Maybe he was too high strung for this business, Channel 5 First to Know News producer Jeff Koser thought as he glanced up from the TV the next morning. He stopped the VCR, which was running a tape of the Channel 24 coverage of the news conference last night, with an aching in his stomach as he wondered how that idiot Metheny could have missed something like that. Jeff was too damn young for an ulcer, and stupidity like that didn’t help it one bit.

“Metheny,” he growled. “Where in hell did you go to J-school, anyway?”

“University of Michigan, you know that,” the reporter replied from several desks away.

“No damn wonder,” Koser, an Ohio State graduate, snarled. “They must not teach you to recognize a story, even if it bites you on the ass. Why the hell did you focus on Hippolyta and her anti-crime message? Then end it with that little clip of the Spangler kid saying she wants to grow up to be an Amazon?”

“That was the point of the story,” Metheny replied. “The cops aren’t telling me much, but after the Spangler kid was rescued the cops seem to think Hippolyta is the heroine of the hour.”

“Yeah, we know that,” Koser replied. “But how the hell could you have missed her backing the mayor into a corner and him kissing her ass all the way? None of the other stations missed it.”

“I only had forty-five seconds,” Metheny protested. “I had to focus on something. She has become something of a legend around town.”

“She’s more of a legend after last night, and you missed it entirely,” Koser snarled.

“I watched it happen,” Jason said defensively. “Yeah, she backed him down pretty good, but I thought when he said the cut was under reconsideration he was trying to keep her from pulling her sword on him.”

“Damn it, Jason,” Dan said from his desk in the corner. “You’ve been around the block long enough to know that saying the cuts are under reconsideration is politician speak for, ‘Yes ma’am. May I kiss your ass, ma’am?’ She and Spangler had him pinned down in front of four TV cameras. She didn’t need to use her sword on him too. What the hell did you expect him to say? ‘I’m an insensitive bastard and the cuts stand’? From Spangler’s and Hippolyta’s viewpoints, that was the point of the whole exercise.”

“Damn it,” Jason protested hotly. “That’s why I hate stand-up deals like that. Suppose I’d focused on the mayor’s statement, and everyone else focused on the anticrime message? I’d still be wrong, wouldn’t I?”

“Maybe so,” Koser replied. “Point is, all the other stations managed to hit on both points. You’ve got a few seconds of Spangler, a lot of Hippolyta, and a few seconds of the kid. God damn it, I’ve seen the original tape, you had the footage of Abe on his knees, and you didn’t use it.” He let out a long sigh. “At least it was only screwed up on the late news and the morning bites. Recut the damn thing to at least get the mayor’s statement in there, and we can run it this noon. Then, do a longer segment for this evening. Try not to fuck that up, too.”

There wasn’t a lot Jason could do but to do it—and in something of a hurry, too, since he still had to make the run to the police station. He fumbled around for the dub of Keri’s original tape, and headed for the nearest open editing room.

He was reviewing the central part of the package, the long statement from Hippolyta—the part that obviously had to be cut, and the part he least wanted to cut—when he was aware of someone looking in the open door of the editing room. “Hey, Jason,” Sally said apologetically. “Sorry you got reamed like that. I should have blown off my date and done it myself off clock. Thanks for covering it.”

“That’s all right, Sally. I just hate getting second-guessed like that. I still think I was right. Everyone in this town knows the mayor is a spineless worm who’ll kiss any ass he can for a vote. Hippolyta is who people are talking about around the water coolers. At least I got to see her. That made it worth the effort.”

“I think it’s neat you actually got to meet her. What’d you think of her?”

“She’s … something else,” he replied with a sigh, choosing his words carefully. “She … well, she dominated the room. Just lots and lots of power. When she turned on Abe, I thought she was going to cut out his asshole with her sword and feed it to him raw. She didn’t even raise her voice and she had him running for his life.”

“Pretty impressive, huh?” she asked, leaning up against the door post.

“Yeah. I didn’t really get to talk to her, or anything, but … well, it was like being in the presence of a war goddess. I mean, she’s only a little taller than you are, but somehow it seemed like she was ten feet tall. I’d really like to do an interview with her. You ever have any luck getting your brother to tell you who she is?”

“He gets pretty defensive. I get the impression from him that he doesn’t know who she is. I don’t think he has any way to get in contact with her directly. It’s like there’s some way he can leave a message for her, and she’ll get back to him if she feels like it. He didn’t even say that much, I’m just sort of reading between the lines. He’s a reporter, too, and you and I compete with him after all.”

“Keep after him,” Jason said with a frown. “I don’t think this is the last we’ve heard of her. Maybe I’ll get to talk to her some day.”

It was the next Saturday, the middle of a gray and windy morning when Rick parked his Grand Am in the yard at Sally’s father’s house. Her bright red Mustang and another car he didn’t recognize were sitting in front of the barn, and when he didn’t get an answer at the house he figured she must be in the barn. He opened the door to the shop and found her father working on some indescribable piece of the old Lincoln. “Glutton for punishment, huh?” Tom smiled at him. “I thought she beat on you enough last weekend.”

“Well, it’s a new skill and likely to be a lot of fun,” Rick said defensively. And it was.

They’d gone at it for hours last Saturday, doing drills and simple exercises, and Sally was a good teacher. They’d actually done a little honest fencing, not just drills, and of course, she’d made a monkey of him, but that was to be expected, considering the number of years she’d done this. Then, last Sunday, they’d met for a workout at the police gym. She’d proved to have more martial arts experience than she’d admitted to, and on teasing her about it afterward he discovered that she had gone through several classes. He was a lot better at it than she was of course, but they didn’t want to push each other too hard and get too sore or possibly injured, especially as she’d had to anchor later that evening. So they knocked it off about noon and went to a restaurant for lunch. There he’d told her that he’d like to learn more about fencing, since it seemed like an interesting hobby, and though less useful to a cop than martial arts, he was less likely to get injured in practice, too.

It hadn’t escaped him that Sally was a pretty, intelligent, personable, and talented woman with a real love for the sport, and one who thoroughly understood what being a cop was all about. The former helped make her interesting, and the latter item was pretty damn rare in his experience, which made her all the more interesting and perhaps worth going to the extra effort over. So after lunch they’d headed back out to the barn for another lesson, which lasted for a couple hours before she had to shower, change clothes, and head down to the station. But they’d agreed to do it again at the first opportunity.

They hadn’t been able to meet during the week, but their schedules allowed them to get together this morning for another lesson, and who knew what after that. It promised to be an interesting day.

“Well, best of luck,” Tom said. “She’s down at the other end of the barn.”

Rick walked out of the shop door and into the main part of the barn. It was full of old cars, of course, most covered with tarps, and packed even tighter than they had been the previous weekend. The area behind the big doors where they’d worked out the previous weekend now had several cars sitting in it, making him wonder what was going on. There was a single light burning in the far corner of the barn, maybe she was down there. Suddenly, he heard Sally’s distant voice, saying, “Ready … fence,” followed by the unmistakable clash of foils. It went on for several seconds, until he heard an electronic ping. In another few seconds, he heard, “Ready … fence,” again.

Puzzled, he worked his way through the maze of old cars to the far end of the barn, working his way toward the light. As he got closer, he saw a kid, a teenager, wearing a fencing jacket and sitting on an old kitchen chair, watching the action that was taking place out of sight in a section of the building now separated from the rest by a wall that hadn’t been there the previous weekend.

He turned the corner and looked at what was going on—there were two fencers toward the far end of the open area, anonymous behind their face masks, going at it hard with foils. It was an interesting exchange. There was a lot of foil clashing, moving back and forth, and it had obviously been going on for several seconds. Suddenly, in a flash of foils, an attack was successful, and there was a pinging noise. A box on the wall lit up with a red light. “Good one, Emily,” he heard Sally say. “You really made me work for that. Good remise there, almost worked. Let’s take five.” The fencers pulled their masks back, and Rick realized that the fencer on the far side was Sally. The one on the near side was a solidly built teenage girl with long, dark blonde hair.

“Hi, Rick. Welcome to Sally’s Salle.”

“Looks to me like something new has been added,” he said, pointing around the room, starting to take it in. There was an arrangement of wires and bungees overhead, with the wires leading to the backs of silver jackets that both the fencers were wearing. From the little bit of research he’d been able to do, he knew the conductive silver jackets were called lamés, and were part of the electrical scoring system.

“Well, sorta. Dad was getting a little uptight with the activity last weekend, so he set up the old wall I used to have here before. Do you realize how loud he’d scream if a tip of one of these blades broke and chipped the paint job on the deuce?”

“Right. I was kind of wondering about that myself last week. Mostly, I was wondering about how far I’d have to run.”

“Australia would be a good bet,” Sally laughed. “And I’d have to be right there with you. This is Emily Kline, and over there in the corner is Justin Rabineau. They’re second-year fencers, want to try for a rating this winter. I met them down at the Toledo Salle a few days ago and invited them out for a workout, at least partly so you could watch some fencing.”

“Sounds good,” Rick said, realizing that he could learn a lot from watching.

“Kids, this is Rick Mattison,” she said by way of introduction. “He’s a beginner, but I’ve got him maybe halfway through Level 1 training. He’s still learning the moves and formalities, but he’s fast and strong, and he learns quickly. Emily, let’s run it up to fifteen points, then you rest and I’ll warm Justin up so you two can go at each other for a bit. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sure,” the teenager replied. “Not that you’re not doing a number on me, anyway.”

“Hopefully, you’re learning things,” Sally said as she lowered her mask again and backed up to the center of the strip.

“I’m learning a lot. I don’t get to go up against someone as good as you are very often.”

“Well, that’s how you learn. Ready? Fence.”

There was a flurry of foil play. Rick would have had trouble describing what was going on, except to say that there were a number of fast exchanges, with Sally retreating a little at times, advancing a little at times. All of a sudden there was a quick lunge, and a white light lit up on the scoring box, on Emily’s side. Rick remembered from last week that Sally had explained that it meant a touch with the shaft of the blade, not the tip, and only the latter counted for scoring.

“Emily, let’s take a sec and work on that attack in fourth position. Avoid that twist in your wrist, keep your blade a little more up. I’m just going to come at you, you parry, okay? Ready, fence.”

This wasn’t exactly a match. Rick could see that Sally was making pretty much the same attack, and Emily was defending against the move, with Sally coaching her each time. They ran the move perhaps a dozen times before Sally called a halt and said, “All right, let’s go live. Ready, fence.”

Again, there was a flurry of blades, ending up with a green light showing on the scoring box. “Much better,” Sally told her. “Let’s try it again. Ready, fence.”

There were a number of similar exchanges. By now, Rick could see a little more what was going on. Emily seemed like she was pretty good, but Sally was outscoring her perhaps two to one. It looked pretty fast and furious, and it was hard for Rick to tell how much she was holding back.

After several minutes, Sally said, “Okay, I sort of lost track but we got past fifteen, I’m pretty sure. Not bad, Emily. Justin, I think I got her softened up for you a bit, but let’s you and me go a few exchanges to give her a breather.”

In a couple minutes, Justin was wearing the silver jacket that Emily had had on and out on the floor with Sally. Again, Sally was outscoring him about two to one, and there was some furious fencing going on in the exchanges.

After a few minutes, Sally called a halt, exchanged the silver jacket with Emily, and came over and joined Rick. “Okay, kids, go to it.”

“Not bad,” Rick said.

“They both have talent,” Sally commented softly. “They’ve got the basic skills down pretty well.”

“What brought all this on?” Rick asked. “I mean, other than to keep from messing up paint jobs? I thought there was a place downtown you could go and train.”

“There is,” Sally told him, keeping her eye on the kids. “There’s a problem getting floor time, especially evenings and weekends when any of us are more likely to be available. I was down there a couple times this week, working on my sabre. I’ve been thinking the last few days that I ought to knock off some of the rust and get back to doing competition if I can, now that I have a reputation in the newsroom to keep up.”

“Your dad must have thrown this thing together in a hurry.”

“Actually, this wall was here, but it was out of the way, leaning up against the outer wall. We built it years ago, back while I was still fencing in high school, and he decided that we’d better set it up again. It only took a couple hours. I just got the hit box working this morning. If you and I stay with it, it’ll make life a lot simpler, and I won’t have to wrestle as much for floor time.”

“Sounds good to me. You really think I’m coming along pretty decently? We sort of just messed around last weekend.”

“Like I said, you’re a fast learner, and we were doing more than just messing around. You got a real fast and serious grounding in the basics. The athleticism and reflexes from martial arts helps you a lot. We need to spend some time on the formalities, but I could have you ready for a novice tournament in a month, maybe less.”

“You think so?” he frowned. “You were all over me last weekend.”

“Hey, who’s got fifteen years’ experience here?” she said after a snort. “You’d be a while catching up to me, but not fifteen years. I saw last weekend that you’re a natural. I don’t know if it was the martial arts practice or discipline or what, but you were doing some things instinctively that it usually takes some pointed instruction and practice to understand, especially for kids like these two. Let’s sit back and watch. I need to coach these kids some, that’s why they’re here.”

Rick sat back and watched the two kids. Yeah, from what he could tell with his limited experience, they had good moves, but as he sat and watched the exchanges, a vague uneasiness came over him, and shortly he realized that he could tell that the two weren’t going at each other as hard as they’d gone against Sally. Different styles? They just seemed to lack the luster they’d each displayed earlier with Sally.

He shoved it to the back of his mind. Was Sally putting him on? Did he have that kind of potential? It seemed hard to believe. The little bit that they’d played around last weekend had been fun, sure, and he’d landed a few touches against Sally, but he figured that she was holding back on him. For that matter, get down to the basics—was she coaching him, or was she dating him? Did it matter? She was a lot of fun and he thought worth spending time with, and if that was what it took … well, okay, might as well go the next step and see what happened. This was a new skill to learn, after all …

He leaned back in the chair and watched Emily and Justin fence some more. Several times, Sally stopped them between exchanges, got up, did a little coaching, talked about movements, made some demonstrations, things he didn’t understand at first, but then made sense after she explained them. But still there was something missing—to him these kids just didn’t look as good against each other as they’d looked against Sally. Finally, he could take it no longer. “Can I offer an observation?” he asked Sally.

“What are you seeing?”

“They’re not serious. They’re playing with each other.”

“Right,” Sally said. “They’re not challenging each other. I challenged them, so they worked harder. You got any ideas?”

“You mind if I talk to them?”

“Be my guest.”

After the next exchange, Rick got up and said to the kids, “Hold up for a minute.” He walked up between them. “Look, you two,” he said in a firm voice, but not yelling. “I don’t know jack shit about fencing, but I do know something about martial arts, to the point that I wear a black belt on my gi, so that gives me some room to comment. You kids are playing. Where’s the aggressiveness I saw when you two were fencing Sally? If either one of you fenced against the other the way you were going at it with her, you’d tear the other one up. If you want exercise, go out and do pushups or something. This may be a sport, but you’re here to win, not just play the game. If you just want to piss around, do it on your own time. Otherwise, get serious.”

The two kids were silent, their faces lost behind the fencing masks. Rick couldn’t tell if he was getting through to them or not. Oh, hell, it was time for nuclear weapons. “Either of you kids ever hear of Hippolyta?” he asked softly.

“Yeah, sure,” Emily said. “She’s been on the news a lot lately.”

“She’s got to be something else with a sword,” Justin agreed.

“I’ve met her,” Rick said, his voice growing even harder. “In fact, twice now, once when she broke up that holdup a couple weeks ago, and the other time a couple days ago when she gave that news conference. She is one serious lady. Damned serious, like a heart attack. Do you have any idea of how serious you have to be to go up against a gun with a sword? I’m a cop, and I’ll tell you, it’s damn serious. But you know what? She’d be laughing her ass off if she saw the two of you. Not because you don’t know what you’re doing, but because you’re not serious about it. Now, we’ll run the counter back to zero. Let’s see some fencing, and act like you mean it.”

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