Rifted America- A Grim Vision of 2040s United States

The year is 2043. A young girl plays on the rooftop gardens of San Francisco as her parents watch from a nearby bench, calm smiles on their faces. The father is a patent lawyer at a iTech, formed in the Apple-Google merger of 2035. Her mother is a nurse at the San Francisco Hospital. Once there were many competing hospitals. But as the city closed itself off, there became only one big hospital, one that combined all the resources, expertise and infrastructure of the hospitals inside the Ring.

The girl waves at her parents and then sprints further off through the gardens, towards a tall clean white wall. As she approaches, a white Anduril drone floating above the wall dips down to meet her. The girl grins. She knows this drone. It’s Wally. If you couldn’t tell that people love Wally, you can tell as he closes in. His name is painted lovingly on his white metallic shell and there are other things too, little scribbles and doodles from the local children.

“Hi Wally!” the little girl chirps. The drone drifts a little closer.

“Hello Tasha.” it says in a friendly robotic voice. Tasha reaches up and tries to grab him and Wally sinks a little lower to allow her to embrace him in a hug. After a moment, she releases him and picks a flower off the ground.

“Wally. What is this flower called?” Tasha asks.

“It’s a dandelion. You should try blowing on it.” Wally says helpfully. Tasha leans forward and blows, the spores drifting through the air.

“Tasha!”-

Her mother is calling. Tasha waves and runs back in the direction she came. Wally watches the child leave and then returns to his orbit above the tall garden walls. For the first few years, there was no garden. Vertical farming had not been figured out until well into the 2030s, with some experiments going better than others. It was one of the many relatively small concerns of the city dwellers- how can we develop nature here?

Initially, there was hope that someday the Wilds might be salvageable. Up until 2033, many families still went camping and traveling out past what would later become the Ring. Crime had not risen to the levels we see today. The anarchy was not as expected. Rich people still lived in the country, not yet concerned about the increasingly hungry and desperate mobs that were forming. It was an inevitable, rapid and brutal decline. As automation, specifically through the use of robots, and AI became more prevalent, jobs had declined. The erosion of education, first by the gutting of the federal DoE (Department of Education) and then, later, at the state level by DOGE-esque spinoffs, left the working class with little in the way of usable skills and knowledge.

There were still trades, but trades mean very little when there’s nothing to fix. Everyone with money to pay for repairs had moved. The tradesmen in the Ring weren’t tradesmen in the traditional sense at all, but rather gifted supervisors, capable of using AI, robots and Old America know-how to fix problems quickly and efficiently. They once regarded themselves as men of practicality, the type of men for whom a college degree was frivolous and unneeded to make their way in the world. Now, their knowledge and skills made up a large part of the curriculum of the School of Domestic Engineering.

Wally floats along the border wall. A blue alert pops up in the corner of his viewport. A red heat signature along the edge of the Ring. Assessment needed. Wally zooms down towards the source at surprising speed. He drifts around the corner of a run down building and sees-

A dirty, disheveled boy of about 14, digging through one of the many dumpsters outside the Ring. This dump spot is fairly new, placed there only recently after the recent “fires.” The Government says the fires happen because of faulty old wiring, or perhaps some gasoline that was lying around. These are mostly lies. Everytime a fire happens, the Ring gets bigger, and the Underclass is pushed back. Their Scavenging Grounds grows a little smaller bit by bit. Sometimes it’s more controversial than others. In San Francisco, the fires destroyed many up and coming businesses the Underclass relied on, businesses they loved. And in a few months, construction began on more infrastructure for the Ring. A police academy, a manufacturing plant, a boarding school. These were common uses. A police academy kept force near where it was needed. The plant’s pollution was angled out, away from the rest of the Ring. The boarding school, which was free for the best performing students from the Wilds, was typical as well.

Tanner, the 14 year old boy holds up his hands as Wally approaches. A horizontal beam of blue light scans him up and down. Unarmed, frightened, underweight. Hungry. He’s not a problem. He’ll probably be back tomorrow. Let him take a potato or whatever he might find and leave. No need to escalate. If he were older, or there were more numbers, perhaps it would be a different story. But Wally’s assessment and targeting programs, APOLLO by Palintir, found him to be a non-issue. This time.

Tanner’s parents were amp-heads. This was clear to Wally. He could detect the traces of it’s use on Wally’s own clothes, even in his skin at the genetic level. Wally knew exactly who Tanner was. APOLLO was a comprehensive program, capable of sorting and assessing targets by nearly every category imaginable. Gender, race, sexuality, political affiliation, height, weight…blood type, eye color. You name it, it had it. All data that was dispensed and also collected by the Skylink satellites floating above that could record and scan area down to the nearest inch. But Tanner wasn’t a threat. He was just hungry.

His parents were amp-heads. They loved him. But they didn’t eat much, because you don’t need to eat when you’re high on street cooked, dirty amphetamines and you don’t think much about your kids either. On a good day, they ate twice. Other days once. Tanner had only eaten three times a day a few times, all birthdays and he had been the only one to eat the third meal. The same for his brothers and sister.

It wasn’t always like this. It had begun with pain, as many things do. In 2029, Tanner was born to Riley and Anna Jones. Riley was a construction worker. When Tanner was three, a cinderblock injured Riley’s arm, leaving him unable to work. Riley had worked construction since he was 18. He hadn’t done well in school. It simply wasn’t important. Men were men in that time, or so they say. But with a crippled arm and a young child at home, a man needs help. There was none. Social programs had been gutted, their last vestiges dying in 2027 due to low staffing. You could call, but there may have only been one worker if that. Congress, with a narrow Republican Senate and a Democrat House, was in gridlock. Many wondered why they even existed anymore. No one was coming to help and if they would have, it would’ve taken a long time.

Unable to afford treatment for traditional painkillers, Riley found another route- amphetamines. It didn’t feel great, but he could at least make a passing effort at work. For a while. But then they stopped building. There was no point. No one was moving there and those that lived there did so because they couldn’t afford to move. The Jones family just barely made it to the edge of San Francisco. They would get no further.

The Jones family wasn’t rich, but they weren’t poor either. They knew this because the real poor had already show themselves. The brutal deportation methods, which led to stagnant immigration, had left less people to pick the fruit or process the meat. Markets move towards mass and this meant that the people outside the city and surrounding suburbs found empty shelves to be a new reality.

Riots ensued in the Wilds. Thousands dead in each state. In Alabama there was a race war. In Louisiana, martial law. No one lived in South Dakota anymore. Most of Chicago outside the Loop had burned. Atlanta had been partially firebombed, though there was a small Ring near Buckhead. In southern Virginia, cancer had become an epidemic. No one was sure, but rumors were they dumped something in the water there. Northern Maine was okay. Probably because for all intents and purposes, it was part of Canada.

In West Texas, a minister places a hand on trembling child. Jesus saves. He was sure of it. But as the child coughed and choked, he wasn’t so sure. And when the rag they used to cover it’s mouth came back red and bloody, the minister took a break to pour a big glass of moonshine. He thought of a passage he had read once, some Communist fiction he had somehow remembered:

“Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling upon the Bog of Allen and, further westwards, falling into the waves. It was falling too upon every part of the churchyard where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay drifted on the crosses and headstones, on the spears of the gate, on the thorns. His soul swooned as he heard the snow falling through the universe and falling, like the descent of their end, upon all the living and the dead.”

But there is no snow in Texas. But sometimes, when the wind blows in the evening, the silence whispers of the dead.

On their way home, Tasha and her parents pass by one of the storage facilities for the vertical farms. There’s a surplus and the young woman standing outside says as much. Tomato is Tasha’s favorite fruit and this one, which she gets for free, is delicious. As she eats, her parents talk with the young woman. She’s a college student, at San Francisco American and she volunteers in exchange for tuition, her entire tuition. Education is an obligation in the Ring, as is service. They ask whether she’s seen “BrightLove”, Hollywood’s latest marvel, a film that questions whether AI and robots should be treated as equals, perhaps even given the right to vote and own property. It’s up for an Oscar. They don’t know this yet-but it wins.

New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, even Washington (though cynically, one might say especially Washington) are mostly the same. The Rings there are huge. The Intelligentsia flocked there in droves as the devolution of the Wilds became more and more clear. Miami has had a renaissance as floating structures have become more common. The factories for the floating foundations are in Detroit, Michigan and the testing ground is Lake Eerie and Lake St. Clair. A city once thought lost to automation now produces one of the most important products in the world and is on the front line of battling climate change. It was a switch as impressive as it was improbable and it would have never happened without the help of Canadian (formerly American) scientists. When the conservative government of the mid 2020s gutted science, American scientists left in droves. But they didn’t go far and when their country needed help, they returned and Canada let them. That’s what friends do.

When they arrive at home, it’s nice and toasty. It’s simple, sleek apartment, but it has enough room for a family. The smell of a warm pork roast fills the air. It’s not real pig, but lab grown. L-12, known affectionately as Elle, sets the table. The family eats and then Tasha’s parents drink wine and watch a movie in the living room while Elle reads a bedtime story to Tasha in her cozy little room.

"I wish that I could give you something... but I have nothing left. I am an old stump. I am sorry..."
"I don't need very much now," said the boy, "just a quiet pleace to sit and rest. I am very tired."
"Well," said the tree, straightening herself up as much as she could,
"well, an old stump is a good for sitting and resting. Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest."
And the boy did.
And the tree was happy.”

“Why did he cut down the tree?” Tasha asks, sadness welling in her little voice. Perhaps sadness is a river. This story is too mature for her. Elle should’ve known this, but Tasha is an only child. There will be more. And Tasha will not always be this small. Elle is a stump.

“For money.” Elle says plainly, her tone sweet but still robotic. She is a robot after all. The child begins to cry. She doesn’t understand.

“Why did he need money so bad? He hurt his friend!” Tasha asks. Elle holds her and closes the book. She can’t answer the child’s questions and so she doesn’t.

“I would never do anything like that to you.” Tasha says finally, as her tears begin to dry. Elle squeezes her gently. The machine is fully charged, just like every night. If something were to happen, in the event of a nuclear blast, she would be able to withstand 4 days without solar power. It would be enough to get Tasha to safety. It is the deepest unique protocol embedded in her cortex.

The world is less stable now than it was before. Nuclear armaments abound all developed nation. It is not for protection, but for finality. Gone are the days of American military dominance in the West. The United States Military is not what it once was. Private defense companies protect the Rings using the same tech they once dreamed of turning on those they considered “dissidents.” Only as things began to unravel and those dissidents made up more of the people with skills the corporations needed did they have a change of heart. Tasha knows nothing of this. BecauseTasha is nine.

In an abandoned town in Colorado, a wolf howls at the moon, an ode to freedom and blood. The high tides lap at the shores of the Gulf Coast, little crabs crawling along the sandy coastlines. In New York, the streets are alive with noise. In southern Missouri, a man watches fire dance on a broken flatscreen, occasionally reaching down to feed chunks of cooked horse to the tabby cat that he keeps. It’s quiet. He won’t be found here.

There is no formal structure to a collapse. Sometimes things cave in, other times they inflate and balloon. Other times they just rot. And where some places it is a collapse, in others, it is simply a separation, or a weakening. Things fall apart. Sometimes they don’t get put back together. When bottom drops out, there is no telling who or what will be sucked into it’s maw. And perhaps worse, no telling what will come out.

In a year there will be an election. Over 62 million Americans will vote. In the Rings, Americans will log their vote on the status console located in their apartment, or, if they do not have on, at the plentiful amount of public consoles available. In the Wilds, the millions who can will flock to the Annexes, which are located in the military guarded compounds near the Rings. There are around 29 Annexes. They’re distributed across the country, but there’s more of them in the South and Midwest. These were the first areas to collapse.

The plan had been simple. Gut the federal government, privatize it’s functions, slowly impoverish millions through “economic policy.” Eventually, the President was to become little more than a figurehead, the CEO of the Company That Would Be America. The Board of America? Rich, politically sympathetic billionaires. They would build cities, glorious corporate cities where they would rule, with no regulations or laws to bind them, with private AI powered armies and strict labor enforcement. It was a plan, but in reality it was the fever dream of men who had long ago shed the idea of man and embraced the veneer of god.

It was the hospitals first. Without the federal assistance to pay for care, many hospitals faced a grim ultimatum- close or go bankrupt and close anyway. They took the money and built somewhere else. When all was said and counted, corporate would describe the move as a clear success. With the hospitals, the workers. Good jobs that paid well and put money in the community. Soon there really wasn’t much money floating around. As the bellies began to rumble and the voices began to cry out, the Beast in Washington had sneered back that this is what they had voted for. As pastoral America was restored to the Wild, one thing became clear- They weren’t hurting the wrong people. This was exactly what had always been planned.

The South had been the first to really implode. It had always been a powder keg, for hundreds of years now. It only took 18 days. The violence was brutal and discriminate, spread along racial lines, then class lines, then both. The military was deployed but it was unclear who they were killing. Not everyone, but anyone. Gas, water, food, cash, guns and ammo. The power grids were destroyed on Day 13 and America stepped forward into that darkness like a bride in the Wedding of the Dead. For those who believed, this was the Rapture. For those who did not, it was simply Hell.

But, as time passed, America persisted, wounded and mutated. Even as we ripped ourselves apart, inevitably there were ways we found to glue ourselves together, even if they were ugly, painful and cruel. After the initial surge, the Wilds settled down. Settlements began to grow again. Trade, made possible by the drone protected highway systems, allowed businesses, schools to form. Money and support came from many sources. The federal government, the Church of Forgiveness in Cascadia, the Euro-American Aid Coalition. A new Chinese Belt-and-Road initiative was born. The Vatican urged support and prayers. A new order came into being and for those who who knew, it was worse, but for those born after, it simply was.

But even as all this happened, the Rings happened faster. The flight of white collar America to the cities wasn’t instant, but it was very fast. The so-called “Coastal Elites”, the aristocracy, the Intelligentsia, had found a safe haven to sequester themselves, whether it be the relatively idyllic sprawl of New England, the heavily militarized Rings in Gulf or the technologically advanced Cascadian cities on the West Coast. It was a new way of life and for some, perhaps a better way of living. But like everything that transpired, it came at great cost, a cost that would seem more and more pointless to those who caused it as time went by.

The 30s was a decade of strife but also progress. Like an animal with a lost limb, the Rings advanced and adapted drastically in their own ways. The Government of New Orleans formed global trade alliances, as well as domestic alliances with the rings in Houston, Dallas, Austin and Miami. by 2050, the Gulf Coast Exclusion zone would form, a state in it’s own right that would stretch from Brownsville to Pensacola. New York, after withstanding years of unrest, came out stronger, a veritable nation state akin to Singapore. The West Coast, which had always had prominent tech hubs, were now effectively free of federal regulations, allowing them to develop highly advanced technology. Among the biggest initial beneficiaries of this were the Rings in Omaha and Denver. By 2039, advancements in air travel created wider economic collaboration between the Rings. It was understood that soon, the time would come to rebuild America. All of it.

After Tasha drifts off to sleep, Elle emerges into the living room. The two adults, Owen and Sidney have finished their movie, as well as their bottle of wine.

“Elle. How is she?” Sidney says softly. Owen has dozed off, his head propped on her shoulder.

“She’s sleeping. She was…upset by the story tonight. I apologize.” Elle says. Elle waits for Sidney’s response. She can be a bit cold at times, protective, but it’s to be expected. She was orginally from the Reno ring. In 2043, there is no Reno ring. But tonight, the wine has hit and Sidney smiles and waves it off.

“That’s okay. Tomorrow you can read her a different one.” Sidney says with a shrug. She gets up and Owen, fully passed out, falls over onto the couch.

“Can you move him? To our room?” Sidney asks. Elle nods and picks up the sleeping man. She carries him into their bedroom and lays him softly on the mattress.

“Thank you. Goodnight Elle.” Sidney says with a yawn.

“Goodnight.” Elle says. Then she exits quietly, closing the door behind her.

Elle walks across the living room and looks out the horizontal window. Down below, people walk along the illuminated streets of the San Francisco Ring. A group of young people stagger home from one of the clubs. An older man walks his dog and blows vaporizer smoke in the air. Wally hovers overhead, surveying the scene.

In the apartment it is quiet. Elle stands by her window in low power mode, seeing, thinking, waiting. She will be there all night.

There will be more stories about Rifted America to come.