A Stranger in Paradise Page 3

  Nothing said about watching me. It appeared I was home free. Somehow that troubled me, as though I were sitting out a fight I belonged in. “The feds interested in Seth? Did they say why?”

  “For now, he’s a material witness. It turns out Homeland BS really wanted your buddy Marc, only that’s not his real name.”

  “Wanted?” I repeated.

  Clay nodded. “They have Marc in custody. Choppered him out already.”

  I returned the way I had come, down Main Street to Town Square. The crowd, if anything, had grown. Mayor Jackson had ceded his spot at the center of the courthouse porch to a tall woman I didn’t know. Her Charlotte 49ers baseball cap suggested an out-of-towner.

  Mom caught my eye from across the square, and I made my way over. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Venting,” she said, as though that explained everything.

  And maybe it did.

  “. . . Not just people, either. Whatever you had in your vehicle—luggage, parcels, you name it—they scanned that, too!” 49er fan was red in the face. “Refuse and they turned you back.”

  Apparently she had refused.

  “They?” I whispered.

  Mom tipped her head in answer, toward where a thoroughly unhappy-looking squad of soldiers stood watching. National Guard, presumably, but not from the local company, or I would have recognized some faces.

  A balding guy, another stranger, replaced the 49ers fan. Mrs. Nguyen, the town postmaster, replaced him. A burly man in a tight and faded U-2 T-shirt went after her. Half the people in the square had a story to tell, and I lost track. Tourists. Business travelers. Folks wanting only to visit out-of-town relatives. Some people must have submitted to scanning and been allowed to pass, but they weren’t here to present another viewpoint.

  The watching guardsmen said nothing.

  I multitasked, half-processing the repetitious narratives, still groping for an explanation. Zach’s cause was RFID abuse. The scanning everyone complained about? It surely involved the RFID tags embedded in their cars and possessions. That wasn’t only my guess; several angry orators thought as much. But why?

  My stomach rumbled, and Mom glanced my way. It occurred to me that I hadn’t had anything to eat since an early lunch. “I’m fine,” I told her.

  You know how people behind the counter at fast-food places always ask, “You want fries with that?” Some of my friends worked fast food. No on expects any initiative from counter jockeys; the point-of-sale terminals prompted them.

  It wasn’t a big leap to imagine tie-in selling taken to the next level. A department store that polled the RFID tags in your clothing, so the most colorblind salesperson can recommend ties to match the shirt you’re buying. Walk past the same store a year later wearing that same shirt and get texted with a coupon for a newer style. Get a fill-up, and the gas pump displays an offer to replace your old tires, or—mystery solved—offers a coffeepot if there’s a can of coffee in your car. Run a string of errands, toting your purchases from store and store, and—

  I shivered. Anything became possible. Two days ago I’d thought web ads targeted to my surfing were intrusive and creepy. Of course some businesses allowed their RFID readers to scan for more than just what they sold. And once they had information . . .

  Zach hadn’t explained everything to me—he hadn’t had time—but it seemed like his virus was meant to infiltrate the NARCC.

  My thoughts churned. The NARCC. RFID consolidation. A virus dormant for months. Scanning everyone’s RFID-tagged possessions. The NARCC. Hold the fort.

  Hold the fort!

  “Have you ever been to Fort Sumter?” I asked abruptly.

  Barbara looked mildly embarrassed. In her nasal Midwestern twang, she said, “Maybe it balances things that I haven’t visited Appomattox, either.”

  I had to smile. “Fort Sumter is a main tourist destination in Charleston. The old fortification occupies a manmade island smack in the center of the harbor mouth, from which its cannons once controlled all sea access to the port. Take a National Park Service tour boat”—that’s the only way out to the island—“and the ranger will explain that the fort was built as a consequence of the War of 1812. She’ll tell you construction began in 1829. Then she’ll skip to 1861, Confederate bombardment of the fort, and the start of the Civil War. The curious lack of urgency after the War of 1812 will go unmentioned—

  “Like the first time South Carolina seriously tried to secede.”

  “The first time?” Barbara echoed.

  The repressed history teacher in me never required much encouragement. “The true legacy of the War of 1812 was war debt and higher tariffs. The tariffs kept climbing, kept playing regional favorites, until things came to a boil with the Tariff Act of 1828. That act quickly became known in South Carolina as the Tariff of Abominations.

  “In 1829, the federal government suddenly began shipping what was ultimately 70,000 tons of New England rock to build up a sandbar at the mouth of Charleston harbor.

  “The South Carolina legislature eventually empowered a convention that declared the Tariff of Abomination null within the state. Both sides prepared for conflict. The national constitutional crisis stretched on”—the hated tariff forcefully defended by that other Jackson, Andrew. “Finally, in 1833, tariffs were substantially reduced but the state’s right of nullification was effectively repudiated.

  “And construction of Fort Sumter continued . . .”

  Hold the fort.

  I took the broad, flat courthouse steps three at a time. Mayor Jackson blinked—I had never been one to make waves—but ceded the bullhorn when I reached for it.

  Why had Zach come here? For Seth’s help, I’d thought at first. Perhaps, but not just that. Even the cursory look I’d taken of Zach’s blog—so much had happened since, it seemed impossible that had been only a few hours earlier!—revealed hundreds of supporters. They must be scattered across the country.

  Because of the NARCC down the road in Charleston? Zach had said it was a regional center. Why target it, and not another of the regional centers?

  Simply because if Zach hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t be asking these questions? Too pat.

  Hold the fort. Seth always said that before leaving me in charge at the bookstore. He meant nothing special by it—but the phrase had evoked something in me.

  I gazed out over the crowd, my mouth gone dry. “Friends.” The word came out a croak. A few in the square chuckled—not the reaction I was going for. Mom looked confused, and I couldn’t blame her. At parties, I usually gravitated to a quiet corner.

  I didn’t know what to say, only that things needed to be said.

  I lowered the bullhorn, cleared my throat, and tried again. “Friends.” This time my voice boomed across the square. Again, still louder, “Friends!” The crowd quieted. “I’d like to explain what’s going on.”

  The words tumbled out of me, surmises become certainty. To this day, I can’t fully reconstruct the speech that propelled me into public life. But I understand why Zach chose a small town in South Carolina. The virus he planted would have fared equally well against any of the regional NARCC centers. What made here special was history. Was who we are.

  “Why quarantine us? It starts with the RFID tags in much of what we own. The tags are put there for mundane purposes like taking inventory. The same tags let Homeland BS monitor where you go as easily as you surf to find what’s playing at the Cineplex.

  “But the feds aren’t watching me. That’s what you’re telling yourself. You’re probably right—till you happen to pass, or be a friend of a friend of, someone in whom they have curiosity. Until you check out a library book that doesn’t pass official muster. Until someone just gets curious, or mistakes you for a ‘person of interest.’

  “Think you can buck the system by shopping with cash instead of credit cards? Withdraw cash from
your bank, and the tags embedded in the currency are associated with you. What you buy with cash at most stores”—but not Seth’s Secondhand Books, where the cash register was a cigar box—“gets associated with you. After that, the tires on your car and the shirt on your back announce you to every RFID reader you pass.”

  People had been angry and confused. Now comprehension replaced confusion. Their expressions grew ever grimmer.

  I kept going. “How does one more computer virus enter into this? Here’s what I think.

  “This virus must have scrambled RFID tracking databases in”—I almost said Charleston and Charlotte, which would have revealed knowledge best kept to myself—“that is, that cover the Carolinas. How can the feds spy on us now? Sure, RFID readers will still see tagged items go past—only that data is useless unless they know who owns that shirt or those truck tires.

  “So that’s why the quarantine. If you were allowed”—I made air quotes—“allowed to go to Atlanta or New Orleans or Chicago, the feds couldn’t later retrieve and second-guess your every step. That’s what Homeland BS wants to prevent.

  “Soon enough, attention will turn from the people caught on the road, from scanning whatever few things the travelers in the crowd happened to buy on their trips. My friends, the feds will want to recreate a full database for each of us. Every RFID tag, in everything we own.”

  “They have no right!” shouted someone in the square.

  “Where I go, what I buy—that’s my business,” another yelled.

  So were most things any of us did. That didn’t stop the government from taking an interest. I said, “Maybe they’ll bring up the Patriot Act. Maybe they’ll talk about ‘regulating interstate commerce.’ Mark my words, though: They will demand entry to every house and business, to scan everything we own, before letting us travel again.”

  “The hell they will!” This from tiny Mrs. Nguyen, who never uttered a cross word.

  Those databases are abominations, I thought. And: Hold the fort. I raised my arms above my head until the crowd quieted. “Then we all refuse to be rescanned.”

  Mayor Jackson, still at my side, coughed. “Then what? Hadley becomes a commune, cut off from the rest of the country?”

  “Not we, Hadley,” I answered. “We, South Carolina. North Carolina too, if they’ll join us.”

  And so began the Third Secession.

  “Mr. President?” The hand clasping the leather folder had returned to Barbara’s side. She had the aura of one hoping for a reprieve.

  “I was reminiscing,” I said, “not having second thoughts. I’ll take the letter now.”

  Reluctantly, she set the folder on my desk.

  I wasn’t quite done reminiscing. “It was a long road from the steps of the Hadley courthouse, to addressing the legislature in Columbia, to the state convention empanelled in Charleston. I was surprised to be named a delegate to that convention.”

  She managed a grin. “Then only you were surprised.”

  “I remember long walks along the Battery, the promenade on the harbor’s edge by the grand old mansions.” The Battery was where Charleston’s citizens gathered on April 12, 1861 to cheer on the bombardment of Fort Sumter. “I remember the long weeks of debate whether to surrender our principles for the benefits of travel and trade.”

  And while we talked, the factory in Spartanburg that had until recently produced RFIDs found a better market. Soon they were running 24/7. Everyone wanted personal RFID locators and battery-powered jammers.

  Untraceable, South Carolinians were quarantined—blockaded—in the name of national security. For our part, we welcomed anyone, from any state, who wanted freedom. Even Yanks.

  Print, broadcast, web . . . every kind of reporter wanted to cover our deliberations. Countless people observed by webcam. “It was an amazing time, Barbara. The longer we debated, the more people across the other states began to ask why they should live beneath the federal microscope.”

  The ACLU and half a dozen privacy groups jumped on the bandwagon. Websites popped up listing products with embedded RFIDs—and more and more consumers boycotted anything that did. The Electronic Freedom Foundation championed a ban on RFID tags in all goods to be sold at retail.

  Flinty old Senator Peterson of Vermont was the first to call on Congress to defund the NARCC, even before we in Charleston quite got around to our vote.

  So it never quite came to secession, because everyone began flocking to us.

  I unclipped the pen from my shirt pocket. I needed no one’s permission, but I did want understanding. Barbara and I had worked together since my first congressional campaign.

  “I respect your arguments, Barbara. I have considered them. Yes, Zach disclosed classified information. Yes, malicious data destruction was and remains a felony. Yes, disabling the Charleston NARCC doubtless hampered ongoing investigations. And yes, yes, yes—ends cannot justify means, or we’ll be reduced to anarchy. But whatever crimes Zachary Boyer committed, he long ago repaid his debt to society.

  “It’s time society begins repaying its debt to Zach.”

  In my first official act as President of the United States, I signed Zach’s full pardon.

  TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE

  There are two kinds of people, Dale Foster had once been advised at a book signing: those who divide everything into two kinds, and those who don’t. This wisdom had been attributed to Mark Twain. Dale had gritted his teeth and nodded. It was unlikely the earnest young fan had the wit to parse Clemens’s pseudonym.

  Dale slouched in his desk chair, a dichotomy of a different sort at issue. A framed cover flat from his last novel stood beside the laptop holding most of a new adventure. Neither artifact inspired him. His shirtless hero displayed rock-hard abs, manly pecs, and bulging biceps. (Harald should have been portrayed as far less fit . . . evidently reading a book is not a requirement for illustrating its cover.) His flaxen hair flowed in an unseen breeze. His blue eyes glinted. His smile was both friendly and devil-may-care. Dale did not need a picture to know he was short, stocky, and balding, nor that he radiated attitude. Surly with a fringe on the top.

  A trip to the fridge yielded a cold beer but no ideas. When he returned, the text that preceded the blinking cursor still read:

  Harald hung in massive iron chains from the dank, rough-hewn stone wall. The heavy manacles gouged into the bloody flesh of his arms. He fought the reflex to shiver, having learned all too well the rage with which the sadistic troll at the guard post reacted to the softest clanking sound from the dungeons. Instead, the man from Earth focused all his energy on escape. He had a plan.

  The problem was, Harald was selfishly keeping his plan to himself. The stout-hearted hero had now been shackled to that wall for two weeks. Two weeks of Dale’s evenings and weekends, that was: only scant hours for Harald. This crummy apartment did nothing for Dale’s imagination. Harald, Harald, Harald . . . do something.

  Dale’s day job, of which he was thoroughly tired, was in accounting. That made him, if not a man of science, a man of no nonsense. He expected the world to follow rules. All worlds. Even the world made up in his head. Two plus two would always equal four. Enron and Arthur Andersen showed what happened when one tried to pretend otherwise.

  That fan’s two types enjoyed either fantasy or SF, indifferent to the omission of the other ninety-whatever percent of the populace. Dale did not get it: Why did some people read fantasy? Far stranger: How was it he could, or chose to, write it? Fiction, he had no problem with—but it had to make sense. That insistence was what made Harald so unique as a fantasy hero. Yes, Harald had wandered through an unseen portal into a magical world, but he remained a man. No mythic strength, cover art notwithstanding. No wizardry, even in a world suddenly full of wizards. Only a brain and the guts to use it.

  Two kinds of people: those who deal in reality—no matter how surreal it might become, and those who don
’t. Harald was one of the former.

  For whatever reason, Dale could write and sell this stuff. If he could keep it up, he could escape the soul-sucking day job. Unlike Harald, Dale really had a plan.

  Harald needed to start pulling his own weight.

  The Towne Emporium was as crowded as Dale had ever experienced it—which meant one customer separated him from the stoop-shouldered store owner. It amused Dale to think the hole-in-the-wall shop was a money-laundering front. The little shop surely couldn’t be kept in business by the box of cereal and can of tuna the woman in front of him was buying. The waxed-and-spotless SUV at the curb was evidently hers.

  Hopefully, she was buying. Her selections lay on the counter while she and the owner shot the breeze. Come on, come on, come on. I still have things to do today. He sighed impatiently when she began leafing through a tabloid. They ignored him.

  He sighed louder this time. The shopkeeper and other customer finally looked Dale’s way. “Twenty bucks gas on pump one.” One of two. It wasn’t the big city. He had no use for the boonies, but there was no denying facts: Writing-wise, he was more productive here. Maybe the woods evoked the forests of Else. Maybe he’d begun writing at the cabin out of boredom.

  Which came first, the dragon or the egg?

  The shopper’s eyes widened. “You’re the author,” she chirped. “You’re Dale Foster.”

  Shakespeare was the author. It’s stretching a point to call me an author. “I write a little.” And most of it is drivel.

  She shifted her weight from one foot to another. “I wish I had my copy of Far Treasures with me so you could autograph it. I loved that book.”

  There were two kinds of sport-ute owners, Dale thought: the very few who need them, identifiable by occasional dirt and dings on their fenders, and the vast right-brained conspiracy who thought monster trucks were a fashion statement. She was among the latter—and another of his fans. “Thank you.”