It was the Tuesday a week and a half before Spring Break, and the students at Fort Delta High School had just gotten some bad news. Classes had been canceled until after Spring Break because most of their parents had been captured and were being held hostage by Cobra.
"Well, you two are the oldest of us all, so basically that means you're in charge. Does anyone have any ideas about what we can do?" asked the blond girl, Avery Forrest, sitting on the arm of the couch, the youngest female of the group at eleven and a half.
Sixteen-year-old EJ Steen and his twin sister, AJ, looked at the assemblage of teen and tweenagers grouped around the basement rec room in the dorm.
"I have no ideas about what to do," he stated forlornly.
"Where's my sign?" asked AJ, suddenly.
"Sign? What sign? I don't see any sign," Crispin Hauser deadpanned. A tall, bronze haired girl that had been leaning against the wall reached forward and smacked him in the back of the head.
"This is serious, Hauser," she growled, baring her teeth.
"Knock it off, Barney," Blair Parker stated. "That's why the Cobras are always getting their butts kicked- dissension in the ranks."
Jamie Barney flashed her a bit of sign language that everybody in the room understood. "Bite me," she growled, laughing.
"The one that says 'Bang Head Here' in the center of a bull's-eye, dorkwad. I can't believe that I'm actually that stupid sometimes. What do we have on our side that Cobra doesn't?" asked AJ after a couple of minutes' thought.
"Um, brains?" Jamie offered. "Guts? Nuts?"
Everyone else looked at her like she'd flipped her lid.
"Okay, for those who don't have the ability to think like me, what we have on our side is the element of surprise and we have the decent training that they don't. What is the one thing that Cobra would never expect? Heck, what would our parents never expect? Us. For us to be the ones to bust them out," AJ explained, excitedly.
"Well, AJ," Christine Abernathy started, "How would we be able to infiltrate the base? There's quite a few in here that can't be quiet to save their own lives, much less our parents'."
"Simple," EJ stated, catching on to his twin's thought process, "It's Spring Break starting Monday week, so if we all just go home tonight, it won't be anything unusual. We can just say that they let us out early for the holiday. After that we just start grouping at our house to 'study'. Nothing wrong with that."
AJ reached for her notebook and turns to an empty page near the back, beginning to draw diagrams and notes in her own shorthand which was only known to herself and her friends.
"Ooh, can we use code names, like they do?" asked DJ Faireborn, acting stupid for a change.
"Heck, why not?" answered EJ. "DJ, you'll be Diplomat, because you can talk your way out of just about anything. Christine, you're Rottweiler, 'cause when you sink your teeth into something, you don't let go. Cheyenne, you're Illusion, Serena, you're Apache, Jamie- Shortstop, Wendy- Freefall, Crispin- Mountie, AJ- you're the Painkiller, Tommie can be Klutz, Ericka, you can be TNT, because you are dynamite in more ways than one, Ritchie, you'll be known as Phantasm and I'll be known as Overdose." He names off more of the kids and AJ writes them into the notebook that she's scribbling in.
"And yes, Sydney will be included. I think she'll be called 'Spearfish', and Trini, you'll be Earthmover," EJ concluded, also signing the statement to the deaf girl.
"Everyone go pack a duffle with at least a week's worth of clothes and underneath them, and in between layers, our knives and assorted other weaponry that you think we'll need. Cheyenne, Ritchie, we will definitely need your lockpick kits, and Jamie, bring that little pocket laser that you've been working on. Trini, don't forget your toolkit," declared AJ. The group breaks up and each teen heads to their dorm room to pack.