A/N: Sorry this took so long. I finally regained interest in working on this story again. I only hope some of those that were following it regain that interest as well.
Ben decided it would be a good idea for the boys to have their faces covered in the same face-paint he and Bonnie were wearing. It brought enthusiastic reactions from them. But it was time to get moving, so it went on rather sloppily as Ben painted with one hand while leaning into the rear from his seat.
Bonnie began a treacherous, zig-zag course through the dense woods to minimize flying through open spaces where they'd be more easily spotted by their pursuers. She estimated the time, at the rate they were going, to the safe house that was expecting them - prepared to receive them was more accurate, since a successful escape was more theory than fact - was a half-hour at best. Wiping the dark paint from his hands onto his black pants, Ben turned in his seat to grin at the boys, watching out the windows for danger as he did. The roofport remained open. The sky was bright with stars and just a sliver of the slightly larger of Terrana's two moons. The other moon had 'set'; it was invisible in the daytime sky on the other side of the planet.
They had time to talk, but the boys were still wound up, so no really meaningful information was coming from them. Bonnie smiled at the sounds while concentrating; she dared not turn to look, though she was dying to just gaze into those faces. Ben was glad they were strapped in. Brick wanted to know more about the contraption that had rescued them; they had never been told what their father was going to do, out of fear they might accidentally say the wrong thing to one of their pre-execution 'caretakers'. They had only boasted to all that would listen that their Dad was smarter than anybody, and no way was he going to let them stay dead. So Brick kept peeking back to the rear compartment, and finally he twisted around enough to reach the wand, grab it, and 'pretend rescue' with it, aiming it out the open roof. His father warned him to be gentle with it, knowing the bright, inquisitive boy would.
Butch was squirming in his harness, straining to see ahead in the dark. "C'mon, Mom, won't this tub go any faster?"
"Not without getting closer to these trees than I want to."
"Aw, but that's the fun of it! Man, if we could fly, we'd be knockin' those suckas down, right, Boomer?"
"Yeah! Like we did those sissies! That was gnarly!"
"Word!" echoed Butch.
Brick grinned without looking away from the wand in his hands. "It was most definitely cool, which is to say that it did not suck, as things that suck are not cool."
His brothers cracked up. "That Mojo sure rocked!" Butch exclaimed.
As she dodged trees, Bonnie dared a single glance at her mate, who looked back at her, just as confused. "Suckas? Cool? Word? Rocked? Gnarly? SUCK?"
"Uh, guys, where did you learn to talk like that?" asked Ben, one eyebrow raised toward Brick.
"Uh…from Mojo."
"The talking monkey."
"Yeah!" Butch exclaimed enthusiastically. "He told us that to be real supervillains, we had to be mad, bad and rad, and that we had to be down with it, so he taught us how!" His brothers nodded vigorously, obviously down with it.
Ben said dryly, "In this same exact dream all of you had, he told you all this stuff your mother and I never heard of, let alone taught you."
Butch shrugged. "I guess."
"And I don't like all this bad guy nonsense and calling girls sissies."
"Sorry, Mom," Brick apologized again. "It's just that we were really, really mad at those girls for some reason."
"But I'm not mad at 'em anymore," Boomer said. "I'm not as rowdy as I used to be," he added proudly, puffing up his little chest.
"Yeah, I guess we ain't the Rowdy Ruff Boys no more," Butch sighed, obviously wishing that they still were.
"You aren't the Rowdy Ruff Boys anymore," Bonnie corrected.
"That's what I said!"
"Never mind," Ben told her with a smirk. "What cool name did those girls you met call themselves?"
The three had to think about it for a second. Butch went first. "Ah, they didn't. But Mojo called 'em the-"
"Hey Dad!" Brick interrupted, his eyes on the device's readout. "This thing is doin' something!"
Ben froze for only a second. "Brick, hold that wand right where it is. Butch, reach over carefully and turn the display where I can see it. Bonnie, get ready to stop."
"I'm stopping. We never thought we might find anyone else tonight!"
"Yes, getting to the house can wait," Ben answered.
Boomer was thrilled. "Dad, you mean we found some other kids?"
Agatha Ruff was a deeply troubled woman.
It hadn't thus far affected her stunning good looks, though, like the stress had affected her husband recently. Now in late middle-age at 77, she had aged gracefully; her long blonde hair that had turned many men's heads to no avail, for them, had not a single silver one amongst them, and her face and figure were those of a woman 20 years younger. She took care of herself; they both had, with exercise and a proper diet.
But on the inside, she was a mess. Pride in her only child following in her scientific footsteps had been forced aside out of loyalty to her fiercely stubborn mate. Benjamin had disgraced his family by shunning a life of public service - Preston's opinion, not hers - by not wanting to carry on the family name in the Senate. It was as though the son had taken his birthright and dragged it through the mud before flinging it in his father's face - again, the elder Ruff's view. So, when her mate had severed ties with his son, she'd really had no choice but to consent, but not until first giving Preston a fierce argument from a mother's perspective.
From a scientist's perspective, she was also troubled. As one of Terrana's leading geneticists, she was aware of the recent increase in the rate of multiple births. It was something that shouldn't be happening. Any first-year student in the discipline would know that the opposite should be the case. With the genes that caused multiples identified and bred out of the population as much as possible as far back as a thousand years, any modern cases were attributed to some environmental cause. What individual factor might be involved, no one kept a record of or even cared – the anomalies were simply gotten rid of.
But over the last twenty years, a very short period of time, there had been a sudden spike in the rate. It was still considered an environment-based cause, to those that even paid attention. That the numbers of affected parents who were attempting to allow those offspring to live were also increasing wasn't a concern to authorities, or society. They were just criminals to be dealt with.
However, in the last two years, it had happened to two families within Agatha's sphere of influence. Both had done what they were supposed to – surrendered the offspring - but not without feeling the pain of loss. And it had happened to her family. It had actually happened five years ago, in her son's case; she had never known until the evening her husband had returned from his Senate office, very late, and told her of their only child's capture, and why. Having this tragedy touch her own life so suddenly caused her, in spite of the laws of both science and society that she had always believed in, to demand of Preston that he do something to save her son.
Ruff had told her all of the story; including the part involving Howard Chang's great wrong. Her frantic pleading had finished the job of convincing him that, in this one case, a criminal's life should be spared. She knew the real reason why Ben and his mate continued to live, and she didn't care that it broke one of those laws that she had been raised with. Because she knew that the other one must be enforced. She knew that her grandchildren would never know the love of grandparents. She had, in fact, thought of them as grandchildren, though it was kept to herself and the subject never discussed. Preston thought of them not at all, after his initial shock and shame of learning that his blood had been carried through into defects.
And, she of course knew what today was. She had contacts within the government facility. She had not wanted to know anything specifically about the boys, especially their names or what they looked like. She had enough trouble sleeping without those kinds of nightmares tormenting her. Better they remain faceless and nameless, for her health's sake. Since the government had started the 'de-atomizing' program, all executions now took place in government compounds, one on each continent. The continent of Brittannia's facility was right here in Paragon. What she did know – or had access to - was the numbers and statistical information of all seized, condemned offspring, including date of termination, at the Paragon facility.
All through that day, in her office at the research lab several kilometers away from that compound, it had occupied her thoughts. What must it have been like for her son and his mate? Today, and all this time between his capture and that moment of death for the boys whose faces she dared not imagine? And now, this.
Just a short time ago, she had stood three feet away from her husband as he took the call from Perth McAvoy. She had stood there in silence while her mate calmly - on the outside, anyway - explained to her what had happened, and stood there in silence while she watched him have to swallow his anger before that monster Chang, and assent to his own blood's execution. And when she had watched Preston leave the apartment moments later for the Senate chambers only a few city blocks away, and the emergency session that had been called, the man had seemed to have instantly aged fifteen years. Before her very eyes, he had turned into an old, old man.
She stood at the screened door leading to the balcony of their apartment on the fortieth floor of their building downtown. The warm evening breeze floated in as she viewed the twinkling lights of other buildings, and the passing hovercraft that navigated the flight lanes through and around the city. But she was only vaguely aware of these things as her mind turned thoughts over, and finally pushed them all away, save one. Amidst all this turmoil at this moment, Agatha Ruff had only one thought running through her mother's head, and heart:
Run, Benjamin. Run!
Benjamin wasn't running. Benjamin was staring. So were Bonnie and the boys, as the craft hovered quietly in a small clearing in the forest. Ben had taken the wand from Brick, very carefully, so as not to disturb the collection of particles that was now yielding a life-form in the containment chamber.
It was a girl. But not any ordinary child, or even more expected, an infant, as most of the dead were killed shortly after birth. This one appeared to be in her early teens, maybe thirteen or fourteen. She was dressed in the standard criminal's uniform; this one purple, to match her deeply colored eyes. Her hair was brown, long, and pulled back into a ponytail. The boys stared at her in wonderment as she lay curled up in the chamber. A twin would make a very tight fit in there, and should they be triplets, Ben would have to risk disturbing their slumber to remove one, something he would rather not do.
The boys didn't know, but Ben and Bonnie knew. She was one of the famous True twins. They were the longest-surviving fugitive multiples on Paragon, and their story had caught the public's imagination. Though played by the government press agency as a successful criminal investigation, the cause of the Underground had only been strengthened by it.
The girls, Polly and Molly, had, upon birth, been separated. But only by the distance of a few kilometers, in their medium-sized city on the western coast of Oceania. Their mother had showed larger than normal at three months, and fearing the worst, conspired with her sister to have that sister fake pregnancy. Should she actually give birth to twins, her sister would take one of them, and they would be raised as cousins. If not, the sister would have a 'failed' pregnancy. It didn't hurt that the two mates involved were of similar appearance; same build, same hair and eye color. It would make it easier to explain the eerily identical cousins, should that be the case. And that's what transpired.
It had forced some very creative upbringing and resulted in some close calls over the thirteen years the plan had succeeded. But time ran out on them. A suspicious individual reporting to a government agency, a swift nighttime raid by the local authorities, and a blood test to confirm it, and the twins were doomed. But a bit of carelessness by the authorities and a bit of help from the local Underground, and both sets of parents luckily had escaped, though the two women had wanted to die, for a time. The executions had taken place eighteen months ago.
And now, one of the True twins was back.
"I wonder which she is?" whispered Bonnie softly in the dark.
"I don't know," Ben answered. "I hope we find her sister before we get found."
Once they reached the safe house, the network would alert their compatriots thousands of kilometers and an ocean away of the news no one would believe…maybe. Suddenly, a 'whoosh' sounded over their heads, too loud and uniform in pitch to be something from a nightwing, one of the large predatory birds that populated the wild areas.
It was gone in an instant, but Ben was certain that it wouldn't be the last time they'd hear it.
"Come on…come on!" he urged the device in his hands, as if it could really listen to him.
Commander Rosella Bell peered through the dark from her seat to the left of the hovercraft's pilot, trying to search out the elusive quarry that the most advanced detection technology had been yet unable to find. Her night-vision goggles remained perched in the 'up' position on her head. She didn't like to rely on them until absolutely necessary; it was her opinion that the naked eye lost its natural nighttime acuity if you overused the goggles. She trusted her natural vision over the distortion the goggles caused.
Never one to be shy, she was the one who had spoken the question back at the hangar, as to the purpose of this mission. Just 26, she was one of the brightest young graduates of the academy in recent memory. A rising star, it was the stars that she was after. Her goal was to be the captain of a space vessel. Not one of the ordinary mining ships of which there were hundreds, traveling to the nine planets and their various moons and back with mineral and ore deposits. She wanted in on the Deep Space Exploration project.
Right now, though, she had a more immediate goal: Catch two fugitives and kill them. It was not her duty to question it, just do it. She hoped, like any good officer, to be fortunate enough to have her crew discover the escapees. She had confidence in herself and her crew that they could do the job. But she took very seriously the admonition to 'get it right'. She was not a loose cannon.
Her luminous pink eyes spoke to that. Pink eyes were unusual on Terrana, though not rare, as were white eyes like Howard Chang's. White eyes were seen as a sign of honesty and integrity; a pureness akin to the color itself. Pink was a sign of high intelligence. It was, of course, more perception than reality. The owners of eyes in the common colors of red, green, blue, violet, amber and brown were no more likely to be dimwitted or devious than anyone else. It was the scarcity that created this impression; those colors were a 'gift'. The genes for them were exceedingly recessive. Two parents with pink eyes were only mathematically slightly more likely to produce a pink-eyed child than any other combination. In Bell's case, though, the perception was reality.
She was in command of Team #7, or Team Orange. She had also been given command of the pair searching the West quadrant, her team and #8, Team Grey. Those names were the only thing that distinguished them; everyone's uniforms bore identical insignia patches. She had ordered Grey to take the slower approach from Base, while she did a fast flyover of the area, out to the point where it was believed, if the escapees had gotten past it, they would not be found. Her team would make a much slower return trip, scanning until they met up with Grey. The other three quadrantal pairs were doing the same thing.
Seeing nothing by the time they were 110 kilometers from home, Bell gave the order to turn back. Only a few minutes later, she would reach the large, forested area she had spotted during the flyover. It was a good place to hide a small hovercraft. A vessel like that could navigate the trees if pursuit wasn't an issue. Bell's craft wouldn't be able to pursue…but the robots would.
"Ah…I think I have her!" Ben exclaimed. Sure enough, while Bonnie and the boys continued to stare, the second of the two True girls came into view, next to her sleeping sister. These twins were identical, unlike many that were fraternal. The boys were fraternal triplets, all very much similar, but nowhere near as genetically alike.
"Whoa, Dad, this is awesome!" whistled Brick.
"Aw, they're just dumb girls," Butch complained, which earned him a frown from his mother.
Ben knew they needed to get moving. "Boys, unbuckle yourselves, climb in back, stay down and keep still," he ordered. The new arrivals needed somewhere to sit when they awoke, and needed some space in the cramped craft, in case they had a negative reaction. Ben didn't know how they might react.
He needn't have worried. The True sisters were strong. They had known that if they were ever caught, they would die. They had always dressed differently and styled their hair differently, up until they were captured. Then, in open defiance of their captors, the two immediately did everything they could to be as alike as possible. The news that came to them in prison, that their parents had all managed to escape, bolstered their spirits even further, and they had stood up proudly, insulting their executor even as the button was pushed.
The sisters had been trained well. Natural athletes, as well as highly intelligent, their abilities had been a perfect fit for the training they got. They were fully aware of what the Underground was, if not exactly who was in it. They had always held out some hope that they might be saved. Neither girl knew, of course, that their parents and their aunt and uncle, who had been Molly's de facto parents for most of her life, had been rescued by and were now members of the resistance movement. They had held out this hope as well, and all of it combined to make them as strong-willed as they were physically strong, ready for anything, but first, ready to see what it was they were facing and analyze, before taking action.
The boys had more or less settled down in the back of the craft. Brick knelt right up against the seatback, eagerly looking over the top at the dozing twins. A hundred questions tussled with each other in his mind to see which would be the first to escape his lips. Boomer aped his brother with rapt attention. He couldn't decide which of the two was prettier. Butch stood between his brothers, his arms crossed and a look of mild distaste on his face. He couldn't decide which of the two was uglier.
One question was the victor. "Hey Dad!" Brick blurted. "How come they're so big?" As far as they knew, it was babies the government got rid of, and they were the exception. Butch wouldn't like hearing that stupid girls were better fugitives than he was. He'd already gotten the seed of that idea and was about to give voice to it when Ben shushed his brother.
"Quiet, guys," he said, holding up his hand to his lips. "Let's not spook them."
Turning to Bonnie, he said, "I'd rather let them wake on their own, but we really need to get moving."
His mate nodded, buckled herself into her seat, and eased the craft into motion. Butch kept one eye on the twins and the other on their progress around the trees in the dark, silently urging his mother to go faster. She had no intention of going any faster than necessary. Glancing at the rearview mirror, she ordered her sons to sit down. They grumbled, but did, attempting to peer over the high seatback anyway.
Ben eased himself into the middle seat. He tapped softly on the hard, clear lid of the chamber until one girl's eyelids began to flutter. They opened briefly, closed, and then shot open wide as she sprang to her knees, giving her twin a shot in the ribs with an elbow. Years of living dangerously had conditioned them to wake swiftly and clear-headed. Putting their backs together, they crouched, moving in a slow semi-circle, taking in everything. It lasted all of five seconds. Smiles lit up their faces, bringing one to Ben's.
Immediately, one girl pushed open the lid, and they quickly climbed out, shoving the chamber along the seat to the sealed side of the craft and taking the rest of the seat for themselves. The girl in the middle turned her attention to Ben, who had eased himself back into his seat, seeing their positive reaction to this major event, unbeknownst to them, in their restarted lives. Her sister briefly smiled at the boys in the back, giving them a short wink. It surprised even Butch. Their mouths hung open in small, matching O's.
"Wow, you guys did it!" the first girl exclaimed breathlessly. "I knew the Underground would come through for us!"
The other girl's face scrunched up in confusion as she indicated the chamber. "But how'd you sneak us out in that? You can see right through it!"
Butch shot to his knees, thrusting himself forward. "He didn't sneak you out, Dum-Dum, he pulled you outta the-"
"Butch!" Ben barked warningly. He needed to say no more; the boy knew he'd crossed a line. His brothers stood and gave him a disapproving scowl, Brick adding a shove and "Twit!".
The target of his insult just smirked at him from her spot next to the sliding side door. "Butch, huh? Typical. You're a little tough guy, aren't you?"
But her sister grinned at the boys, turning to reach back and squeeze Butch's cheek and give it a little shake. "Aw, I think he's cute."
Repulsed, Butch yanked himself away. Brick's face colored a bright crimson when the other girl said, "I think they're all cute. Especially you," she added, directing it to Boomer with another coy wink. The blonde looked away with a small, shy smile. "Bashful, too," the girl said, grinning.
"Are they yours?" the girl in the middle asked, turning toward the front again. Ben smiled his answer. Bonnie made the introductions.
"I'm Bonnie Ruff. This is Benjamin, and those are our sons, Boomer, Butch and Brick. Boomer's the shy one."
To Brick, these girls were nothing like the annoying creatures his age. They seemed to be assertive and self-assured, and his young mind recognized that they had probably experienced a lot, a lot more than he had, and they had something in common with him. He suddenly felt the need to impress these older girls.
Standing as tall as he could and puffing out his chest, he said, "I'm Brick, the manly one. Brick is a manly name."
Butch's scowl turned into laughter, to complement the giggling sisters. Wounded, Brick's shoulders fell along with his face."That's enough, boys, take your seats," Ben commanded, as he and Bonnie stifled their own chuckling.
The sisters turned frontward, seeming instantly more serious. The one in the middle took her sister's ponytail, removed the purple ribbon that held it, and made a fast, loose knot of the long, brown locks. "You know who we are already, but this way, you can tell us apart. I'm Molly."
Polly pointed toward the two adults. "Hey, those aren't your real names, are they?" Not getting a no, both girls grew immediately suspicious. Polly said, "People in the Underground never use their real names."
"Except with each other," Bonnie responded quickly, softly, conspiratorially. It did the trick; both girls relaxed somewhat. But Ben felt the need to be truthful.
"Um, we aren't exactly members yet…but as you can see from this simple, direct course we're taking, we're expecting visitors any time. We're trying to reach the safe house before they show up. When we get there, the folks in charge will get word to your family that you're safe."
It was going to be a shock to the Underground movement, what had transpired this night, and an even bigger one to the family of these girls, mourned for the last year and a half. To the twins, though, Ben's news, and the fact that they were flying along, dodging trees, with the unseen enemy in hot pursuit, brought a one-word response:
"Cooooolll!"
Ben grinned. "That's the second time tonight I've heard that word used in such a strange way. Tell me, Molly and Polly, did this experience cause you to have dreams anything like the one my boys had?"
The twins stared at each other for a few seconds, then began to smile, smiles which became huge, somewhat disbelieving ones. "Did we ever!" cried Polly.
The two began to giggle, then each raised an arm and they slapped hands together above their heads in what, on Earth, was called a 'high five'. No one on Terrana had ever seen it, and the five other occupants in the vehicle stared at them. But that wasn't really what they were staring at.
The True sisters had begun to float in midair in the middle of the hovercraft, laughing together as their hands met…
"Bunny do gooooood!"