The scorch mark on my palm is still throbbing.
It wasn't burning, nor was it stinging; it was just a throbbing sensation, like a thread connecting him to somewhere far away. Ye Mo stared at his right hand, his knuckles white. The aftereffects of that attack hadn't dissipated, and his nerves were still twitching. He didn't move, nor dared to move, afraid that any movement would break the newly established connection.
Emma Frost stood three steps away, silent. She knew what he was waiting for.
One second he was using lightning as a tool, the next second the tool suddenly turned around and glanced at him.
"It delivered something," he said.
The sound wasn't loud, but it seemed to vibrate the air throughout the training area.
Emma Frost squinted. Her Mental Network was already set up, not in attack mode, but in listening mode. She could feel a turbulent current in Ye Mo's mind, like someone hitting glass with a hammer, the rhythm irregular, but each strike was precise.
"Did you receive it?" she asked.
"It's not words, nor images." He shook his head. "It's... frequency. A rhythm, like a heartbeat."
He raised his left hand and pressed it against his chest. His heart rate was seventy, but the rhythm of his palm's beat was sixty-three, seven slow beats per minute.
"It's different," he said. "It was learning from me, and now it's making me learn from it."
No sooner had he finished speaking than a sudden thud appeared between his eyebrows.
It wasn't pain, it was a throbbing sensation. It felt like someone had stuffed a wad of electrified cotton into his head, heavy and numb. His knees buckled, and he almost knelt down, only managing to steady himself by bracing his left hand on the edge of the control panel.
Emma Frost instantly appeared beside him, placing her right hand on his shoulder. Her skin began to change color, gleaming with a metallic sheen from her fingertips upwards, activating her Diamond Form and directly channeling her spiritual energy into him.
She saw a shadow in his consciousness.
The bridge is broken.
It didn't collapse; it was severed. A massive rainbow bridge of light hung in space, suddenly splitting in the middle, with streams of light on either side swinging back and forth like severed electrical wires. A person in a green Cloak stood in a golden palace, his hand raised, palm down, as if pressing something.
Then the screen went blank.
Emma Frost disconnected, her breathing a little rapid.
"You saw it?" Ye Mo looked up.
"Yes," she said, "The bridge is broken; someone has done something."
" Loki," he said, stating the name directly.
How did you know?
"Because only he would do something like this—no killing, no arson, just cutting off the path. He knows Thor can't go back, Odin can't wake up, and Asgard will be in chaos." He leaned on the table to stand up, and tapped a few keys on the keyboard with his left hand. "Check the system log."
The screen lights up, and the Gene Spiral Tower interface pops up. At the bottom of the 20th floor, a new record appears:
[High-dimensional space Anchor offset detected, suspected Bifrost master control protocol tampering]
The timestamp is 37 seconds ago.
"The system knows too." Emma Frost looked at the line of text.
"It doesn't know, it senses it." Ye Mo pointed to the notification. " The Bifrost is Asgard's energy hub. If it moves, the coordinates of the entire Nine Realms will shake. My lightning is divine energy borrowed from Thor, originating from the same source as the bridge. If the bridge breaks, it's like a plug being pulled out, causing a backlash on my end."
"So you weren't out of control just now, you were shaken?"
"Yes. I'm like a radio right now, tuned to a local station, but suddenly I get an alien broadcast; the channel's all messed up."
Emma Frost frowned. "Can you tell which one is yours and which one is its?"
"For now," he said, flexing his wrist. "But if it sends another call, I'll probably have to choose—to turn it off or to answer."
The two remained silent for a few seconds.
The lights in the base were still green, and the surveillance footage showed everything was normal. It was dark outside, and the wind wasn't even strong. Nobody on Earth knew that something had happened at Asgard.
But they knew.
"Should we notify someone?" Emma Frost asked.
"Who should we notify? S.H.I.E.L.D..? They'll say we're mentally unstable. Tony? He'll drive over in his armor and find he can't even get through the door." Ye Mo shook his head. " Loki wants to panic. He's not afraid of fighting, he's afraid of being ignored. The moment we move, he wins."
So you're going to pretend you don't know?
"It's not an act." He walked to the main control panel, his finger sliding across the surface. "It's waiting."
He pressed the red button.
The alarm didn't sound, but all screen borders turned dark red, backup power switched automatically, and the defense system was upgraded to level three. The base entered a silent alert state.
"My inaction doesn't mean I'm unprepared," he said. "He stole the bridge for his next move. As long as he hasn't used the bridge, we still have time."
Emma Frost watched him operate the device, then suddenly reached out and grabbed his right wrist.
"You're lying," she said.
"What?"
"Your brainwaves are off. Three areas are blocked; you locked them yourself." She stared at him. "You're hiding something."
Ye Mo did not break free.
Two seconds later, he grabbed her wrist with his other hand and lowered his voice. "What if I said that chip wasn't just transmitting information... it was like it was recognizing me?"
"Recognize you?"
"Yes. It started by imitating me, but now it's making me adapt to it. The rhythm has changed, the temperature has changed. That last jump—" he raised his right hand, "Wasn't it following me, I was jumping with it."
Emma Frost didn't let go. She closed her eyes, her spiritual tendrils gently probing the edge of his palm, sensing that strange rhythm. It wasn't an electric current, nor a bioelectric signal, but more like... synchronization.
"Then let it recognize you," she said. "But you must remember, you are the master."
"I know."
"Don't lie to me." She opened her eyes. "If you tell me you're fine while you're getting yourself into trouble, I won't save you a second time."
"Okay, I got it." He smiled. "Next time, I'll just write a will and send you a copy."
She didn't laugh.
He composed himself and looked down at his palm. The scorch marks were still pulsating, but the frequency was half a beat slower than before, as if it were adjusting.
"Why do you think it chose this time to send the message?" he asked.
"Because you just opened the portal," Emma Frost said. "By relinquishing control and letting it dominate a charge, you essentially gave it authority. It seized the opportunity to insert Asgard's affairs."
"So he used me to call the police?"
Or perhaps it's calling for help.
"A chip would cry for help?"
"It's not a chip." She looked at the black cube in the Faraday cage. "It's a key. Loki was able to steal the bridge, which means the original lock was broken. This thing might be a backup protocol, or a last resort."
Ye Mo stared at the cage without saying a word.
He knew what she was talking about.
Some systems don't manifest or speak, but they'll give you a push at crucial moments. His cheat system never issues tasks, but it never lets him miss out on what he needs to know.
This time too.
"So it doesn't want to control me," he said, "It wants to cooperate."
"The premise is that you believe it."
"I don't believe it," he shook his head, "But I believe in myself."
He turned and walked to the main control panel, continuing to input code with his left hand, switching all external communications of the base to delayed mode. Any incoming signal had to pass through three layers of filtering to prevent the implantation of tracking programs.
"I'll do two things," he said. "First, lock the location, preventing anyone from pinpointing it. Second, keep the system in a listening state, and immediately record the waveform if a similar fluctuation occurs again."
"Aren't you going to analyze it?"
"We can't analyze anything right now." He sat down. "It's transmitting fragments; I have to wait for the second segment. Only when the two segments can be pieced together can we determine if it's the same person speaking."
Emma Frost stood next to him, but didn't sit down.
"Are you tired?" she asked.
"Good."
Your heart rate is ninety.
"... nervous."
"When have you ever been nervous? The last time you said you were nervous was when you were being chased by Vulture."
"I was genuinely afraid of dying that time."
What about this time?
He paused for a few seconds, then removed his fingers from the keyboard.
"This time I'm afraid of messing things up," he said. "Before, I just wanted to survive; the more I could manage, the longer I could hold on. Now it's different. I can sense more and more things, and I can see further and further. I'm not carrying this alone anymore."
She didn't reply.
But he knew she understood.
They are not a single person.
"If you can't hold on, just say so," she said. "Don't wait until you collapse to call for help."
"Good."
"Real."
"Real."
She nodded, took a step back, and stood against the wall. Her Mental Network remained active, like an invisible shield, enveloping him and the entire base.
Ye Mo looked at the screen again.
The data stream is quiet.
The chip inside the Faraday cage has no light.
Everything seems normal.
But he knew it wasn't right.
My palm twitched again.
This time it's the sixty-second count.
Eight beats too slow.
He looked down at his hands, his fingers slowly clenching.
In the corner of the monitor screen, a new line of the system log was automatically refreshed:
[ Resonance Lightning frequency shift detected, current value: 62.3Hz, continuing to decrease]