Sorry for the wait, I wasn't happy with this chapter so I deleted the previous version and now uploaded the new version in it's place.

Please read Author's notes after reading chapter for more info.

Thanks.

Jenny.

Flashbacks and Memories (Part 14)

By Jenny Taylor

"Well…" John began, "The second deadliest ant are Bull ants, habitat: Australia. This species has a number of subfamily members including Red Bull ants, Bulldog ants and the Jumping Jack ants. The Bull ants are the largest and the most aggressive on the planet, they have long mandibles which they use to hold onto their prey and then they curl their abdomen, in a rapid fashion, inject their venomous sting into their prey.

"They have large eyes and are fearless, meaning that they will not back down from any opponent including humans. They will attack intruders who have come too close to their nests and even chase them away. If an opponent intimidates them, they will raise up with their mandibles opened wide, readying themselves to charge if necessary and they are carnivorous. Their stings are extremely painful and have been known to cause human death."

John was about to start the lecture on the final ant when he got elbowed in his side by a concerned Gordon. An annoyed John first looked at his intermediate younger brother with an angry glare until the elder blonde silently used his head to nod into the direction of Doctor Jaycee Anderson with a worried look.

"What's wrong mom?" A worried Alan asked a pale looking doctor. Jaycee turned to look at John with a mixture of worry, concern and fear look.

"John…" Her voice was barely a whisper when she spoke, which forced John to lean closer to her to listen. "How many…(gulp) types of bull ants are there?... 'Cause… that name sounds familiar to me." Her voice was shaking and feeling a bit scared as she fears and waits for John's answer to her question.

John quickly abandons his first little mission and straight into his second little mission into finding the answer they seek, sensing that Jaycee's interruption indicates that there's something important. "Well…according to the internet, there's 92 types of Bull ants."

"92! Jesus John, how on earth did it get upto that number?" Gordon nearly jumped up in surprise, before quickly looking thoughtful. "Err… on second thought… Don't answer that."

"Well…" John started, clearly ignoring his younger brother but was interrupted by a worried female member of the family.

"John?" John looks up towards the owner of the voice.

"Yes?" Jaycee pauses, trying to figure out how to word the question.

"Do they… do they all have English names?" She asked, referring to the offending animals in question. John quickly looks over his new data to answer her question.

"According to the net, only 13 out of the 92 species of the Bull ant have English names on top of their Latin names."

"What are they?" She asked, feeling scared for the answers she might receive from him.

"They are: Wide Jawed Bull ant, Giant Bull ant, Toothed Bull ant, Tasmanian Inchman, Inchmen ant, Giant Red Bull ant, Toothless Bull ant, Black-headed Bull ant, Golden-tailed Bull ant, Jack Jumper ant, Inch ant, Blacktoothed Bull ant and Baby Bull ant." John spoke slowly and clearly, pausing between each name to let them sink into Jaycee, hoping that one of those names is the culprit that killed that helpless boy, witnessed by their aunt in that terrorist cell.

Silence fell as the boys waited for Jaycee's answer as she closed her eyes, focusing and trying to remember what her mom said. After a few minutes she opened her eyes slowly, frowning in sadness before slowly looking first to Scott and Alan on her left and then Gordon and John on her right, looking pale. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before giving out her answer.

"The ant that killed that boy is…" She takes another breath and releases it slowly. "The mutated version of… the Giant Red Bull ant." The brothers gave her a quizzical look, unsure on what she meant, which didn't go unnoticed by the young doctor. "When I meant mutated I mean that… the terrorists… enlarged the ants by giving them extra oxygen during their life cycle."

There was a pause as the boys try to visualise what she described, Scott and Gordon shook their heads as they couldn't visualise nor understood what she meant, whereas the astronauts however can visualise the description, but only upto a certain degree as they don't know how big the ants got.

"Err mom…" Jaycee turned to look the owner of the young man, raising her eyebrow in a silent question. "Did… did your mom tell you how big these ants were?" He paused as he tried to word the question.

Jaycee closed her eyes, trying to remember what her mom told her about the size of these mutated tiny creatures. She opens her eyes and gives them a straight answer. "Their head is about 10mm wide and their body is about 50mm long."

Her answer sends John into work mode, turning those figures into a virtual creature using his holo-wrist-pad to make the program, then compared it with a virtual size of a normal ant and then showing them side-by-side to his family which was received with a mixture of shock-awe and shock-horror.

"Jesus! That's huge!" Exclaimed Alan.

"Certainly wouldn't want to meet them on a rainy day." Joked Gordon.

"You're not wrong there, little bro." John agreed, with a hint of surprise.

"Same here." Scott spoke with a hint of worry as he saw his cousin's pale face. "What's wrong Jaycee?" He asked alerting his younger siblings to her presence.

"I'd just feel sad for the child who was killed by them and for my mom who witnessed that terrible event." She replied, her voice filled with hurt and sadness, her eyes looking down to her hands which were moving subconsciously with each other in her lap.

Once again, the room fell silent as they sat quietly praying for those who lost their lives to the most wanted, elusive and dangerous terrorist on the planet, Seth Gorgon Pluto. After a moment of silent prayers, Scott broke the silence.

"Jaycee…" The said person turns her head to look at him, waiting for another question she knows that needed answering. Scott hesitated as he tries to word the question appropriately. "What…what happened after… after the umm…" He runs his free hand across his head, feeling either awkward or stupid to be asking his cousin this question.

"Incident when mom was forced into watching the death sentence being performed in front of her?" The boys turned to look at her with a mixture of surprise and worry. The way she spoke sounded more like a statement than a question as her voice was filled with sadness as she slowly forces herself to lean back onto the couch and lets out a sad sigh as she looks up towards the ceiling.

"After the incident, they took mom into her own cell and left her in there overnight with nothing more than a plate of bread and a cup of water… The next morning however… is the first of her horrific ordeals which the terrorist put her through during the 2 months that she was held prisoner."

"2 MONTHS!?"

Hello everyone,

My apologies for the delay with the story.

The loss of 2 relatives (1st in May 2016 and 2nd in February this year), losing job (May 2016), gaining work experience (December 2017), 2 relatives with cancer (1st in November 2016 and now all clear, 2nd in May 2017 and died February this year), 1 relative needing life-saving open heart surgery (diagnosed in May 2017, surgery successful in January this year), failing 4 motorcycle part 1 practical tests and a writers block within the past 2 years has overwhelmed me that this story has been put at the bottom of the list.

Because of my Asperger's I was struggling to cope and couldn't move this story forward because I felt the previous version of chapter 14 didn't fit with the story and I needed help, so I would like to thank 2ndOutOf7 for helping me.

Hopefully once the funeral of my relative is over, I would hopefully get back to writing and posting more chapters.

Thank you for patience and for staying with me.

Kind regards.

Jenny.