Ye Mo squinted, staring at the reflection at the end of the passage. The battle had left him trembling, and the dull pain from the Regeneration effects still lingered in his ribs, like a rusty knife slowly turning inside. But he knew this was not the time to rest.
"Over there," he gestured with his chin, "The reflective metal piece is either equipment fragments or an identification tag."
Black Widow immediately looked up, twisting her ankle to get up, wincing in pain. She didn't stop, taking two steps forward with her tactical stick, her eyes scanning the escape route. Captain America had already moved, his shield held horizontally in front of his chest, blocking the main exit step by step. Bucky crouched at the eastern gap, the cooling light on his robotic arm just turning from red to blue. He raised his hand, making a "three people" gesture.
"Three deserters, the middle one's suspicious." Bucky's voice was barely audible. " Hydra agents don't retreat along walls; they instinctively avoid light sources—that guy was constantly hiding from his shadow."
Ye Mo grinned. "Not bad, bro, you know the rules better than they do."
Before the words were even finished, the four of them had already surrounded the man and pressed forward. Black Widow circled around to cut off his retreat, Captain America blocked him from the front, Bucky cut in from the ventilation shaft, and Ye Mo used his senses to lock onto the man's heartbeat. The man panicked, paused, and reached for his waist—
"Don't move!" Captain America roared.
The man froze, then slowly raised his hands. Ye Mo strode forward, ripped open the lining of his coat, and pulled out an encrypted chip and a miniature syringe. The syringe was transparent, and the liquid inside was slowly turning murky.
"For self-destruction?" Ye Mo raised an eyebrow.
"Memory eraser." Black Widow leaned closer to take a look. "High-concentration nerve-blocking fluid. Clears short-term memories within ten seconds, brain death within twenty seconds."
"That won't do," Ye Mo sneered. "We haven't finished talking yet."
Emma Frost managed to stand up, leaning against the broken wall, her face deathly pale. She took a deep breath, walked up to the man, and pressed her fingers to her temples.
"I can only probe the surface," she said weakly. "Any deeper and we'll both fall in."
"No need to go deep." Ye Mo squatted down, staring into the man's eyes. "Just make him remember what he fears most."
Captain America frowned. "Psychological pressure? That's not the way to solve problems."
"The problem now is that someone is going to blow up S.H.I.E.L.D..'s three major hubs in seven hours." Ye Mo turned around. "Captain, principles are important, but survival is more important."
Bucky coldly remarked from the side, "If we don't get the intelligence within three minutes, the backup force will arrive. Hydra never sends just one group."
The air suddenly seemed to sink.
Emma Frost closed her eyes, her mental energy probing out like a fine thread, gently sweeping across the edge of the other's consciousness. Ye Mo also mobilized his gene fragments; although " Fear Perception " was not fully activated, he could guide emotional fluctuations—like tuning a radio frequency, searching little by little.
"What are you afraid of?" he whispered in the man's ear, "Are you afraid of us, or afraid they'll come back for you?"
Emma Frost's mental ripples pressed down simultaneously.
In an instant, the man's pupils contracted sharply.
The scene flashes: an underground facility, red lights flashing, a countdown screen on the wall—06:58:23. A transport plane is parked in the hangar, its hatch open, revealing rows of Vibranium explosives, their casings bearing the Hydra symbol. On the control panel, a person in a white coat presses the start button, and four words pop up on the screen: ** Scavengers Protocol **.
"Air strike..." the man suddenly spoke, his voice raspy, "Seven hours later... destroy the three major S.H.I.E.L.D.. hubs... activate the ' Scavengers Protocol '..."
Before he could finish speaking, his head lolled to the side, and he lost consciousness. The syringe ruptured automatically, and the medication seeped into his skin, but the crucial information had already been recorded by Black Widow's earpiece.
"Got it." She took off the equipment, turned on the recording, and said, "Time, target, code name, everything's there."
Ye Mo let out a long breath, leaned back, and sat down on the ground. The pain of the Regeneration surged up again, but he gritted his teeth and endured it without making a sound.
" The Scavengers Protocol," Captain America repeated, his eyes grave. "This isn't an attack, it's a coup."
In one sentence, everyone understood.
Hydra's intention wasn't sabotage; they wanted to take advantage of the chaos to seize control of S.H.I.E.L.D..'s command system, cripple the three major hubs with targeted bombings, and then rebuild the shadow regime under the guise of "emergency response." If successful, the global intelligence network would be completely out of control.
"So this attack is just a smokescreen," Black Widow analyzed. "They don't care about capturing Bucky or taking us down—they're testing our defenses' reaction speed and clearing out internal obstacles while they're at it."
"There's more than one mole," Bucky whispered. "The L-7 post is just a relay point; the real orders come from higher up."
Emma Frost leaned against the wall, catching her breath. "I can't read anyone right now. Forcing me to do that will give me a stroke."
"That's enough." Ye Mo waved his hand. "That attack of yours was brutal enough; I wouldn't have been able to withstand it either."
He looked down at the chip in his hand; the casing had fine scratches, as if it had been repeatedly rubbed. Suddenly remembering something, he flipped it over and scratched the corner with his fingernail—a tiny number appeared: HS-7X-9T.
"This is the encryption level of S.H.I.E.L.D..'s logistics system," Black Widow leaned closer. "Only senior dispatchers have access to this type of frequency."
"In other words," Captain America said in a deep voice, "Our inside man not only knows our location, but can also access real-time surveillance, predict our movement routes, and even remotely activate enemy communication protocols."
"Not an ordinary undercover agent," Ye Mo sneered, "But management."
The atmosphere suddenly plummeted.
Five people stood around the broken wall, the lights flickering. Emma Frost sat half-sitting on the ground, Ye Mo simply patted her shoulder; Captain America stood in the center, clutching the chip in his hand, his knuckles white; Bucky crouched at the entrance, his robotic arm in energy-saving mode, emitting a faint blue light; Black Widow leaned against the electrical box, rubbing her temples, ready to crack the data again at any moment.
"Seven hours," Ye Mo broke the silence. "Not too long, not too short. The problem is, how did they bypass S.H.I.E.L.D..'s firewall? The three hubs each have independent defense systems; they can't be breached simultaneously."
"Unless," Black Widow opened her eyes, "One of the hubs has already lost contact."
Which one?
"The one on the west coast." She gave a wry smile. "I tried to contact him yesterday, but the signal was dead. I thought it was just weather interference."
"That makes sense." Ye Mo nodded. "They first cut off one point, creating a vulnerability, then destroyed the other two with air strikes, and finally declared 'emergency takeover.' By the time the outside world reacted, it was too late."
Captain America stared at the ground and suddenly asked, "Can you locate that transport plane?"
"The chip contains some flight logs." Black Widow unplugged the data cable and plugged it into her portable terminal. "If it used S.H.I.E.L.D. relay, I can trace the takeoff coordinates backwards."
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, and a blood-red map appeared on the screen, with several red dots flashing. Moments later, a flight path gradually took shape—starting from an abandoned naval base in the Gulf of Gulf of Mexico, heading straight for the east coast of the United States.
"Found it." She pointed to a marker. "This is ' Sea Wolf Cape,' the former naval listening post, closed three years ago, now managed by a private security company."
"A private company?" Ye Mo chuckled. "A shell company of Hydra, I suppose."
"Whether it is or not," Captain America straightened up, "We must stop it before takeoff."
"The problem is how to get there," Bucky cautioned. "We have no transportation, no support, no authorization codes, not even a decent bulletproof vest."
"And," Emma Frost said weakly, "Even if the plane is blown up, the protocol itself is still in the system. As long as someone presses the start button, the backup plan will be activated."
"Then someone has to go in and delete the program," Ye Mo said, stroking his chin. "Or... find someone who can order them to shut down."
"You have a way?" Black Widow raised an eyebrow.
"No," he admitted honestly, "But I know a technician who used to work at S.H.I.E.L.D.., and he owes me a favor. He said that all the highest-level protocols require two-factor authentication—one is an access key, and the other is biometrics."
Whose biometrics?
"Nick Fury." Ye Mo smiled. "As long as we find him, or find his eyeballs, fingerprints, DNA, whatever, we can legally halt the ' Scavengers Protocol '."
"The premise is," Captain America looked at him, "That you know where he is."
"I don't know," Ye Mo shrugged. "But I have a signal tracker, which he gave me three years ago. He said, 'The day you can't use me anymore, it means the world is truly over.'"
He pulled an old metal piece from the inside pocket of his hoodie; its surface was covered in scratches and the edges were somewhat blackened.
"I always thought it was a souvenir," he said with a smile as he pressed the button. "I never imagined it would actually come in handy today."
The screen lit up, and a green dot began to flash, pointing northwest.
"He's still alive." Ye Mo looked up, "And not far from here."
The five people exchanged glances, but no one spoke.
Exhaustion was written on every face— Emma Frost could barely open her eyes, Captain America's burns on his arm were still bleeding, Bucky's mechanical arm was issuing a slight overheating alarm, Black Widow's ankle was badly swollen, and Ye Mo himself was barely holding on to avoid collapsing.
But they all knew they couldn't stop now.
"Then let's do it in two steps," Captain America finally spoke. "First, rescue them, then we'll hold them off."
"Wait a minute," Black Widow suddenly interrupted, "Listen..."
A faint humming sound came from afar, like the sound of some kind of equipment starting up.
Ye Mo suddenly looked up. Although his Regeneration abilities were cooling down, his hearing was still sharp. It wasn't an engine, nor was it the sound of wind—it was a high-frequency signal scan, like the prelude to the restart of a hunting dog device.
"They sent a second reconnaissance unit," he whispered. "Probably because they discovered the signal outage had lasted too long and sent people to investigate."
"We can't fight back," Emma Frost gasped. "I can't withstand a second mental shock."
"No need." Ye Mo narrowed his eyes. "They're not here to find anyone, they're here to confirm whether the 'mission' has been completed.' We just need to make them feel... that everything is going according to plan."
He looked at Black Widow: "Can you forge a false communication? Like, reporting 'target eliminated' or something?"
Black Widow smirked. "Give me thirty seconds, and I can make them believe the earth is flat."