How Chubby Tracked Down Hassan Coleman's Assassins

Late August

The assassination of Hassan Coleman pushed the situation as far as it could go short of war. Behind the scenes, two missions with similar aims for opposite purposes were set in motion. The quickly unifying Insurgent resistance groups based in Memphis, in Ishpeming, and in Portland were communicating constantly, putting grudges and doubt behind them, and were working on a plan. 1) Kill the assassins of Hassan Coleman. 2) Find and rescue Cynthia Oglethorpe.

On the other side was fragmentation and disunity. Utah and the Intermountain West were quickly coalescingaround Ben Cadez, seeing him as a young, thoughtful “conservative” who might challenge the increasing insanity of Real-Prez. But many pockets were holding out. Turdashian had his own supporters, mainly in the gated communities of SoCal, while in deep Dixie and in various armed pockets around the country they held fast to Real-Prez. The propaganda from the Insurgency increased in volume and frequency, and appeared to be winning the war for hearts and minds.

Rumors began to spread about Cadez – was he ill? Still, no one suspected that Cadez himself was addicted to the synthesized Fungus made by the Howard Hughes Foundation.

Meanwhile, reports were circulating that GG was alive and working under duress – but where and for whom?

From The Fall of It All – A History of the Big Dump

Buy the SwiftPad Extinction

LET’S EAT,” SAID HESTER. ELWOOD WAS PULLING 
the barbecued onions and eggplant off the grill and 

piling them on a platter while Hester laid out the tomatoes, peppers, and corn.
Kip and Arkie walked up from the woods below and joined
them, and they sat around outside in the back, with their plates
on their laps.

“Did you dig the hole?”

“I’m not sure it’s deep enough,” said Arkie.

“I’ve got two bags of lime in the garage,” said Elwood. “We’ll
throw those in the hole. Then – we’re out of here tonight after we
bury them.”

“It was self-defense,” said Hester.

“Absolutely,” said Arkie.

“So I guess we are all in this – together,” said Kip. “OK, you
want to know what happened and how I got here?”

“Sure,” said Arkie. “We’ll be dropping you off in St. Louis,
and we can’t really talk in front of our driver. So what happened?”
“OK. Here’s how it went.”

So, after they shot down Coleman’s plane, things were
serious, and we got serious. The Memphis people didn’t
object when I insisted I be part of the team that went after
his killers. Because of my age and appearance we all decided
that I was the one who should do them. I mean, I had as
much motivation as anyone else. I knew Coleman, worked
with him, and as I said, it made sense tactically.

After Dashell Sketerson’s funeral, all the big shots got on
helicopters and headed out of town fast, mostly up to the St.
Louis airport. But our boys stayed around. We tracked them
to the Marriott, set up, and found out they planned to meet
some women in a downtown bar about 6:00 PM.

I walked into the Hot Shots and didn’t avoid the stares
of people who looked up and then turned away quickly. I
think looking back hard discouraged them from studying
my face. I was older, tending to fat, as you can see, and
trashy looking even for southern Missouri, deliberately
downright unattractive.

A sad song about a broken heart disguised as an old
pickup truck that won’t start was casting a gloomy pall over
the half-crowded saloon.

Behind the bar, a pretty blonde in her thirties stared
at her fone and not only ignored me but also my spotters, a
man and woman, both watching and occasionally reacting to
a preseason NFL game on the TV behind the bar. There was
an occasional whoop or shout of raw approval from the back,
but no one looked up to see what the excitement was about.
I walked by the bar and sat at an empty table, back near the
wall, facing the door.

“Wait, wait,” said Hester. “I am not glued to SwiftPad all day
like the rest of the world. I have too much work to do. What the
fuck is going on – I mean I heard about the plane crash in Mem-
phis, but what is this really all about? What the fuck is really
going on?”

Nate looked at Elwood, who shrugged and smiled a little.
Arkie, looking at his fone, said without looking up, “It is hard
to understand history when it is current events. I don’t know that
anyone can answer that question. Go ahead, Kip, but we got to get
going in about 40 minutes. Our ride is on the way from St. Louis.”

"OK, Hester, here’s the story."

****

My best friend from kindergarten, Jim Hunt, was murdered in
his own kitchen, and his pregnant wife, Cynthia Oglethorpe,
was kidnapped. You heard about that, right? Well, I was
there, helpless to do anything as she was led away at gunpoint
by masked men. I am still not totally clear who did it, but I
know they had some link to the Real-Prez junta.

Then, more than seven thousand (V)ICE wannabe storm
troopers invaded Portland. They were quickly routed and
expelled by a ragtag group of determined high-tech volun-
teers, assembled by the Insurgency. In the weeks following,
almost the entire West Coast was taken over by a loosely
organized, mostly nonviolent amalgamation of groups whose
unifying factor was extreme opposition to Real-Prez.

In Los Angeles, (V)ICE and the LA Insurgency had a
week long running freeway battle, with sudden “flash” traffic
jams, at exactly the right place and time to bottle up any
large-scale movement by Real-Prez forces. In Seattle, it was
a bloodless walkover. They read a manifesto in San Fran-
cisco that declared Real-Prez a traitor who was fraudulently
elected and therefore illegitimate. Local and state govern-
ments stepped up, and purged or isolated the Real-Prez
movement. Most of the northeast, from Richmond, Virginia,
north followed suit, but here in the heartland and South
they held out for Real-Prez. Except for Memphis and its east
bank surroundings.

“Illinois is still probably resisting,” said Elwood.

“Yeah, I hope so.”

“Shit,” said Hester. “That’s Chicago. Down here we ain’t
much different than Kentucky.”

For three weeks after the Portland Insurgency, nothing hap-
pened, just waiting, hoping life would return to normal. Then
the other shoe dropped. Coleman, the charismatic mayor of
Memphis, was shot out of the sky as his plane came in for a
landing at the Memphis International Airport. I was standing
on a balcony in my hotel room, looking out at the Mississippi,
and I felt the blast, saw the mid-air explosion and the fiery
crash. Former Army Ranger Colonel Hassan Coleman, along
with eleven others, died as they returned from co-leading
fewer than a thousand military specialists of the Portland
Insurgency to a complete victory over seven thousand (V)
ICE storm troopers. Wild rumors about who did it and why
quickly spread on SwiftPad, fueling the shock and anger
among Coleman’s supporters, galvanizing support for the
Insurgency. The assassination united the city, in fact united
the nationwide resistance to Real-Prez and his minions.
But it also unleashed something on the other side as well.

Two days later, six people at a Lawrence, Kansas rally that
was mourning Coleman, were killed by drive-by shooters.
Then that night, seventeen of Real-Prez’s most prominent
Kansas opponents, the core of the Kansas Insurgency, were
dragged out of their houses and apartments and shot in the
streets of Lawrence. Two days after that, Austin, Texas,
was declared a “lib-free zone” by militant Evangelicals, and
there were scattered reports of severe fighting and atrocities,
mainly among students at the University. Similar actions
took place in several Midwest college towns. RedHats were
striking back sporadically, with proclamations that they
were establishing “faith-based” governments.

“OK, I’m caught up,” said Hester. “So how did you kill them?”

The SwiftPad Extinction at Bookshop(dot) org

Review of "Death of a Red Heroine" by Qui Xiaolong

 

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8145750166

“Death of a Red Heroine" is the first of the Chen Cao detective mysteries

by Qui Xiaolong. I have read two others and have two more on my shelf. 

In some ways this first one I have enjoyed the most so far, probably

because I am already familiar with Cao's circle of colleagues, friends

and family as well as who Chen is destined to become. Many of the

series’ minor characters will be fleshed out more fully in the later

books, so their brief appearances here have more impact than they

would if I had read this one first. But all of his characters sparkle and

stand on their own with insights and clever humor that is uniquely

Chinese. The way his minor characters play off of Chen as he goes

through his investigation carry the story.

 

Perhaps the underlying theme of the Chen Cao detective novels is how

a decent honest detective survives in China where the principle edict

is  “The Party’s interest must always be considered.”  Inspector Chen is

a poet and literary critic as well as a detective. The Party, in the

aftermath of the Tiananmen demonstrations/massacre, needs to find

ways to show a human face, and by allowing Chen to succeed and

become a minor celebrity is one of the ways they do it. 

Qui Xiaolong has a very unique style of writing. He mixes his police procedural narrative with many asides to Chinese literary history and poetry, because after all Chen would rather be editing a high brow literary magazine than solving murders in Shanghai. This poet/cop persona divides his attention and to some extent his dedication to his job as a cop. However, unlike his colleague and older deputy Yu Guangming, Chen is not cynical.  Yu is loyal to Chen, but has not had good luck in advancing in his career at the police bureau. His hard bitten realistic attitude often  brings Chen down from his literary cloud. Along with his hard working and practical wife, Yu lives in a tiny room and has to share a kitchen and bathroom with another family.  It is one of the many ironies that fill the book, because the crime that lands on their desk is about the murder of an attractive young woman, who is famous as a self-sacrificing “model worker” and a “loyal Party Dancer”, a reference from the Cultural Revolution when dancing was outlawed except for ‘stamping their feet to  show their loyalty to Mao Zedong’.  But this young woman had a secret life that entwined her with the corrupt social set of the children of high officials. 

It is 1990, the Year after Tiananmen, and a full decade since the official

end to the Cultural Revolution madness that Mao created to crush his

enemies.  However, the scars of that madness still weigh on every one

to some degree. Chen is swimming a system polluted by the politics of

the Chinese Communist Party, (CCP). His direct bossParty Secretary Li, a smart, unscrupulous Party functionary, warns

Chen “not to go too far” in his investigation of the murder.  The victim,

Guan Hongyin, works in cosmetics, is recent attendant to National

Party Conferences and has been featured in Party media as a virtuous

upright pillar of all that is positive about the Party.  Her national profile

is one of self sacrifice, and moral rectitude.  

Chen himself is being groomed for a high position.  He meets a young vivacious well connected journalist from Beijing who becomes his conduit to the unofficial Party rumor mill and who has a bright future to manage herself. There is a sexual attraction between her and Chen that can not be denied. It is one of the ironies of the novel.  Chen is slowly succumbing to the same forbidden “immorality” as Guan Hongyin, the murder victim.

“Death of a Red Heroine" has a tight criminal investigatory procedural plot with lots of diversions and plenty of local Shanghai color.  The undercurrent of distaste for the Party is apparent in all the dealings with witnesses and ordinary people who touch the investigation. This national distrust of the Party so soon after Tiananmen is one of the hidden forces which affects the investigation, and weighs heavily on Chen. 

For me the scenes of “old Shanghai” are particularly fun to read. Qiu Xiaolong through his descriptions of the Bund’s architecture and the side streets and the markets and alleys and the people who struggled to live in Shanghai before its recent physical  renaissance are delicious reading.  Today of course, Shanghai is perhaps the most modern city in the world, but Chen’s Shanghai is still grimy and teeming with streetwise authenticity. I brought my parents to the City in 1985 and my Dad looking around in amazement said, “It hasn’t changed a bit” since he sailed into the port as a 17 year old merchant seaman in 1937.  We went into the Peace Hotel and the Jazz band in the lounge was still the same men who had been there in the 1930s, when Noel Coward wrote “Private Lives” while living there. A couple of the band members joined us and reminisced with Dad about how alive and wild the bar had been back then.   

To sum up, let me say that the conclusion of the story feels true and is very entertaining as it ratchets up the tension.  But beyond its entertainment value, the novel  should be read by anyone trying to understand how the CCP rules and stays in power. The novel is a combination of a brilliant police story, with a tight story-driven analysis of Party politics along with a tender tale of love found and then lost. It's  a great read. 

Red City Review of "Farewell the Dragon"

RED CITY REVIEW is no longer operating or available. This review was posted about Farewell the Dragon, and it captures what I was trying to achieve when I wrote the novel. RIP RCR.

Lee

 6/11/2020

Professional Book Reviews & Annual Award Contest

Farewell the Dragon by Lee Barckmann - Red City Review

★★★★★

 Farewell the Dragon by Lee Barckmann is an ambitious, emotive novel exploring the troubles of an American ex-pat named Nate Schuett living in Beijing during the 1980’s. After an acquaintance gets a job as a stunt double—for no less than Peter O’Toole, who’s filming in China for The Last Emperor—Nate is tapped to inherit his friend’s vacant teaching at a local university. Before long, Nate makes himself at home—and ends up embroiled in a murder-suicide investigation involving two Europeans. 

Through numerous talks with Chinese of officials, Nate tells his story, and attempts to help solve the mystery surrounding these deaths. But Nate, perhaps, isn’t telling the whole story. The more he reveals about himself, the less he’ll come to understand about the city he lives in and the people he calls his friends. 

Barckmann beautifully captures the unique climate of Beijing—and China at large—in the months and years leading up to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Through a careful unpacking of culture, religion, and economic zeitgeist, Barckmann begins to put his finger on the facts that separate East from West, if indeed there are any to be found. But, more than that, Farewell the Dragon is a rigorous examination of personal agency and universal morality. It contains all of the toxic glamor of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and a moderate dash of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. 

While undeniably dense, Barckmann’s novel is one that has achieved something rare: It has uncovered a unique corner of twentieth century culture and delicately sculpted it into a story worth remembering and reading for years to come. To purchase a copy of Farewell the Dragon, click below.

Buy direct from Lee's Author Kiosk

Hometown politics (from a substack post)

Why I support the Town Center Plan

Submitted by Lee Barckman

S Lee Barckmann

Nov 17, 2025

Editor’s Note: Wilsonville, Oregon has an approved a Town Center Plan to revitalize and create a true downtown. The plan, approved by its City Council in 2019, had been on hold since the Covid pandemic. The overwhelming majority of residents surveyed have clearly indicated that improving the outdated and blighted Town Center is their top priority, but a small group of detractors has been trying to collect signatures to interfere with our elected council’s ability to use Urban Renewal and make progress on a Town Center Plan.

---

I lived in Eugene in the 1970s, and I remember driving past Wilsonville on the way to various events in Portland. After crossing the Boone Bridge, I remember both sides of Interstate-5 were fairly undeveloped and undistinguished until passing the northern most exit which was dominated by Burns Brothers Truck stop and repair. “We’re almost there”, was the thought of frequent travelers from the south when they saw Burns Brothers. Costco and Target are now located there.

But back then, from reading accounts of long-time Wilsonville residents, perhaps it is fair to say that the “town” was centered at Lowery’s Grocery store, which was on the west side of I-5 on Wilsonville Road. In fact that area is still called “Old Town” from the era when the main drag, Boone’s Ferry Road, led to the Boone’s Ferry.

But slowly development began to center on the other side of I-5. When we (Mary, our then young son Zach and myself) moved from Corvallis to Wilsonville in 1995 we lived in the apartments across from Boeckman Creek Primary and the High School. Our go-to place was Lamb’s Market, which was a high end grocery store with lots of specialty foods and high quality meats and vegetables. (Safeway is located there now). Around that time, Fry’s Electronics opened, which was great for me because I was an IT tech at the time and being able to ride over to buy various computer parts was a great convenience. Other techs I met or overheard talking there came from all over, some of whom had driven from Bend or Grants Pass just to shop at Fry’s. The movie theater opened next door, and we were frequent customers there as well. Without any fanfare or much notice, the center of gravity of the town had moved to the east side of I-5.

Fry’s Electronics in Wilsonville, OR

Other things happened - Mentor Graphics (now Siemens) continued to grow and became the cornerstone of a number of high tech companies such as Fluor, Rockwell and Xerox as well as Oregon Institute of Technology that are all on campuses adjoining it. Other industries, some high tech, were located on the west side of I-5 along 95th. Wilsonville became an important part of the metro area’s “Silicon Forest” .

The city’s population exploded with the addition of the Villebois development which overlooks the city from where the Dammasch State Hospital used to sit. It is a beautiful, well planned development with a mix of housing, and some wonderful public amenities. As I remember, when the development was being proposed, it was not welcomed by all. In fact some of the same arguments that are now being used against the Town Center were used to oppose Villebois.’

But, while a well organized group has consistently opposed planned, well designed development improvements, Wilsonville leaders and the majority of its citizens had the foresight to commit to building the infrastructure that supported not just these industries, and the ‘designed for living’ development to support people who can work there. The tax base this created is what turned Wilsonville from a small farming town into a high end, fast growing reasonably affluent small city. We owe a huge debt to those leaders of that time who foresaw and planned this.

Having an Agora

We have reached the point in the city’s development where we need to come to grips with what we want the town to be. I want it to be welcoming, fun and prosperous. I want it focused on “living well”, which means having an Agora in which we can all be “out there”.

The Greek City States created the Agora as “a central public space that served as an assembly area, marketplace, and social, spiritual, and political center.” In other words the Greeks saw having a physical space to meet and do business or enjoy entertainment as essential to their democracy, as a place to see and be seen by other people with whom they shared the city.

Also, and maybe more importantly, it is a place for young people to gather, meet, flirt, make plans, and have a social location from which to make living as they see it meaningful. We all know how the last decade has led to social isolation in our kids, and how this has negatively affected them. Schools of course are important, but it is not enough.

It’s Saturday morning. The sun’s out. A bored teenager thinks, ‘If I stay around the house they are going to make me do some stupid chore.’ “Hey mom, I’m going to ride my bike down town.”

When I was a kid that scene was a frequent occurrence at my house. If we create the right environment, we maybe can again see our kids embrace life in ways that aren’t defined by adults.

Part of that embrace could occur in a Town Center that is focused as much on increasing opportunities for social engagement as it is for economic development. We should think first about making the Town Center attractive not just for old people but for kids and young adults. You don’t bring businesses in and hope they attract people. You bring people in and that will attract business. Young people need to define their own future. We should create a place for them to do it.

Remember this is a very long term plan. No one on this City council will be in office when it comes to fruition. We are planting trees to shade our children when they grow up. Let’s call it what it is - a bet on the future. A bet on the next generation.

My Recommendations and Potential Addendums to the Plan

1. The northwest quadrant of the Town Center is where we need to start. It is an eyesore with the empty theater and Frys and adjoining parking lots. We need to use that as a starting point and the best way to start is to build the bike bridge across I-5. Additionally, in spite of some shortsighted opposition, every sensible person knows that we have to begin reducing carbon emissions in the atmosphere. A bike bridge (which is also an eBike bridge, something I am seeing more and more senior citizens take up) is a powerful signal that we in Wilsonville are committed to carbon reduction, and that we are embracing the future. The same thinking applies to planting lots of trees in our new Town Center.

2. We should commit to the bike bridge out of the gate, and start construction as soon as possible. This will put our stamp on it and show that we are “all in”. It will be of use immediately. Kids and adults will have a safe and convenient way to get from Villebois to downtown and even over to the High school. We should build the bike bridge first, because we will be showing everyone who travels North South on the West Coast that we have a special town that is not defined by the division the highway creates. It will mark Wilsonville as a unique community and it will trigger the forward thinking businesses and entrepreneurs to see the potential it creates.

3. Next create and fund a Commission to revitalize community theater. Lets buy and upgrade the closed movie theater. The PDX metro area has many theater groups who do works from Shakespeare to Rodgers and Hammerstein. Let’s make Wilsonville the live theater capital of Oregon. Invest in building a stage (or stages) and in ongoing maintenance for a set period of years. Offer the theater to established and semi-established theater companies to perform. Hire one or two professionals to manage and promote it. Let the world know that live theater lives here. It would be the best advertisement possible for the new Town Center and start attracting businesses to take advantage of it.

4. As to the Frys building - unless a developer has a better idea, (such as a quasi-public multi-use building ), I think we should tear it down and develop the area according to
   the plan.

Regarding the Apartments along Wilsonville Road

My understanding is they will be developed with private equity and align with community design requirements. Five stories is fine, I don’t understand the aversion some have to build “up” a little bit. We need to populate the Town Center with built in foot traffic, ie. people who live in the Town Center . We should build it for youth. One way is to require a significant part to be “modular”. Design it so that walls can be added or removed to meet changing tenant requirements. Maybe 6 people might want to live in a “loft” environment, and share the expenses. Likewise perhaps some might want a studio apartment to live alone. Or more standard arrangements.

We should hire an architect to explore whether we can create specifications that will make the living arrangements as flexible as possible. This will - 1.) Somewhat solve the affordability issue. 2.) It will create a unique living environment that attracts young people - people who might work in the “Silicon Forest” a short bike ride away. It will also allow for low income single people just getting started in life, in a place they might meet a future partner. By keeping the buildings themselves “flexible” the apartments can meet a changing demand easily and keep occupancy up.

I’ll finish by quoting from the Town Center Plan found on the City’s website.

“A dynamic, thriving community hub with walkable and engaging public spaces, great parks and destinations, places and spaces that connect people to one another and the environment, and year-around activities. “

Let’s make this happen.

Prologue to The SwiftPad Insurrection, (the Sequel to The SwiftPad Takeover)

AS YOU MIGHT RECALL FROM THE LAST PAGES OF

Digging Up New Business: The SwiftPad Takeover, we left

Chubby in a drainage ditch, in a bittersweet mood, looking

up at the rain. He had thwarted the homicidal kidnapping of GG

in the Portland Rose Garden and then finished lopping off the

serial killer’s pecker after GG had nearly bitten through it.

Sometime after that GG left, taking off for Asia on her own,

chasing Chubby’s best friend since second grade, Jim Hunt. Jim,

who helped both Chubby and GG create the most influential

social media platform in the world, was chasing Macy, who her-

self was looking for the Chinese father of her daughter.

Kipling Rehain, Kip, a.k.a. Cornelius “Chubby” Welles (and

soon to be known simply as “K”), let her go. He stayed on his

father’s compound up in the isolated Oregon Coast Range, west

of Blodgett, east of Toledo, and north of Eddyville. Walt was dying

and Kip devoted himself to the care of his father and came to a

deeper understanding of “the meaning of life” as his dad drifted

away. his earlier struggles with his father and their mutual

misunderstandings suddenly became insignificant. He and his

father shared a sweet sense of regret that they had not done it sooner.

During this time, SwiftPad was sold to Amazon for about $29

Billion.

Heber renegotiated the original $8.7 billion deal that Kip

had carelessly – but luckily – signed on the wrong page. Legally

Heber was out on a limb, but Bezos really wanted SwiftPad, so he

agreed, causing a temporary selloff of Amazon’s stock that week.

It enriched almost everyone involved, too: GG of course; Walt,

Kip’s father who owned most of the stock; as well as Chubby’s

best friend Jim Hunt. All of the original staff were now million-

aires too, on paper at least. The company’s Board of Directors

and the other original investors such as Harriet Miller, founder

of Cascade Sportswear, did well too.

At first, everything went smoothly, and no one looked this

gifted horse in the mouth, but gradually there were lawsuits

from peripheral players as well as from others who claimed that

their shares were not adequately matched to their contributions.

Heber, the Rehain family’s consigliere, negotiated tirelessly and

handled the distribution issues for the most part fairly, and soon

the majority of the squabbling subsided. When Heber sat Kip

down to explain the details of the sale and of the final distri-

butions, Chubby quickly became bored, and just (carefully this

time) signed the papers.

The SwiftPad crew founded and generously funded a string of related non-profit agencies for the homeless. These agencies were so well endowed, the energy so positive, and the management sosavvy that they would have easily ended homelessness and various other kinds of economic misery in the city – if things had not gotten so much worse. But news of the programs only attracted  more and more desperate people to Portland, and because of the dire general situation in the country, the numbers now began to strain the city to the breaking point.

That was all before the new Temp-Prez’s “Thanksgiving Day

Decrees” (TDD).

Although there were many high-profile arrests, particularly

among Silicon Valley execs, it was the mass arrests and persecu-

tion of the Off-the-Grids (OTGs, people who had no social media)

that really shocked the nation. A bill was introduced to make OTGs on par with vagrants, but it died in committee. Still, by order of the Thanksgiving Day decrees, it was essentially illegal not to be connected on at least one of the several designated Social Media outlets. The order was not enforced uniformly, but mostly targeted frequent posters and commenters who suddenly went silent, the assumption being that they must have had something to hide. This led to a huge black market in “burners,” cheap smartphones available anywhere, to project a temporary image of connectedness. Privacy and public Off-the-Gridiness became the universal desire of the era. Virtually impossible to crack “one-time-pad” (OTP) encryption apps were extremely popular.

The new commercially available “privacy techniques” caused

concern for NatSat, but Temp-Prez was too scared to take that

issue on, at least not until the coming election. NSA was too over-

whelmed to keep control.

Back in the Coast Range, about 25 miles as the crow flies

east from Newport, Oregon, the common house that Jim’s

mother Alice was building was near completion. The recycled

dark-green glass walls were mostly sculpted from a fortuitously

unearthed trove of Olympia Brewing’s quart bottles of Rainier

Ale. The mostly subterranean, multipurpose gym/meeting and

dining hall/guest hostel reflected the forest around it like a living

emerald. The sparkle served as a cloak of invisibility that helped

to hide the naturally camouflaged underground split level hob-

bit-like houses that spread out to form mathematically derived,

naturally varying patterns of Mandelbrot’s formulas. You might

have known exactly where the hobbit lairs were located, but they

would still be almost invisible, faded into the foliage around

them, and soon, when the moss completely covered them, indis-

tinguishable from the surrounding flora.

The construction continued throughout Walt’s hospice

care. Slow-moving, pony-sized electric-powered ATVs pulled

soft-sprung wagons carrying dirt, the excavated earth that made

way for subterranean dwellings. Several tunnels were also con-

structed among the structures for foul-weather mobility (and

guerilla defense, if it ever came to that). The wagons hauling the

dirt quivered like a spider on a web, and lightly bounced on very

fat tires. These double-jointed, slinky-like moon-buggies crept

about the forest floor carefully so as not to break up or muddy

the permaculture topsoil.

Jim’s mom, Alice, had once envisioned a community of the

somewhat like-minded, who loved life in all its bizarre permu-

tations, no matter how absurd it sometimes seemed. But more

and more it was mutating into a defensive redoubt, a fortress in

the woods. Fitness for combat slowly became a criterion for com-

mune membership. Walt smiled approvingly. Walt had always

hated the government, but never more than now. “You are finally

learning…” Those were his last words.

Alice held her grief closely because her lifetime of knowing

Walt was not easy to express with any single emotion. When he

finally died, her grief mixed with a great fear of what was coming.

Kip felt that strange, sad, guilty sense of release that sons

sometimes feel when their father dies. After a week of hiking

through the dense, trackless Coast Range, he knew what he had

to do. He had to find GG.