“Correct,” Halpern said, his voice brittle with tension. Gorton merely rubbed his nose and nodded.
“Very well, gentlemen,” said the coordinator, rising from his desk. “If you will simply follow the technicians, they will prepare you for your duel. Good luck to each of you.”
Halpern waited for him to say May the better man win, but the coordinator refrained from that cliché.
He followed the slim young woman on his right into the inner room; she stopped at the first booth in the row that lined its wall. Gorton was led into the next booth, beside it.
“You’ll have to take off your outer clothing, sir,” said the technician, still smiling, “and put on the sensor suit that’s hanging inside the booth. You can call me when you’re ready.”
Halpern felt some alarm. No one had told him he’d have to strip. He glared at the young woman, who remained smilingly unperturbed as she held open the door to the booth.
Reluctantly, grumbling to himself, Justice Halpern stepped into the booth. Once the woman closed its door and he himself clicked its lock, he saw that the booth’s curving walls were bare. The only furniture inside was a stiff-backed chair. A set of what looked like old-fashioned long johns was hanging against the wall.
Justice Halpern scanned the claustrophobic little booth for a sign of hidden cameras. With some trepidation, he peeled down to his underwear as quickly as he could and pulled on the gray, nubby outfit. It felt fuzzy against his bare arms and legs, almost as if it were infested with vermin.
“Are you ready, sir?” came the technician’s voice through a speaker grill set into the ceiling of the booth.
Halpern nodded, then, realizing that she couldn’t see him (hoping that she couldn’t, actually), he said crisply, “I’m ready.”
The lock clicked and the door swung open. The young woman stepped inside and suddenly the booth felt very crowded to Halpern. He smelled the delicate scent of her perfume.
She was carrying a plastic helmet under one arm. It looked like a biker’s helmet to Halpern. Resting the helmet on the chair, she pulled a white oblong object from her tunic pocket, about the size and shape of a TV remote controller, and ran it up and down Halpern’s fuzzy-suited body.
Nodding, she said, “Your suit is activated. Good.”
“No wires?” he asked.
Her smile returning, she replied, “Everything is wireless, sir.”
Halpern wished she wouldn’t call him sir. It made him feel a hundred years old.
She picked the helmet off the chair and handed it to him. “Put it on and pull down the visor. When the duel begins the visor will go totally black for a moment. Don’t panic. It’s only for a moment or two while we program the duel for you. When it clears you’ll see the place where your duel is set.”
Halpern wordlessly put on the helmet. It felt heavy, cumbersome.
“Now pull down the visor, please.”
He did. It was tinted, but he could see her clearly enough.
She looked him up and down one final time, then said, “Okay, you’re ready for your duel. You can sit down.” She turned to the door, stepped through, gave him a final gleaming smile, and closed the booth’s door.
Halpern sat down.
“Halpern-Gorton duel commencing in ten seconds,” came a man’s voice in his helmet earphones.
Then everything went black.
Before he could do anything more than gulp with fright, the darkness vanished in a swirl of colors and then the rolling hills of a green countryside appeared.
A trace of a cold smile curled Randolph Halpern’s thin lips. He was sitting astride his favorite mount, the chestnut mare that the Iron Duke himself had given him.
Gorton and the rest of them think they’re going to make a fool of me, Halpern said to himself as he patted the mare’s neck, gentling her. They don’t know that I’ve studied every aspect of the Battle of Waterloo since I was in prelaw.
Behind him, screened by the thick forest, the entire brigade was lined up and waiting eagerly for Halpern’s order to charge. It all seemed so very real! The smell of the grass, the distant rumble of artillery, even the warmth of the sun on his shoulders, now that the morning rain had drifted away. The simulation is well-nigh perfect, Halpern had to admit. Virtual reality, as seemingly real as the genuine thing.
He could hear his men’s horses snuffling impatiently, sense their eagerness to come to grips with their wily foe. Up on the sparsely wooded ridge ahead Halpern could see Bonaparte’s Frenchies, pennants flying from their lances, as they trotted toward the distant town of Waterloo.
He pulled his saber from its scabbard with the clean whisper of deadly steel, and a hundred other sabers slid from their scabbards behind him.
“England expects every man to do his best!” Halpern shouted. Then he pointed his saber at the enemy and spurred his mount into a charge.
The French lancers were caught completely by surprise, as Halpern had planned. His brigade charged into their flank in a wild screaming melee of flashing steel and dust and blood. Within moments it was over. The French had been routed.
All except their leader, who sat panting and sweating on his devil’s black stallion, gripping his bloodied lance in one big-knuckled hand and staring at Halpern, his chest heaving beneath his gaudy uniform.
It was Gorton, of course, big easy-going Rick Gorton, looking more like a frightened oversized child than one of Napoleon’s brave lancers.
“He’s mine, lads,” Halpern cried, and he charged straight at his opponent.
Who stood his ground and casually skewered the incautious Halpern on his lance. The pain was monumental. Halpern fought to remain conscious, to raise his saber, to strike the detested enemy in the name of God, Harry, and Saint George. Instead, he slipped into darkness.
And opened his eyes in the booth of the dueling machine. The same young technician had opened the booth’s door and was lifting the virtual reality helmet off Halpern’s bald head, which was glistening with perspiration.
“I’m afraid you lost, sir,” said the young woman, her earlier smile replaced by a sorrowful countenance. “Better luck next time.”
