Chapter 12

Jun and I, at my place, were basking in the afterglow of a vast, cataclysmic orgasm that, once again, propagated sympathetic orgasms to the other G-girls. Wei, who was on duty at Hastings' company, and Mei, who was on call at his house, chided us mildly for distracting them from their duties.

Stephanie, for a change, seemed to have slept right through the whole thing. The more I thought about it, the stranger her mental absence from our coupling seemed. She really was an avid voyeur, especially when Jun and I made love and it seemed odd that she had not come along for this ride with us. I lightly touched her mind, being cautioned by the others not to wake her, that she was probably just sleeping deeply. To my surprise, though she remained asleep, Steph seemed no longer to be in the Hastings house, or even on its grounds!

My alarm transmitted itself quickly to the others, and Mei went to Stephanie's room to check on her, only to find that she was not in her bed!

As Jun and I hurriedly dressed, and Sun disentangled herself from her boss and his wife, Mei checked the video tapes from the security console, only to find a crucial fifteen minute period erased from them. We tried 'shouting' at Stephanie's mind to wake her up, with no result. SOMETHING was keeping her asleep - drugs, coma, none of the possibilities boded well for Stephanie.

Now REALLY alarmed, Jun and I raced toward the Hastings estate. Our position changed relative to Stephanie as we barreled down the freeway, and I realized that Stephanie was moving northward, probably up I101. The fact that my own change in position helped clarify hers gave Jun the idea to use the three different positions of ourselves, Mei, and Wei to help pinpoint Stephanie's location by triangulation. Of course, without a mental map on which to overlay the information, all we could really get was a mental estimate of distance and direction, but when she stopped briefly, it seemed to be at or near the San Francisco airport.

Drugged and kidnapped. How had we let this happen? An undertone of guilt tinged the businesslike manner in which our training kept us moving, and I realized that all of us felt we had let Steph down, none moreso than Wei.

By the time we arrived at the Hastings estate, two choppers were warming up with Sun and Mei at the controls. Wei, though torn apart by the fact that her daughter was missing, presumably kidnapped, nonetheless followed her programming and remained behind to handle security at the estate and at the company, just in case this was a diversion for another attack on the premises.

Jun and I separated, Jun going in the helicopter with Sun, and I with Mei. We each took a different route up the peninsula, Confirming, by our separation as we flew northward, that Stephanie was at the airport. Anticipating the need, Jun called ahead and had the ground crews flight check two of the Hastings' Lear jets.

Sure enough, as our helicopters touched down, a charter plane took off, and from the way Steph's chi moved, she had to be on board. Sun and Mei bullied the flight controllers into giving us emergency takeoff clearance, and in minutes we were hot on the trail of the charter craft, tracking by radar and by Steph's chi from a distance that was unlikely to cause the other pilot alarm, while the girls fended off attempts from the controllers to get information about our flight plan.

As we cleared Bay Area airspace and headed Southeast, Wei informed us that she had determined from human witnesses and other information who the likely culprit was.

'It was Frank, Darren.' Wei's thought carried only information where I might have expected bitter accusation.

'Shit!' I thought back. 'How could he have fooled us so completely?'

'I don't think he did.' Mei joined in. 'None of us have seen much of him since Talibah moved off the estate, and it's likely that someone got to him while we weren't looking.'

'Maybe you're right, ' I replied, 'but I'm going to damn sure find out when I catch up to him!'

'First see that my daughter is returned safely, Darren.' Wei's thought this time was weighted with both motherly concern and a strong sense of duty. 'Then you can go after Frank.'

'Of course, Wei.' I replied, chastised.

On a whim, I dialed Frank's cell phone. To my surprise, he answered.

"What's going on, Jarhead?" I asked casually.

"Can't talk, squid." He replied tensely. "Hoped it would take you longer to figure it out. Sorry, but they've got Talibah."

The line went dead as Frank broke the connection from the other end. I should have known a former CIA agent would realize that a call like that in the middle of the night was out of character, but he gave me SOME information, anyway. Wei, having 'eavesdropped' on the conversation, was already dispatching people to the McKenzie residence to see if they could verify his story. Meanwhile, she had begun the process of tapping into the cellular service computers to locate Frank's phone. He had to have known we would do that, so I had to believe he answered so we'd know his phone was on. I hoped I was right.

A couple of hours later, the charter touched down at a private strip in Texas, about midway between Austin and Dallas. A brief 'discussion' brought us to the conclusion that we needed to try to stay as close to Stephanie as possible, so Jun and I donned parachutes and dove into the night sky while Sun and Mei went in search of a place to land.

Jun and I waited until the last second to pop our chutes, then steered them behind the low hills near the airstrip where the plane carrying Steph had landed. On a whim, I gave her another 'shout' as we stowed our canopies and set out across country, maintaining enough distance between us to ensure a reasonable fix on Stephanie's position. To our immense relief, I got a muddled 'Darren?' back.

'Stephanie!' I thought at her. 'Are you all right?'

'I can't move, Darren!' She seemed more alert, but still groggy. 'What's happening? It's dark where I am!'

'You've been kidnapped Steph, but Jun and I are nearby, and Sun and Mei aren't far behind.' I told her.

'Can you sense anything about what's happening around you, Stephanie?' Jun's training was stronger than mine and she hadn't forgotten our purpose.

'I'm moving... ' Stephanie replied, and I sensed her own training at the hands of the girls kicking in. 'I hear an engine, like an airplane propeller, and feel some vibration. Now we've stopped, and I hear something. It sounds like a big door closing. You know one of those humongous rolling doors. From the echoes, I'm guessing that we're inside whatever the door closes.'

'Probably a hangar.' Jun speculated. 'You must be still on the plane and it's just taxied into a hangar. Yes, I can see a hangar with the doors closing.'

I saw it too and Jun and I made our way down the hill, keeping invisible but using the available cover to minimize the chance that anyone would note the effects of our passing on the surrounding vegetation. Jun kept Stephanie occupied giving us a running commentary on what was happening around her.

'I hear voices!' She informed us. 'Now I'm being picked up. I can see light through my eyelids. I'm playing dead like you taught me, Aunt Mei. They seem to think I'm still unconscious. I'm being carried down some steps and I sense seven people nearby, four more not too far away, and three, no five, that are probably outside the building.'

Steph allowed her eyes to open to slits and we looked through them with her. We had to calm her quickly when she recognized Frank among her captors - apparently the only one who wasn't armed. Steph passed through a doorway and her signal got suddenly weaker, but we could still 'speak' with her.

The G-girls said this was how it used to be when great distance separated them from their sisters. Jun and I had planned to wait for Mei and Sun, who had just landed at a small commercial airport about ten miles away, before going in, but the threat of losing contact with Stephanie made us decide to take a chance.

We stayed invisible and alert for any sign of sensors or video surveillance, but detected none. A pedestrian door stood open next to the closed aircraft door of the hangar, and we slipped in undetected. From what we had seen through Steph's eyes, she had been taken through a small door at one side of the cavernous hangar, and we made straight for it. There were armed guards in the hangar but they seemed unaware of our presence.

Pausing at the open doorway, we glanced inside only to find a bare, empty room with a couple of chairs and an open doorway beyond. Something was odd about the room, but we pushed that aside as we made our way toward the other door. The room was free of electronics and seemed not to offer a threat.

I was in the lead, about halfway across the room, when I felt something give under my foot, and my chi felt mechanical things moving in the floor and walls. My mind was already screaming 'TRAP' when heavy panels slammed down over both doors and our connection to the other G-girls and Stephanie was instantly cut off.

'Faraday cage... ' I had just time enough to realize as a loud hissing came from the walls.

'Gas!' Jun thought.

Thanks to the G-girls training, I sucked enough relatively clean air in my lungs to keep me alive before the gas permeated the air in the room, then, with Jun, slumped to the floor feigning unconsciousness. Jun and I lay there, calming our metabolisms and preserving the oxygen stored in our lungs for upwards of three minutes before vents opened in the sides of the room and the gas exhausted with a rush of clean air.

I tested the air and suffered no ill effects, so we concentrated on breathing like unconscious people while armed men collected us and bound us with hand and ankle cuffs to the steel chairs we had seen in the room. I was tempted to try to take these guys on, but Jun 'talked' me out of it, suggesting that we learn what we could before we made our move. That would give Sun and Mei time to get here and be available if we needed them.

Thinking about it, I realized that she was right. Whoever laid this trap knew at least some of our capabilities. They had used no electronic devices that we had already proven capable of defeating, resorting, instead, to harder-to-detect mechanical traps. Furthermore, the use of a Faraday cage to block our communication with the others spoke of at least a suspicion of our mental connection.

We had to assume that these people knew everything Frank McKenzie knew or guessed about our abilities, and while that was more than most, there might be some things he hadn't been able to deduce from observing our practices with Master Sung.

Thinking of Master Sung's lessons, however, Jun and I remembered one of his favorite mantras at about the same time: "All things have energy..."

Without consciously deciding, Jun began exploring the mechanisms of the cuffs binding us to the chairs while I probed the floor, walls, and ceiling to see if I could ferret out some clues about how to defeat the room's traps and get us out of here.

The metallized walls and floor, whose sheen had been what I found odd on entering, made it a bit difficult to get to the mechanisms behind that shield, but careful searching revealed some small chinks in that armor. I found, for instance, that I could send a small portion of my chi along the electrical wiring from the outlets in the room. As I was exploring the electrical network, I chanced upon a faint thread of Stephanie's chi. Following that through the wiring was tricky, but eventually I found a set of wires that seemed to be in or near the same room where Steph, in some anguish, was reporting our loss to Sun, Mei and Wei. With some effort, I managed to project enough of my chi to re-establish a tenuous connection.

'Steph!' I 'shouted' to get her attention. 'Stephanie!'

'Darren?!' Stephanie's 'voice' was very faint, but clear. 'Where are you? Is Aunt Jun okay?'

'We're both all right.' I told her. 'You remember that small room they carried you through when you first left the hangar? That was a trap set up especially for us. It's shielded against our mental communication so I'm having to do this through the electrical wiring, and I don't know how long I can maintain the connection, so pay attention. I can't 'see' the mechanism of the doors because of the shielding, so I need you to see if you can manipulate the mechanism from the outside.'

'I can't, Darren!' She cried. 'Don't you remember? You're the one with the 'vision' that we all borrowed. Luckily, my own connection with the others didn't break when I lost connection with you, but all that other stuff came from you!'

'Damn!' I had gotten so accustomed to all of us being able to do the same things that I had forgotten that the others used my ability to 'see' with my chi to accomplish a lot of what they did. 'All right. Be sure to let Sun and Mei know about that room. Jun and I will find a way to get out of it. Let me know when they get here, and we'll use you to coordinate with them, if we can.'

'Okay, Darren.'

I kept a thread of my chi extended to Steph, but it was hard work communicating that way, so I left it dormant and started exploring the doors to our prison. I could detect hints of the mechanism through the minute cracks around the edges, but it wasn't until the inner door opened that I managed to see that it was operated by a system of counter weights. While the door was raised, I quickly 'wedged' a bit of my chi into the mechanism, which, when the door closed again, preserved the tiniest sliver of a chink in the armor of the room. Not much, but it would allow me operate the counterweights from inside and open the door at any time.

"That gas should have worn off by now." A familiar voice said. "Why aren't they awake?"

"They are." That was Frank. "They're just faking it, aren't you Darren?"

I saw no reason to continue the charade so I raised my head and answered, "Well, well! Dreams DO come true! How nice to see you again, Mr. EX-Vice President! I was afraid, after our meeting in the White House, that you wouldn't accept my invitation!"

"I don't know what you're so happy about, boy!" The ex-VP said. "I've got you by the shorthairs, and if you ever want to see Hastings' daughter alive again, you and this little Chinese bimbo will do exactly as I say! Where are the other three?"

One of the things I was so happy about was that I had just felt the catches on my cuffs release, and I knew that Jun, having mentally picked the locks, could be free in an instant, too, but there was one thing we needed to do before we could take on these guys.

"Where is Stephanie?" I asked, putting more anxiety in my voice than I felt. "You're not getting anything from either of us until I know she's okay!"

"Oh, she's okay, for now." He smiled evilly. "But if you don't cooperate, I'll turn these boys loose and let them have some fun with her before I cut her tongue out and ship her off to a Mexican whorehouse."