Ye Mo's pen traced the final arc on the paper, finally bringing the draft of the Guardians of the Galaxy's responsible airspace distribution to its edge. He breathed a sigh of relief, his wrist flicked slightly as he put the pen down, his fingers casually rubbing his temples. His head felt like it was stuffed with a ball of hot wire, twisting and drilling towards his temples. The meeting he'd just attended had been too mentally taxing, and his ribs were throbbing with pain, like an old leather belt tightening around his chest with every breath.
Outside the window, the base's outer lights were still on, their cold white light casting a blurry shadow on the metal glass. The room was so quiet you could hear the gurgling of air flowing through the ventilation ducts, like someone cooking instant noodles in the distance. He stared at his reflection in the glass for two seconds, then suddenly noticed his glasses were askew, leaving a faint red mark on his nose. He'd worn those silver-rimmed glasses for almost a year, not to appear sophisticated, but simply out of habit—like wearing that black hoodie, cargo pants, and sneakers—the same outfit he always wore, for convenience.
He raised his hand to adjust his glasses, and was about to get up to pour himself a glass of water when he suddenly felt a "ding" on the back of his head.
It wasn't that he was actually hit by something; it was that familiar feeling of a fine needle pricking his nerve endings. It was slight, but persistent, like a notification popping up quietly in the background. He paused, held his breath, and waited for the tingling sensation to return.
They've arrived.
His temples burned simultaneously, as if two wires were connected to the depths of his brain. He knew this was a sign that the " X-Gene Resonance System " was about to activate; it wasn't a hallucination or a fatigue-induced illusion. He had experienced this sensation several times before, and each time it was a signal that something big was about to happen—the last time was before the battle with Ronan, when he sensed an abnormal deviation in the spaceship's orbit.
But this time is different.
This fluctuation didn't originate from a specific coordinate, but rather spread outwards, like a pot of soup slowly heating up—you couldn't see the flames, but you could smell the burning. He closed his eyes, actively immersing himself in the " Gene Spiral Tower " of his consciousness, and activated the " Environmental Resonance Sensing " module. This was a combination technique he had painstakingly cobbled together using " Shadowcat's Spatial Perception " and " Wade Wilson's Neural Self-Healing Feedback "—basically, relying on his body to remember the "taste" of energy. Previously used to track enemy movements and assess shield stability, he now had to extend and extend it, using it like a cosmic radar.
His heartbeat slowed, and his breathing became longer. He braced himself on the table with one hand, while unconsciously pinching the base of his palm with the other to prevent his body from trembling from excessive concentration. This trick couldn't be used for long; the last time he scanned continuously for ten minutes, it caused him to bleed from his nose. But he couldn't worry about that now.
Data has started flowing back.
The first wave was noise: the low-frequency hum of the spaceship's engines, the vegetative waves emitted by Groot as he dozed off in the corner of the cabin, the faint leakage of the EMP device in Rocket Raccoon's toolkit... He could filter all of these. What really made his eyelids twitch was the one sandwiched in between—high-frequency oscillations embedded with low-frequency pulses, irregular in rhythm, yet with a strange regularity, like a broken pacemaker beating in the distance.
He suddenly opened his eyes and slammed his right hand heavily on the table to steady himself.
That thing wasn't near the base, nor within the Solar System. It took three seconds to determine the direction, but thanks to the experience and data comparison accumulated from recent battles, he quickly ruled out the possibility of a Kree Empire patrol fleet, Skrulls infiltration unit, or even remnants of Hydra technology. The final location pointed to a void region near the outer edge of the Milky Way, close to the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy. Theoretically, there was nothing there; even interstellar dust was pitifully thin.
But the fluctuations are there.
Moreover, it is enhancing.
What sent chills down his spine even further was that this energy frequency resonated faintly with a segment of inactive genes within his body. It wasn't a full response, just a tremor lasting a fraction of a second, like someone gently knocking on a door in the dark. That fragment was something he had absorbed from an unknown Mutants's ability earlier, labeled " Unnamed-Primordial Awakening Type," and had been stuck at the third level. Now, it had actually moved on its own.
This suggests that the threat may be related to the origins of Mutants.
His throat was a little dry, and he swallowed to calm down. It wasn't fear, but clarity—a feeling he was all too familiar with. The day before Tony was kidnapped, on his first day after transmigrating to the Marvel Universe, he had sat on his bed in a run-down hotel, watching the trail of Iron Man's armor taking off outside the window, and his heart skipped a beat, knowing that this world wouldn't let him live a peaceful life.
Here we go again.
He stared at the tactics board, his mind racing through the pros and cons. Should he call for backup? Star-Lord just lain down, Rocket was probably half asleep while disassembling his weapons, Groot needed a full daylight cycle to recover, and Gamora hadn't slept a wink all night. This team had just gone through the Ronan battle, and everyone was exhausted, feeling like they'd been run over by a truck three times.
But what if I don't say anything?
What if this fluctuation is the prelude to the awakening of a new, world-destroying entity? What if it's too late by the time they realize it? He recalled what he had said at the previous meeting, "Next time, if we're just one second too late, no one might be able to save the day." Now, he was the one who had to shout "One second too late" in advance.
But he can't make a false alarm.
The newly established " Mobile Outposts " system is still in its early stages, and everyone has finally come to believe in his data-driven approach. If this turns out to be a false alarm, no one will take anything he says seriously anymore. Trust is something that takes a long time to build but collapses quickly.
He stared at the communication panel for five seconds, then reached out and pressed the encrypted frequency wake-up button. It wasn't a team call; it was just a pre-set message pushed to the background. All terminals would vibrate once, and the screens would light up but no sound would be emitted. It was at the "you should take a look at this" level, not a formal assembly.
Then he tore off a sticky note from the back of the tactics board and wrote three lines:
Unknown high-energy fluctuations detected
The source point is located on the edge of Canis Major.
Features suggest that this is not a product of natural evolution.
After finishing writing, I added the sentence: "This is not a drill. Please check your inbox."
Click send.
The notification sound for the information synchronization completion was very soft, just a soft "beep" and then it was gone. He didn't move, continuing to stare at the panel, waiting for the first reply signal to appear. The lights in the room seemed to dim for a moment, perhaps due to a power system mode switch, or perhaps his eyes were playing tricks on him. He raised his hand to push up his glasses and noticed a new crack on the edge of the lens, probably from the impact when the shield resisted the purple flames, which he hadn't replaced.
He has no intention of changing.
It's good to have some scars; they remind you not to act like a big shot and think you can handle everything.
The universe outside the window remained pitch black, with stars sparsely dotting the distance. The area that had caused the fluctuations appeared normal to the naked eye, but he knew that some things, when they open their eyes, do not emit light. Just like a virus invading a cell, the most dangerous phase is always those few minutes of silent replication.
His fingers rested on the edge of the table, his fingertips slightly warm. It wasn't from writing for too long, but because the Gene Spiral Tower within his body was still running a background scanning program, automatically recording every fluctuation. He would archive this data, marking it as " Event 0442-First Echo," which would be the earliest warning coordinates should a real fight break out in the future.
The doors to the living quarters remained closed, and the corridors outside were deserted. The ventilators had stopped running, and the air circulation had switched to nighttime energy-saving mode. The entire base was enveloped in a false tranquility, like an excessively quiet evening before a storm, where even the chirping of insects had vanished.
He didn't get up, nor did he touch any more documents. He just sat there, back straight, his gaze fixed on the empty space through the glass. He knew his teammates would wake up soon to check the messages, to discuss, to question, and some would ask, "Are you overthinking things again?" But none of that mattered anymore.
The important thing is that he has already passed on the torch.
Whether the fire will catch fire is another matter.
His glasses slipped down half a centimeter, but this time, he didn't reach to fix them.