Chapter 81 Reinforcement
Abandoned mine site with underground cavities on theSokovia border.
4:40 a.m. local time.
Lynn held the reactor in her palm, the arc of light flickering at its core, like a heart that had been squeezed too tightly.
The chip lay between the fingers of his other hand, its metal edges blackened by scorching, the latter half of the serial number curled into gibberish, like an earthworm roasted by Fire.
Tony's voice cut in through the headphones, accompanied by static and crackling noise:
"...align the chip with the groove at the bottom of the reactor...don't force it in, it's magnetically attached..."
"It's shaking,"
Lynn said. He wasn't talking about chips; he was talking about himself.
The reactor in my palm was getting hotter and hotter, the heat seeping through the gloves, making my skin feel like it was being licked by a branding iron.
Wanda stood half a step behind him, Red Mist flowing from between her fingers, not gushing out, but being sucked in.
The mist stretched between the reactor and the capsule into a thin veil, like a tourniquet binding a wound.
The stabilizer on her wrist emitted a continuous beeping sound, and the yellow light flashed rapidly, twice a second, as if counting down.
"Heartbeat,"
Wanda suddenly spoke, her voice taut like a Jean string.
" Lynn, your heartbeat."
Lynn looked down at her chest.
He could feel it without touching it; the muscles in his left chest were contracting at a rhythm that wasn't his own.
It wasn't fast, it was synchronized. In an instant, the translucent skin of the cyst bulged up an inch; in an instant, his heart tightened accordingly.
Two, three, like two hearts tied together by the same thread, separated only by Wanda's ever-thinning Red Mist.
"It's using your strength,"
Natasha's voice drifted from the tunnel entrance. She didn't turn around; her gun was pointed into the darkness.
"The hunger described in the log is not a metaphor. It's eating you."
"Then let it eat,"
Lynn said.
He took half a step forward, causing the Red Mist to cave in, and Wanda's shoulder swayed along with it.
He aligned the chip with the groove at the bottom of the reactor, and the magnetic clasp clicked shut.
Blue light exploded.
It wasn't the soft light of the reactor, but some kind of more violent, almost ghastly white electric arc, shooting out from the chip's broken edge, like broken bones piercing the skin.
The cyst suddenly swelled up, the shriveled skin tightened instantly, and the blood vessels on the surface changed from dark red to scarlet, as if someone had injected blood into it.
Wanda groaned, her knees buckling forward. She pushed forward with both hands, and the Red Mist suddenly thickened, transforming from gauze into a wall, then into a cocoon, completely enveloping Lynn and her cyst. The temperature inside the cocoon soared, and dark sweat stains quickly seeped onto the back of her knitwear, like lakes on a map.
" Wanda!"
Lynn wanted to turn around.
"Don't move!"
Wanda shouted, her voice cracking.
"Keep going! It's sucking me, but slower than you! If you move, the thread will break!"
Lynn didn't move.
He gritted his teeth and pressed the reactor two inches closer to the surface of the capsule.
The electric arc licked at his gloves, the smell of burnt fibers mingling with the sulfurous odor of Red Mist, fermenting in the confined space into a nauseatingly sweet tang. His heartbeats synchronized more closely; he could even hear his own blood thumping in his eardrums, like someone drumming inside his skull.
Tony's voice in the headphones was intermittent:
"...Frequency...not right...chip redundancy layer...something is being written to..."
"Write what?"
Lynn squeezed out the sound through her teeth.
"Coordinates...wait..."
I heard the sound of a keyboard being smashed coming from Tony's end.
"The gibberish is changing! It's not corrupted, it's alive! It's re-encoding based on your heartbeat!"
On the surface of the cyst, the scarlet lines began to move, like countless thin snakes turning over under the skin.
Lynn's retina showed a figure
He saw his hands turning transparent, and what flowed in his veins wasn't blood, but a blue light, the same color as the reactor. The serum was rebelling, or being summoned.
Wanda's Red Mist cocoon began to tremble.
Her vision was torn apart.
The illusions pierced her mind like needles.
White room.
Not just one room, but an entire row.
Countless culture chambers stretched along both sides of the corridor, like canned goods on a supermarket shelf.
Each capsule contained a humanoid figure of different ages, skin colors, and hair colors, but their DNA helices displayed on the screens on the capsule walls showed the same pattern.
The sequence alignment with Lynn's showed a 99.9% overlap.
A boy with black hair, eyes closed, is immersed in a pale golden liquid. Tag: ADAM-03.
A middle-aged man, brown-skinned, with a bullet wound in his chest, is submerged in murky liquid. Tag: ADAM-12.
An infant, curled up, with golden pupils, is submerged in clear liquid. Tag: ADAM-0.
They are all keys.
Or rather, it was all locks. Howard's "original" design didn't create a Lynn; it created an entire keychain, and Lynn was just one link in it, which just happened to be used in the keyhole.
The illusion lasted only four seconds.
But inside the Red Mist cocoon, four seconds was enough for Wanda's nose to bleed down to her chin. She didn't make a sound, but simply thickened the fog wall, her fingertips trembling, blood seeping from under her nails, turning into a very pale pink as the fog warmed them.
"Almost done..."
She spoke softly, as if to herself.
"Just one more breath... just one more..."
Lynn heard it.
It wasn't because of the headphones, but because their heartbeats were synchronized to a certain extreme; he could even feel the adrenaline surging in her blood.
He abruptly flipped the reactor, slamming the chip side directly onto the most bulging point on the surface of the capsule, where the blood vessels intersect.
boom.
It wasn't an explosion, it was a pressure release.
The sac deflated abruptly, like a punctured balloon, and the crimson markings on its surface faded to grayish- white at a visible speed, then turned into a dark purple resembling livor mortis. The heartbeat synchronization stopped.
Lynn staggered back two steps, her back slamming into the metal cabinet with a loud bang.
Wanda's Red Mist snapped back instantly, like a rubber band being snapped.
She stumbled forward, and Lynn reached out to catch her around the waist, pulling her back. Her head rested against his collarbone, her breath hot and carrying the scent of blood.
"...You're more expensive than I expected,"
Wanda said her voice was as hoarse as a broken bellows.
"Not price. It's the cost."
Lynn didn't ask what he meant. He simply wiped the blood from her chin with the back of his hand, quickly, as if erasing something that shouldn't be there.
Natasha walked back from the tunnel entrance, a faint smoke still rising from the muzzle of her gun.
She had just fired two shots into the darkness, not knowing what she had hit, or if it was just a warning. She looked at the cyst; the shriveled skin had slumped back onto the support, its movements becoming extremely slow, like a hibernating bear being forcibly given sleeping pills.
"it's over?"
She asked.
"The seal has been reinforced,"
Lynn said.
He looked down at the reactor in his hand.
The chip was completely fused into the groove and could not be removed. The metal surface was covered with cracks, like a tree trunk struck by lightning.
The latter half of the serial number turned into complete gibberish, but under the illumination of the arc light, the gibberish faintly formed a certain pattern.
Tony's voice suddenly became clear in the headphones, as if signal interference had been abruptly cut off.
"...Coordinates. The garbled text has been deciphered. It's not Sokovia, it's not the Himalayas."
"where?"
Lynn asked.
" New York,"
Tony said the voice was very flat, as flat as a steel plate.
" Manhattan. Underground. SHIELD never marked that area, but my geological scans show there's a cavity there three times larger than this mine. Depth..."
He paused.
"The depth is exactly below the underground pipes of yourStark Tower."
Lynn's fingers froze.
Wanda lifted her head from his embrace, the redness in her pupils still lingering.
"ADAM-0,"
Natasha said, "It's not a question."
"He's already home."
"Or rather,"
Lynn retracted the reactor into his storage space; the metal vanished from his palm, as if swallowed into an invisible stomach.
"There's always been a door under the house, we just discovered it now."
It was 6:15 a.m., at the Sokovia border. The sky was still dark, and the horizon was covered with a layer of dirty gray, like an unwashed canvas.
The three men climbed out of the mine shaft, ropes swaying on the supports. Natasha was the first to land, brushing the dust off his gloves, and pulled a satellite phone from his backpack to call Hill. The report was brief, simply stating that the mission was complete, but with the addition of new coordinates, requiring SHIELD to immediately conduct a silent scan of the Manhattanunderground area.
Wanda sat on a rusted conveyor belt wheel, the yellow light on her wrist stabilizer still flashing, but much slower, like exhausted breathing.
Lynn walked over, squatted down in front of her, and took a pack of wet wipes out of her pocket.
Pepper gave it to him, saying, "For a girl to keep as a spare."
He took out a bill and used it to wipe the bloodstains between her fingers.
Wanda didn't hide.
She looked at the back of his neck that was exposed when he lowered his head, where there were red marks from the night before in the hotel. They had faded, but the outlines were still visible.
"You saw it,"
Lynn said it wasn't a question.
He wiped it very carefully, from his index finger to his ring finger, spreading the bloodstains and then wiping them away.
"I saw it,"
Wanda said,
"Many of you. Preserved in a jar. All with the same DNA."
Are you scared?
Wanda thought for a moment, then shook her head:
"I'm not scared. It's just... I feel it's unfair. You're carrying so many dungeons all by yourself, and you're still smiling every day."
"I didn't laugh,"
Lynn flipped the wet wipe over and continued wiping the area between her thumb and forefinger.
"I just didn't cry."
Wanda pulled her hand back and rubbed the remaining blood with her thumb:
"When we get back, I'm going to learn. Learn how to help you memorize. Not the Red Mist style, but…"
She paused, unable to find the right words, "It's the kind of 'knowing where you are, I have a place to go' feeling."
Lynn stood up, her knees making a slight crack. He held out his hand to her:
"Then let's go back first. Only when we go back will we have a place to study."
Wanda grasped his fingers, using the leverage to stand up. She swayed slightly, and he steadied her by the shoulder.Natasha honked his car horn a short distance away, a sound as brief as Jane's, like a urging or a greeting.
The car was an old Land Cruiser, parked on a dirt road outside the mine, its body covered in mud. Natasha was driving, Wanda was in the passenger seat, and Lynn was in the back.
When the engine started, Wanda turned off the yellow light on the stabilizer. The light didn't come back on, probably because the battery was completely depleted.
Six hours,
Wanda suddenly said, her voice drifting from the passenger seat to the back seat, "I lasted four hours and seventeen minutes. Far from it."
"Next time it will take a little longer,"
Lynn said.
"next time?"
Wanda looked at him in the rearview mirror.
"There will be a next time?"
"have,"
Lynn looked out the window; the Sokovia wilderness was receding, like a rewind of old film.
"ADAM-0 is under New York. To open it, someone has to stand in front of the keyhole. It's either you, it's me, or it's both of us."
Wanda didn't respond.
She leaned back in her seat, her eyes closed, her fingers unconsciously stroking the stabilizer's strap.
Natasha turned on the radio; the music was local folk music, with string instruments sounding like sawing wood, but the rhythm was slow, perfect for catching up on sleep.
The car drove for forty minutes before stopping in front of a border checkpoint. Natasha handed over the fake documents, and the border officer, a young man, yawned, glanced at them hastily, and waved him through.
Wanda fell asleep amidst the bumpy ride, her head resting against the windowpane, gently bobbing up and down with the undulations of the road.
Lynn leaned over from the back seat, turned her head toward him, and let her rest her head on his shoulder.
Her hair smelled of sulfur and had that burnt smell that Red Mist was known for, but the roots were still fragrant, like the sweetness of cherry pie.
Natasha glanced in the rearview mirror, her lips twitched, but she didn't say anything.
11:00 AM, New York JFK Airport.
The sunlight was very white, shining on the terminal building glass and reflecting dazzling spots of light.
Hill was waiting for them in the arrival hall, wearing a gray trench coat and holding no sign, but his posture resembled a drawn sword.
She saw Lynn come out, followed by Wanda and Natasha, and her gaze lingered on Wanda's face for two seconds.
There were still traces of blood that hadn't been wiped clean, like light brown freckles.
"The car is outside,"
Hill said,
"Go straight back to the building. Tony is waiting for you in the underground lab. He said…"
She paused.
"He said you old man buried a surprise under his feet, and he has to unpack it himself."
"Not a surprise,"
Lynn said,
"It's homework. The old man left it for me, and it's due now."
Hill turned and led the way, the hem of his trench coat sweeping through the air.
Wanda quickened her pace to catch up with Lynn, her fingers secretly hooking around his sleeve, the fabric crumpling between her fingers.
" Lynn,"
She said in a low voice.
"Um?"
"next time,"
Wanda looked ahead without turning her head.
"I'll stand in front of the keyhole. You stand behind me. It's a deal."
Lynn looked down at her fingers, which were hooked around his sleeve; her knuckles were white, but her grip was tight.
"It's settled,"
He said.
Chapter 82
Rhyme scheme of the original manuscript in Chapter 82
Stark Tower, seven underground floors. 1:20 AM.
Tony tore off the printing paper from the mass spectrometer and flattened it on the table.
There are two curves: one is the baseline radial pattern of the Mind Stone scepter, and the other is the residual signature of the ADAM-0 dander sample.
The two lines almost completely overlap at the base, like different instruments playing the same song.
"Not Mind Stone itself,"
Tony drew a circle in red pen at the overlapping area, and the ink seeped into the paper fibers.
"But it's definitely from the same lineage. The same... family."
Lynn leaned against the explosion-proof glass, twirling the reactor that was fused to the chip with her fingers.
He stared at the red circle Tony had drawn, and another name flashed through his mind.
Infinity Stones.
Tesseract has been submerged in the Arctic for thousands of years. The "exogenous sequence" that Howard dug up in that ice field in the 1980s is probably more than just ancient DNA. It's the outer shell that the Space Stoneshed, the rust that fell from the nails of law.
But I can't say that.
At least, you can't say it out loud.
"Of the same origin as the scepter,"
Lynn opened her mouth, her voice was very flat.
"This indicates that ADAM-0 is searching for a similar energy source. Or rather, it was itself created by this kind of energy."
Wanda walked in carrying two cups of coffee, each cup sleeve adorned with a golden butterfly with half a wing.
She placed one of the glasses next to Lynn, her fingertips brushing against the back of his hand:
"So, why did he build a nest underground in New York? Because he sensed something?"
"It sensed me,"
Lynn said,
"He also sensed the scepter. He was waiting for an opportunity to transform himself from a 'manuscript' into a 'complete version.'"
Harry poked his head out of the ventilation duct, his nose twitched twice, and then he pulled it back in.
His voice drifted out from the shadowy figure, as if it came from a very far place:
" Queen Bee, the feel of ADAM-0... it rhymes with that 'mine' song, but the vocal range is higher. It wasn't created, it was'sung' out. Like someone chipping a very old stone into the shape of a person."
Lynn put down her coffee.
He remembered what the Ancient One had said: He was a hole at the bottom of the river, and the light shining through the cracks was warm.
If Ancient One cannot see his timeline, perhaps she can see the gem.
I'm going out for a bit.
He said.
"Now?"
Tony raised an eyebrow.
"Where are you going at 1:30 in the morning?"
"Pay tuition,"
Lynn walked towards the door.
" The debt I owe from magic class."
He did not leave the building.
Ancient One waited for him on the terrace on the 39th floor, as if she had known he would come all along.
The night wind blew in from the direction of the Hudson River, carrying the smell of water and diesel.
Ancient One stood at the edge of the railing, her yellow robe billowing in the wind like a second skin. She didn't turn around, but simply gazed at the lights on the oppositebank.
"You're later than I expected."
She said.
"You see further than I thought."
Lynn walked over and stopped two steps away from her.
"ADAM-0. You know what he is."
"I know the energy signature he carries."
Ancient One turned around, Fire Star spinning at his fingertips, round and round. " The 'exogenous sequence' that Howard Stark dug up in Arctic is not a biological relic."
It was fragments. The Space Stone had lain dormant in the seabed ice for too long; its outer shell had peeled away, and fragments were embedded in the permafrost. Howardused it as some kind of ancient genetic material to forge his 'Adam'.
Lynn's fingers tightened on the railing. The coolness of the metal seeped into her palms.
"ADAM-0 is the first finished product,"
Ancient One continued, saying that the Fire Star flickered at her fingertips.
"He absorbed the most of the original fragments. So he's not just your genetic blueprint, Lynn. He's a living gem fragment. His DNA is the groove, his blood is the conductor. If he's exposed to enough homologous energy, especially Mind Stone … he'll become a walking collection of laws. No gloves needed, no vessel needed. He himself is the container."
Lynn didn't say anything.
He looked at the lights of the barges on the river, but his mind was wandering elsewhere.
Thanos.
That purple-skinned Titan, in another timeline, collected all six gems, snapped his fingers, and half of the Universeturned to ashes.
Now the scepter is in his hands, the Tesseract is in the SHIELD warehouse, the Time Stone is here at Ancient One, and the Power, Reality, and Soul are still scattered in various places.
But the appearance of ADAM-0 disrupted everything. If this guy had turned himself into a "living infinite collection" first, Thanos's script would have had to be rewritten.
And what about himself? Are those diluted fragments in his body, after being enhanced by serum and so many templates, also sliding in the same direction?
"The possibilities within your body,"
Ancient One suddenly spoke, his voice as soft as a feather falling to the ground.
"I can't see it. It's not magic, it's not technology, and it doesn't belong to the regular scope of this Universe."
But it harbors no ill will towards you, at least not yet. The light shining through the crack is warm.
Lynn straightened her back.
The "possibility" Ancient One spoke of was the system in his mind. She couldn't see it, but she could sense it. Fortunately, she didn't expose it or name names; she simply mentioned it as if it were the weather.
"How can I stop him?"
Lynn asked.
"It can't be stopped."
Ancient One is straightforward.
"At least for now, we can't stop it. He's the original manuscript, you're the revised version. The original will always have one more page than the revised version. Unless…"
"Unless what?"
"Unless you also become a complete thing,"
Ancient One drew a circle in the air with his finger, and six virtual figures of light appeared at the center of the circle, rotating and colliding.
"It's not a key, it's a lock. Howard made you a key to open doors. But if you forged yourself into something that could suppress the laws of nature, ADAM-0 wouldn't be able to get in. A lock is heavier than a key; that's common sense."
Lynn looked down at her palm.
Beneath the skin, blood vessels are pulsating.
He recalled the pop-up window that appeared every time the system was triggered.
Captain America – the epitome of pure and good constitution; Spider-Man – the epitome of pure and good agility; Wheel King – the epitome of pure and good endurance; Quicksilver – the epitome of pure and good speed. Every time it's "pure and good," every time it's "without side effects."
Does the "lock" that Ancient One spoke of mean that next time, he will have to choose a heavier path? A path with a price, impure intentions, and side effects?
The system interface was as silent as a frozen machine in his mind. But he knew it wasn't frozen; it was listening.
" Someone in the Universe wants to collect the nails that hold these laws,"
Ancient One's voice came from a great distance.
"Not now, maybe ten years from now, maybe longer. But ADAM-0 can't wait that long. He sensed that you brought back the chip debris from Sokovia, which had his rhymes on it. He'll act within seventy-two hours. Maybe sixty hours. Maybe forty-eight."
"How many hours?"
Lynn asked.
Forty-eight,
Ancient One took a step back, his body beginning to blend into the night on the terrace, like ink seeping into water.
" Ready, Lynn Stark. Ready to be the lock. Or ready to be opened."
The night breeze began to flow again.
Ancient One has vanished, leaving only a scorch mark on the railing, as if it had been gently licked by Fire.
Lynn stood on the terrace for a long time. One by one, the lights on the opposite bank went out, and the city was falling asleep.
He went over the information in his mind again and again.
ADAM-0 is a fusion of Space Stone fragments and the original manuscript, with the goal of becoming a living vessel; the time window is forty-eight hours; the Ancient One advised him to become the "lock"; the system must be kept secret; Thanos's existence must remain a closely guarded secret.
He turned and walked back.
Zero 5:00 AM, underground laboratory.
Tony was still cursing at the two curves, twirling the welding torch in his hand:
"So what did that bald woman say?"
"Saying ADAM-0 is gemstone debris,"
Lynn walked in through the door, her voice steady.
"He said he would take action within forty-eight hours. He said we needed a lock, not a key."
Wanda stood up from the chair, the makeshift stabilizer on her wrist still flashing a yellow light:
"Lock? What does that mean?"
"Does that mean I need to gain weight?"
Lynn said,
"Heavy enough to hold down a door. If ADAM-0 wants to open the door, I'll have to make him crash into a wall."
Harry emerged from the shadowy figure, his face even paler than before.
" Queen Bee, he's already crashing. I sense... the pulse beneath Manhattan is intensifying. Not from below, but from above. He's on the surface. He's getting closer."
Natasha strode in from the other end of the corridor, clutching a tablet in her hand, its screen still lit.
" SHIELD just received a report that a man in a hoodie bought a bottle of water at a convenience store three blocks from Stark Tower. Surveillance footage showed his eyes were blonde. He paid in cash and left. He was heading this way."
Tony slammed the welding torch on the table:
"Forty-eight hours? He doesn't even want to wait for forty-eight minutes."
"Because he got anxious too."
Lynn said. He walked to the control panel, took the melted reactor out of the storage space, and put it back in.
The metal vanished in his palm, like swallowing an invisible stomach. " Sokovia's seal has been reinforced, letting him know we have something that can burn him. He must act before the scepter is transferred."
"Then let's move it."
Hill's voice cut in through the communication channel, accompanied by static.
"I'll arrange the armored truck. Deep vault, highest encryption."
"No," Lynn said.
There was a moment of silence in the channel.
"Leave the scepter here."
Lynn said,
"ADAM-0 wants the gem resonance, not the gem itself. If we move it away, it will chase after us, and the journey will be more dangerous. Leaving it here, at least the battlefield is our choice."
Are you sure?
Hill asked.
"uncertain,"
Lynn said, "But I'm sure it's better to have the battlefield at home than on the highway."
Wanda walked up to him, her fingers subtly hooking around his sleeve, the fabric crumpling between her fingers:
"Then I'll stay with you. The stabilizer still has four hours of battery left. Once it's fully charged, I'll help you carry the heavy stuff."
Lynn looked down at her fingers, which were hooked around his sleeve; her knuckles were white, but her grip was tight.
"good,"
He said.
Tony pulled another portable reactor from the drawer and tossed it to Lynn:
"Then you take this one too. Double the Firepower, double the insurance. Jarvis has twelve hours to finish the upgrade, at least he can give you a piece of his mind then."
Lynn caught them and stuffed them into her storage space. The two reactors floated silently in the void, like two hearts waiting to detonate.
"Twelve hours,"
He said,
"That's enough."
Chapter 83 Collecting Interest
At 5:20 a.m., the lights in the lobby on the first floor of Stark Tower began to flicker.
The chandelier on the ceiling swayed twice, casting the human figure into oddly shaped stripes onto the marble floor.
Harry knelt beside the reception desk, blood dripping from his nose onto his shirt collar, dark and like someone had accidentally spilled soy sauce. He covered his nose with one hand, the other supporting him on the ground, his knuckles white.
"Don't tilt your head back,"
Pietro squatted down beside him, pulled a crumpled tissue from his pocket, and stuffed it directly into Harry's hand.
"Stuff it up. Don't let it spill on my floor."
He was singing.
Harry's voice was muffled and muffled, muffled by the tissue.
"It's not singing with your mouth... it's singing with your bones. The bones of the entire city of New York are vibrating."
Wanda stood at the elevator entrance, her fingers hanging by her sides, a thin stream of red smoke drifting out between them, like smoke leaking from a crack in a door when burning firewood.
Her knitted sweater sleeves were rolled up to her forearms, revealing a section of her wrists, and the LED lights on the makeshift stabilizer were all off.
It's not that there's no power; it's being suppressed by an external frequency.
The elevator dinged.
The door slid open, and Lynn came out. One button on her shirt was fastened incorrectly; the third button was tucked into the buttonhole of the fourth, and the hem was uneven, with one side longer than the other.
His hair was sticking up, and he had a layer of dark stubble on his chin, as if he had just been dragged out of bed, or hadn't slept at all.
Where are they?
He asked.
"on the street,"
Natasha leaned against the doorframe, twirling a gun in her hand, but not raising it.
"I haven't moved. I've been standing here for four minutes."
Gwen ran over from the direction of the lab, still wearing her white lab coat, with two pens tucked into her pocket.
She clutched several sheets of printed paper in her hand, the edges of which were curled up from sweaty hands, like limp fried dough sticks. She wanted to call out to Lynn, butNatasha stopped her with a gesture.
"Wait a minute,"
Natasha said, her eyes fixed on the door.
"Let him get rid of the one outside first."
"But the document"
"Wait a minute."
Gwen shut her mouth, her fingers tightening their grip on the paper. Pepper poked her head out of the stairwell, carrying a stack of toolboxes.
" Tony said Jarvis's core is cluttered with gibberish and now he can only report the temperature in Sanskrit! He's upstairs smashing his keyboard, can someone go and calm him down?"
"Let him smash it,"
Lynn walked towards the door.
"Smash it all, then fix it."
He pushed open the glass door.
The early morning wind blew in, carrying the earthy smell of fresh rain and the aroma of the bakery baking its first batch of bread in the distance.
Across the street, the streetlights were still on, but the light was already turning bluish, like tea leaves that had been steeped for too long.
ADAM-0 stood under the streetlight.
The hoodie was dark gray, and the hood was off, revealing a face that looked almost exactly like Lynn's.
But his skin was whiter, not the white of a healthy man, but the kind of pale white that comes from years of lack of sunlight, like dough in a refrigerator. His golden pupils gleamed faintly with a metallic sheen under the streetlights, devoid of emotion, merely reflecting light.
The two looked at each other across the street.
There were three parked cars, an overturned trash can, and a figure stretched out by a streetlight in the middle.
"younger brother,"
ADAM-0 opening.
The voice didn't sound like it came from a throat; it sounded like two rusty iron pieces rubbing together, with an old, metallic, weary vibrato: "I'm here to collect interest."
"The old man didn't teach you that,"
Lynn put her hands in her pockets, relaxed her shoulders, and looked at the drunkard who had gone astray as if he were a lost soul.
"Don't keep your eyes on the things you lent out?"
"He didn't teach me,"
ADAM-0 tilted its head, and a slight clicking sound came from its neck, like a screw that hadn't been tightened.
"He created me, and then he created you. Using the same piece of iron. You used my body, and you should repay him."
"Then you've got the wrong person,"
Lynn said,
"Go find Tony to collect debts; he's in charge of the accounts. I don't handle them."
ADAM-0 chuckled.
The curve of the corner of the mouth is strange; the left side moves half a beat faster than the right, as if there's a bug in the facial muscle control program.
He didn't reply, but squatted down and placed his right palm on the ground.
The asphalt road surface is cracked.
It wasn't like an explosion that sent everything flying; it was like dry, muddy ground, with fine cracks spreading outwards from the center.
A faint blue light emanated from the crack; it wasn't electricity, but some kind of cooler light, like liquid nitrogen. The pipes below were exposed—gas pipes, cables, fiber optics—like intestines that had been peeled open.
Blue light spread along the pipe, and wherever it passed, a layer of white frost formed on the metal surface.
Inside Stark Tower, Tony's cursing echoed down from upstairs, audible even through the glass doors:
"He tampered with my gas valve! That bastard tampered with my gas valve!"
Lynn stood on the steps, not backing down.
Spider-Sense throbbed gently under my scalp, but it wasn't a dangerous sting; it was some kind of recognition, like a radar locking onto a signal on the same frequency.
He could feel the fragments inside ADAM-0 vibrating, resonating with the diluted residue in his blood, like two tuning forks striking each other in the air.
Wanda burst out of the hall, and Red Mist formed a thin wall in front of Lynn, the heat distorting the cold air.
"go back,"
Lynn said she didn't look back.
"I don't"
"go back,"
Lynn repeated, her voice not loud, but with that "stop talking nonsense" tone.
"Your stabilizer is broken, don't try to be a hero."
Wanda didn't move.
The Red Mist wall is still there.
ADAM-0 stood up and brushed the dust off his palms.
He looked at Wanda, his golden pupils shrinking: "The revised version of the bodyguard."
"Keep your mouth shut,"
Wanda said her voice trembled slightly, but she enunciated the words very clearly.
"It can't be cleaned up,"
ADAM-0 said,
"I haven't studied it." He looked at Lynn again.
"I'm not going to steal the gem. The scepter is inside, I know. The Mind Stone smells wonderful, like freshly baked bread. But it would be too hot to eat now. I can wait."
"Then what are you doing here?"
Lynn asked,
"Just to have a road cracked in front of my door? The city will send a bill."
"Let me remind you,"
ADAM-0 took a step back, the soles of his boots crunching over the cracked asphalt.
"You have fragments inside you, and so do I. When we come together, the door opens. You can't escape, just as I can't. Howard's debt will be split equally."
Footsteps came from the side door.
Banner walked out wearing a wrinkled plaid shirt with the buttons askew, and her hair looked like a bird's nest.
Betty followed behind him, holding a notepad and tapping the paper with her pen.
"You're disturbing my sleep,"
Banner said, her voice muffled as if she hadn't woken up yet, but her eyes already had a slightly greenish tinge.
"My culture medium delivery tubes are in the lower layer of pipes. You cracked them, and I'll have to reconnect them tomorrow."
When ADAM-0 looked at the banner, the light in its golden pupils shifted, as if it had switched to a different channel.
"A green monster. Raised by gamma. Also created by fragments?"
"no,"
Banner rubbed his eyes. "I pushed myself to it."
Who are you? You look just like Lynn, his long-lost father?
"His brother,"
ADAM-0 said,
"Or his ancestors. It depends on how you look at it."
Taking advantage of the moment, Lynn took two steps forward, down the steps, and onto the cracked asphalt.Spider-Sense jumped suddenly, as if pricked by a needle.
He stopped, closing the distance to ADAM-0 to five meters.
"Forty-eight hours,"
ADAM-0 said,
"Or even shorter. I'll come get the key when you're ready to use it as a lock. The heavier the lock, the louder the sound when the key goes in. I like the sound."
He took another step back, and his figure began to fade.
It wasn't running, nor was it the kind of speed that's erratic;it was like smoke being blown away by the wind, like the shrinking screen when an old-fashioned television is turned off.
Two seconds later, the area under the streetlights was empty, leaving only the cracked ground and a wisp of ozone-smelling ash floating upwards.
Lynn stood still and didn't chase after him.
He knew he couldn't catch up, nor could he defeat them.The Spider-Sense slowly subsided, like the receding tide.
Behind him, the sound of Tony rushing down the stairs echoed in the lobby, his slippers clattering on the floor.
"He's gone? Really gone? All Jarvis can say now is 'Om,' I'm going to kill him!"
"You should fix your AI first,"
Lynn turned and walked back, and as she passed Wanda, she reached out and patted her shoulder.
"It's alright. Go back and charge the stabilizer."
"What? Everything's alright?"
Wanda whispered, and Red Mist withdrew his fingertips, "He almost knocked the road over."
"But he didn't lift it,"
Lynn said,
"If he really wanted to make a move, he wouldn't have said so much beforehand. He just came here..."
"What are you here for?"
"Come and give me the IOU."
Lynn said,
"It reminds me that I'm in debt."
Gwen finally found a chance to squeeze through and stuff the few curled sheets of printer paper in her hand intoLynn's hand:
"Empty White chain. Cracked. Not coordinates, Lynn, it's the password."
Lynn took the paper and looked down. It contained a densely packed gene sequence, with a section highlighted in red, repeatedly displaying the same pattern.
Gwen's fingertip touched the red line:
" Howard turned the 'empty white segment' in your DNAinto a dynamic key. That void beneath Manhattan isn't something you can just walk into. The door needs a key, but the key needs…"
What do you need?
"I need your heartbeat,"
Gwen said, her voice was strained.
"ADAM-0 is right. You and he are from the same piece of iron. The door doesn't recognize you as a person, but rather the frequency of the fragments within you. If he wants to get in, he'll have to drag you in with him. Or, he can use you as a latch, pull you out, and the door will open."
The hall was silent for a few seconds.
Betty's scoreboard fell to the ground with a thud.
Lynn held the papers in her hands, her fingers creasing the edges of the papers even deeper.
He looked up and saw Wanda, Pietro, Banner, Betty,Gwen, Natasha, and Tony peeking out from the stairwell, all looking at him.
"so,"
Tony said,
"Not only did I bury a door under your feet, but I also welded the door frame to your bones?"
"almost,"
Lynn said.
"Then what should we do?"
Lynn folded the paper and stuffed it into her pocket.
He glanced at the cracked ground outside the door. The morning light was already filtering through the buildings, illuminating the crack as a bright scar.
"what to do,"
He said,
"Eat breakfast first. I'm hungry. Once I'm full, I'll think about how to weld myself into an unopenable door."
Chapter 84 Noise
9:15 a.m., Stark Tower restaurant.
Harry clutched a tissue, but his nose was still bleeding.
He sat at the far end of the long table, a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him. The yolks were punctured, and golden-red liquid flowed out, mixing with the blood dripping onto the edge of the plate, their colors almost identical. Pietro sat opposite him, clutching half a loaf of toast in his hand, the edges of which he had crumpled into fine crumbs that fell onto his trouser leg.
"Say it again,"
Pietro said his voice was strained, like steel wire digging into flesh.
Harry pushed the tissue up, the blood from his nose soaking through it and sticking to his face.
"His frequency... has shifted. Not towards Queen Bee, but towards your sister. Like a radar changing targets."
Wanda is pouring coffee.
The coffee pot spout trembled, and dark liquid splattered on the table, like someone had spilled ink.
She didn't turn around, but just pulled out two kitchen paper towels to wipe, wiping very hard until her knuckles turned white.
Why my sister?
Pietro slammed the toast onto the table, sending crumbs flying.
"What the hell gives him the right to target my sister?"
"Because of the Red Mist on her body,"
Harry's voice was muffled by the tissue, a buzzing sound.
" Remnants of Mind Stone. ADAM-0 needs to open the door. Queen Bee is the master key, and she is... the spare bolt. Soft, easy to pull out."
Pietro stood up.
The chair legs scraped against the marble floor with a harsh sound, like fingernails scratching a blackboard.
He went around the table, not to Harry, but to Lynn. Lynnwas sitting at the other end of the long table, chewing bacon and twirling her car keys, the metal gleaming between her fingers.
Pietro grabbed Lynn by the collar, the fabric crumpling in his palm.
Lynn's key flew out and hit the floor with a clatter.
"You brought it,"
Pietro said his breath on Lynn's face smelled of burnt bread.
" Sokovia, the mine, take her in. That thing is following her scent. Take care of it now, or I'll..."
" Pietro!"
Wanda shouted.
The Red Mist burst from Wanda's fingertips, not aggressively, but as a push, like a soft wall slapping Pietroon the back.
Pietro staggered forward half a step, his grip on Lynn's collar loosening. He turned and glared at Wanda, his eyes red, not from crying, but bloodshot, like a gambler who had been up all night.
"Don't stop me,"
Pietro said.
"Don't be foolish,"
Wanda said that Red Mist pushed again, this time harder,forcing Pietro to let go of Lynn and take a step back.
"It has nothing to do with him. ADAM-0 wanted me, not him. I was already involved in it back in Sokovia."
Lynn bent down to pick up the car keys, wiped them on her trouser leg, and put them back in her pocket.
He straightened his collar, which had been pulled askew, and without looking at Pietro, said to Harry, "Frequency shift, when exactly?"
"Half an hour ago,"
Harry removed the tissue from his nose; the bleeding had stopped, but a red mark remained on his upper lip.
"I was eating cereal when I suddenly smelled... a metallic sweetness. Like blood mixed with battery acid. The direction seemed to have shifted from Manhattanunderground to Brooklyn."
Tony burst into the lab carrying a metal box that looked like a portable speaker, its surface covered with messy circuit boards, and its antenna was askew, making it look like a plucked mechanical chicken.
"Disruptor,"
Tony slammed the box on the table, making the dinner knife bounce.
" Banner said that gamma energy would excite the gem fragments, so I changed it to a white noise generator. Not to block, but to confuse. To make ADAM-0's radar full of snow, making it impossible to pinpoint which one isWanda."
Banner followed behind Tony, his shirt buttoned up haphazardly, the third button tucked into the fourth, revealing a patch of his chest. He held a heart rate monitor in his hand, the wires wrapped around his wrist like a tangled plate of spaghetti.
"The theory is feasible,"
Banner said her voice was very soft, but she enunciated each word clearly.
"But the power isn't enough. To cover the entire Brooklyn, we'd have to dismantle the Stark Tower reactor and use it as a battery. Or..."
He paused, then looked at Wanda.
"Or let Wanda be the amplifier. Her Red Mist is generated by the scepter and is from the same source as ADAM-0. When signals from the same source are mixed together, the noise will be even more chaotic."
"no,"
Pietro said, "Standing in front of Wanda, is she acting as an amplifier? Isn't that sending sheep into the wolf's den?"
"It's used as bait,"
Lynn said. He stood up, picked up Tony's White noise generator from the table, and weighed it in his hand; it was heavy.
"ADAM-0 is in Brooklyn, right? I'll go find him. He wants a key, or a bolt; I'll give him an unbreakable lock."
"Can you beat him?"
Tony asked.
"We can't beat them,"
Lynn said he stuffed the generator into his backpack, "but he's not thinking about hitting it right now. He wants to pick the lock. So I'll just block the keyhole first."
10:40 AM, third-floor corridor.
Gwen sat on a bench, her white coat open, revealing a faded gray T-shirt underneath.
She was holding a sandwich in her hand, the crusts of which she had cut off herself, and the sandwich was piled up in the paper bag like a heap of corks that had been executed.
Peter sat next to her, about half a person's distance between them, holding a sandwich in his hand. He didn't cut the edges, but took a bite directly. Mayonnaise squeezed out from the corner of his mouth, which he scraped off with his thumb and licked.
"You ran away last night,"
Peter said, his eyes fixed on the fire hydrant across the hall, "I'm very worried."
"I know,"
Gwen said.
She didn't eat the sandwich; instead, she used her fingertips to pick out the lettuce leaves and arranged them one by one on the paper bag.
"It's not that kind of...possessive worry,"
Peter pushed up his glasses, the frame slipped on his nose, and he pushed them back with the back of his hand.
"I'm just worried about you getting into trouble. That ADAM-0 thing doesn't look human."
"He wasn't even human to begin with,"
Gwen said. She finally took a bite of the sandwich, chewing very slowly, like chewing rubber.
"He's the original manuscript. Lynn's is the revised version.Gwen …" She paused, swallowing what was in her mouth, " Gwen is just someone who reads reports."
Peter pulled the tomato slices out of his sandwich and handed them over.
Gwen didn't take it, so he put it directly into her paper bag: "You like to eat this. I'll remember."
Gwen looked at the tomato slices in the paper bag; they were red and slightly crushed.
"...I'm going to see Kang Nas this afternoon. The emptyWhite chain of the ADAM project still has one last segment that hasn't been cracked."
"I'll go with you?"
"Need not,"
Gwen said,
"You go about your business. Doesn't Spider-Man have to patrol at night?"
Peter's fingers dug a crescent-shaped mark into the sandwich's plastic packaging:
"...Yes. But if you're going to Brooklyn, don't go alone."
"I'm not going to Brooklyn,"
Gwen said,
"The lab is safe. You are safe. Everyone is safe."
She said this, but her voice was weak, as if she were talking to herself.
Peter didn't expose him; he simply finished the rest of the sandwich in three bites, crumpled the plastic wrapper into a ball, and stuffed it into his pocket.
"I'm leaving now. If you get hungry tonight, there's some strawberry yogurt I bought in the fridge, it's still fresh."
Gwen nodded without looking up. Peter stood up, took a couple of steps, and then glanced back at her.
Her nape curved into a fragile arc, her blonde hair falling down to obscure half her face. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. In the end, he simply wiped the dust off the fire hydrant, turned, and left.
Zero 3:00 noon, in the safety stairwell.
Wanda sat on the steps, knees close together, clutching the fully charged stabilizer in her hand, its LED lights all green.
Pietro stood two steps below her, leaning against the wall, his fingers digging into the surface, his fingernails filled with white ash.
"Back to Long Island,"
Pietro said,
"Mom made soup, go back and drink it. Let Lynn handle things here herself."
"I won't reply,"
Wanda said softly, but there was no room for negotiation.
"He's going to Brooklyn, and I have to go with him."
"What are you doing following along? As bait? As a bolt? As a spare key for that thing?"
Pietro's voice rose higher, echoing in the stairwell.
" Wanda, wake up! Just because you slept with him doesn't mean you have to risk your life!"
Wanda looked up abruptly. Her eyes were bright, not red, but wet, like glass that had just been drenched in rain.
"Shut up,"
She said.
"I won't close."
I said shut up!
Wanda stood up, the stabilizer slipping off her knees and hitting the steps with a cracking sound of shattering plastic.
She pointed at Pietro, her finger trembling. "I'm not doing this for him! I'm not doing this for Lynn! I'm doing this for myself! In Strucker's lab, there's nothing I can do but wait to die."
I can help here.
I can stop that thing. This is my choice, not his, do you understand?
Pietro looked at her, his mouth opening and closing. His fingers slid down the wall, leaving five white marks like animal claw marks.
"...you will die,"
He said his voice went hoarse.
"You'll die if you help him."
"Everyone will die."
Wanda said.
She bent down to pick up the stabilizer; it was cracked, but the light was still on.
She pressed the shards of plastic back into her pocket. "The point is, before I die, did I stand where I wanted to stand? I want to stand here. Not in the kitchen on Long Island."
She turned and walked upstairs.
Pietro didn't chase after him; he just squatted on the steps, holding his head in his hands, running his fingers through his silver hair, and making it into a messy bird's nest.
He knelt against his chest, curled up in a ball, his shoulders trembling, but he didn't cry out. Instead, he squeezed out a string of fast, unintelligible Slavic swear words through his teeth.
1:20 PM, underground parking garage.
Lynn tossed the backpack into the back seat of the Jeep, the metal clashing against the metal with a dull thud.
Natasha leaned against the car door and tossed him a gun—not a pistol, but a short-barreled shotgun with heat-insulating tape wrapped around the barrel.
"Modified,"
Natasha said,
"It doesn't contain bullets, it contains concentrated inhibitors, mixed by Ivy. Hitting ADAM-0 will slow him down by half a beat."
Lynn took it and put it in the holster:
Thanks.
"You're welcome,"
Natasha opened the car door. "This time we might not come back. That thing isn't human; your serum is a supplement to him. He ate you, and the door opened."
"Then don't let him eat it,"
Lynn got into the driver's seat and inserted the key into the lock.
"I have a poor appetite and don't like being eaten."
"Save the lame jokes for later,"
Natasha opened the car door and got into the passenger seat.
I don't want to hear it now.
The engine started, the exhaust pipe emitting a heavy wheeze. Lynn shifted gears, the car reversed, and a flash of red suddenly appeared in the rearview mirror. He slammed on the brakes.
In the back seat, Wanda huddled in a corner, wrapped in an oversized hooded jacket, the hood pulled up over her head, revealing only half her face.
Her fingers gripped the seatbelt, her knuckles turningwhite.
"Go down,"
Lynn said.
"No,"
Wanda said.
"I told you to get off."
"You don't have the final say,"
Wanda pushed her hat back, revealing her eyes, a trace of red still lingering in her pupils.
"ADAM-0 senses me, not you. If you go to him, he'll hide. If I follow him, he'll come out. This is bait, not trouble."
Lynn stared at her in the rearview mirror for five seconds.
Natasha remained silent, simply looking down to check her magazine.
Lynn took out a spare stabilizer from the storage compartment.
Throw it to the back seat.
Wanda caught it; the metal felt heavy in her hand.
"If it's broken, just come back yourself."
Lynn said,
"I'm not saving you. I don't have time."
"knew,"
Wanda said. She fastened the stabilizer to her wrist, and the LED lights came on, all green.
As the car reversed out of the garage, the tires rolled over the speed bumps with a very dull sensation.
Banner sat in a Ford parked by the roadside, the window rolled down, holding a heart rate monitor in his hand; the curve on the screen resembled a gentle hill.
"I followed behind,"
Banner said the sound drifted out of the car window, carrying an electrical static noise.
"If your heart rate exceeds 120, stop the car. If Hulk comes out, the situation will become even more chaotic."
"Stop at 120,"
Lynn said.
"Stop at 120,"
The banner repeats itself, like someone is chanting a mantra to themselves.
Three cars glided onto the streets of Brooklyn. The afternoon sun softened the asphalt, and the air carried a sweet, fishy smell from the waterways.
Lynn's fingers tapped on the steering wheel to a jazz rhythm, but the beat was chaotic, like a heartbeat.
Wanda was in the back seat, head down, drawing on the cup sleeve with a marker. This time it wasn't a butterfly, but a spiral, winding inwards, as if trapping something inside.
What is being drawn?
Natasha turned around from the passenger seat and asked.
"keyhole,"
Wanda said the pen tip made a scratching sound as it traced lines on the paper.
"I want to see what a keyhole looks like. That way I'll know where to plug it."
Chapter 85 Old Station
2:17 PM, abandoned subway station in Brooklyn.
Natasha wedged the hydraulic shears onto the iron gate chain, his arm muscles taut into two hard lumps.
The scissors snapped shut with a crisp snap, like someone crushing bone.
"The door is open,"
Natasha put the scissors away; the clanging of metal echoed far into the tunnel, striking the walls and shattering into a reverberation. "It's dark inside. Flashlight."
Lynn took out a flashlight from the side pocket of her backpack, and the LED white light cut into the darkness.
The tunnel wasn't straight; it sloped downwards. The rails had long since rusted into reddish-brown sticks, and the sleepers were rotten, feeling as soft as bread when stepped on.
The air smelled musty, mixed with rust and the fishy, sweet smell of the sewer, like fish entrails that had been rotting in a garbage can for three days in the summer.
Wanda followed half a step behind Lynn.
Her fingers hung limply at her sides, and a thin trickle ofred mist seeped through them. It wasn't something she was actively trying to induce; it was as if an invisible thread was pulling the mist forward, drawing it into the depths of the tunnel.
"It's pulling me,"
Wanda said in a very low voice, as if afraid of waking something.
"The further in you go, the tighter it gets."
"Then take it back too,"
Lynn said the flashlight beam didn't stop; it swept across the tiles on the wall, revealing tiles covered in graffiti and mold.
"Don't let White steal your fog."
Wanda's lips twitched, as if she wanted to laugh but couldn't.
She curled her fingers, and Red Mist retreated into her palm, but it quickly leaked out again through her fingers, like water that couldn't be held tightly.
The banner's voice cut in through the headphones, accompanied by static and background noise from instruments.
" Lynn, have you gone in?"
"It's in,"
Lynn said.
"Something's... weird here,"
Banner's voice was strained, as if something was choking her.
"The heart rate monitor is beeping, but it's not my heartbeat. It's vibration coming from the tunnel, a very low frequency, but it overlaps with Hulk's gamma band..."
Lynn stopped, her boot sinking into a warped piece of railroad tie. The wood cracked with a soft snap.
What does "overlap" mean?
It means,
Banner swallowed hard; his voice sounded muffled in the headphones.
"If that thing had been any louder, I might... transform. Involuntary. Uncontrollable."
"Then open the car window,"
Lynn said,
"Take a breath. Count sheep."
"I counted,"
Banner said,
"We counted 120, and they were all green."
Natasha turned around ahead, the flashlight beam shining on her own chin, casting a strange, shadowy figure.
"Tell him to stop when his heart rate exceeds 120. He said it himself."
"Stop at 120,"
Lynn repeated into the headphones,
"Stay outside, don't come in. It's too crowded inside; there's no room for two monsters."
Banner didn't speak again; all that could be heard in the earphones was his heavy breathing, like an old blower.
After walking about eighty meters through the tunnel, an alloy door appeared on the left. There were no signs, but a ring of very thick rivets was welded around the door seam, like those used for a coffin.
Natasha crouched down to examine the keyhole, smeared a layer of dust on her fingertips, and brought it to her nose to smell: "Craftsmanship from the 1950s. Howard's work."
Can it be pried open?
Lynn asked.
"Can't be pried open,"
Natasha pulled a thin wire from the boot shaft, inserted it into the keyhole, and turned it half a turn, producing a hissing sound from the metal scraping together.
"But it's rusted to death; the internal structure must be brittle. Give me thirty seconds."
Wanda leaned against the wall, and Red Mist seeped in through the crack in the door, like smoke pouring out of a chimney.
Her pupils gleamed a faint crimson in the darkness, and her eyelashes trembled.
"It's very big inside. There are a lot of...empty things. Like emptied cans."
"can?"
Lynn asked.
"Cultivation chamber,"
Wanda said,
"There are many. They are all empty."
Click. The lock is open.
Natasha got up and pushed the door open with her shoulder, the hinges making a sharp groan, like someone scratching a blackboard.
Inside was a large underground room with a low ceiling and exposed pipes wrapped in a thick layer of insulation. Half of the insulation had fallen off, making it look like a bald head.
The flashlight beam swept across the wall, revealing a yellowed blueprint, its edges curled up and held in place with thumbtacks. The blueprint was a design drawing for some kind of cylindrical container, labeled "ADAM-0 ORIGINAL SEQUENCE," written in Howard's handwriting—very messy, but with heavy strokes, as if the writer was venting something.
Lynn approached, her finger tracing the blueprint; the paper was as brittle as a biscuit, crumbling at the slightest touch.
"The old man has been busy here for many years."
"What are you busy with?"
Natasha inspected the metal cabinet at the other end of the room. The cabinet door was open, and it was filled with glassware, covered in a thick layer of dust.
"How can we possibly build him?"
Lynn pointed to the schematic diagram of the culture chamber on the blueprint, "No matter how busy I am, how can I lock him up?"
Wanda stood in the center of the room.
In front of her was a small culture chamber, about waist-high, its glass cover covered in dust and grease, as if someone had wiped it with dirty hands. She reached out, wiped a patch with her sleeve, and peered inside.
There were brown marks on the inner wall.
It wasn't rust, but some kind of dried liquid, splattered, like someone had coughed violently inside.
She leaned closer, her nose almost touching the glass, and sniffed. A very faint, metallic sweetness, mixed with formaldehyde, like the smell left by a needle after a blood draw.
She didn't say anything.
A tiny bit of red mist seeped from my fingertip, very fine, like a needle, burrowing into the crack in the glass and covering the brownish mark.
It made a very soft hissing sound, like water dripping onto red-hot iron. The mark disappeared, and the inside of the glass became clean, as if it had been licked.
Lynn glanced at her but didn't ask. He simply tore the blueprint off the wall, folded it twice, and stuffed it into the side pocket of his backpack.
At the far end of the room was a metal workbench piled with rusty tools and several rotten journals.
Under the workbench was an old-fashioned cassette recorder with a cracked plastic casing and sticky dust on the buttons.
Lynn crouched down, pulled out the tape recorder, blew off the dust, and the dust floated up, dancing in the beam of light.
He pressed play, but the button jammed, making a clicking sound. He tapped it twice more, and the tape finally started spinning, making a very faint hissing sound, like the buzzing of a mosquito.
Then Howard's voice rang out.
He looked younger than all his previous recordings, but also more tired, as if he had just pulled three all-nighters.
"After ADAM-0 escaped, I created ADAM-1 in an attempt to correct the flaws in the original. But correction means dilution, and dilution means the door might not be able to be opened. So I left this spot as the final keyhole. If ADAM-0 returns, ADAM-1 must be there. Only two people, from the same piece of iron, can completely weld this door shut."
The recording paused for a second here, followed by whitenoise, hissing, like someone rubbing their ears with sandpaper.
Lynn stared at the tape recorder, tapping her fingers slowly on the plastic casing, once, twice.
"You old bastard,"
He said the voice was flat, like he was scolding a late taxi driver.
"You've given me homework again. And you didn't even give me the answers."
Natasha walked over, leaned against the table, and tossed an old badge she'd pulled from a cabinet— the old Stark Industries logo.
"He gave the answer. The answer is you. You have to stand here, wait for ADAM-0 to arrive, and then we'll weld the door together."
How do you weld it?
Lynn asked,
"Use a welding torch? Use a reactor? Or risk my life?"
"He didn't say,"
Natasha tossed the badge up and caught it.
"But usually, these kinds of riddles can only be solved when another person arrives."
Wanda stood next to the incubation chamber when the stabilizer on her wrist suddenly beeped.
She looked down and saw the LED light switch from green to yellow, flashing rapidly like the breath of someone on the verge of death. She pressed down on the watch strap, trying to turn the light back on, but the yellow light flashed even more frantically.
"What's wrong?"
Lynn asked.
"He's getting closer,"
Wanda said her voice was strained, as if something was choking her.
"Not outside...it's inside. Behind the wall."
She pointed to the innermost wall of the room.
That wall looked the same as the rest of the wall; it was concrete. But there was a very thin seam on the surface, like a door seam, running straight from top to bottom.
Lynn walked over and pressed her fingers against the wall.
The concrete was cool, but a very slight vibration emanated from it, with a frequency exactly matching the yellow light on the Wanda stabilizer.
One beat, two beats, like a heartbeat transmitted through skin and flesh.
"There's space behind the wall,"
Lynn said.
"There's something in the space,"
Natasha picked up his shotgun and aimed the barrel at the crack.
"Breathing."
Wanda's red mist gushed out uncontrollably, this time thick, like blood spurting from a wound.
She took a step back, her back bumping into Lynn's shoulder.
Lynn didn't move, but reached out and squeezed her arm with great force, as if to pin her to the spot.
"Don't retreat,"
Lynn said,
"If you back out, I'll know you're scared."
"I'm not afraid,"
Wanda said, but her voice was trembling.
"Then stand there,"
Lynn said,
"Stand until he comes out."
The vibration behind the wall stopped.
Then, a laugh came from that narrow crack.
It was very short, like two rusty pieces of iron rubbing together, exactly the same sound as the ADAM-0.
"Revised version,"
The voice was muffled, as if spoken through a thick cloth.
"You brought the bolt. Good. The door is rusting shut and needs new metal."
Wanda's fingers gripped Lynn's cuffs, the fabric crumpling in her palm.
The yellow light was still flashing, illuminating her pale, ashen face.
Lynn took the portable reactor out of her storage space and held it in her hand.
The arc of light flickered at the core, like a heart that had been squeezed too tightly.
"Come out and get it,"
Lynn said to the wall,
"Let's see if your teeth are harder, or my locks are harder."
A sliver of golden light shone through the crack in the wall.
It was very faint, like the last ray of sunset filtering through the curtains at dusk.
Chapter 86 Melting
At 3:04 PM, in an underground laboratory in an abandoned subway station in Brooklyn.
Light began to seep through the crack in the wall. The points of light converged, first forming the outline of a hand, then a shoulder, and finally a face.
ADAM-0 "flowed" out of the wall, its hoodie still covered in concrete dust, looking like a doughy person who had just crawled out of a pile of flour.
He stood in front of the wall, his golden eyes fixed onWanda, his neck tilted at a 15-degree angle, as if he were examining a newly purchased piece of furniture.
"A bolt is easier to pull than a key,"
He said the voice came from deep in his throat, with a rusty tone.
"The revised version, you brought her along, which saved me a lot of trouble."
Lynn reached out and grabbed Wanda's wrist, pulling her behind her back.
The force was great; Wanda's knuckles struck his shoulder blade, causing her to gasp in pain.
Lynn lifted the reactor with her other hand, and arcs of light flickered at the core, the blue light illuminating ADAM-0's face like frozen meat in a freezer.
"Go back,"
Lynn said,
"Or I can burn a hole for you so you can go down the waterway."
ADAM-0 remained unchanged.
He raised his right hand, palm facing Lynn, as if to shake hands. The blue light emitted from the reactor hit half a meter in front of his palm, then suddenly veered off course, as if hitting an invisible wall, and flew off at an angle, burning a charred crater in the left wall.
Concrete chunks fell and clattered against the rusty metal cabinet.
"Spatial deflection,"
Natasha muttered a curse under his breath, then picked up his shotgun.
"Lower your head!"
Lynn pressed Wanda's head down.
Natasha pulled the trigger, and the gun barrel emitted a loud roar, like someone slamming an iron door in a confined space.
The concentrated inhibitor sprayed out in a fan shape, striking ADAM-0's left shoulder like steel balls. He swayed, and several holes tore open at the shoulder of his hoodie, revealing pale skin underneath. However, there was no blood in the wounds; only golden light moved beneath the flesh, like a tungsten filament in a light bulb breaking and then being reconnected.
ADAM-0 looked down at his shoulder; the hole was shrinking, its edges like clay being kneaded back into shape by fingers.
He looked up at Natasha, his golden pupils shrinking to pinpoints:
"It hurts. But it's not enough."
"Enough to make you half a beat slower,"
Natasha shook her wrist; the recoil made her hand go numb.
She looked down to check the magazine; there were three rounds left.
Wanda broke free from behind Lynn.
Her lower lip was bitten by her teeth, leaving a white mark. Her left hand gripped the stabilizer tightly, and the LED yellow lights flashed so brightly they almost formed a continuous strip of light.
Red Mist erupted from between the fingers of her right hand, this time not a passive leak, but an active, furious outpouring. The mist twisted into a thick rope, like a red-hot whip, and lashed directly at ADAM-0's right arm.
The whip got tangled.
The moment Red Mist made contact with ADAM-0's skin, countless tiny golden fire stars burst forth, crackling like a welding torch hitting wet wood.
The air was filled with the pungent smell of burnt hair mixed with ozone.
ADAM-0 tilted his head to the other side. He looked at the Red Mist wrapped around his arm, and for the first time, a flicker of surprise appeared in his golden pupils, like the static on an old television screen when the signal was bad.
"You learn very quickly,"
He said he didn't pull his arm back, leaving the Red Mistburning his skin.
"What did the revised edition teach you?"
"Nobody taught me,"
Wanda's voice was forced out through clenched teeth, each word trembling, but her spine remained ramrod straight.
"I learned it myself. In the lab, no one taught me how to survive, but I still survived."
The red mist thickened, like blood churning in boiling water.
Cracks began to appear on ADAM-0's arm, and golden light leaked out from the cracks. However, he did not show any signs of pain; he simply observed the cracks with curiosity, as if he were examining an interesting toy.
Lynn took the opportunity to step forward, aiming the reactor at ADAM-0's chest core.
But ADAM-0 suddenly raised its left hand and pushed through the air. It wasn't physical force, but some kind of spatial distortion, like kneading air into a ball and throwing it at you.
Lynn felt a tightness in his chest, stumbled back three steps, and slammed his back against the workbench. His lower back pressed against the edge of the table, causing him to bend over in pain.
"Don't rush to deliver it,"
ADAM-0 says the sound is still that metallic, gritty quality.
"The resonance hasn't even started yet. If you die, the keyhole will be blocked, and I won't be able to graduate."
Ground level, Brooklyn streets.
Banner sat in the driver's seat of the Ford, the windows closed, the air conditioning on full blast, the cold air blowing directly on his face.
He gripped the heart rate monitor with his left hand, the numbers on the screen jumping: 112, 115, 118. His right hand was digging into his thigh, his nails sinking into the fabric, trying to suppress his heartbeat with pain.
Gunshots and electrical noise from the underground laboratory came through the headphones, along withLynn's muffled groans.
" Dr. Banner,"
Hill's voice came through the communication channel, as calm as ice.
"Your heart rate is over 110. Do you need to be evacuated?"
"No...no need,"
Banner's forehead was covered in sweat, a drop of which trickled down to the tip of his nose. He wiped it away haphazardly with the back of his hand.
"I'm in control. Counting. Counting sheep."
How many have you counted to?
"One hundred...one hundred and forty-seven,"
Banner's breathing grew heavier and heavier, like a bellows deflating.
"Everything is green. The fur is green, the eyes are green, even the grass is green..."
A pale green tinge began to appear under the skin of his left hand, and the veins bulged out like earthworms.
Banner suddenly grabbed his left wrist with his right hand and pressed it down hard, his knuckles turning white.
"No...no..."
He muttered to himself, biting his tongue, the taste of blood spreading in his mouth.
"It's not time yet...they haven't come out yet..."
The heart rate jumped to 122, and the buzzer sounded a sharp alarm.
Banner suddenly slammed his fist into the steering wheel, cracking the plastic casing and emitting a long, distorted wail from the horn. He was panting heavily, his forehead pressed against the steering wheel, sweat staining the plastic surface with a dark mark.
The numbers slowly dropped. 121, 119, 117. The green faded from under the skin, like the receding tide.
Banner slumped in his seat, as if all his strength had been drained. He spoke into his headphones, his voice hoarse:
"...I'm fine. I'm fine for now. Don't tell them."
Underground laboratory.
Wanda's Red Mist started to weaken. It wasn't that she was slacking off; the stabilizer was holding her back.
The yellow light flashed too fast, like a fuse about to blow out. Fine beads of sweat appeared on the tip of her nose,the Red Mist whip faded from deep red to light pink, and the cracks on ADAM-0's arm began to heal.
"Your battery is low,"
ADAM-0 said, his tone sounding like he was stating the weather.
"The latch is a consumable item; the longer it is used, the faster it burns out."
"Shut up,"
Wanda said. Her knees were shaking, but she stood firm.
Lynn propped herself up on the workbench, her lower back still aching.
He looked down and saw that the old-fashioned cassette recorder was still running, hissing with white noise.
He reached out to turn it off, but as soon as his finger touched the button, the tape suddenly started making a clicking rewinding sound, as if someone was remotely controlling it.
What the hell?
Lynn withdrew her hand.
Rewind to stop.
The play button was pressed automatically. Howard's voice rang out again, but younger and more urgent than before, as if it had been recorded while running:
"Welding the door isn't about fighting. It's about resonance. The frequency of ADAM-0 is the key, the frequency of ADAM-1 is the lock, and the bolt is the catalyst. Three people, three frequencies, simultaneously tuned to the same band, and the door will be welded shut from the inside. The cost is that the catalyst will melt. Repeat, and the catalyst will melt. This is the only way."
The recording ended, and the tape spun idle, making a hissing sound.
Wanda's fingers froze. She looked down at her hands; the Red Mist still lingered on her fingertips, but the color was as pale as diluted ink.
She slowly turned her head to look at Lynn, her lips moved, but no sound came out.
Lynn didn't look at her.
He stared at the tape recorder, then suddenly raised his foot and slammed his boot into the machine. The plastic casing shattered, and the cassette tape burst out like intestines, becoming tangled in his boot.
"Old man, why didn't you say so earlier?"
Lynn cursed, her voice rough, like sandpaper scraping wood.
"You always cram the hardest questions onto the last page, do you think this is a final exam?"
After he finished cursing, he glanced at Wanda. Quickly, less than half a second later, he looked away and turned to ADAM-0.
But his fingers were clenched into fists behind his back, his knuckles white, and his nails digging into his palms.
"Don't let him scare you,"
Lynn spoke to Wanda in a curt tone, as if reading from a crumpled instruction manual.
"He only ever does half of his homework. Whether the catalyst burns or not depends on the fire timing. He doesn't know anything about fire timing."
Wanda didn't say anything.
She simply took the stabilizer off her wrist—it was cracked—but she still stuffed it into her pocket.
Then she raised her hand again, and the Red Mistcondensed once more, though faint, it did not dissipate.
ADAM-0 watched this scene and suddenly laughed.
The curve of the corners of the mouth is still asymmetrical, faster on the left and slower on the right, like a signal delay in the facial muscles.
He extended his right hand, which had been scorched by the Red Mist, palm up. The golden light and the blue of the serum mingled together, forming a murky color, like swamp water.
"Then let it resonate,"
He said that the golden pupils shone like two fog lights in the dimly lit laboratory.
"Let's see who melts whom first. Is it your revised version, or your little pin?"
He paused, looked at Lynn, and tilted his head back to the center:
"Or, the keyhole cracked on its own first."
Wanda took a step forward and stood next to Lynn, not behind her.
Her shoulder was against his arm, and her body heat was transmitted through the fabric; it was very hot.
"I'm not a latch,"
Wanda said the voice was soft, but very clear.
"I am Wanda Marksimov. From Sokovia. If you want to burn, you must first ask my fog."
Lynn turned her head to look at her, her lips twitching slightly, not in a smile, but in a more complex, slightly painful expression.
He gripped the reactor tighter, the metal edges digging red marks into the skin of his palms.
"OK,"
He said,
"Then burn it. After you burn this door down, I'll treat you to pickled mushrooms. The real thing."
Natasha clicked the magazine shut and leveled the shotgun.
"I'll count to three. After three counts, regardless of whether there's resonance or not, I'll empty this tube. One."
The murky light in ADAM-0's palm began to expand, like a dirty balloon being inflated.