Old habits die hard, however, and he was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable the blade felt in his grip.
He sketched a quick salute, saw Seurat mirror the move, and they both slipped on their masks and came to guard.
“Ready?” Thorn asked. As the host, it fell to him to start the opening touch. He used English, however, since it would feel more than a little awkward using the traditional French “Etes-vous prêt?” with a Frenchman.
He could see the small smile that formed on Seurat’s lips, and knew that he understood.
“Ready,” he said.
Thorn smiled, too. “Begin.”
The word had barely left his lips and the Frenchman was in motion. Two quick steps, a liquid smooth — and lightning-fast — lunge, and Seurat’s blade was slipping around Thorn’s guard.
Except that Thorn wasn’t there. At Seurat’s first step, he had begun sliding backward, letting the Frenchman close distance, but not, perhaps, quite as quickly as Seurat had hoped.
When the attack came, Thorn was just far enough away to bring his hand back along Seurat’s blade, press against it in opposition, and then, swiveling his left shoulder back to draw his belly out of line in case he’d failed in his attempted opposition, send his own point streaking toward Charles’s heart.
Seurat countered with a parry four, Thorn pressed back with his bell guard, trying to maintain the opposition, and a moment later the Frenchman recovered backward out of his lunge, retreating out of distance and coming back to guard.
No touch. Neither point had met the opponent, on target or off.
Both fencers smiled and saluted each other.
“Nice attack,” Thorn said. “Very quick.”
“And an excellent move on your part,” Charles said. “I anticipated the opposition counterattack, of course, but I hadn’t expected that particular evasion from an épéeist.”
Thorn smiled again. So Charles had done his home-work, had he?
“Yes, well, I wasn’t always an épéeist,” he said.
Seurat nodded and tossed Thorn another quick salute. “Prêt?” he asked.
Thorn answered the salute. “Oui, je suis prêt,” he replied.
“Allez!”
And they were off once again, a ballet of blades and body, dancing the ancient dance of victory and of death.
Thorn grinned, feeling the adrenaline rush through him once more, the exhilaration of competition, the incomparable thrill of testing oneself against another. Through the mask, he saw an answering smile on Charles’s face.
Yes, the Frenchman had had a very good idea indeed.
Jay was ready — as ready as he was going to be, anyway — for the meeting with Seurat. The one with Chang, that had been fine. The little guy from China was sharp and very appreciative, and they’d be getting together again in RW or VR to establish some Chinese connections. Chang was quiet, down-to-earth, had some moves, and deferred to Jay’s expertise, which he was smart enough to see, no problem.
But CyberNation’s rep coming in? Jay didn’t have much faith he’d be so easy. First, he was with the organization that had given Net Force a royal pain in the posterior. Second, he was French, and there was a reason that “snotty Frenchman” had become a cliché.
Jay didn’t want to do it, but he had told Thorn he would try to behave in a civilized fashion, and he’d give it a shot. That CyberNation had been responsible for nearly killing John Howard, and had done a bunch of other dangerous and illegal stuff, didn’t make it easy. This was going to be like sitting down with a terrorist, as far as Jay was concerned.
Sure, CyberNation had claimed no responsibility for the two incidents—“rogue elements out of our control,” and so on. But, hey, the Secretary always disavowed all knowledge of the Mission Impossible team, too, didn’t he?
No need to disavow anything that was successful, was there?
The door opened and in walked Seurat. Jay recognized him from some of the background VR he’d run. Tall, aristocratic-looking, with dark hair, well-cut and short. Nice suit. He looked flushed, and Jay understood why — word had come past Jay’s door that Seurat and Thorn had gone to the gym and danced with those whippy blades the boss liked to play with, and wasn’t that just swell? Fencing buddies.
Really nice suit, though. Give them that. The French sure know how to dress.
The CyberNation leader eyed Jay like a man might look at a trained chimpanzee, his expression a sort of a wonder-if-it-can-understand-me look.
Oh, boy.
Could be that Mr. Seurat had what some of Jay’s buddies at MIT had called Euro-Q. Back in his school days there had been a good number of best-of-the-brightest imports from Europe, who had thought that because they were in the land of the tasteless American, that it meant they were naturally smarter as well.
But Jay also remembered one of his old college buddies, a guy named Bernard from Tennessee. Bernard had been invited to play chess by an Englishman named Sykes. Bernard, who spoke slowly with a thick Southern twang, had looked mildly bemused.
“Well, ah’m afraid I barely know the rules of that game, sir,” his friend had said. “But ah’ll give it a try, if’n you want.”
Sykes had, according to the story, looked positively gleeful. He’d been ready for a fine round of pummel-the-Colonial, but instead had been destroyed by Bernard, who in fact was a ranked chess player and had competed nationally. The lesson hadn’t been lost on Jay: Never judge a book by its cover.
Maybe he’s not just an arrogant, well-dressed jerk.
“Allo? You must be Monsieur Greedlee?”
Because he didn’t want to be at the meeting, Jay was primed to be irritated, and this was enough to start the ball rolling. “Mr. Seurat,” he said, taking care to pronounce the second syllable “rat” instead of “rah.”
Seurat’s frown was paper-thin and gone in a second, but Jay had seen it.
Jay had played this game before. Guy was gonna have to get up earlier than that to stay ahead of him. He smiled and waved at the chairs.
They sat down at the glossy-finished wood table. The fluorescent lights overhead gleamed upon the thick finish, and Jay could see their distorted reflections as he sat down. Seurat’s body language was relaxed, but Jay could tell it was a front. The man’s eyes did not match his poise, and while there were no overt signs, Jay thought he could feel the man’s annoyance.
He stifled an inward sigh. Better get it started so he could get it over.
“I understand you’ve had some problems at CyberNation with your networks?” Jay asked.
Seurat’s lips compressed slightly before he replied. “Indeed, we have been attacked by a major VR talent, on several occasions. By that, I mean someone very good was involved. World-class, Mr. Gridley.”
The stupid-Frenchman accent had vanished. His English was now as crisp as an icicle at thirty degrees below zero, with barely a trace of any accent.
Aha! Shades of the Tennessee chess champion!
Seurat said, “I understand you have some familiarity with VR?”
Some familiarity? Jay wanted to stand and spit on the man. Which was, of course, exactly why the man had said it. Don’t let him get your goat, Jay.
“Yes, I have some small knowledge of it,” said Jay, thinking, More in my little finger than in your entire programming team. “Perhaps we can help train your people to discover what went wrong. After all, the U.S. did invent VR, and not everyone has the same understanding.”