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Monday, June 1

Dead Letter: Part 1 – Finding Fiona

Hammer pulled up the briefing file on his cistron. Agents Archive, Guppy, and of course Jim-Bean were all present. Nobody mentioned Archive’s recent breakdown. He seemed all right after the explosion, which was good enough for the mental health review—barring the fact that he now had a phobia of spheres of all types, of course. But that was best left unmentioned…they all had their own personal hang-ups.

“What have we got?”

Guppy pulled up a web site. “The Ecotopian is a professional produced magazine printed on newsprint, running thirty-two pages an issue. It is a bi-monthly magazine devoted to environmental activism, published by Full Wilderness. Here’s the web site.”

The most recent issue had a cover story on a legal whale hunt undertaken by the Makah tribe of Washington State, a hunt opposed and occasionally intercepted by activists from the Full Wilderness organization.

Guppy continued. “CIFA believes that The Ecotopian has a radical, criminal agenda. The Ecotopian’s staff includes members of Earth First, PETA, ALF, and of course Full Wilderness.”

“Full Wilderness?” asked Hammer. “They’re out in the woods somewhere?”

Archive chuckled. “Full Wilderness is a non-profit organization that espouses the extinction of the human race through one hundred-percent birth control.”

Jim-Bean looked up from his reading. It was a long flight to Samson, California from the East Coast. “Full Wilderness’ program is unremarkably preservationist, advocating world-wide rescue of and protection of ecosystems, and of the abolition of industrial poisons.”

“What are you reading?” asked Hammer.

“One of Jatik’s books,” said Jim-Bean. “It’s very educational. The last book of his I read, A Task Received, summarized and viewed with alarm the state of the planetary environment; this book, Hard Lessons, summarizes the greenhouse crisis and outlines several dozens of procedures and actions designed to buy time for humanity to successfully adapt to lessened industrialism and lowered population. Jatik's books present the hypothesized crisis totally in positive terms: not only will planetary life survive and prevail, but the essence of human life will have improved when his program is carried out.”

“So Jatik leads Full Wilderness,” said Guppy. He brought up an article about Full Wilderness from Harper’s magazine.

“Jatik's title, council head, corresponds to president or chief executive officer,” said Archive. “Jatik pretends that the Full Wilderness organization is a tribe, and that all decisions are communal. Functions across the Full Wilderness year correspond to ceremonies one tribe or another of Native Americans practiced.”

“That’s got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Hammer. [MORE]

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posted by Mike Tresca at 6:48 AM


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