Top-secret review of the surviving data, the historical truth of a cruel wager
Midnight.
All the lights in the outer room of the Director's Office were off, leaving only one light in the inner room.
Lynn locked the door from the inside and then locked it with a second hidden bolt. This bolt wasn't on any of the Management Committee's plans; he had it installed himself, without even Gwen Stacy knowing.
The Evidence Bag was placed on the table.
He unpacked it and took out the data Motherboard. There were burn marks on the edge of the board, left by the pressure of two forces during the day. Cracks ran from the solder pads of the Chip in the center all the way to the edge of the board.
Lynn connected it to his Private Terminal.
This terminal is not connected to the internet, does not take over any lines from the Management Committee, and has its own power supply. The screen lights up, and blue light shines on his face.
The decoding program took a long time to run.
The outer layer is a TVA-standard encryption, and it is peeled off layer by layer. When it reaches the seventh layer, the progress bar stops and a message pops up. "Original signed agreement detected. The signer's brainwave needs to be verified."
Lynn pressed her finger on the sensor area.
Verification successful.
The screen flashed, and the underlying logs were displayed.
It's not a battle log, nor is it surveillance footage. It's a negotiation summary.
Date: Three days after the Sokovia Incident. Location: TVA Precinct 7, an unnumbered meeting room. Two people sit opposite each other: on one side is Holographic Projection of TVA executives, their insignia hidden; on the other side is Lynn.
The log was kept verbatim.
[TVA: Variant LNH-001, your Timeline has been added to the censorship list. The Negative Zone Fold, along with all life within it, will be erased in forty-eight hours.]
[Lynn: Have you calculated what you'll lose by erasing Negative Zone?]
[TVA: One redundant fold. Loss is zero.]
[Lynn: The Fold Belt contains the remnants of energy from three Abandoned Timeline. Erasing it will cause the remnants to dissipate, contaminating your seventeen main timelines. Your Deduction Division can calculate that number.]
[TVA:... State your terms.]
[Lynn: Negative Zone won't be laid off. I belong to you.]
[TVA: One Variant, one wrinkled band. Asymmetrical.]
[Lynn: Not just once. It's again and again.]
There's a blank line in the log.
The next line contains the terms of the agreement.
[Clause 1: The Negative Zone pleats are permanently removed from the cutting list and placed under observation.]
[Clause Two: Variant LNH-001 voluntarily accepts the "cyclical execution" procedure. After each execution, the memory data belongs to TVA and will be used for emotional Anchor research.]
[Article 3: No limit on the number of executions. Executions will continue until the Variant's mind completely collapses, or TVA unilaterally terminates the agreement.]
[Clause 4: During the term of this Agreement, the Variant shall not disclose this Agreement to any third party in any form. Violation of this clause will immediately void Clause 1.]
Lynn's gaze lingered on the words "cyclical executions" for a moment.
The execution record is attached to the log.
First time, Sokovia. Laser through the chest, dead. Data archived.
The second time, the New York Clock Tower. Fell, died. Data archived.
The third time, Asgard. The Gungnir, reduced to ashes. Data archive.
The fourth time, the fifth time, the sixth time...
The records are flipped through page after page, seemingly endless. Each page is followed by a small line of text: Memory retrieval complete, Anchor stability increased.
After the forty-first record, an additional comment appeared in the execution column.
[TVA's comment: This Variant's mental resilience exceeds the predicted limit. Continued observation is recommended; termination should not be terminated for now.]
Lynn read it without expression.
He scrolled the progress bar to the bottom. At the end of the agreement, there were two names in the signature section. The one from TVA signed a string of numbers, starting with B, but the letters after that had been deliberately erased. The erasure marks were very fresh, indicating that it had been done recently.
In his own section, he signed "Lynn". The handwriting was his.
The office was very quiet. You could hear the fan running from the terminal.
Lynn remained seated.
The people outside— Wanda, Jean, Hela, Natasha —were all speculating about what was hidden in that board. They wondered who he had betrayed back then, whether he was a spy for TVA, whether he was ruthless and calculating, trading other people's lives for money.
Both are true, and neither are true.
He did make a deal. The bargaining chip wasn't someone else, it was himself. One death wasn't enough, he'd die forty-one. TVA wanted data, he gave them data; TVA wanted to see how long someone could last after being repeatedly eliminated, he'd show TVA how long he could last. He'd last until the other side's deduction department lost its patience, until the Negative Zone was crossed off the cut list, completely wiped out.
He never intended for anyone to know about this debt.
He understood. He could predict how Wanda's barely suppressed anger would escalate, what Jean would do, and where Hela would lead her troops. More importantly, there was Clause Four. The agreement was still in effect, and TVA still held the pretext to nullify it. The longer this clause remained in effect, the longer a sword of Damocles would hang over Negative Zone.
Lynn removed the Motherboard.
He got up and walked to the east side of the office. There stood a metallurgical furnace against the wall, used to dispose of Top Secret waste parts; the furnace temperature was high enough to melt anything below Vibranium.
He lifted the furnace lid and dropped the Motherboard inside.
The board fell into the flames, its edges curling up first, the solder joints bursting one by one, tiny sparks splattering onto the furnace wall. The board, which had recorded forty-one deaths, slowly collapsed, turning into a pool of dark red liquid.
Lynn watched it burn out and then closed the stove lid.
Seven of the forty-one Chip cracked, and the remaining Motherboard was destroyed. The logs were gone, and the original protocol components were still locked in TVA's vault—that's a matter for the next step.
He returned to the case, folded the empty Evidence Bag, and tucked it into the bottom drawer.
After doing all that, he sat down and poured himself a glass of water. The water was cold, but he didn't change it.
The terminal screen was still lit, stuck on the last page of the agreement. He reached out to turn it off, his fingertips hovering over the keys, pausing for a moment.
The erased number in the signature section has very fresh erasure marks.
Who erased it, when did they erase it, and why specifically the signatory—this isn't TVA's doing. If TVA wanted to erase something, they would erase the entire agreement.
Someone had accessed this file before him. Someone knew the agreement existed, knew who the signatory was, and didn't want him to know.
Lynn turned off the screen.
As darkness fell, only the lingering heat from the furnace remained in the inner room.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes briefly.
Just then, there were three knocks on the door.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
No rush, no heaviness, the intervals are too even.
Lynn opened her eyes.
At this hour, there could be fewer than three people in the Management Committee who would dare to approach this door and knock. The fact that the outer access control didn't sound an alarm indicates that the person entered through proper channels—or perhaps, didn't use the access control at all.
He neither responded nor moved.
The people outside didn't urge them.
After a moment, something was slipped under the door. It was a piece of paper, folded neatly.
Lynn stared at the page lying on the ground for a while before getting up to pick it up.
Expand.
There was only one line of text on the paper, handwritten, with delicate handwriting and fresh ink:
"The record of the Forty-Second Execution is with me."
There was no signature.
Lynn stood in the darkness, clutching the piece of paper, and heard a series of footsteps slowly fading away at the end of the corridor outside the door.