Like a lot of writers, once I create a world, I tend to come back to it again and again, exploring different parts. This story takes place in the world of my novel, where the U.S. falls into another civil war. Here, I look at what might be the outcome of such a conflict both from a 1st Amendment stance, as well as how it could erode our belief in free will.

Danny watched the truck approach along the empty highway. As it slowed, she knew the driver would either try to kill her, or take her where she needed to go.

            The man was middle-aged and gruff, which wasn’t unexpected. He looked native, which was, given that most Native Americans were loyal, and many reservations were under siege by the Coalition.  

            “What are you doing out here? You armed?”

            Danny shook her head. “Just a true American, trying to get home.”

            The man studied Danny’s short hair, camo baseball hat and heavy canvas pack.

            “Must be a tough one, hiking up here. What’s your name, traveler?”
            “Danny Abbot.”

            “Virgil Gray. If you’re wearing contacts, take ’em out.”

            Danny did, and Virgil popped open the passenger door. Getting in, Danny noticed a Ka-bar knife in a sheath on his hip. Running her tongue over her left Ludovico molar, she dug into her bag, pulled out a can of peaches purloined from a burned house down the pass.

            “For your troubles.”

            Virgil raised an eyebrow. “From before the blight?”

            “Last jar was still good.”

            Danny tried to relax into the truck’s seat, taking in its aroma of menthol vape, oil, and sawdust. In the truck bed were two logging butlers with chainsaws, covered in dirt and sap from long use. A wrack of coughing hit Danny, and Virgil glanced over.

            “How long you been hiking?”

            “Ten miles today, twenty yesterday. No traffic after the border.”

Virgil nodded, adjusted his Stetson.

“So I appreciate the ride.”

“Don’t mention it. We need more tough women like you on our side.”

  Danny ignored the comment and glanced around the dirty truck cab. She guessed it had been reprogrammed after Fort Sill, or someone had removed any hardware the Union could kill switch. Out the window, Danny studied the smoke-filled sky. Even without her contacts in, she knew stealth drones tracked them as they drove along highway 12. The only reason they hadn’t been stopped, or bombed, was that full-spectrum and X-ray scans had shown no firearms or contraband.

            “Don’t look so worried, partner, since we’re on the same side,” Virgil said, seeing her catalogue. “But why weren’t you home before it started? You should be with your family. Or in the militia.”

            Danny pulled up the side of her shirt, showing a concave scar along her abdomen. A shark bite she’d gotten while surfing at 17, but only a doctor would know that.

            “4-F. My sister got cancer, in Seattle. I made it out just before they closed the border.”

            Virgil grunted sympathetically to this lie. “One more tragedy. From Lolo?”

            “Missoula.”

            He let out a sigh.

“You’d better stay with me.”

The distant sound of hundreds of exploding artillery rounds echoed over the mountain pass, mixed with the rattle of small arms and thump of mortars.

            Danny shook her head. “Naw, I gotta get home. Gotta try and help out.” She coughed again. The last time she’d checked, the air quality was at 180.

“Likely as not, your home is flat as a tin can.”

“No zombies in Lolo yet?”

Virgil looked at her, hesitated. “You don’t know? They’re all up on the 90, trying to get to the pass.” He spoke in a whisper. “For the nukes. At Warren.”

Danny did know, but played along.

  “We got to stop ’em,” Danny said. “Otherwise, those commies and their fucking android will have us starved out by winter.”

“Amen, sister.”

#

            Virgil dropped Danny off as far north of Lolo as he dared. What the old logger had shared added almost nothing to Danny’s story, but she was thankful for the ride, given the hurdles of the last two days traveling from Seattle. She felt an ephemeral sadness for Virgil: one more former American convinced by a decade of propaganda and deepfakes (like half the country) that president Williams had been replaced by an android, and its communist cabal controllers were bent on starving the Midwest and South into submission. The truth—that Williams was quite alive, and the Union would stop at nothing to end the famine, and re-connect the states—was impossible for him to believe. As was the simple fact that the U.S. government could not tolerate a world in which two nuclear powers existed in North America. But what really saddened Danny wasn’t that the Union would win and that people like Virgil would have their worlds shattered. It was that neither side really knew what would come after the fighting ended.

#

With her eyephone contacts in, and hacked access to real-time sat photos, Danny had a clearer view of the situation, and the difficult hike ahead.

Five miles to the north, the U.S. 1st Infantry Brigade, 7th Division, was fighting four-miles abreast across Missoula, MT. The city was under bombardment, much of it on fire. The artillery crashed and boomed like a dozen thunderstorms. Most of the surrounding coniferous hillsides of the Bitterroot River Valley had burned down two days before, set by the Coalition rebels to reduce Union aircover. It had failed in that; thousands of drones of all types floated above the smoke, and F-40’s roared in and out of the valley regularly. Danny knew the Union would win the battle in a few days; she shuddered at the cruelty and the dying that would require. But more important, people needed to know how that happened, and why they’d won.

            Once she was out of sight of the road, Danny crouched beneath a large black walnut at the edge of an empty field and pulled up an app on her eyephone HUD. A transparent map of Missoula, marked with a bright red signal, indicated the location of her friend and source, Jonas Mills. Jonas was a lieutenant leading an infantry platoon in the brigade, at the forward edge of the battle. The icon would stop for minutes at a time, then sprint forward twenty or thirty meters, bounce in different directions, and stop again.

            Jonas was fighting house to house. At any moment he could be dead. And with him, Danny’s story, and likely her life.

            “Just hang on till I get there, Whaleman,” Danny whispered, and stood up.

            Danny was sore, her lungs ached, and she was plain scared. But this was her profession. She marched to the nearby shoreline of the Bitterroot River and waded in on her back, carrying her bag on her chest. The current was strong, but only 100 feet wide. On the other shore, she started walking north.

#

            Crossing empty farms and old ranch houses, Danny reminisced how even two years earlier, journalism in the U.S. hadn’t been dangerous, nothing like Russia or China. Now she was part of a dying breed, literally. Nobody, blue or red, U.S. or National Coalition, wanted the actual truth. Deepfakes and AI content were much more comforting. But her story had a chance to break all that.

            All she needed was access to one combat-networked MPACS (Modular Powered Armor Combat System) that every Union trooper wore. The SmartLive virus her team had developed would do the rest, pushing her story to every modem in the DOD, where it would replicate until their AI censors adapted.

            Crossing another yard, Danny began to hum a song she’d made up on a drunken night her sophomore year at UW:

            We are the fourth estate of silent fame,

            Guiding who to blame, and where to shame,

            What largess to dole upon the righteous named

            We are the fourth estate, come to dig the gardens of truth . . .

#

            As expected, she was able to just walk into town. The problem was, to get to Jonas, she’d have to go through rebel lines. Moving through the Union rear she was sure to run into service troops or MPs, who would detain her with her invalid passes. She could sooth the drones that accosted her with false certificates, but humans were more discerning. She assumed the rebels had scarce roadblocks on their southern flank because they knew that the Union wasn’t interested in Missoula at all, only the pass to the ICBMs to the west of the mountains. But as she crossed the wide empty boulevard of SW Higgin’s St., she braced himself to be shot down by a hidden rebel sentry, who understandably, would be jumpy.

#

            The walking wounded at the Western Community Medical Center had overflowed out into the lawns around the building. The city’s power and water were off, but the hospital had generators and a spare supply. Luckier still, no drones or artillery had hit the hospital yet. Even better for Danny, the rebels had no spare troops to guard the place.

Danny found a rare Union soldier among the masses of rebels and civilians. He had a bandaged through-and-through in his right thigh. Even a half mile back from the fighting, Danny had to almost shout above the racket of the battle.

            “What your name?”

            The soldier, no older than 19, slowly opened his eyes.

“Duc Nguyen.”

“Danny Abbot. I work for the Post-Intelligencer.”

“Yeah?”

“How’d you end up here?”

“I woke up here, without my CNIDs or MPACS.” His voice cracked. “How the fuck could this happen? Where’s the squad? Why’d they leave me?”

“They’ll be here soon,” Danny said, though she guessed most of Duc’s squad mates were probably WIA or KIA.

Duc closed his eyes in pain, waved Danny away. Danny narrowed her eyes, and her face formed an on-duty grimace she hated using.

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, private. I said I work for the PI, and unless you want to crawl away, you’ll answer my fucking questions.”

“Fuck you.”

            “Civilian casualties?”

            Duc let out an exasperated huff. “Yeah. The rebels have been using human shields. And the Airforce started targeting the ones ferrying ammo.”

            “How many?”

“I lost count.”

            “The S2 set up any good ambushes?”

            Duc’s eyes went wide, then narrowed in fear.

            “Who the fuck are you?”

            “So yes?”

            “Get me the fuck out of here,” he whispered.

            “Your unit?

            “A/1/5.”

            “They’ll be here in the morning, I expect.”

            “Please.”

            “I told you, I’m just a journalist.”

#

            She was a quarter mile back from the front lines, but the rattle of machine gun fire and boom of mortars still drowned out thought. She approached an untouched craftsman that looked empty, with her hands up. With every step, she had to fight to keep her knees from buckling. She walked in the unlocked front door, found the basement stairs, followed the banister down into the darkness.

            Reaching the basement, she could see nothing, but heard the clink of rifles and the shuffle of three armored former Montana National Guard standing up.

            “I don’t give a fuck if this is your house,” said an authoritative voice. “Cheetah, take her down.”

            After being slammed to the floor, cuffed behind the back, and searched, they set her in a corner, and turned on their suit lamps. Three taunt, bearded faces glared at her from behind their face shields. They started with threats of rape and murder, though the sergeant obviously assumed she had Ludovico teeth whose gas would incapacitate them if they dared remove any part of their MPACS. Eventually, their questions narrowed, and Danny showed them the map projection of Jonas’ position.

            “What a bunch of bullshit,” said the sergeant. “That could be fucking anything. And what the fuck good does that do us, even if true?”

            “You don’t think your officers might know?”

            “We should fucking do her, Sarge.”

            “Cheetah, shut the fuck up. All right, you smartass bitch. Walk out the front door, down a block, bombed apartment on the left. If they don’t waste you for lying, I fucking will.”

            He cut Danny’s ziptied hands, wrapped a black sash around her waist, and shoved her towards the exit.

#

            After being knocked downed by a sentry and cuffed, she was delivered to a Coalition regimental command post. It was in the basement laundromat of an old two-story apartment, whose top floor had been crushed in by an artillery round. How it had remained undetected and not bombed again Danny didn’t know; her best guess was some advanced multispectral camouflage.

At first, all the officers ignored her, but the sentry who’d brought her in whispered something to the intelligence major, who glanced in her direction before going back to his work. The officer was tall, skinny, with three days of stubble. After ignoring Danny for ten minutes, he crouched down where she’d been shoved in a corner. His green eyes were cold and still, much more frightening than the inchoate brutality of the three Guardsmen. Danny showed him the tracker. After marking the location on his CNIDs, the major shook his head.

            “This is slaved to you?”

            Danny nodded.

            “With an auto-destruct no doubt. What fucking good are you to me?”

“I’m a journalist on your side. You think the Cabal and the Firewall will let me post about the kids murdered here? How many losses they’ve suffered? You’ve got to let me help you.”

            “I could have you shot for wasting my time.”

            “I can show you my other stories—”

            “Those could be faked, your ID too.”

            “Look, he was a friend of mine before this. I just gave you his life. All I want is front-line access.”

            “You’ll compromise any trooper you come in contact with.”

            “I just want to see it. For the story. I won’t go near your boys.”

            Someone called the major’s name and he stood up.

            “All right, journalist. Go ahead and see if that sash keeps you from getting killed.”

#

            The lies she’d told the major were really half-truths. DHS and the FBI had neutralized the PI (and most other papers) shortly after Fort Sill. Stories might go out, but anything deemed harmful to the war effort would be quashed by their AIs in seconds flat. The DOD, however, had their own networks and protocols, and weaker security. Her team had reconfigured SmartLive to pry past these, but it was up to her to get to the hardware that could access their net. She had risked Jonas’ life sharing his location with the rebels. But one life, even of a friend, was worth the risk to wake people up.

#

Danny sat in the corner of a grimy basement, frantically eye-typing on her contacts. As she typed, her AI generated hunks of text, filled in quotes, corrected her errors. If she died, it would do everything it could to finish the story and send it back to her team for another try.

She knew the front would come to her; the house was a half block from that of the original three rebel soldiers she’d encountered. She’d found earplugs in the upstairs bathroom, which did nothing to keep out the noise. As the battlefront approached, she occasionally peeked out the recessed window to see the fighting. Even with a clear view of the street—aside from flying debris and smoke from nearby explosions—she could see nothing: no approaching soldiers, no impacts from bullets. Faster than her eyes could track, a missile slammed into the rebel house, disintegrating it in a white fireball whose shockwave sent her crashing to the basement rug. She was still there when someone kicked in the front door, and heavy boots slammed down into the basement.

Before she could speak, the first Union soldier down the stairs shot her.

#

            The Union medic was a young Latina, efficient and harried. She bandaged the gaping wound in Danny’s stomach with skinnex, then injected morphine and healaset nanobots.

            “Is this B Company?” Danny rasped.

            “Don’t talk,” she said.

            “Is it?”

            Her eyebrows narrowed. “Girl, how do you know that?” She started digging through Danny’s pants and bag for ID.

            “Are you in Lieutenant Mill’s platoon?” Danny asked. “We’re old friends.”

            The medic called over her shoulder to another solider in the room:

  “Hey Mikey, she says she knows the Professor.” Through her pain, Danny smiled at Jonas’ fitting war name.

            “The fuck? I thought he was from Seattle.”

            The medic shrugged. “And tell Catfucker he’s getting 15’d for this, at least. She works for the PI.”

            “No shit.”

            Danny laughed, coughed up a wade of blood.

The medic shook her head while wiping Danny’s chin. “I don’t even want to know what’s funny.”

Danny cleared her throat, nodded.  “Can you take me to him?” she asked.

            The medic smiled patronizingly. “The LT might be a little busy, smallgirl. Mikey, go get Lambchops, tell him I need a hand with this kwi.”

#

            The other medic in Jonas’ platoon helped carry Danny into the upstairs bedroom. Outside she could hear the front move forward. After taking out her contacts, the new medic blindfolded her. Danny could hear soldiers in the house, shouting, boots stomping. An NCO came and asked questions of the medic, and left. When he returned, Danny listened as they discussed her:

            “Report?”

            “8.6, lower abdomen. Priority.”

            “How long?”

            “An hour, maybe.”

            “Give the lieutenant a few.”

            “Yes, sergeant.”

            Danny heard the door open. Her lifted blindfold revealed a fully suited trooper, unsnapping his facemask and helmet.

            “Hi, Danny.”  It was Jonas.

            “Well, I’m one lucky fucker,” Danny said. “The Whaleman.” 

            Jonas’ face was sweat drenched, his blond hair matted, his armored suit and gear covered in dirt and blood.

            Jonas glanced down at Danny’s chest, sighed. “Catfucker’s a total fuckup. I should have shot him myself a long time ago.” 

            “Thanks.”

            Jonas paused, looked around the small room.

            “Where is it?” he said.

            “How do you know this is a screened-in porch?” Danny asked.

            “CNIDs out this afternoon. Rebel hack. No bugs on my screen.”

            “There’s always one. But I’m out of time. Put it in any live MPACS connect and it’ll do its trick. They can’t stop it.” 

            Danny held up her left arm. “Here.”

            Jonas reached down, squeezed a tiny portion of Danny’s forearm. A chip, the size of a rice grain, popped through her epidermis. Jonas slipped the drive, still wet with blood, into one of his empty clip pouches.

            Jonas put his hands on Danny’s shoulders and squeezed.

            “How the fuck did you get here? Surfing down the Clark Fork?”

            Danny smiled.

            “Whale Man, look at you . . . You made it. I had to give them your location to get here. I’m sorry.”

            “They’re out of HK drones anyway. And it’s dead now, right?”

            Danny nodded. “Go find a casualties’ suit,” she said. “Maybe can’t track you then.”

            Danny gripped Jonas’ hand in a shake, and closed her eyes.

             “Good graces,” she whispered.

            “Sir,” came the familiar NCO’s voice, knocking, then cracking the door.

            “I gotta go, Danny,” Jonas said. “We’re gonna get you evacuated.”

#

            Two days later, Danny woke up to the sound of someone entering her hospital room. Two suited agents, both grim. They reached into their pockets to pull out DHS badges, and Danny smiled through her fear. They stood over her, menacing:

            “Danny Michelle Abbot. You helped release the information on ClearSight. We have you recorded, we have the server signatures, as well as those of your friend in the Army. You’ll be on your way to Leavenworth this afternoon. Unless—”

            “I’ll keep my sources confidential, thank you.”

#

            And hour later, at Madigan military hospital, Jonas, waking up after his own wound, found the story and sat up in his hospital bed:

            Prescient AI Helps Win Battle of Missoula

            June 26th 2054

            The U.S. Army 1st Brigade recaptured Missoula, MT, from rebel hands on Saturday, with the help of its prescient AI, ClearSight. Using aggregate data from the biometric and personality profiles of rebel soldiers, ClearSight predicts enemy decisions and moves, with an 85% probability, up to eight hours in the future. This has enabled repeated Union tactical victories, and kept down casualties . . . Unconfirmed by the DOD, sources indicated that a much more powerful oracle is in the work, capable of generating visions of not just groups of soldiers, but all of humanity, for months or years into the future–

            At a knock at the door, Jonas shut the article, and wondered: could I have made another choice? Could Danny have?

            Jonas looked the arriving DHS agents over, indifferent.

            “You already know what I’m going to say,” Jonas started. “So it won’t matter if I tell you . . .”