Chapter 22

A month! A month had gone by since that morning in front of Charles' house and during that time a lot had happened.

They had moved. Charles and his family, the Taylor's, and Connie had packed their bags and they had moved about a week after that conversation. It was all Connie's doing. With a call here and a command there, she had been able to find them a new home that not only met Charles' specifications but also exceeded it by a lot. It was a massive estate and it was theirs.

On top of that Charles learned that he was going to be a father ... twice. They had barely moved in and settled when the wheel of fate turned, ignoring the happiness that Charles was enjoying in his new home. Melissa came down with the flu, or so everyone one had thought; everyone that was except for Charles. It was the sign he had feared and that he had been watching for since all of this had happened. Charles had a word with Katherine and it was quickly confirmed. Then he had Katherine check his mother as well. Surprise, surprise! She was pregnant as well.

However that was not the biggest surprise.

The biggest surprise occurred shortly after that. Charles received a long distance phone call, a phone call that opened his eyes to how big of a mess the world was really in. That call led to a visit to the estate by the caller.

"Hello Mr. Jackson," Charles said coldly as he shook the man's hand. "Come in and have a seat.

"Thank you Master," the tall black man replied without any emotion.

It was the day after the phone call. Charles had not slept much and neither had Connie.

"Have you brought all your files with you?" Connie asked as she sat down across from the man.

"Yes Mistress," replied the man.

"And you've destroyed all other files?" Charles inquired firmly.

"As you commanded, Master," confirmed the man.

"Have you been contacted by any other Masters or Mistresses?" Charles demanded to know.

"No Master," answered the man, "you're the first."

"And you're the only one at your corporation that knows what was done?" Connie inquired.

"Yes Mistress," replied the man, "I was the corporate liaison with the government on this project."

"So what did the rest of your research staff believe?" asked Charles.

"They were informed that we were developing a new vaccine for meningitis Master," the man stated in a flat tone.

"And in reality it was a mental enhancer!" stated Connie, gazing with resentment at the man.

"Yes Mistress," the man answered. "The government was concerned with the declining intellectual capability of the nation. Their people believed that they could boost the capability of people over generations. In fact, they doubted that they would see any results during this generation. It was their belief that the offspring of this generation would have enhanced intelligence and that their children would inherit their parents abilities. With further inoculation of each successive generation, the government hoped that they could radically increase the intellectual resources of the nation."

"And they failed!" Charles stated bluntly.

"Yes Master," the man said in agreement.

"Still, their experiment has made our current situation worse," Connie pointed out. "The suggestion is that the children currently being carried by the women of the world could be born with enhanced mental capabilities. In essence, they might have the power to control people, which could make our job a million times harder. It all depends on how many people were initially inoculated and how many have either fathered a child or are carrying a child. Since we don't know those numbers, we will never know what we're dealing with.

"What cities were used to test this inoculation?" Charles asked the man directly.

"Within continental America, we picked five cities," the man replied. "There was Sunnyvale here on the west coast. In the Midwest, we picked Kansas City and in the south, we picked Galveston. On the east coast, we chose Bangor and Miami and in each of those cities we chose to run the inoculation program at two secondary schools. Our records indicate that we inoculated approximately two thousand teenagers per city. In total we inoculated ten thousand teenagers, nation wide."

"Was the experiment limited to the United States?" Connie inquired.

"No Mistress," replied the man. "Limited tests were conducted on the dependants of embassy staff in France, Russia, South Africa, and India. Our records indicate one hundred dependents were inoculated in this group."