The moment the surveillance camera's red light came on, Ye Mo moved.
Without hesitation or another word, he yanked off the T-shirt wrapped around the metal fragments and rushed to the electrical box in a few long strides. Rust covered its casing, and several wires lay exposed in the gap around the door. His gaze sharpened, and he swiftly jammed two resonating metal fragments into the wiring terminals.
Bzzzt-
Sparks burst out, plunging the entire tunnel into darkness. The camera's red dot went out, as though someone had choked the breath out of it.
He caught his breath and looked back at Emma Frost. She was still slumped against the bench, her face ashen, her breathing so faint that her chest barely seemed to move. Ye Mo crouched to check her pulse. His fingertips were ice-cold; her heartbeat was slow but reasonably steady.
"You're not dying yet," he said softly. "At least not before I get that hot pot you owe me."
He took off his hoodie and wrapped it around her. Left in only a bloodstained tank top, he broke out in goose bumps as the cold wind swept over him. But this was no time to worry about comfort. He looked around, and Thermal Vision activated automatically.
His vision filled with gray-blue. Deep in the tunnel, two blurry heat signatures moved slowly-not in the tight formation of pursuers, but more like homeless people wandering around dragging tattered blankets. There were no weapon signatures or reflective outlines of heavy-duty protective gear.
Safe for now.
He hoisted Emma Frost onto his back and crept toward the exit along the wall, keeping his steps light. Every step sent needlelike pain through the muscles in his legs. Regenerative Phasing had drained more than his stamina; he felt hollow even deep in his marrow. But he dared not stop. Every extra second in this place was a gamble with his life.
The exit was a half-collapsed stairwell, its iron railings crooked and its steps piled with chunks of concrete. Dawn was approaching, but the street outside was still deserted. A street sweeper was working in the distance. He narrowed his eyes to get his bearings and recognized an old subway branch line on the edge of Queens, abandoned ten years ago.
He settled Emma Frost beneath the rain shelter at the turn of the stairs, then fished a torn advertising tarp out of a nearby trash pile and covered her with it. Once he had finished, he leaned against the wall and slowly slid into a sitting position, closing his eyes to steady his breathing.
The system still gave no response.
This was not normal. Every previous ability activation, even simply absorbing fragments, had triggered a notification chime. Now it had remained silent throughout, as though its signal had been cut off.
He tried calling out in his mind. Hey, you still there?
No response.
Playing dead, huh? Going to wait until I breathe my last before showing up?
Still silence.
He opened his eyes and gazed into the dark tunnel entrance, then suddenly murmured, "Would you say I count as someone in a high-risk occupation now?"
No one answered. But he knew the system was not the problem.
What truly made his chest tighten was that image-the instant the camera light came on had been far too perfectly timed. As though someone had been watching all along, waiting for them to appear.
He touched the bridge of his nose. The bleeding had stopped, but a strange tremor lingered beneath his skin, as though his cells were still restructuring. Regenerative Phasing had worked, but the cost had been considerable. Looking down at the back of his hand, he saw that his veins had turned faintly blue, and his skin was slow to spring back after he pressed it.
This was no ordinary exhaustion.
He took the metal fragment from his trouser pocket. Its surface was warm, its frequency steady. It was the key to cutting off location tracking, and the only physical evidence that they had been there. He clenched it tightly and slipped it into an inner pocket.
"Need to find somewhere else," he muttered. "Preferably a five-star hotel with Wi-Fi and a first-aid kit."
Before he had finished speaking, the phone in his pocket vibrated.
Frowning, he pulled it out. The screen was cracked like a spiderweb, yet it still had two bars of reception. An unread message popped up:
[Unknown number: Tony wants to know where you went. JARVIS says you didn't come back to the estate last night.]
He stared at the line for three seconds, then deleted it.
A second later, another arrived:
[Unknown number: Obadiah is looking into you. Be careful. -Natasha]
His finger paused.
Obadiah? That former vice president who always wore three-piece suits and smiled like a crocodile?
Tony had mentioned him several times, saying the man had his sights firmly set on control of the company but had yet to make a move. Now he was suddenly investigating a "temporary assistant"?
Something's wrong.
He quickly called back, but the other phone was already switched off. Gritting his teeth, he turned off his own phone, removed the battery, and tossed it into a drain.
The risk of exposure had increased.
Only after confirming that Emma Frost was still breathing steadily did he stand and roll his shoulders. His body was still recovering, but he could not delay any longer. Stark Industries had eyes and ears throughout the city. If Obadiah really had set his sights on him, his next steps would surely be to pull surveillance footage, trace communications, and even tap S.H.I.E.L.D.'s peripheral channels.
And here he was, carrying an unconscious Mutant on his back, wearing bloodstained rags, standing in the last place in New York where he should have been.
As he thought, a faint buzzing sounded overhead.
He snapped his head up.
A miniature drone skimmed along the edge of a building, its camera pointed downward and its infrared scanner active. It was the latest Stark Industries model, military-grade-absolutely nothing an ordinary person could possess.
It was circling.
Ye Mo immediately crouched and pulled the advertising tarp over himself and Emma Frost, covering most of their bodies. His Thermal Vision locked onto the serial number beneath the drone: MK-9-OD-07.
OD.
Obadiah Stane's initials.
"Well, look at you, already sending out a little plane for a stroll?" He sneered. "I thought all you could do was fight over chairs at meetings."
He quietly backed up several steps and only breathed easier after confirming that it had not locked onto him. But before he could finish exhaling, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind-
That text just now-how did Natasha know he was with Emma Frost?
He had not been completely unguarded. The metal fragments had cut off the Hellfire Club's tracking, and Thermal Vision had revealed no signs of surveillance devices. Unless...
Someone had seen them escape with their own eyes.
Or had watched the surveillance footage.
He stared in the direction where the drone had vanished, his gaze gradually turning cold.
At the same time, in a secret private room at an underground club in Manhattan.
Obadiah sat on a leather sofa, a blurry video playing on the projection screen before him. The shaky footage came from a camera high in the subway station. It was just possible to make out a person carrying a woman on his back, his body gradually merging into the wall.
"Wall Phasing?" The man opposite him wore black gloves and spoke in a low voice. "Your human technology hasn't reached that point yet."
"This isn't technology." Obadiah lifted his coffee cup, his tone calm. "It's a Mutant ability. And I know who that woman is-Emma Frost, the White Queen of the Hellfire Club."
The other man did not deny it.
Obadiah continued, "She defected, and you've been searching for her. But now she's with a man who has never appeared in any records. He could help Tony escape from a cave, interfere with my surveillance system, and make two people vanish into thin air."
He set down his cup and pushed an encrypted hard drive across.
"Find out everything about this man for me. Where he came from, what abilities he has, and what his relationship with Tony is. Once it's done, you'll get priority on the next batch of Vulcan missile orders."
The other man took the hard drive and hefted it in his hand.
"Aren't you afraid of stirring up trouble? If this man has backing..."
"It's not his backing I'm afraid of." Obadiah sneered. "I'm afraid Tony now has a Wall Phasing ghost at his side who might one day slip behind me without a sound and overturn thirty years of my hard work in one stroke."
He rose and adjusted his cuff links.
"I just want to make sure this company isn't destroyed by a Mutant of unknown origin."
After the door closed, the projection automatically destroyed itself. In the corner of the room, a terminal was still running.
On its screen, the final frame was frozen at the instant Ye Mo passed through the wall.
Synchronized transmission in progress.
Destination: the top-floor office at Stark Industries headquarters.
Five hundred kilometers away, Ye Mo suddenly raised a hand and touched his ear.
It was as though something far away had lightly scraped against his nerves.
He said nothing, merely hitched Emma Frost higher on his back and stepped into the shadows at a street corner the morning light had yet to reach.
The wind was cold.
As his figure disappeared around the corner, the metal fragment in his pocket gave a faint tremor.