The idea for this story came from three things I learned about North Dakota. First, the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex is an Air Force eye-in-the-sky installation near Grand Forks, North Dakota. Second, the Air Force auctioned off some of the adjacent land in 2012. Third, the auction was won by a sect of Anabaptist Hutterites, who established a community there.
Then I created my own Air Force installation, which I set on the opposite side of North Dakota, amid all the fracking operations, and the plot took off from there.
Hope you enjoyed the story.