Ethan Chen had been on his best behavior. Well, not really. He supposed it was the best behavior he was capable of putting together while being completely bored out of his fucking mind. The positive side of it all was that he had annoyed every agent so much that they all tried to avoid him as much as humanly possible. The downside to that was he now had ran out of people to talk to. Really, the people here needed to have some thicker skin.
He had been in the middle of his daily workout routine when something strange started happening. He could swear that his implants were reacting to something. A painful squealing noise seemed to hang in his ears, getting bad enough that he tried pushing his hands over them to block out the sound. But it wasn’t external. No, something inside him was making that squealing. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried his best to push out the pain and the noise until suddenly it stopped. He opened his eyes. Everything around him looked the same. But his hearing felt...off. Fuzzy.
‘Can you hear me?’ A female voice, faint and yet still seeming like it was right next to him. He looked around. There was no female agent around. Just the guy in the security station. The voice repeated itself. ‘Can you hear me?’
“Am I supposed to say it out loud?” Ethan asked, feeling a little foolish. He watched the security guard lean forward and press the speaker button.
“Say what out loud, pal?” The man asked.
Irritated, Ethan shot him a daggered look. “That you suck, Todd.” The guard mumbled something in return before going back to his book. The voice didn’t respond. Alright, out loud wouldn’t work. He closed his eyes, focusing his attention on the tiny voice he had heard before thinking, ‘Yes.’
There was a long pause before the voice answered. ‘Excellent.’
With that, the piercing squeal returned louder than it had before, causing him to stumble back a few steps before it suddenly stopped again. His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath, his hands on his knees and his lungs burned from exertion.
“Okay,” he whispered to himself. “Consider me intrigued.”