The psychological battle over lip-reading, the shadow yandere's hidden move
The frozen image hangs on the wall.
Lynn turned her head to the side, her lips barely moving. Two words, spoken in silence.
Wanda moved first. She took two steps forward and stepped into the beam of light from the projection. Snowflakes fell on her shoulder, but she didn't brush them off.
"Go back," she said. "Slow down."
Gwen Stacy did as instructed. The screen rewound three breaths, moving frame by frame. Lynn's lips opened, closed, and then opened again.
"Watch it again."
Third time. Fourth time.
No one spoke in the Main Control Room. The Light Membrane was frozen three feet from the wall, and the terminal fan whirred softly, making the silence seem endlessly long.
"It's not English," Jean Grey spoke first. "The second syllable is mouthed too tightly; there's no such sound in English."
"The Special Envoy can also read lips?" Hela asked.
"That doesn't make sense," Qin said frankly. "But my Psychic Power swept over the pronunciation habits. The initial sound of these two words is at the back of the tongue, which is typical of Slavic language family."
Wanda's fingers curled slightly.
Slavic language family. Sokovia's official language belongs to this family. She mouthed each word, one by one, while mentally recalling dozens of similar words from her native language, each matching perfectly yet none of them.
It's in Russian.
Natasha's voice came from beside the control panel, neither too loud nor too soft.
All four people turned their heads at the same time.
She leaned against the side of the old terminal, arms crossed, her posture relaxed. "People from the Red Room Russian as their native language. This lip movement—" She paused, glancing at the crowd, "Is pronounced 'signal.' Given the context, it's most likely a password, used to confirm the handover with the person opposite."
"The signal," Wanda repeated, her gaze fixed on her face, "Is the acting Director sure?"
"Lip reading is unreliable most of the time," Natasha said, shrugging. "I can only offer the most plausible explanation. If the minister doesn't believe me, he can ask the Management Committee's Language Appraisal Division to verify it—oh, I forgot, the Management Committee doesn't have such a department."
Wanda stared at her for a couple of moments, then didn't ask any further questions.
Hela, leaning on her sword, slowly walked to the projection. "Signal or password, it doesn't matter," she said, "I only ask one question—why is this video stored on this terminal? Who filmed it? Who stored it? And who calculated that we would see it?"
"TVA," Natasha answered quickly. "This area is TVA's property. They installed the Surveillance Camera and sealed the files. If Lynn really did make any transactions here back then, it's perfectly normal for them to end up in TVA's files."
"Normal?" Hela sneered. "TVA's Archive Cabinet bear the Management Committee's seal. TVA's terminals are engraved with Lynn's personal number. The acting Director calls this normal?"
"That's the real scheme." Natasha continued, her tone flat. "Consider this, Director: TVA put Ravonna into the Management Committee, hid Ultron's Trojan Horse in the handover Timeline, and now they've left us with a clip of Lynn's image underground on this abandoned timeline—every single one of these things is aimed at the Management Committee. They don't want Lynn's secret; they want us to fall into chaos because of it."
These words were perfectly well-chosen.
Gwen Stacy looked down at the Data Pad, not replying. She had been comparing the muscle movements of the lip movements in those two frames. Natasha's "signal" should have started at the tip of her tongue, but in the video, Lynn's pronunciation was clearly pressed at the back of her tongue—it was a different word.
She looked up and met Natasha's gaze.
Those green eyes held everything, and nothing at all. They lingered for only a moment before looking away.
Gwen Stacy lowered her eyes, moved the comparison record on the Data Pad to her Private Cache, and kept quiet.
"Director Gwen Stacy," Natasha suddenly called out, "Can the source files of the video be sealed? Every time we see this, morale crumbles. According to the Inspection Office's regulations, evidence should be promptly stored away."
"Okay." Gwen Stacy looked away, her finger landing on the screen. "The Tripartite Joint-Signature Sealing Procedure has just been completed."
The projection on the wall went out immediately.
The Main Control Room went dark, leaving only a faint, cold light from the terminal screen. Wanda stood still, staring at the empty space where the projection had been on the wall.
Signals. Passwords. Transactions.
She remembered Sokovia's burning eyes, and then the cold, empty eyes projected on the screen. Natasha's words echoed in her mind—TVA wants us to create chaos ourselves.
That makes sense. So much so that it left her with nowhere to vent her anger, only making it grow stronger with each passing moment.
Jean Grey closed her eyes briefly. Her Psychic Power had been focused on Natasha the whole time, and when the woman said the word "signal," her heart rate, breathing, and sweat glands remained completely still.
It's either the truth, or a perfectly crafted lie.
People who come from the Red Room embody both traits.
"Pack your things." Hela sheathed her sword, breaking the silence. "The cabinet has been cut down, and the images have been sealed. I don't want to stay in this godforsaken place a second longer."
"Wait a moment," Natasha said. "Before sealing, the Inspection Office needs to routinely check the cabinet. This is evidence Tripartite Custody; missing even one step in the procedure will cause trouble back at headquarters."
No one objected. This is the charter.
She carried her toolbox to the Archive Cabinet, squatted down, opened the box, took out the Detection Device, and scanned the cabinet door inch by inch. Her movements were slow and in accordance with procedure. After scanning each side, she would mark a mark on her Recording Board.
As she swept her wrist along the bottom edge of the cabinet, she flicked it.
A Probe, barely larger than a grain of rice, slid between her fingers into the seam of the Archive Cabinet base. The seam was left by Hela when she cut it, and its depth was just right; the Probe went in silently.
The indicator light on the Detection Device was green, and remained green all the way through.
"Inspection complete." She straightened up and closed the toolbox. "The cabinet is intact, and the seal is valid. It can be shipped."
Gwen Stacy glanced at her, then at the seam at the bottom of the cabinet, but ultimately said nothing, and signed the supervisor's record.
Wanda's Chaos Magic enveloped the cabinet in another layer. Qin's Psychic Power followed suit. The Three Seals interlocked, each unable to break the other.
Once loading was complete, Gwen Stacy returned to the Control Console, preparing to signal the Fleet to retreat.
The moment her finger touched the Communications Key, the walls of the Main Control Room suddenly shook.
The frozen Light Membrane moved. Not contracted—it retreated. The dark blue lines shrank into the wall layer by layer, disappearing completely in the blink of an eye, revealing the original Alloy Wall.
"The fault line has been lifted." Wanda frowned. "Did the protocol close itself?"
"It's not a shutdown." Gwen Stacy stared at the screen, her face gradually darkening. "It's a clearance. The Defense Protocol determined that we completed the pickup and proactively opened the Evacuation Route."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Hela said, and started walking away.
"Director," Gwen Stacy called to her, her voice low, "the passage is open. But what's outside the passage—"
She brought up the external sensor feed from the Control Console and projected it onto the wall.
At the end of the Evacuation Route, towards the Landing Pad, rows of metal outlines stood silently, stretching from the tunnel entrance all the way to the Landing Craft. Some were over ten feet tall, others only waist-high, each with a single red light shining in its socket.
Mechanical Guards. Densely packed, stretching as far as the eye can see.
They had stood there for who knows how many years, and now they were all awake.