If you think you know somebody who resembles any of the characters here, congratulations, but you're wrong - any similarity between the characters in this story and any real person is purely coincidental, since all of these characters are figments of my imagination.

This is my story, not yours. Don't sell it or put it on a pay site. You can keep it and/or give it away with all of this information intact, but if you make money off of it without my permission, you're breaking the law and pissing me off.

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Will and Tina sat in a Westwood Village coffee shop enjoying the first real coffee they had had for months. To passers by they looked like any couple enjoying their morning caffeine fix. Closer examination might have shown an unfocussed appearance to their eyes, if anyone bothered to notice. This was not surprising in light of the fact that their attention was several blocks away, doing a thorough scan of the FBI building on Wilshire. Will was searching for documents or computer screens that might contain the information they sought, while Nine scanned the minds of the building's occupants.

Students from nearby UCLA studied or held long intellectual discussions at surrounding tables, never realizing that the quiet couple at the corner table was spying on the FBI.

Once the decision was made, it had taken a few days to get here. First, they needed money. Getting it was more of an annoyance than a problem. Will bounced them around, individually and as a couple, between Carson City, Albuquerque, Placerville, Blackfoot, Las Vegas, Telluride, and other places where he had found stores that bought gold for cash. By the time they were done, they had well over a hundred thousand dollars, all from small sales that shouldn't raise much more than an eyebrow or two, unless someone happened to notice the number of transactions and the similarity of the sellers. Much of their bankroll was stuffed into plastic bags and left in the cave with the rest of their gear. It was safe enough. The mice and rats that found their way into the cave were not likely to think the money tasty enough to bother with, and there were only two humans in the world who could get into and out of that cave without extensive digging.

Will and Tina had also bought clothing, sometimes in the same cities and towns as their gold transactions, some in other places. They didn't bother with luggage, not when it was just as easy to store things in the cave and either pop back to change or teleport what you needed to where you were.

At the FBI offices, Will quickly scanned computer screens and documents, moving his mind methodically from office to office, top to bottom, searching each floor of the building for evidence of someone who might be working on terrorism. He had just spotted a document in a stack of reports on someone's desk that seemed to come from a department that dealt with terrorism. Now if he could just find the office from which it originated...

Got something! Nine's thought interrupted Will's search. These guys seem to be the ones we're looking for.

Will hitched a ride on Tina's thoughts as she delved into the minds of several different individuals. He got a feel for their location, and sure enough, one of them had authored the document he had already seen. While Nine probed their memories, Will probed their files and scanned computer screens.

Ha! Will 'said,' as he discovered a report detailing surveillance of a particular residence where the ringleader of the local cell was believed to live.

Got it! Tina thought simultaneously, as she dug the same information out of the memory of the agent who had written the report.

Hey, that's in my old stomping grounds! The former gang member added. I wonder what my homeys would think about having a terrorist in the 'hood.

I don't know, Will replied, but what do you say we see if we can find this guy. Might be easier to locate if we're in the neighborhood. Want to go visit the old homestead?

I don't mind. Tina thought with a feral smile. I'm older, wiser, and a whole hell of a lot tougher than I was when I was a scared little teenager on those streets. Let's go say 'Hi' to my boys and girls.

Only one of the college students nearby noticed the fact that the couple at the next table vanished into thin air. His friends looked at him like he was crazy when he mentioned it. Too much caffeine and too many sleepless nights, they thought.

No one in the East L.A. neighborhood where they appeared would have said anything to anyone even if they had noticed two people appearing suddenly on the sidewalk. Apparently, no one did. They had walked about half a block closer to the address they had come to check out when a young man wearing a bandana around his shaven head stepped out in front of them, his plaid shirt buttoned at the top button only and his baggy jeans looking as if they would fall down any minute.

"What you two want on this block?" he said, one hand reaching for the handgun in the back of his waistband. "You ain't paid the tax, so I got to collect."

"Back up Pablo." Tina said quietly. "You don't want none of what me and my friend got to offer you. Since when you get so tough, huh, Pablito?"

"Tina?" Pablo's eybrows went up to his do-rag. "That you?"

"Yeah, that's me, little cousin." Tina replied. "Now tell those other three to come on out. I ain't kiddin' about us bein' outta your league, homes. This here's serious business we're on and you four ain't got the cojones for it."

"Hey, knock it off with the 'little cousin' and 'Pablito' shit, Tina!" The young man looked nervously around. "I gotta rep to think about! Don't nobody call me that shit no more!"

"They gonna call you 'Swiss Cheese' if you don't let go of that piece and come give your cousin a hug." Tina teased. "You think I can't still kick your bony ass, cuz? Get the hell over here and act like you glad to see me!"

Pablo grinned and gave Tina a heartfelt hug as Will scanned the three other young men who emerged uncertainly from between the houses.

"Damn Tina!" Pablo said, stepping away. "You got strong, Mama! Feel' like you been liftin' for years! Ain't you got nothin' else to do wit' your time in the fuckin' Army?"

"I'm into somethin' else now, Pablo." Tina smiled, "Me and Will here, we're kind of a private army. We're lookin' for terrorists. You notice anything funny goin' on around the old Sanchez place?"

Pablo shrugged, "I know old man Sanchez kicked the bucket about a year ago. Some Arab moved in a few months back, but he kinda keeps to himself. We shook him down when he first moved in, told him he had to pay the tax, and he just paid up. No fuss, no argument, but a few weeks later, when we knocked on his door for another installment, he met us with an AK in his hands, so we don't fuck with him no more."

"Hey, homes!" One of the others called as the three approached, "Who's the chick? How come you act like... Holy Shit! Tina? I knew you couldn't stay away, chiquita!"

"Yeah, it's me, Julio." Tina said, contempt fairly dripping from her words. "Don't go thinkin' I came back for you, asshole. You try to lay one fuckin' finger on me an' I'll take your whole arm off. You got that?"

"Hey!" Julio sounded genuinely hurt. "I thought you liked me! After I took you in and protected you, this is the thanks I get?"

"Yeah, you protected me all right." Tina sounded as if she might take his arm off anyway. "From everybody but your homeys! You lucky I'm after bigger fish this trip, or I'd tear out your balls and feed 'em to you! You never wondered why I left after you made me pull a train with the whole fuckin' gang?"

Tina spat in the dust at Julio's feet.

"You don't talk to me like that, puta!" Julio started toward her, only to run into the iron bar of Will's outstretched arm. "Get out of the way, Gringo, or I'll cut your fuckin' arm off!"

Almost lazily Will plucked the switchblade from between Julio's fingers, folded it back into the handle, and let the gangster watch as, with three fingers, he bent knife and handle into a horseshoe shape.

"I'm doing you a favor, Julio." Will told him. "This is not the frightened teen you took advantage of a few years ago. She can do to you what I just did to that knife without even breaking a sweat, so if I were you, I'd back off and be thankful I'm feeling generous. You have no idea who you're dealing with, and you don't want to find out the hard way!"

"I don't give a shit, man!" Julio acted less impressed than he was. "Me an' Tina, we go way back, an' if she don't want to talk to me, she can tell me herself."

Will shrugged, already knowing from what was in Tina's mind what was about to happen. Try not to make scene, Nine, We want to try to get something out of that guy down the street and I don't want him bolting because the street's swarming with cops. The FBI's got a guy across the street from the house, and he's already noticed our little pow-wow here.

Don't worry, Ten. Tina thought back. I been thinking about this meeting for a long time. I got it wired.

As Julio stepped forward to confront his former girlfriend, Tina turned seductive and slipped her body in close to his. "You think we can still get back together Julio?"

"Sure, baby." Julio grinned triumphantly. "You was always my favorite mujer. See I knew you still liked me!"

"Yeah, baby." Tina said, slipping her hand down the front of his baggy jeans. "But things gonna have to be a little different this time, okay?"

"Sure baby, whatever you say." Julio replied trying to cop a feel over Tina's shoulder.

"For starters, Julie." Tina said, her voice hardening as her hand closed tightly on Julio's most prized possession. "You gonna hafta be the girl this time, Julie. Maybe I'll just rip this off an' make you a pussy. Then you can pull the train with your homeys!"

Julio's eyes crossed comically and his indrawn breath stayed in his lungs for a long moment before he could expel enough to speak. "Hey, take it easy, Tina! I didn't mean nuthin'!"

"I do, baby." Tina's voice turned sweetly seductive again, but her grip only tightened, her enhanced muscles doing permanent damage to her former boyfriend's family jewels. "You ever come near me again, shithead, and I'll tear this off and feed it to you, you got that?"

"Okay! Okay!" Julio squeaked, both hands trying to pry Nine's arm away from his crotch, but having no success.

Tina finally relented, pushing her former boyfriend away disgustedly. It was not a surprise to anyone when, after catching his breath and fondling his damaged equipment, Julio reached for the automatic in his jeans.

With a sigh, Will, who was closer to the gangster, closed his hand over that of the would-be shooter, wrapping up Julio's hand and most of the action of his weapon.

"You're kinda slow, aren't you Julio." He said quietly as his grip tightened on hand and gun.

The others could hear bones and metal cracking as flesh, bones, and metallic parts surrendered to the incredible pressure that Will's enhanced muscles applied. Julio tried to scream, but his lungs emptied themselves silently as he stared at the bloody, shapeless mess that used to be his hand, now permanently molded into the action of the broken automatic.

"Now, go away." Will told him, giving him a slight shove up the street.

On autopilot, Julio staggered away, whimpering, his left hand cradling what was left of his right hand as blood and pieces of metal dripped onto the sidewalk. Occasionally tenderly touching his aching private parts, he whimpered even louder.

Pablo and the others were staring in fear and awe at Will and Tina.

Pablo jumped as Tina leaned over and kissed him affectionately on the cheek. "I guess you're the leader now, Pablo." She said. "You guys might want to consider another line of work. Seems like being in a gang is bad for your health. I'll see you around Pablito."

Let's go, Nine. Will 'told' her. FBI guy is taking far too much interest in our little group.

Around the corner and halfway down the block, they turned into an alley that ran behind the houses. Once out of sight of the street, Will 'moved' them into the old Sanchez house where the single occupant was peeking out at the gang members still on the street, his right hand clutching an AK-47.

Tina was already probing his mind as he turned away from the window. Will silently removed the ammunition from his weapon without removing the false security of the weapon's weight from his hands. The shock on his face was reflected in his mind, which automatically inventoried all the incriminating evidence in the house, as well as all of his connections to the terrorists in his cell. In seconds, Tina had everything she needed from him, and Will, whose mind was linked with hers, quickly 'moved' all of the explosives in the house to their cave.

"Who are you?" The man asked. "Why are you in my house?"

"We have come to show you the error of your ways." Will told him. "You really should read and interpret the Quran for yourself. Your Imams and Ayatollahs are only human, and they have their own agendas. You have been mislead."

"What are you talking about?" Hasim, as Will and Tina learned his name was, asked in bewildered anger. "How dare you accuse my religious leaders of lying to me!"

Will extracted the image and probable location of that very person from the terrorist's mind, and sent his own mind to the other side of the globe, seeking among those that he found. There. That was the one. Digging into the mind of the Mullah, Will extracted the exact thought processes he used in turning irate farmers, workers, and others into jihadists for his cause. Linking Hasim's mind with his own, he showed him, in a way that he could not refuse to believe, how the Mullah had twisted the words of the Quran to make it seem as though Allah wanted his people to kill women and children.

When Will released his mind, Hasim sank to his knees, sobbing. "What have you done to me? What have they done to me?"

"Why don't you discuss it with them, Hasim?" Will asked, reloading Hasim's weapon and teleporting him and his weapon to the crowded market where the Mullah was shopping for fruits for his morning meal.

You know he'll kill the Mullah, then be killed by the crowd, don't you? Tina asked.

Probably.Will shrugged. The pain of the death of the two people he loved most was still fresh in his soul. Right now, my concern is that meeting he was getting ready to attend.

Here's how I want to handle this, Nine. You with me? Will projected an image of his plan for the two of them invading a meeting of terrorists.

I don't know, Ten, Nine replied, They're bound to be armed, and we haven't tried these shields against anything worse than a couple of rocks.

They'll work. Will thought, knowing better than she about the feedback mechanisms of the shields. He had tried explaining the dynamics of it to Nine, but her thought processes were more people oriented than his engineer's mind and she grasped it only in the simplest terms. He wondered if that might be why she was better at the mind-reading stuff, but had trouble with telekinesis and teleportation.

If you say so, Ten. I guess if you're going to trust your life to the shields, then I can go along.

Will smiled. That's all I can ask. Thanks, Tina. It's just that it's rare for such a meeting to occur on US soil, so they must be planning something big, and I don't want to pass up an opportunity like this. Ready?

Tina nodded, and in the blink of an eye, they were in the abandoned warehouse in Long Beach surrounded by Muslim men, chattering as if they were merely continuing a conversation.

"I say we just turn them all into women and send them back where they came from." Will said as his mind probed the memories of the nearest terrorist. "Let 'em feel what it's like to be treated the way they treat their women."

"Not good enough." Nine answered, her own probes digging information from a couple of others. "I know! Make 'em female from the neck down, but keep their faces recognizable, and then send them back where they came from!"

The low-voiced conversation that had been in progress when they appeared, had continued for a few seconds until the room's occupants finally realized that these two weren't part of their group. Into the sudden silence, the sound of weapons being brought to the ready was loud and clear, marred only by the continuing chatter from the intruders. Will and Tina strode into the midst of the group as if they hadn't noticed their presence.

"I suppose we could give them donkey's ears or something." Will mused, his mind busy extracting information from another of the armed men, "That ought to really make them stand out."

"I think, instead, we should just make them sexually attractive to donkeys." Tina laughed. "Or even to horses! Then we could make sure they land in a stable..."

"Who are you?" Cried one of the terrorists. "How did you get in here?"

Will held up a 'wait a minute' finger and turned back to Nine. "Look at them, Nine!" He waved his hand to indicate the armed men around them. "What self-respecting horse, or donkey, for that matter, would want to have sex with someone that ugly? Pigs, now, maybe they'd want to..."

It suddenly began to dawn on the surrounding men who and what they were discussing and a look of astonishment passed around the room.

"Nah." Nine replied. "Pigs'll eat almost anything, but they're pretty particular about what they fuck, and even a pig would turn his nose up at a stupid jihadist!"

The room's occupants, as one, turned deadly. From all around the two, automatic weapons opened up. Will let the shields handle the first volley, and when the terrorists redoubled their fire upon seeing that neither had been hit, the two 'moved' to the rafters. Suddenly, the bullets had nothing to stop them and began to slice through the ranks of the shooters. It took almost a full second for the terrorists to realize that their target was no longer in front of them. By then their own members were falling, riddled with 'friendly' fire. Some, hit by the bullets of others, returned fire automatically, thinking their allies had turned on them.

"Stop! Stop!" One of the terrorists cried, repeating the order in Arabic. "Stop shooting!"

By the time the shooting died, only three still stood. One clutched a bleeding wound in his side, the other two, including the one who had called out, seemed miraculously unharmed. Needless to say, none looked very pleased when Nine and Ten reappeared in the midst of the carnage.

"Well," said Will, surveying the dead and wounded, "that worked pretty well. Once we get what we need from these three, we can figure out what to do with them."

"I got what I needed from the wounded guy before the shooting stopped." Tina told him, heedless of the fact that three guns were still trained on them. "That's why I took the shield off him."

"Okay, get what you can from number two, there," Will replied, turning to the one who had ordered the shooting stopped, "and I'll get the information I want from Mr. Big Shot, here."

"I will tell you nothing!" The leader of the group spat, never realizing that as he thought of the the things he would not reveal, Will stripped them from his consciousness.

"You just told me all the things you think you need to keep secret, Ahmed," Prototype Ten laughed, "so just out of curiosity, why don't you tell me why you want to come over here and blow people up? Unlike most of these guys, you don't believe there's any religious justification for what you do. You have a family looking for you, why come over here and kill others wives and kids?"

"You would not understand! You Americans! You sit in front of your big screen televisions and you think that what you see is the way the world is! Pah!" Ahmed replied, "In Afghanistan, men, women and children dig through the ruins of their homes and farms to try to find scraps to eat. In Iraq, a once proud people now find themselves begging for the leavings of the American soldiers and contractors! This is no way for people to live!"

Will shrugged. "All over the world, people are starving and being mistreated by others. You come from a well-to-do family in Syria. Why is this your problem?"

"My family is content to scrape the dung from the boots of the Americans for the money they deign to part with!" Ahmed spat. "I will not be a slave to infidels! I will die in poverty before I bow before the western capitalists!"

"And how do you figure your coming to this country and killing women and children will help things for all those downtrodden people you feel the need to fight for?"

"It will wake your lazy government from its slumber and make your people take notice of the rest of the world!" Ahmed shouted.

"And once awakened, what did you think the reaction of this government and its people would be?" Will asked. "Do you think that suddenly they will say 'Oh! Those poor muslims! We've got to do something to help them!' or do you think it will be the same as it has always been? We swat flies with a sledgehammer, boy, and history shows us just how effective that technique is for both the fly and for the swatter. You flies keep buzzing, and countries keep getting destroyed. Are you really helping?"

Both were silent for a long moment, and Will took the initiative to continue.

"Go home, Ahmed." He told the young terrorist. "Your father has the right idea. You don't fight capitalists with bombs, because they can make more bombs and destroy more of what you hold dear. You fight capitalists with money. It may take a while, but in the end, greed will kill the capitalists more effectively than all the bombs you can make. Your father understands this and your mother misses you. My partner and I are going to stop this terrorism business, one way or another, and if we find you in the middle of it again, you will find out just what awaits the killers of women and children in heaven."

With that, Will stripped him of his weapons and his false passports and 'moved' Ahmed to the courtyard of his father's house in Syria.

"Why didn't you kill him, Ten?" Nine asked quietly. He could feel no reproach in her mind, only curiosity.

"I was him once, Tina." Will said, shaking his head. "I once wanted to save the world, and damn the consequences for myself."

"You?" Tina laughed. "What happened?"

"Karen."

:"I see." Nine replied, nodding. "So what about these two and the other wounded?"

"Make sure they can't go anywhere." Ten said. "So far, we haven't killed anyone directly, and I don't want to if we can help it. If we start killing them, the FBI will have no choice but to start looking for us full time and I don't want them distracted. We'll be a curiosity, but won't warrant much attention if these guys just tell them stories about us."

"They won't be able to stop us," Nine returned, "so why worry about 'em?"

"Because there are enough real criminals and terrorists that need their full attention." Will replied. "I don't want them taking manpower away from more important investigations to come after us, if I can help it."

"You've got a point there." Tina looked around at the living and wounded terrorists. "So what are we going to do with these guys?"

Will scanned the interior of the warehouse for something to use to bind their prisoners. Finding nothing, he scanned outward and came upon a construction site. 'Borrowing' a length of half inch re-bar, he forced all of the ambulatory terrorists into a line, then bound them tightly to each other by bending the reinforcing rod once around each left ankle.

"There." He said. "That ought to hold them."

"Okay, what now? The cops are going to be here pretty soon. Somebody's bound to have reported the gunfire."

Ten nodded. "Yeah, let's go 'home' and take stock of what we've got from these guys."

Back in their cave, the two shared the information harvested from the minds of the terrorists. There were links to others in New York, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Philadelphia, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, and a few other cities, along with a plot to cripple the infrastructures of most of the major US cities by damaging power, public transportation, drinking water, and sewers. The idea being that while no city would be shut down completely, the disruption of so many services would create chaos and play havoc with city budgets while spreading panic across the nation.

It took them almost six months to clean up the cells in those cities and the others of whose existence they learned as they went. It was cold, wet day in March, in San Jose, California, when they came across the cell responsible for the movie complex bombings that had killed Karen and Stacy.

"We need something special for these four, Tina." Will told his partner, as he realized who they had.

"What do you mean...?" She started to ask, when she caught his thought and the memories to which it was linked. "Oh, I see. What do you have in mind?"

"I've thought about this for a very long time, Nine." Will replied, his face a stone mask as the four quaked before him, immobilized by the invisible forces of his mind. "You don't need to have any part of this if you don't want to, Tina. This is very personal."

I'm here, Ten, She switched to the form of communication that had become habitual for them. Let me know what I can do.

Just make sure we're not disturbed...

You got it.

It took only a few seconds for each of the terrorists, but to Will it seemed an eternity. He dug deep into memories he had tried for a very long time to suppress, and turned them into weapons, driving his own pain and anguish from the night of the bombing deep into the hearts and minds of those who had caused it, forcing them to remember it as he did, to feel it as he had, to experience the loss that he felt. He burned these thoughts and emotions as deeply into their souls as they had been burned into his.

Purged, his heart finally unburdened of the weight it had carried for so long, Will found a pile of discarded railroad spikes nearby, and used them to pin the terrified terrorists, along with incriminating documents, to the steel columns that supported the second floor of the abandoned factory in which they had plotted their crimes. When the San Jose police arrived to investigate the strange reports of the neighborhood boys who found them, they could not wait to confess, babbling incoherently about the devil that Allah had sent to punish them.

As firefighters used their rescue tools to cut the heads off the spikes through each wrist, the owners seemed not to notice. They begged and prayed to Allah for forgiveness. When the FBI arrived, the four told them everything, giving details of every act of terrorism they had committed, not just on US soil.