The Veil Lifted

The blood was still slowly spreading on the control panel. Ye Mo stared at the dark red stain, neither wiping it nor moving it. Tony stood beside him, his armor shell slightly warm; the EMP interference from earlier had overloaded the system.

"The cooling is over," Tony whispered. "Go in now, they won't have time to react."

Ye Mo nodded, swiped his finger across the console, and reactivated the fake signal packet he had previously fabricated. He summoned the mental frequency numbered "03-17-V" and switched his Telepathy mode to it. It was like stuffing himself into a piece of dead data, pretending to be a forgotten old file in a database that had suddenly restarted.

"Let's go," he said.

The two passed through the ventilation shaft in Zone B and continued down the subway tunnel. The air grew colder, and the water droplets on the walls froze into thin ice. This wasn't caused by Ye Mo; the temperature in the area was simply too low.

Further ahead, the passage narrowed, and metal conduits appeared on the walls, densely connected to the depths underground. Tony's armor scan revealed an electromagnetic shielding layer ahead, but the power circulation was unstable, briefly interrupting every forty-seven seconds.

"Old tricks," Tony sneered. "A hideout powered by human bodies, how cost-saving."

Ye Mo didn't reply. He knew how this kind of base operated—using Mutants brainwaves as signal relay stations, with living people acting as servers. Whenever someone triggered a fluctuation in their abilities, their nervous system would automatically record and upload it.

This is the Hive structure.

Tony activated the EMP module, and when the power cycle reached the critical point, there was a sudden jolt. The lights flashed, and the airtight door clicked open a crack.

The two slipped inside.

Behind the door was a circular hall, in the center of which stood a huge Mental Resonance chamber, like an inverted glass bell. Dozens of conduits extended from the chamber, connecting to metal beds around which people lay. All of them had their eyes closed, wore neural connectors on their heads, and had expressionless faces.

Living sensor.

A person stood on the innermost platform, with their back to them.

The man was wearing an old-fashioned tactical jacket, the cuffs worn white, and there was a familiar burn scar on his left shoulder. Ye Mo had seen that scar before; in the winter at the shelter, the man had used his hand to block a stun gun in order to save an out-of-control child.

"It's him..." Ye Mo's voice trailed off.

The man slowly turned around.

The face was still the same, but the eyes were different. There was no gentleness, no patience, only a cold, resolute expression.

"You've come," he said calmly. "To die?"

Ye Mo didn't move.

Tony took a half step back, his armor entered combat mode, and the palm cannons emitted a low hum as they charged.

"Why?" Ye Mo finally spoke, his voice trembling slightly. "You taught me how to control my abilities, you said we couldn't harm ordinary people, you said we had to coexist... What are you doing now? Using your fellow countrymen like machines?"

"Coexistence?" The man laughed, a soft laugh laced with sarcasm. "When have humans ever wanted to coexist with us? Hydra experiments on Mutants, S.H.I.E.L.D.. secretly creates blacklists, Stark Industries sells armor to anti- Mutants organizations. You think peace is real? It's just that the shackles haven't been welded shut yet."

He pointed to the resonance chamber, "We record every battle and analyze the behavior patterns of every ability user. Not for attacking, but for survival. When the next purge comes, we won't be locked in cages like rats again."

Ye Mo's mind went blank.

He recalled Emma Frost's file number: 05-09-V. High-risk and controllable.

The man before me once opposed violence, preferring exile to taking action. But now, he has personally created an even more terrifying system.

"But you can't do that," Ye Mo said. "They are people, not parts."

"They're willing." The man's voice turned cold. "Everyone lying here signed the agreement voluntarily. They know the price and accept the outcome. Rather than be captured and dissected, they'd rather trade their brains for their future."

Tony suddenly spoke up, "So you orchestrated that weather riot in New York? And you released the MK-9X aircraft too? Just to collect data?"

"Testing reaction speed." The man nodded. "Let's see how long it takes the human heroes to notice the anomaly, and see if you can track them all the way here. Turns out you came, and even brought a false signal as bait. Pretty clever."

"You already found out?" Ye Mo asked.

"I didn't expose you because I also need the data." The man looked at Ye Mo, "Especially you. Your ability combination is unprecedented, capable of evolving in real time during battle. If we can find the pattern, we can replicate it in batches."

Ye Mo's heart tightened.

It turns out I was being watched too.

In the instant his mind was shaken, a notification sounded in his head:

"Reversal detected. Gene Spiral Tower unlocks new ability combinations."

He paused for a moment, stunned.

Immediately afterwards, a surge of heat rushed from the spine to the brain. A new connection was formed—a combination of Mind Resonance and Ice Manipulation, no longer simply freezing or reading, but capable of freezing the other person's nervous system while implanting a brief hallucination.

Consciousness Seal.

This ability wasn't something he actively developed; it was automatically generated by the system under extreme circumstances. It's like his body made a choice faster than his brain.

"What are you still hesitating for?" Tony warned over the comms. "Don't fall for his rhetoric. This guy's gone mad."

"I'm not crazy." The man seemed to have overheard the conversation, looking directly at Ye Mo. "I've just come to terms with reality. You think you're protecting the world? You're actually helping them maintain order. And this order is destined to crush us."

Ye Mo clenched his fist.

He remembered watching a movie when he was a child about robots that became sentient and rebelled against their masters. At the end, the protagonist said, "You created us, but you didn't let us live."

Now, standing here facing his former mentor, he suddenly can't tell who the real villain is.

"If you really want to save Mutants," he said, "Why not cooperate? We can change the rules together."

"Cooperation?" The man shook his head. "Last time I said I wanted to negotiate, all I got in return were arrest warrants and kill orders. From that day on, I understood that only power can get people to sit at the negotiating table. And power requires data, samples, and sacrifices."

"So you've become the kind of person you hate the most?" Ye Mo's voice lowered.

"Maybe," the person didn't deny, "But as long as the outcome is different, what does it matter if the process is a little shady?"

Tony cut to the chase and locked onto his target with his Palm Cannon: "Ye Mo, stop talking. If we don't blow this up now, we won't have another chance."

Ye Mo didn't move.

He knew that if he made a move, everyone here would likely die. Those Mutants lying there might wake up and never be able to control their abilities again.

But if nothing is done, these people will continue to be used to collect data, and one day they might even be deployed as weapons.

The man on the platform looked at him, his expression complex for a moment.

Then he said, "If you leave now, I can pretend you were never here. Just don't interfere again."

Ye Mo looked up. "Impossible."

"Then don't blame me for being heartless." The man raised his hand, and the lights in the resonance chamber began to flash, causing the brainwave frequencies of all connected individuals to rise in sync.

The air temperature dropped sharply.

It wasn't Ye Mo who did it.

The entire nervous system of the base was activated.

The tubes in the walls hummed, the ground shook, the surrounding metal beds began to move, and one by one the unconscious Mutants opened their eyes. Their pupils were completely black, devoid of any emotion.

Collective control.

"They're clearing the cache," Ye Mo suddenly realized. "They're preparing to release the previous battle data all at once."

Tony immediately realized, "You mean, these people have all our combat records stored in their heads? Including Taskmaster, Storm, and the Hulk?"

"It's not just recording," Ye Mo's expression changed, "It's replication. They're going to directly implant these ability patterns into them, turning these people into living clones."

The man on the platform sneered, "Welcome to the new era. Your first test subject is you."

He waved his hand, and the person on the nearest metal bed suddenly sat up, his eyes gleaming blue, and a ball of ice crystals forming in his right hand.

Exactly the same as Ye Mo.

The second person raised his hand, and lightning danced at his fingertips.

Thirdly, the body begins to petrify.

Fourth, the wind is swirling around.

Five people, six, seven... they all woke up and assumed fighting stances.

They were all opponents they had fought before.

They are all replicas of their abilities.

Tony cursed, aiming his palm cannon at the nearest ice-elemental user. "You call this 'for the future'? You're building a clone army!"

"This is evolution." The man stood on the high platform, his voice resonating throughout the space. "When humans used steel and bullets against us, we fought back with their fear itself."

Ye Mo stood still, watching those "selves" walking towards him.

He knew he couldn't avoid this battle.

But he also knew that if he fell here today, more "Ye Mo" would be created tomorrow, and more Mutants would be used as tools.

He took a deep breath, and the nineteenth layer of the Gene Spiral Tower within his body was fully illuminated.

Consciousness Seal, preparations complete.

He raised his hand, and a chill spread along the ground. The first "Ice Ye Mo" to approach paused, his eyes momentarily filled with confusion.

efficient.

But there are still more than twenty targets.

Tony whispered in his ear, "This time we're really going to go big."

Ye Mo did not reply.

He stared at the man on the platform and said, word by word:

"You taught me the first lesson: controlling my emotions."

The man frowned.

"But you forgot to tell me," Ye Mo's lips curled into a slight smile, "When should I lose control?"