Richard Stephenson - Collapse

Since Americans could no longer afford air travel, the terrorists instead focused their attention on mass transit. Subways in the nation’s largest cities became a target of suicide bombers. In order to counter the attacks, security checkpoints reminiscent of the ones in airports in the wake of 9-11 began to be installed at every subway entrance in the country. This came at great cost to the already broken U.S. economy and further enraged the American public. Angry and frustrated people had to leave their home an hour earlier just to get to work on time. The security checkpoints at the subways only motivated the terrorists to switch methods. Realizing that wearing a suicide vest was no longer an option, the terrorists instead smuggled ceramic knives onto the subways and targeted children and the elderly. Slowly, the population in major cities began to dwindle away as frightened citizens no longer felt safe. Hoping to encourage the citizens to stay and continue to work in the big cities, thirty-eight governors activated the National Guard to full time active duty to maintain law and order on the streets. Hell, they might even catch a few terrorists on the side. The plan was an overwhelming success in terms of public opinion; soon the remaining twelve states adopted the idea as well. The Unified National Guard was created and was under the sole authority of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who only answered to the president. The president didn’t even have to bother with the unpleasantness of Posse Comitatas in the way that President Lincoln had suffered. No formal declaration was made; the American people begged for it and applauded their leaders for finally taking action and protecting them. After a few months, the idea backfired in the worst possible way. The warm and fuzzy feeling of security was replaced with the Orwellian nightmare of Big Brother.

Citizens did not want to pay the high price of security. Random checkpoints clogged the streets. Red-blooded Americans felt they shouldn’t have to show their ID and submit to a retinal scan. We have rights! You can’t do this! Racial profiling bred chaos. Anyone with olive colored skin was detained and often beaten without even a single word spoken. Residents of the big cities quickly changed their minds and did not like the idea of martial law. Well, that was just too bad. The U.S. government was not willing to take it back and call it square.

The largest attack was during the Super Bowl in 2023. A man named Nassir El-Fayid, a former Al-Qaeda freedom fighter, launched a small crop duster a half-mile from Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Before fighter jets could be scrambled to shoot him down, he managed to fly over Cowboy Stadium and release cyanide gas, killing over thirty two thousand people, including the majority of the New Orleans Saints and the Oklahoma City Sooners. The people in the stands were even kind enough to oblige El-Fayid by looking up at his plane. He almost hit the roof of the billion-dollar stadium on his way in. They didn’t know if the plane was some sort of flashy gimmick or some crazy fan who couldn’t get tickets. Many thought the plane was going to circle back around, wait for a time out to be called, and land on the field so some A-List celebrity could make a surprise appearance. Saints fans were looking for any reason to get their team off the field. They wanted the Saints to have a much needed distraction so they could regroup and get back in the game. The two-year old NFL team from Oklahoma would no doubt make the Saints swallow the bitter pill of defeat.

Instead of seeing a famous movie or rock star take the field, an estimated one hundred and twenty-three million viewers watched the nation’s deadliest domestic massacre unfold on live TV for over a minute before the broadcast was terminated. In the wake of the attack, Cowboy Stadium was closed and the National Football League never played another game. The American public was outraged to say the least. While tragic by its very nature, a bomb in the subway was one thing, but millions of pissed off football fans never being able to watch another game was simply outrageous. Riots erupted all over the country and angry mobs killed anyone with olive colored skin. Within a month of the attack on Cowboy Stadium, the U.S. government rounded up anyone whose nationality hailed from the Great Empire of Iran and locked them up in eleven Middle Eastern internment camps scattered across the country. In order to prevent the frightened Middle Easterners from being slaughtered, the camps were literally built around the people. The American Civil Liberties Union protested the violation to human rights. They had hoped that the atrocities of the Japanese internment camps of World War II would not be repeated. After being attacked by angry mobs themselves, the ACLU quietly went away to lick their wounds.

The United States government did not have enough money for the security upgrades to the subways, nor did they have enough money to intern tens of thousands of American citizens in camps for an indeterminate amount of time. They certainly didn’t have the money to activate half a million guardsmen to protect the nation’s cities. Once again, the only remaining option was to borrow money from China. The current loan was to the tune of a trillion dollars, giving the Chinese ownership of sixty-one percent of the nation’s debt . Firefly fans just knew that their favorite TV show was a prophetic, with this very thing foreseen by Joss Whedon decades prior. Pretty soon, they would learn to speak Chinese. The fans of the cult TV show were the few that relished the thought.

America was falling. Not many Americans really believed it at first. Their country had endured many challenges in its history. The United States of America had peered into the abyss many times but had never fallen in headfirst. They had survived a Civil War, two World Wars, and came out the other side of the First Great Depression and thrived. Democracy was the greatest institution the world had ever seen, and no other group of civilized people in the history of the world had been a greater example. To doubt the United States of America was unpatriotic and almost bordered on treason. No one dared challenge their beloved country.

The few that could see the unpleasant truth prepared in secret. They stockpiled food, water, and medicine. They learned how to purify dirty water and start a fire without matches. Couch potatoes learned how to fish and hunt. Suburbanites dug bomb shelters by flashlight. Country folk built bunkers.

Sadly, the few that had the foresight to prepare dared not recruit for fear of ridicule and rejection. The ones that did shout from the rooftops and proclaim the end of the world was near had a rude awakening. The Department of Homeland Security declared that anyone who stockpiled food, water, ammunition, and medicine were potential domestic terrorists and placed on a watch list. It didn’t take long for the survivalist movement to go underground.

America was falling. Its decline had already begun. Patriotic Americans refused to believe it. America would prevail. She would rise again. Those unwilling to help make it happen were traitors. Sadly, the traitors knew the truth. The United States of America was racing towards collapse.

For the first time in two and a half years, Howard Beck made plans to leave his mountain fortress and venture to the other side of the twelve-foot high brick wall that surrounded his estate. He had spent the previous night obsessing over what to bring along with him. Howard had designated a specific bathrobe for each day of the week and wore nothing else. Leaving the compound meant that he would have to wear actual clothes; Howard had no idea what to wear. He finally decided on four outfits and packed them in his bag.