Chapter 3

The McKenzie Family was the richest family in the whole of Ohio, the sixteenth richest family in the United States and one of the richest in the entire world. They lorded over Cleveland as if it were their own personal fiefdom and no one stopped them. The only way their power could be broken was if they lost their money, and that was not likely to happen soon. Robert "Bob" McKenzie made his fortune in the late 1990, at the height of the dot com bubble, designing and monetizing several websites, all of which had now been absorbed by larger entities. Luckily, he had the sense to get out before the bubble burst – and 15 years later, he had an enormous fortune of $15 billion, and it grew from year to year, due to lucrative investments.

Cecilia McKenzie was no stranger to money either – being the sole heir to her oil baron father's billions. Unlike most marriages that came with money, Bob and Cici McKenzie loved each other – and though she irritated them sometimes, they loved their daughter with all of their heart too. Rachel was indeed their little princess, the heir to the their many billions – they gave her want she wanted, unconditionally. It was only through luck that she'd turned out to be as humble as she was. Rachel took it as a point of personal pride that she had turned out like that in the world she was born into. In another lifetime, she could have been everything she hated.

As such, she was afforded all of the privacy and luxury that money could buy.

No one, absolutely no one interrupted her sleep, not the domestic staff that she had been raised with, and certainly not her parents. She became every part of what they world expected her to be when someone roused her from sleep – a complete and total raging bitch. With that in mind, it came to Rachel's complete surprise when someone tried to do that – that squeaky floorboard before her door gave them away very easily. As she lay there, drifting in and out and unconsciousness, the constant squeak of that floorboard drove her right into fully fledged awareness.

It also drove her to the M.U.S.K.E.T. that she kept underneath her pillow.

She did not survive this long, fight so many battles and successfully lead and run the Kids Next Door without being cautious. Some would call her paranoid, and possibly arrogant. Who would want to target the former leader of the Kids Next Door after all? But Rachel preferred had preferred it this way, safe and secure.

Aiming her favorite weapon at the door, Rachel scowled.

Whoever was behind the door had guts, she would give them that, there were not many people who would even attempt to do so.

Just as she was about to crawl out of bed and confront them directly, the door opened, and the shock of blonde hair did nothing to help her irritation. The only thing that Chad Dickson was a threat to was her nerves – and that was something that she could tolerate, albeit reluctantly. It wasn't something that she'd shoot, but if Chad thought that she was going to tolerate him breaking into her bedroom, he was sadly mistaken. This was her most private sanctuary and he was violating it.

Lowering her weapon slowly, Rachel frowned him.

"Numbuh 274," She growled irritably and tossed the weapon onto my bedside table, before pulling myself out of my bed and marching over to him. "What an unexpected pleasure. As you can see, I'm not ready to see you, let me show you to the door? Perhaps the window? Whatever exit you're most comfortable leaving by."

It was only then that she noticed that Chad wasn't looking at her face, he was, in fact, looking down at her legs. Scowling in confusion and wondering what would possibly be so interesting to him, she looked down and blushed. She had been so exhausted after the party that she had just threw her dress over the chair and collapsed onto the bed. As a result, she was now she was facing Chad in a very nice pair of red lace underwear. Her face, consequently, was a shade redder than them.

"Lace? Red lace?" Chad's eyes grew enormously. "Very interesting."

Her fury only grew as Chad's head move slightly and his eyes circled around to land distinctly on her backside, "Very impressive, I didn't know you had it in you, Rach."

Rachel wanted to slap the living daylights out of him.

"Other than to ogle me, why did you break into my house?" Rachel glared at him.

"I didn't break in," Chad shook his head and then turned on his heels to go towards my closet. "A very nice maid showed me to your mother, and she let me come up."

Why did Rachel assume that her mother was attempting to send her a message?

Watching in complete surprise as Chad opened her closet doors, Rachel should have realized that this was Numbuh 274 she was thinking about. Without missing a beat, Chad's fingers found the activating switch in the side of the doorframe, and when he stepped back, the very walls of the closet began to rotate. Little did her parents know, a crew of Kids Next Door engineers had come into her bedroom years ago and transformed the entire wall of her bedroom. She now had a direct uplink to the computer systems of KND Global Command, as well as a personal weapons armory.

Since then, every leader of the Kids Next Door had one.

But Chad had come before her and she was the one to set the precedent.

"How did you-...?" Rachel babbled slightly and blinked at Chad in confusion.

Chad grinned and ran a few fingers through his hair, "I keep tabs on everyone that I deem important enough to do so, that includes you. That, and I have one too, and very eerily in the same place too - it was more of a lucky guess than anything."

"You have one of these?" The former leader in her couldn't help but jump slightly.

She kept forgetting that the Kids Next Door was Chad's baby and, undercover or not, he would want to keep track of it from the inside. If he had an authorized uplink to Global Command from his very bedroom, that would never have been able to track it. He would have been able to spy on them with very, very little effort.

"You realize of course that if you had genuinely turned, you could have destroyed the leadership of the Kids Next Door with a single button," From his room, he could have detached the Moonbase, or activated it's self destruct sequence. "Do you?"

"If I had turned," Chad nodded, but his eyes did not meet mine. "Same question."

Could she have done the same thing? Of course she could have, she had been the Supreme Leader, she was powerful, just as powerful as Chad, and smarter than him too. There was no reason not to suggest that she could have down all of that.

But he was right, she hadn't - and neither had he, so it didn't matter.

"I cannot believe that you kept it," Rachel heard Chad whisper as he walked closer to the now exposed armory. The former Supreme Leader, watched her fellow former Supreme Leader, as he eyed her precious yellow jacket on it's mannequin.

"You can't?" She answered back, her voice was calm, her voice was low.

That damned jumper was something that she carried with her for all of her days in the Kids Next Door after Chad's betrayal. She either had it directly in her possession or wore it every single day from her promotion, towards her "retirement" and when she retired, she sealed in that case. She had worn almost religious determination for a few reasons - one of them was standing in her room.

The jumper had originally belonged to him, a long time ago.

"It's so small, I can't believe this used to fit me," The expression on Chad's face seemed to be genuine amusement and warmth as he observed the old sweater.

Chad had given it to her on her first day of basic training at the Arctic Base.

She could remember being so flattered, and feeling so special that the legendary Numbuh 274 had even spared her a second glance. It was a treasured item for years afterwards and even when Chad defected, it was something that held a great deal of importance in her life. She wore, all of those years afterwards, as something of a reminder. A reminder of things when they were better, when life was golden.

When she had him.

"Why are you here Chad?" She asked him quietly.

The fight was taken out of her when she saw that sweater and it was no feint.

"Did you review the commands on the flash drive?" Chad stepped away from the case and turned to her – the cockiness and lecherousness gone from his voice as well. Rachel would very much liked to have thought that the jumper had done that.

She nodded and folded her arms over her chest, "I did."

Chad's eyebrows rose, "And?"

Rachel tried to ignore the fact that Chad was attempting to debrief her in her bedroom, on a Sunday morning, with her standing in only her underwear, "And I find the reports vague, I don't see why Global Command would place us on stand by for something that isn't our problem. If aliens are fighting, what's it to us?"

"You asked the right question," Chad smiled slightly. "Are you ready to know?"

"I was the Supreme Leader, I know everything about the KND," Rachel glowered.

Chad gave her that look that he used to give her, back in the old days, back when she would have the gall to question his sacred commandments. That was what had literally separated her from the rest of the Kids Next Door, she seemed to be the only one that had been willing to question him, even in Basic Training. Perhaps that was why he had brought her up to the Moonbase after such a long time as a spy.

"You don't know this, no other Supreme Leader does," Chad put his hands on his hips and scowled at her. "First things first though, do you have a S.C.A.M.P.E.R.?"

"Why would I?" Rachel blithely ignoring his questioning.

He pressed forward with his look and Rachel sighed irritably – before pointing to the exposed armory and to one of the key rings in the upper left hand corner. Contrary to policy for general Kids Next Door operatives, sworn members of the TND were allowed to keep their equipment. Her parent's massive estate had given her the unique ability to hold a plethora of KND 2x4 technology – including several ships.

"Third key from the right, it has the rabbit foot on it," Rachel looked down in defeat.

"And where is it?" Chad followed up again as he went towards the key chain.

"Back in bunker in the forrest behind the pool," Rachel made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "Just go back past the pool, and press the red button on the pad."

"Understood," Chad replied as he grabbed the keys off of the hook and departed back towards the bedroom door. "And Rachel, if you don't mind me saying…"

"That's usually not the case," She shook her head.

"You have a really nice ass," Chad remarked.

And before she could even try to slap him – he was gone.