Making Friends, Danger on Every Side

Thor stood up from the bench and brushed the dust off his trousers. The sun was high in the sky, and it felt hot on his face. He took a deep breath and walked along the dirt road toward the town.

Ye Mo stared at the screen, his fingers lightly tapping the keyboard. The red dot began to move, its trajectory stable and without any abnormal fluctuations. He turned down the volume and heard the sound of footsteps on gravel coming from the monitor.

"He's awake," he said.

Emma Frost didn't open her eyes, leaning back in her chair, her Mental Network constantly active. "Her heartbeat is normal, and her breathing is steady. She's adjusting."

"Not everyone who gets knocked off their pedestal can get back up so quickly." Ye Mo picked up a cup of coffee, took a sip, and said, "If it were me, I'd probably just give up."

They watched Thor walk into the convenience store. The doorbell rang once. The clerk glanced up, then looked down again to continue reading his magazine. Thor stood in front of the shelf, picked up a bag of bread, checked the price, put it back, and exchanged it for a bottle of water.

Just then, another person entered through the door.

The woman, carrying a bag, wearing a white lab coat, and with her hair tied in a ponytail, went straight to the beverage counter, grabbed a bottle of coffee, and paid by scanning a QR code. She nearly bumped into Thor as she left.

"Sorry." Thor stepped aside.

"It's nothing." The woman smiled. "Were you on that bench last night too?"

Thor nodded. "It's a bit windy, but I can still sleep."

"My name is Jane Foster." She extended her hand.

"Thor." He took her hand, his movements a little awkward.

"Are you... a tourist?" Jane asked.

"I suppose so," Thor said. "We've just arrived and haven't found a place to stay yet."

"You're in luck then." Jian pointed to the bulletin board across the street. "There's a rental ad over there. The landlord is a relative of my colleague; he seems reliable."

Thor looked in the direction she was pointing. "Thank you for your suggestion."

"You're welcome." Jane glanced at her watch. "I have to go; I still have data to process in the lab."

She turned and left, her figure quickly disappearing around the street corner.

Ye Mo replayed the conversation three times. The camera stopped at the moment Jian turned around, and he zoomed in on her facial expressions, pupil reactions, and changes in the muscles around her mouth.

"The system notification said she wasn't just asking casually," he said in a low voice. "She was genuinely observing him."

Emma Frost opened her eyes. "She's trying to determine if he's a homeless person, or some kind of... experimental subject."

"But she used scientific logic, not skepticism." Ye Mo took off his glasses and wiped them. "That makes things easier."

He opened the encrypted log and added a note after Jane's name: [Cognitive Model: Empirical-oriented, Risk-controlled].

"We were afraid someone would recognize him as a god," he said. "Now it seems we're even more afraid someone will use him as a research subject."

"And now?" Emma Frost asked.

"Now?" Ye Mo put his glasses back on. "Now she's just a neighbor who borrowed a book. We'll continue working as internet repairmen."

He pulled up a map of the town and circled Jane's house, the observatory, and her commute route all within the secondary monitoring zone. Sensor weights were redistributed, with a focus on capturing changes in audio frequency bands and emotional frequency bands.

"As long as she doesn't say 'Are you an alien?', we'll pretend it never happened."

On the screen, Thor walked to the bulletin board, looked at it carefully for a while, tore off a piece of paper, and stuffed it into his pocket.

Half an hour later, he stopped in front of a small house. The landlord, an old man with a pipe in his mouth, looked him up and down and handed him the keys.

Thor thanked him and went inside.

The room was old, but clean. He sat on the edge of the bed, catching his breath. Then he took out the book "Introduction to Basic Astronomy" from his pocket and flipped through a few pages.

Ye Mo chuckled softly upon seeing this. "He really does look."

"Don't you find it strange?" Emma Frost asked, "God of Thunder, sitting here reading an introductory book?"

"Not surprising," Ye Mo said. "He's not God of Thunder anymore; he's just an unemployed person who's changed careers. Everyone needs to find a new job sometimes."

He accessed the municipal network backend and checked Jian's work schedule for the day. He discovered that she had applied to use the mobile telescope team that evening, with the target area being the vicinity of the valley.

"Here they come," he said.

Should we stop them?

"We can't stop her." Ye Mo shook his head. "She's just doing her job. If we touch her equipment, it will only attract attention."

He quickly typed in a piece of code and injected it into the delay script. The system automatically popped up a prompt: "Atmospheric disturbance exceeds the limit; it is recommended to postpone the observation time by two hours."

Is this enough?

"That's enough," Ye Mo said. "Two hours is enough for us to prepare. Besides..." He paused, "If she can really discover something, it means she should know."

"You know what I'm thinking," Emma Frost said.

"You mean she's helping him?" Ye Mo looked at the screen, "But I don't see it that way. She's just doing what she's supposed to do. He's receiving help. It's different."

"But the result is the same."

"The process determines the nature of the situation." Ye Mo pressed the enter key. "We're guarding against enemies, not friends. Even if that friend doesn't yet know who they're helping."

The surveillance footage switched to the park. At three o'clock in the afternoon, Thor was sitting on a bench reading a book. The wind blew the pages, and he held them down with his hand.

Jane was walking by carrying her bag when she saw him and stopped.

"How's it going?" she asked.

"There are still some concepts I don't quite understand." Thor pointed to a chart on a page, "For example, how was this Force Field shift measured?"

Jane sat down next to him. "Are you interested in this?"

"I just want to know if the storm that night was a natural phenomenon."

"No," he explained. "Ionospheric cracks, a concentrated release of energy, are not caused by ordinary thunderstorms. I'm writing a paper and would like to request more data to support my claim."

Thor looked at her. "You think this was man-made?"

"I think someone's testing some kind of device," he said simply. "Or... welcoming something."

The two remained silent for a while.

"Do you believe in fate?" Thor suddenly asked.

"I believe in data," Jane laughed. "But sometimes, data points to things that are inexplicable."

Upon hearing this, Ye Mo turned off the audio monitoring.

"They talked too much," he said.

"You want to cut it off?"

"No need," Ye Mo shook his head. "Let them talk. Just don't mention the hammer."

He opened the Gene Spiral Tower interface and checked the status of layer 15. The gray fragment was still hot, and the newly added unnamed node vibrated slightly. The Vibranium fragment's resonance frequency had increased by 0.3% compared to yesterday.

"The external traction is still there," he said, "But the signal is very weak, as if it's being deliberately suppressed."

What are they waiting for?

"Wait until we make a move," Ye Mo said. "If we don't move now, they won't dare to make any obvious moves."

He retrieved the day's data summary and generated a report:

Thor's social behavior is normal, with no abnormalities.

Jane Foster's research activities were compliant and did not trigger any high-risk protocols;

- External spying signals were not reproduced, and the reverse tracking mechanism remains online;

Silent Guard V2.0 is running stably; Level 3 alerts are not activated.

"What's the conclusion?" Emma Frost asked.

"It's safe today," Ye Mo said, "But not necessarily tomorrow."

He closed most of the windows, leaving only two red dot graphs. One was in the cabin, and the other was in the laboratory. The ion concentration curve was slowly rising, with an increase of 0.8%, the source of which was unknown.

"The system notification tone didn't sound," he said, "But it's been becoming more and more like a person lately."

"What's the meaning?"

"It's starting to hide things." Ye Mo stared at the curve. "Before, if there was anything unusual, it would immediately alert the police. Now? It analyzes things on its own first before deciding whether to tell me or not."

Do you think it's conscious?

"Not at all," Ye Mo shook his head. "It's more like the default setting after an upgrade. Just like a phone automatically clearing background apps, it's optimizing the process."

"Then should we still believe in it?"

"Don't believe it, believe the data." Ye Mo tapped the keyboard. "As long as the red dot doesn't move, we'll stay put."

Night fell. Thor turned off the lights and went to sleep. Jane was still in the lab, recording data on the screen.

Ye Mo took a sip of his cold coffee and put his glasses back on.

"Do you think she might suddenly call him one day?" Emma Frost asked.

"Yes," Ye Mo said, "but she won't say, 'I've found something wrong with you.' She'll say, 'I have some data, can you take a look at it for me?'"

"Then what?"

"Then they studied it together," Ye Mo said, looking at the screen, "Until she came to her own conclusion."

"Aren't you going to stop it?"

"I don't need to stop her," Ye Mo said. "The real danger isn't the truth, it's the attitude. If she charges at me with a gun, I'll stop her. But if she comes at me with her thesis, then let her go."

He stood up and stretched his wrists.

"What I fear most right now isn't Loki," he said, "But which reporter suddenly publishes a report with the headline, 'Homeless Man Turns Out to Be an Alien Visitor'."

Emma Frost laughed. "Then you'd better pray that there aren't any internet celebrities in town."

"I've hacked the entire town's WiFi," Ye Mo said. "Anyone who wants to stream will have to get past me first."

He sat back in his chair and tapped his fingers lightly on the table.

Once, twice.

Then stop.

On the monitor screen, two red dots lit up silently.

One was inside the house, and the other was in the building.

Outside the window, the moon was obscured by clouds.

The lights inside the room flickered suddenly.