EPILOGUE: NAKED SIN
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HAVEN.
The sea breeze came in from the ocean at the end of the runway. By straining to listen, I might have faintly heard the waves. Seagulls flew overhead, perhaps thinking something was on the island.
This was a haven. Businesses buried their roots here to escape national taxes and located their servers here to ensure the physical safety of data they didn’t want in their own countries. This was a tiny island, a nation only in name. The tropical isle, home to a scant few thousand residents, had been recognized as an independent state by the global community of nations who sought an air pocket outside the complex array of their interconnected interests.
The sun’s gaze was strong here, but not uncomfortably hot with the unobstructed breeze blowing across the tarmac. The country provided little reason to visit, and the runway usually remained unused.
The airport itself was wholly adequate, paid for by taxes of corporations that had rushed to the island for its low tax rates and lax information laws. The locals seemed to be living comfortably. Where our society squeezed too hard, the benefits trickled down to this haven.
In the shadow of Nomad, prominently parked on the runway, we awaited the bride, who was changing into her dress inside the heavy transport plane. The scene was surreal.
Our intimate wedding party hadn’t come all the way to this tropical island because the bride had wanted some flashy wedding. The ceremony was held here so that Snake and I might attend. Even though the Patriots had perished, the lengthy rap sheet they had framed us with lived on.
Yet the bride wouldn’t hold the ceremony without us. Snake and I declined, many times, but she insisted on having us two fugitives present, always saying (with such obstinacy as to make her father proud), “I can’t imagine the wedding without you two there.”
One month had passed. As for how much—and how little—the world has changed since those events, you probably have a better sense than I. As a wanted man, I flew around the world, apart from it. The outcome of our battle was only truly found amid the laughter, the tears, and the lives of the common man.
So, how about it? How much did the world change?
Or has it hardly changed at all?
The next time we meet, I hope you’ll tell me.