Code Zulu Alpha: Nerd in the Apocalypse!

Little did I know that I would one day sit in a coffee table and seriously discuss something about I 100% deny, but talking to an expert about that—adding on to her display at that time, unlocking bits of my "power" through my psyche—I couldn't help but listen in more and figure out what she had done to me.

Marisha sipped on her cup of tea once again before she let out a smile:

"Look, before I say anything, you promise me—"

"I promise that anything you say here won't get out. You can even pay me a dollar so it's legally binding."

"Pfft— We don't work with the old laws anymore, right?"

"A little—"

"I don't need jokes now, I need your word."

"..."

"Dear?"

"Alright… Haa… I promise I won't say anything about what you were about to say—"

Then Marisha threw us all a curveball as she made her voice grovelly, "I'm batman~"

"..." Me.
Continue your journey at empire

"..." Kaley.

"..." Olivia.

"..." Zeus.

At that point, there was just a moment of silence for a good 30 seconds before Marisha broke the silence by sipping on her cup of tea once again and pretending she didn't do anything extremely embarrassing at the very serious moment. While I would've laughed my ass off if it was any other day, let's just say that this was new territory for me and I can't afford to joke around.

Though Olivia had other plans:

"Mom…"

"Yes, dear?"

"Dad already says lame jokes, can you not, too?"

"..."

"Mom?"

"I don't know what you're talking about…"

"S-Sure…"

Then Marisha turned to me with a serious expression though her ears were still burning red, "Anyway, now that I got your word, lemme ask you again about the time you saw what you saw back then?"

I looked up the ceiling and held my nape before I answered, "That time? I mean… It's like a replay of my memories but it's… more vivid like I was seeing it from my eyes— I mean, like I was there as another person, not the me who fucked up and everything, you know?"

Marisha tilted her head slightly, "I mean~ Before we got to that, what did you experience?"

"Oh. Umm… You just told me to relax and shit and then bam! Flashback."

"Exactly. As much as I try to hide it, it's one form of hypnosis and it's to try to make you do something that I tell you. However, it usually involves physical things but making you try to think of something even I wasn't aware of is a step above it but one of my expertise."

"One of them? Besides mind-reading?"

"That's not real."

"Riiiight~"

"Let's just get back on topic."

"Uh-huh."

"Since it's not an exact science, people tend to laugh at it or believe it 100% because there's no definite proof that it exists besides the person experiencing it. I can't just publish a paper that explains someone else's experience because it'd be more of an autobiography if anything, and not scientific findings that could be repeated over and over by another party to test and experiment."

"So, you have some sort of gift?"

"I guess, you could say that… I don't have proof of it but I know it's there. It's just a feeling, of course, but trusting that 'feeling' of mine saved me more times than I could count…"

"..."

"If you're still skeptic about it, I understand but…"

"Not exactly. There's a lot of things that have tested my beliefs but that specific moment when you sent me back—and me getting something in return, is proof of it. Some people, especially people like me, would've denied it if they hadn't experienced it but I got something out of it and it's all the proof I needed.

It may not have a paper associated with it but the things I've done with it are again, proof enough."

"Hmm, I'm not sure if I should thank you or not as you say that. It might have downsides because at the end of the day, those abilities are just locked within your head, I just nudged you a little so you have a better understanding of it—"

"I mean… It helped Kaley and me in the bedroom a few times—"

"YOU!!!/ Oh my~/ In the bedroom? How? What is it we're talking about again?/ Woof!"

As soon as I brought up that particular topic, I had four different reactions at the same time and it was just pure chaos for a good five minutes. Because yeah, safely giving someone fear had its uses in the bedroom but then again, that ability of mine proved useful to others and not just me—even if we were talking about it non-sexually.

I was able to impart some techniques of mine to a handful of people that could also be deemed intangible or in the realms of magic—or more specifically, murim-like novels—but yeah, they were living proofs as well that it exists, even to the people that were on the receiving side of it firsthand.

In any case, once we get to the specifics of how resistance could actually be obtained was actually very simple, though a little dangerous if done by the wrong people.

"How do you get muscles like that?" Marisha asked the question.

"You train— you mean, you hypnotize people on a regular basis?! That's—"

She quickly waved me off, "Remember why I told you the number .0001 something earlier?"

"Yeah?"

"It's akin to something similar to a normal command that the person I was doing it on wouldn't even realize. To you, however, was maybe .01 or even .1 percent and the effect would be more definite but there's a catch for its success rate and so and so…"

"What do you mean?"

"There's prerequisites, remember?"

"Yeah?"

"And the more complex it was, the more prerequisites needed to be met. However…"

"Hmm?"

"There's another loophole to that. If the person is really susceptible to said hypnosis, it'd work twice as easy but in your case, you were a willing participant. Are you following?"