Post-battle review

The projector's red dot swept across the table, and just as the first frame was about to pop up, the screen suddenly froze, the progress bar stopping at 67%. Scott subconsciously looked up at Ye Mo, his fingers already touching the side of the wristband—it was still black, but he felt it was getting hot.

"It wasn't me," Ye Mo said, casually taking out his silver half-rimmed glasses from his hoodie pocket and putting them on. "The system didn't beep."

Emma Frost sat diagonally across from her, her fingertips lightly resting on her temples, her brow slightly furrowed. "I can feel the data flow... it's like something's blocking it, it's not a device problem."

Ye Mo walked to the main control terminal, pressed the Enter key three times, and brought up the background log. An exception record popped up: Local memory cache call conflict|Source address: Unknown.

"Oh," he said softly, "It's me."

Scott turned his head. "You?"

"While loading the combat footage, I simultaneously retrieved frames from my own memories," Ye Mo said, clicking on a hidden layer. "What you're seeing is the monitor's perspective, but I was standing behind the control panel, which had blind spots. I used a little trick to overlay the scenes I remembered into the footage."

"You can do this?" Scott leaned closer. "Wait, so you just watched me crawl through the gaps in the armor the whole time?"

"Not only that." Ye Mo zoomed in on the timeline, "Do you remember after the third level collapsed, the Yellowjacket's left leg had a half-second lag? The surveillance footage wasn't clear, but I saw it when I was predicting the Wall Phasing maneuver—his vent opened, with a cycle of 3.2 seconds. The time you rushed in was just before the second cycle started."

Scott paused for a moment, then said, "I thought it was luck."

"No," Emma Frost said, her voice steady, "You were right. And the key is that you acted without waiting for instructions."

With a flick of her finger, a semi-transparent 3D map appeared in the center of the conference room, marking the movement trajectories of the three people with different colors, like three intertwined lines. Scott's blue line suddenly thinned and accelerated at the critical moment, cutting directly into the enemy's energy fluctuation trough.

"Look here," Emma Frost pointed to the intersection, "When you rushed in, neither Ye Mo nor I were able to respond in time. There was a two-second gap in support."

"Two seconds?" Scott frowned. "But it felt pretty smooth to me."

"You got through it all by yourself," Ye Mo said, leaning against the table. "If it were anyone else, like an ordinary person who doesn't know how to shrink back, those two seconds would have been enough for them to be blasted into dust by the particle beam."

Emma Frost nodded. "The way we transmit information is too primitive. You rely on gestures, we rely on shouting. On the battlefield, there's too much noise and a blurry line of sight; we simply don't have time to react."

The meeting room fell silent for a few seconds. The overhead lights emitted a soft hum, like some kind of countdown.

"So we need to change it." Ye Mo took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with his sleeve. "We can't always rely on improvisation. We need some kind of code."

"For example?" Scott asked.

"The simplest, short brainwave resonance." Ye Mo looked at Emma Frost, "You can do shallow linking, right? Not reading thoughts, just transmitting signals, like flipping a switch."

Emma Frost closed her eyes for half a second, then opened them. "It's okay. The intensity is very low, it won't interfere with judgment, but the effective distance is no more than ten meters."

"That's enough." Ye Mo put his glasses back on. "Level 1 code represents 'safety,' level 2 is 'cover,' and level 3 is 'retreat.' No need for words or gestures; one push from her, and we know."

Scott thought for a moment, "But what if she can't take care of herself? Like last time when she took that shockwave head-on."

"Then let's add a backup plan." Ye Mo walked up to him, raised his hand and tapped his left shoulder armor twice. "From now on, one tap here means 'obstacle cleared,' two taps mean 'assistance needed.' Raise three fingers with your right hand to indicate 'target locked.'"

"What if you can't move your hands either?" Scott asked with a smile.

"Then blink," Ye Mo said without changing his expression. "One blink to the left, two blinks to the right, means 'I'm about to die, come save me!'"

Emma Frost chuckled softly, then realized she shouldn't be laughing at a time like this, and immediately stopped, though the corners of her mouth still curled up slightly.

"Okay." Scott said seriously, "I can remember. But you'll have to get used to my habits—my hearing will get worse after I shrink, and I won't be able to hear many instructions. So it's best not to expect me to respond in real time."

"Understood." Ye Mo nodded. "So we need to plan ahead. We can't always act on a whim; we need a strategy."

"A routine?"

"Operation script." Ye Mo sat back in his chair and opened a new document. "Pre-set coordination procedures for common scenarios. For example, surprise attack, defense, and withdrawal; each scenario has standard movement routes and responsibility assignments."

Emma Frost flicked her finger, Telepathy automatically categorized the content of the three people's discussion and projected it onto the side screen:

[Hive Breach Protocol V1.0]

- Front-end penetration testing: Scott (Priority A)

- Global Monitoring: Emma Frost (Mental Overload Scan + Anomaly Warning)

- Central Support: Ye Mo (Ability Intervention/Emergency Takeover)

"The name is pretty cringeworthy," Scott couldn't help but mutter after reading the title.

"It's better than calling it 'The Three-Man Operation Plan'," Ye Mo typed. "You can voice your opinions if you have any, but don't expect me to change it to ' The Avengers Squad's Operation Guide'."

"That's not what I meant," Scott waved his hand. "I meant... is this thing even usable? Battlefields aren't that organized."

"Of course you can't just copy it exactly," Emma Frost said, "But at least there's a baseline. Just like there are traffic rules for driving; actual road conditions are ever-changing, but you know you have to stop at a red light."

"Moreover," Ye Mo added, "The purpose of our review now is precisely to identify those areas that 'could have been better,' isn't it?"

He pulled up the battle replay, pausing it at the moment before Scott crawled into the pipe. "You see, before you went in, nobody told you if there were any traps inside. The three of us had fragmented information. If there had been an agreement, Emma Frost could have scanned the internal structure beforehand, I could have marked the path for you, and then you could have acted, reducing the risk by half."

Scott nodded. "Indeed. I was just guessing that day, betting that the pipe was sturdy enough."

"Don't gamble next time." Ye Mo closed the terminal. "We're not lone machines, we're a team. The meaning of a team is to ensure that no one has to gamble everything."

The meeting room fell silent again. This silence was different; it wasn't the awkward silence that followed when they first entered, but rather a focused silence that had settled in.

Emma Frost suddenly spoke up, "There's one more question."

The two men looked at her.

"Emergency plans," she said. "What we've designed now is an ideal process, but if there's a sudden multi-target attack, or a dramatic change in the environment, such as a building collapse or electromagnetic interference, this system could easily break down."

Ye Mo stared at the screen without saying a word.

Scott stroked his chin. "You mean... we need to prepare a Plan B? Or even C, D, or E?"

"More than that," Emma Frost shook her head, "We need to establish a response hierarchy. When the primary solution fails, we can automatically switch to a secondary strategy without needing to hold another meeting to decide."

Ye Mo nodded slowly. "So we can't just write one script, we need to build a library."

"A combination library," Emma Frost corrected, "Similar to a skill tree. It dynamically calls upon the optimal solution based on the situation."

"Sounds like programming," Scott chuckled wryly. "I thought being a hero only required fighting skills."

"Anyone can fight." Ye Mo stood up and walked to the projector. "The problem is whether we can survive the fight. We're not movie protagonists; there aren't many slow-motion replays and miraculous comebacks."

With a swipe of his finger, he created a new folder named [Basic Combat Combination Library], which contained three subdirectories: Raid/Defense/Evacuation.

"Let's start with the first one today," he said. "Write in the Hive Breach Protocol V1.0."

Emma Frost's fingertips twitched slightly, and the agreement was simultaneously entered into the system via Telepathy. Scott picked up a pen and drew a simple diagram on a sticky note next to the terminal, marking each person's movement route and time point.

"I think we can add a detail," he said, pointing to the diagram. "If I'm at the front end and detect a high-risk trap, I can use the vibration frequency of my suit to send Morse code. It'll be short, but at least it'll convey the message 'danger.'"

"Okay." Ye Mo noted it down, "Add it to the notes."

"Also," Emma Frost said, "I will maintain a low-power connection, automatically triggering the secondary code should any abnormal heartbeats or drastic mood swings be detected."

"So," Scott concluded, "You guys know I'm about to die without me even having to scream for help?"

"More or less." Ye Mo nodded. "Of course, it's best not to get to that point."

The three continued their discussion, refining the details of the agreement one by one. Time passed slowly, and the sunlight outside the window changed from gray to bright, reflecting a faint blue hue onto the metal walls.

The [Hive Breach Protocol_V1.0] on the terminal screen has been entered and the status is marked as "Pending Verification".

Ye Mo checked one last time to make sure nothing was missed.

"That's it," he said. "The first time doesn't have to be perfect, but at least there's a starting point."

Scott watched his name appear on the list of those who would enforce the agreement, his fingers unconsciously stroking the edge of his wristband. The faint blue light was still off, but he knew it was working.

Emma Frost's fingertips remained on her temples, maintaining a slight Mind Stone scan, as if confirming the strength of some invisible bond.

Ye Mo stood at the end of the conference table, his hands in his hoodie pockets, his gaze fixed on the still-on projection screen.

The lights were still dim, but the equipment was still running.

No one got up.