all been withdrawn, and now all five people's eyes were fixed on the wall.

Lynn pushed the red document over.

He pushed it very slowly, past the center line of the table, and stopped in front of the other person. Then he leaned back in his chair, raised his hand, and gestured for the other person to proceed.

Gwen Stacy recognized that gesture. It was the same gesture Lynn used when pushing approved documents to the heads of various departments at the Management Committee's regular meeting. Casual, confident, and with an air of unquestionable authority.

But she didn't recognize the face in the picture.

There was no smile. There was no gentle, measured warmth, the kind that comes with perfect diplomacy. His eyes were fixed on the other side of the table, cold and empty, filled with calculation, layer upon layer, neatly arranged.

"This isn't him," Wanda said first.

The sound wasn't loud, but it was very harsh.

"Images can be forged," she said. "Back in the Red Room incident, Acting Director Natasha forged a report; she even managed to replicate Lynn's personal seal."

Natasha leaned against the console and didn't respond to that.

"The minister is right, images can be faked." She paused, "But the person who fakes it needs to know what the real thing looks like first."

Wanda turned to look at her.

What does Director Dai mean by that?

"It doesn't mean anything." Natasha shrugged. "I forged that report in the Red Room because I had read Lynn's file and knew his habits. If this video is also a forgery—how would the forger know he had this face?"

In one sentence, Wanda was shut down.

Hela remained silent. She stood with her arms crossed at the edge of the projection beam, her gaze shifting from Lynn's face to the red document and then back again.

"Keep watching," she said.

The scene is moving.

The person opposite reached out and snatched the file. He opened it, looked at it for a long time, then closed it and pushed it back to the center of the table—not returning it to Lynn, but leaving it on the center line.

A gesture used for bargaining.

Lynn shook her head.

He said something. Silence. The person opposite him tensed, and after a moment, pulled the file back, this time tucking it into his pocket.

The deal is done.

"He's selling something," Jean Grey said softly.

She stood beside the beam of light, her golden eyes reflecting the snowflakes on the wall. "That document was the goods. The other party inspected it and tried to lower the price, but he refused. In the end, they bought it at his price."

"The Special Envoy has a keen eye." Hela's voice was devoid of emotion. "She can even read the business acumen in the silent images."

"I'm not reading images," Qin said, glancing at her sideways. "I'm reading people. When someone pushes something across the center line and then stops halfway, it means they're going to leave; when they put it in their arms, it means they've accepted it. This kind of understanding isn't worth using your Psychic Power for."

"Then, Special Envoy, what is he selling?"

Qin didn't answer.

She couldn't answer. The red light on the document cover was blurred into a jumble of noise, making the words illegible. But she had just tried to probe the projection with a wisp of her Psychic Power —an image was just an image, and she couldn't get to the bottom of it—yet when that layer of red light swept across her senses, her heart skipped a beat.

Cooked.

It shares the same origin as the sealed aura on the Archive Cabinet.

She didn't say it aloud. Of the five people present, each had half a sentence left unsaid, but none of them were willing to be the first to speak.

Gwen Stacy squatted in front of the Control Console, her fingers flying across the screen.

"The video source file," she said, "Is located at the lowest level of the terminal, bundled with the reboot protocol. The aftershocks of the reboot woke it up, and it played itself."

"It broadcast itself," Hela repeated, sneering, "This machine certainly knows how to pick its time."

"It's not about timing." Gwen Stacy stared at the screen, her brows furrowing deeper. "It's about queuing. There's something else attached to the source file, segment by segment, and there are more than one copy. As soon as this one finishes playing, the next one is being unloaded."

There was a moment of silence in the Main Control Room.

"Can you retrieve it?" Wanda asked.

"Yes." Gwen Stacy's fingers paused. "But the source files are locked. My supervisory level only allows me to view them, not access them. To unlock them all, I need three parties' signatures—"

She looked up and glanced around.

"Or, return to the Management Committee and ask the Director to open it personally."

The moment Lynn's name was mentioned, the atmosphere in the room seemed to drop even further.

"No need," Hela said. "Joint signing is fine. I'll sign."

"The Stability Maintenance Office has signed, so the Department of Technology will naturally follow suit," Wanda said calmly.

Qin glanced at the two of them. "Count me in."

Natasha didn't comment. She didn't need to— the Inspection Office's job was to record, not to make decisions. She simply moved half a step closer to the control panel, a little closer to Gwen Stacy's Data Pad.

Gwen Stacy lowered her head and brought up the three-party signing process.

Just as the three signatures were being entered into the system, the image on the wall came to an end.

Lynn stood up.

He walked around the table and toward the camera—no, toward something next to the camera. As he got closer, his face magnified in the projection, and even the static couldn't obscure his eyes.

Cold, empty eyes that calculate everything clearly, stroke by stroke.

Wanda's fingertips trembled slightly.

She thought of Sokovia. She thought of the man who tackled her to the ground amidst the rubble, his back exposed to the laser beam. When that man looked back at her one last time, his eyes were warm.

Same face, two pairs of eyes.

Which pair is real?

She didn't know. Once the thought popped into her head, she couldn't suppress it; it burned inch by inch in her heart.

Hela's hand rested on the hilt of her sword, her knuckles turning white. She remembered the Bifrost, and the figure who had shielded her from the Gungnir, smiling as he turned to ashes. When the ashes scattered, she went to collect them, but couldn't even touch a wisp of his soul.

At the time, she simply assumed it was a clean death.

In retrospect, it was a clean sweep.

Qin stood motionless. In the fragment of memory she had awakened, there was also such a figure. She had originally thought it belonged only to her. Now it seemed that the figure had traveled to far more places than she had imagined.

Each of the three men was lost in their own thoughts, and none of them looked at the other. Yet, the murderous aura in the Main Control Room rose silently, layer upon layer.

Natasha took it all in and lowered her eyes.

She was one of the first people to deal with Lynn. In the old files of the Red Room, this man's name appeared more than once, each time with an unusually clean record. She originally thought that TVA had covered it up for him.

Now she's changed her mind—it's more likely he did it himself. Someone who can tamper with even TVA files wouldn't leave a row of Archive Cabinet and a video clip underground in an abandoned police station by accident.

It's for them to see.

Why? She hadn't figured it out yet.

"The lockdown is over." Gwen Stacy's voice interrupted her thoughts.

As the three-party signing process was completed, the files at the terminal's core lit up one by one. The screen on the wall then jumped, the first image reaching its end and beginning to flicker.

Lynn in the frame stopped in front of the camera.

He turned his head to face the camera, and his lips moved.

There was no sound, only lip movements.

Two words.

The image flashed three times, then froze abruptly.

The image is frozen in the moment when his lips are about to close.