The Archimedes Effect

“Tell me, though,” Marissa said when they had gained some space. “What happened with that last touch? It looked almost as though you knew what he was going to do before he did it, but that can’t be right, can it? Tommy always says—”

“Anticipation will get you killed,” Jamal finished, grinning again. Then his smile faded. “Honestly, Marissa, I don’t really know what happened. I could feel him pressing, and I knew he was setting me up for something, and of course I knew I was out of room, and then, I don’t know. It’s like I found myself three feet up in the air, my point coming down on his mask, without really knowing how I got there.” He shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed, and darted a glance at Thorn.

Thorn nodded. “It’s like your counter just happened.”

Jamal’s eyes grew bigger. He nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “Like it wasn’t me doing it.”

“Excellent,” Thorn said. “And congratulations.”

They were already calling people over for the medal ceremony. “Go get ’em,” Thorn said.

Jamal grinned again and darted off.

“Tommy?” Marissa said. There was an edge to her voice, a tell-me-now-or-you’ll-be-sorry note.

Thorn chuckled. “It’s called ‘no-mind,’ and it’s not a Western thing at all. But it’s a very good thing. Being one with the moment, so that the blade itself seems to react, not the fencer, and the parries and attacks throw themselves. It extends further, to where the touch happens before the move, and the bout is over before it begins, but I think we’ll save that conversation for another time.”

She looked at him, frowning. “Why?”

He grinned. “ ’Cuz I want to see Jamal get his medal.”

The Great Desert Waste

North Africa

One of the things Lewis had learned about men over the years was that the surest way to catch them was to use multiple baits. Some men liked to be thought physically attractive; some preferred to be admired for their minds, or personalities, or their senses of humor. Some wanted you to be impressed with their ability to make money—or to wield power. A man who might laugh out loud if you called him a “hunk” or a “stud” might also preen like a peacock if you flattered his intelligence or his compassion.

With a man like Jay, you wanted to hit him on at least two fronts. The first and most important bait, Lewis figured, was to be a fan of smokin’ Jay, the computer whiz. That was easy enough to do—he was good, as good as any, and better than most, so it didn’t take much acting on her part to admire his moves and knowledge.

But computer geeks tended to be insecure about things on the physical plane, and letting it be known that he was attractive on a male-female basis was the second prong of the attack. She knew he was a normal heterosexual man—he had a wife and child—and she was making it apparent that she would like to roll around with him and break furniture, doing some things he probably wouldn’t be able to do at home with the baby sleeping in the next room.

He had to be at least curious and flattered.

Given her choice, she would be running a custom-made-to-attract-Jay-Gridley scenario, full of subconscious prods to get Jay’s hormones stirred so she could take advantage of them, like that club in WWII Chicago. But Jay had been fairly adamant that she join his VR creation this time, which meant that he was nervous about hers, which was good. Keeping him off balance was where she wanted to be.

She smiled as she walked along behind Jay. He had them walking in a classic desert, dressed in Bedouin-style white robes and sandals, with high-tech snake sticks, moving along a trail passing tall sand dunes dotted with bits of scraggly grasses. She had a cowl over her head and a scarf over most of her face. In fact, save for her eyes and forehead and hands, she was completely covered, and that was worth another smile.

Her staff was not the crook’d wood of a sheepherder, though, but aluminum or titanium, expandable, with a wrist loop and a spongy, padded grip. The bottom end was sharp and pointed, with a round concave metal disk “basket” a few inches up, to offer more support in snow or, in this case, sand. There was a button under a flip-up cap on the staff’s butt, and if you pressed it and grounded the tip, it would charge the basket with enough low-amp voltage to send a serpent on his slithery way if it was anywhere close to the critter. If that didn’t work, you could stab the crawler with the point itself, or just bash him with the staff like a club.

And if need be, the point was sharp and heavy enough to seriously deter a human who might want your wallet or virtue.

She wondered how Jay would react if she goosed him in the rear end with the sharp point.

She laughed at the thought.

Jay turned to look at her, all Lawrence of Arabia in his robe and that Arab headgear—what did they call those scarves? Kaffiyeh? Yeah, that was it. Held in place by a piece of goat hair or some such, called . . . an . . . agal? Something like that.

“Sorry,” she said. “I just remembered an old joke.”

Jay looked at her with the question in his eyes, but she didn’t follow up on it.

Finally, he said, “The URL and page ought to be around that next big dune.”

This was the piece she had gone back into her old game to plant for Jay to find, and it was a red herring; there wasn’t anything there that was going to help Jay locate anything useful. But there were a couple of things that would, on the face of it, look as if they might be worth chasing down. If Jay was chasing a false trail, that would be good. Eventually, he’d figure out it went nowhere, but “eventually” could be more than long enough.

They rounded the sloping dune. A warm little sirocco wind dusted them with fine-grained sand from the twenty-meter-tall hill.

An oasis lay three or four hundred meters ahead—a splotch of green, with desert grasses and palm and olive trees bordering a water hole. Of course. What else would there be out here?

A horned viper crossed the path ten meters ahead, sidewinding in a pattern like a letter S. Looking, she didn’t doubt, for shade, and good luck with that, snake.

It was hot out here, and while she knew the pale robes she wore were ideal for such a climate, keeping the sun off and her body’s moisture in, if were it up to her she’d be slathered in #30 sunblock and naked. Of course, if Jay turned around and saw that, he’d probably have a heart attack.

Between the shade and the water, the oasis was twenty degrees cooler, probably eighty F. instead of a hundred. Even though it was Jay’s metaphor, she knew what he was looking for, and she could easily spot the “clues” that were hidden here.

Jay said, “I saw something up in that palm tree,” he said. “I’m gonna go check it out.”

“I’m going to splash some water on my feet,” she said. “I’ll scope the water hole.”

“I’ll meet you there,” he said.

Lewis slipped her sandals off at the sandy edge of the water hole, which was actually a fair-size pond, fed, no doubt, by an underground spring. The water was cool and fairly clear. In RW, it would probably be scummy and full of bacteria that would make it pea-green, but here it was like it had just come from the tap.

She padded down the shallow slope of wet sand, raising the hem of her robe with her hands. She waded into the water until it was halfway up her thighs, with the robe bunched around her hips.

Jay hadn’t bothered with underwear, which was good.

She stood there for a few moments until she heard Jay coming through the dark bushes toward the water. She turned around and gave him a quick glimpse beneath her robe. As he already knew from her beach scenario, she was a natural blonde, and a reminder would be good. . . .

She waded to the shore, lowering her robe slowly as she ascended the gentle slope.

He watched her most attentively.

“See anything?” she asked. Butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth, her voice was so cool and sweet. Other than the doorway to sensual bliss, I mean?

It was as if he was afraid his voice would crack. He wordlessly held out his hand. Upon it was a small electronic device, about the size of a book of matches. She knew what it was, of course, since she had put it here.