"Oho, you seem useful, Mr. Lankat. Now, please demonstrate how you open the secret drawer."
He stood up from his comfortable sitting posture from before and slowly walked over, halting right in front of me.
"It seems you're telling the truth, huh?" he murmured, lowering his eye level to match mine. "Ms. Liu, give me your Orb, and set it to unlock. I need to see it with my own eyes."
"Here, Boss."
Those girl's eyes... she just kept staring at me. Not gonna lie, it feels incredibly uneasy when a total stranger just keeps staring at you like that.
"So, by the same principle, you ought to be able to open that door by analyzing the digital lock. Now, show me your worth!"
Standing straight, he offered me the Orb with his left hand, while his other hand made a sharp gesture for me to press my thumb onto its specific surface to unlock its mechanism.
"This Orb is our main tool for operations," he explained arrogantly, pointing toward the thick, metallic door behind my back. "It can do tracking, analyzing, scanning, recording, hacking, and accessing the network. Now, take this Orb and try to unlock that door mechanism!"
But there was one thing they didn't know: I had already analyzed the pattern of this lock yesterday. All I needed to do right now was visualize the circuit inside my head—and tada! The pattern could hide no more.
Holding the Orb with my left hand, I walked over to the module acting as the lock, where everyone usually just tapped their keycards. I touched it with my finger, closing my eyes to focus entirely on visualizing the image inside my head. Just thirty seconds later... voila, the pattern was already mapped inside my head.
Now, how do I actually use this Orb? I pressed each side of the device, but nothing seemed to change. It shouldn't be broken, right?
Realizing I couldn't get the Orb to work on my own, I turned my body around to face the captain again. With a thoroughly puzzled look, I asked him, "Uuhh, how do I make this work? Can someone tell me how to do it?"
I kept looking at the captain innocently, but noticed that he just kept smiling. I wondered why...
Suddenly, he massaged his temples and looked at me with tired, heavy eyes. "Now, now, Mr. Lankat. You are new here, so of course you don't know. Haaah, you want to hack that damn digital lock, correct?"
"Yes, Sir!"
"Just tap the same side with your thumb like earlier and say: 'Open Hacking Panel'."
While pressing down with my thumb, I copied exactly what he said. "Open Hacking Panel."
Suddenly, a brilliant hologram appeared right in front of my face. Whoaaaa, so cool.
"From that panel, you select what you need to hack the door," the captain explained, his tone surprisingly patient now. "By our procedure, we can't directly use the hacking panel. We need to first use the Analyzing Panel and wait for it to finish analyzing. It usually takes an hour or two, depending on the system's security level."
An hour or two? Please. I decided to take this challenge seriously.
The holographic interface displayed several panels indicating every option needed to perform the act. I swiped the lower menu using my other hand, scrolling until the 'Inject Signal' and 'Wave Digital Signal' menus appeared on it.
Without waiting, I selected the wave modulation menu and calibrated it using the pattern stored inside my head. Honestly, it was seriously easy. I knew the standard frequency used in this specific lock model was 13.56 MHz. I inputted the number into the frequency column on the hologram. When the visual wavelength appeared before my eyes, I simply copied the interval from my head into the hologram. Once I finished mimicking the wavelength perfectly, I checked it one more time just to ensure the pattern was exactly the same, without a single fluctuation.
And then, I touched the save icon, went back to the Inject Menu, and pressed the Orb directly against the lock terminal.
After just a single second, a sound suddenly echoed.
Shsss...
It was the heavy hiss of the hydraulic door opening. Easy, right? I was right when I said that if there were ever a competition similar to this, it would be a license to print money. Hehe.
Looking back at them again, I walked closer to Ms. Liu. "Thanks for the Orb, Ms. Liu."
I offered her the device, and she instinctively raised her hand to receive it. But after waiting for a couple of seconds, there was still no reply or movement from her. I turned my back and took my position beside Tayley once again.
I whispered to him, "Tayley! What's happened to them?"
But Tayley replied suddenly—and he didn't care about being quiet.
"Like I said before, Captain! Mr. Edgar can open any security system mechanism as long as it is controlled by a wavelength. How about it, Captain? Do you trust me now?" With a smug face, he shouted that out loud to the rest of the room.
"Cough... That was a good demonstration," the captain muttered, a dry cough breaking the silence as his stern, authoritative expression returned. "Now I find you a little useful. Let me introduce you to every squad leader here."
But the rest of them hadn't recovered from the shock. I could see the big, blank, wide-open eyes of both giants. As for the scarred guy? He just clicked his tongue in annoyance—what a weird guy. And the Chinese wannabe? She had kept the exact same frozen posture ever since receiving the Orb from me earlier, staring blankly ahead. ahh, I know my genius mind could easly rivalling Einsteinn. Hehe, so this is what every geniuses felt like.
After I fixed my gaze back at the captain, he immediately said, "Introduce yourselves to our new recruit here, starting from you Ark."
"Here's Ark. Tier 1 Controller. Skeletal and Muscle Trait," the male giant rumbled, looking down at me like I was a stray insect. Really, am I that small? At least my little won't lose easly compare to these muscle head giant.
"The name is Prisma. Tier 1 Controller. Skeletal and Muscle trait."
Here went another giant, but a female one. Looking at her, a profound sense of tragic disappointment washed over me. With this trait, I couldn't find any physical differences between the males and females; their builds looked exactly the same, minus the breast and ass, which were only slightly pointier. I bet those breasts were as rock-hard as solid granite. Mannn, what a letdown. Where was the squishy bouncy breast that a female trait was supposed to have?
"Mine is Kato. Tier 2 Controller. Reaction trait. And keep your eyes low, or this dagger might find its place in between your ribs, moron."
This lunatic... I couldn't even keep up with his joke. I didn't remember doing anything wrong to him, so what was this psycho response for?
"Haiii, you can call me Meimei, Liu Meimei from the Liu family. Tier 3 Receiver, Reaction trait. Hope we get along well, Edgar."
The one earlier seemed so intensely annoyed at me, and this one was unbelievably cheerful. I really couldn't put my finger on these people.
"And lastly, I am the captain here. Samad. Samad al Abraham. Tier 3 Controller, Regeneration trait. I expect great things from you, Mr. Lankat." With a warm smile, he offered me a handshake.
Naturally, I gladly took it. But the moment our palms met—
"UGGHHH, my hand!! It hurts. Sir, please let go."
Just what the actual fugh? An old man with a hydraulic press for a grip? What kind of twisted combination was this? Did he say earlier that he had a Regeneration trait? How on earth could a healing trait make someone this ridiculously strong? I mean, shouldn't its perks just be for knitting flesh and closing open wounds? I know I look skinny and have never focused on weightlifting in my entire life, so I expected that I would lose in a hand-grip duel. But to this extent? In just another second, I was going to hear my bones cracking and turning into chalk.
Right when I thought my bones would shatter, he loosened his grip and grinned. He grinned so wide that the entire front row of his teeth could be seen.
"Don't underestimate me, kiddo. My looks are nothing but old, but this is the side effect of long exposure to my trait eating away at my lifespan. As for my muscles? They aren't much different from a thirty-year-old's. So, don't disappoint me if you don't want to lose a bone or two."
Just when I was trying to process his ominous warning, the male giant, Ark, suddenly spoke up. "Even in a pure contest of raw strength, the captain has never once been defeated by me—and my trait specializes entirely in physical power. Let alone against you, a skinny reed at that."
Hey, hey, hey. I know you're my superior, but trashing my build like that is way over the line. That's considered body-shaming, you know! Just you wait, muscle head... I might take this bitter humiliation to my grav—
He looked down, his bloodshot eyes staring down my entire frame with a primal, unyielding pressure.
I suddenly felt really, really small.
Ah, and about that grand grudge or revenge plot I was brewing in my head? Hehe, hehe... yeah, let's just delete that file. I still want to live a long life, marry a beautiful girl, and raise some cute kids. Why take pride so seriously, right? In fact, the giant was entirely right! I am small, and a skinny weakling at that. Nothing wrong with accurate, objective observations! He-he... cough.
"Enough scaring the new recruit, Ark," Captaion Samad barked, breaking the spell. He turned back to me. "Now I assign you to the squad led by Prisma. She will teach you everything necessary, be it on surviving here, and how we, the Cleaning Department, work."
"Now, all of you, dismissed!"
Instantly, the entire room snapped to attention, their voices echoing in a eerie, unified chorus: "Sir, yes, Sir!!"
"Mr. Edgar, welcome to my squad. Hope you survive a bit longer than the last guy. Now follow me, I'll introduce you to the rest of the squad."
With a dejected look, I stared up at the towering wall of muscle for a couple of seconds and asked her politely, "Ugh, before that, can I pick up my clothes and trousers first? The ambient temperature is getting rather chilly the longer I stay right here like this. Just a second."
Without waiting for her response, I quickly scooped up my left-behind clothes, throwing the set on and fully dressing in record time.
"Now I'm ready."
I had already prepared my mind to follow her, but suddenly, her reaction completely destroyed whatever dignity I had left. She winced, visibly pinching her nose shut with two thick fingers.
"Anyhow... you should go back to your quarters first and change your attire. I'll be waiting at our usual place. You may ask Tayley for the location later; he knows the layout and all of its perks in this building better. No need to hesitate. I'll be going then. See you in an hour, Edgar."
With that, she turned on her heel and marched away, her heavy footsteps shaking the floorboards.
Damn that giant woman! Did she really have to say that right to my face? What honor could be left with me? I couldn't possibly be that smelly, to be hon—
Actually, scratch that. Sniffing my own collar, I realized I absolutely reeked like a rotting swamp. I couldn't even keep lying to myself while trying to smile.
Massaging my throbbing temples, my other hand pulled a crumpled, slightly bent pack of cigarettes from my pocket. I slipped one between my lips, lit it, and took my first deep, desperate drag.
Huuuuffffftt...
I exhaled a thick cloud of satisfying grey smoke into the empty hallway, watching it drift lazily toward the lights.
Nothing beats a cigarette after a thoroughly shocking humiliation.