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.”