The ORION Project | ✔

chapter 28

September, 1999

To Toluwanimi Kingston,

My best friend, my lover, my husband, I've fought a thousand battles with you by my side, if you are reading this then I have failed, I lied and told you everything would be alright.

We might have lost this one, but believe me, as long as I once existed, once lived, once loved, I will never throw you to the wolves without a gun strapped to your back.

Writing Project Eden for almost ten years gave me the time to write a solution, a fail safe if it came to that, you will know when it is time to find out — just look at the rising sun.

Do you remember when we first met? I had been reading Sun Tzu's Art Of War and I had quoted a part of the book to you, somehow you stayed to listen, even quietly teasing me that no reasonable student went to the library to read the most boring book to have ever been written. Even then, you had never been able to stomach conflict and I have watched this conflict weigh you down, I wish I could have done different.

If you remember, I told you I would one day write my own The Art Of War and I have and I have entrusted it in the safest place I know, don't bother looking for it.

This would be the part where I say goodbye but what good will that do? Except cause you more misery. Instead, I want to swear an oath to you, I swear never to let the bad guys win, that was our motto, what we fought for.

I'm not letting you do this alone, you will find help in the most unlikely places and when you do, maybe they will remind you that you're not alone, because when I swore to you that you were stuck with me forever, I meant even after the unknown.

Live —
— Tamika Afolabi Kingston.

November, 1999

To my rising sun,

I haven't met you yet, and I will only get to stare into your face once before it happens. But you are my greatest creation, my eden. Your father wanted to name you after the most precious thing he could find, I wanted to keep calling you my sun and in the end we could never agree on a name, but whatever name you're called will not matter, you might named after the prettiest flower but you are ten times fiercer, ten times smarter.

I am proud of you, and I am sorry, you deserve better. But if you ever find the truth, know that I did everything with love in my heart for you, it is no excuse but the pathetic part of me hopes you will forgive me.

I am sorry because you will never grow up without having people who will do everything in their power to find you and haunt you. But you are my final attempt at redemption and you have your own art of war written for you.

Most important of all, you are loved, Sol Toluwanimi Kingston Afolabi. My sun.

— from your mother.

***

The lights flickered back on barely a second later, but fear was already slithering down her spine, and when she looked, Grace caught the slightest hint of that same fear flicker in Remilekun Phillips' eyes but he turned away too fast without another word  and his son followed.

They didn't even cast a glance of apology her way and when Grace looked at Ann and her colleagues, they were frantically trying to boot the computers in front of them.

"We're fucked." She heard Ann exclaim.

Grace didn't wait a second later, she left the room, bursting into the outer control room that was a cacophony of noise and movement, from what she saw, the computer screens were blank and all attempts to boot it failed. She caught one frustrated man jab at the keyboard before sending it flying out of his cubicle. His colleagues were rising from their office seats and milling in and out the doors.