The wind was still blowing, and grains of sand were hitting the metal sheet one by one, like someone gently scratching at the door with their fingernails.
Ye Mo's palms were still warm, his fingertips slightly burning, like a data cable just unplugged from a charging port. He didn't move or speak, just stared at the dim light at the doorway—the grain of sand that had just fallen to the ground was still motionless in its place.
Emma Frost's eyelids trembled slightly, and her mental energy network shrank to a mere sliver extending close to the ground. She didn't open her eyes, but her breathing rhythm changed, and her nostrils flared slightly, as if she had smelled something amiss.
"The east side... is empty." Her voice was extremely low, almost drowned out by the wind. "Not just the cars, even the signal is down. It's so clean it doesn't look like a hasty evacuation."
Bucky's left hand rested on the robotic arm's control lever, his knuckles white, his eyes fixed on the western ventilation shaft. He didn't turn around, only spitting out a sentence through gritted teeth. "A new frequency is beeping, not the current Hydra protocol, but an older version, the kind with residual checksums."
Captain America crouched at the entrance to the main passage, shield held horizontally in front of him, his gaze sweeping over the three men. He didn't ask any questions or give any orders, but simply raised his hand slowly, making a "stay put" gesture.
Then, in this deathly silence—
In the distance, amidst the dust and sand, a green flame suddenly shot up.
There was no fuse, no warning of an explosion; it seemed to ignite out of thin air. The flames twisted and climbed upwards, outlining a clear pattern: a coiled serpent's body, nine ferocious heads, and a broken chain wrapped around its tail.
The Hydra symbol.
It stood brightly on the abandoned high wall 300 meters away, the firelight illuminating half of the ruins.
"Damn it." Ye Mo cursed under his breath, his right hand unconsciously slipping into his pocket. "Aren't you afraid of being exposed?"
Captain America's eyes darkened, and he ordered in a low voice, "Everyone, stay hidden, don't move."
No one answered, but everyone tensed up. Emma Frost's mental energy quietly receded, no longer expanding outwards; Bucky's mechanical arm entered a low-power standby mode, its joints humming slightly; Captain America's fingers rested on the edge of the shield, ready to spring into action at any moment.
Ye Mo didn't look outside, but closed his eyes instead.
He summoned the " Gene Spiral Tower " in his consciousness. The twentieth floor was trembling slightly, as if a piece of data was stuck in the reading progress bar. He tried to activate [ Spatial Perception - Fragment Scan], an ability he had borrowed from a Mutants battle scene earlier. It was unstable and prone to misjudgment, but its advantage was that it could capture the reverse echo of electromagnetic pulses.
A second later, he frowned.
"No." He leaned close to Emma Frost's ear, his voice so low only she could hear, "That signal... it didn't come from outside."
Emma Frost's eyelashes twitched, and she opened her eyes to look at him.
"I just detected a reverse pulse; the path passed through the S.H.I.E.L.D. emergency channel node. The encryption method was old-style frequency hopping with triple obfuscation, but the final handshake protocol... was an internal network authentication process."
Emma Frost's expression changed.
She immediately tried to trace the signal's source, her mental energy piercing the air like a needle, searching in reverse along the electromagnetic trajectory. But a few seconds later, she shook her head. "It's been wiped out. Too clean, like someone pre-programmed a self-destruct sequence, erasing all traces as soon as it was triggered."
"It's not a coincidence." Ye Mo stared at his hands. "We were waiting here for them to make their move, but they changed the subject first, then revealed their identities—they weren't here to fight, they were here to put on an act."
"Purpose?" Emma Frost asked.
"To force us to act," Ye Mo sneered. "Or, to let 'the people inside' know that we've discovered something amiss."
The two exchanged a glance and both understood what the other meant.
Ye Mo slowly pulled out half a pair of glasses from his pocket and tapped them lightly on the ground twice—still the same three short taps followed by one long tap, signifying "plan as usual." But then he changed it again, switching to two long taps followed by one short tap.
Captain America caught a glimpse of the ground vibrating out of the corner of his eye and immediately understood.
He didn't turn around, but slightly adjusted the angle of his shield to cover the lower half of his face, while drawing a circle on the shield with his finger—meaning: pause the baiting and switch to internal investigation.
Bucky noticed something amiss. He continued staring at the ventilation shaft, but the robotic arm's listening module had switched to passive receiver mode, recording background noise across all frequencies. He whispered, " Hydra's old protocols won't be activated on their own unless it's for interfacing with a legacy system. Anyone with access to this port is either a defector or... someone with authorization."
"They have them in S.H.I.E.L.D..," Ye Mo replied, his voice even lower, "And more than one. Otherwise, there's no way to explain why they can use emergency channels as relays and erase traces the instant they're scanned."
The room fell silent immediately.
The wind was still pounding against the metal sheet, but the four men's breathing had changed rhythm.
They initially thought they were dealing with a group of external infiltrators, at most a tactical squad. But now it seems the enemy had already installed the sockets, just waiting to plug them in and turn them on.
"So the question now isn't whether to fight or not," Emma Frost said slowly, "Who's opening the door for them."
"We can't be sure it's the entire S.H.I.E.L.D.." Captain America finally turned around, his voice steady. "It could be a department, a position, or even just one person. But as long as he's there, we're essentially running naked."
Ye Mo glanced at his hand; his palm was still warm, and the Regenerative Phasing was still ready. But he stopped thinking about how to launch a surprise attack on the command node—the biggest threat now wasn't outside, but somewhere unseen.
"I suggest," he said in a low voice, "That all communication from now on use physical codes. All informational actions should be conducted via ground taps and gestures. Any wireless communication devices, including watches, earphones, and devices with built-in chips, should be offline."
"Agreed." Captain America nodded. " Emma Frost, maintain the lowest energy scan, focusing on internal signal leaks. Bucky, monitor the west flank to prevent anyone from using it as an opportunity to break in. I'll guard the main entrance and deal with any frontal assaults."
"I'll be in charge of cross-validation," Ye Mo added. "If there really is a mole providing remote assistance, he will definitely send some kind of confirmation signal at a crucial moment. Whenever there are data fluctuations that aren't necessary for combat, I'll track them down."
The four quickly reached a consensus. No one mentioned the word "trust," but everyone knew that from this moment on, they could no longer assume that any system was safe.
Ye Mo retreated to the east corner and sat down against the wall again. He put his right hand back in his pocket, his fingertips burning again. He closed his eyes and kept the " Gene Spiral Tower " running. The data fluctuations on the twentieth floor had not subsided, as if an undecrypted file was repeatedly prompting him.
Emma Frost sat cross-legged in the center of the room, her hands clasped on her knees. Her breathing slowed, and her mental energy coalesced into an extremely thin probe, moving slowly along the ground. Sweat began to bead on her forehead again, but this time she didn't wipe it away.
Captain America crouched at the entrance to the passage, shield held horizontally, his gaze fixed on the clearing illuminated by green flames outside the door. His shoulders relaxed slightly, but his fingers remained on the edge of the shield, ready to spring back at any moment.
Bucky stood in the shadow of the side window, his eyes fixed on the direction of the ventilation shaft, his left hand resting on the control lever of the robotic arm, his knuckles white. He wasn't adjusting the system; he was just waiting quietly.
Outside, the green flame was still burning.
The Hydra symbol swayed in the wind, like a grinning mouth.
Inside the room, no one spoke.
Ye Mo suddenly felt that the temples of the glasses in his pocket were a bit uncomfortable.
He didn't take it out, nor did he adjust his posture; he simply shifted his buttocks slightly, letting the piece of metal rest against his outer thigh, as if he were hiding a dart ready to be thrown at any moment.
The wind picked up.
The corrugated iron roof rattled, as if someone was walking on it.
But this time, he recognized it—it wasn't the wind.
It was the sound of footsteps. Very light, but coming from different directions, as if more than one person was slowly approaching around the perimeter of the stronghold.
Ye Mo opened his eyes and glanced at Captain America.
Captain America didn't turn around, but he raised his left hand and lightly drew a horizontal line on the shield.
It means: I heard it.
Ye Mo didn't move.
He simply shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, his palms completely enveloping the temples of the glasses, his fingertips beginning to burn.