State of War

13

John Howard shook his head. Julio hadn’t been able to make it today. He had said something about having to take his son to somewhere to apply for pre-preschool classes. That meant that John was the only one here with his own son. It was probably just as well, though. After all, there was no point in both of them being embarrassed.

Tyrone brought the K-frame revolver up and squeezed off two shots, double-action. He paused a second, then squeezed off two more double-taps, with only a half-second between the second and third pair.

Howard looked at the computer screen in the shooting bay. The computer displayed an image of the “bad guy” target. Hits showed as bright points of light against a darker shade.

Howard let out a low, soft whistle. Six shots, all neatly paired, all hits. Two in the head, two in the heart, two in the groin. No question about it, the boy had fired quickly, smoothly, and accurately, using a handgun he had only shot one time before.

“That’s good, son.”

Tyrone smiled. “Thanks, Dad. It just feels so, you know, natural.”

Howard shook his head. Unbelievable. “Try the.22.”

Opening the Medusa, Tyrone ejected the empty shells into his palm and put them into the plastic bin. He put the revolver down and picked up the little.22 target pistol, a bull-barreled Browning semiauto. The gun had iron sights and was front-heavy, but it was an accurate enough weapon. The sights were frame-mounted and not on the slide.

Tyrone slid the half-loaded magazine in, chambered a round, and thumbed the safety on. He kept his trigger finger outside the guard, the gun pointed low and down range.

John nodded, giving the boy high marks for safety, too.

“I’m going to change the target to a bull’s-eye,” Howard said. “Take your time, remember what I told you about breathing, and shoot five rounds slow-fire.”

Tyrone nodded.

Howard tapped a control on the computer. The image blinked and shifted into a standard black-and-white concentric-circled twenty-five-meter pistol target.

Tyrone took a couple of deep breaths, raised the pistol one-handed, and extended his arm, duelist-fashion. Formal target shooting discipline allowed only a one-hand hold. The gun would not be as steady as when held in a two-handed combat grip, so he shouldn’t do as well, even with the smaller recoil of the.22 round.

The little pap! of the.22 target load was very quiet under the sound suppressors, even though Howard hadn’t taken his hearing aid out.

Tyrone lowered the weapon, took a couple more breaths, and raised the pistol again.

Pap!

Howard watched his son, not as interested in the score as he was in how Tyrone shot. He paid particular attention to how he stood, his grip, trigger control, his breathing, and his eyes. Behind the shooting glasses, Howard could see that Tyrone kept both eyes open.

Tyrone lowered the gun again, relaxed and breathed, then brought it back up.

After five rounds, the slide locked open. Tyrone ejected the magazine, checked the chamber, then put the pistol and empty magazine onto the bench and turned to look at the computer. At this range the bullet holes were too small to see with the naked eye.

Howard looked at the computer screen at the same time.

All five rounds clustered into a ragged hole an inch below dead center, tight enough so you could cover them all with a quarter. There were no fliers at all.

A one-inch group, one-handed grip, twenty-five meters out, and the first time he had ever fired the pistol. Now that was good shooting!

But Tyrone frowned. “I missed the bull’s-eye,” he said. “I was aiming right at it.”

Howard laughed and shook his head. “No, son,” he said. “Those sights are set for my eyes. What’s important is not that you shot low, but that you put them all essentially into the same hole. You can always adjust the sights. Try it. Just give them one or two clicks, that’ll raise the point of impact.”

Tyrone adjusted the sights, reloaded, and fired off another slow five. This second group was almost the same as the first, with four centered in the ten ring and one round slightly off.

John shook his head again, amazed. If you threw out that one flier, you could cover the other four with your thumb — and even with the flier included, all five were still within an inch or so of each other. Amazing.

“I pulled the third shot,” Tyrone said. “It felt off.”

Howard said, “Son, there are men who have practiced regularly for years, burning tens of thousands of rounds, who can’t do what you just did. This Browning is a very good gun, but it’s not close to being a world-class free pistol. With a precision weapon and match-grade ammo, you’d do even better.” He paused, then finished, “Ty, if you can do this consistently, you could win Olympic medals. You’re a natural born shooter. I’ve been around guns all my life and I’ve never seen anybody with as little experience do as well.”

Tyrone looked at him. “Really?”

Howard smiled. “Really. You have a talent. I don’t know that this is one I’d have picked for you, but God has His plans, and we’re not always privy to them. If you are interested in pursuing this, I’ll see that you get whatever equipment and training you need.”

“Sir,” came Gunny’s amplified voice over the PA system, “are you screwing around with my target computer out there?”

“Negative, Gunny,” Howard called out. “It’s Tyrone.”

“Tell me he wants to join the junior pistol team, sir. Please.”

Howard looked at Tyrone. “Well?”

“Yes. I’d like that.”

Louder, Howard said, “Only if you promise not to teach him any bad habits.”

“Sir, when a man can shoot like that, there’s nothing I can teach him at all.”

Corinna Skye was a little softer than when Alex had seen her last. As before, her suit was well-cut and expensive, but today it was a pale, less-formal gray, her jacket unbuttoned, and she wore a red blouse beneath it. She sat on the couch facing his desk, her legs crossed, showing a few inches of stocking above her knees.

“Thank you for seeing me, Commander.”

He nodded. “Before you get started, there’s something you should know.”

She looked at him expectantly.

“Your client, CyberNation, is suing Net Force — and me personally — for two hundred million dollars. On top of that, we’ve caught them doing all manner of illegal things in the past, and there is an investigation that has been ongoing since then.”

She started to say something but he held up his hand. “Now I know that the organization managed to throw a few sacrificial bodies off the sled, as it were, but I don’t believe that all the guilty parties have been brought to justice. In fact, I fully expect that we will catch CyberNation doing all manner of illegal things in the future, too. I think CyberNation’s higher-ups all ought to be wearing eye-patches and peg legs and going ‘Har, matey!’ when they talk, that they are as twisted as a boxcar full of corkscrews, and if I can, I’ll see them all in prison for a long, long time.”

She smiled, what looked like a genuinely happy expression. “Oh, go on, Commander, don’t sugarcoat like that — tell me how you really feel.”

He had to laugh at that. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I came off pretty righteous and pompous, didn’t I?”

She laughed, too. “That’s all right, Commander. I appreciate honesty. I seldom get to hear it as much as I would like in my work.”

He nodded. “In that case, Ms. Skye, I have to warn you that you’re wasting your time lobbying me.”

She smiled and shook her head. “I don’t think so. Besides, there’s no challenge in convincing somebody who already agrees with you.”

Well, he thought. This ought to be interesting, at least.

“Let me lay out some facts, Commander.”

“That’s the third time you’ve called me that,” he said. “We don’t stand on titles around here. Please, call me ‘Alex.’ ”

She smiled again. “All right, Alex. My friends call me ‘Cory.’ ”

He nodded.

“Let’s assume for a moment, hypothetically speaking, that all the bad apples in CyberNation were removed from the barrel. Or maybe even that there are a couple you missed, but that the rest of the organization is not intrinsically evil.”

“That’s a big assumption, and like I said, I don’t agree with it.”

“For the sake of argument.”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

“If that were the case, if all those who did anything illegal were gone, how would you feel about the organization then?”

“You mean about those fine, upstanding people who are suing me for all that money?”

She smiled. “Well, as long as we are speaking hypothetically, suppose that lawsuit did not exist. That it just went away?”

“No crooks, no legal action,” he said. “In that case, I suppose I might not think much of CyberNation one way or another.”

She frowned. “Are you saying that you have no opinion whatsoever regarding their basic premise?”

He leaned forward a little, clasping his hands and resting his elbows on his desk. “Not at all. I think it’s a silly idea. A virtual country whose citizens live and work in the real world but do not have to pay taxes to the countries they actually live in? A phantom government that can still issue IDs, credit cards, even driver’s licenses?”

“It’s not a phantom government and you know it,” she said. “Its leaders are elected through the same democratic process as the President of the United States.”

He shrugged. “There’s no White House, no Capitol Hill, no physical analog to any of the traditional seats of power. Without that, it’s all just pixels on a screen.”

She smiled. “Actually, with VR there are no pixels and no screen, but you know that, too, of course. Besides, I see your point. I just don’t agree with it.”

“What about the rest of my comments?” he asked.

She waved her hand dismissively. “You already get most of your IDs and credit cards on-line,” she said. “When was the last time you mailed in a credit-card application instead of just visiting a website? This is no different. And I’ve heard that several states are considering doing their driver’s license testing and renewals on-line as well. Sure beats standing in line, doesn’t it? If we can do it, why can’t CyberNation?”

“It’s just not the same.”

“Why not, Commander? Alex? Why isn’t it the same?”

He shook his head. “Look, I’ll grant you that some of this, maybe even much of it, is happening already or is going to happen. But not just on-line. The virtual world we live in is just a convenience, a time-saver. The Department of Motor Vehicles still exists. It still has all its same branch offices. And you can still go down and talk to someone face-to-face if you have a problem. The same is true for all the branches of government, and all the banks, and all the other companies who have a presence on the net. Their virtual offices haven’t replaced the physical ones, and that makes all the difference.”

“Why?” she asked. “What difference does it make if I have the option to go downtown and stand in line in some old office building? If I can get the same level of service— no, if I can get better and faster service on-line, with the same level of accountability — then why should that make any difference at all?”

He frowned again. He knew he was right, but he couldn’t find the words to explain it to her.

“It just does,” he said.

She just smiled.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s table that part of the discussion for now. Why don’t you tell me what really bothers you about CyberNation, Alex?”

He sighed. “It just doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Let’s say CyberNation exists right now, and that you’re a citizen there. But you work here, in the real world, in the United States. You spend all your time here, regardless of whether you’re working on-line or off. You’re here, receiving all the benefits of being a citizen, all the protection of our laws, all the freedoms of our land, and yet you’re not a part of it.”

“And I’m not paying for it.”

“Exactly.”

She smiled. “That’s it, isn’t it, the fact that I’m not paying taxes and you are?”

He nodded. “That’s part of it, certainly.”

“But don’t you see, Alex, that happens all the time. If I were a citizen of Saudi Arabia, for example, or France, I could live here and work here — part of the year, at least — and not pay taxes to the U.S. government.”

“That’s different,” he said. “Those are real countries. Our government has reciprocal agreements with them, so our citizens can live and work there under the same arrangements.”

“And that will be true with CyberNation, too,” she said. “We’ll have arrangements with every government on the face of this planet. We’ll have to. It’s the only way our citizens will be able to live and work where they want to.”

“But…” He stopped.

“Yes?”

He shook his head. CyberNation was wrong. The whole idea was ludicrous, and he knew it. He just couldn’t seem to make her understand that.

“And what happens to the real-world countries?” he asked.

“Ah, now that is the best question I’ve heard so far,” she said. “And I believe it’s the real heart of your concern, isn’t it? The fact that people becoming citizens of CyberNation, of not paying taxes to the U.S. anymore, would be bad for this country that you love so much.”

He nodded. He hadn’t really thought of it in those terms before, but she was right. It would be bad for the United States, just as it would be bad for Saudi Arabia, and France, and every other country. It would have to be.

“But maybe, just maybe, that would be a good thing. After all, the United States is supposed to have a government ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ Can you honestly say that the current tax structure works that way? Never mind for the moment that fewer than ten percent of the population pays more than eighty percent of the taxes. Never mind for the moment that for tax purposes the poverty level is set at an unbelievably low level, so that families making far less money than they need to feed and clothe and house their children are nonetheless paying taxes. No, for now, just look at where those taxes go. Tell me that you’re happy with all the pork barreling that goes on, and that you believe the monumental waste you see all around you is ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people.’ ”

She paused and looked at him. “Maybe, Alex, just maybe it isn’t CyberNation that’s bad for America. Maybe America has become bad for itself.”

“No, Ms. Skye,” he said in a flat voice. “We’ve got problems, I’ll admit that. We always have and we always will. But that’s exactly because we are of the people. Any human endeavor will always be flawed. It’s part of our makeup. CyberNation would be no different.”

There was a moment of silence as they both looked at each other. Then she nodded. “Well,” she said, “I won’t take up any more of your time. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. If ever I can help you with information regarding CyberNation, or anything else, please give me a call.”

He nodded, rose, and shook her hand.

She paused, still gripping his hand lightly. “Promise me one thing, Alex. Promise me you’ll at least think about what I’ve said.”

“Oh, I think you can count on that, Ms. Skye.”

She left and Alex turned back to work. A virtual country? No taxes? Preposterous.

Wasn’t it?