The GPS gave me a choice between the fastest and shortest route or toll roads. I went for the quick. The system told me it would take thirty-eight minutes. I hit “approve guidance” and the truck slowly accelerated. I took my hands off the wheel and held them in midair, hovering enough to quickly grab the wheel if necessary, getting accustomed to the reality that I was not in control. “This is really weird,” I said, my tone somewhere between amazement and amusement. Sitting behind the wheel, watching it turn, created an odd sensation. As the truck picked up speed, I found myself instinctively reaching for Van’s hand controls, and only after realizing they weren’t there did I accept the reality that I wasn’t driving.

It still felt very uncomfortable, though.

The GPS guided the truck through several middle-class residential neighborhoods. Trees and front lawns, well-kept houses, a father and small daughter walking their dog. Squirrels dashing across the street. Everything appeared calm and normal, a warm summer night in suburban America. Then we turned onto a street being searched by the local militia. Who knows? Maybe they were looking for me. It was a block of one-family brick and wood homes built, I’d guess, in the 1950s. An old-fashioned suburban block lined with mature trees whose roots were pushing up the sidewalk. The houses had aged well; they were narrow and deep, with a four-step brick stoop climbing to a landing, windows on either side of the front door, a driveway on the left leading to a garage at the rear of the house. Many of these houses had covered entries; several of them had added wider windows and second-story dormers. Most of them had lined their front with bushes, and two or three also had window boxes, one of them filled brightly with red and yellow flowers. The driveways were gravel, asphalt, or cement. I could see basketball hoops on most of the garages.

I rested my hands on the steering wheel. A young man peered into the cab. He looked pleasant enough, except for the semiautomatic weapon on his shoulder. After deciding that we were normal Americans, not some traitor in a wheelchair, he smiled and gave us a one-finger salute as if tipping a nonexistent hat as we drove past. Laura smiled back and gave him a little wave in return.

Members of the militia, all of them dressed in black pants and black shirts and wearing red armbands, were standing in groups on the sidewalk or on landings. They carried flashlights, and several of them had rifles slung over the shoulder or hanging across the chest. At a glance they looked to be a wide span of ages. There were several women, some of them patrolling with children. One young boy was carrying a Little League–sized baseball bat.

Some front doors were open, but most were not. As we drove past a dark house, two men were attacking a closed door with a sledgehammer. A little farther down the block, the Blackshirts were beating a bloodied man, who was on his knees, shielding his head with his arms. An older woman walking a big dog was waiting patiently to get past, watching with obvious curiosity as she was held back.