Chapter 7

Nigel had a fierce smile on his face because he had already endured so much pain, what more could be thrown at him? Chad Dickson had been training him nonstop for a week already and he was headed into another week. Chad had mentioned that training wouldn't end for several weeks, it would change in scheduling but it wouldn't stop for a while. There just wasn't time for Nigel to take a full course like Patton wanted to start. Patton wanted a full nine weeks to train all the new KCD members, provided that the organization started recruiting enough members to fulfill that goal.

There just wasn't time for Sector V.

There was a possibility that the Kids Command of Defense might find something imminent on that scrap of paper that Rachel had taken from the ice cream truck. Besides, if nothing was done about the ice cream man and he perceived that someone might be on to him, he might have already covered his tracks. They might already be out of time.

Nigel dressed in his usual cargo pants and wearing makeshift Samurai like shoulder and leg armor over a T-shirt, stood toe to toe with Chad, who had his usual football gear, makeshift shoulder and leg guards and a Samurai helmet on his head. There was a fully stocked room of furniture and Chad was trying to teach Nigel how to improvise and use the everyday common items to his aid. The result was two tired operatives and a lot of broken furniture. The air was charged with the intensity of the struggle; Nigel's soul became quickly acclimated to the feel of the fight, to the sting of the battle, and to the rush of victory.

"You need to pay attention to what I'm doing Nigel!" Chad taunted.

"I AM!" Nigel yelled back. Chad was cutting him no slack, but he knew that he wouldn't receive anything less from the real fight.

There was a noise at the back of the room and Nigel glanced away for just a minute.

Suddenly Chad was upon him and had him by the wrist. He twisted Nigel's arm and pressed Nigel's ankle with his foot causing Nigel to be locked in a death like grip. There was no way that Nigel was going to be able to break free; Chad had all the leverage in that moment. Nigel felt humiliated as Chad knelt, forcing Nigel onto the floor. Nigel reached up to grapple with Chad, but the pain shot through him from the hold that he wasn't able to gain any leverage.

"I told you to pay attention," Chad taunted again, "That little distraction to take your eyes off me gave me the advantage and it's the oldest trick in the book, you'll see!"

Nigel was shoving and trying to get Chad off of him as Chad pushed him back down into the floor. Chad rose to his feet, smiling from ear to ear, Nigel's eyes were ablaze with fervor.

"That could have happened to anyone!" Nigel said shortly, out of breath and dusting off his red long sleeved shirt and armor pieces. As he tried to stand back up, he felt a tug and almost fell down…his shoes were tied together. How did Chad do that without Nigel even noticing? Nigel bent down, frustrated, to hastily untie them.

"No, it couldn't happen to me!" Chad said with that smug smile of his and his chin in the air, "Just remember, I'm the best there is!"

Suddenly, the door opened in the training room and Rachel stepped in, causing both men to stop what they were doing and pay full attention.

"Alright guys, I think that's enough for now. Sector V has rested up from boot camp and they're ready for the first mission."

With a slight turn of her blonde head she focused her shimmering blue eyes on Nigel, "What do you say Nigel? Are you ready to lead your first mission?"

Nigel stood straight and smiled broadly adjusting his shades.

"Yes ma'am!" he said with confidence. Nigel had really begun to shape up over the last few weeks. He was more confident than ever in what he had to do.

"Ok," Rachel said with a smile, "Follow me to the situation room"

Nigel shed his heavy makeshift armor, grabbed his sweater, and followed her from the gym and down the hall. The lower floor of the Donut Shop had really become outfitted over the last few weeks. As they passed through the main area where Nigel had first been introduced to the crew he noticed other "operatives", as Chad and Rachel referred to them, were bustling about. Some were reporting to Herbert and others were sitting at desks pouring over information on clipboards and computer screens.

He passed by a room that held chemistry equipment where Gabe and his team were researching something, apparently in disagreement, while other scientists were testing some robotic equipment in the back room. Nigel might have just gotten on board, but Chad, Rachel and the crew had been building for months…maybe even years.

They turned down another hall and entered into a large conference style room with a long table in the middle. There were a few chairs spotted on either side of the table and some tables stashed along the side wall. The walls were bare, with the exception of a large dry erase board in the back wall that stretched as far as the wall and was almost the same height. Written on one side was a diagram showing something that looked like a multi-story building, the other side had a list of acronyms each containing a K, D, C, R, T and N. The words that the letters stood for in each acronym didn't make much sense. The lights were bright and the air smelled fresh.

"Building something?" Nigel said as he took a seat, glancing at the white board.

Rachel seemed taken aback. She looked at Nigel oddly and then looked around the room trying to locate his gaze. She laughed when her blue eyes landed on the white board.

"Oh that…" she said, "Those are blueprints that Chad is working on. He wants to tunnel and turn this place into a multilevel compound. I don't know how that is going to work out. If it's anything like his acronyms over there," she motioned towards the jumbled mess at the other side of the board, "Those are letters that he's hoping to find a title with but I don't like how it's going".

Nigel laughed a little, "Yeah, Chad is a great Supreme Leader but maybe he should stay out of the architecture business."

Rachel spun her head around, "What do you mean?"

Nigel was now the one taken aback, "I just mean that this is silly. There is no way that we can tunnel underneath where we are without total collapse. The entire structure would need to be dug up and set right."

"Well, I'm sure that Chad has thought of that," Rachel said defensively, "I don't know all the details, I'm just going off of what I've heard him say."

Nigel fell quiet. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach when he realized that he might have made Rachel mad. He had never seen Rachel upset and wasn't even sure if she could get mad. In fact, he hadn't really thought of Rachel feeling any particular way, how she might go through the same struggles as everyone else. When he had met her, she had seemed almost super human in her strength of confident and optimism.

"I'm sorry Rachel; I didn't mean to step out of line."

Rachel looked shocked, "Oh no Nigel, you're fine. I just get so defensive about Chad and his criticisms that I soon hear criticism in everyone's voice and I shouldn't do that. He IS a great Supreme Leader and he is an amazing visionary. I just wish he would focus on the here and now sometimes as opposed to the future all the time".

She started turning red.

"You know? I don't know..." she trailed and looked at a chair leaning up against the wall. "It's just that, a person can't expect for the future to be very strong if it's not founded on the present. The same principle goes for our operation here."

Nigel's stomach sank as it dawned on him what he was hearing. Rachel was in a relationship with Chad! How could he have missed that? He didn't totally miss it, so maybe his observation skills weren't too far off. It was strange to think of Rachel as being in a relationship…he just never really viewed Rachel that way.

"What's up guys?" a loud voice came from the doorway. Chad Dickson came strolling in with a wide smile on his face. "Nigel, I have a surprise for you. The next member of your team will be joining us next week. He is finishing up boot camp right now but it won't be in time for this recon mission."

Nigel looked back at Rachel who was standing straight and had that familiar positive look on her face, her hair was lying neatly on her shoulders and her icy blue eyes contained none of the softness that he had seen earlier.

It was time to work.

"Who is he or she?" Nigel inquired, turning his full attention on Chad.

"His name is Wallabee Beatles. His family just moved here from Australia a few years ago and he's already stirring up trouble at Gallagher University. I know because he beat up one of our running backs…he said it was over something that the running back said about his accent."

Nigel's eyebrows raised considerable over his dark shades; it sounded promising. It sound like this character had guts and guts would be enough.

"Well, I was able to convince the Dean that the best way to help this kid is to get him into the boxing program at Gallagher and at least give him an outlet. I think though that his outlet needs to be the KCD….or whatever we're going to end up calling this organization."

He rolled his eyes over to Rachel who just shrugged in return.

"Right," Nigel said, "We'll give him a proper place to serve soon enough. What about this ice breaker mission for Sector V?"

As he said this there were more people filing into the room. Hoagie, Abby, and Kuki were walking into the room and while Kuki and Abby seemed to understand what was going on, Hoagie looked like a kid in a candy shop.

"Whatsup Nigel?" he said with a short little wave, "Have you SEEN the science lab?"

Nigel smiled warmly as he observed them through his shades, standing straight with his hands behind his back.

"Hello team!" he said sternly and poignantly, secretly hiding his excitement, "Are you prepared for our first mission?"

"Ooh!" Kuki said with a shriek, startling Chad, "A REAL mission? All I've been doing lately is training missions and they're getting pretty boring!"

"Nigel…," Hoagie said sternly as he was taking his seat, "…Have you SEEN the snack lounge?"

Nigel looked over at Chad who seemed unimpressed. The more that Nigel observed his body language response to what was taking place before him, the more he concluded that Chad was getting stressed out. He kept shooting glances at Rachel.

Rachel just shrugged in return.

Nigel looked over at Abby who had already sat down and coolly propped her feet up on the table. She was in her usual royal blue athletic shirt and black shorts and had her rose colored ball cap pulled down over her eyes. Her long, jet black hair was pulled into a large ponytail and her golden earrings were sparking.

"So what's the mission Nigel?" she asked, amidst the chatter of Kuki and Hoagie.

"Well," Nigel said, "It's a mission of reconnaissance! I'll default to our Supreme Leader for further detail."

He sat down and looked towards Chad who was still staring with his mouth wide open.

"Riiiiiight," Chad said slowly and sarcastically, "The mission is simple really and is mostly just a chance for you guys to get to work together, with the exception of Wallabee, but he will be here soon enough. You guys are going to infiltrate a supposed way station that is used by the local ice cream men who are suspected of conducting illegal surveillance on the people in the neighborhoods. I'm going to default to our Global Intelligence Officer for the details."

He motioned to Rachel who moved away from her background position and clicked a remote that she had in her hand. A projector from the ceiling broadcasted a map of the surrounding area onto the wall. Chad walked over and turned the lights off which prompted another shriek from Kuki.

"About six weeks ago, I obtained information from an ice cream truck which I believe was being used to conduct illegal surveillance. This intelligence contained, among other elements, a map which shoes an obscure location that is not germane to the usual ice cream route."

Each of the new operatives of Sector V looked at the map intently. They were able to discern where they were located and where the routes correlated and there was a giant X in an area of the map.

"This "X", Rachel continued, "labels a house that was highlighted on the map that we recovered and marked as, 'Mr. Frosty'. Now, there is no way of knowing what that means, or if it is important unless we get a team in there to analyze what is taking place. Your mission, Sector V, is going to require a tactical understanding of this location and a time which is most suitable to infiltrate. Once you have everything lined out you are going to have to enter in building and acquire as much information as possible. As you gather the information and secure the operation parameters, you will have to do it with little to no detection. We've already lost precious time getting to this point and if we are detected in anyway, we might alert the ice cream men as to what we are up to. Our current intelligence indicates that the ice cream men are still up to their usual business with no idea that their way station might be compromised."

Nigel nodded, "All right, what is the timeframe?"

Rachel turned to him, "Two days…you descend on the third. If you have any questions, you can always ask me, I'll be in my cubicle out in the war room and be sure and ask Chad if you think that there are any resources that you might need."

She nodded slightly and started walking out of the room, but she paused in the door way.

"Good luck guys," she said with her warm smile, "I have no doubt that you will do great!"

Chad walked out of the room also.

Nigel turned to look at the three comrades. He had never felt as happy as he did then. These were his teammates; his family. This was just the beginning, but there was no doubt that as time progressed; they would see more and more battles together and become closer. He could feel every fiber surge in his body…THIS is what he was meant for.

"Ok team," he said confidently while leaning back in his chair, both hands resting on the armrests, "Suggestions?"

"Well," Abby spoke up, "Since you're asking!"

Nigel smiled; they really were going to go far together.

"I think that we need to spend the next 24 hours learning the times that this location gets visited." She said strongly, "Also, we need to observe the lifestyle of the neighborhood. I'm assuming that what we'll want to strive for a night assault, that way there will be less witnesses and less chance of getting stopped."

"Agreed," Nigel said, "I wonder how hard it would be to acquire satellite feed from the past week?"

"Not too hard," Kuki said, pushing her green sweater sleeves up and over her hands so that she could scribble on her notepad, "I'll ask Rachel, I'm sure she already has some."

"Nigel?" Hoagie said, "I think I'll spend the first day getting an exit strategy together, I'm sure that things probably won't go as planned."

"Excellent idea," Nigel said, "I'll default to your expertise on that; make it so. Meanwhile, Abby and I will stake out the premise and we'll get an idea of our entrances, exits, assault timeframe and get a running total of possible enemy combatants."

They continued to plan, research, shoot ideas back and forth as morning passed into evening, and evening into night. More importantly, they began to bond in a way that would carry them through the hottest of flames and the darkest of shadow. They needed to work together as a team as their success, and survival, would come to depend on it. What lied at Mr. Frosty's was a test…a trial….and the lighted doorway in which they would need to take if they were going to save the world.

And they would save the world….Nigel was already determined in that.