Link Six (completed)

Chapter 32 - Kidnapping

"These are the weapons we're supposed to keep under 24-hour surveillance?" Drew asks his sister, as she backs the van out of the alley. "They're children."

"They're not just children, little brother," Donna replies.

"Yeah, yeah," Drew rolls his eyes. "They're recruits. But, normally we don't snatch kids while recruiting. Both the parents and the kids consent to joining the program."

"And, that's where your wrong, again." Donna says. "If they were just recruits would we go through all the trouble of booking a spot on a full cruise, and flying a private plane to Grand Bahama?"

"Don't forget drugging, and kidnapping." Drew adds in an accusatory tone.

Donna frowns. "We both knew what we were getting into when we joined this."

"I didn't know it would entail kidnapping. When they told us we had the first shot at procuring the weapons, I assumed they meant actual weapons, not kids." Drew says.

"Little brother, what you don't understand, is that these aren't like any other recruit. They're the kids that the program's had their eyes on for years. Months of planning went into this, maybe even years." Donna tells him.

"What do you mean?" Drew wants to know. Donna glances in the rear-view mirror at the unconscious handcuffed kids. She still lowers her voice, incase x2 could hear her.

"Remember that experiment a few years ago, on strengthening the natural 'twinstincts' twins have?" Donna asks him.

"Yeah?" Drew gestures for her to get to the point.

"Well, after a few failed attempts, x1 and y1 were the first fetuses that survived the injection," Donna explains. "A year later, he succeeded again with y2 and y3, and a year after that he had another successful run with x2 and x3. They're the first and only supertwins. He needs them because he no longer has the resources to make more."

"So, that's how we're justifying kidnapping them? By referring to them as letters instead of names," Drew replies.

Donna pries her eyes from the road to glare at Drew. "The boss has been waiting years for these kids. We can't move forward without them." She focuses back on the road.

Drew frowns thoughtfully. He can understand the kids' importance, but what he can't understand is why they needed to kidnap them.

"Why didn't we just recruit them, like with all the others their age being trained for this?"  Drew asks.

"Because, we recruited the others when they were babies. Parents always want what's best for their kids, and we offered them a way to make their kids into the best twins they could be. We couldn't do that with these kids' parents, because they'd already been raising them for almost a decade; they already think they know what's best for the kids," Donna points out.

"So why now? Why didn't we pounce on them when their abilities first manifested?" Drew wants to know.

"You ask too many questions. Don't you think the boss would have told you if he wanted you to know?" Donna asks him.

"Why now?" Drew repeats.

Donna sighs. "Because, little brother, we couldn't pounce on them before, because the boss is the only one who knows how to get them under control. That camp made them stronger than he anticipated. He expected them to merely gain deftness at activating and deactivating their powers. Instead, they learned tricks he didn't even know they possessed. They trained themselves just as well as we could have trained them. Maybe even...better." She frowns at that last bit.