how are the cool kids reconciling free will and predestination these days?

Free will is in, predestination is out.

There is nothing to reconcile. God exists outside of time and space. He existed eternally, before time and space came into existence. To God there is no such thing as "past" or "future". From His vantage point He can see the fullness of time, simultaneously and eternally. At this very moment, He is seeing every event that happened during that part of time that is "past" to us, and every event that happens in that part of time that is "future" to us. But it is all present to Him. It should be obvious that someone simply observing us making decisions of free will, either from a vantage point here in linear time, or from God's vantage point outside of time, has no effect on the freedom of those choices.

Looking at it on different scales.

As a living entity I make choices.

As a chemical machine my mind cannot be externally controlled, for it is my controller.