September 3, 2025. Albany New York

Garrett is enjoying a fine breakfast of a Swiss cheese and ham omelet with blackberries when he hears something very strange on TV. The news anchor is telling about an unexplainable thermal phenomenon in the mountains east of Tacoma, Washington. Immediately below a high stone peak there is a huge steaming basin of molten rock with multiple colors. Liquid mineral bubbles up from below as in the Paint Pots in Yellowstone Park, but this is two hundred feet in diameter.

The problem is that seismologists say there is absolutely no volcanic reason for it. They did the usual tests. All they can suggest is some kind of chemical or thermo-nuclear reaction from an outside source. Since there was no incoming asteroid detected they postulate that the condition must be caused by something small, but potent, which could have fallen to earth from outer space without being registered.

The land cradling this phenomenon is owned by an entity known as the Milkinson Company. They have cleared a huge area to the west of the peak and have begun to pave it with light gray concrete. This is expensive but works out best because part of their holdings includes a big local gravel pit and cement company.

September 9, 2025. 11:39 AM. Washington State

Taking a fast ride west, Garrett stops at a diner near the base of the thermal basin peak. After a delicious Emu Burger with boiled potato and carrots he is walking back to the Porsche when a girl getting out of a pickup truck points at him and screams "There he is! Bill Bob, there's the man!"

Bill Bob, the girl's big stupid brother, jumps out of the pickup with a .357 Magnum handgun, rests his arm on the truck, aims, and fires. Garrett actually feels the bullet whizzing past him, runs around the corner, jumps into the Porsche, and drives away. He is only able to do this because stupid Bill Bob forgot to reload the gun and now stops to do so. Garrett actually gets completely away without Bill Bob even seeing the Porsche.

By the time Bill Bob reloads and gives chase, Garrett parks the Porsche, calls the police, and reports "a mad dog shooter" at the dinner and describes the people and truck. The police know who he is talking about. Garrett doesn't want to lose time with crap like this so he withholds his identity and says nothing else.

Now Garrett drives up to the mountain and parks out of site from the road. He walks in the drive. Still blocked off to automobiles, the huge concrete area stretches endlessly away to the east, north, and south for what must be a mile in every direction. There are sprinklers going on and off at intervals here and there to help cure the concrete. There is a endless row of ticket kiosks aligned like toll booths from north to south parallel to the mountain. Garrett hears activity inside one of the kiosks and knocks on the window. A disheveled man cracks the door and snaps at Garrett "Beat it! I'm busy." Garrett notices a disrobed girl behind the man

Garrett approaches another kiosk and sees a guy on the floor with a girl through the window. The next one is also occupied. After all, this is lunch hour during hard times. All Garrett wants is directions and decides to walk to the east end of the infinite gray monolith. As he starts, a man closely resembling himself, and dressed identically, breaks from behind a kiosk and runs for the woods. Garrett knows instinctively that this is the fellow who Bill Bob is really seeking. He calls the police again, reports the location of the running man as a victim who Bill Bob is chasing, goes back to the Porsche, quickly changes clothes, and walks briskly to the east before the police arrive and involve him in any way.

Garrett is feeling very good today and has the right shoes for this adventure. He manages to clear the concrete within nineteen minutes. As he enters the woods at the base of the mountain he hears pistol shots back to the west from the area he just left. He recognizes a few shots from the .357 mixed with other fire from lighter weapons.

Garrett begins to skirt the woods to the south. After a short distance he comes to a huge sprawling lodge beautifully constructed of massive red cedar logs. There are at least thirty cars in the lot to the right of the lodge. Garrett thinks "I should have called first. I could have driven on the cement after all. What the Hell, I need the exercise."

Garrett walks up the stone steps, goes in, and introduces himself at the reception desk. There are a great many well dressed men and women milling around talking, with food and cups in hand. Perfect timing, because they are all news people. Garrett recognizes several of them. As he grabs a glass of green Catawba grape juice, he suddenly recognizes someone else coming out of the kitchen. None other than Clifton Farris. Garrett thinks to himself "Holy shit! I can't get away from this guy!"

Garrett sidles up to Clifton who hasn't seen him yet and says with mock surprise, "Great Lucifer! Don't tell me I have you again!" They both laugh, but then Clifton narrows his gaze and asks very seriously "I didn't expect to see you here. We are cool about there being no connection between this and our other projects, am I right? I'm placing a lot of trust in you here."

Garrett nods affirmatively "Don't worry, Clifton. I'm not the enemy. Our goals are the same. I just think that liberty and prosperity can happen with economics instead of eternal social warfare. Keep them from becoming criminals instead of killing them after they do. We are in the second American Revolution. It’s happening just like the first one. Before 1776 there were many levels of revolutionary activity ranging from raids against the British to being lambasted diplomatically by them in Parliament. It all came down as one victory in the end... It worked very well until 1913 when the money interests took it over. Now we have to liberate the country all over again and the rest of the world as well. Have you ever read any of the free books online about predatory bankers, such as None Dare Call It Conspiracy ?

“Heard about that one, but never read it” Clifton replies.

Garrett continues, “Do you think the terms 'welfare-warfare economy' and 'military-industrial-banking complex' are just clichés? The knowledge of why society is always in upheaval is not anecdotal. Both books are filled with facts. International finance supports politicians who implement anything which allows them to lend big blocks of money. ‘Lending requires spending’. All societal problems can be undone with Libertarian policies, and it won’t hurt the bankers a bit because there will be new better things they can finance... but what's your mission here?”

"This is a just an unrelated money making project to keep us going. What have you been up to?"

"I've been taking a little time off with a few lady friends. Just before that was all that business with the headless cops in Las Vegas. I'm sure you heard about it" Garrett replies.

"Of course. I saw your story. Ikabasu is a friend of mine too. Didn't he mention it?"

"No" says Garrett. "Why do you call this the Milkinson Company?"

"Because we're milkin the sonofabitch for all we can get" chuckles Clifton. "We're starting construction on a big motel and restaurant next week. Miniature golf and everything."

"What causes the thermal activity?" asks Garrett.

"We don't really know. Just a lucky coincidence that we own the land. Like stumbling into a diamond mine" fibs Farris who actually engineered the whole thing with help from scientist friends.

The tour guide ranger now asks the entire party to go outside and they hike the short path of about five hundred feet up to a narrow gap in the mountain side and then a two hundred foot path straight in to a large flat area overlooking the thermal pool. Garrett is delighted. A perfectly round basin, surrounded by steep terrain clad with evergreens on all but the peak side to the east. He is entranced by the heat, the smell of mineral gases, and the strange swirling colors of molten material three hundred feet below. He also notices the small monitor station high on the east peak overlooking the entire setting.

Farris says to Garrett. "More good luck. The prevailing wind from the west over the top and through the gap keeps us just cool enough so we can view all this from here. If that were not the case we would have to give them helicopter rides. How do you like it?"

"Awesome, Clifton. You have more fun than anybody I know."

After a good dinner in town Garrett gets a motel room and turns on the local TV news to see what they're saying about the events earlier that day. It turns out that Bill Bob caught up to the running man who had raped his sister. The police arrived just in time and shot it out with Bill Bob who they wounded. They took both men into custody, but are baffled about the informant who called them. As per Garrett's intention, Bill Bob and the girl don't even realize that Garrett and the man arrested are two different people.

10:03 PM. The Basin

Clifton is supervising the dumping of over three hundred bodies into the lava. What nobody notices, because of tree overhang, is that sixteen bodies got bumped over as they fell and are laying at the edge of the basin.

Next Morning. 10:00 AM

The cement is ready for traffic. The barriers are down and the cars are coming is at the rate anticipated. A bunch of tourists are just leaving the visitor center and heading up the path. One solitary younger man is ahead of the pack by four hundred feet.

Down below one of Clifton's workers sees some of the bodies, grabs another worker, and they climb down to view the entire sixteen. He calls Clifton on the walkie-talkie phone.

"Throw them in quick!" says Clifton.

As the two workers pitch the last three bodies into the lava, the eager young man who arrived at the rim way ahead of the others watches in stunned disbelief. He pulls out a cell phone. From the monitor station, Clifton shoots him between the eyes with a .306 Scope Rifle. The young man collapses in a heap. Within ten seconds two of Clifton's rangers arrive. They throw the body down the slope just as the first of the other tourists comes through the gap. But the body is lying in plain view near the edge of the basin.

One of the rangers runs down to delay the tourists with a short impromptu spiel about thermal geology while the other ranger scans the entire area below with binoculars. The workers below have seen everything and slowly picking their way over the treacherous rocky ground around the basin. They reach the tourist body and throw it into the lava, then give the ranger above a thumbs up. The coast is clear. Now he and the ranger delaying the tourists head down to the lodge for some coffee.

Back in the monitor station Clifton says to a man standing with him, "This was too close a call. It's as much my fault as anybody's, but we all have to be more careful. I don't want to kill an innocent man for simply stumbling into a situation. For God's sake, he may have been a good man with a good family who will miss him. I'll be so glad when all this work is finally done. If you will excuse me for a few minutes..." Clifton goes to the men's room and has a short one minute cry, remembering a friend who was shot by looters during the World Trade Center aftermath in New York City and the greif stricken look of his poor little daughter when he broke the news.

That night a worker in a plastic body mitten moves the solitary automobile belonging to the unfortunate witness. He finds a new parking spot eighty miles away. In the morning Farris checks out the young tourist's background and finds there are no dependents who will need financial help in the wake of his demise. Garrett having left at c 8:30 AM is well on the way back to Albany.