Outsmarting Obadiah

Ye Mo stared at the metal shard in his palm. The patterns on its surface still glowed faintly. He remained motionless, breathing softly, his ears catching the sounds of the street outside the phone booth. Traffic rumbled in the distance; nearby, a plastic bag rustled in the wind. The signal source was moving, heading straight toward Stark Industries.

He slipped the shard back into his pocket and took out his spare phone. Eighteen percent battery-barely enough. He inserted the Vibranium shard into the port. The screen flashed, and the mental images in his mind began turning into code. Strings of characters sprang up, rapidly breaking the agreement's contents down into a printable format.

Leaving the phone booth, he turned past two blocks and stopped at a self-service printing station beside a convenience store. He inserted a coin, selected the file, and pressed confirm. The printer hummed for half a minute before spitting out a sheet of A4 paper. Clearly printed on it were the words: "Memorandum of Cooperation on Jointly Seizing Control of Stark Industries and Eliminating Suspicious Mutants." The signatories were Obadiah Stane and senior members of the Hellfire Club.

He folded the paper, tucked it into his inner pocket, and dialed Tony's number.

"Come to the underground lab right now," he said. "The system notification just sounded. If you don't come, I'll delete it."

The other end fell silent for two seconds. "You're using the system as an excuse again?" Tony's voice was hoarse from staying up all night.

"Hang up if you don't believe me." Ye Mo turned into an alley. "When Obadiah empties your accounts, don't say I didn't warn you."

"...I'll be right there."

Twenty minutes later, Ye Mo leaned against a metal table in the lab, watching Tony rush in with his tie crooked and his shirt buttoned wrong.

"All right, what is it this time?" Tony asked, panting.

Ye Mo took out the paper and slapped it onto the table. "This is the coup contract your old partner signed with the Hellfire Club. The time, the official seal's serial number, the attached clauses-it's all here. If you want to verify it, I can recite it for you."

Tony picked up the paper and scanned it, his brow furrowing. "How did you get this?"

"I used Wall Phasing to get inside." Ye Mo looked him straight in the eye. "The archive data was uploading, and the destruction program triggered with three seconds left. I didn't take a screenshot, but I memorized everything."

Tony sneered. "Just from memory? Who would believe that?"

Unhurried, Ye Mo took the Vibranium shard from his pocket and pressed it against the tabletop terminal panel. "Then check yesterday's logs at 3:17 p.m. Obadiah remotely invoked the permission to alter the board's voting weights, citing an 'emergency contingency test.' But he never even entered the test code."

Tony's fingers stopped.

He quickly pulled up the backend records, his eyes widening. "Using that permission requires two-factor authentication... how did he bypass it?"

"A backdoor program." Ye Mo pointed to his temple. "I also know that at 6:45 this morning, he had security switch Sector B's surveillance circuits to an independent power supply. That's not standard procedure. It was to prevent you from cutting his signal chain when you activated the countermeasure system at headquarters."

Tony jerked his head up. "How do you even know that?"

"Because the system told me." The corners of Ye Mo's mouth rose slightly. "Why else do you think I insisted on seeing you now?"

Tony stared at him for five seconds, then suddenly smiled. "Fine. I'll trust you this once. But we can't take him head-on. Obadiah has already started legal proceedings. As long as he can prove I'm 'mentally unstable,' he can invoke the emergency chairman takeover agreement."

"Then let him think you can activate it." Ye Mo straightened. "Show your face in the top-floor conference room and pretend you're about to chair the morning meeting. He'll keep his eyes glued to you. I'll go to the bottom level of the data center and access the main control system through a physical port."

"By yourself?"

"I'm not going there to fight." Ye Mo wagged his fingers. "I can still use Regenerative Phasing. I just need five minutes of rest afterward. That's enough."

Tony hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "All right. I'll give you a ten-minute window. After that, I'll announce the meeting's been postponed and draw him over."

The plan began.

Tony strode toward the elevator while Ye Mo crawled into a ventilation shaft. As he crawled, waves of sharp pain pulsed through his ribs, as though a wire were being dragged back and forth inside him. He gritted his teeth and endured it, finally reaching the space beneath the B1 data center.

He found an exterior-wall maintenance opening. His right arm slowly turned intangible and passed through the concrete. The agonizing pain of his bones reconstructing brought sweat to his forehead, but he did not stop. He kept pushing forward until his fingertips touched the main control circuit port.

He pressed the Vibranium shard against it, and a faint vibration spread. The firewall's frequency briefly faltered, and a data channel silently opened.

Ye Mo swiftly planted a fabricated log in the system: [User O.Stark logged in remotely at 07:52 and attempted to modify the equity allocation ratios].

The system AI immediately responded: [High-risk operation detected. Initiating compliance review protocol].

A second later, all administrative permissions associated with Obadiah were automatically frozen.

He withdrew his arm and leaned against the wall, gasping. The side effects of Regenerative Phasing were worse than last time. His left hand had already begun to go numb.

His phone vibrated.

Tony was calling.

"He's blown up," Tony said in a lowered voice. "His permissions are locked, and he's heading for the control room with his people."

Ye Mo braced himself and stood. "I'll be right there."

He took the stairs up. Just as he reached the door, he heard roaring from inside.

"This freeze is illegal! I'll sue you for tampering with the system!" Obadiah's voice thundered.

Tony sat at the main console, his expression calm. "I'm just following procedure for handling abnormal access. Look at the logs yourself. Who tried to transfer company assets without authorization?"

"Bullshit! I was doing my regular work!"

"Then why did the system flag you as a high-risk user?" Tony tapped the keyboard. "The AI doesn't make mistakes, unless you really did something you shouldn't have."

The door opened, and Ye Mo walked in.

Obadiah turned to look at him, his gaze sharp as a blade. "You again? That Wall Phasing monster?"

Ye Mo said nothing. He pulled the printout from inside his jacket and gently placed it on the console.

"You called me a suspicious mutant and marked me for priority elimination," he said evenly. "But this memorandum of cooperation, signed in your own hand, is the real evidence of treason."

Obadiah's expression changed abruptly. "Where did you get that? Did you steal it?"

"I didn't steal it." Ye Mo took out the Vibranium shard. "This is audio reconstructed from the residual sound waves of your subordinates' conversation. Want to hear it?"

He pressed play.

Muffled yet intelligible snippets of voices came from the speakers:

"The hard drive's been handed over... the traces are cleared."

"The identity of the Wall Phasing entity is unknown. Recommend initiating the internal elimination protocol."

The air instantly froze.

Tony stared at Obadiah, his voice low. "You sent people to hunt them down in the subway tunnels?"

"I didn't!" Obadiah roared. "This is a frame-up!"

"Then how do you explain this signature?" Ye Mo pointed to the handwriting on the agreement. "And the records of your three attempts to log in to the server remotely this morning? The system recorded them all."

Police sirens drew closer.

Tony looked out the window. "The police are here. I reported it half an hour ago."

Obadiah glared at Ye Mo, advancing step by step. "You're not an ordinary person... you'll pay for this."

Ye Mo smiled. "The system says to remember to pick a smarter opponent next time."

Two officers entered the control room and presented their credentials. "Mr. Obadiah Stane, you are being detained in accordance with the law on suspicion of corporate espionage, illegal intrusion into computer systems, and conspiracy to subvert corporate operations. Please cooperate with the investigation."

Before Obadiah was hauled out, he turned back for one last look at Ye Mo.

Ye Mo stood where he was, holding the metal shard. Its vibration had stopped.

Tony walked over to him and said quietly, "We need someone like you by our side."

Ye Mo did not answer. He lifted his head and looked at the city's morning light beyond the glass curtain wall.

A voice he had not heard in a long time suddenly sounded in his mind:

"The conditions for unlocking the Gene Spiral Tower's second level have been met. It will open automatically when the time is right."