That evening, Bill and his father met Kouta Junior. The now famous Red Sox baseball star took them out to an upscale restaurant for dinner. The instant they stepped in the door, heads turned. A man at a table nearby stood up, gaping at Kouta. "It's Kouta Kikumura!" he announced.

Kouta waved to the crowd. Another man stood up and said, "Please do it like you do at the beginning of each game."

"Yes, please!" a boy beside the man cried out.

Kouta thrust his right hand in the air, hand curled to pretend he was holding a bat. In a loud, strong voice, he announced, "For Mama Yuka!"

"For Mama Yuka!" every male in the place replied in an earsplitting shout as they mimicked his motion.

Bill winced. He knew Kouta's Mother was dead, and he knew why. On that tape, he'd watched one of the kidnappers put a gun to the back of Yuka's head and blow her brains out. Bill felt a clap on his back. Startled from the contact, he jumped.

"Son, you may be going to hell, but at least you're living in heaven!" his father said heartily.

Bill coughed. "Um, our seats are over there, Dad," he said in a subdued tone.

Luckily, the conversation turned quickly to Kouta's baseball exploits, his father wringing every bit of information out of Kouta that he could. His father keeping Kouta busy let Bill watch the chef with his juggling knives prepare the meal. The chef was an artist. Bill didn't see how he could NOT cut himself, and dice up food that quickly. In a blur of hand motions and flashing steel, the chef stripped a fish and had it on the grill, then flipped it onto plates for them.

"He is good, huh?" Kouta asked as he leaned close to Bill.

Bill noted Kouta wore a smile as he spoke. "He's amazing," Bill admitted.

Looking at the Chef's juggling act as he chopped up some flying vegetables faster than any food processor was capable, Kouta said, "You know, that almost happened to you." Holding up a finger, he added, "Only one thing kept you from becoming sushi. You truly love Kyoko and Chizu, and they love you."

"Yeah, I understand that," Bill said in a dull tone.

"None of us are happy with you but you did take care of our children. You didn't abuse them or make them suffer. Mama Nana and Mama Lucy went through a tortured hell when they were locked in that facility. We had feared for so long the same thing was happening to Kyoko and Chizu. It was a great relief to see them healthy and unharmed," Kouta told him.

Bill frowned a bit as he watched the chunks of vegetable fly off onto plates. "I'd never hurt those girls," he stated.

In a softer tone, Kouta said, "And when it came down to it, you did your best to protect them. Isn't that right?"

Bill winced and said "My best wasn't good enough. At least your family found us before the agency did."

"Well, I'm all for you marrying Chika. I know you'll do your best for her," Kouta said firmly. "Mama Lucy and Papa are the only ones left who lived through the horror of the Time of Agony. I'm sure that still echoes in their minds, so they are always going to see you as someone who might be a danger to their children. It's not their fault. I can only imagine what it was like living through a war."

"I imagine it's like shell shock," Bill guessed.

"I think so. Come on, let's eat up before this great food gets cold."

.

Bill was pleasantly surprised to have a nice dinner with his Father and Kouta Junior. He also decided he needed to look up the thing they called the Time of Agony. While he ate, Bill noted a few bits of fish tasted funny, but figured it was some kind of seasoning. Kouta sprung for the bill, and on the way out, he made his announcement of "For Mama Yuka!" once again, that was answered by all the diners.

They walked two blocks when Bill began to feel odd. Suddenly, his stomach erupted. He turned quickly to power vomit into the gutter.

"Whoa, you OK, Billy?" his father asked, watching him closely.

"Yeah... yeah. Don't know what came over me," Bill said, shrugging it off. "Maybe I got a bug coming on. Damn, that dinner was good, too."

"Let's go see Lady Shizuku," Kouta said in a concerned tone. "You may have gotten some bad fish."

"I'm sure it's nothing," Bill assured him. After blowing his meal all over the street, he did feel a lot better.

Despite Bill trying to assure Kouta he was all right, Kouta stayed with them as Bill walked his father to the hotel, then headed for the community center. On the way, Bill felt chilled. Before they got to the center, he vomited again, ending in dry heaves he wished would stop. It was like his stomach was trying to come up. He heaved so hard it hurt.

"Not now," Bill groaned. He was suppose to be getting married tomorrow. Not only did he not want to be sick for Chika, but he was sure Lucy would somehow blame it on him.

"OK, let's go," Kouta said, taking Bill by the arm. "We have to go see Lady Shizuku. Now."

Diarrhea was next. Bill barely got into the community center's bathroom before his guts let go. The more came out, the thinner it was. He was also feeling light headed.

"Not now," Bill groaned.

Bill's head was swimming by the time he left the bathroom to find Lady Shizuku and Kouta waiting for him by the door. Cracking a grin at Kouta, he said, "I wouldn't go in there right away if I were you."

Bill made it to his room bracketed by the pair. He laid down, and Lady Shizuku studied him intently. He swore he felt something stirring around inside him.

"Food poisoning," she stated.

"He's not going to die, is he?" Kouta asked.

"No, but the next few days will be rough. Please, go tell Chika and Queen Lucy the wedding will have to be postponed."

Bill was dizzy, but not too out of it that he didn't hear what she said. "Wait, you can't do that!" he pleaded with a slur in his voice. "You can't!"

"It's done," Lady Shizuku stated. "You're going to stay right here in bed until I tell you otherwise. I will strap you in place if I have to."

Bill wanted to argue. Trying to arrange his thoughts in his murky head, he passed out.

.

Bill stood in the dim hangar of that unused air field. Before him, Sarah lay splattered over most of the floor. "This is your fault," her head said from beside an old crate, and began to cry.

"I'm sorry, I tried to save you," Bill pleaded to the head. "Why couldn't you come with us? Why did you have to try to kill our girls?"

The scene shifted. He was at the house in the middle of nowhere, Sarah stood over him, pointing her gun down on him. "Your fault I'm dead!" she said sternly.

Lucy appeared to the side, eyeing Sarah. A pair of cartoonish hammers the size of garbage cans appeared on either side of Lucy. The hammers swung together onto Sarah, making her explode. Bits of Sarah rained down around him. Lucy laughed a humorless, sadistic laugh. Looking at Bill, Lucy said, "YOU did this."

"Stop.." Bill blubbered weakly.

Again and again, Sarah appeared, yelled "Your fault!" then was pulverized by Lucy to rain down around him. Bill wanted to stop the slaughter before him, but he couldn't move.

.

Bill awoke with a gasp, set to scream for Lucy to stop. There was no Lucy, nor Sarah that put herself back together each time she was splattered into bits. Breathing heavy, he looked around his room. He could feel the diarrhea coming on again. Sitting up taxed his spinning head. He was covered with sweat, but also chilled to the bone. He staggered up and managed to make the bathroom in time. By the time he got back to the bed, he was shivering violently from being cold. He flopped down and buried himself in the blankets to regain some warmth. The after images of his nightmare were still fresh in his mind. He didn't want to go back to sleep. A short while later, he passed out again.

.

Bill came to consciousness to feel a cool, wet cloth on his forehead. Chika was beside him. She rinsed out another cloth and wiped his chest. Seeing his eyes open, she said, "Good morning. How do you feel?"

"Like crap," Bill admitted. "Sorry about this. I think I screwed up our wedding plans today."

Chika raised an eyebrow. "You mean our wedding plans two days ago?" she asked with a smirk.

Had it been two days? "Yeah."

"Just don't let it happen again," she chided playfully. Looking behind her, she picked up a glass of water with a mind hand.

Bill saw it. A pale, near invisible arm with a hand on the end came from Chika and grabbed the glass. She shifted it to her physical hand as she asked him to sit up. Bil studied the ghostly appendage that reached out to help him sit up. He clasped the hand with his own. He felt something, not quite solid.

Chika eyed him as she offered him the glass. "You can see my hands?" she asked.

"Yeah.." he said vacantly as he gently caressed her mental extension. "It's like it's there, but not there."

"That's strange. Come on, drink up or you'll become dehydrated."

Bill drained the glass. The cool water felt great in his parched throat. "Thanks," he said. He laid back down. Chika kept her mind hand out watching Bill play with it, touching and poking.

"What?" Bill asked, seeing the grin on her face.

With a giggle, Chika said, "You look like a kid with a new toy."

"I just never seen one before. I mean, we tried very hard to get a look at the girl's mind hands through filters from infrared to ultraviolet, but they never showed up. How can I see yours?"

"Maybe because you're sick," she offered.

"Suppose so," he mussed. "I feel kinda foggy."

"Well, Mr. Foggy, I'm going to change the water. You can play with me more after I get back."

Bill watched her mind hand retract. Chika picked up the water pan and left. He wanted to stay awake until she got back. He drifted off to sleep wondering why the mental hands Chika had were much larger than her physical ones.

.

Bill followed the odd looking soldier in front of him. Shorter and with wide hips, the figure in the camo fatigues was obviously female. The M-16 slung over her shoulder touched the violet colored hair peeking out from under the Kevlar helmet.

The soldier turned to him, letting him see her oriental features and chest that was straining the buttons of her shirt. She pulled the toothpick from her mouth and pointed it at a door in the side of a building. "In there, that's the package we have to guard," she said sternly.

Bill marched in behind the woman. Inside, the floor was clear except for a single desk-sized crate in the middle of the floor. "Protect this with everything you got. There is no second chance," she said firmly. She unslung her rifle and hopped up in the crate, which made her oversized breasts bounce. She watched to the sides like she was expecting something to happen.

Bill didn't see anything to be concerned over. One door, no windows. He unslung his rifle and stood near her.

"Always stay alert, you can't afford a slip up," she insisted as she hunted for any threats.

Studying the woman, Bill asked tentatively, "Mariko?" With the way her helmet rode high on her head, he was sure she had horns under there.

"No Mariko here," the woman said with a shake of her head. "Focus on your duty. The package is precious. It MUST stay safe at all costs. I'll help you all I can."

Bill nodded. A flash of motion near the door caught his attention. It was just a shadow, but he raised his rifle and went to investigate. He peeked out the door and didn't see anything. Turning back, he saw the woman was gone. He looked around the room, but she'd vanished. Soft crying came to his ears. It sounded like it was coming from inside the box. Had she climbed in? Bill opened the top and looked in.

Inside, cuddled up in soft, pink blankets was a baby. The tiny child had a tuft of pink hair between her stubby little horns. Opening her eyes, the baby asked in a grownup voice, "Why do you have a gun, Daddy?"

.

On the television, Arthur Denton appeared behind a polished wooden podium that bore the round blue UN symbol. Bobbing his head slightly, he adjusted his glasses and said, "Good Day. With the help of Lady Akia and Lady Himari, I have filled in the missing gaps of human evolution. I will explain in layman's terms what we have pieced together."

Arthur opened a folder and read from it. "Science has concluded from the dating of the oldest fossils and artifacts, that humanity as we know it is approximately one hundred fifty, to two hundred thousand years old. From Annunaki records, we have discovered that human kind is in fact two hundred fifty six thousand years old. The Homo Sapien race as we know it today was created in southern Africa by a group of scientists of the Annunaki Haso clan. DNA from the primate we know as Neanderthal was modified with DNA from the Haso clan to produce the first Homo Sapiens."

Looking up briefly, he said, "We share 97 to 99 percent DNA similarity with all indigenous primates of Earth. This sounds like we are all but identical with our primate cousins, but you must understand that there are thousands of strands in the DNA structure. In my following statements, we will assume a 99 percent match to human DNA. The 'point' I will be speaking of is in hundredths of a percentage point."

"Chimpanzees, our closest living primate relative on Earth, shares point 42 percent. Neanderthal, our closest indigenous relative shares point 73 percent. Gahlan Annunaki, like Lady Akia here, shares point 89 percent, and the Yuakita sect, which were originally Haso clan Annunkai, shares point 999 percent. In other words, humankind is all but Haso clan ourselves."

Flipping a page, he said, "This information explains why Homo Sapiens and Yukaita sect can mate freely, and also why every offspring of these marriages carry all the DNA of the Haso, or Yukaita sect. The only genetic difference between humans and Yukaita sect, besides the protrusions on their heads, is that while humans only use eight to ten percent of their brains, the Yukaita sect uses approximately eighty percent of their brain power. This difference is due to that point zero, zero, one percent DNA difference between the species.

What is happening in children of marriages between human and Yukaita sect is simple. The children are merely filled in with the missing bits they had been lacking. Humans absorb Yukaita sect DNA readily, all it takes is a touch from a sect member's mental extension they call 'mind hands' to alter or rather 'fill in' the latent DNA sequence in any human. While an adult human will not physically be altered, their children will inherit the full Sect DNA sequence, and capabilities."

Looking up to scan the audience slowly, Arthur said, "The significance of these findings should be obvious. In time, humanity will slowly be absorbed into the Haso clan, or Yukaita sect, as they are known here on Earth. This is not some type of genetic coup. What is happening is that the latent abilities that we all have will be drawn out. Humanity will finally become what we were meant to be."

Arthur flipped another page. He scanned the page briefly, then said, "The question of how and why the Haso clan than came to Earth ended up settling here has also been answered. Roughly sixty thousand years ago, there was a great conflict in the ranks of the Annunaki. Not wanting to take sides, the Haso clan left the inhabited areas. Knowing if they went back home, they would be caught up in the war, they secretly came back down to Earth and destroyed their ships. They lived in secret for many years. When tribes of humans came, they either killed or enslaved the humans to keep themselves unknown to the rest of the world.

About twenty one hundred years ago, just before the time of Christ, a Haso named Yukaita lived. Yukaita taught the sect how to correctly treat others, mirroring the teachings that a short decade later, Christ taught in the mid-east half a world away. Through their untiring efforts, Lady Kanae and Brother Junso have positively linked Yukaita to Chirst. Although it cannot yet be proven, it is strongly believed that Christ was the only son of Yukaita."

Murmurs filled the room. Arthur motioned with his hands, saying, "As I said, this cannot be confirmed, and I will let religious scholars tackle that question. I only wanted to point out that their teachings were very similar. What I also wished to point out, is the fact that Queen Lucy was correct in calling all the world's people her family. Everyone on Earth, be they Sect or Homo Sapien, are related. I know what I've told you may be shocking, but these are the facts. Thank you all for your time."