Chapter 153: Best birthday gift.
Sunshine felt the urge to laugh out loud. Tracy was using her super hearing ability to listen in on her cat from beyond the walls. How long she had been doing this for was unknown and how much she had heard so far was a myth,
Her gaze hardened. She traded a glance with Hades which was sharp, warning and filled with fury. Then she said with certainty, "She awakened, Tracy has super hearing abilities."
Hades froze.
She looked at Tracy and raised her eyebrows. "You are the walking human bug. It appears that we have a problem now because you are sticking your ears where they don’t belong."
Jon stepped in front of Tracy. "We don’t know what you mean, my wife is not a bug. I will admit, I sent Bob over with a bug in the collar." He pointed to the gift in Trevor’s hands. "That toy car is also bugged. My wife is not an awakened, she is not eavesdropping on your base."
Hades huffed. "Jon just shut your mouth already because the more you talk, the more you both give yourselves away. Everyone here has probably already figured out she has some kind of super hearing ability."
Some people froze, especially those in the billionaire’s club because they did not know this. They thought Jon had found another way to get a bug into Fortress Four.
Some even thought that he had paid off someone on the base and they were passing information along through a walkie-talkie. It seemed like their imaginations had fallen short of the facts.
"You mean that she is a superhuman? Like a real superhuman?" Jin asked, taking a few steps back.
Sheldon who was amused clapped once. "So that was how Jon knew that a group of people from here had left the base!" He thought out loud.
Hades and Sunshine sneered simultaneously their attention returned to Tracy who returned to her previous attempts of trying to reach the gate,
The soldiers kept her from it and her voice broke into a near scream. "I do not care about your secrets or anything else. Just give me Bob! I know he is in there. Give me my cat Lisha Quinn you catnapper."
The soldiers tensed, unsure whether to laugh or raise riffles. They were waiting for the leaders of their base to decide on what needed to happen next.
Jon laughed.
Hades and Sunshine did not laugh with him.
"Okay Tracy, time to go." He said in a resigned voice. "We won’t be staying for cake."
Tracy refused. "I am not going anywhere without my cat."
"You cannot stay here." Hades told them. "Get off my base with your super ears. As for Bob, he belongs here now. That ship has sailed. I cannot believe the nerve of you people. We were good to you; we gave you materials to help protect your bases and in return you chose to spy on us!"
The billionaires began to deny knowing anything about what Jon had done.
"He acted on his own." Karl stated.
"You cannot blame all of us for what Jon and his wife have done." Jin added
"I am not leaving until we talk about the weapons and cars and how to survive the murderous birds." Sheldon vowed.
Sunshine in the meantime asked the system if there was something that she could use to jam Tracy’s eavesdropping ability.
[Host there are various measures that you can apply to help in this matter, the best but cheap options are resonance shields which are designed to redirect and distort sound waves, rendering overheard conversations incoherent.
The other one is white noise emitters that generate overlapping frequencies to scramble superhuman auditory focus.]
"Sounds good, I like the fact that they are cheap but how cheap and are there any demerits that I should know about?" Sunshine asked quietly.
[Each resonance shield is about 20 coins you would need about ten to cover the whole base and each emitter costs about 18 coins you still need ten of them.
The con of the resonance shields is that prolonged vibration can cause disorientation among humans.
Prolonged vibrations of the emitters can cause slight headaches and vomiting initially among sensitive individuals. It can be handled with an anti-sensitivity shot.]
"I will take the noise emitters, ten of them." Sunshine responded. "Oh, and system, leave them in the space for now."
[Alright host.]
After making the purchase, Sunshine returned her attention to the uninvited guests and found Hades still in the process of chasing them away.
"We cannot deal with you today, and as for the weapons and cars my wife and I will contemplate on it first. We’ll reach out after we make that decision." He said to them.
Soldiers herded them and escorted them to their cars.
Some were mumbling about the rudeness of the couple, and Sheldon was asking for cake.
Jon was yelling that Hades would have made the decision as him.
Tracy was shouting Bob’s name as they dragged her away. Hades wondered if it was best to just give her the damn cat and get it over with.
Jon paused before getting into his car, looked at Hades and said seriously. "Just so you know, Tracy was only spying such that she can hear Bob’s voice nothing more."
"Yeah? I hope she heard enough because from this day fourth it is going to be impossible." Sunshine answered. "Wait for Helena by the way."
Within five minutes soldiers escorted angry Helena and her luggage to Jon’s car and the guests drove out.
As soon as the gates were closed, they returned to the party just in time for the children to cut the cakes. As Ariel cut his cake, Sunshine cheered him on as if it was a competition.
After eating cake, it was time for Ariel to smash the giant horse shaped pinata that hung in the air. He took the baseball bat with reluctance, finding it offensive that he was expected to represent the children in playing such a childish game.
Cheers rose as he swung, and then the pinata burst, candy and tiny treasures scattered sending children in a delight frenzy. Ariel laughed. For once, he allowed himself to just be a child.
What pleased him even more was the gift she gave him. It was a sleek, polished hover board. It hovered a few inches off the ground, humming softly with a life of its own. Its edges glowed faintly when Ariel touched it.
"You will need to learn to control it in order to use it. Instead of walking, you can glide through the air." Sunshine told him.
"It’s so cool." Ariel said.
Sunshine revealed another gift. "I am not done yet." She revealed another gift, shirts in all colors of the rainbow. On each shirt was a picture of the two of them in the front.
In every picture, she was laughing, and he looked done with her.
On the back were the words, ’Sunshine’s baby 1.’
"You are my first baby." Sunshine whispered to him. "That is what it means."
For a long second, Ariel said nothing. Then with uncharacteristic suddenness, he threw his arms around her.
"This is the best gift I have ever gotten. Thank you, mommy." He sobbed, his voice muffled against his shoulder.