Twin Paradox_Book Two Read online

  Better yet, Kelvin and B.J. were able to tag along for the day. They even rode on the bus sent to pick up the staffers from Toronto Pearson Air Terminal. Günther meanwhile chose to stay back in Mississauga and work on his projects. Like Robin, he wasn’t comfortable participating. Robin had no interest either in seeing a big city orphanage like the ones she’d known of back in Atlanta. Just military concentration camps they were, most of them, as far as she was concerned.

  “Oh, hell no!” she argued. It was a fate worse than death to be sent to one of those. No, she wanted nothing to do with seeing one up close and personal, that was for sure. Nevertheless, Kelvin and B.J. tried to get her to go.

  “But dudette, seriously, this is your thing...we’re doing this ’cause of your idea,” urged Kelvin. The young girl had already helped out immensely. Kelvin and B.J. thought it’d be fun to have her join in. Get high and walk around the grounds checking out a real, live orphanage. Help out with the selection process too, maybe.

  Robin was unmoved. “Ain’t no way, bitch,” she quipped. “They sure don’t wanna see no tall niggah in drag sashayin’ around lookin’ fly.” Valid point, everyone could only agree. Kelvin wasn’t about to argue with that logic either. Yes, Robin would be far too much of a distraction. It was one thing to have a slender black drag queen with jewelry and necklaces, black elastic stretch pants and sparkly silver miniskirt (tank top with a collarless magenta half-shirt over it) strutting through Magellan’s project floor cubicle maze to a staff meeting. That was a safe environment and besides everyone respected Robin’s abilities there.

  But outside—in the real world? “Nah, I be gettin’ an ass whoopin’ up in that place fo’ sho’,” she chuckled. And there was certainly no point in trying to convince her, as a transgender, to try dressing and acting like a man. Not even for a day. No one ever dared making a suggestion like that to Robin. She was proud of what she was and damn well had a right to be. That being said, she also knew where not to go at night in Toronto! And an orphanage with former street kids? That was just begging for trouble.

  The set of twins they were investigating this time were named Young-Min and Kwang-Min Jo and the Jesuits believed their parents were likely from Korea, having fled the country when it plunged for a second time into bloody civil war not long after the death of Premier Kim Jong-Un. But between these two very quiet and very talented children, the staffers knew they’d be making an even more difficult choice than they’d faced so far. These two seemed almost like boy geniuses to the staff of deacons running the place.

  Not physically intimidating by any stretch, the orphanage staff said they were almost diabolical in their methods of controlling and manipulating other kids their age and sometimes those much older. Kelvin personally had a fabulous time talking to them before the staffers whisked them away for interviews and the aptitude exam. Kelvin and B.J. stayed behind out on the schoolyard to have a little chat with the other orphans at St. Johns.

  “So, tell me about your friends, huh? They pretty smart?” asked B.J. She didn’t mind the inordinate amount of attention she was garnering at the time. No, not in the least. She’d purposely worn a tight cotton tank-top that had a bedazzled print of a marijuana leaf on the front. Once surrounded by thirty or forty pre-pubescent teenagers and wide-eyed ten-year-olds next to the soccer fields, she then casually lay back on the bleacher seats she was sitting on and let her nylon mini skirt ride up just a tad so they could practically see her panties.

  “Pervert,” muttered Kelvin under his breath but just loud enough for her to hear him. He had to admit it worked well in drawing a crowd. The boys in the orphanage gladly told them all they could about the twins.

  They’d learned a lesson in Texas. This time there would be only sixty boys in the room at one time, after letting the Jesuits themselves pick out the smartest candidates to take the tests. This was highly effective in limiting the distractions it had caused previously in candidates constantly getting up and exiting the testing hall while those still in the running tried to concentrate.

  Nevertheless, the Jo’s and the staffers were inside for a very, very long time in that stuffy auditorium. This gave B.J. and Kelvin plenty of time to get the scoop on Kwang-Min and Young-Min, as told by their eager young schoolmates.

  “Kwang is the brainier of the two, I think,” said one boy. He had a cut on his lip from a recent fist-fight, it appeared. He wore a stocking cap over his afro even though it was a sunny Toronto afternoon. Otherwise, he was simply dressed like all the other boys in raggedy street clothes; with a tattered mechanic’s shirt he buttoned up to the collar.

  Another boy apparently disagreed with him. He was bigger than a lot of the boys, but seemed more like a clumsy fat kid than one of the ringleaders. “Nah, Young-Min is smarter, man. Remember that time we, uh—”

  Then suddenly another boy smacked him with the back of his hand right in the stomach to shut him up.

  “Dude!” the other boy said admonishingly. Kelvin sniggered. Obviously, the other kid thought his schoolmate was about to reveal some important secret that no one could know.

  “It’s alright if you wanna tell us,” he said with a confident grin. “We don’t know anybody here. Secret’s safe with us.” He figured they’d pulled off something devilishly clever, just like Kelvin used to do growing up in Virginia. He had once been quite cunning in getting his friends to help him spy on the girls’ showers at the high school athletic center. He’d recruited a team of them to drill in through a skylight and install a video camera that somehow no one ever noticed for an entire semester his senior year.

  “Nah...nuthin’ dude. Nuthin’,” said the kid. He looked about twelve and frankly he was so mesmerized by B.J.’s curvy figure and sexy bare legs, he’d already lost interest in the conversation by then. But others spoke up anyway, accommodating their lovely guest’s request and telling them all they could without fear of incriminating each other.

  It seemed life at St. Johns could be harrowing at times. Pedophilia, of course, was outlawed and was now punishable by public execution...but that was something for out in white suburbia where noble laws could actually be enforced and kids went home to loving parents whom they could openly tell what had happened. At St. John’s, this was certainly not the case. And yet, despite their predicament, the Jo’s became heroes of their dormitory section by recently devising an ingenious system for exposing Deacons who dared step over the line.

  “Basically, it was like a booby trap...like them old movies where a dude is going through the jungle and steps on a spike or falls in a pit, right?” said one kid who’d temporarily gotten his fill of looking at B.J.’s boobs and was now apparently ready to speak up. “Kwang-Min’s system was pretty awesome,” he added admiringly. The kid went on to describe a netting which would hold a bag of gooey petroleum resin stuffed inside. Boys who feared being anally assaulted by deacons could simply shove these packets in their rectums and when penetrated they’d explode disgusting fluid all over their tormentor’s penis thereby fingering him for the crime.

  “True that...blew up all over their dicks, man!” shouted a kid from further back in the crowd, and then everyone broke up laughing and giggling. They kept on laughing, too, mimicking the scenes and repeatedly pantomiming the perpetrator’s assumed reaction to the sticky black slime which would then be covering his genitals. Kelvin looked at B.J. for a moment with eyes wide in amazement, mouthing something like, “Whuh?” and contorting his face in feigned disgust.

  B.J. laughed so loud her sides ached. Practically killed her marijuana buzz, she cackled so loudly. Kelvin soon roared with laughter as well.

  “Yeah man,” continued the teenage boy, “…shit wouldn’t come off no matter what they did. Couldn’t’ wash it off. Kid could go right to the administrator’s office, tell ’em what happened...’n all they had to do was make that pervert motherfucker drop his pants ‘n BAM, off he’d go, man. They’d call the police and drag that creep away from here in zip ties. Took his ugly ass out a
nd hung him, too, is what I heard.” This drew a few triumphant yelps and whoops from the crowd of boys.

  “So, it was Kwang-Min who developed the substance you used?” probed Kelvin. The teenager shrugged his shoulders and nodded as if to affirm this. “Nah, it was both of them, remember?” argued another kid, shorter but not much younger than the other boys. “Young-Min found the shit they used and Kwang kinda tweaked it a bit, I heard.” The first kid clarified, “Yeah, but Kwang did the netting, remember?” A few other boys nodded in agreement. B.J. and Kelvin were intrigued.

  “How big was it…the uh, whatever it was that you put in your butts?” asked B.J. still recovering from laughing so hard and now morbidly intrigued by the imagery. Not surprisingly the boys didn’t answer for a few moments, not wanting to identify themselves as previous rape victims. They squirmed a bit and jostled about; looking down at the ground or looking around for someone to call out in the crowd and try to make him answer for everyone. B.J. and Kelvin figured this discussion had gone about as far as it needed to.

  “Big enough to do the job, huh?” asked Kelvin calmly, in an effort to let everyone off the hook. He’d certainly heard enough already. Between the two Korean twins, they clearly had themselves an excellent chemist among the pair, whichever one they chose. Plus, they had a kid tough enough to handle the mission and that was even better. Either one would likely be an acceptable choice. He then joined the boys out on the soccer pitch for a pick-up match while B.J. continued to lay back on the bleachers. A crowd of boys continued to stand around and chat with her while she held court, quizzing them about their lives and what they remembered about their parents…

  * * * *

  Over the next four hours, the staffers eventually whittled down the original sixty candidates suggested by the Jesuits to six exhausted finalists. The crew of staffers and the six boys then moved up the road to Toronto to grab a hotel for a night or two while the boys were sequestered during the days in a conference room. There they got to enjoy the high life living in a fancy hotel, taking breaks to go back and order room service and have it brought in by delightfully happy maids and busboys who treated the young orphans like honored guests instead of lowly street urchins. The effect on their self-esteem was immediate: the boys enjoyed it immensely. None of them wanted to leave!

  At that point, Kwang-Min and Young-Min were practically neck and neck in their exam scores. Neither seemed to have any apparent weaknesses or shortcomings. In every subject they were just about even—rarely got different answers and usually arrived at solutions to word problems in the same way. They were both clearly as smart as Shamiso and had already surpassed Oswaldo’s performance back in Texas. It was a dead heat between the Jo twins, with no possible way to determine a frontrunner as testing continued into the second day.

  Meanwhile, B.J. and Kelvin fully enjoyed their time off from work. They even called in to the Human Resources department at Magellan and requested to use up some of their accumulated flex-hours for the next couple of days. Decided to make a little vacation out of it, basically. It didn’t turn out to be necessary however. Requested as official assistants to the staffers sent by Space Programme, they were told they were on loan from Magellan Aerospace “for as long as needed.” Hearing that, the two immediately began to put out feelers for where the action might be happening that night in downtown Toronto.

  Within hours, B.J. somehow found herself getting invited to a party put on for the Toronto Wolfpack Rugby Club. There she ended up meeting and then “partying” most of the night with three, or was it four, players out on the field at Lamport Stadium before Toronto police finally arrived and told them to get dressed and leave.

  Not to be outdone though, Kelvin fared rather well in her absence. Initially he dragged the whole team of staffers along with him to that same party and met a girl who was tending bar while going to college during the day at University of Toronto. They ended up spending the night together in Kelvin’s hotel room that he shared with another one of the European staffers. He’d been paired off earlier that evening with a young Spaniard so that he and B.J. could spend the night in Toronto rather than making the drive back to Mississauga.

  The young staffer, the son of a Spanish solar engineer, eventually awoke next morning only to find the whole other side of their room in disarray, with panties and bra, jockey shorts and slacks, skirt and shirt and blouse and blankets—even bed sheets—strewn about like a tornado had struck in the night. On top of that, he awakened to discover a naked girl lying passed out on the other bed. Kelvin was curled up next to her with his fingers tucked snuggly into her crotch. The poor fellow must have wondered how in the hell he’d slept through it all!

  But as for B.J.—panty-less and hair disheveled—she got back to her hotel room at about four o’clock. The still-inebriated brunette returned that morning to a silent hotel room she shared with a female staffer who at one point thought she’d been abducted; or something terrible had happened to her.

  “God...I was worried about you,” began the young German woman when B.J. staggered into the room just before dawn. “Didn’t know where you went after the party,” she continued, her face revealing sincere concern for her roommate’s safety—as though the worry had kept her up all night. Then she got a good whiff of B.J.’s body, covered in salty dried sweat from both herself as well as her horny male companions from the night before.

  “Well...I guess somebody had a good time last night at least,” she smirked comically, waving her hand in front of her face to erase the odor, then promptly went back to bed. She had to be up in two hours, after all. B.J. only fluffed up her hair and grinned mischievously. She slept naked in her bed for at least four more hours after that. She was so tired, she nearly missed the nine o’clock meeting with Kelvin and the rest of the staffers, where they announced that it was still a toss-up between Kwang-Min and Young-Min Jo.

  At a quarter ’til nine she was still rummaging about the room locating her outfit from the night before and rifling through her pockets to make sure she hadn’t lost her Government ID. That was something no one ever dared misplace—that and her Employee badge to get back onto campus over at Magellan. She did finally locate her ID and badge—even found one unused condom in her pocket. This, she observed, was indeed a pleasant surprise...and a rarity.

  “Such gentlemen,” she remarked to herself remembering how those three, or was it four, rugby teammates brought their own prophylactics to their little soirée out on the Rugby pitch. “I didn’t even have to use my reserves for once,” she snorted humorously. No sign of her panties, though. Likely they were still somewhere out in the middle of Lamport Field.

  At the meeting, the consensus among the staffers was to go with Young-Min as a final choice. Kelvin was also consulted on this and gladly chimed in with his opinion.

  “Actually, I’d say take Kwang-Min instead, if you want my opinion,” said Kelvin—knowing of course that everyone should be interested in his take on things. “He’s one tough little dude. The boys here love him. He fixed a really big problem, one that was threatening all of them. He’s got a really good head on his shoulders for creative solutions in desperate situations. I’d sure like to have him along with me on the Santa Maria, that’s for sure.”

  His blatant presumptuousness caught the attention—and suspicions—of several among the young staffers.

  “Oh? You mean you’re one of the selectees for the crew?” asked B.J.’s roommate from the night before. “I don’t believe they’ve announced any of those yet, are you sure?” She then respectfully folded her hands and awaited the young fellow’s reply. B.J., coming around a bit from her wild time the night before, then interjected sarcastically “Yep, he’s pretty sure of himself, ain’t he?” The female staffer chuckled and nodded, realizing Kelvin was merely hoping for the best. However much B.J. tried downplaying it, Kelvin was fiercely determined. He didn’t hesitate to defend his own boldness.

  “Hell, why not?” he retorted, “I’d make a damn good c
rewman, wouldn’t I?” Then he grinned confidently while the room broke up into smatterings of chuckles and snorting laughter at the young man’s audacity. The young German lady nodded and smiled politely. “Amerikanere,” she mused to herself with a muffled chuckle. They were just like she’d always heard—brash and daring. Overconfident and yet charmingly reckless. Kelvin fit every stereotype she’d grown up picturing Americans to be.

  And while she was at it, what about B.J.? The gal whom she’d seen disappear from the party with three, or was it four, rugby players only to return to their hotel room six hours later smelling like...well, there was just no way to describe it, really. The grass from a football field among other things. The impressionable young woman from southwestern Germany was now quite amused with her first experience with North Americans and truth be told was starting to grow rather fond of the two twenty-somethings: Kelvin the charming hunk; and B.J. the buxom, yet brilliant, Junggesellin.

  The staffers eventually did settle on Young-Min Jo, however, based on a few other factors they discussed including personality. “Potential compatibility with future crewmembers.” Things of that nature. Thus, despite Kelvin’s input to the contrary, they chose the other twin. Kwang-Min was to be informed his brother was going away, and once again everyone dreaded it. B.J.’s hotel roommate explained it to them, as well as revealing to them the rather dirty part of their job. The part they hated the most. The part they always avoided until the last possible moment—breaking the twins up.

  However, Kelvin was quick with solutions as always, telling them to try and give the kid some hope. “After all,” he said, “Kwang-Min made it to the end of the exam as well,” he casually pointed out, “and completed all levels of the process. He’s eligible for the GU program for gifted kids now, ain’t he?”