“HOLY SHIT, TEAM. YOU know the drill. Emergency. This is not how I planned coming back to work after visiting my ill sister. What else could have gone wrong with the fucking world?”

She peered across the room at her bleary-eyed team. None had slept, waiting for Sara’s return. Even on the plane, Sara anticipated what she’d be facing once she arrived at the Austin compound.

“I know it’s three in the morning and you want to sleep. I don’t care what pills you need to take or how much coffee you drink or whether you pee on your chair, but I can’t let you sleep on this one. I haven’t slept either after a long day of travel and wasted time. I need a response before Ron’s 9 a.m. staff meeting. As you can imagine, he pinged me throughout the evening as I was flying back, and the conversations stopped an hour ago. I’m assuming he’s getting some sleep now, but he will not be happy with us or with any of his ministers when he awakens to this news. Besides, he has an 8 a.m. with the other Westrich oligarchs, whom I imagine are not pleased with the current situation. I expect to receive the full brunt of his torrid belch at staff. Let’s try not to get us all fired after this one, okay team? Fired is not a happy ending, especially given Ron’s history. I need you at peak capability and creativity right now. Comprende?”

Her team nodded in unison.

“Rasha, Imp kept me apprised of events on the return flight. Give the team a quick rundown to make sure we’re on the same page before establishing and executing our plans.”

Rasha rose. She was tall and thin, almost gaunt, and her presence exposed her Indian heritage. Long, black hair. A red dot on her forehead. Bangles of gold bracelets clinked together whenever she moved her arms, which always bothered Sara.

“I’ll start with Southern.”

“Do me a favor,” Sara requested, frazzled and jittery from the tension. “Take those bracelets off and your earrings, too. I want zero distractions.”

Rasha was taken aback but hurriedly removed her jewelry as Sara stared out the window. She wanted to dispense with the usual eye-meeting and greeting confirmations with her team. Too much shit was about to fly in the next few hours, and no gray matter processing could be wasted.

Rasha moved to the vidscreen. “As you can see, Southern is deploying troops at key locations along our border, typically close to the international transportation crossings with Vista. Imp estimates the usual fifty thousand stationed troops are growing to seventy. Given their recent, volatile exchanges with Bolivar, they’ve also started deploying about forty percent more troops in the disputed territory between Southern, Bolivar, and Westrich, just south of Corpus Christi. Angling again for additional Texas coastline, no doubt. General Vasquez has responded in kind, presumably with Ron’s full approval, and Westrich troops are being deployed to the area as we speak.”

“Southern fucking bastards!” Sara uttered, and Rasha stopped for more. “No, keep going. I’ll interrupt you as usual, so keep going.”

“Okay. It’s not just the troop movements, however. Edgar and Benjamin provided info from their bio-intel units that Southern is planning additional WMD exposures. This isn’t the normal ‘kill ten thousand of ours, and we’ll respond in kind’ limited bioweapon attack. It’s much bigger, more maligned, and widespread. In response, our monitoring and control systems are on highest alert. I’m sure you’ll hear more about that at the nine o’clock, Sara. Many of our drones, both armed and observation alike, are being redeployed along our extensive border with Southern.”

“What about Nemerica?”

“Not enough info. It’s still nighttime, and we haven’t heard a peep from them. We understand Ron contacted his sister, and the Westrich oligarchs are no doubt talking alliance options with them.”

“Go on then. More about our response. What comms are emerging from this festering zit?”

“Initial comms from Southern infiltrators, our many spies and other contacts there, are consistently indicating that Southern took our claims of enhanced prediction capabilities too literally. You’d think they’d be accustomed to this after all the years of bullshit we’ve mutually tossed over our borders. These actions might signal they’re done with that game. Conversely, maybe they really do believe we’ve achieved perfect predictability of their actions and intentions via our AIs, and they’re responding before we can get these systems fully online and functional. Another alternative is they could be using this argument as a proxy excuse for finally executing on their plans to encroach upon and annex our lands and resources in the disputed areas.”

“General Vasquez? What are you hearing from his side?”

“All systems are on Level 1 standby.”

Sara pounded the table with her fist. The sharp rap rattled her team. “Shit! We can’t go to war over Edgar’s fucking cute idea, can we?”

Rasha continued. “That Level 1 status presumably means our vast array of weapons are loaded and cocked. All conventional systems. Our mech’d and conventional troops. Robotic attack systems. Nuclear. Nano-weapons. Bioweapons. Eco-weapons. The gamut of deadly pandemonium. They know Vista alone has the power to lay waste to their entire shithole of a country, but only if we strike first.”

With eyes half-closed, Sara dropped her head and began to rub her temples. “This is not the first time we’ve nearly come to fisticuffs with those dickheads next door, and it’s likely not the last. As usual, the rest of the ministers will dance around the table for Ron and act like they’re doing something about this latest threat, but the only ones capable of saving the fucking world this time will be us. We’ve done it before. By ourselves and beyond the understanding of the idiot peons in our fucking country. Our comms and narratives have saved their asses and everyone else’s too many times. Shit. Something good better come out of our meeting. Something really good, because the press is on. Rasha, keep going. What of other nation-states. What the hell is Bolivar saying?”

“Um,” Rasha sighed, “not good there, either. Not the usual bluster and saber-rattling. We caught their troop movement shit late this afternoon, or yesterday afternoon, now about ten hours ago. Already, Bolivar is rifles-up on everything. Bomber-fighter groups are either deployed or actively deploying along the borders. Their rhetoric started a few days ago, not long after we released that flurry of reports among the various Latino channels in the area about Southern planning to poison their fishing waters, annex Dominica, and our other designated irritants.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Are you suggesting our attempt at disseminating some light misinformation their way may have caused them to deploy their troops? I can’t believe that.”

Rasha shook her head. “Not suggesting. Only saying there is an obvious timing correlation. Imp or Edgar’s AI might help assess the causal factors. Regardless, Corpus is reporting flight incursions over our border, both manned and drone. They know Westrich dares not do anything in haste, given Bolivar’s extensive conventional resources for war. Sure, we or any other oligarchy could devastate the more populated parts of that nation-state, but we’re talking most of Central and South America here. Expansive territories and land mass with tens of thousands of small cities. No way to wipe that off the map easily.”

“Yeah, let’s don’t speculate on what the generals may decide to do. We only need to begin messaging around it. I mean, we have thousands of kilometers of land border with them versus their Gulf of Mexico water border with Southern. We don’t want a war with those beasts to the south. Austin would be first to receive their rain from hell. Besides, this isn’t how we fight wars today, is it? We fight wars, shit, we fight with each other, mostly via misinformation. With narratives. Pepper that with occasional shows of force, genetic firecrackers over the walls, and Ron-style blustershit theatrics, but we never go all the way. It’s all about the narratives, and we’re the masters of that. We’re the fucking unappreciated foot soldiers who keep everyone from shooting at each other. What else?”

“I’ll briefly touch on the nation-states less directly involved, though some appear to be taking an active interest. I’ll start with Zhonghua.”

“What the fuck does Zhonghua care about our piss-ass skirmishes with Southern and Bolivar? None of their business.”

“You know they continue to expand their influence into Bolivar, so it may be understandable.”

“But fuck! They can’t want to weaken Westrich more that it has already been weakened. They now control half of the freaking world’s land and resources! Once America fell apart and split, we were clearly no fucking match for their largess and power. That war was lost by the twenties due to the fucking dysfunctional federal government. What is Zhonghua’s interest?”

“Your guess is as good as ours. Imp indicates it’s the old animosities and political divides, in part. I doubt if anyone sees huge differences between them and us politically. What’s left of the old America is centrally and AI-controlled, authoritarian-led, paranoid, citizen-monitored, Vistachitted, and driven by narratives that run an almost parallel course to Zhonghua’s own. Sure, they have allegiance to fewer demigod-like leaders while our continent has possibly more than its fair share, but the similarities between these geographically distant oligarchic technocracies are far greater than they ever were.”

“Don’t tell me they’re still pissed because of the Cold War from long ago. Imperialism. Shoving opium down their throats. Raping them economically and personally.”

“Old hatreds hardened them, for sure, and old hatreds die hard,” Rasha responded. “Sorry, but I shouldn’t speak for the foreign policy experts on Ron’s team.”

“But there are so many people of Asian descent in Westrich now. Why would they want a piece of us?”

“Maybe because they don’t control us?” Rasha questioned. “They effectively control most of the Eastern hemisphere, excepting Soviet and the Euro states. Africa remains a post-Debacle mess, but they’re also quite influential there. And same goes for Bolivar, though I doubt their influence goes too deep. Either way, they have an interest in whatever happens to the remains of America, be that for economic reasons or historical.”

Sara leaned back in her chair and pulled both hands through her hair. “Double fuck. What about Soviet, again? After discussing that, we must establish the narratives and roll them out pronto or else shit will avalanche downhill to all of us.”

Sasha flicked her hand beneath her jaw nervously “Unpredictable. Hard to assess how much their comms have exacerbated this situation. We’ve caught numerous stories generated presumably from the usual Soviet suspects. We can expect their old games, like threatening to annex Alaskan territory from Canada, or incursions up and down the coast. They’re a declining, penned-in bear with Zhonghua to the south and the fragmented Euro states to their west. Nowhere else to go but eastward and the substantially weakened and fragmented post-American clusterfuck. They’ll want to get involved in any fracas and make hay, maybe coming out of it with a bit more land and power at the conclusion.”

Sara raised her fist to her face, wanting to again slam it down hard on the table. “We fucking screwed this up, team. I don’t mean only the comms and narratives. I can’t tell how much of what we did was responsible for these latest international disputes, but for our sake, I’m hoping Imp sides with us and concludes this was a result of simmering rivalries, irrespective of our minor actions. Hoping he’ll conclude these tensions were building anyway. But the bigger fucking screw-up, the mother fucking master of all screw-ups, wasn’t us at all. It was, however, the dissolution of the United States. Shit, we’re seeing the consequences of that right now, aren’t we? Three lesser shitcan countries remain where a single powerful and cohesive one previously existed.”

Sara had her geopolitical hat on now and needed to get the frustrations out of her system.

“There’s a much stronger, coalesced set of Latin states to our south. And Canada, with all their resources to our north, is so unable and unwilling to participate in a global defense with us. And here we are in Westrich. One fucking, smaller nation-state arguably sandwiched between Canada, Southern, and Nemerica, with an unpredictable and volatile Bolivar snarling at our southern border. Talk about an itchy hemorrhoid. We are now the itchy hemorrhoid, what’s left of a country that once provided a global balance of power. Every other comer with long nails wants to scratch at our bulging ass pain until we bleed to death. Fucking Debacle. Fucking systems of governance, unable to change with the times. Those mother fucks who let what was a good, working system of government slide into dispute, disrepute, and disarray. They decided their fucking political parties were more important than the fucking country and citizens. Idiots! Their fucking static dogmas didn’t respond to the changes that were occurring. They were too perfect and fragile and lily white and couldn’t handle being tussled by the pains of compromise for the good of one nation. Royal, fearful, short-sighted dogmatic fucks, they were. Royal fucks!”

Surprised at Sara’s tirade, Sasha waited to see if she was finished, then continued. “Per your instructions, we developed comms plans, including prep for these most recent actions while you were heading back home.”

Sara lowered her fist, knowing a show of force here was to no benefit. “Get started, then. How are you messaging into the Southern cohorts? I expect you’re sending a raft of shit about their incursions and intentions. I want to be sure we burn the hot little asses in Southern who decided to send troops our way. I don’t want them to forget who they’re screwing with. Let’s get very personal with their array of demented oligarchs and the disgusting, salacious secrets we know about that vermin. Let’s fill the air with quarter-truths about their self-dealings, their allegiance only to money and power, and the lack of concern for their destitute citizens.”

“What about the Bible types?” Alice questioned.

“Of course. Since religion continues to play so strongly in Southern, let’s regurgitate that crap about their oligarchs being the devil’s agents of the apocalypse. Push out as much as we can about these fucks and the end of times. I want to provoke their despicable citizenry, undermine their rotting corpses, and resurrect any ill-will against them. No negative story should be buried in this ground. Let’s dig out all the shit in the cupboards with such fervor that their minds detonate into complete mental anarchy."