Novella Plot Summary:
Twenty years after Fight Club imploded itself into myth, Marla Singerhas survived the revolution by doing the unthinkable: becoming a pharmaceutical executive. In zer mind, ze’s not selling out, ze’s buying in, moving through genomic machine learning compliance meetings like a corporate Don Quixote – a radical storyteller, chemically stabilized, part-time loser and painfully aware that the system that once tortured zer as a patient is now zer battleground to fight global healthcare inequality. Ze still goes to support groups for blood parasites: ze works as a volunteer for patients who have attempted suicide due to itching.
Over and over, we hear the mantra about recalls in the auto industry – the cost benefit analysis. 25 years later, not only do the problems remain, things are worse: for drivers, for patients, for workers, farmers, teachers and artists. Like in Trainspotting 2 (film)- the rules have changed, the old rules don’t work, and everyone is lost in the flooded zone that is the year of our lord 2025. Marla, more than anyone else, wants to find a path forward, help zer children, support zer successor, a fashion designer and filmmaker named Taza, and never give up on writing a story (and an AI) called Fight Club 2.
The old gang didn’t disappear; Adam did the meiosis and mitosis to become a technical AI startup mentor, mentoring data scientists, architects, quality personnel and public policy academics, and AI local lockboxes—all in and for the Global South – the Dusoma Foundation worker’s union. Kippo, the wildcard, leads the robot army, posing as a kinetic artist by day and working on poison dart drones at night. They are all former anarchists buried inside bureaucracy and grant applications, staging tiny rebellions through data leaks, deep fakes, BattleBot robots and guidelines for lesbian pool. It’s Fight Club meets Office Space: absurd, hilarious, radical and uniquely Gen X with Gen Z children. A world where project plans replace fists and you go to federal court over a 2 on a performance review. What is different is that Project Mayhem isn’t just boycotting, they’re building a new system and thinking beyond themselves. Again, they’re not selling out, they’re buying in – until that stops working.
As Marla pushes against the machine from the inside—“not building teams, building armies” ze ultimately creates new kind of disruption – creative resistance and a revolution led by artists and licensed disturbers of the status quo. The band gets back together.
The story becomes a darkly funny, haunting meditation on aging radicals and the last hoorah of a non-violent revolution – all while waiting for late stage capitalism to end and trying to keep your stupid fucking job. The final boss battle in Los Alamos, New Mexico, targeting income inequality throughout the state – and if this doesn’t work, Marla knows the stakes: the abandonment of non-violence and maybe even global annihilation. If the Dusoma Foundation falls, the center will not hold. And the question is asked again: why, exactly, is Marla in Los Alamos?
Everything is at stake for the Fight Club crew, as non-violence is on the line. 25 years later, Gen X is in their mid-50’s and the Gen Z stare is burning a hole into their souls. If they can’t write an amends, the least they can do is a go-for-broke last minute hack to save the world for the next generation, a world even more broken 25 years after Fight Club.
Intertwined with addiction issues, trauma, the hero’s journey, metamorphosis, personal and internalized capitalism, self-help, technology, elections and legal battles, a troubled, fractured, trans and struggling Marla finds zer chosen family and grows to understand that the victories are small, personal and local. The story ends with Marla losing the legal battle, but helping a single mom in an airport by taking care of zer baby while the mom gets a snack. At that moment Marla truly understands that the multiverse has no one single answer, and no one knows which flap of a butterfly wing will change the course of human history.