Circuit's mechanical eye was still flashing, his fingers frozen over the keyboard.
"This intrusion method... it's exactly like the energy residue you left behind."
The man in the trench coat didn't move. His face was hidden beneath his hood. He slowly withdrew his hand, and the ripples in his palm vanished.
Ye Mo stepped forward, standing between them.
"You have two choices now." He looked at Circuit. "First, call the police, wait three months for S.H.I.E.L.D. to investigate, and have them conclude it was a system vulnerability. Second, let me find out what happened right now."
Circuit gritted his teeth. "How?"
Ye Mo tapped his temple. "I got a hint saying I could try Telepathy."
Emma Frost knew he was making it up, but said nothing. She walked behind Ye Mo, ready to help connect their minds at any moment.
Ye Mo closed his eyes and activated his ability.
The trench-coated man's memories were a mess, like scraps of paper scattered by the wind. There were no orders, no Hydra insignia. Only one scene appeared over and over-a white room, a metal table, his arm pinned down, someone injecting blue liquid into his vein.
Ye Mo opened his eyes.
"He isn't with Hydra," he said. "But they modified him. That memory really is locked away. He isn't pretending."
Circuit didn't believe him. "Then why is the signal residue the same?"
"Technology can be copied." Ye Mo took a Vibranium fragment from his pocket. "But the people using it are different."
He placed the fragment on the console and started the analysis. A few seconds later, a frequency spectrum appeared on the screen beside the intrusion signal.
"Look here." Ye Mo pointed at the waveform. "The peaks differ by 12%, and the pulse intervals differ by 0.3 seconds. Same equipment, different operators."
Circuit stared at the screen for five seconds before finally letting go. "...Only a 30% overlap."
Gray Crow sneered. "You expect us to trust you over a piece of scrap metal and a 'hint'?"
"You don't have to believe me." Ye Mo put away the fragment. "But I just cleared a backdoor program out of your northern district surveillance system, and I remember your missing informant, too."
Gray Crow fell silent.
Prism spoke up. "I want to see what you can do."
Ye Mo raised an eyebrow. "How do you want to test me?"
"Walk through a wall." Prism pointed at the concrete wall behind him. "Take something in with you and come back out. Do that, and I'll give you the communications network key."
The hall fell silent.
Without a word, Ye Mo walked over to the wall. Emma Frost came over and pressed her hand against his back. They exchanged a glance and nodded.
Thermal Vision activated, and the wall's structure appeared in his mind. The positions of the rebar, the density of the cement, the routes of the conduits-the scan covered everything.
He took a deep breath and activated his wall-phasing ability.
His body began to fade, as though it were being erased. As he passed through the wall, he took an analog chip from his pocket and slipped it into an electrical conduit inside. Then he returned the way he had come, his body becoming solid again.
"Here." He tossed the chip to Prism. "Direct connection without an interface. Regenerative Phasing fusion technology. Your people's beacon is broken. I can fix it."
Prism caught the chip, his skin glowing faintly as he examined its internal circuitry. Three seconds later, he looked up. "Physical penetration combined with energy reconstruction... you really can do it."
He took a blue crystal from his chest and placed it on the table. "This is the access key to my people's global communications network. It's valid for seventy-two hours."
Gray Crow snorted. "Done with the show? Your turn."
Ye Mo looked at him.
"I need to see that you can safeguard these resources." Gray Crow stared at him. "Otherwise, handing them over is sending us to our deaths."
"Then what do you want?"
"Real-time counter-tracing," Gray Crow said. "Can you interfere with Hydra's communications?"
Ye Mo smiled.
He turned to the trench-coated man. "Can we try that fragment again?"
The trench-coated man hesitated for two seconds before ripples appeared in his palm again. Black metal emerged from the rift, and he gripped it.
"Try synchronizing them," Ye Mo said. "Use the Vibranium's resonance together with your phase shift."
The trench-coated man closed his eyes, and the ripples shook violently. The Vibranium fragment gradually lit up, fine lines of energy appearing across its surface.
Suddenly, an intermittent encrypted signal sprang into the air, like static from an old radio.
Circuit immediately lunged for the console. "This is a new kind of pulse encoding! I can reverse-engineer it to set up a monitoring channel!"
He rapidly typed code. Three minutes later, a green signal marker appeared on the map.
"Got it." Circuit's voice was tense. "4.3 north, 62.1 west, on the edge of the Congo rainforest. The signal is moving."
Ye Mo looked at Gray Crow. "Can you tell me now where your informant was last seen before disappearing?"
Gray Crow looked at him for five seconds before finally speaking. "Near those coordinates. Three days ago."
"Then it matches." Ye Mo made the call. "We have ears now."
Prism nodded. "While the network access remains valid, I can mobilize seventeen field nodes to help monitor it."
Circuit brought up a panel. "I'll build a temporary relay station. All data will go through three hops before being consolidated."
Gray Crow said nothing. He took a miniature memory card from his coat's inner pocket and tossed it onto the table. "This is the deployment map of every covert sentry in the northern district. It'll automatically destroy itself after seventy-two hours."
Ye Mo didn't touch the card. He only looked at the trench-coated man. "What about you? Are you going to keep standing in the corner?"
The trench-coated man looked down at his hand. The scar was still there, as though it had never healed.
"I didn't come here to join you." His voice was low. "I came for answers-who turned me into this."
"Now you have a chance," Ye Mo said. "We can trace this signal back. As long as you're willing to try."
The trench-coated man raised his head and looked at Ye Mo.
A few seconds later, he walked to the console and placed his hand on the signal receiver. The Vibranium fragment merged into it completely, and a waveform appeared in the air again, clearer than before.
Circuit immediately recorded it. "Signal strength up 40%, interference breached! We can use this as an invisible beacon!"
"Then let's give it a name." Ye Mo smiled. "How about 'Ghost Pulse'?"
No one responded.
But the atmosphere had changed.
The doubts remained, but everyone had begun to act.
Emma Frost leaned close to Ye Mo and whispered, "The northern district signal is fluctuating again. It looks like someone is testing a new shielding frequency band."
Ye Mo nodded and looked around. "We need to be careful with every step from here on. What we've gained is intelligence, not safety."
Gray Crow stood. "I should go."
He turned to leave, stopped at the door, and glanced back at the memory card on the pool table.
The card was still there.
He knew what that meant.
Prism put away the blue crystal. "I'll have my people stand by."
Circuit had already connected to the new system, and a constantly refreshing stream of data scrolled across the screen.
The trench-coated man stood in the corner, his figure flickering in and out like an image with an unstable signal.
Ye Mo stood in the middle of the hall, holding the monitoring channel key Circuit had just sent him.
Emma Frost suddenly tugged at his sleeve.
"Look."
She pointed at the console.
The previously steady green signal marker suddenly flashed once.
Then a second time.
A third.
It wasn't flickering randomly.
It had a rhythm.
It was Morse code.
Ye Mo leaned closer to the screen.
Dot dot dot-dash dash dash-dot dot dot.
SOS.
But it wasn't a cry for help.
It was a provocation.