by Spenser Mestel

At first, when the four men burst through the double doors to the office, Amy thought they were there to fix the high-speed envelope opener. It had been broken for the past day and a half, and Amy missed its gentle whirring as she slogged through hours of absentee ballot signature verification. That was how she’d settle into a rhythm: zmmmmmm, zmmmmm as she checked the loops of the Ls and Os, zmmmmm, zmmmmm again for the Ps and Bs. The work wasn’t enjoyable, but it helped Amy tune out the rest of the office and all of the nonsense outside, on the other side of the parking lot. In the machine’s absence, she’d even started humming quietly to herself, zmmmmm, zmmmmmm.

Distracted by a particularly flourishing Q, Amy didn’t look up until Charity gasped. That’s when she caught the tail end of what one of the men was saying.

 “ — liars and traitors,” he announced, pausing for effect. Over the past four years, Amy had heard that phrase so often that she almost went back to the signatures. Just that morning, three days after Election Day, she’d heard it and much worse as she walked into work. But unlike the protestors lining the building, this man didn’t shout or point an accusatory finger or spit in Amy’s direction. He seemed timid, almost apologetic, avoiding eye contact with any of the dozen people in the office.

“And that is why we’re here today,” he finished. His speech sounded robotic, like a groomsman who’s rehearsed a few too many times, and no one moved except for Charity, who looked around and raised her hands toward her chin as if she might start clapping.

After three or four awkward seconds, the man inhaled, puffed up his chest, and gestured with two fingers at opposite corners of the large room. On that cue, the three other men dispersed. One locked the doors behind them, one shuttered the blinds on all the windows, and one walked toward Amy and stood beside the stack of ballots she was working through. The operation had the appearance of military precision, though Amy noticed each of the men periodically looking down at his hand, as if he’d written instructions to himself.

Amy had seen guns in poll sites more times than she could remember — Arizona is, after all, an open carry state — but never a knife, never so close.

Still, no one in the office reacted. This clearly wasn’t a joke or a drill, but it was hard to know just how seriously to take it. Threats had become part of the background noise of the office, the new whirring of the envelope opener, and no one really noticed the calls, emails, texts, and

handwritten letters anymore. The previous week, when a caller had told Stephen that they were going to kill him and his bitch wife, he’d just laughed and said the divorce went through two years ago.

Still, no one in the office reacted. This clearly wasn’t a joke or a drill, but it was hard to know just how seriously to take it. Threats had become part of the background noise of the office, the new whirring of the envelope opener, and no one really noticed the calls, emails, texts, and handwritten letters anymore. The previous week, when a caller had told Stephen that they were going to kill him and his bitch wife, he’d just laughed and said the divorce went through two years ago.

On Election Day, turnout had been so high, and the office had been so short-staffed, that Amy and the other co-director had to help their poll workers on-site. This was how Amy got her start in elections 20 years earlier, checking in voters and handing them their ballots. Looking back now, it was the best part of her career, especially cheering for the first-time voters. The kids who’d just turned 18 would blush and stare at the floor, but the newly naturalized citizens would clap and smile and sometimes tear up, and then Amy would tear up, too. That was what Amy liked most: welcoming someone into a process that seemed intimidating at first. But those days were over.

By 6am on Election Day, a line of voters already snaked through the parking lot multiple times, the air hot even before sunrise. Amy was stationed at the front, behind a collapsible table that would sit in the shade only until midday. From this vantage point, it seemed like every third person was filming themselves shouting and pointing at her and the rest of the staff.

Around noon, Amy called up a man in his late 50s wearing a white cowboy hat and black leather jacket. As he approached her table, he gestured as if reaching for his wallet, sweeping his hand from the front pocket of his jeans to the back. In the process, he revealed a gleaming silver switchblade tucked into his waistband.

Amy had seen guns in poll sites more times than she could remember — Arizona is, after all, an open carry state — but never a knife, never so close. She noticed how the man ran his pointer finger over the spine of the blade, slowly, as if checking a tabletop for dust. “Name?” she asked, smiling and pretending not to notice. The man, silent, caressed the handle without fully grabbing it and grinned. “Name?” Amy said more forcefully than she’d intended. He kept his closed-lip smile above a dark brown goatee.

Out of the corner of her eye, Amy searched for a security guard but knew it would be no help anyway. Then, she didn’t know where to look. The switchblade and the man’s smile, both equally unnerving, expanded until they dominated her field of vision. She could barely exhale. She couldn’t swallow. “Name?” she nearly whispered. “Wayne Browning III,” the man said, rubbing the blade again. Amy stared at the list in front of her, relieved for an excuse to divert her eyes. The man cleared his throat. “Mr. Browning, it says you already voted by mail. Is that correct?” A second of silence, and then he finally let go of the knife and stroked his chin. “Oh that’s right,” he said, grinning once more. “I must have forgotten.”

So were these four men now in the office just filming another stunt to put on Twitter along with all the others? Amy looked at them again. They were all white, about average height, and probably in

Panting, Jeff grabbed his pistol by the barrel and raised it above his head.

their mid 40s. No buzz cuts or military boots, not even masks covering their faces. They all wore unironed khakis and button-downs, and Amy eyed the man next to her. His shirt still had the folded creases from the packaging.

For a brief moment, she wondered how they’d made it past security at the building’s entrance, but she already knew. She’d spent most of October liaising with the Maricopa County police, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security. Each had made unconvincing attempts at being helpful — keep documenting those threats! — and they were even more useless after Election Day went off without a catastrophe. Now is the period that the office is most vulnerable, she’d told them, when the results are still in question and the disinformation is spreading fastest. But on November 5, every county, state, and federal officer had disappeared, leaving behind just the hourly security guards who no longer looked up from their phones to check Amy’s ID.

Back in the office, Amy noticed a badge clipped to the man’s breast pocket. The printer they’d used was clearly running out of toner, but she could just make out his name (Greg) and the employer: Elect-Tronic. Incredible, she thought. Not even the machine vendor we use. She looked again at the sad, idle envelope opener.

Amy was so lost in her head, fantasizing about what she’d say to those arrogant prick sheriffs later that night, that she didn’t see the ringleader unholster his gun and point it in the air. She just heard Charity scream and then collapse to the ground.

“Yeah, that’s right,” the leader said, his voice fading slightly at the end. He looked at Charity cowering below him. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said again, louder and now wagging the gun at her. “You all need to get on the fucking ground.” No one moved. “Did I fucking stutter?” the ringleader screamed, walking around the office and pushing the employees down.

When he approached Amy, she saw his name tag: Jeff. In anticipation, she held the side of the table and prepared to slowly lower down on her good knee, but he passed her by without even making eye contact. No surprise. The long silver hair, the chunky turquoise jewelry, the flowy dress, crocheted sweater, and light pink lipstick. Why would this man consider her a threat? Why would he take her any more seriously than the spokeswoman from the FBI who kept calling her Annie?

But before Amy had the opportunity to feel offended, she saw Stephen. Everyone else had gotten the hint and lay down on the ground, their hands behind their heads, but Stephen, all six-foot-three of him, was standing with his arms folded. Jeff beelined toward him.

“Are you a fucking hero?” Jeff shouted in Stephen’s face. “I said get on the ground,” he grunted, trying to push down on Stephen’s shoulders. But at five-eight, Jeff wasn’t tall enough to get leverage and looked like a younger brother trying to get a boost to see over the neighbor’s fence. Stephen smirked. Red faced and huffing, Jeff changed tacts and kicked Stephen. If he had been aiming for the back of Stephen’s knees, he missed, and Stephen’s smirk morphed into a smile. Panting, Jeff grabbed his pistol by the barrel and raised it above his head.

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It was a half hour until showtime, and as Angelica’s assistant explained to her what was happening in Maricopa County, she knew she had to be careful. She’d been burned too many times by assholes promising to have proof of voter fraud, only to show up on her late-morning show with 100 pages of computer code. What the fuck was she supposed to do with that? Print it on t-shirts and sell them through her website?

After the last segment, her boss had been livid. “Listen here,” he’d screamed from behind his desk, Angelica not even yet in his office. “Before you put this company at legal risk again” — she rolled her eyes — “you better have a video of George Soros photocopying ballots while he finger-blasts Hilary Clinton.” Angelica struggled to picture the scene in question but got the point.

She knew she’d put them on the air, of course, but she had to “nail the frame,” as her college debate coach would say: make these boys sympathetic without condoning the violence. A story about election fraud had to be fresh, surprising, something more than the concerning irregularities in the voting process that she’d been pushing for weeks without much success. That, she suspected, was the real reason her boss had been so angry with her lately. Not that she was riding the razor’s edge of defamation, but that election fraud no longer made her audience so denture-shatteringly feral.

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Amy helped clean the cut on Stephen’s neck. She didn’t have more medical training than anyone else in the office. She just subconsciously knew it was expected of her, like remembering the birthdays of everyone in the office. It wasn’t a deep cut, though. Jeff had seemingly lost his nerve halfway through and barely scratched Stephen below the chin.

“I think I can grab that gun from him,” Stephen said quietly, the noise from the kitchen faucet drowning out his voice from the man ostensibly guarding them a few feet away. “And from there —”

“Stephen, have you lost your mind?” Amy interrupted, leaning in and pretending to dab his neck with a paper towel. “The only thing we need to be saved from right now is a bad idea like that.” He scowled.

“But a thing like this, in my office?”

“Our office.”

“In our office? What kind of message does that send to the other election officials? That hostage takers can just waltz in whenever they want!”

“Stephen, do these men look like hostage takers?” Amy darted her eyes toward the man behind them. He was facing the wall and staring at a motivational poster, his hands clasped behind his back like a hall monitor.

“Well, look what they’re capable of,” Stephen said, pointing to his neck. Amy raised an eyebrow.

“Look,” she said. “These kids are no different from the other nut cases. They want to hoot and holler for social media, but it’s nothing more than that.”

“But the certification deadline,” Stephen said. “If we don’t verify those absentees by the 13th. . .” He gulped and stared into the distance. This was quintessential Stephen: either desperate to be a hero or coming apart completely. Amy patted his hand. “It’s okay, Stephen,” she said. “We’ve still got plenty of time, and they don’t call me the Sig Verifying Machine for nothing.” He half smiled.

“But what about the ballots?” he said. “If they touch even one, it’s over. I mean, we’re under how many federal lawsuits? Five?”

“Stephen. . .”

“And the Curling case, that’s six.” His voice was starting to rise.

“Stephen. . .”

“Not to mention the cases in state court.” He was practically yelling now.

“Stephen!” Amy whispered, squeezing his forearm. “Do you still have that box of sample

ballots those high schoolers filled out?” she asked.

“From Alhambra High? Yeah, I think they’re in my office.”

“Okay, you’re going to say you need to use the bathroom while I have a nice chat with this hostage taker behind us.” She nodded toward the man, who was now picking his teeth, and smiled. “Then you’re going to grab that box and set it somewhere discreet.” She squeezed his forearm again. “Somewhere discreet. When they find it on their own — on their own — they’ll be so gung-ho that they caught a chain of custody violation that they’ll film their little video and hit the road.”

“Oh God,” Stephen said, his real anxiety morphing into hyperbolic anxiety. “Not another one of those TikToks.”

“Yes,” Amy said. “One of those TikToks, and hopefully Charity will volunteer to dance in the background for that one, too.”

“Is that what she was doing yesterday? Dancing?”

They both laughed.

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As Angelica learned more about what was happening in Maricopa, she realized that she already knew the plan. She was stunned. Though she’d spent her entire working life surrounded by overconfident men, she never imagined that these boys would follow through on what was, generously, a shot in the dark with no coherent exit plan.

Angelica had “met” the Maricopa Four on the internet forum dedicated to investigating election fraud. She’d joined about a year ago, when she was even more desperate for material, and DMed the most active users, who posted 10, 20, 30 times a day. To seem more credible, she’d suggest moving to an obscure messaging app with a strangely erotic name, like Hush or Quiver. “Keep this quiet,” she’d write, “but a friend of mine works at The Network.” They were sometimes suspicious, so she’d spoon feed them details about her assistant. His cell number. The name of his apartment building. A picture of him walking into the studios.

Whenever they found a laptop, they carried it to the front of the room, which made Amy nervous for the first time.

information would be there, waiting in her inbox. The next morning, she’d include it on her show and thank the “anonymous patriot source” with a wink. She was proud that she’d cultivated her own private research team, one far more committed and less scrupulous than the Network’s. She’d never taken seriously the pseudo-military, dick-measuring daydreaming they’d done. But now here they were, armed hostage-takers. And here she was, scrambling to nail the frame.

What to do? She knew legal would try to kill the story — she rolled her eyes again — but she was mostly concerned about the optics. These were some of the most pedantic users on the Forum, and she couldn’t subject her viewers, let alone herself, to another rant about the sovereign citizen movement. Plus, these boys didn’t have proof of anything, at least nothing that her viewers would understand. She could already see them holding up a spreadsheet and whining into the camera, “but it’s all here in the CVR,” as if anyone knew what the fuck a cast vote record was.

And then it appeared, like a divine vision.

Ammon Bundy. She’d do exactly what she did with Ammon Bundy and the rest of the secessionists out in Oregon. Or were they white supremacists? Or anti-vaxxers? Who could remember what it was they wanted; she probably never asked. Because as far as her viewers were concerned, all that mattered was that these lone men faced a tyrannical government hellbent on destroying them. They weren’t heroes, that was a step too far, even for the Network. But they were rugged outlaws, brave militiamen. Someone you could cosplay as.

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Amy had half expected Stephen to leave the box of sample ballots in the middle of the floor with a sign that said “TOP SECRET: DON’T OPEN.” But he’d done a good job, placing it halfway under the table where Amy had been doing her signature verification. That was smack dab in the center of the office, yet it ended up taking the men nearly a half hour to find.

They had started by searching everyone in the office, first for cell phones and then for weapons (Charity had the largest collection of cuticle scissors Amy had ever seen). After that, they combed over the premises, flipping through binders, poring over folders in the file cabinet, and opening every drawer in every desk. Whenever they encountered a laptop, they carried it to the front of the room, which made Amy nervous for the first time.

If they took those computers, it really would be impossible to finish certifying the results before the state’s deadline. Even worse, the office was about the size of a high school gymnasium. Most of the space was occupied by boxes of ballots, work stations, and the envelope opener (Amy sighed again), and if the men continued at their glacial pace, they’d barely finish before the municipal primary next April.

As much as she didn’t want to intervene, Amy had to take action. In the same sing-songy lilt she used with the first-time voters, about an octave above her speaking 

and tactfully turn down the job they’d offer him in the new administration. Oh no, he’d say. I’m quite happy as a software engineer. After weeks of following up to no response, he maxed out his individual contributions to their campaigns, hoping to at least get a thank-you call.

He realized then that the message would be stronger if it came from a unified group, so he’d tried to foster a community. He always gave feedback on other people’s Forum posts and checked in on users who weren’t active for a day or two. In early October, he’d organized a meet-up at Betty’s BBQ Shack, which is when he’d met the other three. They were skeptical of his plan, suspicious of each other, a bit oblivious and just as combat unready as he was. But they were motivated. Like him, they recognized that the threats weren’t working and believed that if someone finally walked into the elections department and demanded answers, they would get them.

The morning of the Plan, Jeff still had unanswered questions, like what the ballot printer would actually look like. That was okay. He trusted himself to figure it out. So hours before sunrise, he double-checked his Jeep for the laminated name tags, plastic zip ties, iPhone gimbal, slacks and dress shirts he’d bought for the Group, and the guns he’d borrowed from his brother-in-law. Then he picked up each guy from his house, greeting him with a fist bump and a cup of coffee. They were all nerves, shaking as they sipped their drinks, and he’d had to exude confidence for everyone’s sake. But when they first barged through the double-doors and the entire room had turned to face him, he’d almost backed down. Now he saw that his actions had produced results, which both energized and calmed him. At last, he savored, people are paying attention. 

“Let me see that,” Jeff said to Greg, gesturing him closer. When Greg handed him the phone, he stared at it for a second, feeling its weight in his hand. If the State was ready to crush them, Jeff decided, then they must rise to the occasion. He threw the phone at the envelope opener as hard as he could. It hit the metal base with a deep ting and thudded to the ground, its screen shattered.

“Did you idiots already forget the plan?” Jeff yelled, pointing to each one in turn. “Did you forget why we’re here, in broad daylight, with no masks and wearing name tags with our real names? Now why would we do something so stupid, Ryan Starwood?” He turned from Ryan to the third man. “Or maybe you know, Patrick Brower.” Patrick winced. “Or how about you, Greg Costins?” Greg still stared across the room at the broken phone. “Well I, Jeffrey Liffin Drona, haven’t forgotten the plan,” he said. Slowly, he turned away from his friends to address the circle of onlookers around them. “Now, Greg,” he bellowed, not bothering to face him, “why aren’t we wearing masks?”

Silence.

Jeff repeated the question, this time louder and more assertive, his hands on

Once they were convinced she was legit, Angelica would ask for something impossible, like the staff roster of a Chinese factory that makes the memory boards for Elect-Tronic machines. No more than a few hours later, the

“You think we don’t know that the binary code bullshit you posted is just a decoy?”

voice, she offered to help Greg find whatever it was they were looking for. Before he had a chance to respond, Jeff interrupted. “Don’t trust a word she says,” he growled, leaning over a potted plant so he could inspect behind and underneath it. “She’s probably the one who hid it.”

“Hid what?” Amy asked.

“Hid what?” Jeff imitated in a falsetto, scrunching his face.

“The CVR,” Greg said.  

“The CVR?” Amy repeated, so surprised she dropped down to her normal pitch.

“Remember what I said,” the leader yelled, “she’s a liar.”

“I’m sorry,” Amy said, remembering to smile. “It’s just that — that’s all you want?”

“That’s just the start,” Jeff said, nearly spitting out the last word. “The CVR — the real CVR — will prove what we’ve known all along: That you’re secretly printing ballots, filling them out yourselves, and adding them to the official total in the dead of night.” His face was now buried in the cabinet where they kept extra coffee filters. He turned around and shouted. “You really thought we wouldn’t notice you dropping 68,000 ballots at 1:52 this morning?”

While Jeff charged back into the breakroom, Greg approached Amy. “Yes,” he said quietly, looking around the office from the small area they’d already covered versus the hundreds of square meters left to go. He sighed. “The CVR would be a good start.”

“Oh, that’s not a problem at all,” Amy chirped, walking slowly toward the man now guarding the computers near the front. Charity followed close behind and put her hand on Amy’s shoulder. “But Amy,” Charity whispered. “Isn’t that true?” Amy ignored her and smiled at the man.

“If I can grab my laptop real quick,” she delicately reached for the computer covered in decades of Maricopa County “I Voted” stickers, “I’ll print out as many copies as you need.” She looked back at Greg. “Four?” She saw the tension leave his shoulders. “Five?” He nodded. “You know,” Amy said, “you could have just asked us for it.” Greg half-shrugged and looked at the ground.

“You think we didn’t try that,” Jeff yelled as he charged back out of the breakroom and walked toward Amy. Trying to smile still, she set her computer on an empty desk and started searching for the file. Jeff was now about five feet from her and slowed down his steps. “You think we’re stupid or something?” he said, squinting his eyes. “You think we don’t know that the binary code bullshit you posted on your website is just a decoy?”

He was just opposite her now, the table with the laptop between the two of them. He took another few steps and grabbed her screen with both hands. Amy saw his dirty fingernails, the dark hair between his knuckles, the crescent-shaped scar below his pinkie. He lifted the screen six inches off the table, and Amy imagined him slamming it down and cracking it in half. She held her breath. “So stop wasting our fucking time and —”

“But first, I want to ask you about the Tyrannical Left.”

One of the other men yelled. He’d found the box of sample ballots, and Jeff and Greg joined him in the middle of the room. “And these were just lying

here, out in the open?” Jeff asked. “No manifest? No locked box? No chain of custody form signed and dated by two poll workers?” He looked back at Amy with a smug smile “Just dozens more ballots that you’ve printed, ready to be fed through that scanner —” he pointed to the envelope opener — “and added to the official tally?” He laughed.

“You three thought it was gonna be hard!” he yelled with faux amazement, turning to point at each of the other men. “But like I keep telling you, these people don’t care about the law,” he said, drawing out the final syllable. “They don’t care about democracy. They don’t care —”

His phone buzzed, a message from Angelica Reno’s assistant.

They were going live in 10 minutes.

Jeff sauntered back up to Amy, his chin pointing toward the ceiling. He stared her up and down and looked at her badge. “Amy Martinez,” he said, smiling. “The co-director herself.” He pressed both hands together and pretended to bow. “Well if you didn’t get the message earlier, Amy” his grin widened, “the penalty for treason is death.”

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Angelica shrugged when her producer gave the ultimatum: If she wanted to go live with the Maricopa Four, she’d have to invite Baker Truss on the show as well “to maintain the Network’s commitment to objectivity.” That was fine with her. Truss was the secretary of state for Virginia and a real team player. He’d swear up and down that this election was secure in his state, but he’d heard troubling reports about the rest of the country. This was exactly the line that the network wanted to walk: authoritative but vague and menacing. No one was going to listen to Truss anyway. She could already hear him droning on about the civic obligation to work through official channels, not vigilantism. If this was all it took to get legal’s sign-off, even better.

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Five minutes before taping, the four men were still discussing where to set the tripod, who would be the first to speak, and whether they should tuck their shirts in. It was only 30 seconds beforehand that Greg asked what they planned to say.

“Jesus Christ, do I have to do everything?” Jeff barked. “It’s just like we discussed,” he continued, slightly red in the face. He pointed to Amy. “This traitor” — he pointed to the envelope opener — “is using that printer” — he waved a ballot in front of Greg’s face — “to make these fake ballots.” Greg looked at the ground and nodded quickly. “And once we expose them on Angelica’s show,” Jeff continued, “we’ll have our ticket out of here.”

“Stand by” a producer’s voice called out from the men’s iPhone. “Three, two, one. . .”

“And here we are,” Angelica announced, “live with the Maricopa Four.” Jeff dropped the ballot and stood up straight, quickly tucking in his shirt.

“Ms. Reno, thanks so much for —”

“Now,” Angelica interrupted, “I understand that you’ve found proof of election irregularities.” Off screen, Angelica could see her boss screaming silently and cutting his hand across his neck. Her lips painted crimson, her dark brown curls falling lightly around her face, Angelica smiled. “But first, I want to ask you about the Tyrannical Left. Now, we’ve all seen how this administration has politicized the FBI, how they’ve purged the DOJ of every lawyer who won’t swear allegiance to the Woke Agenda.” Her boss stopped gesturing. “And so I want to ask you boys what made you willing to sacrifice your freedom for this cause?”

None of the men spoke until Greg finally nudged Jeff with his knee. 

“Well, this — ” Jeff stammered.

“Because we’re already seeing what any reasonable person would consider a disproportionate response,” Angelica continued. “Take a look at this scene, filmed just moments ago outside of the Maricopa County Elections Department.”

The three of them sat, put their hands on their foreheads, took deep breaths. Meanwhile, Charity retrieved her cuticle scissors from one of their bags stashed up front.

Unable to see the footage being played, everyone in the office waited in tense silence. Either in the playback or in real life, a helicopter circled overhead. Meanwhile, Charity whispered again. “But Amy, isn’t it true that we’re printing ballots? I filled out, like, a hundred yesterday.” She shook her hand and massaged the palm. Amy knew that Charity wouldn’t understand what she was going to say but opened her mouth to explain. Charity held up her phone. “And look, we did update the totals last night at 1:52 am.”

“Charity,” Amy hissed. “How’d you get your phone back?”

Angelica’s voice cut in again: “Disturbing developments, folks.”

Jeff tried again to speak. “But we know —”

“And that’s not to mention what’s happening to your families right now,” Angelica continued. “You’re all married, correct?”

They all nodded slowly, their mouths ajar.

“Now nothing’s been confirmed yet, but we’ve seen it time and time again,” she pressed on. “You send a text or post on Twitter, and next thing you know there’s a federal agent outside your home with a bogus search warrant from an Obama judge. That's right. Freedom of speech is dead in this country, so right now I can’t help but think of your loved ones, how they will be persecuted for your beliefs.” Her boss smiled from the wings. The men turned to look at Jeff.

“Miss Reno, the thing is — “

“So let me be the first to go on record now and say this,” Angelica said, shuffling her papers and turning to face a camera stage left. “When the Radical Left comes for you, they’ll have to go through Angelica Reno first.”

The call ended.

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As Angelica wrapped up her show that afternoon, she could already imagine the clip going viral, those four idiots nodding like bobbleheads. She’d add “They’ll have to go through Angelica Reno first” across the center and then post it on the Forum.

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“Fuck!” Greg shouted as he stared at his phone. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. 41 missed calls from Lacey.” He held up his screen for the group to see. The other two men were also clutching their phones, their eyes growing wider as they scrolled up and down. The three of them sat, put their hands on their foreheads, took deep breaths. Meanwhile, Charity retrieved her cuticle scissors from one of their bags stashed up front.

The call had the opposite effect on Jeff. Finally, he thought, his plan was more than abstract threats, hesitant suggestions, and unfinished to-do lists. After so many months of circuitous, seemingly inconclusive research, it was just so clear to him now: how Maricopa replaced legitimate absentee ballots with the ones they printed in the office. So many people thought it was secret code hidden in the machines, but this scheme was so much simpler. You knew exactly how many votes needed to be flipped, and poof, it was done. And because the ballots are, by law, secret and anonymized, they could never be connected back to the original voters.

In hindsight, it was so obvious. Why else would every swing county in every swing state use the same paper vendor? This was why Jeff was so well suited for this work — he could see the big picture but also drill into the details. A lot of the Forum guys wanted to take big swings with their theories, but none of them had the work ethic to get proof. It was just fan fiction to them. But as soon as Jeff had connected the dots, he FOIAed for Maricopa’s ballot paper purchasing orders. Twelve million sheets for 1,843,331 registered voters? And that was just what they reported; the real number was probably ten times that.

He threw the phone at the envelope opener as hard as he could. It hit the metal base with a deep ting and thudded to the ground, its screen shattered.

“Oh, Honey,” Angelica would think with pity. “Attachment is the root of all suffering.”

All through August and September, he’d emailed his findings to the candidates running for the House, Senate, governorship, and attorney general. While he’d waited, he’d rehearsed what he’d tell the candidate when they met face-to-face, how he’d laugh, shake his head,

He looked again at the crumpled ballot and the cardboard box, and the color drained from his face.

his hips like a trainer at a boutique fitness studio.

“Because we’ve got nothing to hide,” Greg said half-heartedly, a tween delivering lines for a school play he no longer wants to act in.

“And why don’t we have anything to hide?” Jeff continued, undaunted.

“Because we aren’t criminals,” Greg mumbled.

“Who are the real criminals here?”

“The Maricopa County Elections Department, for treasonous acts including election fraud and conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.” Greg’s head still hung low.

“That’s right,” Jeff said, a proud parent. He walked over to Greg and patted his shoulder. Greg looked up, exhaled, half-smiled. The other two men looked at each other and laughed awkwardly. “And now that phase one is complete,” Jeff said gently, looking into Greg’s eyes, “I’m sure Mark Luger will reach out.”

Greg’s head snapped to look at Jeff. “You said you’d already talked to him directly,” Greg squinted.

“You think a guy that rich talks to people directly?” Jeff half-laughed. “No, he’s got people who do that grunt work for him, and my contact was positive that if Mark saw we were serious —”

“If?” Greg yelped.

“— when he saw we were serious, he’d contact us personally.” Greg sat down and looked over at his cell phone, shattered on the floor. He started shaking his head.

“Greg, look at me.” Jeff kneeled down in front of him and put his hands on Greg’s knees. “Mark Luger is offering a $10 million bounty and safe transport to anyone who what?”

Greg moaned slightly, and Jeff shook his shoulders. “Greg, he’ll give the money to anyone who does what?”

“Finds proof of election fraud.”

“Who finds proof of election fraud, exactly. We’ve only been here two hours, and look what we’ve already found.” Jeff grabbed a ballot from the box and pushed it into Greg’s face. “I mean, look at this trove of ballots for. . .” Jeff’s eyes darted to the bottom-left corner of the page, where the presidential race was located. But instead of seeing a filled-in oval, he saw a write-in instead. “One more vote for. . . “ Jeff’s voice softened to almost a whisper “. . . Señor Dickballs?” He looked again at the crumpled ballot and the cardboard box, and the color drained from his face.

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An hour after the first segment with the Maricopa Four, Angelica had already planned

the next. The Network was letting her go live twice in one day, something an anchor hadn’t done since 9/11, and they already had B-roll of SWAT vans in the parking lots, snipers on the roofs, a few skirmishes between the local cops and the protesters who’d been there from the beginning; along with an interview with the Maricopa chief of police, who’d all but said that the boys were as good as dead.

They’d also tracked down two of the wives: sobbing, pathetic, bleached blonde women living in the exurbs of flyover country. They reminded Angelica of where she would’ve ended up had she followed through on her original plan to — it was embarrassing to admit even to herself — get a PhD in semiotics. By now, nearly 35 years old, she would just be finishing her dissertation in the linguistic violence of Reagen-era conservatives and adjuncting at, say, the University of Indiana South Bend. She winced, embarrassed by how could she have believed so earnestly in the idea of meaning, believed that people have a coherent framework that they use to interpret the world around them.

Who was this girl reading from a piece of paper in her lap? And where were the Maricopa Four?

Thank God for collegiate debate. When she’d first started, she was horrified to see how 21-year-olds pushed the extremes of bad-faith arguments, like the team from

Austin arguing against hate crime legislation by using Buddhist texts that declare that the root of all suffering is attachment. It wasn’t just that Angelica knew both debaters were openly gay. It was that the argument itself was gimmicky, irrelevant. It didn’t answer the question. It had no interest in shaping public policy. And yet, they still won. At the time, she thought it was an outlier in an otherwise intellectual, rational world. But now that moment felt true in a way that few other things did. People say they want evidence, Angelica realized, but what they really want is permission to indulge their worst impulses.

Angelica had her epiphany in January of her first year of grad school. By June, she was working for the Network, the youngest full-time writer in company history. Unlike her colleagues, she didn’t discredit or argue with the so-called experts (from force of habit, this was how Angelica now referred to experts, even in her mind: so-called, quote-unquote, alleged).

Why bother? She had the power to obliterate nuance, to transmute emotions into facts. And what did they have? When she’d occasionally scroll Amy Martinez’s Twitter to find material for the show, she’d notice how she responded to every troll, linking out to this study and that report. “Oh, Honey,” Angelica would think with pity. “Attachment is the root of all suffering.” Angelica hadn’t beaten Amy at the debate. She’d uninvited her completely.

“What would you say to Greg or Jeff if he were here right now?” Angelica asked the wives over the phone. She waited patiently through their choking pleas — the he never saids. . . and if only I’d knowns. . .  — and gave them the prompt again. When the show went live this time, she told the wives, they would each read their messages aloud. “This might be the last time you get to speak to your husbands before. . .” Angelica let the last word hang in the air and then thanked the women and hung up.

“They’re so fucked,” Angelica thought with a wry smile. Even if these boys survived tonight, the FBI’s investigation would lay bare every embarrassing detail of their lives: every dollar of unpaid taxes,

“I apologize if you’ve confused us for those limp-dick betas outside.”

“every sloppy affair, every racist and unhinged post on social media.

And that’s when it dawned on her.

The FBI would investigate the Forum first, if they hadn’t already, and from there it was only a few clicks until they found her account. But she’d been careful, right? She’d used burner emails and a VPN, given false data and transitioned immediately to those glitchy messaging apps. Just to be safe, she deleted them from her phone.

Wait, fuck. The FBI could probably see what you had recently removed; that was likely what they checked for first. As she re-downloaded Hush and Quiver, she borrowed her assistant’s phone and began Googling: “hush really end to end encrypted?” Up popped a string of articles about the company “regretfully” complying with the government’s search warrants. Under a bit of pressure, they’d retrieved supposedly irretrievable conversations.

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Jeff hurled the box of fake ballots, which scattered across the room. “You motherfuckers,” he screamed, spinning in circles, too livid to know who to face. Finally, he settled on Stephen. “You think this is a joke,” he said, speed-walking to where Stephen sat. “You think we’re here to play games?” Stephen was smirking again. “Well,” Stephen said leaning back in his chair, “I certainly think a valid vote cast for Señor Dickba—.” The handle of the gun hit him directly in the cheek and knocked his face askew. In the silence afterward, Amy could hear the blood from his nose hitting the floor. “Sorry,” Jeff shouted, leaning down so his face almost touched Stephen’s already-swelling lip. “I didn’t catch that last part.” Stephen spit blood onto the floor. Charity grabbed Amy’s hand.

“I apologize if you’ve confused us for those limp-dick betas outside,” Jeff announced to the room. “We aren’t here to make posters and jerk each other off. We’re here to get proof, and if we don’t” — Jeff pointed the gun at Stephen — “we’re going to have a problem.” Greg walked toward Jeff, his hands in front of him in a let’s-calm-down gesture. Jeff ignored him. “Now I’m going to say it one last time: You’re printing ballots, and I want to know where and how.”

Amy could see Charity shifting in her seat and wanted to avoid what was coming at all costs. Not to protect the office’s reputation: after the switchblade incident, she’d decided to retire following this election. Not to protect the vote, either: She had sacrificed enough of her time and sanity over the past 31 years. Not for any lofty ideal: Amy just knew that if Charity shared what she thought she knew, if these men felt vindicated for what they’d already done, they would escalate the situation even further.

Jeff walked back to Stephen and put the gun up to his temple.

Charity moved to stand, and Amy pulled her back down to the chair.

“Amy, that’s true,” Charity whispered. “We are printing ballots.”

Out of desperation, Amy clung to Charity’s elbow.

Jeff cocked the gun.

Charity shook Amy off, raised her hand, and walked toward the men. For a second she looked back. “Oh come on, Amy,” she said, almost rolling her eyes. “This isn’t worth dying over.”

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Angelica fought the feeling of adrenal panic that had started in the center of her chest and was slowly spreading up into her throat and down into her stomach. Over the past two hours, she’d re-read every one of her Forum DMs. Though she never encouraged the four to go through with the plan, she certainly knew of it ahead of time and did nothing. Wasn’t that the legal standard for being an accomplice?

In her frenetic stupor, she’d texted her lawyer a long, rambling message that was both uselessly vague (haha, it sure is a pickle!) and needlessly specific (On or about March 29th, I first made contact with Defendant 3 via electronic means). She looked at herself in the dressing room mirror and sighed. For now, there was nothing else she could do but become 100% Angelica Reno, the last defense against the Radical Woke agenda.

In 15 seconds, she would go live with a script that was practically flawless: the sobbing wives, a quick cut to the Four, then the police chief and Secretary Truss. She knew her old debate coach would never watch the show (he was probably still writing in “Ralph Nader” for president), but she imagined that even he would be impressed by it. Plus, she thought with more satisfaction, a factory somewhere in China was already printing shirts that said “You’ll have to go through Angelica Reno first.” Her producer counted down from three, two, one. . .

“ — and that is why I knew I needed to speak up.”

What?

Who was this girl reading from a piece of paper in her lap? And where were the Maricopa Four? She looked at the other live feed, where Lacey and Aubrey were fingering their letters and silently steeling each other to say goodbye to their husbands.

What had happened?

Had the men escaped?

She noticed the blank white wall background behind the girl. Jesus Christ, they weren’t about to execute her, were they?

“Sometimes, we get these emails telling us how to vote.”

The panic spread up into Angelica’s face and made her lower lip tremble. The girl was still reading.

“Sorry, Miss,” Angelica interrupted. “I don’t think we’ve met yet. I’m Angelica Reno.”

“Who?”

“It’s nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

The girl looked at the camera and pointed to the paper in her lap. “I’m Charity Gall,” she said. “Should I read that part again?”

“Oh no, sweetheart, that’s okay. Tell me, how are you doing right now?” She knew it was an inane question, but asking if there was a gun pointed at her head felt like a bridge too far. 

“I’m good,” Charity said, shrugging and then pointing to the paper again. “Can I keep reading now?”

Keep reading what? Angelica felt unmoored from reality. Slowly, her frame of reference shifted until she was looking at herself from behind. Her limbs went numb. She felt no emotion except a fascination with Charity’s fingernails, each one lined at the top edge with a thin crimson line. Wow, Angelica thought, that’s a great French tip. In the wings, her boss silently screamed and pointed to the teleprompter.

Charity was looking at the camera with her eyebrows raised. “Cause they said I had to read the whole thing or they won’t give me my phone back.”

They?

They!

The men!

In an instant, Angelica was back in her body, still confused but ready to take control of the situation, a debate round she hadn’t prepared for but would win anyway. “Maybe in a bit, honey, but first let me ask you, what are you doing inside the Maricopa County Elections Department today?”

“Nothing.”

Angelica cocked her head to the side.

“Well, I was, like, opening ballot envelopes in the morning, but then Jeff and his crew came in, so we stopped. I don’t know if we’re still getting paid for today.” She turned off screen. “Amy! Are we getting paid for today?”

“So you’re an official employee for the Elections Department,” Angelica coaxed.

“Yeah, they needed people for like two weeks, and I saw you didn’t have to wear a uniform as a temp.”

“A temp. . .” Angelica wondered out loud, groping in the mist. Then she remembered what Charity had said at the beginning of the feed. “Yes, an outsider,” Angelica announced, a bit more confidently. “An independent voice untarnished by the corruption and ineptitude of this office.”

Finally, she was hitting her stride.

“Charity Gall, it sounds like you’ve seen an act of wrongdoing. Is that true?”

“Yeah I mean, I didn’t know it was bad until Jeff said so, but I guess I see it now.”

“And what is it that you saw?”

Angelica was ready for something trivial, like finding a few dozen votes stuck to the bottom of a drop box. She could spin that, of course, but what Charity said next left her nearly speechless.

“Well, sometimes we get these emails telling us how to vote, so we print a blank ballot and fill it out the same way.”

Had Angelica lost the thread again? Surely, the Elections Department wasn’t actually printing fake votes? She threw a Hail Mary to buy time and think. “And are these emails ever from George Soros, Charity?” 

“Who?”

“Where do these emails come from?”

“Let me just show you.” Charity reached forward and unclipped the iPhone from its stand. “No, no, I got it, Jeff,” she said, waving off someone out of frame. “You said you wanted me to tell ‘em.”

No matter what these bumbling morons found, they were still royally fucked, and likely her along with them.

Charity walked across the room holding the phone vertically in front and above her, as if FaceTiming with a friend. Angelica cringed as the portrait feed was crammed into the cable show’s landscape orientation.

“They really aren’t that bad once you talk to them,” Charity confided as she flashed the camera at the four men behind her. “I don’t know why they care so much about these ballots, but if that’s all they want then just let ‘em have ‘em, ya know?”

She sat down at a computer. “Okay, this is where the emails come in.” She flipped the camera around to show the inbox of a Maricopa County email account. She clicked one of the messages, opened the attachment at the bottom, and there it was — a fully completed ballot. “And then we gotta go through and fill out all the bubbles by hand,” she added, emphasizing the last two words and massaging her palm.

Back in the studio, sitting to Angelica’s far right offscreen, Secretary Truss was sweating through his suit. Fuck. These men didn’t know what they’d just found, and neither did the girl or Angelica. But he did.

Angelica tried to keep her voice as non-threatening as possible. “And where do you get the blank ballots from, Charity?”

“I don’t know.” Charity turned again off screen. “Amy, where do these blank ballots come from?” She turned back. “She don’t know, either.” Angelica could see a man’s hand enter the frame and reach for the phone. Charity slapped his wrist.

“Ok Ms. Raymond, they’re getting real antsy here so let me just finish reading this letter.” Charity uncrumpled the piece of paper and held up her index finger toward where the man’s hand had come from. She raced through the final parts, mumbling so quickly it was unintelligible, and then turned off screen one last time. “What do you mean ‘not now’?” she scolded. “I did read the whole thing!”

The call ended.

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Maybe this was Angelica’s deus ex machina. No matter what these bumbling morons found, they were still royally fucked, and likely her along with them. But now, there was hope. This revelation could be enough of a distraction to buy time and leave the country if she had to. She’d seen how her audience had reacted to accusations, leading questions, and insinuations. But fraud, real fraud as blatant at this?

“Well there it is,” Angelica said, beaming as she turned to address Truss. “Secretary, I think we can all agree that this is conclusive proof of fraud — and from an expert herself!”

“Well, uh,” the secretary stammered. “Yes, it is quite a story.”

Angelica waited. “Secretary, I’m sure this raises troubling questions for you about not just Maricopa County, but the entire state of Arizona,” Angelica prompted.

Still silence.

“Arizona,” Angelica continued, trying not to grit her teeth, “a state that was just called by the Associated Press — called prematurely, I believe we can all agree, based on this new evidence. . .”

Truss couldn’t decide whether he wanted to force a smile or take a deep breath and ended up doing both simultaneously. “Every American deserves to have full confidence in the electoral process,” he began. “Now when that faith is broken, it is our obligation, as citizens of this great country, not to resort to vigilantism. . .”

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Charity walked to the table at the front of the room and grabbed her phone while the four men hugged and pumped their fists. They laughed, and when Greg imitated Jeff searching the potted plant, picking it up and inspecting underneath with cartoonish interest, they laughed even harder. They ruffled each other’s hair, flicked each other’s name tags, and play-wrestled like they were at a frat house mixer. Jeff picked up Greg’s shattered phone, extended his arm as if handing it back to him, pretended he was going to hurl it again, and then wrapped his arm around Greg’s shoulders.

“How about I buy you a new one,” Jeff said, nearly slurring his words, “with my cut of the $10 million?”

He swaggered over to Amy, who was sitting down next to Stephen and holding a now-soaked shirt up to his broken nose. He towered over her, and for a second, no one moved. Even the three other men stopped their roughhousing and stared at Jeff, unsure if he was going to remind Amy what the penalty for treason was.

Stephen slowly took the shirt from Amy and removed it from his face, but Amy’s hands remained where they were, suspended in mid air. While a small trail of blood wormed its way to Stephen’s

“You thought vote-by-mail was bad, folks, but internet voting makes a ballot drop box look like Fort Knox.”

chin and then dripped on the ground, both election officials looked up. Jeff crouched down, his face only a few inches from Amy’s. The entire room inhaled a quick, nervous breath through their teeth.

In one violent movement, Jeff put a hand behind Amy’s head, pulled her close, and kissed her on the mouth. Before she, or anyone else, had time to react, he’d done the same to Stephen. The other three men cheered as Jeff turned around, a smudge of blood covering his right cheek.

“I don’t blame you,” Jeff said, pointing first to Stephen and Amy and then to the rest of the room. “I don’t blame any of you. You didn’t understand what was really happening here, the global forces at play.” He circled the room, making eye contact with every employee he passed. “But that doesn’t mean I can let this continue, either.” He shook his head, unholstered his gun, and clicked his tongue. “No, this treason stops here, today, in Maricopa County.” He pressed the safety on and off, transferred the gun from hand to hand, and then raised it and closed one eye. He fired two shots.

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“We talked about it last night, and I’ll keep talking about it until the cows come home,” Angelica said, pointing at the camera. “That’s right, internet voting. Thanks to the courage of Maricopa County whistleblower Charity Gall, we now know the full extent of this dangerous practice. As you know, a federal law passed in 1986 allows states to use internet voting for — get this — service members stationed overseas.

If you ever needed confirmation that Ronald Reagan was a RINO, look no further than how he spat in the face of our brave men and women in uniform. Because now, when they get an electronic copy of their ballot, they fill it out and email it to their local elections office. Yes, that’s right. I said email it. You thought vote-by-mail was bad, folks, but internet voting makes a ballot drop box look like Fort Knox.

“If these Radical Left judges had their way, every gun owner in America will be locked away, including you.”

“I don’t have to tell you how easy it is for a hacker to manipulate these votes en masse — I think our guest last night made that pretty clear — but then you’re relying on people like Stephen Balter, ex-Director of Maricopa Elections, to print and

transcribe these ballots. I’m sorry, but you want me to trust a man who couldn’t even protect his own office?

“I know that sounds harsh, but it’s not according to me, folks. That’s according to an official audit by the recently elected attorney general’s office. And I quote, ‘Glaring gaps in security, including too few personnel, a failure to document threats, and a lack of cooperation with the DHS and FBI all contributed to the incident on November 9th.’ And let’s not forget that Amy Martinez, who was also asleep at the wheel and is now the sole director of that office.

“But it’s not all bad news. Following an investigation by this show, the Virginia Senate took action today, voting to impeach Secretary of State Baker Truss for his role in expanding internet voting to military families overseas. It wasn’t bad enough that our soldiers were being disenfranchised. Truss — remember, a registered Democrat until 2001 — wanted to jeopardize the votes of their children and spouses as well.

“And finally, more disturbing irregularities in the investigation of the Maricopa Four. Yesterday, a federal judge denied their requests for bail, citing their close relationship with billionaire Mark Luger as a potential flight risk. Now that’s already been reported, but thanks to an anonymous tipster —” almost imperceptibly, Angelica winked at the camera — “I’ve got a copy of the sealed decision. The judge also wrote that, and I’m quoting directly again, ‘These men’s eager and wanton use of violence poses a significant risk to the community.’ I’m sorry, one person accidentally shoots a high-speed envelope opener and now they’re a mass murderer? If these Radical Left judges had their way, every gun owner in America will be locked away, including you.

“And speaking of witch hunts, you all know that the FBI searched my home last week. They searched my office. They even came and searched this studio. Why? Because I asked too many questions. Because I had the nerve to think for myself and do my own research.

What did they find?

Nothing, but you know that the intimidation is the point. That’s why I’m asking you again to contribute to my defense fund, to show these thugs that real Americans can never be cowed into silence. They think they can step on your rights?”

She turned to stage left.

“They’ll have to go through Angelica Reno first.”