Logically, even if Sorel were somewhere near, he could not have known he needed reservations a week before. Besides, 'Little Vegas' was a term reserved for Faro. Quantrill promised himself to visit Soho with Sandy someday but saw no reason to search the place now. The desk clerks of every hotel in the area now knew that they could earn easy money by leading one Sam Coulter, room 212 at the Long Branch, to men traveling together and matching certain descriptions. If he merely canvassed the hotels and showed up when passengers boarded the big delta at dusk the following day, he would be doing his job. The plain fact was that, by now, Quantrill did not expect — in fact, did not particularly hope — to meet Felix Sorel. Half-aware of this potentially fatal mindset, Quantrill walked across the grounds expecting, and hoping, to meet Ernst Matthias.
He saw the tall man from behind, waiting near the sign of the popular 'Dee and Dee' concession, and checked his stride while tallying details with his last photo of Sorel's sidekick, Harley Slaughter. But this man had a sizable rump on him, whereas Slaughter was one lean machine. He saw as he moved for a better view that this one also had the beginnings of a comfortable paunch, was gray at the sideburns, and — hell, it was only his companion, Leo Cherry! Laughing silently at himself, Quantrill greeted the man with the palm-up 'how' gesture of holovision Indians and real-life Texans.
'See anything that looks like fun?'
'Little brunette, but she ain't sellin'
'My Alpine chick has flown,' Quantrill said, aping a line from a current western ditty, complete with the catch in his voice.
If Cherry was amused, he kept it to himself. 'Where the hell are — those other two?'
The others straggled up within moments, and Sorel proposed that they see what the inside concessions had to offer. A chattering jostle of parents and kids had lined up to tour the Haunted Mine, which packed four people in each artificially tacky orecart for a five-minute ride. Sorel thought it might be a trifle too tame.
The Copycat sounded tame but looked more like a challenge. Perhaps a score of tourists stood watching through large windows as a young woman, inside what seemed to be a large padded cell, vied with a programmed android. The legend 'ATHLETE' glowed near the top of the windows. It seemed that patrons could choose their level of challenge, from 'beginner' through 'athlete' and 'gymnast,' to 'expert.' Quantrill suspected that the jeans-clad girl was a WCS shill. drumming up business by demonstrating the game. Lithe and pretty, the girl was good.
The android was better. Dressed in a floppy sweat suit, crafted to look like a burly drill instructor, it was one of the recent models with a small range of facial expressions, a belly full of energy cells, and no extension cord. It had already done push-ups, a one-legged deep-knee bend, and a cartwheel — an astonishing improvement on androids of previous years — but each time the girl copied the maneuver. As the men watched, the android performed a deep split. The girl matched it. From the scatter of objects on the padded floor it picked up a tennis ball in each hand; tossed the balls one by one up behind its back so that the arc continued over its shoulder; and caught the ball with the same hand. The girl did the same. Then, without changing its grim expression, it tossed both balls in over-the-shoulder arcs simultaneously.
'No fair,' the girl laughed, and, after one or two false starts, tossed her tennis balls. She caught one, missed the other, and snapped her fingers in good-natured chagrin. The android placed its tennis balls precisely where they had been before, faced the girl again, gave an awful mechanical grin, and bowed before folding its arms and closing its eyes, inert as a concrete pillar. The girl wiped a wisp of hair from her face as she exited, smiling.
Sorel turned to his companions. 'We could do that, I think. Mr. Cherry? Mr. Collier?'
The tall one made a wry face, shook his head. That coldgas weapon down his arm prevented such flexibility, and Sorel damned well knew it. The barrel-chested man lifted an eyebrow and moved his arm as if to display it. 'With this gimpy elbow? Shit, no. You try it. wetback.'
Sorel put his tongue between his teeth in real amusement. Longo knew he could get away with the abusive term because it formed another layer of cover over their real relationship. The Mexican glanced at Quantrill and grinned as if to say that he was not easily offended. 'Then you. Mr. Coulter, and then I. My treat.'
Quantrill hesitated. Old training had taught him to avoid spectacular shows of prowess. Given those uncanny reflexes, he had the ability to recover from a poor move and correct it; not in tenths, but in hundredths of a second. But nothing required him to punch the high-level options. He agreed, letting Sorel pay as he punched the 'athlete' option at the Copycat doorway.
Again, the android was better. Quantrill managed the ball-toss maneuver, leaping forward to catch a fumbled ball and turning back to wave, hearing the cheers from Sorel and others. He also copied the Russian leap but found himself unequal to the android in 'hackey sack.' He kept the small leather beanbag bouncing from his feet and knees for only a moment before he forgot and snatched the leather bag with one hand. The android performed that ludicrous grin, bowed, and turned to stone again.
The sturdy Mexican led the scatter of applause, handed his boots to his taller companion, and punched his option. Out side, watching through the glass, Quantrill saw the glowing word 'GYMNAST' and found himself hoping that Ernst Matthias was up to the challenge. An instant's memory fled through his mind of his gymnast friend Kent Ethridge, now becoming dust in a government-furnished coffin. Quantrill had been quicker at their lethal work but had never doubted Ethridge's superiority in gymnastics. Was Matthias a gymnast, too?
Whatever else he was, the Mexican was good; no, he was great. The android began with the Russian leap, and the stocking-footed Matthias did it better, legs absolutely horizontal at chest height as he touched his toes. He caused a bit of reprogramming as the android began its hackey sack routine. He flicked a foot out to intercept the leather bag, popping it upward with his other knee, crossing his other foot behind the leg he stood on to snap the bag over the android's head. The android missed, unable to whirl the massive weight of its energy cells and thermal-response plastic muscles in time to keep the hackey sack airborne.
Amid general applause begun by Quantrill, the android stopped, began a bow, stopped again. Then it squatted and — barely — performed a back flip. The Mexican laughed, then easily leaped over in a tucked position, landing with one foot only slightly behind the other. The android's handstand was quite steady, its one-armed handstand not so steady. Neither was the Mexican's, but his cheering audience did not care. Only when the android ended a cartwheel with a forward flip did the man throw up his arms, laughing. 'I would break my neck,' he said, accepting defeat gracefully, and made a mocking bow to the machine before walking to the exit. He did not carry himself like a man who had lost, and Quantrill clapped him on the back as they met in the hallway.
Strapping his boot closures on as he sat with his back turned to his companions, the Mexican stood up and clapped his hands together as he turned. 'Somewhere in this maze.' he said happily, 'there must be a machine we can defeat.'
'I think you licked that one. on points,' Quantrill joked.
'I seen a game called 'Solo' over yonder,' said Longo, nodding into the depths of the building. 'That ought to tickle your balls, if you wanta kill yourself a plastic gunsel.'
The heavyset Longo led them to the game, and they watched one patron gamely go through the act of getting himself painlessly 'killed' by utter strangers. This was one game, Quantrill thought, that belonged over the next hill in Faro. You paid, strapped on a black sensor-covered vest and a gunbelt with a Colt peacemaker, and strode into a small western saloon furnished with a one-way mirror behind the bar. Kibitzers watched the action through the mirror, and while that action might last only two minutes, it seemed a lifetime to some. The Colt fired a low-power laser and would do it six times, with appropriate six-gun sound effects. Your opponents were among the score of androids, some sitting in a corner at an endless poker game, some lounging at the bar or positioned above the stairway. A blowsy female leaned its ample bazooms on the top of an upright player piano and sang off key to the other machines as the piano tinkled. One android, an apparent fat drunk, roused itself now and then to vent Bronx cheers at the chanteuse. It was funny, but it broke your concentration. It was supposed to.
Because 'Solo' required all the concentration you could muster. You were supposed to watch for anyone who looked your way. Every android in the place was capable of drawing some kind of old-fashioned gun, but only six — and they varied — would do so. You were not entitled to draw when you saw a face turn toward you, but when its eyes flashed crimson you had better draw fast. If you hit any part of your target, it reacted as if the laser were a slug. The android fired only at your vest, but if it hit you first the piano played a brief dirge while the androids sneered at you. Quantrill ruled out that game the instant he saw it.
'I might go for that,' said the man called Johnny, watching the patron blow one mean customer off his stool.
'I just bet you would,' said the one called Leo. 'Busted arm and all.'
