On Vandar several months before.

The twins finally caught Ben hiking alone on a hiking trail just outside of town. The twins dropped in front of him from a tall oak tree and drove a fist into his stomach careful to hit low enough that they wouldn’t do further damage to the broken ribs their cyborg vision had picked up on earlier. Ben gasped in pain. “The impossible dream.” They both said in unison. “Sorry, we need a video link, Ben, they monitor us tightly on missions and will notice a blank in the video feed.”

“I’ll have it for you soon but you’ll have to extend your time to be free of the cyborg codes to at least thirty minutes for me to install what is needed,” Ben grunted from the ground.

“Later is better than never. Our time is up. Sorry for this. We’ll work to avoid those ribs of yours”

Ben gritted his teeth to brace himself, “It’s okay I understand. But could you leave it so my parents won’t ask too many questions?” They nodded in unison and started in. Ben lay gasping in pain for a bit.

Odette saw Ben lying on the trail and ran to him. “Are you okay.”? Was it Mitchel?”

Ben shook his head no. “It was the twins. They had no choice.” He gasped as she touched a bruise on his back.

Odette narrowed her eyes at him. She knew of Ben’s covert activities. “Is it really worth it?” She almost regretted it coming out of her mouth. Ben was the patient sort so he graciously answered it.

Odette helped brush off the dirt from his clothes. “If I can free them up so they aren’t forced to murder another innocent person then it will all be worth it.” He said with a grunt as Odette helped him up.

Odette looked toward where the twins lived. “I know that Ben. It’s just those two boys make me nervous.”

“Why? Aleck never made you nervous. And she is as much of a puppet as they are. They aren’t monsters, Odette they’re just run by monsters.”

“I know that Ben. But they’re not Aleck either. They're darker than her and they’re wildly unpredictable. Neither had the help that Aleck had to face the pain of the terrible things they went through. I’m afraid that one day those two will snap in some terrible way if they don’t get help.”

“So find a way to help them.” Said Ben, as he limped down the path towards her dad's medical clinic.

“I’m no psychologist Ben. ”

“But you got a knack for people and I know with a little research you could figure it out.” Ben paused to catch his breath that was coming up short.

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it. Come on let's go take care of those new bruises.” She said ending the conversation while biting her bottom lip as a small idea edged its way into her mind.

…..................................................................................................................................

Shem and Payton stared through the thick underbrush at the house of the family that was about to die at their hands. There were baby toys in the yard. Their stomachs churned in dread. But they both knew from terrible experiences that if they did not kill the children, the controller would take over their bodies and torture and kill the children slowly with their hands while they watched helplessly.

Then a glimmer of hope started in their minds. They could use the virus to make it look as if the children were not there. The parents they could not save, but the children, at least the children, this time they could.

They used their Borg-enhanced legs to jump over the twelve-foot security fence. They scanned outside the house until they found the adult-sized reading. They jumped silently on the window sill. They quickly disabled the alarms, deactivated the electronic lock, and entered with deadly silence. The couple in the bed never even woke up.

They then walked the house like they were always forced to do in time past. They evoked the virus as they approached the children’s bedrooms and walked past, able to disobey the order to search and kill everything in every room. They exited silently out the back door and headed home.

________________________________________________________________

The twins entered the ice cream parlor. They ordered ice cream, invoked the virus, and made their way down to Ben’s basement where Ben and Odette waited for them. They turned to Odette, “and you’re here why?” They said in unison.

“I’m here because I thought of something you didn’t.”

The twins glanced at each other amused, they were war veterans. What could she, a civilian, have thought of? They both lay on the old worn brown leather couches as Ben quickly set to work on them. “And what is that?” they said in perfect unison, which only true twins can manage.

Odette held a tiny set of chips in her hand. “I have a plan to take care of the trouble a lack of bodies could create. You need to leave a little early each time on your missions to hit the inner-city mortuary in whatever city you go through. Insert this control chip into the spine and the little chips into the legs to control the legs into the nearest nameless body in the crypts. Use it with this remote control to move it to replace the bodies you supposedly shot. Make sure your body count is correct beforehand as you’ll need a body for each person. And make sure you burn the bodies with your energy weapon enough that dental records can’t be verified.”

The twins looked up surprised. Lack of bodies was a problem they didn’t think of. They never stuck around long enough to discover what happened to the dead afterward. Payton smiled gratefully. “Thanks, Odette, I guess being the daughter of a medic and the town’s morticians comes in handy. Once again, brilliant Ben.”

Ben shrugged nonchalantly. “I was am not comfortable with stealing bodies. I know, I know it’s the only way to save lives. Here, the fake video link is complete.”

Ben looked very upset as he embedded the links. “Ben are you okay.” Oddette asked concerned.

“ I had to use real videos from their assassinations in the past to enable the fake ones. Watching people get really murdered was horrible but I had to go through the footage in detail. The fake footage has to be real enough to convince anyone that the assassinations are really happening. Even though they won’t be really happening.”

“Our time is almost up. Thank Ben, for everything.” The boys ran back to the ice cream shop above.

One advantage of being a cyborg was the ability to upload and download any information wanted from the computer directly. Though to anyone looking, a finger plugged into a USB port looks pretty funky. It did not take the twins long to find the information they needed. This was the thirtieth successful raid they had so far. The families they saved understood they needed to disappear and did. The boys took off for the morgue at the seedy underside of Valerian City.

The house of the head director of military investigations in Valron city was fairly simple given the man’s income. The boys went in with a show of violence burning down property left and right. They gathered the family together and explained to the family under gunpoint what was happening, only this time there was a problem. The man had a guest they hadn’t counted on. There was a chance the controller knew the guest would be there and wanted the guest dead as well. Quickly adding another kill to the fake video feed was easy but having an accurate body count was a problem. While they had the guns pointed at the family they talked among themselves. “We’re short a body, what do we do?”

The other twin shrugged and said, “Call Ben.”

Ben groaned groggily as he heard a blaring sound from his message board. He glanced over and saw it was the twins. He hit the answer key. “At two in the morning, this better be good!”

“They had an extra visitor and we need you to go grab an extra body from the morgue.”

Ben woke up fully with eyes wide open and he said loud enough that the director, family, and the head agent who was visiting couldn’t help but hear. “You want me to what???!!!!!! Are you kidding my parents will kill me if they find out!” In spite of the situation, both the director and head agent glanced at each other with a bemused expression on their face.

“Look, we have no choice here unless you wish us to shoot a totally innocent man to be able to make the body count. Anyways if you get caught stealing a body from the morgue your mom and dad will be the least of your worries.”

“Really, seriously, that is supposed to make me feel better. I supposed there’s no better option though. So I’ll do it. I don’t like it. But I’ll do it.” He stopped the transmission. The twins glanced at each other as the director actually chuckled.

The director looked at the boys with sympathy. “You don’t have to hold the guns on us. We’ll help you help us.” The boys considered and then nodded and went out of battle mode into normal. The director signed for them to come up to the table to make a plan.

......................................................................................

Ben, rubbed his eyes groggily. He already had a lack of sleep from having recurring nightmares of the things he saw in the twin's video feeds. He grabbed an energy drink from his little fridge and tiptoed up the stairs. For the first time ever, found himself sneaking out of his parent’s house. Guilt rolled in as he took the keys hanging trustingly from the key ring inside of the hall. Unlike his older brother, his parents gave him a ton of freedom because they trusted him absolutely.

He borrowed his mother’s battered grey but very clean mini-van. He used quite a bit of his own savings to pay for a two-way teleport for a van but then again what was the price of a life? He prayed fearfully as he drove through the dead of night through one of the most gang-ridden and dangerous places in Vandar until he reached the morgue.

He followed the twin’s directions exactly on how to enter the Morgue. He felt his stomach roll from the stench of the unknown corpse. He inserted the chips and started the corpse walking towards his parent's van. He looked around and swallowed as he opened the back and quickly ordered the body in. He held his breath and tried not to gag as he drove to the address. Unknown to him a gang was watching but hung back in uncertain fear. They weren’t about to mess with a bro that could make a zombie out of the body of a rival gang member.

He followed the GPS directions to the house. Luckily given the stench from the back, the drive was short. He came in with the corpse and waved hello to the family who sat rather calmly with the twins. He turned to the twins and said. “You’re helping me get that stench out of my mom’s van. If she finds out I snuck out and took it I’m dead.”

The twins patted Ben on the back. They burned the body to an unrecognizable husk. The agents and director help set bombs to go off at key places in the house. They left and soon the house was in flames. The twins turned and glared as the agent got a call.

“We are running out of time on the virus. When we said ‘destroy everything’ that included cell phones that can be tracked.”

The agent waved away the boy’s concern as he stood listening to whoever was on the other end. He hung up and smiled at the boys. “Good news, we located your runners and they’re dead though it looks like someone beat us to the punch on getting to them. They got shot by a sniper carrying an unusual choice of weapon just twenty minutes ago, an HLGSR 1050.”

The twins and Ben gawked at the agent and the director. They realized they had been set up quite nicely. The director explained. “The people you rescued so far are top dogs in the government. They were grateful for the rescues and requested the IWIA specifically help in finding out who your Runners were.

Though you found unique ways to get around the Runner’s commands, the problem was the people you rescued could not go on with their normal lives until your controllers were found.” The boys closed their eyes in tear-filled relief. They were free of their Runners at last. Ben was happy for them. Though still nervous, he was also secretly thrilled that he’d actually met agents from the Inter-Worlds Investigation Agency.

“And don’t worry about your van Ben, we’ll go over to the IWIA agency and our forensics team has stuff that can clean it up A-Sap.” Ben went over with them and was amazed at their technology. He had an amazing conversation with the head of the computer divisions. She was a beautiful lady with short black curly hair, and Ben definitely had a crush. True to the promise they had the back of the Van cleaned up perfectly within twenty minutes.

…......................................................................................................................................

At the same time that the twins had headed off for the assassination, the favor Uncle Donny called in some time ago with some old Marine buddies came through. They had tracked and confirmed the location of the boys’ Runners Uncle Donny went and grabbed his favorite rifle. Though most considered the HLGSR 1050 to be incredibly inaccurate Uncle knew its secret well. It was actually the most accurate rifle he ever ran into as a marksman for the Marines. It was guaranteed 100% of the time to shoot off target five feet to the left exactly. If one knew that and were a skilled marksman it was 99% guaranteed shot the one percent was due to human equations and not due to the gun

Aunt Karla grabbed his arm as she saw him head out the door. He turned and touched her face lovingly. He knew this was hard for her but she was strong enough to handle the truth. ”Jareth message came through and confirmed General Wallock is no longer in control. Thanks to an old marine buddy of mine, I now know who is controlling the twins; I’m ending it for them now.” She kissed her husband fiercely goodbye and watched prayerfully as he climbed in the truck and left.

Uncle Donny slipped on his old night vision gear, grateful it still worked as he made his way through a fair piece of woods. His sensors confirmed the location of the men who controlled his nephews. The scope in his sites confirmed the face of the men were the targets he sought. Two shots rang out in the dark in rapid succession. They were direct hits to both men’s foreheads. Uncle Donny changed riffles and aimed for the wall behind the computer. The bug went directly into the wall and sent out a signal that shut down all control signals keeping them from going out for good. He then got up and walked back to his truck careful to cover any revealing tracks and drove off.

The boys walked into the living room just in time to see Uncle Donny finish cleaning his HLGSR1050. The boys then ran to hug their uncle. “Thank You!” they both said as they both broke into sobs onto Uncle Donny’s shoulders. “Free at last!” Uncle Donny held both boys closely like he always longed to and cried with them.

Aunt Karla walked in with Dr. Bastion (she had been busy on the phone while Uncle Donny was out). The boys turned defensively to their aunt. “Aunt we don’t need…”

“Maybe not. But do it to make me feel better to know that you’re completely okay.” She touched and wiped tears away from their tear-splotched faces.

She was free at last too. Free to help her nephews heal from the terrible pain they kept bottled inside their way too serious souls.

The boys shrugged, really what could it hurt, if it made Aunt Karla happy. They went willingly with the doctor to the hospital. They soon found it hurt more than they imagined yet helped as well. For the first time, the boys remembered in ages a small bit of happiness crept back into their damaged souls. Odette was right about those two being a ticking time bomb. Luckily Aunt Karla recognized it as well. They ended up taking longer to heal in the hospital than Aleck did.