The World We Once Knew

Chapter Fourteen

Akoni

"Akoni Maleko Kale, the youngest to ever make Colonel in the actual U.S. Army and your friend Finn, the youngest Major. I see you have come up with a plan to execute your assignment I gave you. Well I have another assignment for you. You need to kill Jim, once he has completed his task. This girl's identity can't be known. You see I have special plans for when she arrives. Have a seat and I'll tell you if you'd like." says Dr. O'Connell very sweetly. 

I have a seat and she begins talking again; "See I'm going to erase her memory once I get her. You see she poses a threat to me. I'll tell you something that you don't know about: there is a rebel group down on Earth, they're known as The Silent Death. They know that we are still watching them and they want this girl to lead them. Crazy, right? Well not so much. You see her grandfather, the one you have killing all of them while we speak, formed this rebel group. He's been grooming her to take over after him. Their plan is to build ships and come here. They want to destroy us and everything we have ever done here. See your plan is brilliant. Now, hopefully, they won't trust her after they hear about what he did. I just find your plan a little too brilliant, for someone who didn't know about this piece of information. Anyway, I trust that you won't share this information or that we had this little meeting to anyone, not even Major Ushiro?" says Dr. O'Connell.

"No Ma'am." I respond with a salute. She gets up, smiles at me and leaves. I stand there baffled. All along, ever since we were young we were told that Dr. O'Connell died. But, there she was sitting in my chair, talking to me. I walk back to my quarters but can't shake the feeling that I'm being watched now.

When I open the door there are four people in my room. This adorable, blonde haired, blue eyed, small for her age, six year old girl comes running at me. I pick her up and spin her around in my arms. 

When she smiles, she is missing one of her front teeth. "Koni boy!" she yells: "I missed you!"

 I laugh: "I missed you too Half Pint." I put her down and she runs back to sit with Finn. "Hey buddy." I say to my brother Erik; "How's it going?" 

He gives me a cool look; "How do you think? You left us Akoni, and when you did Adam started to beat Ian. Then he left, so Adam started beating me. I had to take care of them. I'm only ten years old!" Erik spits at me. 

"I know, it's not fair, and I'm so sorry. But Ian and I didn't leave by choice. And if you think that I didn't think of you guys every moment of everyday then you're so wrong. And Ian and I tried our hardest to protect you guys for as long as we could." I start yelling at him. Erik starts crying and I sigh then sit down and hug him. "I'm sorry buddy, I truly am. I never wanted any of this to happen to any of you." I whisper to him. 

He wipes his face and looks me in the eyes, "Well it did." he says. At that moment Kenzie comes over to me "Look, Look, Koni boy!" she says with so much joy and excitement in her voice, even though I know she can sense the tension in the room, "We have a new brother! His name is Brayden!" I let her pull me over to our new baby brother, who's still in his carseat on top of Finn's desk. "He's only four months old now! He turned it two days ago." She tells me holding up two of her fragile little fingers and gives me a grin. I nod, smile, then pick up my baby brother. I hold him and then turn around to see what they brought with them. It's not much; each of them has only a suitcase, the baby has a diaper bag as well and Kenzie got to bring her teddy bear I gave her when she was born. I look back down at Brayden, this poor little guy has already had such a bad life. Hopefully I can make it better for him and the others. He reminds me of Erik, they both have blonde hair, and big blue eyes. Brayden also has a bit of baby chub, whereas Erik has slimmed down. He's dressed in tiny blue jeans, a tiny plain white t shirt with tiny white socks and white and black sneakers.

"I got him dressed." Erik says to me. 

"I dressed meself!" Kenzie chimes in. 

"And you look beautiful." I tell her. "Did you guys eat yet?" I ask Erik. 

"Yeah, Finn took us to the mess hall and fed Bray." He says. 

I look at Finn, "Thank you, my dear friend." He just nods and smiles. "Okay" I say, as I put Brayden back into his car seat, "Erik, why don't you go shower, so that Kenzie and Bray can have their baths." Erik nods and heads into the bathroom, taking some clean clothes with him.

Kenzie sits on my bed while I put sheets on the bunk beds as I forgot to do so earlier and pillow cases on the pillows. Erik comes out and climbs up to sit down on the top bunk.

 "Alright Kenzie, time for your bath." I say to her and she runs into the bathroom, getting undressed on her way. I just shake my head and Finn laughs. I bathe and dress her then do the same for Brayden. I put Brayden into the play yard with a blanket and he falls right to sleep. I brush Kenzie's hair and tuck her in. She gives me a hug and a kiss and curls up next to her teddy bear. I go to tuck Erik in for the night but he just gives me a fist bump and a half hearted smile then rolls over to face the wall. I turn off the lights and climb into bed. Taking care of them may be easier than I thought.

I wake up the next morning and have Kenzie in my bed. I get up trying not to disturb her. I shower and dress in my uniform. I wake Finn so he can do the same without having the kids awake. Once he's out of the shower, I wake Erik and have him get dressed while I dress Brayden. Lastly I wake up Kenzie. Knowing that she will insist on dressing herself I pick out two different pairs of pants and two different pairs of tee shirts. I pick out black socks and I let her choose her own shoes. She tries to match me and picks out her small black sneakers. I put her hair into a ponytail and then look at the three of them. Finn is sitting at his desk reading papers. Once he's done, I put Brayden into his car seat and all five of us walk down to get breakfast. I fed Bray and Finn looked online for a nanny. He finds one, calls her and has her meet us at our quarters. Her name is Skyler and once she gets there we see how she interacts with the kids. They seem to like her and so do we. So we leave them and go to our post.

Jim reports that he has successfully gotten Mason Tylerson to be brainwashed and sent him to the girls and other targets location. The four targets should be dead very shortly. I thank him and tell him to inform me when it's done. Again I feel as if I'm being watched. 

When Finn comes up from the main floor, I look at him: "Do you get the feeling that you're being watched?"

 He looks around: "Yeah, I thought it was just me but yeah I do." he says.

 Now I know that I have to tread lightly. I look at him and say "Hey do you mind checking to see if Red Unlimited ever got back to me about those shoes I wanted?" he instantly understands and goes to his computer. I email him everything that has happened. He reads it and writes back; 'You have to be careful and you can't go through with it. Help Jim escape, don't let him meet the same fate as that girl's family. If we have to, I will make sure that all of us, including Ian, get out safely.' 

Once I'm done reading it I look over to him and he says "They should be here any day now sir." and walks out the door.

During lunch Jim reports back that the assignment is done. I sigh, I honestly didn't think that it would be this quick. I take him to the back door to the office that Finn and I found at lunch yesterday. I look at him; "I'm supposed to kill you. Put this vest on, it has pouches of fake blood in the places that I'm going to shoot you. Put your shirt on over it and then meet me back at my desk. Once I tell you to get up, you do and stealthily make your way to the loading docks for the planes. There is a guy there, he's a diplomat, his name is Leonardo Sano. He will make sure that you get to Earth safely. I'm truly sorry." I hand him the vest and he does as he's told. We go back to my office and I have him walk in through my front door. He sits down tells me that the targets have been neutralized. I stand up and he does the same, then I shoot him. He falls back and lays on the ground. We wait until Finn gets the loop ready and when he presses the button we have Jim exit through the back door. The last glimpse I get of him is him running down the stairs.

"Hopefully they don't find out." Finn says. 

I look at him with somber eyes; "It's not about if they find out it's about how long they will take to confront us." 

Then we leave for the day.