"Backup?" Leif echoed stupidly.
"Trying to get into this building may not be the most legal thing I've ever done," David said grimly. "But death traps aren't legal either, dammit. This is a case for the cops-and Net Force. I think Captain Winters will listen when I tell him where I am and what just happened to me."
Leif could hear his friend fumbling in the darkness. "I've got my wallet-phone," David reported. "And the captain's number is programmed in. Leif-go! Right now you're the only one who can keep Slaney from doing something stupid!"
That thought hit Leif almost as hard as the deadfall had hit David. He scrambled up in desperate haste, then forced himself to move slowly, deliberately. He pulled out a small pocket flashlight, checking for trip wires or other unpleasant surprises Slaney might have set up along the way.
He was lucky, or maybe the deadfall hadn't been Slaney's brainstorm. Anyway, Leif made it into the hallway without further incident. He walked down a hall and a flight of stairs. To his left, shadows deepened into the large open space that was the salle. Across the way was a closed door-but he could see a strip of light underneath.
Leif crept across the corridor and tested the knob. Unlocked. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the knob and threw the door open. He almost recoiled at the sheer bizarreness of the sight inside. Nine of the computer- link training couches were occupied. Eight of the occupants seemed to be under some sort of terrible tension-they twitched and jerked as if they were fighting to regain consciousness-but failing.
The tenth couch had just about been gutted. Circuitry and wiring had been pulled out from under the upholstery-and attached to Alan Slaney.
The handsome young man had taken off his shirt. Electrical leads had been taped to various points around his torso, to his neck, and to his head. The spots he'd shaved in his hair gave him a particularly unnerving appearance. He looked like the villain of a low-budget horror-holo, just escaped from electroshock therapy.
"It's over, Slaney," Leif told him, coming forward. "I know what's going on. Net Force is on its way-"
Slaney seemed only half-aware of him. Alan flung out his empty hand as if he were hurling something at Leif. When nothing happened, then Alan began to pay more attention.
"Keep back," he slurred. "Can't stop me." Lurching to the wall, he yanked one of a pair of crossed swords from its place.
That was not a fencing blade, but the real thing. Leif recognized an Austrian dueling saber when he saw one. He stopped his advance, casting a quick glance to the wall at his right. A pair of straight-bladed sabers hung there as decoration. Leif darted over, pulling one free.
The sword made a solid weight in his hand. Wilkinson steel, an old cavalry blade.
Alan brought up his saber in the en garde position. "Allezr he called, mocking Leif with the starting command from his disastrous duel against the French master.
But Alan didn't take the prissy position of the French saber school. He took the in-your-face stance of a Spanish sabreur, hand on hip-and point aimed right at Leif's eyes.
Leif stayed with the more modern Hungarian guard- offensive-defensive-but his fist, too, rested on his hip. His point kept moving, evading any attempt Alan made to establish contact between their blades.
Sneering, Alan put his own point out. Leif smashed his blade against his opponent's, trying to beat Alan's blade out of line and get a cut at his wrist. Twice, and then a third time, Leif pressed this attack, forcing Alan to take a couple of steps away to put his point back in position.
Finally Slaney got annoyed. He parried, throwing a cut to Leif's face.
Now Leif had to shift quickly to the defensive.
This isn't like that virtual duel I had back in Latvinia. Alan isn't going for a wounding cut to show me who is boss, Leif thought. He's going for a slice to the face or throat that will end this little duel-permanently.
But Leif had learned a few new tricks, thanks to his Latvinian adventures. He parried Alan's blade and threw the attack back at him.
Alan made a circular parry on the right side of his body and lashed back with a cut to the top of the head. Leif brought his point up, to deflect the head cut, then slashed backward, managing to land a slice on Alan's sword arm.
Not enough to stop him, Leif quickly realized. But maybe I can goad him into a mistake.
"First blood," he said with a smile.
Alan surged forward furiously, only to be brought up like a dog pulling against a leash. The wires attached to his body kept him tethered to the computer-link couch.
"Damn you!" Alan shouted. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!"
Megan nearly broke her virtual neck tumbling down the stone stairs with P. J. in tow. But their painful-if unorthodox-exit threw off Alan's aim with the thunderbolt. Still, as she sprawled on the floor below, Megan knew she had little chance of dodging the next blast.
But Alan didn't throw one. Instead, he flung himself to the side, nearly scaring the fertilizer out of poor Sergei, who stumbled back as Alan pawed at the empty air. Slaney paid no attention to the Russian boy. Instead, he swung away, assuming the en garde position-except he had no sword.
He perfectly pantomimed a series of feints, followed by a retreat and a ferocious attack. Megan and P. J. rose warily to their feet as the macabre exhibition went on.
Then Alan flinched, and a splotch of red appeared against the radiance of his garments, as if…
"He's been pinked!" Megan yelled in disbelief. "He's fighting somebody out there in the real world, and he's programmed his system to mirror real world movement and appearance!"
But Megan's outburst had an unintended side effect.
Alan's distracted eyes suddenly regained their focus on the virtual world as he hurtled toward the top of the stairs. "Damn you! Til kill you!" he shrieked. 'Til kill you all!"
Was that aimed at me? Leif wondered. Or is it aimed at the people trapped in veeyar? What if he tries to dis- corporate them now? He thought their fight had kept Alan from concentrating on his horrible project. Now he had to make sure he kept up that distraction.
He threw himself forward, making a feinting attack, a high cut at Alan's left cheek. When Slaney responded with a parry, Leif went in low, wrapping as many wires as he could catch around his blade as if they were so many strands of spaghetti. With a twist of his wrist, he tore the electrodes free of Alan's body.
Inside Alan's veeyar kingdom the trapped players were nearly hammered to their knees by Alan Slaney's scream. Megan forced herself to look at him. Leprous gray spots appeared in the would-be god's shining glory. Skittering, formless blobs of energy flew off from his body, seemingly at random.
One of them hit a nonrole-playing character, frying him where he cowered. The real people in the sim milled in confusion. Alan was between them and the stairway- their only exit from this floor. Blobs of death flew all around them, but they were more afraid of trying to get past Slaney and perhaps calling his attention to them than they were of the flying energy.
P. J. grabbed Megan's arm-hard. "Now would be a good time to come up with some brilliant programming," he said. "Looks like he's weakened and distracted. If you could maybe crack his system-"
"I'll try," she said dubiously. "Do me a favor-if you can, make sure I don't get zapped while Fm wrestling with the computer."
She closed her eyes, calling up every computer command she'd ever heard of, trying to see just how much control she could wrest from the system….
The good news, Leif hoped, was that right now Alan couldn't go through with his insane plan to disembody himself and the people trapped on the computer-link couches.
The bad news was that Alan, one of the best fencers anybody had ever seen, was frothing-at-the-mouth mad- and now he was free to come after Leif, sword in hand. Slaney launched a set of multiple moulinets, his blade lashing back and forth around Leif's body, the sword whistling as if it were hungry for blood.