The American Zone by L. Neil Smith

Author:L. Neil Smith [Smith, L. Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fiction, adventure, Science Fiction, C429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780312875268
Google: BIpXA8RbrkEC
Amazon: B004P8JFFO
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2001-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

WITNESS

EAA—COCOA—FLA

At the bottom of the comfortable rubber grip was a single word, TANFOGLIO, which meant the pistol had been imported from Italy to be marketed by an outfit in Florida. The trigger, hammer, slidestop, magazine release and and thumb safety were all a nice contrasting black, like the enormous fixed rear sight. All in all, it was a classy piece of work, and I approved of it.

The caliber, engraved on both the right side of the slide and the barrel-chamber area where it showed through the ejection port, was 10mm auto, one of the better offerings for autopistols in any version of the United States, generating energy in the middle 600 foot-pounds—considerably more efficacious than a .357 Magnum, but not quite into the larger magnum revolver range.

“I personally corroborate everything my colleague has just told you, no matter how unlikely.” Will grinned at me from the end of the barbecue grill where he was preparing lunch. He’d invited us all back to his establishment for some kind of special barbecue “experiment” he wouldn’t describe further. I’d accepted, partly because I was curious to see how Fran and Mary-Beth were getting along. Like many women—and unlike many others; the whole thing is very mysterious and unpredictable—they were even more beautiful, if that was possible, waddling around with big fat stomachs than they had been without them. Of course it helped that Clarissa was their midwife.

“Probably worst of all,” Will said, “especially if you’d prefer to think well of your fellow human beings, there were always thousands-or maybe more like millions—of drooling morons eager to rubberstamp whatever new or improved taxes their masters down at City Hall or the county commision or the state capital could think up for them to pay. A nickel here, a dime there—when I finally left the United States, the average slave of democracy was forced to disgorge more than half of his income to one bunch of lying, vicious, larcenous, disgusting, parasitic …”

“Slugs?” I suggested, Howard Slaughterbush apparently still on my mind.

“Or another,” he agreed.

“I suppose I’m just as bad as the drooling morons,” I admitted to our listeners. I was almost finished reassembling Will’s pistol, and was looking forward to a real drink. “I worked for the City and County of Denver—”

Will pointed his barbecue tongs at himself and silently mouthed the words, “Me, too.”

I nodded. “I suppose some argument might be made, defense and so on, for national government. Not a very good one; in the twentieth century alone—that’s since 124 A.L. to you—national governments have murdered as many of their own people in this century as have been killed in war. Something on the order of 110 million individuals or more.”

“War’s a government activity, too, Winnie.”

“Point taken, Lucy. So the butcher’s bill comes to a quarter of a billion people needlessly, uselessly dead. Proving that government is vastly worse than anything it pretends to protect us from. It’s a disease masquerading as its own cure.”

“Hear, hear!” Will agreed.

I said, “But not even the Franklinite Faction claims that there’s any justification for government at the city level.

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