All alone,
unnaturally

>> Moiliili

Not in any sense had Lu Wi ever been alone before. The Communist system did not encourage independent thought or action. Like his mother, the government was always hovering, ready to slap his knuckles, but offering the physical necessities for life, food and a roof, and a belief system in which the Motherland supplanted God as the highest entity.

At the core of that system was that to do anything, comrade, you need government approval. A cruel pun, if ever there was one. You needed approval in the sense of an official OK, but also the moral and emotional approval of the Motherland.

Lu Wi sought it now, as he always had.

Yes, he wanted the love of the lovely Su Lik. Wanted to hear her again sing his name "Lu Wi, Lu Wai." Wanted her approval. But she was just one person. She was Falun Gong. She had turned her back on the Motherland.

After leaving Su Lik's cottage, Lu Wi ran through the shadows back out to the street where he'd locked his mo-ped. He sat there in the dark, overpowered by aloneness. Communism taught you to lean on others, and he had just left the one person on whom he could lean.

Funny thing, though. Communism does a good job of suppressing a sense of individual responsibility, but it is just that: suppression. It merely encourages people to take the easy way out and become part of the faceless masses. But now, if he was to fulfill his dream and be accepted as a full agent in Te-Wu, he would have to take individual action.

He began by assessing his assets. The mo-ped was high on that list, as was a knife. Also high on the list was the credit card his superiors in Beijing had cleverly taken out with a Taiwan bank -- try tying that to the Communist government -- which Lu Wi had used to purchase food and whatever was needed at the Kahala estate where he was Te-Wu's houseboy.

At the top of the list was the fact that there had been no mention on the TV news about the FBI looking for the final resident of Te-Wu's estate. He'd watched enough local news to know that if somebody was wanted by the cops, CrimeStoppers would put out a bulletin and TV always ran it.

First things first, he'd use the card to get a hotel room in Waikiki, not worrying about being recognized as an associate of the Chinese secret police.

He'd have room service, a treat for a guy who cooked three meals a day for eight people.

And he would figure a way to kill the lama and the little buddha girl he'd followed. He was guessing that, sooner or later, the lama would have to visit her and they'd both be there for the taking.