As Qi Lian pushed the car with ease over the embankment into the creek she looked around her. It was rare in her life that she had been able to take the time and just enjoy nature around her. Her entire life had been governed by the program. She took a deep breath, taking in the smell of the large pine trees that surrounded her ragtag group. She looked up and could see that the pine trees here were quite tall and had a large girth, too large to wrap your arms around. They were the giants of the forest here. Then she looked down at her astonished adopted crew. The only one who was not astonished of course was Qi Wei, a fellow program participant.

Qi Lian and Qi Wei had been raised as family, indeed they had the same family name. They thought of each other as brother and sister, though the truth was a bit more complicated than that. Lian knew that she couldn't put off telling this group the whole story anymore. They were in great danger being with her, and they needed to know why. So Lian decided now was the time to tell them, though she was dreading it.

"Clayton the program you are referring to is known as Red Tide. It started 18 years ago. The Chinese government had assembled a truly impressive team of medical doctors, biologists, chemists, computer scientists and mathematicians and of course military personnel. Red Tide was kept under complete silence to anyone outside the group, with the exception of only the President of the Communist Party."

Qi Lian stopped for a moment to take in another breath of air, enjoying the smell of pine once more. Lian then realized that they needed to get moving, or risk being captured.

"We will jog and talk. We have another vehicle about a mile that way." Qi Lian said.

The members of the group began a light jog, allowing for Darnell to keep up. His old body couldn't move as fast as it once had, but he was still quite spry for his age. The remainder of the group remained in complete silence, captivated by the story Qi Lian was telling them.

"Any members of that group who seemed to be even remotely a threat of leaking information were executed immediately. The Chinese government had at that point had made it clear that they wanted bigger and better artificial intelligence abilities. This group was assembled to put that AI to use. They spent several months assembling a state of the art AI that was built to do one thing: build a better soldier."

"Hold up, when you say build a better soldier what do you mean by "build", you told me no robots so what?" Clayton asked.

"When I say build a better soldier, I mean a living; breathing, soldier. Soldiers in a petri dish as it were. The AI assisted in helping to design babies that would grow into incredible soldiers. You see the Chinese military envisioned an army of thousands that could topple opposing armies millions strong. They were trying to think outside of the box to gain an advantage. Mainly against the US government."

"Is that what this attack on our country is all about? Is the Chinese government trying to take over the United States?"

"No this assault was not led by the Chinese government at all. This was a strike directly by Red Tide soldiers. They came up with the idea."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because I am one of them, and so is Qi Wei."

Clayton reached for his sidearm that he was carrying, he had felt funny about these two. Now they were telling him they were the enemy. But before Clayton could even pull the sidearm out of its holster he felt a pain in his chest and fell to the ground. Clayton could hear the ruffling of the leaves on the ground and could feel his bones creaking from the force of hitting the ground. As Clayton laid on the ground he realized that Qi Wei was on top of him. It was as if he had come out of no where.

"How, how, how did you do that Qi Wei, I mmmean how did you move that fast?" Nia asked.

"Please Clayton do understand, we were there to try and do something about the assault on the NSA, not participating in it." Qi Wei said as he helped Clayton back to his feet.

"As I was saying we are Red Tide soldiers yes, but we did not participate in their ultimate plan. As to your question Nia, Qi Wei moved so fast because that was all part of the experiment. The AI was designed to help the group identify ways to alter the genetic makeup of humans, to make them better in every way. They wanted the Red Tide soldiers to be stronger and faster than the average human. They wanted us to have an enhanced sense of hearing and to be capable of going for longer periods of time without food, without water and without sleep than the average human. They wanted to design the perfect soldier in a test tube. As you can see they succeeded. Clayton what you saw earlier today was a Red Tide soldier, moving at a much higher speed than any normal human can. In fact we can run about 4 times faster than the fastest of humans."

"Then why even bother making you human, why not build a robot or something like that?" Clayton asked, brushing himself off, and still a bit shaken from the crushing blow he had absorbed from Qi Wei.

"They also wanted us to be able to blend in. We could be even more than just simple soldiers you see, we could be intelligence gatherers as well. The possibilities were limitless with an enhanced human. At that time it didn't seem realistic to make a robot with the capability of blending in to society." Qi Lian explained.

A silence befell the group, as the Johnson's tried to process all that they had just heard. It was unbelievable and yet at the same time they had already seen demonstrations of the incredible abilities of Qi Lian and Qi Wei.

After jogging a ways more the group arrived at the vehicle and Qi Lian began to explain more as she signaled to them to load the car with their belongings.

"There was a problem with the program however. They couldn't figure how to make the human grow faster, without trading off on the enhanced abilities. So instead they produced a "batch" of babies and waited for them, I mean us, to grow." Qi Lian explained.

"And how many were in this batch?" Clayton asked.

"5,000 in the original batch, another 5,000 in the second batch 10 years later." Qi Wei said.

"Your telling me there are 10,000 of you?" Clayton exclaimed.

"Well there are 5,000 adults and 5,000 8 year old children, but yes." Qi Wei said.

By this point all members of the group had loaded themselves into the car and Qi Lian took the drivers seat. Reality was sinking in, especially for Clayton.

"How are we supposed to take on 5,000 of you?" Clayton asked.

"That is a question we are not entirely sure of the answer to. But billions of lives hang in the balance." Qi Lian responded.

And with that the car began creeping forward, heading North.