Duel Identity

by Tom Clancy

  “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.

  All Leif could do was retreat, frantically parrying, trying to get out of the way of Alan’s slashing attack.

  Alan’s next move really surprised him. Instead of a slash, Slaney tried a thrust. Leif’s parry was an instant too slow. Steel slithered against steel as Alan’s blade rode along Leif’s, almost deflected away … almost. The tip dug in just below Leif’s left shoulder joint, where the pectoral muscles help hold the arm in place.

  Leif staggered back. Must have caught in my shirt, he thought. Then came the pain … and the warm, trickling sensation along his arm. Good hit, he thought grimly. A bleeder.

  Worse, he had absolutely no way to stop the flow of blood at this moment. Leif’s left hand couldn’t reach the wound. Just trying to move his arm sent a red-hot spike of pain through his shoulder. His arm hung uselessly at his side. And if he stopped long enough to try and to stem the flow with his sword hand, he’d be dead.

  Leif knew he couldn’t last much longer. That wasn’t just blood he was losing. His speed and strength were draining away in the crimson tide. It was just a question of what would happen first-whether he’d faint or get caught against the wall that loomed perilously close behind him. Either way, Alan was going to kill him.

  Wheezing, trying not to scream with the pain of the movement, Leif managed to tuck his left hand into the waist of his jeans. His shirtsleeve was already sodden, and he could feel the wet stain spreading across his chest.

  Alan was tiring, too, after his burst of manic energy. He drew back on guard, his blade down and slightly to the side-a direct invitation for Leif to return the favor with a lunge of his own.

  It was tempting-a chance to attack, maybe Leif’s last. But that would be playing Alan’s game. And the consequences, Leif was sure, would be fatal.

  He slammed into action, running on pure adrenalin and muscle memory. Leif started with a modern move- pure Hungarian saber technique. Crossing over in front of his opponent, he stepped in, beat Slaney’s blade down, and then flung himself into a running attack. But it wasn’t a fleche. Rather, it was the ancient fencing move that preceded the lunge-the passata.

  As he flashed past Slaney, Leif recovered from smashing down on Alan’s saber, bringing his own blade up and around, swinging from the wrist.

  The stroke caught Alan in the throat, a deep slice ending under the hinge of his jaw. Alan turned, staring at Leif, clapping a hand to his neck.

  It was already too late. That slash had opened the carotid artery. Blood spurted from between Alan’s fingers. His swing round turned into a spiral fall as he dropped lifeless to the floor.

  Leif staggered as his adrenalin rush faded. He could see Slaney lying there, one spot in focus while the rest of the world blurred and darkened. His saber suddenly seemed too heavy for his fingers to hold. It clattered to the floor. Then Leif’s knees began to give way.

  Hope David gets help here quickly, he thought as he dropped. I’ll feel really stupid if I managed to stop this guy, only to bleed to death….

  Megan struggled to consciousness, her body quivering from exhaustion. The struggle to defeat Alan’s crazy programming left her feeling as through she had literally wrung out her brain. She forced herself up on the computer couch with a shaky arm, fearing she’d have to confront the mad genius.

  Instead, she found Alan lying facedown in a rapidly growing red pool. Blood, it looked like. And beyond him, toppling like a chopped-down tree, was Leif Anderson.

  It took her overstrained brain a moment to connect the bloodstained saber falling from Leif’s hand with the body on the floor. Then she saw the horrible red splotch smearing half of Leif’s shirt as he fell.

  Leif wondered if he were hallucinating when Megan suddenly appeared, grabbing him with quivering hands. “You fought Alan to save me,” she said, sounding as woozy as Leif felt. “You-you-”

  Abruptly she seemed to snap into focus, becoming the Megan he knew only too well. “You idiotr she yelled at him. “I knew you never liked Alan-” “With good reason,” he panted.

  Megan paid no attention. “So you insist on playing with swords, and getting stuckTestosterone poisoning.

  As she spoke, she managed to pull Leif into a sitting position-surprisingly gently. “Coming here alone-”

  “Didn’t,” Leif replied. “David’s with me. He got hurt in the office.”

  Megan glared at him as she tore at his shirt, revealing the wound. “You got David hurt, too?”

  ‘Trap nailed him in the leg-he’s calling for help.”

  “Morons,” she muttered in his ear as he sagged back against her. “Bozos.” Clasping him in one arm, she placed her palm right over the puncture, pressing down with her other hand.

  Direct pressure to stop the bleeding, Leif remembered fuzzily from Net Force Explorers first-aid demonstrations.

  “Can’t believe how stupid-how careless-” Megan continued to rail at him.

  “Y’know,” he managed. “If this were Latvinia, y’should be swooning over me.”

  Megan made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Dream on, Anderson.”

  Slumped in the circle of Megan’s arms, Leif let his head fall back against her shoulder, awaiting the arrival of the cops, Net Force, and soon, he hoped, an ambulance. He could already hear sirens.

  It was going to be okay. His friends were all going to live through this. Even Leif was going to survive it, despite Alan’s best efforts to kill him. And Winte
rs would have to wait until Leif got glued back together to yell at him for what was undeniably the nastiest mess of Leif’s life. But, Leif thought muzzily, it was self defense-any good lawyer will have me out of trouble in the time it takes to file the paperwork… and thankfully, I can afford a good lawyer. And, best of all, Megan’s arms felt surprisingly good around him.

  Yeah, he thought, trying to keep a smile off his lips. A guy can dream, can’t he?