Three-tour marine veterans battle weekend warriors. Neo-Nazis and fascist-anarchists fight Jesus-patriots, paintball champions, and evangelists of the God King. Though they disagree on most things, they all ascribe to what can best be described as hyperfreedom. The old way of eliminating obstacles to individual choice has become unsatisfactory, because one is always stopped from achieving true independence by the constraints of reality—that is, we live in a nation of laws and taxes, where the few make rules for the many. With hyperfreedom, the movement realized they could expand personal freedom ad infinitum, releasing all Americans to do, say, or believe anything they choose, individually.
The men on this airfield, and they are mostly men, would rather die than live another second in what they call Illegitimate America, ruled illegally by a false king, a king dedicated to controlling their thoughts and actions, to telling them what to believe, a king who demands they teach their children that all police are racists, that whites should apologize for some four-hundred-year-old bygone.
And so, when the Prophet and Samson look around, they see flat-earthers and debt-hawk libertarians, anti-Semites and Orthodox Jews, anti-vaxxers, incels, and enlisted men. Their captors either hate cops or they are cops, shooting their guns in the air like Mexican revolutionaries in an old John Ford movie. The Legalize Marijuana Coalition is smoking skunk weed in the motor pool. The Tyler Durdens are punching corpses. There are Green Berets and Klan knights in the guard towers. They know the war isn’t over yet because wars never end. Now is not the time to relax. They know the enemy is out there—that vile opposition—and that the enemy is more powerful than they are, even though their enemy is mostly unarmed, because believing they are facing an evil empire causes fear, and facing their fear makes them feel righteous and heroic. These are the things men do to feel real.
The next morning, the Prophet and Samson are woken from their cement floor slumber and dragged onto the tarmac. The sun is a fiery red ball igniting the sky. Soot blizzards down around them, covering everything in fine ash. Shirtless muscle boys lift weights near the refueling station, music blaring from inside an M1150 Assault Breacher vehicle, Nine Inch Nails on autorepeat.
I wanna fuck you like an animal.
I wanna feel you from the inside.
The Tyler Durdens have been put in charge of base security. They stand shirtless under an orange sky, chemical lip burns scarring their hands. Some have black skull bandannas tied over their noses and mouths. Their leader wears a bandolier around his bare chest. He is a deity of sit-ups and Alex Jones vitamin supplements.
“Boys, boys,” he says, grinning. “Project Mayhem es aqui. Can you feel the burn?”
The Prophet gets to his feet. He has found a pair of glasses with a somewhat similar prescription, but the left lens is cracked. He adjusts them now on his face.
“We want to thank you,” he says, “for aiding us in our time of need. But we’re on a mission from God, and we must leave.”
Boss Durden steps toward the Prophet. The sky above him is apocalypse orange.
You tear down my reason
(Help me) it’s your sex I can smell.
“You are not special,” he says. “You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.”
Samson runs a hand through his matted hair. He has been awake all night, trying to plan their escape.
“Brothers,” he says, “what a glorious day. Can you believe it? The revolution is finally here. What can we do to help?”
“You can clean the shitter,” says one of the masked Durdens. The others laugh.
The Prophet takes a deep breath. When he exhales, smoke comes from between his teeth. This is how choked the air is from wildfires burning uphill.
“You’re afraid,” he says. “We understand.”
The Durdens stop laughing.
“In moments of existential angst,” says the Prophet, “beings as a whole slip away, so that just the nothing crowds round. That’s Heidegger. You should like him. He was a Nazi, too. Das Nichts selbst nichtet.”
One of the Durdens pulls a large hunting knife.
“Dude,” says Samson, putting a hand on the Prophet’s arm. “Cut it out.”
But the Prophet is done being a prisoner. He has someplace to be, a holy mission, and no shirtless poser with a five-dollar philosophy of macho nihilism is going to stop him.
“God talked to me all night,” he tells them, “all night lying on a concrete floor. His voice was the hum of cables deep underground. You will let us go, or face His wrath.”
“Tyler,” shouts the Durden with the knife.
“Yes, Tyler,” shouts the boss, drill sergeant-like.
“Can I cut him now?”
“Please.”
Knife Durden dances forward, slashing the air. “This is your life, kid,” he says, “and it’s ending one minute at a time.”
Samson sighs. Like a one-eared pit bull, he was raised by his father to fight. Part of him always knew it would come to this. He unbuckles his belt, pulls it through the loops.
“God,” says the Prophet, raising his voice, “is unhappy.”
Samson steps in front of the Prophet, snaps his belt between his hands.
Knife Durden feints a lunge.
You let me violate you
You let me desecrate you.
“With Noah it was the flood,” shouts the Prophet. “In Sodom and Gomorrah, He turned the sinners to stone. Look around you. The sky is burning. What did He tell us—no more flood, the fire next time.”
Knife Durden spins, slashing. Samson steps back. He flicks his wrist, and the belt buckle catches Knife Durden just below the left ear, drawing blood. Two other Durdens step forward. The Prophet moves into the center, his hands raised.
“You will let us go or feel His wrath.”
The Durdens stare at him, losing interest in the circus. Some of them are hungover. The rest are still drunk. The sooner they filet these boys, the sooner they can find some Marla Singers to violate. Samson tightens the belt around his right hand, ready for the next wave.
Boss Durden steps forward, pulling a revolver from his belt. He aims it at the Prophet’s face. “There is no God,” he says.
An explosion rocks the hangar behind them, blowing hot debris ahead of it like a shove. Simultaneously, they hear the scream of an incoming missile, and the M1150 Assault Breacher explodes, blowing the Durdens off their feet.