Chapter 17

"Jase, we have another assignment for your team." Seven was standing beside Jase as he brushed his teeth. He was so surprised that he bit down hard on the toothbrush handle, and his teeth cut it completely in two.

"Shit, Seven, you startled me! Please don't to that! I might hurt myself or somebody else."

"I'm sorry, Jase, I didn't think about that. I was so busy thinking about this mission that I was a complete blank on everything else. Please, forgive me?"

"Sure, the adrenaline charge made me overreact. I'm sorry that I barked at you. Let's start all over—Good morning, Seven. What can we do for you, today?"

Seven chuckled and said, "We have another time travel mission we would like for you to undertake. The main purpose is to check on the accuracy of a computer simulation of the results. However, if you are successful, several innocents who died will live instead. This particular mission involves a trip to Earth's China of a few hundred years ago. Are you interested?"

"Sure, I'm interested, but we'll have to check with the others. Let me rinse out the toothpaste and we can see what they have to say." They left for the pool where the rest of the team was playing grab-ass in the water.

Jeff was the first to notice them walking in. "Hi, Seven, have you got a mission for us. I was getting a little bored and hoping that you would show up pretty soon with something for us to do."

"Hello, Jeff, everybody. Yes, I have a time travel mission which I hope you will all agree to undertake. We would like to send you back to China of 1279 years ago to prevent the massacre of a group of Shaolin monks by government troops. This will accomplish two things: saving innocent lives and keeping this particular temple from turning into a bandit headquarters. We need all of you, because we would like to accomplish this mission with no deaths on either side. The computer simulations show that descendants of several of the participants can have a moderating influence on China's runaway air pollution. The connection is tenuous, but that will go a long way toward verifying the usefulness of the simulations. Will you undertake the mission?"

The whole team agreed to take on the mission, so they picked up their armor and transported to GPD headquarters for the detailed briefing. Once they had done that, they jumped to a satellite Shaolin temple in Shandong Province. The team assumed the identity of martial spirits serving the gods. They set their invisibility attribute to switch on and off in such a way that they appeared as ghostly figures just on the edge of visibility. They hoped that this would be enough to give them credibility among the local monks. Their invulnerable armor and martial arts skills would complete their disguise.

The team arrived at the temple at 4:00 AM, just as the monks were filing into the main temple for morning prayers prior to their first exercise routine for the day. Just before the prayers began, the team, which had maintained full invisibility, switched to partial visibility. This made them appear to be spirits suddenly coming to Earth. As a group, the team bowed to the senior monk and Jase spoke to him, acting as the spokesman of the group of spirits.

Jase explained that they had been sent to Earth to help the monks resist a contingent of local government troops that was coming the next day to kill all of the monks and take over the monastery. The one requirement was that the troops be stopped, but not killed. Once the attack was broken up, any injured soldiers were to be cared for by the monks until the soldiers could safely leave; others would be released immediately. The senior monk agreed to this; who wouldn't agree to the conditions required for divine intervention?

One monk asked for proof that the team was from the beneficent gods and not the malevolent ones. Jase said that he had no idea how to prove that, but was open to suggestion. The doubting monk replied that he had heard that malevolent spirits could not withstand a shower of rice kernels tossed by a virgin. Jase offered to be subjected to such a test, but the monks would have to provide the virgin.

This prompted a vigorous discussion among the monks as to where they could find a virgin on such short notice. The senior monk quieted the discussion by saying that he could provide a virgin. A recent arrival at the monastery was a 9 year old boy whom the senior monk knew was a virgin. He could administer the test. Everybody should be satisfied by that.

The boy was summoned from the kitchen, and he brought some rice along with him. The senior monk said some prayers to sanctify the test and stepped back. The boy took his bowl of rice and boldly marched up to the barely visible Jase. He stood about 5 feet away from Jase and threw the bowl, rice and all, as hard as he could at Jase's chest. Immediately upon contact, the armor hardened and the bowl was shattered by the impact. Rice and shards of pottery flew everywhere!

The whole team laughed, but the monks were stunned by the boy's actions. Jase said, "A virgin cast rice at me, and I am still here. Does that not satisfy the requirements of the test?" The doubting monk grudgingly agreed, and the senior monk declared that Jase was confirmed as being from the benevolent gods. The monks held their regular prayer session and adjourned for morning exercises. They would meet again in 2 hours for breakfast.

During the exercise time, the senior monk, his two lieutenants, and Jase's team met to discuss the best way to meet the oncoming soldiers. The monks felt that they could handle the soldiers now that they had divine help, but they were not sure how to do that without killing some of them. The problem was that the monks would have to pull their kung fu punches to keep from dealing killing blows, and the senior monk was not sure that they could always do that. Either the monks would forget to pull the punch or the situation would change too quickly for the monk to adjust his blow.

The soldiers would be using swords or spears which were designed to deliver fatal blows, and the soldiers were trained in their use, so the monks would have to expend a lot of energy dodging about. Jase suggested a tactic which might work. He asked for a piece of heavy cloth, such as used for a winter robe, about 2 feet by 4 feet in size. The senior monk had such a piece brought in, and Jase wrapped the narrow end a few turns around his left forearm; this left about 3 feet hanging from Jase's arm. Jase now asked one of the lieutenants to take a spear from the stand and try to stab Jase. The monk did, and Jase flipped the cloth so that it wrapped around the point of the spear and held it securely. Jase jerked his arm to the side, deflecting the spear as it bore down on him. Jase grabbed the shaft of the spear and pulled the monk closer; close enough that Jase was easily able to slap gently the cheek of the monk.

The other two monks stared at the demonstration and then applauded vigorously. Jase asked the other monk to come at him with a sword. This time, the monk knew what to expect, so he kept watching the cloth as Jase spun it around. The monk stayed on the defensive and never thrust or hacked at Jase with the sword, so Jase was forced to take the offensive. He fluttered the cloth in the monk's face, and, while the monk's attention was diverted, Jase kicked the monk in the knee hard enough to make him fall, but not hard enough to break any bones.

Again, there was applause. The senior monk called immediately for enough of the cloth to be prepared for every monk to have a piece. Right after breakfast, the monks started training with the cloth as a defensive shield. These monks were such skilled athletes that they quickly learned how to use the cloth as a shield and even added some improvements of their own. It soon developed that the best counter blow for the monks was to break the arm holding the weapon. At this point, the team played the part of the soldiers, since their armor made sure that they couldn't be hurt by the monks.

One of the monks asked what to do if he was attacked by more than one soldier. The answer: run like hell! There was no dishonor in this, since the gods wanted to be sure that no one died in the battle. The monks were dubious, but agreed to abide by the rules. Jase could only hope that the monks didn't get carried away with the fighting spirit and get killed or accidentally kill a soldier.

The whole day was spent in practice with the new shield, Jase was satisfied with the results by time for evening prayers. Before the senior monk retired for the night, Jase explained that he expected his team to do most of the actual fighting, since the gods wanted to emphasize to the local authorities that the temple and monks were protected and should be left alone. However, there would be enough soldiers for all of the monks to be able to participate, so none of the monks would be disappointed.