The moment the conference room lights finished flashing, Ye Mo's fingers twitched.
He didn't look up, only glanced at his wristwatch – 41 seconds left on the Regenerative Phasing cooldown. The timing was tight, like filling out an answer sheet in the last minute of an exam. He casually tapped the control panel three times, bringing up the three weak energy pulses he had just marked, zooming in on the waveforms, and centering them on the holographic projection.
"Triangulation," he said. "It's not a coincidence. Their reconnaissance methods are old-fashioned, but clean, and the interference source is well hidden; it's clearly aimed at our system."
Emma Frost didn't open her eyes, her fingertips still pressed against her temples, her breathing as steady as a lie detector. She softly continued, "The anxiety in the West District hasn't dissipated yet, like a flame suppressed underground, burning suffocatingly. If they're using a mental suppression device as cover, then the coverage area should have already expanded to the intersection of North Bridge and the East Third Ring Road."
Tony's voice came from the repair shop, accompanied by the metallic scraping sound of a wrench tightening screws, "So we're now drawing a mosquito net around the entire city with a chill down the back of the neck, a fluctuating waveform, and the emotional radar of some White Queen?"
The door opened a crack, and he poked half his body out, his tactical exoskeleton half-on, half-off, slung over his shoulder. He was also carrying a modified signal receiver in his hand, the casing of which read " Stark Industries - Not for Sale - No Compensation for Damage".
"I'm not questioning," he said, walking in and placing the equipment on the table. "I mean—this is much more reliable than the last time I used a coffee machine to predict the stock market crash."
Ye Mo twitched the corner of his mouth, ignoring the joke. He pulled up a city map, swiped his finger, and three red dots lit up: an abandoned subway substation, a cluster of high-voltage power towers in the old city, and a communications relay station in the northern suburbs.
"These three locations are all blind spots for civilian infrastructure, and power fluctuations are often categorized as 'temporary calibrations.' If the enemy wanted to remotely control these nodes, they would definitely choose these locations to strike."
"So you're planning to set a trap?" Tony leaned closer to the projection. "Passive sensing? Not taking the initiative?"
"We don't know how many people they have, or whether their next move is a probe or a full-scale attack." Ye Mo tapped on the real-time monitoring screen of each red dot. "But exposing ourselves now is tantamount to telling them—we're panicking. But if we pretend we haven't noticed anything and wait for them to walk right in..."
"Then we can follow the clues," Emma Frost said, her gaze clear and cold. "And we can see their reaction patterns. Will they retreat immediately? Or will they intensify their advance? These can all be used as a basis for judgment."
Tony stared at the map for five seconds, then suddenly turned and walked to the terminal by the wall, entering a series of commands. A few seconds later, the drone dispatch interface popped up, showing that twenty miniature reconnaissance drones were on standby, grouped by region.
"I'll have them deployed in batches after midnight tonight," he said. "Disguised as municipal inspectors, they'll drop off what you call 'sensor boxes.' Each box is only the size of a palm, looks exactly like a street light controller, and has a built-in dual-band detection module that can identify the low-frequency fluctuations you're talking about."
He glanced back at Ye Mo: "By the way, I've dynamically shifted the base's shield frequency, automatically switching it every thirty seconds. Even if they do have remnants of AIM technology, they can't expect to break through the defense network with a single scan."
"Smart," Ye Mo nodded, "But they're not stupid either. If they detect an anomaly in the signal, they might trace the delivery path in reverse."
"So I had the drones go through underground pipes," Tony grinned. "Sewage pipes, cable shafts, ventilation ducts—nobody's going to look up and see if some high-tech gadget is crawling under the drain cover."
Emma Frost gave a soft hum. "Then you'd better pray that a cleaner doesn't lift the lid in the middle of the night."
"I've hacked into the municipal scheduling system and rescheduled all patrols on the relevant roads tonight," Tony shrugged. "Now even a stray cat walking by triggers an infrared alarm, but our people—get free to roam."
Ye Mo didn't laugh. He simply opened the encrypted communication protocol template, set up a one-time key rotation mechanism, and automatically updated it every fifteen minutes. He pushed the protocol to the two people. "Once the trap is triggered, everyone should communicate through this channel. All public frequencies should be silenced, and patrol teams should switch to hand gestures."
"Understood." Emma Frost closed her eyes and reconnected to the mental field. "I will set the scanning precision to the highest level, focusing on the mental activity within a 500-meter radius of the three trap points. If any collective Thought Shielding occurs, I will immediately mark the blank areas."
"I'll be in charge of closing the net." Ye Mo closed the terminal. "Whoever shows their face will be recorded."
The holographic image on the conference table slowly rotated, the city's outline enveloped in a layer of pale blue light—a defense network taking shape. The three remained silent, each absorbed in their own thoughts.
Tony returned to the maintenance room to continue adjusting the final set of parameters for the armor. Ye Mo stayed in the control room, checking the progress of each sensor's online operation. Emma Frost sat back in her chair, closed her eyes again, and her mental energy spread out like Silk, silently entangling the nerve endings of the entire city.
Time ticked by, second by second.
At 11:17, the first group of drones completed deployment, and the signal feedback from trap point number three was normal.
At 11:43, the sensor near the high-voltage power tower was successfully activated, but no alarm was triggered.
At 00:06, the last node of the North Suburb Relay Station went online, completing the entire closed loop of the sensing trap.
Ye Mo leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples. The Regenerative Phasing cooldown had finally reached zero, and the heaviness of his Steel Bone Transformation arm had also subsided considerably. But he didn't relax; instead, he stared even more intently at the data stream on the screen.
He knew the real test was yet to come.
It feels like being on the loading screen before the final level in a game. The screen freezes, the music stops, and you know the boss will appear in the next second, but you can't switch to get a drink, you can't look down at your phone, and you even have to hold your breath.
Because the enemy is also waiting.
They wait until you let your guard down, until you make a mistake, until you think you're ready, then suddenly stab you in the back.
" Ye Mo." Emma Frost suddenly spoke, her voice very soft, as if afraid of disturbing something.
He looked up.
"The anxiety in the West End... has changed." She opened her eyes, her pupils slightly contracted. "Not stronger, not weaker. But... more uniform."
"Neat?" He frowned.
"Yes." She nodded. "Before, it was chaotic, individualized, repressive emotions, like a group of people each having their own nightmares. But now—it's become synchronized, as if it's been uniformly controlled. Like... someone is training them."
Tony then came out, holding the newly upgraded Palm Cannon module. "Is it possible that the mental suppression device you mentioned can not only block thoughts, but also affect emotional rhythms? For example, putting a group of ordinary people into 'standby mode'?"
Ye Mo stared at the area on the map, remained silent for two seconds, then suddenly got up and walked to the control panel, pulling up the city's surveillance heat map. He overlaid the emotional fluctuation curve of the western district over the past half hour onto it, comparing the population density, traffic flow, and light distribution.
Then he saw it.
At the intersection of two main roads, there was an area where the light levels remained consistently low, but heat sources indicated that the population density was not low. Even more strangely, the cell phone signal base station load in that area was abnormally stable—unlike a natural state.
"There's something wrong there." He pointed to the screen. "Normally at night, the signal would be very volatile in crowded places. But there... it's as quiet as a library, yet the room is packed with people."
Tony leaned closer to take a look and whistled. "Either it's a group meditation class, or it's—a living relay station."
"They don't need everyone to be combat-ready," Ye Mo said in a low voice. "As long as a portion of them are controlled and become signal amplifiers, the entire mental interference network can have a wider coverage."
Emma Frost immediately adjusted the density of her mental Anchor, adding six auxiliary beacons to create a cross-validation grid. "I need to get closer to confirm the internal structure, but venturing in now is too risky."
"You don't need to go," Ye Mo shook his head. "Let them do it themselves."
"You mean, wait for them to start?" Tony raised an eyebrow.
"Yes." Ye Mo looked at the eerily calm area on the screen. "We've already set traps, upgraded our defenses, and locked down communications. Now, all we can do is wait."
He sat back down, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the table, one tap after another, as if counting his heartbeats.
It was still dark outside.
The wind swept through the buildings, swirling up a piece of waste paper, which hit the glass and then fell.
Inside the control room, the three men each guarded their own area.
Tony made a final check of the armor's energy readings; the green numbers were steadily fluctuating.
Emma Frost kept her eyes closed to maintain the coverage of her Mental Network, her fingertips resting on the edge of the table, slightly white;
Ye Mo stared intently at the monitor screen, his eyes unblinking, as if the danger would not be able to strike as long as he was watching.
The time was 1:23 AM.
All systems are functioning normally.
All traps are active.
All personnel remain on standby.
The city lights were on, traffic flowed as usual, billboards flashed, and convenience stores were lit up.
Everything seemed peaceful and uneventful.
But in some corners--
Beneath the subway maintenance manhole cover, a newly installed sensor's green light quietly illuminated, recording a barely perceptible ripple of energy.
At the top of the high-voltage power tower, a miniature receiving unit captures a brief low-frequency fluctuation and immediately encrypts and uploads it.
On the roof of the relay station in the northern suburbs, a device disguised as a lightning rod quietly awaits the next signal pulse.
These details are so small that even AI might overlook them.
But they did happen.
Ye Mo's terminal suddenly vibrated.
He looked down.
It's not an alarm.
This is a system notification:
[Fourth weak energy pulse detected, direction: center of abnormal thermal zone in the west area, intensity +0.3%, duration extended by 1.8 seconds]
He didn't say anything, but simply dragged the information into the temporary log and marked it as "priority".
Then he looked up and gazed out the window.
In the distance, a cloud slowly rolled across the city skyline.
Like a hand that hesitates to fall.