130: Hidden Messages

Hidden Messages

Jonathan followed the couple towards the lower basement area and soon reached a large open space.

The deeper they went the weirder Jonathan's expression became.

"Hey, Chris… what was this factory before you guys took over? Those walls…this structure… Not many technologies can detect what's happening inside."

"It isn't the only detection. It's to soundproof stuff. We got intel from Harker that Australia's developed a powerful human which have very sensitive ears. So when we got here, I added a little more precaution to this hideout's security."

A message beeped and Chris checked his comm device.

"Looks like Jake left the building. As suspected he really was sent in to observe our calls." Chris sighed.

"WHAT?!" Jonathan shouted angrily.

"You see? And you thought I was being too much in trying to manipulate him." Grace complained.

"Come on. That guy doesn't know his suffering because of you. His too blinded with his attraction." Chris defended.

"I don't understand how you can still treat him like a friend. He went in here to spy at a call you and your sons had! He thought you were doing some sort of coded message!" Jonathan cursed angrily.

"Calm down, Jon. Jake has always been after what was right. Let's give him our sympathies for trying to do what he believes in."

"What's creepy is how he still thinks and flaunts his affections for Grace! I'm glad Grace is still playing around with his heart How can he even believe that your little call with Zeek would be full of national secrets! I hope he'll report what he sees and tells those jerks in the Force to use their brains!" Jonathan cursed again.

"To think I felt sorry for him when you started toying with him again! Grace, that was awesome! I've never seen him tear up! How did you do that?"

"Well, given his rather narrow thinking, he still thinks only he deserves me. I just gave him a little hope in that area. You know Jake. He's always this strict and narrow-minded fellow. So I guess when I said I'm her friend, any hope that was shattered when Chris and I tied the knot resurfaced." Grace replied with a laugh.

"I don't think he's still doing it because of his attraction, Hon." Chris suddenly opened up.

Grace paused and looked at Chris.

 "I've been thinking. Could it be this is your Path?" Chris asked as he approached a pile of guns in the large room. Grace did likewise.

"My Path? What? Are you putting me on the same level as the Tyrant Empress? I'm flattered. Tee-hee!" Grace giggled adorably.

"Well... not exactly similar. But… based on your history… I think it's your charm. You know. You manage to get these people to fall into their own assumptions."

"What do you mean?" Grace wondered.

"Well… there are always girls who simply either by their own conscious choice or by their naïve movements that can simply make people like them. It's hard to put to words but based on my experience at the Force, I've heard many interesting delusions from my peers. This, of course, includes Jonathan over here."

Grace's gaze turned dangerous.

"Are you calling me someone who flirts with people?"

"No. You are someone way way worse than that. Without flirting, you make people dream about you."

Grace was surprised.

"I mean think about it. We were always around people who were emotionally trained to be able to kill others. Yet we have people like Jake."

"Jake's the only one who has those sort of thoughts about me!"

"Jake's an extreme example. But try to consider it. You may be out of practice because you're married to me, and we have a kid and all. But you gave a lot to fantasize about. And even when we were married there were still some delusional agents who kept pestering you because they thought they still have hope."

"So you are saying that I have the same Path of the Tyrant Empress? Honey… That's so sweet." Grace giggled.

Chris laughed.

"Not exactly. Think about it this way, Hon. You have the same Skill of the Tyrant Empress. Perhaps one of her many Skills which when merged together forms her Path. Her Path ultimately borders mind control… but your Path… I guess its obsessions? I mean, we have a kid now who's already a teenager, we've been together for so long, yet somehow, a simple compassionate moment makes him fall into the same trap all over again!" Chris explained.

Jonathan continued to look in confusion at the sudden discussion.

Grace pondered.

"Well… it is possible. And I do have the history…" Grace continued to think.

"Aside from that... I've been thinking... About Zeek. What made him so strong? We know based on the intel, that those with manifested Skills have a higher chance of birthing people who can develop skills. What if... the both of us, have the potential to be Ranked Heroes? Maybe that's how Zeek came to be so strong. Of course… that is assuming I'm right about you and you have a Path. After all, I don't think I even have a Skill! So he must have taken after you."

Grace smiled.

"I also did think about that… But I think it's the two of us. You just haven't got the chance to train or develop whatever Skills or Paths you have. At least, you probably have the potential to be strong."

"Oh really? What makes you so sure?"

"Remember Granny's old story?"

"You mean how he met Grandpa? Yeah. You think that was real?"

"It sounds like a Skill to me." Grace shrugged her shoulders.

"I guess you're right. We'll have to ask Granny when we have the time. Anyways… As for you, you might have to try and practice your Skill."

"You want me to seduce other men?" Grace frowned.

"Well… If you master, it… You won't need to! You make them fall into having endless dreams about being with you. I guess, try experimenting on seeing the limits of this Skill?"

"You want me to use Jake?"

"Well yeah. We can even have him spy on the Force."

"And I thought you pity him."

"I do. But he keeps hitting on my wife. So this would be her just rewards I guess."

Grace smirked.

"And I thought I was the cruel one."

"What can I say? Our son takes after both of us in cruelty. Now for Jonathan." Chris turned to Jonathan.

"What are you guys talking about?" A sense of dread filled Jonathan's heart as he noticed the couple look at him with a strange expression.

"How do we explain it to him?" Chris frowned.

"Do we need to? We'll do the shock therapy first and then explain to him how we sent messages to Zeek."

"Yeah. But, I've always noticed he had an extreme sense of hearing. So who knows? Maybe during the therapy, he'd develop it. If we explain the theory now and immediately make that the focus of our shock therapy, then we'd finish this faster. We could also send our findings to Charles. Maybe if we condition the mind to have this focus ahead it could create those divergent Selective Unlocked."

"I guess you're right. It's worth a shot. Jon… Do you believe that we managed to send encoded or secret messages to our son just now?" Grace immediately asked Jonathan without warning.

"What? Coded messages? Just like… what Jake was accusing you of?" Jonathan's expression changed.

"Well… He is right. Now that we've fooled the Force of the Americas, we won't have to worry about them discovering our method of communication. That Arthur's quite a schemer." Chris sighed as passed the table full of guns and went for the lockers.

"I think it's that Lowengren kid, Dear. Who would have thought that we could actually communicate and talk about such dangerous things and not be discovered? Even when they've placed their best spy in the same room with us."

"What?" Jonathan was confused at the discussion.

"Jonathan. We trust you. You've been a good friend. And we know you came to us because apart from the boredom you get when serving that government, you also want to get stronger. So, the level of strength and power that we have is quite amazing. We call it the Unlocking. With it, we were able to openly talk about the future plans we have without you or Jake even noticing." Chris smiled as he took out a strange dagger and started a pre-shot routine with the dagger aimed at Jonathan.1

"Hon, could you explain this part? I don't think I can explain it properly." Chris laughed with an embarrassed expression as he continued to do his pre-shot routine but would somehow frown and shake his head.

Grace gave Chris an irritated look.

"Jon. Do you know how a person can fall asleep even when it's loud?" Grace asked.

Jonathan was alarmed by how Chris was dangerously aiming his dagger at and unconsciously took a step back.

"Wa-What?"

"It's a thing that our brain does. Basically, as it shuts down, the brain stops interpreting the noise around even though the eardrums are ringing. But at our level, it's even more amazing. We get to control what noise the eardrums react to. Amazing isn't it? It took us over a month to master this painful thing. Zeek said that only a few could actually do it at the early stages of the Unlocking. Oh, I think you could go over and get a gun. It would be more fun that way. Well, more fun for us." Grace smiled.

"What?"

"Anyway, the Unlocking allows us to take more control of our bodies in various ways. One of which is that we can hear things way, way better than a normal human being can. We're at the Proficient stage so it's actually three times more powerful than what you can hear. Apart from that, we can order both our eardrums and our brains to only gather and interpret certain sounds."

"What are you guys talking about?" Jonathan started to pace back and slowly reach for the weapon.

"Bad choice Jonathan. That's just a handgun. Go for something with a strap so you can wear it otherwise we'll just knock it off you. Anyway, what Grace is saying, that's how we managed to talk with our son and deliver key information for Pangea. As Jake suspected, we are a double agent. But our Boss isn't Pangea, it's our son." Chris explained.

"Information? I didn't hear any talks! And what do you mean a weapon with straps?" Jonathan was visibly panicking as he started to reach for the big guns testing Chris and Grace's reactions.

"Ingenious right? After the whole fiasco in China, the World Governing Powers is sure to be listening in to every phone call. Especially calls and interactions coming from one country to the other. And since Seeker pulled that stunt, it's even harder to do so now. Don't we need a license to be able to communicate abroad after the incident in China? Not to mention there is a possibility that the Aragarians are listening in. So Arthur and Zeek developed a way to communicate with each other." Chris boasted.

"And that was what I was explaining earlier. By matching the frequency of our sounds to the chaotic noise of the background like say... the Piercing theme music, we then are able to openly mask our conversations. This allows us to communicate openly and at the same time, mask our communication. No devices, no strange frequency. Just regular sound jumbled up, whispered, spoken at an extremely fast pace that any listener would simply ignore it. Although, it took some getting used to. That's why our meeting took about an hour because we couldn't understand what Zeek was telling us." Grace chided.

"Now, one of our mission is to add another group to our little gang here in the Americas. We are looking for someone who is really connected to the government and therefore, can easily act as a spy. So, you being a spy is the perfect person that could fill this gap."

"I don't understand what you're saying but you're asking me to betray the Americas. Is that right?"

"We are asking you to side with humanity. Believe it or not, an alien race is upon us. We trust you and consider you a friend, so we are offering you this option. Join us, or get killed." Chris added.

"Of course, you may not believe us now. But do you want to see it, Jon? What did we do to defeat all those agents? We made it look like we were just the better agents, but in reality, we are above what a normal human can do. We have walked out of the chains that limit humanity and have been walking in a path that is making us more and more unbecoming to are human traits. And this is all because of the Unlocking."

"Are you really going to kill me if I disagree?"

"No. To be accurate, we'll try to kill you until you agree." Grace smiled.

"What do you mean?"

At that moment, a sheer powerful force made Jon shake in fear. He couldn't move.

Chris casually placed a small helmet-like device over Jon's head.

"Is it working?" Chris turned to Grace.

Grace had started fiddling with the computer nearby to see if the helmet was picking up the brain waves and brain activity of Jon.

"Looks good. Honey, let me try. I want to see who of us has better control over the Reapers Breath." Grace smiled.

Chris nodded and stopped releasing his Reapers Breath.

As the sensation ended, a new terrifying force gripped Jon.

"Tsk." Chris clicked his tongue.

"Dear, it's not a competition." Grace smiled as she was delighted with the result.

"Besides, the differences aren't that wide." She comforted her disgruntled husband.

"Looking at the reports of Charles, it looks like Zeek's Breath was two times stronger than ours. And this was before that China incident. I wonder how strong it is now?" Chris wondered.

"Let's not ask such stupid questions.  There's no use competing with our son. He's one of them after all."

"What's...going... on...?" Jon forced his mouth to speak. The sheer terror slowly increased. 

Suddenly, Jon couldn't keep his figure up and fell down to his knees as Chris walked closer with a dangerous smile.

"Jon, as you can see, this sudden fear is what anime weebs would call killing intent. Of course, this isn't really killing intent but a biological response of your body when faced with immediate terror. Charles theorized that right now, your brain is interpreting me and my wife as threats. Is he right?" Chris tapped on Jonathan's shoulder.

It was as if a large hungry lion was using its gigantic paws to tap Jon's shoulder. Jonathan's fear continued to increase as Grace glanced at the chart.

"Looks like our combined Breaths could easily paralyze an experienced agent." Grace nodded with a satisfied expression.

"What weapons should we use to scare him?" Chris asked with a weird and almost perverted expression.

"How about... guns? I still remember Lynd's close-ranged shotgun attacks." Grace shivered visibly.

"Ugh. Don't remind me." Chris sighed.

"But come on... Let's be gentle with Jon. He's already been through a lot during his missions in the EAA." 

"I know! How about, we add a little thriller-feel to this training. We use Chainsaw like that of the post-modern Texas Chain Saw Massacre."

"Hmmm... Imitating horror movies sounds fun... But that sounds worse than the shotgun plan."

"What about using axes? These look less effective and are common themes used in many horror or thriller movies."  Grace offered another suggestion.

"Hmmm... Well, the scene of you and me hacking away at Jon does sound fun..." Chris contemplated. 

"I'll let you shout, 'Here's Johnny!'" Grace giggled.

"Oh right! That sounds fun!" Chris immediately ran towards a pile of weapons that were somehow stashed behind the lockers.

Jon's sweat was pouring and his back was damp from the continuous sweating from the perverse conversations he managed to hear.

"Jon... We'll prove to you, the Unlocking exists. We could use the drug, but Charles's most recent conclusion that his current drug is slightly weaker than someone who breaks the chains of limitations without the drug. So this is a way of helping him in his research. And so, we will be recording your data on our attempts so that he can fix whatever biological issues divide the two and create a drug that can fix this problem. After tonight, we hope you'll be able to achieve the Unlocking."

"Yeah. Otherwise, it's Jonathan's Chainsaw massacre tomorrow." Grace laughed.

"Oh... A part of me wishes you won't break through the Unlocking tonight." Chris smiled.

Immediately, the husband and wife drew closer to Jon with a large red firefighter's ax.

Two axes were raised to the heavens. Jonathan was squirming as he was forcing his body to move.

"HEEEEEERE'S JOHNNY!" Chris laughed with a manic expression.

So began the nightmares of Jonathan.

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