The Hunt for the Moon Orchid: Part 3
by T. Prince, tk_prince@hotmail.se
Things get stranger as some new faces appear on the scene.


Central Intelligence Agency, Classified File #331 (Project Blue Lotus, Entry
#16)

Here follows a status report concerning the persons believed to be (or to have
been) on the hunt for the M.O.:

CONFIRMED TO BE IN PLAY: Tang Su (China), Melissa McCoy (US), Bridget Grayson
(US),

Scout Stone (US), Kelsey Stone (US), Amanda Fairchild (US), Jeanette Warwick

alias Mystica Primula (US), Mariela Escovedo (Brazil), Miranda Federley
(Australia),

Deepa Dhital (Nepal), Ishani Thapa (Nepal) CONFIRMED TO BE OUT OF PLAY:
Bethany Holt (US) STATUS UNCERTAIN: Kat Wexler (US), Nikki Morrison (US),
Pujya Patel (India), Lora Craft (UK)

Number of Agency operatives in play: 2 (identities classified) Number of
hostile agents in play: 1 confirmed, 1 more suspected (identities unknown

at this point)

***

After betraying their boss, Dr. Pujya Patel, and abandoning her to what had
appeared to be a grisly end, Deepa and Ishani had immediately set off in the
direction they had come. However, it soon turned out that getting out of the
jungle was not nearly as easy as getting into it. Thick, ancient vines seemed
to have appeared where there had previously been a pathway, and everything
seemed to suggest that, whichever way they went, they were going around in
circles.

After almost ten hours of this exhausting merry-go-round, Ishani suggested
that they climb a nearby cliff to find their bearings. Deepa agreed, and
twenty minutes later, they had ascended the rocky cliff face and found
themselves with a panoramic view of the untamed jungles of Kaabri. Ishani was
just about to point out the correct direction, when a throat- clearing noise
alerted the ex-Gurkhas to the presence of strangers.

They turned around, and found themselves face to face with the strangest and
most sinister- looking crew that they had ever encountered.

There were six people on the other side of the cliff, each character more
eccentric than the other. The most eye-catching of them all was a beautiful
but exceedingly cruel-looking woman with reddish-blonde hair, who was wearing
what could best be described as a tight-fitting white and gold Star Trek
uniform. On her well-rounded bust, the letters "E.G." were emroidered in gold.
This woman, clearly the boss, was standing with her legs confidently apart and
her hands on her hips, grinning with wicked pleasure.

To her right stood a shapely dark-haired woman dressed in a black lycra
catsuit so maddeningly tight that her nipples were clearly discernible. Her
raven hair was arranged in a slender ponytail, and her eyes were of an
algae-green color. Her most striking feature, however, was the razor-sharp
mechanical claws that had been attached to her hands, and which she held
crossed over her chest. To the other side of the boss stood an elegant young
woman wearing only a snug white leotard, and with her ruby red hair in a
perfect, geometrically-trimmed bob. This woman was armed with an extremely
long whip, which she kept curled around her body like some tropical snake. The
remaining three appeared to be mere goons: all were tall, muscular white women
carrying machine guns and wearing grey spandex jumpsuits that clung to their
curves like a second skin.

Deepa instinctively drew her gun, but it was promptly shot out of her hand by
a salvo from one of the goons' machine guns.

"My, my, let's not begin our acquaintance on such an unfriendly note," the sci
fi-looking blonde said with a theatrical wave of her hand. "Instead, allow us
to introduce ourselves. My name is Erica Goldfang. These are my associates,"
she gestured towards the woman in the catsuit -- "Lady Catclaw," -- then the
woman with the whip -- "and Domina Trix. We believe you have something for
us."

The two Nepalis looked at each other, each discerning the same impulse in the
other's eyes. Then, they promptly turned around and made a beeline for the
nearest descendable cliff face.

*THWACK!* Almost immediately, Domina's snaky whip curled itself around Deepa's
ankle, sweeping her off her feet and sending her plummeting boobs-first onto
the rock. "OOOF!!"

Ishani managed to reach the edge of the cliff, but upon turning around in
preparation for the descent, she found herself cornered by Lady Catclaw,
wearing a wicked smile on her ghost-pale face.

"No escape, honey," the henchwoman whispered in a sultry alto voice, "tonight,
the claws are out." With a terrifying metallic noise, she elongated her claws
to three times their previous size and let them dance across the paralyzed
Nepali's powerfully-built body. Each slash reduced a section of Ishani's
clothing to tiny ribbons, until eventually, the traitorous bodyguard was left
shivering in her sweaty white bra and bottom-hugging panties.

"I g-g-g-give up-p!!" Ishani stammered, as she curled up into a little ball.

"I've got it, boss!" Domina cried cheerfully, having just procured the tiny
blue orchid specimen from Deepa's back pocket.

"Wonderful," Erica Goldfang chuckled, taking the tiny flower and examining it
in the light. "Oh, how marvellous! Now, all we have to do is find a way to
untap your power, you beautiful, beautiful thing."

"What do we do with these two?" Lady Catclaw said, contemptuously nudging
Ishani's quivering butt with her toe.

"P-please, we'll work for you! We'll do it cheap... for free!! We promise-
*THWACK!* OOOOHHHH!!!" Deepa began, but was rudely silenced when Domina
delivered a blistering lash across her taut brown bum, sending a cloud of dust
into the air as the whip licked the well-trained ass cheeks.

"No, no, no," Erica said, shaking her silky reddish-blond hair, "I saw what
happened to your previous employer, and I'm not about to repeat her mistake.
I'm afraid I have much less ambitious plans for you two."

As she said this, two of the mooks stepped forward and produced two large,
unidentifiable objects, which were promptly secured to the Nepali women's
ankles via a rope. Next, a loud whooshing noise was heard, and a second later,
the ex-mercenaries found themselves being dragged by some invisible force
toward the edge of the cliff.

"NOOOOO, P-PLEASE DON- OOOOHHH!!" Ishani wailed, just before the two women
were pulled up into the air and found themselves hanging upside down whilst
quickly gaining altitude. They had been fastened to a pair of balloons and
were drifting off toward the edge of the jungle with alarming speed.

"Relax, my friends!!" Erica cried after them. "I've designed these balloons
myself, and the maximum altitude isn't high enough to be dangerous. You'll
drift off the coast until the balloons inevitably explode somewhere over the
sea. Some rescue helicopter will spot you, I'm sure... if the sharks don't get
you first!"

"SH-SH-SHARKS!?? NOOO, HEEEELP!!!" Deepa's shrieked, each syllable a little
fainter than the one before.

"That went rather smoothly," the super-villainess chuckled, nonchalantly
brushing some dust off her sleeve. "Now, only one thing remains: this specimen
needs to be subjected to a small number of tests, and then we're good to go."

"But boss, if those knuckleheads decided to risk everything and steal it from
the Indian doctor, isn't it likely that she'd already verified it as the right
species?" Domina Trix asked, curling her whip into a roll with one hand.
"After all, we don't want to waste any time."

"Likely isn't good enough," Erica Goldfang replied, holding the orchid up to
the sun. "My entire master plan hangs upon this one slender thread. We will do
the tests, and we will do them right here."

Her henchwomen nodded and began to set up camp. The villainess, meanwhile, put
the orchid to her nostril and smelled it carefully. A strange, smoky odour
emerged from its lustrous blue interior. Smoky with an basenote of... chicken?
Well, she thought, no one could say that the jungle of Kaabri wasn't a
baffling place.

***

"OUCH!! Gentle, sis!"

Scout gently prodded her sister's head back down against the ground and
continued to rub the ointment onto her lower back, trying her best not to
touch any of the ant-bites directly. As a result of their unfortunate fall
into a nest of giant snapper ants, Kelsey's body was red and swollen all over,
and more disturbingly, every twenty minutes or so, yet another wayward ant
seemed to find its way out of one of her nether orifices.

"OOHH!! What's in that stuff anyway?"

"Just river water and some herbs," Kelsey replied gruffly, squeezing the
mixture into her sister's tender back-flesh. "What else can I do? All our
stuff is back there with that crazy Brazilian bitch and her blondie
girlfriend. I don't even have a lighter! We'll need to rub two sticks together
for tonight's fire."

"So what's the plan, then? OOHH!! Just go commando into the jungle and
fist-fight off all the enemies until we find the orchid? OOOWW!! We've gotta
go back and get our stuff, sis!"

"That's not possible, Kels! We got spanked royally back there -- especially
you -- and this time, we'd be going up against them without guns. Nuh-uh, not
a chance."

"Sis, you're IMPOSSIBLE- wait, hold on... is that Jefferson Airplane?"

The two sisters listened closely, and sure enough, those were the familiar
sounds of the psychedelic sixties, emanating from what seemed like only a
hundred or so yards away. Kelsey and Scout looked at each other in
befuddlement.

"That's... so WEIRD," Kelsey half-whispered.

"And yet, this might be our shot at restocking our supplies," Scout replied,
scratching her chin, "think about it: whoever decides to play music at maximum
volume in a place like this can't be too bright, which means that even without
guns or clothes, we might actually stand a fighting chance against them."

"So we go in... like this?"

"No, you moron!" Scout snapped off two branches from a nearby tree, testing
the sharpness of the broken-off ends against the tree-trunk. "We'll do like
the survivors did in that plane crash movie we saw the other day: make spears
out of tree branches."

Kelsey, still lying naked on her stomach half-covered in glistening ointment,
responded with an incredulous stare, mouth hanging agape. Her sister responded
in turn with a playful swat across the supine Texan's shapely butt, the impact
sending ripples of jiggling outward from the center.

"OOUUCCHHH!!! BITCH! I got BITTEN there!!" Kelsey wailed.

"Shut up and follow me," her sister commanded her. "If we can catch these
rookies by surprise, this should be over in two minutes."

And so the two naked Texans snuck off into the dense jungle, armed with spears
like some cavewomen of the distant past, as evening turned into dusk around
them.

Soon, they came upon the clearing which seemed to contain the source of the
music. Whatever the two sisters had expected to find there, this definitely
wasn't it. The entire clearing was filled with half-naked Western women in
bright, psychedelic-patterned clothing, lounging around in the grass or
sprinting around in drugged-out abandon. A huge maypole-like structure had
been erected in the center, with colorful streamers blowing in the wind on all
sides. The air was thick with the sweet scent of unknown mind-altering
substances, and three different 60's compilation were blaring through the air
at maximum volume.

"Hippies," Scout growled, "I'll be damned."

"What do we do, sis?" Kelsey whined.

"Let's steal some clothes and supplies and then get the hell out of here.
These idiots are attracting the whole damn jungle with their music."

"What about guns?"

"Kels... they're hippies."

"Um... right."

As they stood pondering their next move, two luscious fair-haired flower
children came sauntering up to them with curious smiles. Both were wearing
brightly-colored hand-woven miniskirts and bandannas, and a syrupy, druggy
smell seemed to be coming off every part of them.

"Far OUT, my friends!" one of the hippies whooped appreciatively upon seeing
that the visitors were completely nude, "FREE LOVE- OOFF!!" Scout immediately
buried a fist in the girl's soft belly, while Kelsey felled the other hippie
with a kick to the face. The two hippies fell in a neat, lush pile of blond
hair, fair skin and electric-colored fabric.

"Quick, before anyone spots us!" Scout yelled. The two sisters immediately
went about stripping the hippies down to their birthday suits (not that they
would have been too bothered by that, Kelsey thought) and put on their skimpy
little dresses. The sturdy Texans, however, were both taller and more
powerfully built than the pixie-like hippie girls, which meant that the mini-
skirts did very little to cover their plump white bottoms. As a disguise,
however, they were passable.

After tying up the unconscious hippies with vines and hiding their naked
bodies under a pile of leaves, Scout and Kelsey went in search of something
resembling a supply stash. It wasn't an easy task, given the size and extreme
unconventionality of the hippie camp's layout, but eventually they stumbled
upon an especially large and interesting-looking tent that seemed to be worthy
of investigation.

The interior of the tent was a kaleidoscope of bold colors and psychedelic
ornaments. In the center, on a tattered pink rug, a woman was sitting in lotus
position, deep in meditation. The woman was exceedingly long-haired and quite
beautiful, and was naked except for a floral- patterned bikini bottom.

"What do we do about her, Scout?" Kelsey whispered to her sister. "Take her
out?"

"Nah, she's out already," Scout replied, nudging the meditating hippie's
shoulder with her foot. "Let's get some supplies and then get the hell away
from this freakshow."

"All right, then- AAAHHH!! WH-WHAT'S GOING ON!!?"

An unknown force had picked up both sisters and flung them up into the air,
where they were now hovering several feet above ground. Scout and Kelsey
exchanged glances that oscillated back and forth between "Is this really
happening?" and "Oh shit, this is really happening!", before settling
somewhere confusedly in the middle.

"Now who might you two be?" the meditating woman suddenly boomed in an
authoritative alto voice. "I don't recognize your faces."

"Wh-what are you d-doing to us?" Kelsey stammered.

"This? Just a little talent I picked up from the local flora," the hippie
said, opening her eerily green eyes and burrowing her gaze into Scout's.
"Turns out just about anything in this jungle can be smoked with awesome
results!"

"You... found the Moon Orchid!?" Kelsey asked, astonished.

"You... SMOKED the Moon Orchid!!??" Scout cried, aghast.

"Not the Moon Orchid, silly," the hippie replied with a laugh, "the Moon
Orchid gives you telepathic powers. No, this was some other flower I found,
which I don't think the scientists even know about yet. Not that I'm going to
tell them about it, mind you!"

"Who-"

"Me? Why, I'm Mystica Primula, leader of the Daughters of Scorpio, of course!
Haven't you heard of me?" Mystica smiled an eerie, wicked smile. "You will
soon enough. And so will everyone else."

"I thought hippies were supposed to be about peace and love and
understanding," Kelsey cried, her voice betraying her fear, "but seem to be
plotting some kinda evil scheme! What are you really after, you weirdo?"

"You're right that I have larger ambitions than just dropping acid and
blathering on about world peace," Mystica continued. "In fact, most of my
sisters are far too naive to understand the true intentions of the Daughters
of Scorpio. But I'm sure that *you* will find that we have been both
misunderstood and underestimated by society at large. For now, enough talking.
Strawberry! Amethyst! Ultramarina! We have company!"

With an alacrity that seemed all the more surprising given the general
disorder of the camp, other Daughters of Scorpio began pouring into the tent.
Some of the hippies were clearly drugged out of their minds, whereas others
were completely, almost religiously alert. Most were in some stage of undress,
with a few having dispensed with clothing altogether.

"Far out, sisters," one of them remarked sagely upon seeing the levitating
intruders.

"These two poorly-disguised women are Enemies of Scorpio," Mystica said,
striding confidently around the tent as she addressed her followers. "You know
what that means."

An awed murmur passed through the crowd, followed by appreciative chuckles.

"To the Maypole!" someone cried. In the next instant, the two sisters fell,
unceremoniously, flat on their behinds. Screaming with cult-like fervor, the
Daughters descended upon the Texans, holding them down against the ground as
they were stripped of their disguises and left completely naked. Next, two of
the more powerfully-built Daughters promptly picked up the hunters and slung
them over their shoulders, following which they were carried out of the tent
by the screaming mob toward unknown torments (or pleasures?).

"Now where was I? Oh yes!" Mystica said to herself as she took up the lotus
position, took a deep smoke of some rainbow-colored weed and retreated back
into her mystical visions.

***

Amanda Fairchild, the world-famous actress, had barely spent two hours in the
jungle before she started to have second thoughts about coming there at all.
Her rather vague plan to raise environmental awareness by joining an orchid
hunt that wasn't even being filmed was beginning to show its cracks, and now
-- to make matters worse -- she didn't know which way to go. Dis- appointed
and exasperated, Amanda turned toward her assistants (Carly and Penny) and
broke into her signature pout.

"Oh no, what's wrong?" asked Carly, a spunky redhead in her early twenties.

"I don't feel so good," Amanda whimpered. "We need to go home."

"Go home already? What about 'Amanda Fairchild Cares' and 'Save the Trees'? We
need to protect your brand!" declared Penny, a somewhat older Italian-American
girl whose role in the company seemed to be that of 'big sister'.

"I kno-o-ow, but this isn't at all what I'd thought," the movie star
complained, whilst bending over to massage her perfectly-shaped ankles. "Where
are the gorillas, for instance?"

"You're thinking of the photo-op in Rwanda," Penny filled in. "The one you
turned down in order to come here."

"Is that what happened? I thought we decided to do both in the same day!"

"That wouldn't be physically possible. Rwanda is in Africa, whereas we are now
on an island in the South Pacific. We've been through this!"

"Ugghh!! Why does this keep happening to meeeee-!!"

"Hey guys, take a look at this!" Carly suddenly interjected. Amanda and Penny
spun around, and neither could stifle a small shriek of astonishment. Only a
few feet away, a gargantuan blood-red flower had unfolded itself seemingly out
of nowhere. The flower was almost twelve feet across, and in its center, a
thick tendril was protruding like an arm in salute. To make things even more
eerie, the bottom petal had been lowered to the ground almost like a
staircase.

"This is... this is so... incredibly... BEAUTIFUL!" Amanda Fairchild cried,
immediately bending over to caress the silky red petal. The flower seemed to
actually vibrate in response to her touch, and even more amazingly, there
seemed to be some sort of pulse pounding through its interior.

"Maybe we'll get a photo op, after all," Carly chuckled.

That's exactly what the actress had in mind. "Penny, follow me closely with
the camera while I climb on top of this thing, all right? I want it to go
viral in an hour: Amanda Fairchild -- discovering new species of plant! She
doesn't just care about the trees, she also wants to save the... whatever the
hell this is. No, WAIT, I've got it: Amanda Fairchild -- she doesn't just
care, she ACTS!"

"Well, she is an actress," Penny quipped as she took out the camera.

"Not in that sense, dummy! Now follow me closely!"

The curvy movie star climbed on top of the thick petal and continued toward
the center of the flower. As she approached it, the flower began to slowly
close itself, forcing her to go down on all fours to maintain her balance.

"Are you getting this?" the actress cried over her shoulder.

"Um," Penny mumbled in response. The lack of space coupled with the movie
star's change of pose meant that the only thing she was capturing on camera
was the celebrity's ripe, plump derriere, clearly discernible under her
sweaty, tight shorts. "This'll satisfy the male half of the audience, at
least!"

"Whaddya say back there?" the movie star's bottom replied.

"Nothing, just keep doing whatever you're doing up there! And if you can
wiggle your butt a little, that would be even better!"

"Hey, little flower!" Amanda Fairchild was cooing, up ahead. "Look -- it's
like it's reacting to what I'm saying! We come in peace! We come in pe-ACKK!!!
IT'S- IT'S G-G-G-GOT ME!! AAACK!!"

"It's... what!?" Penny asked, incredulous.

What happened next was so unexpected and terrifying that everyone involved
seemed powerless to react with anything other than mesmerized, dazed
acceptance. All of a sudden, the flower suddenly divided itself into two
massive jaws, which snapped shut around the choking actress, as well as the
top half of her assistant. Bending her head upwards, Penny saw her boss being
enveloped by thin tendrils, which briskly and expertly deprived her of all her
clothing -- wet t-shirt and skimpy shorts -- and underwear -- white push-up
bra and tiny thong -- before suspending her in an X-shape in front of the
master tendril.

Penny tried to scream, but every sound seemed to be muffled to inaudibility
inside the flower, and what's more, the complete silence seemed to
significantly downplay the urgency of what was happening. As Penny watched the
gorgeous blond actress squirm against her bondage, something very much like
calm, voyeuristic enjoyment seemed to overtake the feeling of concern. There
was the spoiled blond princess who had been the source of so much of Penny's
headache and annoyment, finally finding herself beyond rescue. There was the
round, photogenic rump that she had so often fantasized about kicking (or,
better yet, spanking) finally at the mercy of a predatory organism that seemed
on the verge of subjecting it to some even more humiliating procedure. In
fact, a thin tendril was currently snaking its way up to its luscious cleft,
where, upon a brief examination, it revealed the sweet, pink rosebud in its
center.

'Mmm, yes, go right in there,' Penny caught herself thinking, and -- as if in
agreement -- the tendril did. Promptly and with great precision, the appendage
burrowed its way into the voluptuous movie star's rose- colored anus, sending
vibrations through her entire body. The tendril remained in place, and quickly
began to pump some sort of liquid into the imprisoned woman's body. With a
pang of unconscious excitement, Penny noticed that each pump of liquid caused
the blonde's perky white breasts to expand in size -- each size adjustment
causing them to jiggle in response, like plump white puddings on a moving
cart.

Two new tendrils promptly appeared, and attached themselves to the squirming
blonde's inflated boobs. Each tendril hungrily gobbled up an erect pink nipple
and began to suck, feasting on the milk that it had just helped to create. A
fourth tendril, shaped like a tongue, also appeared and began to lick the
humiliatingly exposed blonde's sweaty snatch, each lick sending convulsions of
uncomfortable pleasure through the actress's body and causing her breasts to
swell to even greater size.

'I must be dreaming,' Penny thought to herself with curious indifference.
Meanwhile, the blonde up ahead continued to be harvested in this most wicked
and ingenious manner, forced toward pleasure by the tendrils massaging her
vagina, nipples and rectum. All sense of time seemed to disappear. When on
occasion the blonde failed to yield to the demands of the flower, two new
tendrils appeared and administered a single reddening lash to each of her
sweat-drenched, ripe buttocks, immediately jump-starting the machinery all
over again.

Eventually, Penny felt two hands grab hold of her legs and begin to pull her
out -- a sensation which she greeted with a strange, indifferent calm. Soon,
the silent, pulsating red dream-world disappeared, and Penny fell hard on her
butt, back in the regular world of sound, chaos and fear.

"Wh-what the HELL just happened!!" Carly wailed. "Where is Amanda!? OH SHIT,
OH SHIT, OH SHIT!!!"

"Um, she's, uh..." Penny began, twitching violently as she re-accustomed
herself to her new situation. "I think the flower is, like, milking her. Like
a cow."

"It's doing WH-WHAT!!?"

"That's correct," a strange voice said behind the two assistants. "The Dioanea
Gynovorata feeds primarily on human breast milk. Your friend will be stuck in
there until the plant has stored up enough sustenance to suit its needs --
could take up to weeks."

Penny and Carly turned around. The owner of the voice was a tall, black-haired
woman in ranger clothing: camouflage top, camouflage pants, sunglasses and a
black cap.

"Jacintha Morales -- INTERPOL, Crimes Against Cultural and Natural Heritage
division. I'm tracking down a number of international criminals known to be
running about in this jungle. Have you seen any of the women on these
pictures?"

"OUR... BOSS... IS BEING... MILKED... BY A PLANT..." Carly stuttered, looking
as if on the verge of a seizure.

"Ehh, she'll be all right," Jacintha said, waving her hand nonchalantly. "No
one ever died from being milked by the Dioanea. Most victims experience
sporadic cases of S.U.B.I. (Spontaneous Uncontrollable Breast Inflation) for a
few years afterwards, but nothing more than that."

"MILKED. BY A PLANT."

"Look, girls, this is the last place in the world where you want to be
squeamish. Or sentimental, for that matter. Now, let's all sit down here in
the grass and talk about which of the women in these photos you have seen, and
then maybe I can arrange to get you both on a plane out of here by tomorrow.
Sound good?"

The two girls nodded and agreed to the deal. As they sat down to have a chat
with the INTERPOL agent, the Dioanea Gynovarata rattled its enormous head,
opened a gap between two petals -- and promptly spat out a slime-covered white
push-up bra.

***

"Wakie wakie," a mature, melodic voice cooed in Pujya's ear.

The Indian scientist awoke from her dreams (of being endlessly prepared for
dinner by a singing caiman chef), and found herself staring into the icy blue
eyes of... Nicole Kidman?

"Dr. Pujya Patel? Pleased to meet you. I'm Miranda Federley, adventuress
extraordinaire."

Pujya twitched, and then became immediately aware of the awkwardness of the
situation. She was completely naked, save for a pair of polka dotted panties
with a sizeable hole over the crotch region, and she had fallen asleep with
her rear end pointing straight up, like some cartoon character. She quickly
scrambled to her feet and covered up, one hand over her boobs and the other
over her crotch.

"Don't worry, doctor, if I wanted to ogle your body I've had plenty of
opportunities to do so already," Miranda chuckled. "I've got other things on
my mind."

"Such as?" Pujya asked skeptically.

"I'd like to suggest that we team up," the adventuress purred. "Finding this
orchid has proven to be tougher than I'd expected. I need someone with special
botanical knowledge -- like you. In return, I handle all the dangers. In the
end, we split the reward. How does that sound?"

"Um..." Pujya looked around, feeling not quite at ease with the suddenness of
this strange proposal. "But I don't even know you."

"What else do you need to know?"

"OK... well, can I get a minute to think about it?"

"What's there to think about?" Miranda smiled, enigmatically.

Pujya eyed the mysterious brunette carefully. The deal sounded like just what
she needed, and yet there was something in the adventurer's demeanor that made
her instinctively distrust her. Was it the cool, impenetrable blue eyes? Her
cocksure demeanor and dominant posture? Pujya let her eyes travel along the
woman's leather pants, up along her generously curved hips, ample bosom and
back to her face. This Westerner was bad news, but then again, so was
everything else in this jungle.

"I'll take the deal," Pujya suddenly found herself saying, "on one condition.
I want a gun."

"No problem," the adventuress replied with a cool smile, "I've got plenty to
choose from. But first," she threw the startled scientist a bag full of
assorted clothes. "Let's get your bum out of those tattered undies and into
something better suited for this terrain."

***

Tang and Melissa had just sliced their way through a particularly dense
portion of the jungle, when the ground suddenly gave way beneath their feet.

"OH SHI-" was Tang's aborted response, before they both plunged into complete
darkness. A second or two later, they struck ground -- or one of them did, at
least. While Melissa was groaning nearby in the darkness, Tang found that
something soft and buoyant had served as a cushion for her head, and absorbed
her fall. Groping about in the darkness, she located the object and squeezed
it to see what it was.

"Unggghh-oooowwwww... knock it off, Tang!" Melissa's voice replied, hoarsely.
Yes, the object that had absorbed her fall turned out to have been nothing
less than her Caucasian friend's providently buoyant bosom, which had
evidently become very sore in the process.

"Sorry about that," Tang chirped, although privately she was happy to have
discovered at least one use for her clueless companion.

"Ooooooooohhhhhhhh, I must have broken two thirds of my bones just now,"
Melissa whined. "Where the hell are we anyway? I can't see a thing!"

"I had no idea we were walking over a network of tunnels," Tang said, standing
up to stretch her aching back joints. "But I don't think we're that deep
underground -- I can see some a tiny crack of light over there."

However, as Tang approached the light, it quickly became apparent that what
she was looking at was not the patch of blue sky that she had thought, but
rather some independence source of light. Then she saw what it was, and
stopped dead in her tracks.

"Well, I'll be damned," she mumbled, feeling dizzy with astonishment.

There, on the wall of black soil, hung a single specimen of pale blue orchid,
whose petals emanated a ghostly blue light that was so faint that it would not
be visible in daylight (which is why it was no wonder that it hadn't been
noted by any of the scientists). Tang reached out her hand and touched it with
her fingertip. The mere physical contact with the flower seemed to trigger
faint unexplainable sensations in her mind, the stirrings of some primal brain
circuit that had lain dormant for millennia, awaiting this very moment.

"I think my work here is done," Tang said with a smile as she gently placed
the specimen in a plastic bag and slid it into her back pocket.

TO BE CONTINUED