Robert Evans presents the first chapter of his novel "After the Revolution," set in 2055 Richardson, Republic of Texas. Protagonist Manny, a fixer from Ciudad de Muerta, guides journalist Reggie through a landscape fractured by militias like the Christian extremist Heavenly Kingdom and the Canadian-backed Secular Defense Forces. The narrative explores post-revolutionary chaos involving vat-grown muscles and banned chrome modifications, culminating in a mortar attack that interrupts Manny's plans to flee to Europe. Ultimately, this speculative fiction offers a grim vision of autonomous technology clashing with fundamentalist extremism in a future America. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Trust Your Girlfriends00:02:13
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It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
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In 2023, bachelor star Clayton Eckard was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.
You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
I doctored the test once.
It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern.
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My mind was blown.
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10-10 shots fired, City Hall building.
How did this ever happen in City Hall?
Somebody tell me that.
A shocking public murder.
This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics.
They screamed, get down, get down.
Those are shots.
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Hey, everybody, this is Robert Evans.
And starting in 2016, I wrote a novel.
And you're going to hear the first chapter of it today.
We'll be releasing the rest of it as a separate podcast series, and it'll be out online for free.
But given the events of January 6th, I decided might as well put out chapter one right now, give people something else to focus on.
And, you know, I think as you'll understand, it seems a little bit more relevant now.
So, without further ado, After the Revolution, a novel by Robert Evans.
Richardson, Republic of Texas, 2055.
Chapter 1.
Manny.
Manny smiled at the way the British journalist's face blanched as the old Toyota hit the pothole.
Reggie wasn't used to bad roads, cars driven by actual humans, or the way the heavy metal of the gun mount in the truck bed made the aluminum frame groan.
That was all familiar to Manny.
He'd grown up in Ciodad de Muerta, back before the lake would blast, back when people had still called it Dallas.
The truck's driver veered around the bloated corpse of a large dog lying in the middle of the road.
Reggie gripped the truck bed with white knuckles and eyed the swaying ammo belt of the 20mm cannon like it was a coiled snake.
The gunner, Manny's cousin Alejandro, grinned down at the journalist.
The suspension's a little fucked, yeah?
The Brit nodded and turned greener when the technical hit another pothole.
Manny supposed he should offer a comforting word to the man.
That would be good business.
But a louder part of him looked at Reggie's brand new boots and thought, he can stand a little less comfort.
The journalist would brag about this ride for months once he got home.
Escorting reporters from the safety of Austin to the sundry hotspots of the old Metroplex was not Manny's ideal career.
Two years ago, he'd been working on a bachelor's in business administration from the University of Austin.
The plan had been to get a job with Aegis Biosystems, then charm his way into a working visa and a gig in the California Republic.
But the fighting had started up again and ruined all that.
The culprit this time was the Heavenly Kingdom, a loose assortment of Christian extremist militias.
They'd boiled out from the suburbs of the old Metroplex and all but broken the Republic of Texas.
The autonomous city of Austin had stabilized the situation with the help of an alliance of leftist Texan militias, the Secular Defense Forces.
Beating them back had cost a lot in blood and time and forced Manny to change every plan he'd ever made for his life.
So he'd embraced the situation and started his own business, hiring on some friends as employees.
Together, they'd built the best network of stringers in North Texas.
His boys fed him video, contacts, and news updates, and he sold what he could to the big foreign media conglomerates.
In a couple more months, he'd have enough saved up that he could fuck off, fly to Europe, and apply for a refugee visa.
My odds are pretty good, as long as the war doesn't end too soon.
The technical rolled to a creaky stop in front of a checkpoint that had clearly been erected within the last few days.
It was just a collapsible electronic gate and two sandbag emplacements on either side of the battered highway.
A street sign nearby announced that they were on the edge of Richardson, formerly a suburb of Dallas, and currently a forward position of the People's Protection Army, a local anarchist militia.
Manny could see the PPA's red black triangle emblem stitched onto the jackets of the soldiers guarding the checkpoint.
One of the PPA men walked up to the driver's side window and started chatting with Philip, the driver.
Phil and Manny's cousin Alejandro were both with the Citizens Front, a more or less apolitical militia from the suburbs of Austin.
Both militias coexisted under the broad umbrella of the Secular Defense Forces.
The SDF had been organized by the Canadian government to lump all of North Texas's palatable militant groups into a single package that could be conveniently armed.
While the first guard talked with Philip, his partner did a circuit around the back of the truck.
The man was big, bulging with muscles so sculpted and prominent they had to be vat-grown, and he moved with the twitchy ungrace of a man who'd replaced his nervous system with circuitry.
His weapon was a very old, very battered AR-15, with an M243 grenade launcher below the barrel.
The latter was old U.S. military gear.
The former had been someone's toy before the revolution gave America's half-billion civilian guns a new raison d'ete.
The man moved back to the barricades when he'd finished his lap.
Reggie looked up at Manny and asked, Was he a was he chromed?
Manny smiled.
That was always one of the first questions, as soon as any foreign journal saw a trooper with a large enough build, skin with an off shade, or one who just moved a little too fast to seem completely right.
Anything beyond basic aesthetic and medical biomodifications were banned in civilized countries, like the UK.
The real chrome, the implants that would let a man lift a tank or take a rocket to the belly, that shit was locked up tight.
Few national militaries even used the stuff these days.
Not after the revolution.
He's got some vat-grown muscles, Manny said, in an offhanded way that suggested such things were common.
Aftermarket nerves, too, probably.
His stuff is low-grade.
That's why it's so visible.
Reggie nodded.
His eyes stayed locked on the big man.
He was quiet for a while before he spoke again.
You just you live right alongside them, don't you?
Manny shrugged.
Everybody's got something out here, and the wetwear's what lets us hold back the martyrs.
They'd own the whole city if it weren't for half-fats like him.
The journalist nodded, and his gaze stayed fixed upon the militiaman until a troubled look crossed his face.
He glanced back to Manny.
Are you a chromed? Reggie asked.
Manny smiled.
I don't expect either of us as stock sapien, eh?
But I doubt I've got anything you don't.
Reggie seemed somewhat comforted by this.
Most of what I've read about the really heavy mods says they cause a lot of, well, unstable behavior.
That's why that's why this city's such a shithole? Manny asked.
The journalist had the grace to blush.
Manny looked away for a moment.
His eyes landed on the bones of three large public housing buildings.
A barrel bomb had detonated in the center of the courtyard all three shared.
It had peeled away the walls, some of the floors, and the resulting firestorm had burned up everything that wasn't concrete, steel, or rebar.
For just a moment, Manny felt bad about hoping the war hung on another six months.
The old government blamed a lot on roided-up veterans with military-grade mods, he told Reggie.
Most was just propaganda, fear-mongering.
People were pissed after twenty years of plague, disaster, and poverty.
Manny shrugged.
It's true, though, a lot of chromed-up vets turned on the government.
You can't make men into gods and expect them to keep fighting for men.
Reggie pointed back to the bulging militiaman.
I take it Mussels there is pretty far from a god.
Nah, Manny laughed.
He's just a man with too much meat money.
Gods don't man checkpoints.
The Brit was excited now.
These were the questions he'd wanted to ask since they'd met yesterday.
Do you know what some of those people are?
Reggie couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice.
Could we talk to them?
Manny didn't have any of those contacts, nor did he know any other fixers who did.
He tried to let the Brit down easy.
Most of those folks live uh on the road, in between the civilized parts of Texas and the Federal Republic of California.
Oh, Reggie looked disappointed.
The truck rolled past the wreckage of an old Catholic school.
It bore signs of being fortified, destroyed, re-fortified, and redestroyed several times.
The Brit was inches away from asking another question when the gate man waved them on and the battered Toyota farted its way into drive, belching and complaining past a network of potholes until it hit a relatively straight chunk of asphalt.
Only a few minutes now, Hefe, Manny said.
The PPA's forward position is about five minutes out.
You'll be in the shit then, or at least shit adjacent.
The journalist's face washed over in an even mix of anxiety and pride.
One of the first lessons Manny had learned at this job was that phrases like the shit made rich gringo writers unreasonably excited, and excited journalists always called Manny the next time they were in country.
Giving white kids and Keffias a lifetime of bragging rights for surviving a couple days in his home killed Manny's soul, just a little, but he pushed down the anger and told himself that a chip on the shoulder was a lot less useful than money in the bank.
The technical rolled off the old highway.
Manny could see 23 and Spring Valley Road emblazoned on a weather-beaten bullet-scarred sign.
The technical pulled to the right.
The gun swayed in its mount.
Manny couldn't help smiling as the Brit instinctively pulled away from it.
They rolled up to what had once been a strip mall and was now a forward operating base for the People's Protection Army.
An old laundromat, a bookstore, and a half dozen restaurants now had their roofs ringed with barbed wire and machine gun emplacements.
Manny could see a line of bullet holes stitched across three of the shops.
None of the windows were intact, but otherwise the buildings had weathered the war rather well.
Three M198 howitzers were parked next to a taco shop that had once served the local college kids beer and cheap grub.
There was a flagpole out in front of the shop, and from it hung the blue and white starburst flag of the SDF and the flag of the PPA.
Three men in uniform stood, waiting as the old Toyota rolled to a stop and Manny and Reggie disembarked.
Two of the men were officers in the PPA, Colonel Jacob Milgram and Major Deshaun Clark.
Milgram was a boring, tight-lipped, nerdy type, but Deshaun was one of Manny's favorite sources.
He was an old infantry guy, a consummate brawler with a face full of scars and three published books of poetry to his name.
He actually had a base of international fans, mostly in Spain.
The third man was Hamid Mohammed, an advisor from Syrian Kurdistan.
The Kurds had been giving aid to the sundry militias of the Secular Defense Forces for years now.
Manny considered Hamid almost a local.
He shook hands with Jacob.
Since Manny knew Deshaun better, he met the man with a full embrace and used it as an opportunity to palm the major a packet of his favorite cigarettes.
Deshaun gave him a wink and a smile.
Manny shook Hamid's hand next and then kissed him on the cheek.
Hamid returned the kiss, clapped him on the shoulder, and said, Emmanuel, my friend, you really should get out of this business.
One of these days you'll come up here, and it won't be safe.
Manny frowned a little at the use of his birthname, but he didn't make an issue out of the matter.
There's still a war on right, he smiled at Hamid.
Y'all get that shit under control, and maybe I'll work a straight job again.
Not too soon, though, he thought.
The least this war can do is last long enough to get me out of Texas.
Hamid smiled back, and Manny introduced Reggie to the officers.
The journalist was clearly awkward in that special way Manny had come to expect from new war correspondents.
It was the norm for young writers to be intimidated by grizzled military men.
Some of them got over that.
Manny had worked with a middle-aged Der Spiegel reporter last week who'd probably take in as much incoming fire as Major Clark.
Colonel Milgram led them to the militarized taco shop.
A brief blast of nostalgia squeezed Manny's lungs.
The place had obviously been closed since the Revolution.
The drink specials and meal prices printed on the wall were given in U.S. dollars, a currency as dead as the last American president.
Manny recognized ads for bands and movies he remembered from his childhood.
The glass facade had shattered years ago.
The kitchen had been gutted and replaced by wall-length mirrors displaying maps of the city.
At least a dozen uniformed men and women milled around the space in small groups.
He and Reggie sat down at a long picnic table with Hamid and the two officers.
Reggie set his camera up on the table.
It was just a small silver sphere, but Manny knew it could record everything happening around it at a higher resolution than the human eye.
An orderly brought in three beers, shiner box from Austin, and one dark brown tea in a glass cup for Hamid.
The Brit raised his glass in a friendly salute.
Thank you for meeting with me.
And then he started to ask questions.
Manny leaned back in his chair, enjoyed a long gulp of cold beer.
If he wasn't needed to translate, he generally checked out during interviews.
He used the free time to activate his deck and check in on the two stringers he had working right now.
Devin Martinez was up in Addison today, taking a Californian documentary crew on a tour of an SDF training facility.
He'd messaged Manny to let him know they'd gotten through the checkpoints without any issue.
Oscar Allenby, his other stringer, didn't have any journalists with him.
He was embedded with a Republic of Texas police unit, getting footage from inside a neighborhood that had recently been liberated from the Heavenly Kingdom.
There were no new messages from Oscar.
His last check-in had been the night before.
It was probably nothing, but it concerned Manny, nonetheless.
What if Oscar got a better offer for his footage?
He'd always been loyal before, but if that fuck from the Guardian had gotten to him?
I'm interested in the Abrams Road bombing, Reggie told the Colonel, and Manny's attention swung back to his reporter.
That's an odd thing to ask about.
The bombing had occurred two weeks back.
It had been big news for a couple of hours.
Manny had paid one of his contacts in Raza Front, another local militia, for a video of a walkthrough of the wreckage.
It had brought in about three grand profit.
The Abrams Road bombing was not a martyrdom operation.
Colonel Milgram sounded almost angry.
Terribly sorry, Reggie said.
You're right, of course.
There was no driver, so no martyr, right?
Right, Deshaun Clark said.
He pulled a folded piece of white paper out of his pocket, opened it up, and smoothed it out on the table.
It was a map of the DFW area, color-coded to show the positions of the various militias in the region.
We operate nine checkpoints on that part of the Richardson line, Deshaun said as he pointed to each one.
Five of them border Republic-controlled territory.
The traffic from there is mostly autonomous, and those vehicles slave themselves to our traffic management system before they can enter our territory.
The other three checkpoints border territory controlled by the martyrs.
They don't see much traffic, and they're all heavily armed.
Reggie was quiet for a few seconds while he figured out the most polite way to phrase his next question.
Manny could almost hear the gears turning in the journalist's head before he finally spoke.
Would it be fair to say the autonomous checkpoints are less secure then?
Deshaun smiled a thin, quiet smile.
Hamid grimaced.
Colonel Milgram responded in a terse voice.
The autonomous checkpoints have fewer defenders, but they border Republic territory.
The martyrs haven't pulled off an attack on one in quite some time.
Was Abram's Road not one such attack?
Reggie looked eager now, like a hound following a scent.
We don't know who bombed Abram's Road, Colonel Milgram said.
No one's taken credit, but we doubt it was the Martyrs.
Why? The journalist asked.
Manny leaned in a little, interested in spite of himself at where this was all going to lead.
Perhaps, Hamid said, you should read a bit more about this heavenly kingdom.
They reject all autonomous technology.
They even use remote human pilots for their drones, like it's 2003.
That's why our skies are always clear.
We jam them.
Reggie asked, Is it possible they found some way to hack your defense system?
Hamid laughed.
We bought this system from the Israelis.
If you're telling me one of the martyrs brigades is a hacker that can crack that, then I'm the king of Albuquerque.
But something still went wrong, Reggie insisted.
Hamid's smile turned cold.
This is war, Mr. McGee.
It's mostly things going wrong.
That's where the line of questions petered out.
Reggie asked them for access to the security footage from the destroyed checkpoint, and Colonel Milgram agreed to send it over.
We'd like to speak to the survivors as well, if possible, Manny interjected, not waiting to see if the journalist would ask.
He knew those men were all stationed behind the line now, which would make for a safer, easier rest of the day than heading up to the wire.
Of course, Colonel Milgram said, with a smile to Manny.
They gave their goodbyes, and then Major Clark walked them out to their waiting Toyota.
The Texas heat hit like an oven as they exited, and Manny was glad they'd be spending most of the rest of their day indoors.
To Be Spoken Earned00:05:24
Deshaun clapped a hand on Manny's shoulder as he lit one of his new cigarettes.
It's good to see you again, Emmanuel, he said, and then he smiled at Reggie.
And it's nice to meet you, my British friend.
I'm sorry you've come to the front at a boring time.
Why? Reggie asked.
Because this, Deshaun gestured at the gun emplacements and loitering militiamen at the command post.
This is not war, not really.
Your job is to help your people, children of peace and plenty, understand what's going on here.
You must teach them the language of war.
And to paraphrase a dead poet, the language of war is a language made of blood.
To be spoken, it must be earned.
There was an awkward pause.
A little bit of the blood drained from the journalist's face.
You nutty old fuck, Manny thought, with more amusement than fear.
Classic Deshaun, he said, and laughed to ease the tension.
The major bid them both a good day, hugged Manny, and sauntered off back to the command post.
Smoke from his cigarette curled up into the air behind him as he walked.
Manny's eyes lingered on it for a second before he turned back to Reggie.
Ready to go? He asked, chipper as he could manage.
There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
Rule one, never mess with a country girl.
If you play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
We always say, trust your girlfriends.
I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the Girlfriends...
Oh my god, this is the same man.
A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
I felt like I got hit by a truck.
I thought, how could this happen to me?
The cops didn't seem to care.
So they take matters into their own hands.
I said, oh, hell no.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He's gonna get what he deserves.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
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Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back.
I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting.
Every episode's a little different, but it all involves music and conversation with some of my favorite musicians.
Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leve, Mavis Staples, Remy Wolf, Jeff Tweedy, really too many to name.
And this season, I've sat down with Alessia Cara, Sarah McLaughlin, John Legend, and more.
Check out my new episode with Josh Grobin.
You related to the Phantom at that point.
Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
That's so funny.
Share each day with me each night, each morning.
Say you love me.
You know I.
So come hang out with us in the studio and listen to Playing Along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What's up, everyone?
I'm Ago Modem.
My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
It's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent.
He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
Yeah.
He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
And he's like, just give it a shot.
He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat.
Just hang in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of luck.
Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckard found himself at the center of a paternity scandal.
The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story.
This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth.
You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, correct?
I doctored the test once.
It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case.
I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for.
Sunlight's the greatest disinfected.
They would uncover a disturbing pattern.
Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
Greg Gillespie and Michael Marancini.
My mind was blown.
I'm Stephanie Young.
This is Love Trap.
Laura, Scottsdale Police.
As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news out of Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges.
This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona.
Listen to the Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Uncovering the Truth00:09:25
Three hours, a handful of interviews, and one short drive later, Manny and Reggie arrived at their home for the night, the Richardson Autonomous Project.
Once a Walmart, now a 22-year-old experiment in sustainable urban living, the project was the furthest island of civilization on the SDF's side of the front.
Its militia steadfastly refused to involve themselves in the region's greater conflicts.
They'd been targeted a few times by the Heavenly Kingdom, though.
The SDF, by contrast, left them alone.
So when a fixer like Manny found himself on the wrong side of the LBJ freeway after dark, he could usually trust the project to provide food, booze, and shelter.
For a price, of course.
Sleeping arrangements in the project were broadly communal.
The bulk of the old Walmart had been converted into an indoor meadow with grow lights hanging from the rafters and a wide, lush field of native grass sprawling across most of the inhabited space.
Fruit trees, bushes full of berries, cannabis plants, and copses of bamboo lined the edges of the space.
The center of the field was dominated by a large, circular kitchen surrounded by a handsome oaken bar table.
Tables, gazebos, and sundry personal structures dotted the field, along with a pair of dance floors.
Reggie's face lit up when he saw the bar.
By the time Manny had dropped off their bags and paid Charlie and the driver for the night, the journalist was already three beers in.
The Brit wasn't precisely drunk or sober, but at that productive twilight in between.
He'd unrolled a portable screen and had a holographic display up, looping four separate sections of the security footage Colonel Milgram had sent over.
The journalist alternated between typing furiously, scrawling notes in his journal, and taking huge gulps from something brown and foamy.
He stopped working when he saw Manny approach, and waved him into the adjacent seat.
Hey, brother, check this out.
Manny pulled up a seat and the journalist directed his attention to a six-second loop of footage from immediately after the bombing.
It showed two man-sized silhouettes standing on top of an old garage.
Manny remembered the building.
It stood maybe two hundred meters from the Abrams Road checkpoint.
One of the silhouettes had a rifle.
The other held a short, squat tube that Manny recognized as a camera lens.
Notice anything?
Spotters, Manny said.
Probably trying to get a kill count.
Nah, man.
Look at where he's pointed.
That cunt's not looking at any post.
He's looking straight back, deeper into the old town.
And I'll bet you he's high enough up to be staring right at Colonel Milgram's command post.
Manny looked again.
He thought about the angle.
Okay, so what? he asked.
You think this was a probing attack for some big action?
The journalist shrugged.
Maybe.
It's something new is what interests me.
Two years of martyrdom operations that all look more or less the same, and now this weird one.
An autonomous vehicle bomb from a group of fanatics who think autonomous vehicles are the devil.
Yeah, Manny agreed.
That does seem weird.
The bartender walked up and offered Manny his pick of the finest liquor in this particular war zone.
Manny ordered a shiner.
It was the one beer a drinker could find across both the Republic of Texas and the Austin Autonomous Region.
He looked back at the looping footage.
They both watched it twice more.
Then Reggie spoke up again.
What have you heard about Pastor Mike? he asked.
Manny stiffened a little bit at the name.
He'd heard it, of course.
Vague stories of rioting in Kansas, a fundamentalist uprising inside the southernmost territory of the United Christian states.
He hadn't thought much about it at first.
But two years ago, Pastor Mike had moved to Texas, shortly before the Heavenly Kingdom had declared itself.
It was hard to say exactly what role the preacher played within the organization, but he was certainly its most visible face.
I know who he is, Manny said.
I know the Republic let him in because they thought his followers might provide a buffer against Austin's influence.
I know that blew the fuck up in their faces.
Manny took a long drink and continued.
That's an old story around here.
The Republic using those god-fawnling nutfucks to push back against the leftists.
The journalist raised an eyebrow, and Manny instantly regretted his crude response.
He didn't really care about religion one way or the other, but whenever he came out to the front it was hard not to get a little angry, especially after a drink.
Sorry, he said.
It's been a long day.
Reggie looked down, coughed, and took a sip.
He looked back at Manny, took another sip, and said, You know, that's another subject I'd rather like to cover.
What? Manny asked.
Anti-Christian sentiment in North America.
Manny grunted and looked down at his drink.
The Brit barreled on.
You're not the first North American I've heard express anger towards Christians, he said.
In California, Cascadia, the North American Republic, I've just seen a lot of hate.
Look, Manny interrupted.
Me?
I'm a man of peace.
I love everybody.
But this continent's been torn apart and bleeding out for the last 30 years.
Lot of people hate Christians.
The ones that don't hate Christians hate leftists.
And everyone outside the American Republic hates capitalists.
Hate, hate, hate.
Manny took a gulp of his beer and set it down, a little harder than he'd intended.
He looked Reggie in the eye and finished.
There's exactly one thing all the broken bits of this continent have in common.
Hate.
The journalist arched an eyebrow at Manny and returned the gaze.
He had the look of a man peering into the enclosure of a particularly exotic zoo animal.
Manny wanted to resent it, but he'd been doing this job long enough to know that this was just how journalists looked at people.
Reggie downed his drink.
He reached a hand up to signal the bartender and then looked back at Manny.
Can I buy you another round?
Manny shook his head.
No, thanks.
I'm tired, and I don't want to drag ass at the front tomorrow.
He downed the last of his beer, bid Reggie a good night, and headed over to the spot of turf where he'd set up his sleeping bag and gear.
He popped off his shoes, his pants, and his shirt, and rubbed himself down with a handful of wetnaps.
Then he grabbed a nightshirt and sweatpants from his bag and slipped them on.
Manny considered cleaned pajamas a necessity.
He fired up his deck again once he was swaddled in his sleeping bag.
There was a jittering start, and then the corners of his vision were populated by a series of small, partly translucent screens.
Each one bulged with updates, friends asking about his weekend plans, spam from his college, notifications about new video uploads, and headlines from the local news.
Devin had messaged him twice more to let him know that he and his journalists were headed back to Austin, and then that they'd arrived.
Oscar still hadn't responded.
Manny's initial concern was over his loyalty.
I got that fucker started as a stringer.
If he sold that video and cut me out of the deal, I'm going to...
But the longer he thought about Oscar, the more Manny worried that something might have happened.
Oscar had been working in Plano today, near a very stable chunk of the front.
But this far out, almost anything could happen.
Manny closed his eyes, sighed, and tried to purge the anxiety from his mind.
There was nothing to do now, other than get to sleep so he could wake up tomorrow and make more money.
That thought prompted Manny to pull open his banking app and check on the status of his savings account.
The numbers glowed, fat and happy, in the space right in front of his head.
Another five months in the field, maybe six.
Then I buy that plane ticket.
He started to think about the pictures he'd seen of Dublin and Berlin and Barcelona, all the places he thought he might live if this war could just hang on a little longer.
He soon fell asleep and slept pretty well until the first mortar landed.
When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He is not going to get away with this.
He's going to get what he deserves.
We always say, trust your girlfriends.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I got you, I got you.
What's up, everyone?
I'm Ago Mona.
My next guest, it's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
He goes, just give it a shot.
But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of life.
Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
In 2023, bachelor star Clayton Eckard was accused of fathering twins, but the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax.
You doctored this particular test twice, Miss Owens, thorough.
I doctored the test once.
It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern.
Two more men who'd been through the same thing.
Greg Gillespie and Michael Marcini.
My mind was blown.
I'm Stephanie Young.
This is Love Trapped.
Laura, Scottsdale Police.
As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences.
Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
10-10 shots fired, City Hall building.
How could this have happened in City Hall?
Somebody tell me that.
A shocking public murder.
This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics.
They screamed, get down, get down.
Those are shots.
A tragedy that's now forgotten.
And a mystery that may or may not have been political, that may have been about sex.
Listen to Rorschach, Murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.