Sentients in the Maze

by Chogan Swan

  “You’re late!” Jonah scolded, trying not to grin.

  “I may be outnumbered,” Tiana said, “but don’t think you fooled me. I admit I haven’t figured out the details to the team effort it took for you to get past me, but why go to all the trouble?”

  “It was fun, and contingency plans are always a good idea in case you screw up.”

  “You admit screwing up then. Apology accepted; I suppose. Finish stretching then get your blades.” She took off her caftan and walked to her locker. Jonah kept warming up but turned to see her better as she undressed. It would have the additional benefit of getting his blood moving faster.

  Note: The original version of Chapter 16 includes descriptions of physical interactions that are explicit and detailed.

  The uncut versions can be reached by clicking HERE

  On the Hot Peppers scale, Chapter 16 (below) is still about 3.5 out of 5 peppers, and all chapters in the appendix are @ 4.5 peppers

  Chapter 16 (Training)

  When he finished the exercises, Jonah went to his locker and pulled out two kukri knives with 12-inch blade. He inspected them to be sure he'd been thorough about putting them away sharp, clean and oiled. The curved blades gleamed from the razor edge to the rugged, quarter-inch thick backbone. Jonah had filed, honed and polished them by hand from the rough and not-very-ready condition they’d been in when shipped from the blacksmith in India. Tiana said it insured he appreciated keeping them in good order. Jonah turned to see Tiana dropping a five-foot-tall wooden cross of five-inch oak logs notched and pegged at the intersection into a metal stand.

  “Begin,” Tiana said.

  Jonah walked to the cross and saluted it with crossed blades and a bow.

  Tiana sighed but, indulging him, said nothing.

  Jonah started with a series of slow-motion strikes, tapping the cross after each precise move low, high, out, in, under, over, not patterned, but random. The piercing and chopping capabilities of the kukri knife and an ancient nii weapons form Tiana adapted to his anatomy prescribed each move and transition.

  After about ten minutes, Tiana said, “Good, now half-speed and half-force.”

  Jonah picked up speed, adding power to the strikes. He let the weight of the blades and the speed and technique behind each movement drive the force of the strikes. He added withdrawing the blade from the wood to the things to remember.

  When he'd started this training, his left-hand strikes had been pathetic. The motions he’d learned with his right hand over his lifetime of hammering, chopping wood, swinging a racquet or a bat had never translated to his left hand. Tiana had made him ambidextrous, but he still needed to teach his left side everything without the years of experience of his right side.

  Tiana had pointed out that at least his left side didn’t have his right hand’s bad habit of trying to treat the kukri like a hammer. It should even out, in time.

  He was working up a sweat.

  “Guard right, strike left,” Tiana said.

  Jonah continued the workout, now using his right-hand blade in guard position while his left hand worked through the attack strikes.

  While his left-hand strikes might not be pathetic anymore, Tiana maintained that it was charity calling them woefully inadequate. She conceded, on the other hand, that his right-hand technique well deserved that description. His left-hand workouts were twice as long as the right-hand drills.

  As Jonah chopped, Tiana did her own program. She moved through a free-form dance with a kettlebell in each hand while keeping track of his progress. The kettlebells each weighed 92 kilograms, and she went through a series of balance and lift movements filled with her own version of Turkish get-ups, handstands and swinging lifts. Tiana said the kettlebells would work until her special order came in, and then she’d let him use them.

  Jonah managed lifting one of them over his head after Tiana had boosted his muscle efficiency, but he’d never use them the way she did.

  Tiana was doing explosive swings then clamping down on the handle to arrest the weight’s ascent, the force lifted her into the air. When she came back to the floor, the weight was under control.

  Tiana’s shoulders were filling out with smooth muscle. Arms, torso and legs were gaining mass. Her muscle structure was very dense. If she’d been human, Jonah would have guessed she weighed about a hundred twenty pounds. But, in his experience lifting her while making love, she was at least twenty pounds heavier.

  “Pay attention, Jonah. Guard left, attack right.”

  Thinking about what they’d been doing when he'd been lifting her must have been affecting his focus. Jonah switched to guard left and focused on correcting the bad habits of his right hand. Pine chips were collecting around him.

  “By steps, bring speed up to full and strike force up to ninety percent.”

  As Jonah moved faster through the motions, his mind quit turning. He remained aware of his surroundings, but all thoughts stopped. There were only the steps, the dips, turns, the blows coming faster and faster, the chips flying from the crossed timbers. Jonah ducked backwards to dodge something Tiana had tossed at his head but never paused his exercise.

  His breath was relaxed, his body free. He revised his estimate of what ninety percent meant and pushed harder on the strikes.

  Another projectile—a tennis ball, spotted from the corner of his eye—came from where Tiana had moved her position. Jonah tilted his head to the side and let it pass as he continued his next series of strikes. Three strikes at deep-notched spots on the cross-timbers lopped five inches off the top and each end of the crosspieces.

  Two tennis balls came at him in quick succession. Jonah slapped one away with his left-hand blade as he dodged the other before continuing to work on the timbers. His chopping strikes created larger chips now, and in another minute, he removed the crossbar completely. The tennis balls were coming faster, but he still hadn’t let one hit him.

  “And stop,” Tiana said.

  Jonah stepped away from the post—dodging one last tennis ball that Tiana flicked at him—and turned to grin at her.

  Tiana looked at him, gaze unreadable, then flung four balls at the same instant. He dropped and rolled toward her, catching her in a bear hug. Of course, this was a poor tactic; she could crush him if she wanted to, but he kissed her and planted his sweaty chest on hers.

  “Hhm. Woodchip implants, very sexy,” Tiana said. “Is this the secret for your success with the ladies?”

  “It’s strange. I can sense when you’ll throw and where the ball is going. Do you suppose it’s because of that connection thing we shared? I wonder if it would work with someone else.”

  “Let me consider how to test that idea. Drink water and stretch. Then combat drills.”

  Jonah smiled and kissed her again before letting go. He snatched a towel from the wall hooks, wiped off the wood chips and then got a water bottle out of the cooler. When he turned, Tiana had already swept the chips off the floor and tossed the logs into the firewood box before going upstairs. Jonah rolled the bottle’s cold glass across his neck then poured water down his throat.

  He started the stretches Tiana had taught him. Many were like the yoga he’d been doing for years. He worked his way easily into a front split, switching sides after a minute then used an exercise ball to move past the full-split point on both sides. He’d worked on a full split for years and never gotten there no matter how he stretched until Tiana. Whatever she’d done to his joints and muscles had moved him way past what he’d have thought possible.

  When Tiana came back downstairs, Jonah was working on the straddle split.

  She stopped in front of him. “Another two inches and you’ll have the straddle split too. That will help your fighting mobility.”

  Jonah smiled. “Not to mention my climbing,” he said. Tiana always focused on the self-defense.

  “Don’t work the straddle stretches again until tomorrow night. You’ve worked that enough for now. I’ll give you five more minutes to recov
er. That should take care of it.” Tiana patted him on the cheek and turned, heading back towards the stairs.

  “Do you want anything from the kitchen?” she asked, bouncing up the steps.

  “Your smoothie number seven would be helpful. A large one.”

  “As long as you don’t drink it too fast this time.”

  “I promise.”

  Jonah walked around the room until his legs stopped shaking. In a minute, he was near normal. He went to open the door for Tiana; her hands would be full. If she used her tail to open the door, she risked someone on security detail learning her secret. The only places not video monitored in the house were their bedroom suite, the dojo and the bathrooms. Jonah had insisted on the compromise of hardened steel bars and alarms for the windows instead. After finding the mole in their organization, the Sacketts were understandably paranoid.

  Jonah opened the door and moved aside for Tiana.

  She carried a package under one arm and his smoothie in the other. As she passed, she handed him the smoothie. “I’ve measured your threshold of hearing, Jonah, and I didn’t make a sound that would alert you I was approaching the door. How is it you opened the door just then?”

  Jonah paused with the smoothie part way to his lips. “I’m not sure. I saw you coming back; not with my eyes though. Should we try a test when I’m focused on it?”

  Tiana shook her head. “We can do that later. Right now, we need to work on keeping you alive. Weapons practice.”

  “Yes, dear,” Jonah said, rolling his eyes.

  “Cheeky,” drawled Tiana. She smiled with a look in her eyes that made Jonah understand the eye rolling would cost him.

  “Today, we will add a new dimension to your training,” she said, her feral grin at odds with her casual tone. “You’ve gotten somewhat comfortable sparring against me when I’m fighting as a human. But there are those in the galaxy with more than four limbs. Myself for instance,” she said whipping her tail from behind her and thumping him in the solar plexus. The strike was not quite hard enough to make him drop the smoothie.

  “Touche’!” he said, after a moment. Even though he’d sensed something about to happen, perhaps the tail attack was so foreign to him that he’d failed to comprehend it. He replayed his memory of it in his head, including the sensation he’d experienced right before the thump.

  “I hope I’m the only one you face in hand-to-hand-to-tail combat on this planet. . .” She paused for him to acknowledge the phrase.

  “Uhm. Groan?” he ventured.

  “Of course,” she said. “However, it’s possible one day we will leave this planet, or that an enemy with a tail or a stinger, may come to us. If we start now, in a few decades you might defend yourself, for a minute or two. We can hope you’ll never be so careless or unlucky that one gets close to you, but—Murphy happens.”

  “Perhaps, I should work on my fast draw. . . “

  “Absolutely, but guns jam, occasionally, or run out of ammunition…” She paused and looked him in the eye. “Always.”

  Jonah nodded. “Got it. Ammunition runs out—always. Murphy happens.”

  “Good,” Tiana said. “I’m glad you understand.”

  She turned and dropped the package on the bottom step. It landed with a thud. It sounded heavy. With an effortless yank, she pulled the packing tape off. Jonah took another slug of his smoothie. It tingled on his tongue, filling his mouth with the taste of cinnamon blended with blueberries, dark chocolate and coffee. As Tiana lifted the top sheet of dense foam packing, Jonah looked over her shoulder. The foam had covered two neat rows of objects each nested in a bed. It took Jonah a moment to understand. Two bladed weapons, a small mace and two others that looked like nunchaku. Each had a serpentine handle.

  It clicked.

  "Tail weapons. Cool!”

  Tiana lifted the mace out of the box and passed it to her tail, sliding into the entwining grip. She waved it experimentally then put it back in its place with a snort of disgust.

  “Something wrong?” Jonah said.

  “I’m out of shape. I should’ve been exercising my tail more since I left the crèche.”

  She reached for a practice knife with her tail, picked it up and swished it through the air. “That will do,” she said, picking up her kukri blades. “Ready?”

  Jonah took a last swallow of his drink and put it in the refrigerator. “Sure.” He snatched up his rubber-coated, practice knives and walked to the center of the room.

  Tiana joined him. “Sadly, I can't show you defense against an opponent with a tail for obvious reasons, but watch with your imagination. The first response I want you to practice is this…. With a tail attack from the quadrant two and left-side secondary attacks, use a right-hand cut-block a cubit behind the tail’s tip, passing to the right.”

  Tiana demonstrated with a spinning pass. “As you go, guard left against the secondary attack like this.” She trailed a left-handed guard. “As you clear the attack, slash to the body with your left to push them away from you.”

  “Okay,” Jonah said, “A cubit?”

  Tiana pointed to the distance between her elbow and fingertip.

  “Okay. Then what?”

  “Run like hell.”

  “Got it. Run.”

  “Like hell.”

  “Okay. Do I practice that too?”

  “Yes. Try to reach the far side of the room.”

  For an hour, Jonah practiced different variations of disengaging and ‘running like hell’. He was on his way back to the start when something thumped him on the back of his head. He jerked around, coming to guard position. A tennis ball rolled away from him across the room. Max bent over and retrieved it.

  “Did I do it right?” he asked Tiana.

  Chapter 17 (Better Together)

  Tiana laughed. “Yes, Max, thanks. That’s all I needed. Good shot by the way.”

  Max grinned and went back upstairs.

  “Ow?!” Jonah complained.

  Tiana nodded in thought. “It seems it must be me making the attack, which is not that helpful for you.

  Jonah laughed. “I can’t believe it. I actually spotted an advantage you haven’t picked up on yet.”

  Tiana turned to him, eyebrows raised.

  “If we are fighting together and I know what you are about to do, it might be helpful, don’t you think?”

  Tiana walked over to him and took him by the arms. She put her head on his shoulder. “I am so hot for you now that you would have to be inside my skin to believe it.”

  “We can put part of me inside your skin, if you like,” he offered.

  “Later,” she said. “Let’s see if it works.” She bounced over to the stairs.

  “Max can you come back?” she called. “… and bring Amber,” she added.

  “Amber?” Jonah said. “Shouldn’t you put on some clothes?”

  “No, she’s already identified me as alien to your world; she figured it out on the ride back from Lexington. When I smelled her realization, I took off my gloves and showed her my hands. It was obvious I knew she knew, and she said it was not going to affect her work for me. Though she hasn’t seen the tail.”

  “That’s a lot of unspoken communication,” Jonah said, “You’re sure all that was understood?”

  “She’s a woman,” Tiana said, patting him on the shoulder. “They don’t need so many words to communicate, and I trust her.”

  “Okay, but I’m covering up MY tail anyway,” Jonah said. He went to his locker, grabbed another pair of gym shorts and slid into them.

  At the top of the stairs, Max called down, “Is everyone decent this time?”

  “Just bring her down, Max,” Tiana called back.

  Max came down the stairs ahead of Amber. His eyes widened when he realized Tiana hadn’t covered her tail.

  When Amber reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Tiana, her eyes glinted with….

  Jonah didn’t have the chance to finish his interpretation of Amber’s expression
because it disappeared when Tiana tackled her.

  Jonah had moved aside instinctively as Tiana launched herself at Amber. Amber lay on the floor without struggling, wrapped in Tiana’s pinioning arms, legs and tail. Amber’s gold-brown eyes looked into Tiana’s. With a challenging smile on her lips, she tilted her head, exposing her neck—a deliberate contradiction of expression and action.

  “You expected to see my tail,” said Tiana. “You knew I was not human. I trusted you with that, but it doesn’t explain your knowing that. I need to know how you knew.”

  Amber kept her neck exposed and spoke in Spanish, “Taste me and see if what I tell you now is not true. Abdusamad al Bahari was my paternal grandfather. My maternal grandfather was Marcos Rodriguez de Córdoba. My grandfather raised me when my parents died. My mother and father were descended from both lines of your first friends on this world, Abdusamad al Bahari and Maria Rodriguez al Bahari de Cordoba y Casablanca. Mother and father were over two hundred years old when they were killed, and they both appeared only twenty. Before he died in 1955 my grandfather Abdusamad told me I should find you. He said, ‘No one should have children they know they will outlive. You must find Princess Tiana. Tell her that she owes you your children.’” Amber paused then grinned. “My ninety-eighth birthday is in two weeks, but I can wait longer if I must.”

  Tiana stared at Amber then replied in Spanish. “I will taste you, but I know you speak the truth. I always honor my debts.” She put her lips to Amber’s neck. The skin jumped as she pierced it to get to the vein beneath.

  After a moment, she pulled away and turned to look at Max. “Did you know anything about this Max?”

  “I have no clue what either of you just said or why you are both on the floor,” said Max.

  “Tiana,” said Jonah. “Aren’t you going to let her up?”

  “I’m very comfortable here,” Tiana said. “You might want to try it sometime.”