by KA Hopkins
Marc brought Pam and the kids into the galley where I was reviewing reports. I had no clue how to introduce my new self so I looked to Pam.
“Kids, as you know, a lot of things have changed in our lives since the aliens attacked and destroyed our home. We know now that we are not alone in the galaxy, it appears the galaxy is teeming with alien life and not everyone is a big fan of humans; you have first-hand proof. What you might not know is that during the first alien attack on the house your Dad was badly injured. To save him, alien technology was used and that has changed him.” I stood up and we looked at each other over an awkward silence.
“Hi guys…it’s so good to see you again,” I said.
“Dad is that really you? You look and sound a whole lot different,” Charity replied.
“It’s me in spirit; everything else is new.”
Charity looked me up and down. “I have to agree with Mom - the Greek god, jolly green giant look works for you.” Both kids jumped into my arms; I gave them a bear hug until none of us could breathe.
David said, “Dad you smell like fresh cut grass.”
“It’s the chlorophyll in my skin, it turns my skin green and it doesn’t allow bacteria to grow on it so my body smells different. I would ask what’s new, but that’s kind of a silly question given the circumstances. How are you guys holding up?”
“Where to start? How about the part where extraterrestrials tried to kill us,” Charity answered. “We’re banned from all social media, we can never again contact our friends and to top it off, we lost our home along with all our stuff; but we’re still alive so that has to count for something. Now that we’re safe, it’s so totally boring. If it wasn’t for Einstein I would lose my mind. Einstein is actually pretty cool to talk to. Like his namesake, he knows everything about everything and never gets bored, no matter what the subject.” That made me think. An AI can keep a fifteen year old girl engaged in conversation better than I could.
“Locked up in an alien ship is not ideal, I admit, but I’m working on getting all of you someplace safe and out of harm’s way. We have a number of desert bases, they’re pretty austere but at least you will see blue sky and fresh air more often than being confined to a ship,” I said.
“Dad, we know you want to keep us safe, but you cannot wrap us up and hide us away, not when everyone around us is fighting to save Earth. Please let us help in any way we can. Train us; give us self-defense skills we can use to protect ourselves and become a productive part of the team. We know you want to keep us safe; but it’s not only your call,” David said.
Every parent wants only the best for their kids, to shield them from the nastiness of the outside world and help them avoid the hardships we experienced growing up. In our efforts to protect our kids, maybe we coddle them too much nowadays, in a vain hope of preventing them from growing up too fast, unaware that our actions might perpetuate a culture of dependency.
I was torn between pride and fear of what the kids were asking for. I’ve heard many parents complain about the “lost generation” made up of today’s kids - not caring, not taking responsibility, wandering aimlessly through life, taking all they can from society and giving little back. Maybe if we were to treat kids a little more like adults, they would act like adults. Remove the safety nets and let them fail once in a while. Will it hurt their self-image? Maybe; or it just might teach them to pick themselves up and try harder. Older generations, since the dawn of time, have wondered if the next generation has the stones to make tough decisions and do what it takes. Judging by my kids’ “can do” attitude, the future just might turn out ok.
I looked at Pam. She gave me one of those shoulder shrugs implying that this behavior obviously must come from my side of the family. Military officers learn early in their career not to give orders their troops will not obey as it destroys command authority. The same principle applies with families. I knew when I was beat. “Mother, can you provide the kids with cybernetic implants?”
“No they’re too young, the interface will interfere with brain development. As an alternative I can download a portion of myself into what looks like a watch or a wrist band. This will give them access to my data using a voice interface. It’s not nearly as fast as the direct brain connection you and Omni share and does not allow the transfer of skills, but it works fine for transferring knowledge. You could compare it to a self-aware internet search engine - without the popups, sex sites and online games. If I were you, I’d be more worried about them being able to defend themselves. What training do you have in mind?”
“The usual stuff,” I said, “Unarmed combat, knifes, improvised weapons, explosives; everything but guns. A fifteen year old caught with a loaded handgun is going to raise questions, even in North America.”
“Jake, don’t you think you might be going a bit overboard?” Pam said.
“Not at all, no alien or human collaborator is going to go easy on them because they’re kids. If they’re going to play with the big boys they need those skills. Besides, in many older cultures children from the age of thirteen and up are considered adults.”
“I hate to point out the obvious, but we are not living in the good ol’ times anymore. North America has become a nanny state. If you allow young children to play in a park by themselves it is considered to be child neglect.” Mother said.
“Mother, you do have a knack for pointing out the obvious. But maybe we need to quit treating our children like kids till their late twenties and give them a shot at real-world experience. Let’s give them a chance and see what happens. Kids what do you think?”
They looked at each other and both responded with great enthusiasm. “We’re up for any challenge. Not that we have much choice,” Charity muttered quietly.
“Ok then. I’ll see what training the Special Forces operators can put together in unorthodox fighting techniques adapted to their size, weight, strength and flexibility,” Mother said.
The Special Forces operators were happy to work with my kids; it helped get their minds off missing their own. The kids took to their lessons like fish to water. They were especially good at unarmed combat. Being young they have the right physical assets - flexibility, strong for their size, great fitness and no bad habits. Even at 120-130 pounds they developed the skills to incapacitate and kill a much larger opponent. Eighty percent of unarmed combat is intent; the other twenty percent is technique - they practiced like they would fight, holding nothing back. The training gave them more than their fair share of bruises and bangs - being young and having good genes, they healed quickly.
Although I specified no firearms training, the Special Forces guys taught them combat pistol anyway. A twenty-two caliber semi-automatic pistol fit their hands and has no recoil to speak of, making it easy to shoot. They did not have a need to carry a pistol on a daily basis, but they now certainly knew how to use one with surprising efficiency. I liked the results so much I decided to offer the same program to the wives and children of all the operators. Along with the unarmed combat training, the operators gave the kids courses on how to pick out and avoid surveillance, being tailed and intelligence gathering techniques. God help anyone who might be fooled by the pink and green hair highlights, Goth makeup and brightly colored shoelaces. They may look like typical clueless adolescents, but in reality were pictures of deadly innocence.
The kids were a perfect complement to the operators. After all, who thinks twice about a kid being a threat, especially if they look like the average teenager hanging around the mall. Best of all, the kids were invisible to the system. Other than limited school and medical records, they did not exist in any governmental systems, allowing them to easily assume the ID of the operator accompanying them. Nor did they have a web presence - as I had not bought into the social media craze, neither of them had Facebook or Twitter accounts or any other social media accounts. No one, be it on social media or the government, knew what they looked like, especially since all our photos were destroyed when the house
burnt down. Only their school pictures existed. A change of hair color, a little make up, fake glasses and their own mother would not be able to match them to those photos. They were about to become ghosts in the machine.
One afternoon, between their training sessions, I asked, “Aren’t you two stressed out by everything that’s going on?”
David replied with remarkable eloquence (which surprised the hell out of me as I never heard him say much of anything about anything other than to comment on a video game or what’s to eat), “Dad don’t sweat it. Mother, Einstein and Guide are like talking to your best friends, only they never get bored and have better jokes. The technology behind the alien scout ship is cool, but it really is just a fancy ride. The unarmed combat is like sport karate, only we intend to hit and hurt the opponent. Guns are nothing new, you always had a few in the house, but the Special Force’s shooting drills are way more intense and a lot more fun than anything you would let us do. The spy stuff is pretty cool though, never got to do anything like that before.” Kids are definitely harder to impress these days.
Charity piped in, “Dad, what we really miss is going out to the shopping mall. We’re tired of wearing the same clothes for weeks now. We’re not going to buy much; we understand we’ll have to travel light, but a girl has to have a few essentials.”
Was I a bad parent for giving the kids spy, unarmed combat and weapons training? Was I potentially putting them in harm’s way? Maybe… I killed people and aliens on a regular basis which kinda warps your perspective. Bad parent or not, the kids learned to think for themselves, understood what was at stake and made their own decision to do something about it. Keeping them safe was not going to happen unless I physically locked them up someplace. They were not the type to sit around and watch the game; they wanted to play the game. Only this wasn’t a game. My emotions oscillated between pride and fear.
Chapter 29 - Shopping
With the kids nearing the end of their training, I decided as a pre-graduation present, to let them go shopping on their own. I figured they would be much less noticeable by themselves than with a Special Forces operator shepherding them. The mall I chose was an outlet mall, so typical to any mid-size town, with a hundred or so smaller chain stores and a couple of large big box stores. I gave each of the kid’s unlimited funds on a cash card that Guide created for them. They were free to buy whatever they wanted; having been locked up on the scout ship, they knew what they needed and what they did not. Since the mall was located out in the suburbs, finding an unobserved open landing spot was not difficult. With the shield cloak on and using the neutralizing beam, no one noticed the ship land. Mother called a cab company to pick them up at the local high school and off they went.
Since it was a slow night for fares the kids cut a deal with the cab driver to wait for them at the mall for forty bucks and a promise of the fare back to the school. The cab gave them a handy place to store their purchases, avoiding the need to carry lots of shopping bags. Being careful to mind their own business and not draw attention to themselves, they went about the mall picking out essentials.
They headed off to the nearest outdoor store and picked up small mountaineering backpacks along with everything they would need to survive out-of-doors for a couple of weeks. High on their list was dehydrated food, cooking utensils, a small stove, hiking shoes, outdoor clothing that dries quickly, bivy bags, sleeping bags and thermal rests. They bought anything that would make life more comfortable outdoors no matter what the weather. Each found a winter coat rated to minus forty degrees Fahrenheit that folded into a carry sack the size of a lunch bag. Then they headed off to another store to pick up a few personal items - underwear, socks and a few casual clothes. After the essentials were taken care of they looked for something to entertain themselves with. Each picked out an iPad, a couple of books and writing materials.
As they were coming out of the Apple Store, David commented, “Charity have you noticed the mall rats following us? They’re twenty-five yards back, paying close attention to everything we do.”
“Yep, they appear to have an unhealthy interest in us. Judging by the looks on their faces they’re about to make the first move. Let’s take this someplace a little bit more discreet.” The kids slowly walked over to a deserted service hallway, the mall rats close behind them.
The mall rats looked to be anywhere from thirteen to eighteen, sloppily dressed, with various tattoos and piercings. There were six of them, their numbers giving them confidence that their skills could not back up. The self-appointed leader puffed himself up like a peacock, shouted out, “Hey you two! We’ve been watching you and you’re not from around here, but you sure have lots of money to spend. No one crosses our turf without paying their respects.”
David said, “This looks like a public mall to me douche bag. Why don’t you go roust someone else for their milk money.”
“Hey kid, how about you shut the fuck up before I bury my foot up your ass!”
To back up his words he flipped his leather jacket out of the way to show that he had a switch blade concealed in his waist band. Charity looked at the knife and looked at the leader.
“You don’t want to do this,” said Charity.
“I’m afraid I do.” Meanwhile his gang of followers took up a circle position, surrounding the kids and cutting off their escape.
“Stop!” said Charity in a tone of voice that would have made a Marine Drill Sargent proud.
“This is your last warning; you do not want to do this!” With her last comment, the leader pulled out his knife and flicked it open to show off the three inch blade. The blade was long enough to frighten people and could do some damage, but was not long enough to get you into real trouble if caught by the police.
Charity looked at the knife and the disappointment showed in her voice, “You call that a knife?” She pulled out a fixed blade Boker Applegate Fairbairn 5.5 inch blade from her boot that combined a double edged blade with a narrow profile, making it a deadly fighting knife in trained hands; to complement the knife she pulled a collapsible twenty-one inch steel baton from her pants pocket. Holding the knife in her leading hand with an overhand grip, the knife could be used to stab downwards, slash forwards or backwards, or as a blocker. With a snap of her wrist she extended the steel baton to its full length in her rear hand and lightly balanced on the balls of her feet in a left foot forward fighting stance.
She didn’t say another word. The gang leader had made his violent intentions clear. Talking would only be a waste of time and might allow the gang to get better positioned. Taking the initiative, she closed the eight foot distance between her and the gang leader with an explosive step-drag, feinted to his eyes with the knife as a distraction and smashed down with the steel baton, transferring her entire weight to her front foot, which gave the baton strike speed and power.
The baton hit the gang leader’s knife hand a couple of inches above his wrist. The force of the blow snapped both wrist bones, causing him to drop his knife. He grabbed his broken wrist with his other hand, rocked back on his heels and tilted his head back in agony, which exposed his neck. With a backwards strike of the baton, Charity caught him across the throat, crushing his larynx. Without waiting for the gang leader to hit the floor, she delivered a spinning back-kick to the stomach of another attacker trying to rush her from the front. The blow caused the attacker to bend over, exposing his head and neck; Charity hit him in the back of the head with a leading arm elbow, knocking him to the ground unconscious. Two girls rushed her from opposite directions. She took a quick reverse step-drag away from the farthest one, hitting the girl approaching from behind with a rear leg thrusting mule-kick to the sternum, knocking the wind out of her. Then, using her extended leg, she pushed off the chest of her rear attacker, delivering a martial art knee to the sternum of the second attacker. The force of the knee was such that it shattered the attacker’s sternum and caused her to fall unconscious, in a heap, on the mall floor. The first female attacker was bent
over, trying to catch her breath, when Charity hit her with a knee to the side of the head, fracturing her skull which caused her to join her unconscious friends on the floor.
The remaining two attackers looked at Charity as David spoke up, “Have you had enough or would you like some more?” Both would-be attackers turned and ran like their lives depended on it.
Charity said, “Thanks for the help little brother.”
“No problem, I would have jumped in if it started to look like a fair fight. We need to go; mall Security is more than likely on their way.” The entire fight took less than fifteen seconds.
Trying to make their way out of the mall as discreetly as possible, they unfortunately ran into mall Security who had been warned by the two mall rats that had run away. The mall Security cops tried to stop the kids and made the mistake of trying to lay hands on them. The security officers greatly over-estimated their abilities to deal with a couple of harmless looking kids. Both guards were unconscious before they knew what hit them. David and Charity made no effort to hide the unconscious guards. They walked purposefully to the nearest exist and blended into the street crowd.
Relaxing in the cab as they left the mall, Charity asked, “What made you decide to help with the guards?”
“I knew you could take them both, but we were in a hurry.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“No problem.”
Mall Security cameras captured both fights. In an effort to find who was involved, the police posted the video of Charity’s fight on YouTube, titled “Mall gang picks fight with the wrong girl.” The video was a viral hit with over a million views within twenty-four hours. The kid’s old friends saw them and told their parents; with our disappearance and house burning down all over the local news, the parents alerted the local police, who were able to link our family to the mall incident. Within a few hours, police, military and intelligence agencies across America knew who we were.