Chapter 3

"Wait here for a moment, Talibah." I said. "I need to discuss something in private with these ladies."

Sun followed me to the door, but Jun stayed where she was. Oh yeah, the shared mind thing. If one heard what I had to say, both would know about it. Meanwhile Jun could keep an eye on our probationary ally.

Sun led me down the hall to the room she and Jun shared.

"What is on your mind, Darren?" she asked as the door closed behind me.

"Something's not right." I told her. "Talibah never asked who you were, nor even seemed surprised to see you."

Sun smiled and said, "Jun was right about you! We had noticed this, also. It could simply be that she had been told that we might follow, or it could be something more sinister. For now, we will limit our exposure through her and exercise caution in our dealings with her and the people she contacts."

"So what's the plan?" I asked.

"I think you should accompany her to meet with Ghalib." Sun replied, "Stay in character and see how it plays out. We will be nearby."

"Okay." I said, beginning to stretch the kinks out of my muscles. "I sure would like to do a little workout before I go. It's been several days and I'm starting to miss it."

"Why not do it here?" Sun said, "Some of your movements may be restricted, but it will give you practice moving in a confined space."

"I guess it's better than nothing."

Feeling a little self-conscious with Sun watching me, I completed my stretches and began doing katas. Sun circled and watched critically, silently, until I came to the end of a sequence.

"You have remarkable balance for someone who depends on his size for power." She said.

Having won a number of Martial Arts tournaments, as well as defeating my opponents in numerous life-or-death battles, I was feeling a little annoyed at the seeming criticism.

Sun's smile was as beautiful and disarming as that of her sister. "These forms of fighting were developed by small people as a way of compensating, at least in part, for the disparity in size between them and their enemies. They are intended to use the body's energy in conjunction with its muscle power to give force to the blows. Like a lot of big people, you tend to depend on your strength and the weight of your body to supply the power for your blows. This puts you at a disadvantage in some situations."

"What do you mean?" I was puzzled. "I've been told by my instructors that my technique is good."

"As far as it goes, it is." Sun smiled again, "To take your skill to the next level, though, you need to become aware of your body's energy and let that become the source of your power, instead of your weight. Let me demonstrate. Knock me out!"

I threw a hard punch at Sun's head. (Oh, you were expecting some dialogue first? Come on! How many times have I heard these very instructions during my martial arts training? You don't talk about it. You assume the person wants to teach you something.)

When my fist reached the place where Sun's head used to be, it kept going. I tried to arrest the motion when I realized she had dodged, but instead was thrown forward, following my fist. I recovered in a couple of steps, but by then, Sun had already landed a couple of painful blows to my body.

"This is what I mean." She said. "Your stance was good, but you threw your weight into the punch and I was able to easily overbalance you by simply encouraging your body to keep moving forward. You recovered well, but suffered unnecessary damage in the process."

My aching ribs added weight to her lesson. "So, what do I do about that?"

"You must learn to find your body's energy and channel it into your blows." Sun replied. "Keep your body centered and use its energy, instead of its weight."

"Chi?" I scoffed, "That's the stuff movie producers claim allows their characters to fly around the screen and walk across water! I've never seen an example of it in real life!"

Suddenly, Sun's arms began windmilling rapidly, in a strangely graceful, gathering sort of motion, as if she was collecting something from the air around her. Then, with the heels of her palms together, she PUSHED in my direction, her hands stopping two feet away.

Suddenly I was doubled over, struggling to draw air! I felt as though I had been kicked in the gut by a mule!

"THAT," Sun said, "was not done with special effects or computer graphics!"

"Okay, okay!" I gasped, "Can you teach me that?"

"I can only attempt to guide you." Sun replied, massaging my gut to help me get my wind back. "You cannot see, feel or hear this energy, but, with stillness inside you, you can become aware of it and learn to channel it. Do not seek it, for it will elude you. Only be still and it will make itself known. I will show you some techniques for achieving quietude. Use them before and after each workout and soon you will become aware of your power. Then we will work on channeling it."

She showed me some breathing techniques and some movements from Tai Chi, that, at first, only seemed boring. I couldn't deny the ache in my gut from the invisible force of that blow, however, and my skepticism, at least, was a thing of the past.

I practiced for a while, but nothing 'came' to me.

Sun said, "You are trying too hard. Take a break and practice again later. I know just the thing to take your mind off of your chi..."

With that, she began to remove my clothing. I wouldn't call it a form of meditation, but the result had to be about as close to Nirvana as a human is capable of achieving!

I slipped Sun's clothes off as she removed mine, amazed at the arsenal of concealed weapons that she had strapped to her body. She threw me bodily onto the bed, feet toward the headboard, and straddled my head, her lengthening cock dangling in front of my face as it hung off the end of the bed.

With an invitation like that, how could I refuse? I took the soft, warm plum of her slender shaft into my mouth, and a thicket of straight black hair settled around my mouth, as her testicles drooped around my nose. The softness that fit easily into the cavity of my mouth quickly gained rigidity and ran out of room to expand. With nowhere else to go, it slipped into the entrance of my throat, and continued, unfettered, to grow!

When Sun bent forward and took my own throbbing erection into her mouth, I lost myself in pleasure! Each sensation visited on my cock by her warm, wet mouth was echoed with passion on hers! Sun's silky hair drifted deliciously over my thighs as her hard nipples dug into my abdomen! It became sort of a feedback loop where the pleasure given by one was amplified and returned to the giver in a cycle that could have only one conclusion...

Sun's hips slammed my face as mine strained upward at her devouring mouth! At that instant, I felt as though I was connected to her, and somehow to Jun as my loins erupted, spouting my seed deep into my lover's eager throat! Sun drove deep into my throat, and at the same instant, fired salvo after salvo of her own potent pleasure into the center of my body!

I nursed at Sun's cock until she drew it from my mouth, bending to kiss me before donning her clothes once more.

"What you felt, just before you came:" She whispered, "That was your chi touching mine."

It was real? She must have felt it too! Try as I might, though, now that the moment was over, I couldn't get a handle on it again.

"Give it time, Darren." Sun said, handing me my underwear. "It will come."

I went back to my room and showered before collecting Talibah to go meet with Ghalib.

Jun whispered to me as she left the room to return to her sister, "Keep practicing, Darren. It will come to you."

Talibah and I made the drive to Nurnberg in silence, each lost in his or her own thoughts. Ghalib was not happy to see me, especially when he heard about Ahmed, but grudgingly accepted the situation. His job was to get the disc, not avenge the deaths of those who failed in their tasks.

"You will have to wait until I contact the ones who will take delivery." Ghalib said sullenly. "Give me the disc and I will see that you get paid."

I laughed in his face. "You tell Talibah when the man with the money arrives. She will tell me. Then I will give the disc to the person who pays me!"

"It may take some time..." He said. "I know you are a busy man."

"I will not have any other customers if word gets out that I trusted the likes of you!" I snorted. "I will wait."

I accompanied Talibah to her apartment and took the numbers for both her apartment phone and her mobile.

"You could stay here, you know." Her dark eyes invited me more enticingly than her words.

"I'll be honest with you, Talibah." I said, "I don't know if I can trust you yet. Until I do, it's best I keep out of sight."

She smiled and said, "I'm not sure I can trust you, either, Mr. Winchell, that's why I'd like to keep an eye on you."

"Perhaps that will change over time, for both of us." I said, "I will be in touch."

I had no sooner put my little bag in the closet of the hotel room I rented, when Sun and Jun appeared. They didn't want their presence known, so they had come as elderly tourists. They set up their gear in easily concealable cases, verified that they could track Ghalib through the transmitters I had planted on him, and eavesdrop on his and Talibah's conversations.

Sun contacted Wei through the secure cell phone she carried. Her lovely face went hard and expressionless as she listened to what her counterpart told her. I glanced at Jun and saw the same mask in place on her face.

"Mei was attacked in Afghanistan!" Jun whispered to me as Sun continued with her conversation. "She is badly injured!"

Mei? I had come to believe Steve Hastings bodyguards were virtually invincible, so the implications of one of them getting bested were tough to deal with. The implications of it happening when she went to get Talibah's mother out of Afghanistan were unpleasant, but easier to deal with. I stood and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Jun whispered.

"I'm going to find out why Talibah set her up!" I replied grimly.

"Wait!" She commanded. "Be wise. We do not yet know the whole story. Do not jeopardize our mission for this!"

"It's the rest of the story that I want to get from her!" I said. "It's clear that the mother in Afghanistan was bait for a trap, and I want to know what else is going on!"

"There are any number of reasons why she might have been attacked." Jun told me. "Afghanistan is a hard country. Let us wait and find out what really happened."

"Who could have beaten one of you so badly?" I asked. "It must have been planned!"

"We are uncommonly hard to hurt or kill, Darren," Jun sighed, "but we are not impervious to all threats. Let's wait until we know the whole story before we take action."

"Is Wei on her way to Afghanistan?" I asked, thinking she would want to find her sister.

Jun looked shocked at the suggestion. "Wei's place is with her employer! Others have gone to find Mei and bring her home. One of the possible reasons for the attack could be to leave our employer vulnerable, so Wei will lock down his estate and the company buildings and let us know if she thinks we need to return."

I thought about that and realized it made sense.

"How did Wei know her sister was injured?" I had heard about the twins 'shared mind' thing but didn't know if it could work from the other side of the globe.

"Her connection with Mei is tenuous at great distance," Jun said, "but violence and pain generate stronger 'signals'. That is how Wei knows she is still alive."

"Will you and Sun be returning to California then?" I asked. If Wei's place was with her employer, perhaps Sun and Jun felt theirs was too.

"Not just now." Jun said. "Another possible reason for the attack could be to draw us off. We will wait and see what they discover in Afghanistan."

Sun finished her call and punched the disconnect on the phone.

"Come, Darren." She said, "We will work on being still. Now is the time to have all our energies focussed!"

Reluctantly, I joined in, going through the motions, my mind still in turmoil over the attack on Mei. It was fruitless, I thought, to try to calm myself in the midst of such mental chaos, but the movements required a certain amount of my attention, making it hard to concentrate on the problems of who, why, and how.

We made a strange trio, the two tiny fragile looking Chinese ladies and I, almost six and a half feet of hard muscle. Somehow I found myself drifting, following Sun and Jun, trying to stay in sync with them as we danced in slow motion. My mind was still chewing on the Mei problem, but it had slipped to the background as I concentrated on performing the prescribed movements.

Suddenly, I became aware of something that had always been there, and, because it had always been there, I never noticed it before! Each movement met with just the tiniest, barest suggestion of, not resistance, but resistance to something else that moved with me! I marveled at the discovery, and, like a kid with a new toy, concentrated on enhancing the feeling, discovering how to find it and control it.

I'm a visually oriented guy, so my mind insisted on supplying a nebulous, glowing image of what I imagined to be my body's intrinsic energy. This image melded with my growing awareness of the energy and aided me in my experiments. I soon noticed other energies around me, impinging on my own energy. Two very strong sources took on the glowing shapes of Sun and Jun, as my mind continued supplying images to fit the sensations, even with my eyes closed!