Duc Montaine fell asleep in the tree. When he woke up, he was the tree. His family thought he was dead, so they tried to kill him, but by then it was too late. But that’s not how this story begins. It begins long before Duc was even born. After the collapse of the United States and the suicide of the British Commonwealths, the North American Union was forged between the anvil of Chinese Foreclosure and the hammer of their Orbital Ballistic Program. Three generations later President Christopher Fu Hsing launched the American Seed Foundation.
After centuries in interstellar darkness, Nannie Fleet Three entered its destination cluster and began casting about for planets to seed. Fleet Three still maintained tenuous radio contact with sister fleets, sent off in disparate directions from Mother Earth toward other likely star clusters. The different fleets couldn’t help each other; they were light years too distant, but the planners at American Seed opined that additional information would always be useful to the descendants, at least, of their precious cargo. Many Nannies were lost to interstellar accidents – rogue meteoroid strikes, bursts of radiant energy from variable stars, mechanical failure. Their frozen cargo died, never quickening.
After decades of investigation, Nannie Three B began her approach to her chosen world. Its name, Missouri, had been preselected for her by the master programmers of the Foundation, so as not to duplicate the names of other possible habitable worlds in her cluster. The naming of other things, and indeed, of her children, was to be determined by a random number generator. Bearing in mind that there is no such thing as a “random number generator,” Nannie’s program was to be seeded by observed celestial phenomena, the time of selection, ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure, wind velocity, and other factors programmed for appropriate “randomness.” It worked well enough.
Because the master programmers of the ASF wished to preserve and disseminate American culture, the naming of locations and the first children was to be influenced by certain American novelists, whose significance were given various weights depending on the biases of the programmers themselves, and their relevance to the selected world name. As a consequence of the Missouri bias, the first generation of children included Beccie Thatjer, Nigger Djim, Ree Dollie, Hamilton Felics, Talja al Ghul, Huc Finn, and Uaioming Gnott.
Still cradling her babies in their high-temperature superconducting polymer cells, Nannie floated down on a pillar of fire.
The slumbering sedge patiently awaited the stir that might signal the delivery of breakfast, and, if she were lucky, an especially delicious feral flyer. Somehow, this morning, the sun seemed fuller, deeper, more vibrant, and sweet — until it was too much, as if lightning had struck the ground. As the fire touched her fronds, ionic pulses raced along her dendritic tendrils and she withered in anguish, sucking moisture back into her root ball before it could be lost to the heat. As the invader settled into its throne of flame, her upper vegetation reduced to ash and vapor, she retreated to the safety of her sub-apical cortex, but the mud was too tight, and the pain seared into her core as the wet hissed out of her pores and she died as Nannie touched down.
As Nannie settled to earth, plumes of steam rose about her, expunging the alien sky, obscuring the newly won sun, and shrouding the scorched ground.
from the journal of Dale Settler, The Day After the Signing of the HERO Act
If this gets out I’m dead. I was the Secretary’s stenographer at the meetings, and I assured him that I’d destroyed my notes, but he has no clue the number of ways that information can be hidden. He always made a big fuss over my “cartoon drawings.” A successful bureaucrat may be a genius in his own right, but can remain an utter idiot by most other measures. Intelligence is complex. And not evenly distributed.
It’s too silly, really. Interlac™, the 30th Century lingua franca of the “United Planets™,” isn’t actually a language. It isn’t even a very good code. It’s just English, couched in your basic symbol substitution cipher. But even if an educated fanboy were to translate it, he’d still get gibberish. I used a total of four levels of distortion. Another cipher, and the other two even simpler, but taken altogether, they would test even such minds as the alleged Algorithm. Still, it’s quite simple to unwind, IF you’ve got the keys, AND you use them in the right order.
My fanboy persona makes for a convenient cover. I always have my sketchpad, and often comicbooks to lend out for idling in the corridors. As a consequence, the Secretary and I were regular favorites of Congressional Pages.
I recall one Page, I forget his name. He became quite enamored of Negan™ and used him frequently as a metaphor for Uncle Sam. He asked me once whether I thought that Robert Kirkman might have been channeling Ron Paul when he created The Saviors™ to “rescue” the Walking Dead™ in 2010.
It hadn’t occurred to me, but I thanked him for the interesting question. Later I downloaded a copy of the good doctor’s “End the Fed” from 2009 and found this on page 117. “[Those who]… seek power over others believe for humanitarian reasons that the strong and wise have an obligation to subject the weak and ignorant to… control… [T]hey are the saviors of mankind, and… believe that brute force must be used to impose their ‘goodwill.’” (emphasis added)
It’s a pity I can’t remember his name. I’d leave that Page my bound set. I ought to; I’m surely dead, even if the Secretary does believe I destroyed my notes. Although… Considering the rest of our cabal, I’m probably the least of his worries. It may be only mutually assured destruction that saves any of us.
The following reconstructions are from the meetings of the year before the ratification of the 29th Amendment, also known as the Homeland Economic Recovery Optimization and Tax Base Enrichment Amendment. It modified the 5th, 14th, and 16th Amendments to streamline Due Process and to codify Eminent Domain. This is a fair representationof what went down, but because of the exigencies of subterfuge I cannot guarantee that it is either verbatim or precisely in order. In attendance were the Congressional Joint Select Committee, the Secretaries of the Treasury, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services, and the Speaker of the House, and the Vice President, and their noted guests.
Sec Hom Sec: She’s right. Mostly. Labor’s cheap anymore. Homeland’s been getting a buttload of returning GIs for the last decade or so.
Sen FR: Shouldn’t we be hearing from Defense or the DVA on this? Returning veterans are more up their alley, no?
VP:I believe DOD is golfing with POTUS as we speak and uh…
Sec Hom Sec: Veterans’ Affairs is being kept out of the loop. There are some… sensitive issues. Anyway, a lot of our returning vets not going into local law enforcement are coming into Homeland.
Sec HHS: Contacts inside DVA tell me a lot of them are damaged goods.
Sec Hom Sec: Many of them do have problems. We’ve flagged them as best we can. It’s not always obvious what’s a problem and what’s an asset. Mostly we’ve been burying them in make work crap farms like the TSA.
Rep NA: We’re drifting off course. Cheap labor is one thing, but compliance requires an army of skilled accountants to examine millions of returns.
Sen PS: It’s as easy as kicking in doors and busting heads.
Speaker: I hope, Senator, that my service was more than jus’ “kickin’ in doors and bus’in’ heads.
Rep DK: We all hope, Mistah Speakah, when sign. But truth come wikiwiki aftah. Senatah wen nail it. “Kickin’ door ’n’ bustin’ head” was daily bread in country.
Bobb’s Woods, the Back Roads of Bayne County Friday afternoon, Memorial Day Weekend
Ed Floyd stepped out of his vehicle as they approached his car, pulled himself up straight, and pounded his fist against his chest. “Wakanda forever!” Cheap liquor befouled Kandi’s nose and she wrinkled her brow. She stepped in and grabbed his shoulder and his wrist and spun him face first into the side of his car.
Gil spat on the dirt road and pinched another tiny fragment of wintergreen snuff from its tin. “I told you, Ed, she doesn’t like that, and you go and piss her off on top of everything else.”
Kandi finished cuffing Floyd, then turned him around so he faced them. She patted him down and he grinned. Then she peered into the driver’s side window. “Where are your keys?”
Floyd snickered. “Hah! I tossed ’em out the window as I coast to a stop.” He nodded toward the opened passenger side window.
“As you coast… Isn’t this an automatic?”
“Hah! I modified it! ’Sa stick! You like to feel it?”
“Gil!” Kandi grabbed Floyd’s grimy T-shirt, pulled, pivoted, and thrust him at Deputy Sheriff Huerta. “Take Otis back to Mayberry and don’t be so sweet about it. I’ll run the shoulder a little and see if I can turn up his keys.”
Huerta grabbed Floyd’s arm and marched him back to their cruiser. “You alright out here, Kand? It’s past four. We’d have clocked out already if Stale Burnfart Junior here hadn’t led us on his merry chase. Sheriff doesn’t like OT, you know.”
“Yeah.” Deputy Sheriff Smitherman removed her cap and scratched her scalp, her nails gliding through her thin mat of tight curls. “He doesn’t. I’ll give it an hour, that’s a fair gamble. He doesn’t like Uke’s holiday towing rates, either.”
Gil keyed the mic on his shoulder. He keyed it again. “Nothing. We’re radio dead down here.”
“Down here, sure.” She pointed up and into the woods. “Top of that ridge is the county line, and I’m up there in ten minutes, if that. Then I’m looking down across the Interstate at the airport. This side of Kupper County is thick with cell towers. I’ve got this, deputy. If I can’t catch Highway Patrol, Uber will find me!”
Huerta spat. “You sure, Kand? That’s some pretty dense…”
“Nothing to it! There’s a deer trail right there. See? Don’t worry. I grew up in these woods. Every summer at Gran’s from the fourth grade through high school. Just take Goober into booking and have a great weekend. And Mr Floyd, Judge and I’ll see you on Tuesday. You sure picked the right weekend to get locked up. We’re serving fried baloney all four nights!”
Portland International Airport, two months after the HERO Act
“Feet in the footprints, sir! Feet in the footprints and arms straight out!” The traveler glanced at the pattern on the floor and adjusted his stance. Reed snapped latex gloves onto his hands and knelt before his subject. “I’m gonna run the backs of my hands up the insides of your thighs sir. Let me know it you feel any pinching or pressure or – ”
“Potts!”
“Excuse me sir.” Reed rose and turned to the sound.
The shift supervisor sneered. “Big guy wants you upstairs, you and Whiteman both, right away! And he even seems pleased about it this time. You screw-ups actually get yourselves fired? From a government job?” He turned to the traveler whom Potts had detained. “Thank you, sir, you can go ahead and catch your flight now. Sorry about the delay.” He turned back to Potts. “Where’s your shadow? If you’re – nevermind – Yo! Jaleel! Boss wants you upstairs, pronto!”
When Hakim Whiteman and Reed Potts entered the director’s office, he smiled at them and stood. “Have a seat, gentlemen.” Two strangers were already seated. “Mr Winter and Mr Fabok here are recruiters from our new Recovery Office.” He lingered at the exit.
“Thank you, Director. That’ll do.” The director blushed, nodded, and left, as the visiters introduced themselves.
“We’ve read your files, men,” said Mr Fabok. “We like very much what we see. We still do have a few questions, though. You’re both combat vets, multiple tours, is that right?”
They nodded.
“And you were both part of Lieutenant Fesenden’s party at Kodai, is that right?”
Both men bristled. Hakim said nothing, but pursed his lips all the tighter. Reed said, “We were never convicted, sir. The court martial – ”
“Oh, I know.” Fabok took the folder from Winter and waved it at them. “It’s all here. Like I said, we read it. We studied it. We could probably act it out by now. You all pacified the village, and team USA eventually secures the province. But at a price. Such a price. Harsh words, nasty accusations, sad ending. LT never lives to wear his medal and witnesses never show up to testify. Case dismissed.”
Fabok handed the folder back to Winter, who said, “Let’s move on.” He opened the folder and flipped through it as he talked. “You’ve both had a lot of the same issues with following orders, fighting with your mates, and counseling for unnecessary use of force.” He looked up. “Do the rules of engagement mean anything to you?”
“You mean wait to get shot?” Hakim snorted. “IED blew the leg off LT. And killed a couple other of our guys.”
“With considerable collateral damage to the locals, too.”
Fabok grimaced. “Tough break, that.”
“Mofos ambushed us,” said Hakim. “We did what we had to.”
Winter lay his folder down and smiled at them.
“How’d you men like to be heroes again?”
Settler’s notes
Sen FR: Hiroshima, Dresden, My Lai, Kodai, Sand Creek, Wounded Knee. All terrible things, but all things that people came back from.
Rep DK: Yeah, troop come back. Shell shock. Alienate. Disaffec’ and disorient. Civilian casualty should have ’em so good.
VP: Civilian casualties? Well yes! It’s very sad! Every life is precious. But we are SAVING and serving so many more. Besides, it’s not always about who’s technically accurate. Basically, read economics! Economics teaches us to look at the marginal effects and marginal costs, and when the proportions of grief to loss are the lowest, you know, like in a terrorist bombing or a natural disaster movie, the marginal human cost is the lowest and [ceteris parabus?] the accumulation costs have the most efficiency. [The VP’s Latin pronunciation is as challenging as her reasoning. I am obliged to infer meaning.]
Sen PS: I… uh… I guess you have kind of a point when it comes to marginal utility and concentrated destruction. If the government MUST get its loot —
Speaker: The government MUST serve the people and protect the state, and it needs resources to meet its obligations. I don’t care for that term, “loot”, sir. In order to carry out our responsibilities we MUST recover our return on our infrastructure and legal framework. A stable social order demands that —
Sen PS: So, given that the government WILL “recover its return,” you posit that we fix the body count, then focus on killing the most local of survivors to reduce overall trauma. It’s only sad when strangers die. It can be almost crippling when it’s your friends or family. The grief alone can put one’s productivity off for days!
VP: I don’t think we need to fix the body count. We want to reduce that. To do the most good for the most people with the least suffering we have to be willing to make the difficult decisions and hard choices that desperate times demand.
Sen FR: Look… Look at Germany. Look at Japan. Look at our own South. After devastating war was waged against them, they recovered. Sure, at times things got hungry, and reconstruction ran into complications, but people bounce back.
Rep NA: War was not waged “against” the South, Senator. Father Abraham waged Civil War for the sake of the North AND the South, that Our Democracy be preserved. You are right to make Reconstruction your model. It was through Reconstruction that our Union was remade and recommitted.
Queen City Parking and Security (HERO Field Office), Reginapolis, Memorial Day Weekend, Friday, 15:58:15 hours Eastern Daylight Time
“…okay Sheridan, pick ’em up about five klicks if you can, you should be coming up on Toth Pass in seventy.”
“Copy that, Queen City. Doin’ the best we can, but we got a convention of the Drag Ass Alliance upfront. You want we should shake out the fifty cal?”
“Do what you can, Sheridan! Pope, ease back a bit, you’re coming up on Barry in sixty.” Karen McCoy flipped her screen to show a close-up of team Sheridan approaching the Toth Pass exit from the east. “Okay Burnside, pull out, you’re on in forty.”
“Whoa howdy, Queen City! We got a fresh wreck tumbling up front at Sachs outta DuQuois, it’s already getting messy – ”
“I see it, Scott, go ahead and lock up there, may as well plant our flags where we land. If you’ve already got trauma go ahead and soak it up.”
“We’re not going to make it.” David Ironwood was riding shotgun in the lead cab of the four rigs constituting Team Sheridan. They were running abreast across the entirety of the Interstate as they approached Toth Pass, the county line, and the perimeter of the zone.
“We’ll make it.” The driver, Richard Browne, increased the pressure on the accelerator and touched the team channel key on his vest. “Eyes left, mother truckers. Pace me. If these clovers don’t get a little giddyup out of a gentle ass kissin’ then we’ll step on ’em!” Dick released the team band and said, “I’m fucked if I’m buying any beer for Kenney’s Kommandos tonight. We’ll seal our side.”
The semis surged forward, closing the gaps in front of them until some were but inches from their obstructions. Finally, sensible terror took charge of the fortunate innocents, and they surged forward.
As Officer McCoy flipped through her screens and talked her mobile teams into position, District Supervisor Leslie Tatum leaned in the doorway. He watched the digital display over McCoy as it approached sixteen hundred hours. The bud in his ear squealed and the Secretary of Homeland Security spoke to him. “Is everything in place Mr Tatum, Mr Kenney?”
“Yes sir,” answered Tatum. He waved for Karen’s attention and when he caught her eye, he held up his index finger. He could hear Barron Kenney answering from the field office across the river.
“Very good, gentlemen. Then in four… three…” The Secretary counted and Tatum gave McCoy the thumbs up and the clock display on the monitor gave way to the Presidential seal which gave way to Himself.
Throughout the designated Reconstruction Zone, snaking along the center of the tri-counties area, straddling rivers and ridges and roads, and covering most of Inner Reginastan, brakes groaned, tires squealed, bodies pitched forward, drinks were spilled, heads were bumped, fates were cursed, gods were entreated, and frazzled nerves were stretched taut.
Just before reaching the exit at Toth Pass, without warning, the trucks of Team Sheridan hit their brakes. Programmed gimbals in the trailer chassis deployed so that, as the semis slowed, the trailers turned uniformly counterclockwise, forming a barricade across the roadway.
Checkpoint at Bobb’s Woods, Bayne County
Coming off the dirt track and out of Bobb’s Woods, Guillermo eased his cruiser to a stop at the new checkpoint.
“What the fuck, over?” Floyd fidgeted in the back seat.
“Take it easy, Ed.” The barricade hadn’t been there when they had first chased Floyd into the woods. Across the road he could see a half dozen or so large trucks. Beyond them a backhoe swung its bucket between the ground and the top of the lead truck. The truck swayed and settled as the load was dropped into its bed.
Gil rolled down his window as a strange officer approached his car. The uniform he wore resembled the steady supply of illustrated memoranda that the Sheriff’s office received from their friends in Washington City. Even though the recruiting campaign had been all over the media for months, this was still the first “HERO” he’d seen in person. “What’s the story…” He studied the brass on the man’s collar. “…Sergeant Major?”
“Heh. Corporal Davies, sir. You Deputy Warthog? Where’s your partner?”
“Deputy Sheriff Huerta, that’s right. Sheriff tell you to call me that?”
Davies grinned. “Heh-eh… yeah. You’re out of your jurisdiction, Deputy. As of about an hour ago.” He stiffened and recited. “Pursuant to the provisions of the Homeland Economic Recovery Optimization and Tax Base Enrichment Act, this area has been declared to be an Emergency Revenue Recovery and Liability Abatement Zone. On behalf of the President and People of the United States, and of the Secretaries of the Treasury and Homeland Security, we thank you for your cooperation.” He relaxed and continued. “Sheriff says half this county is radio dead half the time, and the other half all the time. I guess you didn’t get word.”
Gil said nothing.
“So what about your partner, then?”
Gil continued to sit, letting it sink in. “So, the lottery…”
“Yeah. The Algorithm. Picked your neighborhood. Sorry, bro. Anyway, we’ve got wide discretion inside the zone, but we’re all about Team LEO. ‘swhy we put the word out just before go time. So… your partner…”
“Uh…” Gil pointed to the back seat and his passenger. “She’s looking for Mario Andretti’s keys. He thought it would be hilarious to toss them during the chase.”
“Heckuva walk back if they don’t turn up.”
“Naah. Uh… she’s just over the ridge from KIA. Ten minutes from cell contact and half an hour for a pick up along the Interstate.”
The man frowned. “Ten minutes from the heart of our hot zone, is more like it. You’d better spin this thing around and go get her, Deputy. That situation is going to get plenty tense before this day is done.”
Gil nodded. “Sure. Thanks. What about…?”
“Yeah.” Davies looked into the back seat. “What’s your name, sir?”
“He’s Edmond Floyd,” said Gil, “but don’t ask him. Depending on his mood he could be Daniel Boone or Thomas Edison or Napoleon Dynamite.”
“Linoleum Blown-Apart!” interjected Floyd. “Hah!”
“Heh-eh. Yeah.” Davies muttered and tapped his pad. “We’ll take him from here, Deputy.” He turned his head and hollered. “Front!”
Another officer trotted up. “Corporal?”
Gil got out of his cruiser and let Floyd out of the back seat. As Corporal Davies and his man took him, Gil reached for his keys, but Davies stopped him. “Just like this is fine, Deputy. You best get back to your partner before she steps into something nasty. We’ll have your cuffs waiting for you when you get back.”
Papp’s Pachinko Palace, Middlebury Mall, three months after the HERO Act
“Videot gamesters don’t know from the classics. Pinball, Skeeball, Bally? They couldn’t even tell ya what our name means.”
“That’s you, Papp, ain’t it?”
“Pachinko, Pinhead! It’s a mechanical game, takes finesse and steel balls! It’s not all just point and shoot and splat go brains! Elegance and style, my lad, elegance and style. Still, truth to tell… it’s the franchised games what saved my ass. X-box you can get in your living room, but for DeathGrip3K™ or CyborgBlaster™ with quadraphonic subwoofers you gotta see Papp. Half of ’em’re the gentrification crowd, the rest are dexed up or oped out or what not, but they all line up for quarters and brass bucks!”
“Whoa! Check out Special Agent Ray-bans!” Rashid Fabok stepped into the darkened interior, removed his sunglasses, and smiled at the men behind the counter.
“Shut up, Jamie! Can I help you, sir?”
“Lowell Papp?”
“The same.”
“I’m looking for one of your regular players.” Rashid lifted his pad so the men could see the image. It was an adolescent male with a long blond lock running across half his face and the other half of his head closely shorn. The lad was shown glowering at the camera. “Andrew Seeger, presently playing Surv – ”
“Over there.” Papp pointed across the lobby. “Show him Jamie.” Jamie led him to Seeger.
Drew was finally getting the hang of NoSurvivorsIV™.
As his avatar advanced through the hapless crowd, larger and heavier weapons dropped into his arms from his cache in nether space. He fired off several rounds into the school bus in front of him, then tossed the bazookas as he strolled through the wreckage. He continued moving forward, firing projectiles, energy blasts, and fireballs into the crowd, relishing the blossoming gouts of gore, and the hissing crackle of burning flesh. Keeping his eyes on both his power supply and his body count, he lobbed explosives into the denser sections of the crowd and watched the string of digits floating in the sky scroll past his previous best. When he reached the center of the city, he planted his nukes, set the timers, and activated his jet belt.
He rocketed away from the mushroom cloud and a floating chorus of topless hula dancers serenaded his glory and bedecked him with leis. As the music swelled and the girls moved in closer everything went black and Drew’s headset went dead.
“Hey!” He ripped off his rig and confronted Fabok. “What’s the deal, you trip over the cable? You just cost me a free game! This is a six quarter machine!”
Fabok held out a deuce.
“You can play again later, if you want. Keep the change for your trouble.”
Drew looked at him, then at the two-dollar note, then he took the note. “What’s the big deal, anyway?”
“Andrew Seeger? Drew?”
“Yeah?”
“Let me buy you lunch. You can get back to playtime later. Your country has a bright future for you, if you want it.”
The Investigators’ Offices, District of Columbia, Six weeks before passage of the HERO Act
“Yes Peter, what is it?”
Peter stepped in from the hallway and closed the door. “You need to see these, Jim. They were sent over by her people.” He dropped a large envelope onto Jim’s desk and settled into the guest seat.
Jim went through the contents. They were mostly photographs of his friends and family, in their commonest haunts – schools, parks, coming out of bars – each framed neatly in a circle with crosshairs centered on their respective foreheads. The final page was a list of Congress members, annotated with potentially embarrassing investigation proposals. The men sat for a bit, then Jim spoke, “So we lean on these Reps, then? Look into these matters? Anything else?”
“From them? No. No, that speaks for itself. But, uh… Clearly, they know how to deal with embarrassing problems like Exner and Epstein. Just watch your step, Jimmy, that’s all. They got you covered six ways from Sunday.”
Da Kine Kailua™, Middlebury Mall, three months after the HERO Act
“Wasn’t your score on Survivor flagged us,” Fabok mumbled around his pulled pork sandwich while Seeger sucked the syrup out of his shave ice.
“It’s ‘No Survivors.’” The boy sneered at him. “Not ‘Survivor.’” It was always embarrassing when oldsters tried to relate. Drew continued to stare at Rashid, then realized, “I thought Muslims didn’t eat pork.”
Fabok took another bite. “They don’t. Or Jews for that matter. S’what? My family’s been Christian for generations. Used to live in Iraq. Then Dumb’n’Dubya toppled Saddam. When ISIS moved in, we had to split,” he drew his hand across his throat, “or we’d BE split.”
“That’s harsh, man. You’re a different spin than I expected. I thought all you Feds were all gung ho for the war machine and shit.”
“We don’t bring out politics to work, usually, so we look like a united front. We’re anything but that, but we are professionals.”
“Yeah. Okay.” The boy went back to his icy drink for a bit and thought. Then he scoffed. “It’s ‘No Survivors Four’ in fact.”
“What?”
“You called it ‘Survivor.’ It’s ‘NoSurvivorsIV.’ The first three were a snap.”
“I’m sure they were.” Rashid smiled at the lad. “the Survivor – the NoSurvivors series gives us plenty on demeanor and basic suitability. Corrections and ICEUS have been mining that one for years. No, not for our needs. We want more than just tactical. We need deftness and subtlety as well. Frankly, kid, you left NoSurvivors behind long ago. It’s the puzzles and challenges on ColdMaze, that’s where we like to see you shine! You’re able to take out legions of players and leave the materiel intact. That’s the kind of focus we’re looking for!”
“Yeah, NoSurvivors is alright, but ColdMaze… ColdMaze is Sue. Preem. But at two and a half bucks a play…”
“It’s a much steeper curve. I know. But for those who can face it…”
“It’s a rush!”
Settler’s notes
Speaker: The god damned deficit has been at war with us for decades and it’s about time we took it seriously! In just a few short years the interest alone will eclipse the rest of the budget, and our creditors will be calling the shots!
VP: We can always pay our debts. The Federal Reserve and modern –
Sen PS: Paper only goes so far, Ma’am. Sooner or later someone’s going to want the wheat or the whiskey or the brass buttons backing it all up.
Speaker: Our dollar is and has always been backed up by the full faith and credit of the United States Government and we’ve never defaulted –
Sen PS: Sir, we are defaulting every day. Our dollar is only backed up by political integrity and you can see how far that goes just in this room.
Rep NA: What kind of stupid handcuffs is that? America needs an elastic currency to deal with the money manipulators in Zurich and Beijing.
Speaker: Whatever the fuck. If they think we’re cleaning out Fort Knox they can suck ass! Fuck China! Fuck Russia! Fuck Promenadya, and fuck gold! Our buck has always been backed by bullets. You want payment? You’ll get payment!
Speaker: The government must be paid what it is due.
Sen PS: Its “due” might be problematic. We seem to have passed the point of diminishing returns. Maybe government really should be smaller. The reports leave little doubt; our tax policy has been killing people since it was instituted.
VP: Is it really the amount of pain, or the way it’s handed out? People should be made to see that it’s fair. Our President says to look after the shape of our democracy. You know, from each to each. Let me ask this. Is it worse to kill twenty people or twelve? For government to serve us, some people die. Whether it’s suicide, or alcoholism, or domestic violence, or a thousand other ways that hate and fear gets the better of them, people die. I wish I could save every one of them, but I can’t. But if we take away the infrastructure, industrial policy, defense, a sound central bank — then there’s no economy and no government!
Sec Trez: Now multiply all that by ten years. A population of four hundred millions is going to express an awful lot of statistical stress behavior. How many small-town bakers or plumbers went under over the last decade? How many desperate businessmen ate their guns because they couldn’t see any other way out?
Sen PS: How many took out their whole families first?
Rep DK: Shoots! Aftah ten year quite one body count, yeah?
VP: Next to those bodies stand millions of the bereaved. Widows, orphans, friends, neighbors, and other loved ones left to pick up the pieces. Have a heart, gentlemen! If we could somehow reduce all that pain, recuse, you know, all that grief. Concentrate it somehow. Streamline the process. Once you know that you can’t have the pure good then we have to choose the lesser evil, right?
Later that year, prior to the Amendment’s passage out of the Congress, “Senator PS” and the rest of his immediate family were killed when a gas explosion destroyed their Connecticut home. Because they left no heirs, their estate was declared federal salvage. That same week, “Representative DK” was presumed killed along with the rest of SoCal Flight 1913 when it disappeared over the ocean
[This is a review of the 192000 word version of West of ’89, available from Smashwords.com, courtesy of “Dabooda”, followed by my response. These comments were first posted on The Daily Paul.]
You said you’d like to hear my comments on your book West of 89, so here goes.
There’s good news and bad news. First the good news: Things I particularly liked:
1. You handle narrative and dialogue well – professional quality work.
2. I liked the overall libertarian sensibility you brought to the book, and would look forward to reading more of your stuff.
3. It kept me reading – you didn’t let narrative tension lapse at all. Very well done.
4. I particularly liked the Donnie Fleming character: you let him GROW. Everybody else in the book was pretty much unchanging in terms of character, but Donnie discovered “something worth doing,” which, as Heinlein wrote, is the secret of happiness. (“Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours at whatever you think is worth doing”) It redeemed him, and it was good to see.
5. I liked your use of the gold vs. fiat money issue. Also your portrayal of a restitution-based justice system – those might stir your readers’ brain cells in a worthwhile direction.
I’m afraid there’s a lot of bad news, too.
1. The overall concept of your alternate history really isn’t very interesting. So our continent is infested by a bunch of smaller governments, rather than three large ones? This is interesting – why? You don’t go into enough detail about the nature of the different governments for the reader to know if one is really better than the others – or better than our present ones. Schickler is obviously Evil Incarnate – but that doesn’t automatically make the governments he attacks “the good guys.” Reminds me of the reason I DON”T watch professional sports: I need a REASON to root for one team over another, and geography doesn’t do the trick for me.
2. There’s no theme. Racism and assault and slavery are bad things? Is this news to anyone? I kept hoping that you would come out with a pitch for the PRINCIPLES that men ought to strive for, instead of government-as-usual, but no luck.
3. With the exception of Donnie Fleming, your characters are one-dimensional. Some are likeable, some are hateful, but none of them develop. They don’t learn, they don’t discover any new truths about themselves or their world – and, most disappointingly, neither will the reader of your book.
4. Your villains are cartoons of villainy, not real people. “No man is a villain in his own eyes.” (Heinlein) You should keep that in mind, and try to figure out what makes REAL evil people tick. I’d suggest two reading assignments to help you with that. First, read David Friedman’s essay “Love Is Not Enough,” from his book The Machinery of Freedom. It’s free to read online here (starting down on Page 12)
The second is Larken Rose’s book, The Most Dangerous Superstition.
Friedman’s insight is that there are ONLY three ways to get stuff from other people: love, trade and force. Think about it. People have a gazillion different moral systems, but they have only THREE basic ethical choices, when it comes to dealing with other people. Do some thinking about what allows some people to believe that naked, unprovoked coercion can be a righteous way to treat others.
Larken Rose’s book explores the reasons that governments can wreak such enormous evil in the world – why people go along with monsters like Hitler and Schickler. Hint: It is NOT because people are resentful, envious monsters looking for a way to victimize their neighbors.
5. Nitpicky stuff:
* I’ve never seen “okay” spelled “okeh” before – yes, I found it in a dictionary as a legitimate variant spelling, but it’s very rarely used, and it annoyed me.
* You’re creating an alternate America – why refer to Schinkler as “Herr” and why, at one point, does a character sneeringly refer to him as “Schicklgruber”? (Yes, I know that was Hitler’s father’s original name) But you make no mention of Hitler himself in your story! Why would “Schicklgruber” be used as an insult? Why use the Germanic “Herr” when referring to American Schickler?? In your alternate world, Germany is not even mentioned. Why do you want to imply that all racism is somehow Germanic?
*Anything you put at the beginning of your book is a “prologue”, not an “epilogue”. Doesn’t matter that the events take place after the balance of your story. When I reached your second and third epilogues, you had me scratching my head and turning pages, trying to find the first one.
*Why is the title “West of 89″ ? West of a year? What does THAT mean?
*At one point somewhere in the middle of the book, you have this jarring little cosmological essay with no relationship to anything else in the story, before or after. I’d cut that out, myself.
All in all, the book was not a terrible first effort, and I’d gladly read another . . .
—
Recommended reading: The Most Dangerous Superstition,
And from me: Please accept my most earnest thanks for the precious gift of your irreplaceable time. Not only the time you expended in actually reading the monstrosity, of course but, more benefit to me, actually articulating what you found in it. I am multiply in your debt, particularly since you are not asking for your money back. I wisely did not guarantee the work.
There seems to be no limit to the amount of stroking that my ego can soak up, so I found your first burst of praise to rush by much too quickly. Nevertheless, I thank you for the kindnesses. While I will make no futile effort to redeem my novel, believing that things must fail on their own merits, I am happy to offer a little post hoc illumination, since much of your insightful, dispassionate, and over-all objective review did include a number of question marks.
The book is not intended to be a touchy feely personal growth coming of age piece, though I realize that SOME of that can serve a story, and too little leaves it a little lacking. That type of stuff is clearly not my strength, and I don’t blanch at your pointing it out. The intent, and I hope I wasn’t too far from the mark, was to be an adventure story with comic elements, with a little mental stimulus and a few historical and cultural tropes thrown in for fun.
Donnie is one of my favorites, too. I started out hating the little weasel, but he kind of took on a life of his own. Fact is, neither Donnie nor Lena were intended for particular greatness in the story, but once I had — not created — channeled?– Once I had fleshed them out they pretty much took over. With most characters I find I have to make a deliberate effort to distinguish them. Because I am lazy, I tend to model my protagonists after me. Harry is me. Clark is me. Sugar is me. Heywood and Brian and Lem are all me. Less so, Lem, of course, as I don’t share his faith, and more so Clark, though still a theist, but we do share a strong female chauvinism. Mostly I’m Harry and Sugar, albeit at different stages of my life, and of course, I never had to escape from an Islamo-Christian-Commie-Death-Cult.
Alternate history not interesting? Everybody‘s right about what he likes. I found it to be a useful device to re-render a blank canvas of the North American continent with many of the same forces contesting it again, and used it as an opportunity to explore different structures of governments. I tried to spice it up with references to separatist and fusion movements throughout history, as well as a few thinly veiled references to people we might think we already know. (Do you think “Rusty Sharpe” or “Fightin’ Fidel” might recognize themselves?) Maybe too ambitious? I went into greater detail in earlier drafts. You think it‘s didactic now? It was positively turgid earlier. You got off easy, even though you may have felt a little adrift at times. Even as it was I think I was a bit heavy handed in pounding my drum vis a‘ vis hard money, human bondage, and bigotry. No defense but, “I‘m still learning?” And faster with your generous guidance.
If there is a “theme“ to the story, I guess it is that history is preposterous and life is precarious. I had hoped that de Tocqueville would have set that tone up front.
Okeh? English orthography has not been formalized for very long and in its brief lifetime has undergone some mutations. I wanted to pepper the text with constant reminders of the “alien-ness“ of my particular California Confederacy. Again, earlier drafts were lousy with variant spellings, but as one alpha reader pointed out, “Whenever I read about someone using his sabre to cut a grey fibre in the theatre my brain skips.” So again, you got off easy. I’m sorry you tripped over okeh. When I “invented” that spelling I didn’t know that it was already an “acceptable” alternative, I just thought it made internal sense. I still do, and you don’t, and we get to disagree, and so far you, at least, have not been disagreeable about it.
In an effort not to club the reader over the head, I may have ended up being too vague, As far as never mentioning Hitler, however, Adam does relate to his guests that his grandfather, after having served his Kaiser, was exiled to German held (formerly British) Guyana (Gaijana). The elder Schickler was hounded out of Europe by “Slavs and Jews”, and then out of Dixie by the christo-commie-muslim revolutionaries. Harry was never casting cultural slurs at Teuts per se, he simply alluded to Schickler’s personal and family history. It may be schoolyard juvenilia to refer to someone inaccurately, either to mispronounce his name, or to hark back to an earlier variant, but if I’m an arrested adolescent, then perhaps Harry can’t help it either. Nevertheless, I thank you for the observation, and I’ll give it a little more thought. While many of my characters are vile and racist and misogynistic, I hope that I am not, nor thought to be.
West of 89? Why not? The dimensional dissonance flags the counterfactual historical aspect of that particular branch of spec-fic., and I thought The Coefficient of Restitution might fallute a little too highly. Other contenders were Hamurabe’s Farm, Death Camp California, and Black Adam.
Cosmological essay. I think you refer to my (poetically pretentious?) recapitulation of the recent geologic history of the Cascadian (Republic of Idaho in the “World of West of ’89” and eastern Oregon and Washington in ours) high desert. I was trying to set up the science behind Harry’s final solution to California’s Aryan problem. I may have overplayed it. You clearly thought so, but I found it rather satisfying. Again, de gustibus non disputandum, ne-c’est pas?
You coaxed me in with kindness, gave me the hearty slapping around I so richly deserved, and then eased me back out with your assurance that on balance you found my effort to be worthy of your time. I couldn’t be more tickled unless I started selling LOTS more copies.
Once again, thank you for your valuable time. I will cherish your good wishes and ponder your pronouncements.
Your comrade for liberty,
Gene Greigh
(aka Professor Bernardo de la Paz)
DP101010
update 180703: Since Dabooda’s kind suggestions, I’ve cut some 35000 words (some whole scenes), KEPT the poetically pretentious geological interlude, and added two prologues, and STILL haven’t re-titled “Epilogue One” which appears immediately before Chapter One. Epilogues Two and Three continue to follow Chapter Twenty-five.
You can get your own hard copy, post paid, from Greigh Area Associates or Piracy Press for Fifteen United $tates Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars” (U$LT) in check or money order, or Three Quarters of a Silver Dollar, in silver coin. Send your U$LT to Gene Greigh, c/o Greigh Area Associates // 401 Rio Concho Drive, #105; San Angelo, Texas; 76903 // An earlier version of this novel, weighing in at a tedious and didactic 192000 words, can be had in digital format from smashwords.com for $1.99 Fe’ral Reserve Digits.
Late in the Eocene epoch, forty million years before Man invented language and lies, the earth’s crust cracked under western Oregon and released a sea of magma over the fertile coastal plain. Plumes of gas thrust tons of ash high into the atmosphere and it rained over the plain and enriched the soil, while great cones of cinder and stone rose like sentinels to overlook the land.
As the Miocene epoch began, twenty million years before Man mastered mathematics and mendacity, volcanic activity accelerated and rivers of lava laid down a vast plateau of brittle basalt.
At the beginning of the Pliocene epoch, four million years before Man began to worship women and war, the Juan de Fuca plate, hurtling eastward at four centimeters per year, left the Pacific basin and slammed into the west coast of North America. The relentless pressure from the collision pushed up mounds of earth and folded it under the basaltic plateau. The surface buckled, popped, and pierced the firmament with great splinters of stone.
Long before the Reign of Stone gave way to the Age of Reason, settling mounds of ash and gravel climbed into the sky, to be softened and shaped by rushing wind and running water. Periodically, as the heat and pressure mounted, these slumbering giants tore themselves open and set loose great gouts of lava, ash, and vapor upon the upper world. This constant violence of one plate sliding inexorably under the other turned organic matter under and ground it into pulp while it broke up the layers of basalt and transformed Oregon’s idyllic countryside into a roiling cauldron of muck and rock.
Martin Powell struggled to keep up. His head pounded. His feet hurt. He did not love Jesus. His years of desk duty at the Oregon (nee Idaho) Department of Power had left him unsuited to hiking over the rough terrain at Blind Ridge. Because his reactivation into the Reserves had been sudden and unexpected, he lacked the conditioning of the Regulars, thus vindicating their dim view of the “Sorry Seconds.” The enlistees assigned to him had no trouble keeping up with Harrison Davis and Clayton Mackenzie as they marched over the ridge, but he was impelled to call for regular halts.
As he caught up to the party the Guards were seated near the edge of the bluff overlooking the Spokane River. Mackenzie was hugging the trunk of a great ponderosa pine growing out from the cliff edge. Davis had climbed onto a branch, his legs wrapped tightly around it and his head dangling into open space. “Oh, come on and open your eyes, Mr Mack. This tree is perfect for our rig. It’s held itself here for generations, against both gravity and wind loading. Our puny bodies are not going to break this!”
Pensacola, Franklin Parish, Republic of West Florida 10 December 1810
“Senor Reuben?”
“Humberto, I said twenty — ” Colonel Kemper looked up at the standing clock and saw that it had indeed been twenty minutes since he’d asked his aide to delay his guests. “I’m sorry, Oom. Another half moment. Help me with these writs.”
“Oui, m’sieur.”
Reuben scrawled and his graying gaunt slave blotted and assembled the documents into a neat stack at the corner of the desk. “Is General Claiborne still waiting outside with the Govern — er — the Senator to be?”
“Yes, senor. With the OTHER new Senator.”
Reuben stood and slapped Humberto on the back. “I wish you were coming with me to Washington City.”
“The spoils of war are yours to command, Senor.”
“Of course, mon ami. But Nathan needs you here. He will be well served by a boy who speaks English, French, Spanish, and Muskogean.”
“I am pleased to hear it, sir. I have served this hacienda twenty years. I confess I have grown to love it, despite a few rather — unpleasant grandees.”
“Grandees no more, amigo. Soon we will all be Americans. Now bring in Mr Madison’s emissary, and have Carlotta fetch us some refreshments.”
Humberto ducked his head and departed, and in came General Claiborne and Senator-elect Skipwith. Claiborne extended his hand. “Good morning Senator. Shall we get on with the formalities?”
Reuben smiled and gripped his hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, General. I’ll wait until Mr Clinton accepts my oath. At present I am well satisfied with Mister.” He offered his hand to Skipwith. “I hope Samuel enjoys life in St Francisville, sir.”
Skipwith smiled. “Your brother seems well disposed to insuring that our just rights will be respected here at home. As for me, the blood which flows in my veins yearns to return, unimpeded, to the heart of Washington.”
Reuben laughed. “And return we shall, sir. Gentlemen, sit.”
Claiborne grunted as he eased himself down. “You missed a bit of a tussle in your legislature, Colonel. Your Volunteers seem unsatisfied with the scraps you’ve thrown them.”
“Bugger the Volunteers. They’ve got their beloved Franklin back. And they’ve got the House Delegation, too. What more do they deserve?”
“Arguably, sir,” said Skipwith, “we owe them our independence.”
“Their arrival at Mobile Bay was timely, but it was my vision, and the valor of my brothers, that drove the Spanish ’crost the Apalachicola.”
A young negrita bearing a tray appeared in the doorway. Reuben rose again. “Please, gentlemen, join me in a toast to the Lone Star Republic, our bonnie new state, and,” he winked at Claiborne, “so that I may properly accept your surrender, General.”
Harlan led the honored guest down the narrow stone passage beneath the South Dependencies, two flights below Sally’s suite. Drainage from the central cistern passed under the wing’s lower hearth and emptied into a tiled pool in a hidden chamber. As they came out of the cramped corridor they found the master of the house lounging in the heated basin with his “First Ladies”.
Thomas nodded to his old friend and adversary. Dolley smiled.
Sally leapt from the water, which sheeted down her caramel skin, dripped from her cocoa nipples, and drained from her jet curls. Before she could wrap James in her sopping embrace he doffed his cover. Harlan caught the garment as Sally’s and Jim’s flesh slapped together.
“About time you got here.” Dolley rose and kissed her husband, then the three of them settled into the tub with Tom.
“Thank you, Nib,” said Tom.
“Yassuh.” As inky as the pen point suggested by the sobriquet, Harlan hung Jim’s robe on a hook next to the others’ and trudged back up the steps.
“Shouldn’t you be in Washington to receive the delegation from Hartford?” Sally snuggled under his shoulder. “Not that I mind, mind you.”
“Let Mr Gaillard and Mr Kemper deal with them. The treaties must needs go through the Senate. ‘Twas Kemper himself chased New England from the Confederacy.”
“Which neither breaks my heart nor piques my pity. The united States were getting to be too many. We should have stopped at Appalachia. We can hold it, perhaps, at the Big Muddy.”
“Too late for that, my sweet.” Dolley laid her head on Tom’s shoulder. “The Trans Mississippi is a fait accompli three years now.”
He bristled. “The Louisiana territories are a special case, sacred and undeniable.”
“As are they all.” Jim smiled. “Still, with so many Southron Senators, New England is roundly thwarted in their mercantilist aims. Good riddance say I to Prickly Pickering and his stiff necked Atlanteans.”
“Which neither bakes my bread nor picks my roses. The pusillanimous idea that we have friends in New England worth the keeping still haunts the minds of many. Besides which, those Blue Light Federalists never cared for your central bank or your war against their mother country, n’est-ce pas?”
Jim nibbled at Sally’s neck and shoulder. “My war? My bank? ‘Tweren’t America’s? If men were as angelic as our dears, here, no banks or governments would be needed. Do none respect the President or his prerogatives?”
“Not here, Jimmy. Certainly of the united States, and by extension, of Virginia, as long as she consents. But in THIS house, I am master of all who live and breathe — except for Sally and Dolley and the cats.”
“Well said, sir.” Dolley kissed his cheek. “A wise man knows who butters his bread or spreads o’er his bed.”
“Greedy wench.” Tom reached under the water and held Dolley’s hand which had been bringing him to life. “Enough of politics, Jim. Shall we indulge in some redolent blossoms?”
“Redolent?” Dolley squawked. “Sir, we wash!”
Sally scowled at him and splashed him from across the tub.
“Not your delicious blossoms, hearts of my heart. I speak of hemp.” Tom half rose from the tub and called, “Harlan!” and settled back into the pool. “You’ll like these flowers, Jim. I’ve been cultivating them in accordance with the General’s notes. Pungent, powerful, and every bit as intoxicating as our ladies’ own delicate blooms.”
Sally splashed him again and giggled. “You silly old poop!”
Blind Ridge, the Spokane River, Republic of Idaho 20 September 1989
Glittering sunlight slashed under his eyelids. He was cold, and his first impulse was to pull the blankets up but he couldn’t find his blankets or his hands. In dream state he had imagined that Eleanor was kissing his ear. Awake he realized that it was the river lapping the side of his head. He reassessed his situation and savored the irony of it. It was Assessment, after all, that had brought him to his present state.
Immersed to his chin at the edge of the burbling Spokane, hung up on a gravel bar, Harry wondered that he had not drowned. He remembered hitting the river clean and plunging into the center channel. Amidst the swirling silt and bubbles as he tumbled along the riverbed was — something — hard and moving fast, that rolled across him and sent fire up his spine. Then nothing.
Then awakening and long periods of reflection. It had to have been a sizable chunk of debris that followed him from the blast. He couldn’t decide whether or not he wished he could feel his legs. After all this time in the cold water they couldn’t be in very good shape.
“Captain! Captain Gideon!” He heard a faint call, then the clicking and grinding chirp of boots on river gravel. “Over here!” The voice grew stronger as it approached. “I think we got another survivor!”
“Careful, Corporal,” came a second voice, “don’t move him yet.”
It was that doctor, that woman doctor, Gideon. He tried to quell his emotions. He’d left an Aryan officer alive — a captain to take charge of the camp. More fool he. Hydra had too many heads. He struggled to check his frustration. It wouldn’t do for the Guard to catch their President’s assassin crying over spilled blood. If they wanted to patch him up and stand him against a wall, so be it. One more life was still a modest price for a monster like Adam Schickler.
“Easy, mister. We’ll get you fixed up.” The Guard hovered over his face, then turned and shouted into the distance. “Dressed like labor, ma’am… It’s, uh… It’s Mr Davis!”
“Davis?” The woman’s face came into his view and smiled sadly. “You’re in a bit of trouble here, mister. Can you feel your legs at all?”
He shook his head.
“Corporal Little?”
“Ma’am?”
“Run fetch Mr Mackenzie. Hurry!”
“Yesss!” agreed Harry. “Sugar. Must speak to Sugar.”
Marysville, Benton County, Republic of Astoria 31 March 1989
Donnie Fleming shared a cell with three men in the basement of the Benton County Courthouse. Two looked at magazines. One snored softly. Donnie studied the guard, seated in a creaking swivel chair, his feet on his desk and a paperback in his fists. “Hey bud, you got a smoke?”
“I told you to keep a lid on it, squirt.” The guard continued to read.
“Hey, c’mon chief. I’m dyin’ for a cig. How ’bout it?”
“How ’bout I come in there and smack you one? Shut up.” The guard laid down his book, lit a cigarette, and blew smoke into the cell. He chuckled as he smoked and returned to his cowboy story.
“Ah cheez, that’s cold!”
After the guard had half smoked his butt, he flicked it into the cell. It struck the far wall and exploded into sparks. Donnie scrambled after it and puffed it back to life.
Another guard stepped in from the corridor. “Roust your babies, Frank. Let’s get ’em loaded on the van.”
“T’hell wi’that,” mumbled one prisoner, “le’s jus’ get loaded right here.”
“Keep it up, sweetheart,” Frank opened the cell door, “and you can settle your debt at the range.”
“Take it easy, Frank. Let’s just get these babes to the Farm. Goliath here is getting ripe.”
After a couple of deep hits, Donnie surrendered his prize to see it crushed under the heel of one of the guards as they assembled the assessees. They were marched out the door, up to the street, and into the waiting van.
The van pulled away, passed through town, then accelerated out of the confines of city traffic. The van roared past a bicyclist as he turned off the road and coasted into Union Station.
The highway followed the river. Where the Willamette swung away to the northeast, the road threaded its way into a thicket. Exiting the grove, the ground leveled into rich farm land, planted post to post in mint and yams. Mint gave way to beans and beans gave way to hazels to apples to peaches until, looming at the top of a hill, a spartan wood and brick edifice, attended by ancient oaks and wrapped in wrought iron, stood ready to accept the passengers.
The van pulled off the smooth road and crunched onto gravel. An iron gate, mounted between two stone kiosks, swung inward as the van slowed to a stop. Arched over the entryway, in black iron filigree was writ GENADY WORK FARM, and under it, in smaller lettering, arbeit macht frei.
That’s all you get for the price of admission. If you’d like more, hard copy is available post paid from Greigh Area Associates or Piracy Press for Fifteen United $tates Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars” (U$LT) in check or money order, or Three Quarters of a Silver Dollar, in silver coin. Send your U$LT to Gene Greigh, c/o Greigh Area Associates // 401 Rio Concho Drive, #105; San Angelo, Texas; 76903 // An earlier version of this novel, weighing in at a tedious and didactic 192000 words, can be had in digital format from smashwords.com for $1.99 Fe’ral Reserve Digits.
