"So obvious question, is Hamato our unsub?" Derek threw out, digging in the box for a honey crueller.

Reid shook his head, rapidly devouring the assembled files. "Unlikely, he doesn't have the medical background necessary to produce a child from harvested ovaries. He was probably also a victim."

"Yoshi Hamato, why is that name familiar?" Rossi mused, leaning back to brace his hands on the nape of his neck.

"You'd probably be more familiar with his screen name," JJ took the remote from a now seated Garcia to bring up an image of an Asian man in a ludicrous outfit. "Lou Jitsu. He was a minor celebrity in the 90's."

"Lou Jitsu? Wasn't that the guy in those cheesy food-themed action flicks?" Prentiss chuckled, snatching a chocolate doughnut that Reid had been reaching for.

"Oh yeah," Morgan smiled, "I remember those. Not much plot, but you gotta admit, man had some moves."

"So, what we have," Hotcher interjected, reigning the discussion back in, "is a young man and young woman who both vanished within a year of each other."

"Twenty years later, her body reappears with DNA from their child on her bespoke coffin." Emily continued.

Reid flipped back and forth between the two people's records. "He was an accomplished martial artist, and she was a rising star in academia. Custom baby?"

Rossi steepled his fingers. "Unsub and his partner are unable to have a child, so he figures 'May as well make the child of our dreams.'? Or he's just playing mad scientist and went the eugenics route."

"Race doesn't seem to be an issue." JJ added. "He was Asian, she was White."

"Unless race IS the issue." Derek countered. "If it was about infertility, the unsub and his spouse might be a White/Asian interracial couple. In which case they'd want their custom baby to resemble them."

Emily chimed in again, "Is there anything else we have on the actual unsub?"

Penelope took the remote back again. "The unidentified substance he used? The crime lab has seen it before. About twenty-five years ago, there was a streak of homeless people who vanished, and their bodies were later found scattered around the city. All of them had been .. immersed in the same substance at some point. A few had been, ah, harvested for their, shall we say, genetic material." Pictures of several people flashed across the street, naked and discarded in various positions.

"Test subjects." Hotch frowned. "He was practicing."

"And there hasn't been any other bodies with this 'unknown substance' since? Other than Ms Sullivan." Rossi asked. Garcia shook her head, and looked around, wondering where the analysts were going to go next.

Emily sat back in her chair. "So, this guy makes a few test runs, abducts the people he's selected and does, whatever he was planning to do. No more connected disappearances, that we know of. If it's an infertility thing, possibly his spouse carries the baby, knowingly or not, OR they hire/abduct a surrogate."

Derek leaned in next. "The resulting kid grows up. We don't know if he knew truth, or just found out. Something changed. Given the timing, it was probably the invasion. A lot of people were killed or so badly injured that they need to be in care now. Maybe the kid felt safe enough to act or was digging into personal affairs and discovered the truth. Either way, he made a coffin for his mother and did his best to deliver her to the police, probably in the hopes that she'd be returned to her family."

"Besides the DNA evidence, what else do we have on the son? He couldn't be any older than twenty-one now." Reid followed.

JJ pulled another file out of her pile. "The van was stolen earlier that day. No progress on tracing any of the materials used to make the coffin, or even the dress, which is weird. The detective's prevailing theory is that he sourced them from off the grid, home business types."

"There's video," Penelope cut in, narrating as playback began. "3 am, the van pulls up in front of the 20th precinct. Five minutes later two men exit the rear of the vehicle and walk off." Two lean figures saunter away, clearly comfortable with each other. "After they get about a block, they trigger the van's alarm." Lights start flashing on the vehicle. "Thirty minutes later, police discover the van and Claudia Sullivan's body."

Emily's dark eyes roamed over the selected stills. "Two men. The son and a friend? Sibling? Cousin? Where did they go?"

Aaron dug through the files. "According to this, the surveillance cameras lost them somewhere in Central Park."

"Whatever their connection, working together to dump a body? They must be awfully close." Dave tacked on. "There's no more physical evidence?"

"Ah but there is." Penelope wielded her remote once again, with a flourish. "The blood trace was contaminated with DNA from a red-earned slider, a very common species of pet turtle, and handprints. Three to be specific. Two right prints and one left."

"Any matches?" Morgan asked.

"Nope, they're too smudged, but…." Three triple digit handprints flash up. "They're still very distinctive."

"Tridactylism." Reid began, utterly fascinated with what he was seeing. "It's a type of symbrachydactyly, when the digits don't form correctly during gestation. It can manifest as small fingers, missing bones or, as in this case, merged fingers."

"Ok. There can't be that many Asian/Caucasian men born with three fingers in New York City." Derek tapped his pen on the table.

"Alright, Penelope? Start looking into fertility Doctors in the Tri-State Area with surgical training who are also Caucasian or Asian, possibly," Hotch's attention wavered to Reid's face, "with a spouse of the other race and a mixed-race son. Start with people killed, missing or severely injured in the alien attack. Spencer, what is it?" The section chief asked, seeing something in his protégé's eyes.

"Well," the young doctor, paused. "It's just … there's something about the handprints…" He got up and walked over to the screen. "Can you make them bigger?" Garcia blinked and complied as Emily went to join their friend. "What are you seeing Spence?"

"The right handprints," he gestured, "they're very similar."

"Yeah…." Morgan drawled.

"But they're not identical. There are small differences in the clear friction ridges, and they have different calluses. The chances of two people having the exact same form of this defect are infinitesimal, even in full siblings it would be near impossible. It's not genetic, it's caused by conditions in the womb…"

Emily got it. "Twins." Her mouth dropped open as she locked back on to the video, down in the corner. "It's not Claudia's son and a friend, they're both her sons. Twin boys."

"Okay," Aaron cut back in, "Penelope, start another search for twin boys, of mixed race with this particular form of birth defect. The rest of us will go to New York."

Garcia cut in. "Just don't expect help from the NYPD, they're swamped and don't have any people to spare."

"Understood." Everyone started packing up. "JJ, I assume the family has been notified by now."

"Yes, but her parents were in the middle of the South Pacific on their sailboat. It took a while just to make contact, and even longer for them to reach port and arrange travel back to the States. They should be arriving sometime tomorrow." The slim blonde said, while gathering up her own collection of files.

"Prepare everything you can on the twins. This family has endured decades of loss and pain, let's give them some hope."

Five hours later the BAU field agents were setting up at the 20th NYPD Precinct. There were no white boards to spare, so they were making do taping papers to the conference room walls. Derek finish getting their laptop connected to the precinct wifi. "Hey Baby Girl."

"Hey Chocolate Thunder." Garcia's voice rang out from the speakers.

"Have you dug anything up on our unsub or the twins?" Sympathy swept over his face as she shook her head. "Nada again on both. It's driving me nuts. This doctor? I found 2 male and 3 female fertility doctors who were in White/Asian interracial relationships, one had twin sons, but they're only twelve years old. I did find one set of twins in the tri-state area with symbra… whatever, but they're a set of thirty-year-old women, and they have four fingers, not three. Whoever these people are, they aren't in any database I have access too. How is it 2023 and there's NO record of them?"

Derek's heart ached for his best friend. "Aw Mama. You know how some people are, hiding from the government, and an unsub has even more reason to. There's something online, we just don't know what it is yet. Let us do our thing, we'll find some more strings for you to yank on."

"Thanks sugar." She signed off.

He sat back in the uncomfortable chair, thinking about the two young men (boys?) they were searching for. Were they raised like beloved sons, or were they mistreated; just the results of an experiment. Were they happy? Were they mourning their mother's killer?

Rossi walking in with bags of takeout knocked the younger man out of his thoughts. "Hey, talked to Penelope, her searches didn't turn up anything. Where'd you go?"

"Ah, first I went to look at the physical evidence with Hotch. Then while he went to join Spencer looking through the evidence from the practice murders and Yoshi Hamato's case, I made a little detour to Carmine's. Some of the best Italian food in this part of New York." The senior agent started setting out containers. "Emily called, she and JJ talked to Claudia's parents. They managed to swing an earlier flight and are on their way in now."

"Good." Derek turned away, not bothering to grab any food.

"What's up?" Rossi asked, sitting down with his meal.

Morgan rubbed one of his eyes. "I'm just thinking about those boys. What kinda life they might've had. Wondering if they're safe now."

Dave chewed a bit. "Well what kinda life? We won't know until we find them. Are they safe now? Depends. If the unsub's dead or crippled, probably yeah."

"Well, let's hope for that then."

Prentiss organized the contents of her file folder, mentally running over details again. She also checked that there was plenty of water and Kleenex, ready for their victim's family to arrive with JJ. Speak of the devil. JJ walked around the bullpen corner; an older couple close behind her. Emily took a deep breath and did her best to school her face into a welcoming yet sympathetic smile.

The door opened. "And this is Special Agent Emily Prentiss. She's part of our Behavioural Analysis Unit. Emily? This is Bruce Sullivan and Doctor Maria D'Orso-Sullivan, Claudia Sullivan's parents."

The profiler took them in as quickly as she could, pairing it with what she'd read. Mr Sullivan was relatively fit for a man in his 60's, barely a gut starting to form. Slightly shorter than his wife, his full, greying beard and head of hair paired with a warm flannel lined jacket, he was every inch the former navy man. Doctor Sullivan's wavy copper hair, was tied back into a simple ponytail, liberally shot through with her own greys. Prentiss could see where Claudia got her eyes.

"Hello. Please have a seat." The senior agent shook hands with both, then pulled out a chair with the others and sat. "I wish we could've given you better news about your daughter."

Maria put a hand up. "It's alright Agent Prentiss," traces of Brooklyn accent in her strong voice, "Honestly, we pretty much resigned ourselves to Claudia being dead years ago. All we care about now, is finding out what happened and getting justice for her if we can."

"It feels horrible to say, but knowing that she died only a few days after, that she hasn't been scared and suffering all this time, it helps." Bruce added, a conflicted look in his pale blue eyes. "Ticks me off the bastard had the nerve to build her a coffin though."

The agents shared a glance. "Actually, the crime lab has been able to process more of the evidence since you were notified, and the results have been… startling. The coffin wasn't made by the man that killed your daughter."

They both looked confused. "Then who?"

"We found some blood under one of the hinges. It was a match to your daughter and a man that disappeared a year before." JJ told them, trying to be gentle.

"A match?" Maria asked. "You mean like, a child? We have a grandchild?"

Emily took back over. "Two actually, there's matching distinct handprints, but with different calluses and scars. We think they're a set of twin boys. They're the ones that made the coffin for Claudia."

"They made it? We have grandsons? This is… it's …. I need a minute." Bruce bowed his head, cupping shaking hands over his face, while Maria rubbed her husband's back. She met Emily's eyes. "Tell us everything."

"The only things we're sure of now, is that someone abducted and killed several homeless people, we think they were practice runs. Then he abducted a man, Yoshi Hamato, and a year later your daughter. At some point, they were used to make these boys. Our guess is that they're somewhere between the ages of 16 and 21." She shifted a bit. "Our best guess is that the abductor was badly injured or killed during the invasion. Then the boys either learned the truth or finally felt free enough to act." Prentiss tried to meet both their eyes. "In any case, they took great care and effort to return your daughter to you with dignity."

"Then why haven't they tried to contact us? Come forward?" Bruce asked, sliding his hands down to cover his mouth.

Emily sighed, and JJ took over. "It could be a few things. Remember, they're young, and they've either had their whole world turned upside down, learning a horrible truth; or they've known all along but been raised and conditioned to accept it and love their adoptive parent anyway. Both circumstances would take a lot to work through, even with therapy. But they've already taken the first step, like Emily said, they cared enough to do something. They cared enough to bring her back to you."

"What about the other person he took? Have you found his body?" Maria's eyes flicked back and forth between the other women.

Emily stepped back in. "No. Yoshi Hamato's only living relative, his grandfather, died a couple years after he disappeared. So, we think the boys will see to him themselves if they do have his body."

"Then… we're their only family?" Maria said.

"Biologically, yes." Emily said, "But we don't know how they were brought up. They might have an entire adoptive family. Thing is, we haven't been able to find a record of anyone matching their description. They may have been raised under the radar."

"Wait, description? Somebody saw them?" Bruce asked, twining his hands with Maria's again.

"Not exactly," JJ cut in again, opening the file in front of her. "Knowing who their parents are, we know that they're half white and half Japanese. The DNA shows that they're male and from their handprints we know that they are twins and have a rare birth defect." She pulled out the handprints in question.

"Tridactylism?" Maria ran a finger over the picture.

JJ blinked. "You've heard of it?"

"I'm a marine biologist, I've seen it in some of my specimens that were affected by pollution. Alligators, marine iguanas and such." The doctor replied.

"Right. The only other thing we have is CCTV video from the night they dropped off Claudia's body." JJ handed over some stills. "We never got a shot of their faces, but…"

The two bereaved parents got their first looks at their wayward grandsons. "Why do you think they're between 21 and 16? Claudia died so soon after she was taken?" Maria took a breath and answered her own question, twisting her simple wedding ring around on her finger. "You think they're test-tube babies."

"It's the only thing that makes sense, and while its most likely that he would've 'made' them sooner rather than later, he might've waited awhile. We're giving ourselves as wide a range as we can for the search." Emily took a steadying breath. "Given this information, we started looking into fertility doctors and now people who work with them and in connected industries."

JJ took the opportunity to pour everyone a big glass of water and pass them out. "I'm sure you answered a lot of questions when Claudia first went missing, but did your daughter ever talk about medical appointments or participate in studies?"

"No nothing," Bruce answered, his Boston accent getting thicker, "there was nothing suspicious before she vanished. Everything was fine, and then she was gone."

Emily glanced up through the door's window and caught Hotch's eye. "Ok. Thank you. If you'll excuse me?" She left the Sullivans to JJ and headed out into the busy bullpen. "Hotch?"

He ground his jaw and led her to a quiet corner. "We have nothing."

"Nothing, what do you mean?"

"I mean we have nothing, aside from what was gleaned from the van we have nothing more than what was in the original missing persons and murder cases. There are no new leads, Penelope's searches have yielded no results." The stoic man huffed a bit. "We need to shake things up. Elicit a reaction. We need a press conference."