Overview
Locked In is a short story in Quarterlives. It follows Jim Duag, a Texas penal soldier attached to the Idaho Militia, during a patrol through northern Oregon in a near-future American civil conflict.
The story is set along the Columbia River corridor during a militia advance toward Hood River, Beaverton, and Portland. The war combines familiar modern military technology with near-future elements, including satellite-linked phones, FPV explosive drones, remote drone operators, and the Elbakyan pattern, a lethal visual file.
Plot
Jim Duag patrols west with Captain Eric Schriefer, nicknamed Homelander, and Private Garth Jensen. Their team is part of the Idaho Militia’s push to clear Interstate 84 for armor and move against Free Oregon, the opposing Oregon force associated with Portland and a figure named Kersh.
Duag explains that he is in the Idaho Militia Penal Brigade after killing a man during a bar fight in Fort Worth. Schriefer is an older captain with long service in the Idaho Guard, while Jensen is a young militiaman whose enthusiasm for violence unsettles Duag even before the patrol deteriorates.
The patrol moves through dry terrain while Schriefer worries that embers could start fires and disrupt the advance. After hearing an FPV explosive drone, the team finds an abandoned camp and a sealed Chinese military ration packet. Schriefer destroys the packet because he suspects it may be poisoned.
Near Memaloose Overlook, Duag spots a Free Oregon anti-armor position below the patrol. Schriefer throws a grenade into the emplacement, and the three militiamen fire on the fighters after the blast. The team finds a Chinese Red Arrow launcher and three Free Oregon casualties, one of them a Korean-American woman.
One wounded Free Oregon fighter, Lewis, draws a pistol and grazes Jensen. Jensen disarms him, begins abusing him, and uses Lewis’s satellite-equipped phone to call his parents by FaceTime. Schriefer orders Jensen to stop, but another FPV drone strikes the hillside and gravely wounds Schriefer.
Duag quietly lets Lewis escape while he and Jensen reach Schriefer. Jensen shoots Schriefer, saying the captain asked for it with his eyes. He then takes Schriefer’s map, orders, dog tags, ammunition, and water, and assumes practical command because Duag is a penal enlisted man.
Duag and Jensen continue west while Duag feels hunted by another drone. In a gully near Mosier, Jensen searches Lewis’s captured phone and finds a file named ELBAKYAN_PATTERN.mkv. Duag recognizes it as a lethal light pattern and stops Jensen from playing it. Jensen calls the file digital cyanide, and Duag keeps the phone.
At dusk, the two reach a tunnel mouth on a steep trail. A drone has been waiting silently inside the tunnel and rises toward them. Jensen fires his shotgun at it without stopping it, then shoots himself, leaving Duag as the drone’s remaining target.
Duag dives off the trail and breaks part of his lower body on the slope below. Unable to reach his pack, he plays the Elbakyan pattern into the drone’s camera from the captured phone. The drone loses control and crashes without detonating.
Duag then realizes that the phone’s satellite card is still on Jensen’s body above him. Armor from the militia side begins moving west on I-84 below, but Free Oregon incendiary rockets strike the valley and hillside. Fire spreads around Duag’s position. Unable to escape and unwilling to burn, he plays the Elbakyan pattern directly into his own eyes as the flames reach him.