The mechanical whirring grew increasingly frantic, like an old electric drill drilling a hole in his skull. Ye Mo leaned against Captain America's back, blood dripping from his nose down his chin onto the knee of his work pants, spreading a small patch of dark red. His eyelids were heavy, his consciousness like a drained balloon, limply clinging to the edge of reality.
Just then, the transparent layer of the Force Field shield trembled violently.
Buzz--
A faint ripple swept across the space, and the blue-purple current of the electric grid momentarily ceased, as if someone had unplugged and quickly plugged it back in. In that brief, less than a second, Captain America moved.
"Go!" he roared, slamming his shield into a seam at the edge of the Force Field. That spot had been repeatedly struck by the electric current, and tiny cracks had already appeared there. The moment the shield hit the ground, the metal and energy rubbed violently together, sparking a burst of sparks. A localized short circuit triggered a chain reaction, causing the Force Field shield to ripple before suddenly collapsing.
Using the momentum of Steve's forward roll, Ye Mo pushed himself up from the cage and collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath. The feeling of fresh air was like ice water being poured into his lungs, stinging painfully.
" Emma Frost?" he asked in a hoarse voice, his fingers trembling as he reached for the communication node implanted behind his ear.
"Signal connected." Emma Frost's calm voice came through the headset. "I've interfered with their main control frequency, using the Hellfire Club's old protocol to reverse-engineer it. It should last about thirty seconds. You'd better not wait here for it to recover."
"Thirty seconds is enough." Steve put away his shield and glanced at Ye Mo. "Can you still walk?"
Ye Mo didn't answer, but closed his eyes to check the system status. The Ψ-Link Module on the second layer of the Gene Spiral Tower was still alarming, and a red prompt appeared in his consciousness: [Neural overload overload | Hibernation recommended]. He ignored it and instead used his remaining perception to scan his surroundings.
The underground passage remained dimly lit, with vibrations from distant machinery emanating from the gaps in the closed walls. They had been trapped in a dead end, but there were faint footprints in the direction Bucky had left, mixed with the smell of engine oil and a trace of... electromagnetic residue.
"He went east." Ye Mo leaned against the wall to stand up, his legs a little weak, but he could still move. "And he didn't walk there by himself."
"What do you mean?" Steve frowned.
"When I pushed the emotions in just now, his mental barrier wasn't constantly hard." Ye Mo wiped the blood from his face, his voice weak but clear, "Every three seconds or so, that 'iron curtain' would loosen slightly, as if something had actively reset it. This rhythm was too regular, not like biological instinct, but more like—remote synchronization calibration."
Steve's eyes narrowed. "You mean, someone is controlling him in real time?"
"It's not just control," Ye Mo shook his head, "It's suppression. The pulse every three seconds forces his conscious reactions back onto a pre-set track. That's why I could hear the noise in that gap—like a TV signal cut off, the picture flashes with static, and you can actually see what's underneath."
He paused for half a second after saying that. The metaphor was too colloquial, unlike anything he would use. It was probably a lingering effect of binge-watching TV shows before his transmigration.
"So all we need to do is disrupt that signal source..." Steve gripped his shield tighter.
"Theoretically, he should be able to regain consciousness," Ye Mo nodded. "But the problem is, where is the device located? Implanted in the brain? A spinal connector? Or remotely controlled from the outside? We don't even know what it looks like yet."
The two said no more and quickly moved eastward along the passage. Emma Frost's voice continued through the earpiece, "There's a fork in the road fifty meters ahead. The right path leads to the third underground level of the abandoned substation, and the left path leads to the old subway maintenance tunnel. Thermal imaging shows a faint life movement trajectory on the right side, lasting no more than two minutes ago."
"Go to the right." Ye Mo decided immediately. "If it's Hydra's technical route, underground facilities are more suitable for hiding equipment. And..." He paused, raising his hand to his temple, "I can sense a residual frequency, consistent with the fluctuations during our mental contact earlier. The direction is over there."
They quickened their pace as the passage narrowed, water dripped from overhead pipes, and the gravel slipped underfoot. Ye Mo continued analyzing the fluctuation curve in his memory as he walked. The regularity was too strong; a cycle of 3.2 seconds, with an error of no more than 0.1 seconds—a precision far beyond the capabilities of the human nervous system.
"This isn't just a simple brainwashing program," he said in a low voice. "It's physical intervention. Some kind of neural interface control device refreshes his mind state at regular intervals. Like restarting a router, each reset puts him back into 'execution mode'."
Steve listened, his brows furrowing deeper and deeper. "So every time I call his name, he barely reacts before being forcibly pulled back?"
"Yes." Ye Mo nodded. "That's why he was stuck. It wasn't that he didn't want to wake up, he was just pushed back down as soon as he poked his head out."
The moment the words left their mouths, a metallic scraping sound suddenly came from around the corner ahead. The two immediately pressed themselves against the wall, frozen in place, holding their breath. A few seconds later, the sound disappeared, leaving only a low-frequency hum coming from deep within the ventilation duct.
"Did you hear that?" Ye Mo suddenly asked.
"What?"
"That buzzing sound," he said, closing his eyes to focus intently, "Isn't the noise of a machine, it's a harmonic. Very faint, but the frequency matches the fluctuations I sensed earlier perfectly—once every 3.2 seconds, with a peak offset of 0.05 Hz."
Steve didn't say anything; he knew it was time to let the professionals handle the professional work.
Ye Mo took a deep breath and mobilized his remaining senses one last time. He knew that if he continued like this, he would suffer short-term amnesia at best, and mental paralysis at worst, but he couldn't care less now. He focused his consciousness on the area between his ears, simulating a receiver mode, filtering out all environmental noise, and locking onto that almost imperceptible electromagnetic harmonic wave.
They've arrived.
It was in the air, like an invisible thread running through the entire passage. It originated from some fixed point ahead, rather than moving with Bucky. This meant that the control device wasn't on him, at least not entirely; rather, there was an external transmitter continuously sending suppression signals.
"I understand." Ye Mo opened his eyes, his voice soft yet firm. "It's not something inside his body causing trouble; there's something outside 'refreshing' his system. If we destroy that device, maybe he can wake up."
Steve stared at him, his expression complex.
There is hope, but also worry.
"Can you pinpoint the location?" he asked.
"No." Ye Mo shook his head. "The signal is too weak and reflected by the metal structure. I can only determine that it's within 300 meters ahead, but I'll have to get closer to pinpoint its exact location. Besides..." He glanced at his hand, his fingertips still twitching slightly, "In my current state, if I force another scan, I might faint on the spot."
"Then let's not try it," Steve said decisively. "Let's retreat to the safe zone first, meet up with Emma Frost, and then devise a plan."
Ye Mo didn't object. He knew now wasn't the time to be stubborn. That wave of Psi Link had already drained him almost completely, and pushing himself any further would only drag his teammates down.
The two began to retreat, slowing their movements, ready to respond to any unexpected situations. Emma Frost relayed the evacuation route through the earpiece. "Return seventeen meters along the same route, turn left into the maintenance shaft, and climb the ladder directly to the abandoned power distribution room on the ground. I have cleared the surveillance footage; you have a four-minute window."
They did as they were told. Ye Mo walked behind, each step feeling like he was walking on cotton. But his mind didn't stop.
That 3.2-second cycle is incredibly precise.
It doesn't look like a hastily modified, haphazardly made piece of equipment; rather, it resembles a standardized, mass-produced military device.
While Hydra excels at brainwashing, their techniques lean towards chemical induction and psychological manipulation, rarely employing such high-precision electromagnetic intervention.
Unless... it's a new version.
Or perhaps it was someone else's doing.
He recalled a record in the General Program database marked "unverified": During the Cold War, Soviet Union scientists attempted to develop a " Thought Synchronizer " to control soldiers' behavior through external pulses; the project was codenamed " Red Fog." It was later terminated due to the collective mental breakdown of the subjects.
But what if someone picks up the pieces and improves the technology?
" Ye Mo?" Steve turned to look at him. "What are you thinking about?"
"It's nothing," he shook his head, "I just feel like this matter isn't that simple."
They climbed the ladder, pushed open the roof, and crawled into an old, dusty electrical room. Moonlight slanted in through the broken windows, falling on the toolboxes scattered on the floor and the rusted cables. The room looked like it hadn't been used for years, but Ye Mo noticed a seemingly broken UPS power supply in the corner, its indicator light still slowly flashing.
The green light flashed, then went out.
The interval was exactly three and a half seconds.
He stared at the lamp, his pupils contracting slightly.
"Found it," he whispered. "They're using civilian equipment to spoof the signal source. This house itself is a relay station."
Steve immediately became alert. "Should we dismantle it?"
"No." Ye Mo reached out to stop him. "Taking action now will trigger the backup protocol, which might actually speed up the control program. We need to figure out where the main control unit is first, otherwise dismantling this place will be useless."
He sat down against the wall, took off his silver half-rimmed glasses and wiped them, the lenses reflecting the glare of the green light. His mind was already racing, calculating how to trace the source.
The wind outside rattled through the broken window, making a whooshing sound.
The room was completely silent.
Only that lamp stubbornly remained lit, then went out.
Like some kind of countdown.