The Vibranium fragment was still hot. Ye Mo took it out of his pocket and glanced at it. The red line on its surface had not faded; instead, it had deepened, as though some force had etched it into the metal.
Without a word, he walked straight to the main console and brought up the live surveillance feed for Sector B-9. Everything in the electrical shaft looked normal on camera: neatly arranged cables and a clean, dust-free concrete floor. But when he switched to Thermal Vision mode, a faint distortion appeared in the air-one spot was two degrees warmer than its surroundings.
"Found it," he said quietly.
Emma Frost leaned back in her chair, her fingertips pressed to her temples. The earlier probe had left her head buzzing incessantly, and her vision occasionally doubled. With her eyes closed, she asked, "A tracker?"
"A miniature resonance receiver." Ye Mo enlarged the image. "Disguised as a cable connector, specifically designed to detect Mutant Gene fluctuations. Every time we use our abilities, it records another set of data."
"Why not just remove it?"
"Leave it." Ye Mo marked its location on the screen. "Better to turn their scheme against them than tip them off. If it can receive signals, we can feed false intelligence back through it."
He adjusted the camouflage signal generator's output frequency, raising it one level, and mixed in several chaotic mutant energy waveforms-Wade's Healing Factor, Shadowcat's wall-phasing frequency, and his own recently activated Regenerative Phasing band, all crammed into the signal stream.
"Give them plenty to listen to."
Emma Frost opened her eyes, her gaze settling on the scrolling data. "You really think this is aimed at us?"
"What else?" Ye Mo turned to her. "The news reported that I was blown to pieces. Then, just as a piece of intelligence about Congo turns up, a listening device appears on the third basement level. If this isn't aimed at Mr. X, who else could it be?"
She did not argue. After a few seconds of silence, she put the neural interface back on.
"Again?" Ye Mo frowned.
"A surface scan," she said. "Only touching residual emotions. No deeper."
The connection indicator glowed blue, and her breathing gradually steadied. Ye Mo watched her complexion closely, ready to cut the connection at any moment. Three minutes later, she suddenly drew a breath, her fingers clenching sharply.
"Something... is pressing down."
"What kind of thing?"
"Commanding." Her voice trembled slightly. "Like someone standing above you, looking down, waiting for you to act, waiting for you to make a mistake. Then-"
"Then what?"
"Then he said, 'Let them come.'"
Ye Mo's gaze sharpened. He immediately pulled up the raw signal packet and extracted the compressed emotional imprint separately. He could not reconstruct the audio, but he could analyze the frequency waveform. Comparing it against the Hellfire Club files Tony had left years ago, he found that this thought residue was highly similar in rhythm and intensity, but far cruder in its details.
"Not the genuine article," he said. "An imitation."
"What do you mean?"
"A real Hellfire controller thinks with precision, each layer building on the last, like setting up a chessboard." Ye Mo pointed at the waveform. "This one is different. It's blunt and direct, with a reckless streak. Like someone who learned the basics and decided to pass themselves off as a master."
Emma Frost removed the interface, her hands still trembling slightly. "So they aren't behind this?"
"Some leftover technology might have leaked." Ye Mo leaned back in his chair. "Someone got hold of old equipment and copied it to cobble together a knockoff system. Now they're testing the waters with us."
"What's the objective?"
"A test." He pointed at the new coordinates in Congo's rainforest on the map. "To see whether Mr. X is really dead. If no one responds, they'll dare to make a bigger move next time. If someone acts, they can collect field data and optimize their control model."
Emma Frost looked at the red-circled area on the screen. "So we can't act rashly?"
"But we can't do nothing, either." Ye Mo opened the drone patrol logs. "I've already sent a decoy aircraft over, carrying a mutant energy simulator. They took the bait, strengthened the electromagnetic shielding around the perimeter, and deployed several patrol teams."
"But they didn't remove the trap."
"Right." He nodded. "That means what they want isn't the action itself, but the decision-making logic behind it. They're observers, not hunters."
The room fell silent, with only the low hum of the main computer's fans.
Emma Frost suddenly spoke. "Do you think they'll keep escalating?"
"Definitely." Ye Mo gave a cold laugh. "First they passed information through an old frequency band. Then they planted a listening device. The third time, they might dare to send someone into the base. Testing our limits, step by step."
"What do we do, then?"
"Watch them right back," he said. "Now that we know they're looking, let them look all they want. Show them what we want them to see."
He brought up the data analysis interface, set "Congo coordinates," "Hydra frequency band reuse," and "residual emotional manipulation" to process in parallel, and enabled automatic comparison, refreshing the correlation scores every ten minutes.
"They think we're groping through the fog." Ye Mo pressed the confirmation key. "We're already building a bridge."
Emma Frost let out a breath and leaned back with her eyes closed to rest. Her face was still pale, but her expression was somewhat steadier than before.
"Can you still hold up?" Ye Mo asked.
"I'm not dying." She snorted. "Don't forget, this isn't my first day as your partner."
He smiled without answering, his fingers tapping lightly on the desk as his thoughts raced.
This game had only just begun. They thought they were well hidden, but every move exposed their habits. Building a shell on an old framework meant limited resources; insisting on luring someone to the target location meant they lacked the ability to strike first; attempting emotional manipulation with such crude methods proved their core technical team was not skilled enough.
Weaknesses everywhere.
The only tricky part was that resonance receiver. Its ability to detect genetic fluctuations meant they already had some foundation in X-Gene research. For now, it could only receive passively, but if it were upgraded to active interference in the future...
He rose and walked to the electrical box, opening the casing to inspect the wiring. The disguised connector had been placed in a particularly awkward position, wedged right between two main power lines. Removing it carelessly would affect the power supply to the entire area.
"Can't just yank it out," he muttered.
"Then let it keep working." Emma Frost opened her eyes. "But we change what it outputs."
Ye Mo looked back. "You mean... reverse injection?"
"Right." She sat upright. "We pretend we're being controlled and release some false traces of our decision-making. For example, have the system record a planning sequence for 'departing for Congo shortly,' paired with several high-intensity energy fluctuation tests."
"Put on a show." He smiled. "Make them think they've hooked a big fish."
"A big fish that's still kicking, at that."
They exchanged a glance. No more words were needed; they understood each other.
Ye Mo returned to the console and began adjusting the data logs' write permissions. He set up a hidden protocol that would automatically generate a "combat simulation" record at intervals, complete with matching biological frequency data.
"Let's spice it up a little," he said. "Have these records mention 'Emma Frost is unstable and needs to be evacuated from New York as soon as possible.'"
"You make me sound so fragile." Emma Frost rolled her eyes.
"The more convincing, the better." He smiled. "Who would suspect a Mr. X who can't even keep his partner safe?"
She ignored him and lowered her head to check whether her neural interface connection was secure.
Just then, the Vibranium fragment heated up again.
This time, the heat did not persist. It flashed and vanished, as though someone had swept a glance over it from afar.
Ye Mo immediately grabbed the fragment to examine it. The red line remained, but its color had faded a little.
"They're checking in," he said.
"How often?"
"About once every twenty minutes." He recalled the previous records. "Very regular. That means a high degree of automation and little manual intervention."
"So it's a machine scanning."
"Exactly." He put the fragment back in his pocket. "The more they do this, the more it shows they don't dare come close. Remote monitoring, scheduled sweeps-all signs of fear."
Emma Frost suddenly asked, "Do you think... they might already know we've found it?"
"Possibly." Ye Mo stared at the screen. "But judging by the fact that they haven't removed the equipment, they probably aren't sure yet. Otherwise, they would have cut the signal and run long ago."
"So now we're both playing dumb."
"Right." He nodded. "We both pretend we don't know. Whoever gives themselves away first loses."
Emma Frost closed her eyes and began regulating her breathing. She was preparing for another brief probe, even if all she could capture was the slightest new trace.
Ye Mo did not stop her. He knew he could not talk her out of it.
He turned back and continued watching the countdown window. Thirty-seven minutes remained until the next data refresh.
The screen's blue light shone on his face, while the red circle on the map of Africa burned quietly.
His fingers kept tapping the desk, once, then again, as though counting heartbeats.