by Matthew Reed

Created on: June 23, 2009   Last Updated: December 31, 2011

Rennet walked along Franklin Street, enjoying the brief summer sunshine. With a few exceptions, Fort Bragg was a miserable assignment. It was too far south to get the full Pacific Northwest moisture, but managed to stay damp for a great deal of the year. It was a treasure for mushroom hunters, both legitimate and illicit. On the other hand, the small coastal city was too far north to completely benefit from the central coast's warmer currents and hot sunshine. And to top it off, the city was convulsing, politically speaking, within the throes of industrial shift; the loggers were near extinct as a demographic and the commercial fisheries were in a state of environmental collapse, putting the once brisk fishing fleet into dry-dock. Or something. There wasn't even a decent movie cinema, Rennet thought.

He passed the movie house in question and glanced at the marquee across the street. Four movies were currently playing and all four of them were "blockbuster" flicks with lots of special effects and a twenty-something with a great cleavage. What happened to showing an indie now and then, Rennet thought. He loved Spanish-language biopics; Hugo Chavez was a foreign film waiting to happen. Unfortunately, it was likely to be a Chavez-approved action movie starring the dictator himself. Ah, well. Not all dictators can be as demure as GW. Rennet smiled, pausing at Oak Street to allow traffic to pass.

Rennet was forgettable. He was average height to the average observer and it was true. He was about 5'9" or so at his last physical. He kept his dark blonde hair trimmed shortish, but not radically so. In fact, he was just about ready to see Frank for his monthly five dollar trim. He kept himself fit, but them he was required to for his job. His clothes were all bought at the thrift stores around Fort Bragg and Rennet was fine with that; he didn't really care about staying with new clothes all the time. He wanted comfort, not style. Hence, Rennet didn't shave, but kept a sometimes scraggly, but generally tidy, brown beard.

As Rennet passed Purity Market, he thought he saw a man watching him from a parked car. The man was thick and pasty-complexioned, his chins gleaming with greasy sweat. The man was wearing a pair of over-large sunglasses, the kind that fit over prescription glasses. Then a white haired woman slowly crossed from the store carrying a shopping bag and unlocked the trunk of the Scion. Rennet barely registered the event, but discarded the people as locals. He

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