Really good writing! You hit so many buttons...I was annoyed (that means, your writing affected me).

Some lines stopped me in my tracks. This short paragraph, for example:

He lived in a tidy apartment above a struggling bookstore, in a small town where the Midwest bled into the vastness of the plains. Etherford had been a decaying town until the Great Relocation began in 2027.

It must have felt great when you wrote that, when you knew the words flowed together perfectly.

I liked the whole thing, and I know where you were going. The only issue I have is that I don't believe the farmer and the protestor would be having pastry together the next morning. That's the idealist in you writing, and the realist (pessimist?) in me responding.

It's a nice resolution. It's satisfying, but frankly I don't think it would happen.