Fiction Week

By Ben Van Horrick 

15 April 2027, 2354 EST
620 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY

“Who else has this picture?” said Abe Collins, the Times‘ senior-most editor tonight.

“The Teddy is sinking. Everyone has this — it’s everywhere on X and Telegram,” said Nora Nelson.

“Yeah…and?” Collins shot back.

“People will see it if they want to.”

“This is a fucking aircraft carrier sinking, not snuff film footage. Do people need to see this?”

“Do we want the parents to see it first on social media?” Nora countered.

“Better in print than on X,” Collins replied.

The USS Theodore Roosevelt was struck and sinking. Flash reports on X provided little detail, but then images appeared from a Japanese fishing vessel. The Starlink connection beamed the images of fire and smoke from the South China Sea.

Collins went quiet, staring at the screen.

Nora looked away.

Midmorning sun draped the ship in a haunting glow as black smoke rose from the deck, swallowing the carrier’s gray hull. The bridge remained intact, jutting into the sky like a cathedral steeple, resolute against ruin. The ocean’s blues framed the metal gray and billowing black, colors locked in merciless contrast. At first, the shapes on deck appeared no more than specks, but they were flesh and bone, animated by terror. Some scattered across the flight deck. Some rushed to their stations above. Others hurled themselves into the sea, bodies rigid as arrows, human prayers cast to the whims of the waves, escaping the creeping inferno that consumed the carrier.

“How can we verify this?” Collins demanded.

“Fuck if I know,” Nora said, typing a message on Slack to summon anyone left in the art department.

In front of Nora and Abe was a screen powered by a Times AI writing program named Turner, in honor of the paper’s former editor Turner Catledge. The program had already written the first draft of the carrier’s sinking. Sentences appeared every few seconds as the program scraped social media for details, combining fragments into narrative. Abe and Nora were supposed to supervise, ensuring the algorithm generated the story and correcting its missteps.

Abe toggled left to shut down Turner.

“We write history’s first draft. Not fucking machines.”

Abe had covered Kabul’s fall as a freelance reporter before The Times rehired him.

When Nora’s series on the destabilizing effects of Chinese debt deals in Africa had been dismissed as too nuanced and dense, Abe fought for it.

“Who else will tell the story?”

Abe won the argument. The series ran, and Nora won the Pulitzer for the story.

When Nora got kidnapped in Africa, Abe led the effort to raise money and awareness of Nora’s plight. Upon her return, Abe recruited Nora to work on features, offering relief from the tyranny of the daily deadline.

“It’s not Africa, Nora. Take a knee.”

When war broke out with China, the editors needed steady hands, turning to Nora and Abe. The flurry of news wilted the newsroom staff. For Abe and Nora, it was a rebirth. For the past 96 hours, Nora and Abe had remained in the office and napped where they could. Staffers checked on them with a mix of concern and intrigue.

Rolling blackouts and internet outages choked the once torrential news coverage to a trickle. The Times generators and Starlink kept the paper running as best it could. The physical copies of the paper became prized once again, an authoritative truth in a landscape of rumor, speculation, and darkness.

Abe and Nora had culled their contacts over the past four days — spies, aid workers, operators, journalists, academics, and profiteers. War attracts the best and worst of humanity. Abe and Nora’s notifications came from across the globe with varying motives, ranging from noble to nefarious.

War extracted its toll on Nora and Abe, leaving ghosts for each to wrestle with, but the events of the past week kept their ghosts at bay. In fact, they felt much happier because, in this instance, they felt needed again.

Nora and Abe possessed a tolerance for risk and pain that others did not and likely would never possess. Here they both thrived, calm and direct as the news cycle spun out of control.

Abe and Nora were the final line of defense in the newsroom as AI and inexperienced reporters jeopardized coverage and the paper’s credibility.

“I knew the parade would start again,” Abe said longingly.

“You seem happy about this,” Nora accused.

“Happy? No. Surprised? No. Glad to be here when it happened? Yes.”

Nora nodded.

“Job security for us, Nora.”

Nora and Abe compared notes and shared contacts. They thumbed through Signal looking for a Pentagon public affairs officer or trusted contact who could or would confirm the picture.

“Do you think we need a source?”

“We do. It might be accurate, but do you want this paper to be co-opted by the CCP?”

“Half the nation thinks we already are.”

“Fair enough.”

“Who can we call?”

“Marcus Riordan?”

“Yeah, is he still alive?”

Colonel Marcus Riordan, a MARSOC Marine who made his name in every war zone. A man not made for his time, Riordan’s talents, sensibilities, and personality made him a lightning rod within the community. A peer called him, “Ollie North on meth.”

Now marooned at the Pentagon, Riordan might have information. But more than anything, he always took Abe’s calls.

Riordan’s team had provided security when Nora was released. The image of his linebacker frame and lip full of tobacco was a welcome sight for Nora.

Abe dialed Riordan on Signal and placed the call on speaker.

It rang before cutting to dead air.

Thirty seconds of silence passed. Then the phone buzzed ­— Riordan called back.

“AC, what is happening? Little busy, hombre.”

“Colonel, we got a picture we think is the Teddy.”

“Yeah…”

“Marcus, Nora here.”

“Jesus, Nelson. You okay?”

“Is the picture of the Teddy?”

“You printing this?”

“Is it the Teddy?”

“You answer mine first.”

“If it is, we will run it.”

A pregnant pause.

“It’s the Teddy. It’s real. In an hour, it will sink.”

The line went silent.

Abe stared at the screen showing the burning carrier. In an hour, those specks on the deck would be gone. The parents Nora had mentioned would learn their children’s fate from a newspaper photograph rather than a knock on their door.

Nora closed her eyes.

“Abe…”

Collins turned his back to the screens. His voice was quiet.

“Run it. Front page.”

Major Benjamin Van Horrick, USMC, serves at the Department of Defense Inspector General.

Featured Image: Art created with Midjourney AI.