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“Here we have a promising brand-new nation, but the people are still slaves to the old UK mentality and bureaucracy. Instead of breaking free of their shackles and starting afresh, they are still queuing up to suck at the welfare teat. If it were not for the steady stream of North Sea oil revenue, Scotland would be an economic basket case.” Scottish news websites soon reprinted the article, along with scathing editorials that derided Heston as “an ungrateful wretch” and as a “Careening Cowboy Capitalist.”
    Getting an appointment to see Harry Heston was usually difficult, since his days were packed with meetings. All his personal meetings were scheduled by his secretary, Jane Vo. This tiny Asian lady worked for Heston since he’d started the company, and she was a key player in the company. She was respectfully referred to as “Mrs. Vo” by everyone in the company -- even Harry. The standing joke was that if Mrs. Vo ever called in sick for a week, the company’s ventures would come to a halt and their stock shares would plummet. There was also conjecture that Mrs. Vo’s stock holdings made her a billionaire in her own right.
    Mrs. Vo’s office was on the third floor. The fourth floor could only be reached via a private elevator that was guarded by a pair of tall and muscular security guards who wore Bespoke suits and sat behind an armored desk.
    Rick approached Mrs. Vo’s desk with trepidation. It was said that these meetings could either be career-makers or career-enders, depending on their outcome. As he approached her desk, she looked up from her curved keyboard. He said, “I’m Rick Akins, from the Database Fusion group, and I’d like to schedule a meeting with Mr. Heston. I’ve been doing a study on forming an entirely new nation-state. I’d like to discuss that with him, along with the attendant investing opportunities that this new country would create. Please relay that to him verbally, without leaving any e-mail trail.”
    Mrs. Vo nodded and pointed a laser pen to scan Rick’s badge. “We’ll let you know if and when time becomes available. Thank you.”
    As he returned to his office on the second floor, Rick wondered if he’d get a meeting any time in the next month, and if so, how much. Heston’s meetings were often notoriously short, rarely took place sitting down, and he expected a rapid-fire rundown of facts and figures. When Rick got back to his desk, he was surprised to see a red-flagged e-mail pop up on his screen. Opening it, he read, “Mr. Heston will see you next Tuesday at 11 a.m. Clear your schedule: You may be staying for lunch.”
    Rick smirked. “Those key-logging gnomes know everything .”

     
    Before Rick accepted the job at GlobalMAP, he had been a U.S. Air Force Captain in the USAF Cyber Command (AFCYBER). His specialty had been database fusion and data mining. Air Force tech recruiters tapped him while he was in his final year of college in Texas at Rice University, pursuing a Masters in computer science. Their Direct Commission program included a hefty “critical skills” signing bonus that paid off nearly all Rick’s college debt. Just a week after graduating, he attended the USAF Direct Commissioning Selectee Orientation Course (DC-SOC), which was commonly called the “Direct Commissionee’s Charm School.” It was held in two eight-week cycles each summer on the campus of the USAF Officers Academy near Colorado Springs. This was an intensive series of short courses in military law, drill and ceremonies, military etiquette and courtesy, military report writing, along with some fairly superficial background courses on military history, strategy, Air Force warfighting doctrine, and weapons systems. Most of his classmates were destined for either USAF drone programs or the Cyber Command. Any of them who had already earned postgraduate degrees came into the service as First Lieutenants rather than as Second Lieutenants.
    Not surprisingly, Rick’s first and only