Duel Identity

Chapter 1

The Shock Of Steel Against Steel Quivered up Megan O'Malley's arm as her sword intercepted the saber looping in to slash at her side. As soon as she parried, her opponent's blade leaped away, curving around to threaten her other side.

Megan deflected it again, but she was in trouble-and she knew it. That sword was whistling all around her, and she was scrambling to keep her own weapon in the way. Sooner or later she would mess up, and then…

For a wild moment she considered ending her problems with an unexpected karate kick. Bad idea. She knew she had to rely on the saber she held. Funny, even as it kept growing heavier and heavier in her hand, it seemed about as insubstantial as a toothpick when it came to defending her.

Maybe it was time she gave up on defense….

Her opponent's sword swooped high. Desperately Megan raised her sword and threw herself forward to the attack. The "Kiii-yaaah!" she yelled would have been more at home in a karate dojo. Anyway, it was cut short-her teeth clicked together as her opponent's saber came down on the top of her head… or rather, on the padded top of her fencing mask. At least she had the satisfaction of feeling her own blade slice across her opponent's chest a second later.

Alan Slaney, Megan's instructor at the Capitol Historical Fencing Association, stepped back and removed his mask. He rubbed the front of his fencing jacket where Megan's blow had landed. "What, exactly, would you call that last move?"

His voice was mild enough, but the look in his eyes was one Megan had seen before, usually when she'd just done something really inept.

"A riposte?" she ventured. But even as she spoke, she knew that was the wrong answer. A riposte was a counterattack coming after the defending fencer had parried an opponent's blade.

Megan hadn't even tried to deflect Alan's last stroke. She'd just lashed out. Alan lifted an eyebrow, inviting her to try again.

"Ummm-a stop-thrust?" she tried.

Alan's response was a semi-shrug. 'That's a little closer," he said. "But for a stop-thrust to be valid, it has to put a stop to my attack-by landing first. That didn't happen. You didn't have the right of way-the priority- to attack."

'That rule sounds so-so bogus/" Megan complained. "I thought this historical swordfighting was supposed to be a martial art, training for the real thing. If this had been an actual duel-"

Alan's voice rode over hers. "If this had been an actual duel, I'd be wincing from a superficial chest cut while trying to wiggle my blade free from your broken skull." He moderated his tone a little. "Fencing conventions aren't rules. They recognize certain realities-basic principles. And the most basic principle of all is that you don't go launching an attack until you've neutralized the danger from your opponent's blade. Otherwise, a better swordsman will take a bite out of you." He grinned. "Two good swordfighters could end up killing each other."

Megan could understand the logic, but she feared her expression was still mutinous.

"Hey, you've had some serious martial arts training," Alan said. "Fencing isn't that different from what you learn in a dojo. Rule number one is to be responsible. You didn't go out picking fights after your first few months' worth of karate lessons, did you?"

"No," Megan admitted. "Not that I wasn't tempted."

Alan laughed. "Get out of that mask. We'll go for regular exercises now."

Megan removed her mask, fluffing her damp, dark hair matted down by the protective gear and sweat: She didn't mind sweating-it just meant her muscles were working. And nothing-not even an all-weapons fencing mask-had ever really tamed her mop of curls. Megan grinned at Alan, an automatic response to his sunny disposition.

She glanced around the salle, a large, airy room lined with mirrors along all four walls. Scattered throughout the space, students practiced with each other or worked under the tutelage of instructors. She noticed one student, another newcomer to the salle, slumped forward trying to massage some life into his upper thighs. Those were the muscles that paid the heaviest price as new students tried to adjust to the basic fencing positions. She was lucky. Her extensive martial arts training had kept her from getting too sore. She bounced back pretty well, even after an intense workout like the one she'd just been through. This guy was older-balding and paunchy. His white fencing gear made him look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Moments before, Alan had critiqued this guy's shortcomings in much tougher language than he'd used on Megan.

"Let's hit the couches," Alan said.

With a final flip of her hair, Megan ignored the jealous glare of the balding man. Hey, she thought, if you've got it, use it. And if you use it, you might just keep it. She followed Alan to the rear of the salle, to another room where the computer-link couches stood in a row in front of more traditional training aids for the beginning fencer.

Two of the couches were already occupied. Students reclined on them, eyes closed, faces tight with concentration, the muscles in their arms and legs twitching hard. In the year 2025, virtual learning wasn't unusual. But that much movement on the couch was. Normally, computer couches suppressed most motion on the part of users.

When Megan had first seen the twitching figures, she'd thought something had gone wrong with the salle's computer. Alan had explained that these computer-link couches were specially designed. All couches that allowed people to connect into the Net ran a carefully controlled trickle current into their users to keep their muscles working. Otherwise, everybody, even kids, would end up creaking around when they got up after prolonged Net linkage. The trickle current kept circulation going, kept muscles toned, and kept people who used the Net a lot from turning into couch potatoes.

The couches at the salle carried this toning feature even further. They targeted muscle groups to trigger, so that while students ran through their virtual exercises, they would actually gain strength and the "muscle memory" of the moves they practiced virtually. Megan had been assured the process was perfectly safe, even if the students looked a bit like they were being electrocuted.

Alan was always meticulous about checking the circuitry of each couch before entrusting a student to the machinery. "I'm going to program this so you'll practice the conventional exercises-meeting an attack, parrying, and then the riposte-preferably without adding any on karate yells," he added with a grin.

Megan leaned back onto the yielding material of the couch, closing her eyes. She could still hear Alan talking as the receptors on the couch synched in to the circuitry implanted beneath her skin. "You have an impressive raw talent," Alan said. "But with saber especially, you have to feel the moves right down to your nerves-or so an old fencing master once told me. This virtual practice will give you the moves without working up a sweat, but it's all wasted if you don't pay attention to the thinking behind the moves. You're not a sword- fighting robot-you've got to focus on what the exercises teach you."

Megan's eyes opened, and she was in a virtual copy of the salle's mirrored main space, empty now except for a faceless opponent whose saber began sweeping into that deadly figure-eight pattern. The blade swept close, and automatically her wrist twisted, her blade moving to intercept….

Leif Anderson stomped into his parents' Manhattan penthouse apartment. Given his present lousy mood, maybe it was just as well the place was empty. Dad was at the office, Mom was lunching late with some old ballet friends, and the cleaning lady was off. He could be as grumpy as he liked, and no one would see.

He dumped his school stuff on the kitchen table and glared down at Park Avenue below while taking swigs of soda right out of the gel-pack. Mom would have gotten on his case to use a glass.

Leif decided it wasn 't a good thing that no one else was at home. A heaping helping of attitude was no fun if there wasn't anyone to dump it on.

The empty gel-pack in his hand crunched in his grip. Leif wished it was Andy Moore's neck. Andy was the only person he knew who would have set up the prank that had humiliated Leif today.

Last night, just as Leif had put the finishing touches on his report on Moby Dick, Andy'd paid a virtual visit from Washington, D. C. The boys had hung around in Leif's virtual workspace, shooting the breeze. Leif had talked about the college-level English course he was taking this summer. And, he remembered, he had mentioned what a babe the instructor was. Krista Mayhew was working on her doctorate at Columbia University, and she made extra money teaching summer sessions at Leif's school. She was tall, smart, slim, and stunning, with blue eyes, short brunette hair, and an athletic figure. Leif'd had half a crush on her from the moment she'd walked into the classroom. Undoubtedly, he'd been just a bit too fixated on the subject of her appearance as he described her to Andy.

The icon representing Leif's report had been out in the open while he'd blathered away. He'd even saved it to a datascrip while Andy had been there. Man, what had he been thinking? Whatever he'd been thinking, it hadn't been good enough. He'd handed Andy an opportunity on a plate-and Andy had used it.

Leif had no premonition of disaster as he turned in his report to Ms. Mayhew. After all, Moby Dick had been dissected by generations of students. Leif had had plenty of material to draw on when he wrote his report. He knew it was at least comfortably in the ballpark, and it might even be a home run. He'd done his best, and he thought it showed.

That day, as always, Krista had taken the datascrips from her students one at a time at the beginning of class. As she got each report, she'd inserted it into an old- fashioned laptop computer. Then she opened each file and read a bit of it quickly-something to do with getting a taste of the work her students were doing while she initialized the grading program she used.

After Leif had handed his work in, he'd watched his teacher pull it up on the screen. He had expected to see the first couple of paragraphs of his report swim into view on the computer's display. Instead, an animated hologram appeared-a parade of tiny brunette glamour girls that all bore an alarming resemblance to his teacher, sashaying past on the monitor like a Las Vegas chorus line. Each girl held a small sign, or poster, in front of her, which was just as well, since the girls didn't seem to be wearing anything else. Besides keeping the display rating down to a PG-13 level, the signs carried letters, spaces, or marks. Moving along the line, you could read words-Leif's report, right down to the punctuation.

Ms. Mayhew gave him a glacial look. "I can't grade this on content without reading it. That is apparently going to take rather more effort than I had anticipated.

For presentation, though, I think a definite F is merited here."

Leif had seethed in silence as he realized who had pulled this on him, and his fury had only grown throughout the day and on the way home. Andy could be obnoxious enough at the best of times. But every once in a while, he'd declare what he called "guerrilla class warfare." The purpose, he claimed, was "to keep rich kids from thinking they owned the world."

Since Leif was one of the richer kids Andy knew, he often found himself the victim of his friend's finest pranks. It hadn't helped to imagine Andy sitting safely some two hundred miles away, laughing his head off at the thought of Leif's predicament.

With an abrupt movement Leif tossed his gel-pack into the recycling bin and headed for his room. There was only one way he could work off the mood enveloping him. Leif stripped off his shirt, tossing it on the bed, and sank onto his computer-link couch. He winced his way through the process of linking in.

After being unlucky enough, a bit back, to suffer severe trauma to the nerves around his implants, Leif now found himself extremely sensitive to the process of getting onto the Net. What other people felt as a blink, he experienced as a surge of static and a shooting pain to the brain. And that was under the best of circumstances. He'd been meaning to recalibrate the receptors on his couch lately, but what with summer school and his other activities, he just hadn't found the time. That meant his transition right now was worse than usual. His head felt as if somebody had started a big fat fire right between his ears.

As Leif opened his eyes to the virtual gymnasium around him, his vision was blurred, his eyes actually watering with the pain. Some distraction this is turning out to be, he thought sourly. He smoothed his hand over the wire mesh surface on the heavy fencing jacket he wore, then automatically reached behind his back to make sure that the wire for the electrical scoring apparatus was unreeling smoothly. There were newer and better technologies available nowadays for determining which fencer had scored first, but fencing circles tended to be conservative. Electrical scoring for saber bouts was only about fifty years old.

The scene swam into focus, hushed spectators leaning forward on the tiered seats. Leif hadn't taken much trouble with them. They were just background programming, something to get Leif used to the audiences at the actual fencing tournaments where he competed.

But the piste, the two-meter by eighteen-meter strip where the fencing bout would take place, was crystal clear. So was the virtual construct that would be Leif s opponent.

"Computer," Leif ordered, "skill level random. No mask. Face… Andy Moore." The wire mask hiding his opponent's features vanished to revel Andy's smirking face. This was going to feel good

"En garde" Leif snapped, dropping into the more aggressive of the two guard positions for saber. His sword hand was at chest-level, his arm slightly bent at the elbow, his blade aiming for the virtual Andy's eyes. Leif's other hand hung loosely a few inches from his hip. It was almost a gunslinger's pose.

His opponent, the faux Andy, took the more conservative position, his sword hand at hip level, his blade standing up and out to defend the right side of his torso.

Okay, Leif thought. That still leaves him open for a head or chest cut.

Leif advanced in two rapid steps, feinting with his blade, as the virtual Andy retreated. Footwork was the name of the game in saber fencing, or "gaining the distance," as sabreurs called it. Since the sword arm was a target and cuts could come from all sorts of angles, fencers wanted as much room as possible to prepare a parry. The two opponents moved back and forth, testing each other, each trying to confuse the other as to how much space was actually between them.

Then Leif closed the distance, pushing off strongly on his left leg in a running leap, flying at his opponent like an arrow, which is what this move was called in French-the fleche. As Leif moved, his rear leg swung forward, and, as his left foot hit the ground again, so did his blow.

The flat of Leif's blade tapped the false Andy on the top of his head. Leif grinned like a wolf at his opponent. At first he'd been tempted to hit hard, to land some blows that would leave bruises the next morning if his opponent were real and the match actual rather than virtual. But Leif's competitive training asserted itself as soon as he faced off. Besides, this was all simulation. He wouldn't be hurting Andy, just swatting at a construct.

Nevertheless, Andy's image grimaced and fell back again. The fencers chased back and forth, each looking for an advantage, and Leif flicked out his blade with fingers and wrist, catching Andy's blade, beating it aside as Leif sliced his adversary on the cheek with the back of his blade. The imitation Andy didn't bleed, but he looked unhappy. Leif came in again, feinting a cut to Andy's head. The simulacrum made the standard defensive move, a parry that brought his blade parallel to the floor and about a foot from his head. Leif immediately abandoned his feint, whipping his blade like lightning to catch the fake Andy on the forearm.

Now the simulacrum launched an attack of his own, slicing his blade in at Leif's left side. Leif shifted his wrist outward while moving his sword across his body, raising the blade almost in a vertical line. The moment he'd parried, his sword leaped forward, the movement all in his fingers-tap-tap-tap! He caught his opponent on the forearm, on the shoulder, and on the head.

Not bad for a single extension, Leif thought.

The stand-in Andy looked really angry now, moving fast and going for a head cut. Leif brought his own blade up, and responded with an instant riposte, a swat of the wrist that smacked the flat of his blade against the simulacrum's chest.

His fencing coach would be pleased. Each move Leif made was precise and as quick as lightning-surgical strikes against an ever-more-desperate opponent.

The Andy-faced fencer tried a wide slash. Leif parried and closed in a lunge, flicking out to touch with the point of his blade. "That does it for you," he told the construct.

Sudden applause nearly jarred him into dropping his saber. Leif turned-to find the real Andy Moore, or at least his virtual self, clapping wildly. Good manners would normally keep a person from barging into someone else's virtual setup-not to mention security programs designed to keep out intruders.

But neither manners nor basic firewalls were likely to stop old Andy.

"I came to apologize," Andy said. "But after seeing you cut me up like that-"

Suddenly Leif's lanky blond friend was flanked by a line of virtual cuties, each apparently unclad girl holding a placard. Taken together, they spelled out go leif!

But then the naked ladies and their message pretty much disappeared in the red haze that filled Leif's vision. Blade extended, he charged after Andy, who ducked, dodged, and then simply disappeared from the sim, although his aggravating chuckles still filled the gym.

Leif walked back to face the construct Andy, his face red from fury, exertion… and embarrassment. He'd completely lost it while chasing his annoying friend. Not only had he lost his concentration, he'd been chopping as if his saber were a meat cleaver.

He brought his blade up in a quick salute. "En garde," he said. "It appears I've got a little more to work off with you."