Leif turned away, unable to watch any more of this travesty.
I hope those guys down there aren ft products of the fencing school Megan is attending, he thought. Otherwise, the place should be shut down for taking money under false pretenses.
Shaking his head, he gave an unspoken command to his computer. An eye-blink later, he found himself back home on his computer-link couch. He swung around so his feet touched the floor, got up, and stretched. No matter how much the machinery in the couch tried to keep his muscles toned-and Leif's couch was a pretty expensive one-it still felt better to move around after a long session in veeyar.
A glance at his watch made Leif frown. He'd spent more time in Latvinia than he'd realized.
Apparently, time flies even when I'm having a not-so- good time, he thought. A quick pat to his midsection didn't start any growls of hunger. But Leif padded through the apartment on stocking feet anyway, heading for the kitchen.
Mom and Dad were out showing their European friends the glories of the real New York City, as opposed to the virtual version anybody could visit by synching into the Net. He had more than enough time to take a shower and join them for dinner. Besides, Leif liked a cup of coffee after spending any length of time on the Net. It brought the real-life edge back to his brain.
He was sitting on a kitchen stool, watching the cof- feemaker brew a cup to his precise specifications, when a sound like chiming silver bells filled the house. Leif took one last, longing look at the coffee still dripping down into the cup, then headed over to the terminal set in the kitchen wall to answer the call. He had to answer. It might be his folks, calling with a change of plan.
Hey, it could even be Megan, calling to talk some more about their afternoon's adventure. She'd probably prefer to talk to Alan Slaney, but he was probably still in the sim, plotting away as Gray Piotr.
Leif activated the phone connection, but the face he saw in the hologram image was neither Megan's nor either of his parents.
The model-perfect facial features, dramatically framed by hair as black as a raven's wing, spoke subtly of expert-and expensive-plastic surgery. After a moment of silence those lovely features arranged themselves into a frown that was more like a sneer. "The polite thing to do when someone calls is to say hello, Leif."
"Hello, Roberta," Leif replied cautiously. "Please forgive me. I was… surprised."
As far as Leif was concerned, that was putting it mildly. He liked girls, and enjoyed going out with them-a lot of them. He had a reputation to uphold as playboy-in-training-at least, his friends thought so- and so his social activities were almost mandatory. But problems came along with having an active social life. Or, as his father called it, a volcanic one.
Some girls got possessive. They seemed to see more in a friendship/flirtation than was actually there. A few got scared at life in the fast lane-especially if their parents got involved. Other girls just got nasty, treating Leif like the flavor of the week. No matter what the attitude, more than a few of Leif's relationships had ended in explosive breakups.
But Roberta Hendry was in a class by herself. About a year ago, Leif had enjoyed a pretty wild summer with her, running through the Washington social scene with a bunch of diplomatic brats. Roberta's family was old- money rich-what they called FFV, or "First Family of Virginia." The Hendrys had hung on. To their wealth since Virginia was a royal colony of Britain. Investments of some of that wealth made two generations ago in early tech stocks had enlarged the family's fortunes from lavish to obscene. They had more than enough money lying about these days to enjoy Society with a capital S.
The only two things the Hendrys hated were publicity, which Roberta's escapades sometimes brought on, and politics, which the Hendrys considered vulgar.
Perhaps that's why Roberta had gone political. Maybe it was some bizarre form of late adolescent rebellion.
Journalists and Net newscasters called her "the radical debutante." By the time they'd broken up, Leif thought she'd just gone plain wacko.
Roberta had taken up a bunch of weird — isms that frankly contradicted each other-except that they were all revolutionary in tone.
Leif's interest had quickly sunk to impatience when she started ranting to him about changing the whole social order. Somehow, the rhetoric seemed a bit much when he had to listen to a child of privilege attack his self-made father as a bloodsucking parasite.
Magnus Anderson had worked hard to build the fortune Leif enjoyed. A lot of fine people had gotten jobs from his father's company and good paychecks along the way to that fortune. Leif knew about his father's efforts-at times, he'd even helped with them. So being bad-mouthed by a rich girl whose family counted inherited money for a living got to be a little too much.
Leif and Roberta had argued the politics of privilege, their fights getting louder and louder until the rest of their good-time crowd began to avoid them. But the corker had come after a night they'd spent dancing- Roberta had told a valet-parking attendant that it was his class duty to sabotage all the rich folks' cars in his care. When Leif pointed out that would include her own luxury Dodge SUV, Roberta had used the powerful car to try and run him down.
After that, Leif had returned to New York and succeeded in not talking to Roberta Hendry-until this very surprising call.
"I had an agent checking on the comings and goings from Alan Slaney's childish amusement park," Roberta informed him loftily.
Leif wasn't impressed. If her searchbot had wasted enough time for him nearly to finish making a cup of coffee before getting to Roberta, the agent wasn't all that great.
Reminded of his coffee, Leif picked up the cup, adding a little sugar. Too bad he couldn't sweeten the beautiful girl floating in front of him. "You know Alan Slaney?" he asked. "I would think that historical simulations in general-and AHSO in particular-would be pretty far down the list of your interests."
"On the contrary," Roberta told him. "The turn-of-the- century era was the breeding ground for some of the great political movements of the twentieth century." She took a deep breath, as if she were tasting something. "Socialism, communism, fascism… anarchism. They all came to a great flowering twenty years on either side of 1900. I have a deep and valid interest in the turn of the century."
Her lips curled in that all-too-familiar sneer. "Unlike so many who claim an 'interest' in order to play dress- up!"
Leif blinked. "You're actually taking part in the Latvinia beta-test?"
Roberta nodded. "I was just as surprised to find your name listed among the participants." She gave him a sidelong look. "Actually I was more surprised when your name turned up in the early reports on the sim. My agent sorts items of political importance for me-even the silly reactionary politics in this charade. Imagine my astonishment when I discovered that you had prevented an attempt to kidnap Princess Gwenda! And you're staying in the palace!"
Leif rolled his eyes. "And what exactly do you want out of it?"
Roberta leaned forward, intent on her plans-and completely oblivious to Leif's skeptical reaction. "I'll be entering Latvinia as Viola da Gamba, an adventurous female reporter." Her lips twisted again. "It was the least demeaning role I could find in the simulation. I'm sure Slaney planned it that way, to keep me from upsetting his reactionary applecart. As a commoner, I would normally find it almost impossible to speak to the princess, even though I represent the press."
"Normally," Leif repeated.
"But now I have a friend at court-literally," Roberta said with a self-satisfied nod.
Ignoring her rather elastic definition of "friend"- someone who chases you down the street in a car with probable intent to kill wasn't anywhere on Leif's definition of friendship-Leif asked, "Isn't there someone else in the SIG you can… uh… get help from?"