A fantasy / science-fiction serial from Bellwether, NC
Hops & Havoc
They took our bar.
We’re taking back our town.Pours strong. Profanity, bar fights, and consequences that keep.
Randy’s Tavern · Home of affordable bottles, unreliable flooring, and the local resistance
Gentrification has come to Bellwether.
It isn’t from Earth.
Doug and Jerry wanted their old tavern left alone. What they got was an alien invasion hiding in craft beer. It arrived with deep pockets, valid permits, and impeccable manners.
Standing between Bellwether and new management are a hands-on civic-tech fixer who spent his whole life preparing for the wrong kind of danger, a repairman who knows the guts of every machine in the county, and a bartender who’s been keeping tabs on this town for twenty years without writing a word of it down.
And in a sealed fermentation tank across town, something is listening.
Chapter one, in its own words
“It was nine-forty on a Tuesday night at Randy’s Tavern, which meant the fight was neither early nor late. It was on schedule.”
How the story opens“Baby, this is Randy’s. We don’t have flights. We have beer, and we have the door.”
Heather, ending a brawl with hospitality“I’m not losing. I’m being cheated. Those are different sports.”
Wade, mid-swing, on the dead rail
Now pouring · The Havoc Cut
The Beer That Knew Too Much
Heritage launches a beer that knows what you miss. Doug meets the grain, Jerry finds a chamber under the brewery, and the voice in the telemetry finally gets loose. Serialized in five episodes.
“It makes the easy choice feel like your own idea.”Start Story 3 →
The local resistance
Three experts.
In unrelated fields.
They can debug a municipal system, repair a walk-in cooler, and read a room before the room knows what it’s saying.
Meet everyone on the Volume One tab →
- Doug Walker
Hands-on civic-tech fixer. Systems obsessive. Owner of several contingency plans nobody asked him to make.
- Jerry Collins
Repairman. Conspiracy theorist. Experiencing the worst possible form of vindication.
- Heather Alvarez
Bartender. Organizer. Keeper of the real record. Knows who is missing before anyone else knows there is a list.
The series
The story so far
Last Call at Randy’s
The tavern feud that discovers Bellwether’s beer problem is bigger than Bellwether.
A scheduled bar fight, a stranger who doesn’t blink right, and a twenty that smells like a garden center.
Start reading → Story 1 · Episode 02 · Read nowRolling ThunderDoug answers a survey crew with tire hazards and craftsman pride. A wall starts talking shop to Jerry at 3 a.m.
Keep reading → Story 1 · Episode 03 · Read nowWrong by a ZeroThe envelope, the deputy, and a consultant with no first name. Jerry files a warranty claim against God.
Keep reading → Story 1 · Episode 04 · Read nowThe Second ThingBellwether holds a hearing, Doug grabs the worst rope, and Tank Seven answers Tucker in his own voice.
Finish the story →Flight of the D.A.G.G.E.R.S.
Enforcement with injuries, not politics with spandex. The club draws blood, the bar builds a network, and the Switchback settles it.
Tire hazards that grow roots, a deputy with Doug's name penciled, and a freight answer named Peaches.
Start Story 2 → Story 2 · Episode 02 · Read nowCritical MassCadence does enforcement math in safety vocabulary, a warm bicycle leaves something behind, and Jerry stops working alone.
Keep reading → Story 2 · Episode 03 · Read nowChain of CustodyThe map room opens, the paper trail runs through Momentum, and a logging artifact starts volunteering things.
Keep reading → Story 2 · Episode 04 · Read nowAll DownhillA Thursday wrestling card, a gun in a water bottle, and a van that takes the bike and leaves the kid.
Finish the story →The Beer That Knew Too Much
Heritage launches a beer that adapts to each drinker, and what Doug finds under the brewery rewrites everyone’s week.
Heritage’s adaptive beer knows exactly what you miss, and Randy’s starts losing people.
Start Story 3 → Story 3 · Episode 02 · Read nowControl GroupDoug brings a control group to Heritage’s patio and meets the grain.
Keep reading → Story 3 · Episode 03 · Read nowCellar TemperatureHeather remembers people back to themselves while Tucker learns Heritage signs for him.
Keep reading → Story 3 · Episode 04 · Read nowLogging ArtifactA sealed chamber, a Gleaming Cube, and a logging artifact with six minutes to live.
Keep reading → Story 3 · Episode 05 · Read nowOn the HouseBarry enters the room, Vellum makes an offer, and a barstool supplies the answer.
Finish the story → Collected edition · Free EPUBThe Havoc CutStories One through Three, plus a Volume One cast and Bellwether reference appendix.
Download the ebook ↓Population: complicated
Welcome to Bellwether.
A cheerful mountain town with good neighbors, aggressive zoning, and a craft-beer district that may be terraforming the planet.
One useful traffic light. Three competing definitions of “downtown.” Eleven years into choosing a new town slogan. Worth defending.
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