Diamond Age or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

Whatever is to follow. The shouting meant simply, "Kill! Kill!" and was the battle cry of the Fists of Righteous Harmony.

Perhaps they wanted Colonel Napier. But it was more likely that they had decided to attack this place for its symbolic value as a den of barbarian decadence.

Miss Braithwaite and Lotus had already gotten Colonel Napier out of his restraints, and he was pulling on his trousers. "That we are not all dead implies that they are not making use of nanotechnological methods," he said professorially. "Hence this attack may safely be assumed to originate from a low-level neighborhood cell. The attackers probably believe the Fist doctrine that they are immune from all weapons. It never hurts, in these situations, to give them a reality check of some sort."

The door to Napier's room flew open, splinters of blond naked wood hissing across the floor. Nell watched, as though watching an old movie, as Colonel Napier drew a ridiculously shiny cavalry saber from its scabbard and ran it through the chest of the attacking Fist. This one fell back into another, creating momentary confusion; Napier took advantage of it, methodically planting his feet in a rather prissy-looking stance, squaring his shoulders, calmly reaching out, as if he were using the saber to poke around in a dark closet, and twitching the point beneath the second Fist's chin, incidentally cutting his throat in the process. A third Fist had gotten into the room by this point, this one bearing a long pole with a knife lashed to the end of it with the gray polymer ribbon peasants used for rope.

But as he tried to wheel the weapon around, its butt end got tangled up in the rack to which Napier had lately been tied. Napier stepped forward cautiously, checking his footing as he went, as if he did not want to get any blood on his boots, parried a belated attack, and stabbed the Fist in the thorax three times in quick succession. Someone kicked at the door to Nell's room.

"Ah," Colonel Napier sighed, when it seemed clear that there were no more attackers in this party, "it is really very singular that I happen to have brought the full dress uniform, as edged weapons are not a part of our usual kit."

Several kicks had failed to open Nell's door, which unlike the ones in the scenario rooms was made of a modern substance and could not possibly be broken in that way. But Nell could hear voices out in the corridor and suspected that contrary to Napier's speculation, they might have nanotech devices of a very primitive sort– small explosives, say, capable of blowing doors open.

She ditched her long dress, which would only get in the way, and got down on knees and elbows to peer through the crack under the door. There were two pairs of feet. She could hear them conversing in low, businesslike tones.

Nell opened the door suddenly with one hand, reaching through with the other to shove a fountain pen into the throat of the Fist standing closest to the door. The other one reached for an old automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. This gave Nell more than enough time to kick him in the knee, which may or may not have done permanent damage but certainly threw him off balance. The Fist kept trying to bring his rifle to bear, as Nell kicked him over and over again. In the end she was able to twist the rifle free from his feeble one-handed grasp, whirl it around, and butt him in the head.

The Fist with the pen in his neck was sitting on the floor watching her calmly. She aimed the rifle his way, and he held up one hand and looked down and away. His wound was bleeding, but not all that much; she had ruined his week but not hit anything big.

She reflected that it was probably a healthy thing for him in the long run to be rid of the superstition that he was immune to weapons.

Constable Moore had taught her a thing or two about rifles. She stepped back into her room, locked the door, and devoted a minute or so to familiarizing herself with its controls, checking the magazine (only half full) and firing a single round (into the door, which stopped it) just to make sure it worked.

She was trying to suppress a flashback to the screwdriver incident. This frightened her until she realized that this time around she was much more in control of the situation. Her conversations with the Constable had not been without effect.

Then she made her way down the corridors and stairwells toward the lobby, slowly gathering a retinue of terrified young women along her way. They passed a few clients, mostly male and mostly European, who had been pulled from their scenario rooms and crudely hacked up by the Fists. Three times she had to fire, surprised each time at how complicated it was. Accustomed to the Primer, Nell had to make allowances when functioning in the real world.