Consciousness control

Ye Mo moved slowly along the base of the wall and lightly brushed his fingers against the wire fence. A hole instantly wore through his glove. He paid it no mind, but as he vaulted over the fence, his knee struck loose gravel, making him grimace in pain. Emma Frost crouched at the garage entrance, her white dress stained with dust, a few loose strands of hair hanging over her forehead.

"You're really not going in?" she asked.

"Not yet." Ye Mo patted his pocket. "There could be a spy inside. I need to get a clear picture first."

Emma Frost said nothing more and withdrew into the shadows in the corner. Ye Mo glanced back at her, then turned and headed around the side of the main building.

JARVIS controlled the security system at Tony's estate, and the cameras swept past the blind spots once every seven seconds. Using Thermal Vision to count the intervals, Ye Mo slipped into the ventilation shaft during the third gap. The metal duct was scorching hot. He crawled slowly, sweat trickling down his neck. When he reached the section outside the study, he stopped and pressed his ear against the duct wall.

There were voices inside.

Snatches of a video call drifted out. "...the press conference is scheduled for ten tomorrow morning. The military representatives have confirmed their attendance."

It was Tony's secretary. Her voice was steady, but the ends of her words trembled slightly.

Ye Mo held his breath and gently pushed one corner of the grille aside. The study was lit. Tony sat at his desk, tapping his fingertips on its surface and holding a coffee in his other hand. The woman on the screen was around forty, dressed in a business suit, her head lowered as she leafed through documents.

Everything seemed normal.

Yet he kept feeling that something was wrong.

He closed his eyes and tried to extend his consciousness. His newly acquired Telepathy was like an old radio, full of jumbled static and weak signals. Gritting his teeth, he concentrated and edged closer to the image.

Buzz-

His head suddenly felt heavy, as though someone had struck the back of it hard with a hammer. He could barely breathe, but forced himself to hold on.

In that instant, he "heard" it.

Not words, but an emotion.

Fear.

It came from the woman on the screen.

She was not afraid of Tony or the pressure of her job. The feeling ran deeper and colder, as though something had her by the throat, leaving her unable to move or dare make a sound.

Ye Mo opened his eyes, his forehead already covered in cold sweat. He withdrew into the ventilation shaft and leaned against the wall, panting. His temples throbbed, and his vision dimmed.

This ability was far too mentally draining.

He took out his water flask and had a sip. After taking half a minute to recover, he adjusted his position again. This time, rather than going straight for the secretary, he first scanned his surroundings: the corridor was empty, the surveillance cameras were turning, and there was some activity in the downstairs kitchen, where the servants were making soup.

Then he focused his attention on the study again.

Tony was still talking. "...add a protective shield test to the armor demonstration. Don't let those generals think I'm all flash and no substance."

The secretary nodded. "Understood. I'll notify the technical team."

Ye Mo watched her eyes. She was smiling, the corners of her mouth raised, her movements perfectly proper, yet the fear in her mind had not faded at all.

And-

The ring finger of her left hand kept trembling ever so slightly. Hidden beneath the documents, the movement was tiny, but Ye Mo saw it clearly.

Only people who were lying or suppressing their emotions did that.

Something suddenly occurred to him, and he took the metal fragment from his pocket. Its surface was warm. Though not hot enough to burn, it was noticeably warmer than before.

It was reacting.

That meant the source of the threat was nearby and connected to this alloy.

His thoughts raced. The alloy smuggled in from Afghanistan bore the same patterns as the equipment used by the people hunting Emma Frost. Now Tony's secretary was suddenly nervous, and his schedule involved the military. The time and place all lined up.

It was most likely aimed at the press conference.

The plan had to change.

But how? Go straight to Tony and tell him something was wrong with his secretary? Leaving aside whether he would believe it, if that provoked whoever was behind this into acting early, the consequences would be worse.

He needed a "reasonable" change.

For example-a suggestion from the secretary herself.

Ye Mo closed his eyes again, gathering his mental energy into a thread and quietly extending it toward the study. This time, he did not dare probe deeply. He only skirted the edges, searching for the point with the strongest emotional fluctuations.

He found it.

The secretary had just ended the call and tapped her fingers on the desk three times. It was a habitual gesture, but her heartbeat was now nearly twice as fast as usual.

Seizing that opening, Ye Mo gently planted a thought in her consciousness:

Make a last-minute change of venue. Move it to the underground laboratory.

It was not an order, merely an idea, as though she had come up with it herself.

Her brow shifted slightly.

Ye Mo immediately withdrew and collapsed inside the duct, a bitter taste in his mouth. That last effort had felt as though his brain had been scooped out and stuffed back in.

A few minutes later, his phone rang.

It was Tony.

Ye Mo answered, acting as though he had just finished crawling through a ventilation shaft. "Hello?"

"Guess what?" Tony sounded amused. "Lisa just suggested changing tomorrow's press conference into an internal testing session and moving it to the third basement level. She said things haven't been peaceful outside lately, and a public appearance would be too risky."

Ye Mo tightened his grip on the phone. "That's what she said?"

"Yeah. I even praised her for being vigilant." Tony took a sip of coffee. "Funny coincidence, isn't it? You'd barely warned me to watch out for a mole when she pulled this. Did you secretly give her a heads-up?"

"What could I possibly do?" Ye Mo gave a dry laugh. "It's not like the system tells me who's suspicious."

"Then you must have some kind of precognition, right?" Tony said with a laugh. "Every time you show up, that's one less explosion I have to take."

Ye Mo did not reply. He knew his mental interference had worked. The secretary had accepted the thought and treated it as her own decision. Tony had gone along with it and changed the arrangements, avoiding any ambush that might have been set at tomorrow's open venue.

He looked up at the sky. The moon was half-hidden behind the clouds, and the distant city blazed with lights.

When he returned to the underground passage, Emma Frost was still waiting where he had left her. Seeing him return, she looked up and asked, "Did it work?"

"More or less." Ye Mo sat down against the wall and rubbed his temples. "Tony isn't going to the press conference. He's going to the lab instead."

"How did you do it?"

"Used a little trick." He grinned. "The method you taught me, plus some things I figured out myself. Now I can put an idea into someone else's head. As long as she already has concerns, she'll accept it easily."

Emma Frost frowned. "You tried it?"

"Yeah." He nodded. "My first time controlling someone else's consciousness. I'm as exhausted as if I'd run a marathon."

"Do you know how dangerous that is?" she asked, lowering her voice. "If the other person has a consciousness capable of fighting back, or a stronger psychic behind them, you'll suffer a backlash."

"I know." Ye Mo took the metal fragment from his pocket. "But if I didn't do it, Tony would be walking to his death. That place is wide open, with no cover. Any sniper could take him out."

Emma Frost looked at him and fell silent for a moment.

Ye Mo clenched the metal fragment. It was still giving off a faint heat, as though it had sensed something.

Something suddenly occurred to him.

"You said the Hellfire Club could track you. What do they use?"

"Biological signals," Emma Frost answered. "They once implanted nanomarkers in my body. Later, I used Diamond Form to force some of them out, but traces remain."

"Then could they monitor other people the same way?"

"It's possible." She nodded. "Especially subordinates or employees they've had prolonged contact with."

Ye Mo narrowed his eyes.

The secretary's fear was not just because she had received a threatening phone call.

It was more like... something was controlling her.

He sprang to his feet. "I need to go back up."

"You're in terrible shape right now." Emma Frost caught his wrist. "Use it again, and you'll pass out."

"It's fine." He shook her off. "I'll just take a look. I won't touch her consciousness."

He climbed back into the ventilation shaft and headed straight for the staff lounge area. The secretary's office was on the east side of the second floor. The door was shut, and the light was still on.

Lying on top of the outdoor air-conditioning unit, he peered inside through a gap in the blinds.

The woman sat at her desk writing something, her handwriting neat and her movements natural.

But Ye Mo noticed that every thirty seconds, she would unconsciously touch the left side of the back of her neck.

There was a tiny red dot there. At first glance, it looked like a mosquito bite.

It was not a bump.

It was a port.

A miniature neural access point.

He sucked in a breath.

This woman was not acting willingly at all. She was a remotely controlled puppet. Every decision she made could be monitored or even altered.

Had the thought of "rescheduling" he had just implanted been detected?

He did not know.

But he knew one thing-

Tony was safe for now.

As for later?

He lowered his head to look at the metal fragment in his palm. Its temperature had not dropped. Instead, it had risen further.

An extremely faint notification tone sounded in his ears.

[Mind Control · Basic access unlocked]

He did not smile or relax.

He simply put the metal fragment back into his pocket, turned, and headed toward the garage.

Seeing him return, Emma Frost asked, "How did it go?"

"Stay put." Ye Mo sat beside her. "Don't make a sound. Don't move."

"What happened?"

He did not answer. He pressed his fingers beside his ear, feeling the throbbing in his temple.

What he had just done seemed to have flipped some kind of switch.

He could sense that it was not just the secretary.

There were other "signals" throughout the estate.

Faint, but undeniably there.

Like electric currents flowing silently through the darkness.