Richard Stephenson - Collapse

When she returned to The People’s House and secluded herself in the private residence quarters, Prince attempted to contact Stacy Reid via vidcon. A few minutes later she was looking at her former employee, desperately pleading her case to the Floridian who was the president’s closest advisor. Convincing Stacy to help her wasn’t difficult for her since her own home town was near the coast and no longer existed. Stacy’s parents had both died many years ago, and the rest of her family had moved away from Florida. When Stacy presented Governor Princes’ concerns to the president he dismissed her, choosing to close himself up in the Oval Office to devise a plan. Stacy found it odd that Malcolm would make the plans without her, but she trusted her boss to do the right thing and went about the business of running the day-to-day operations of the White House.

Malcolm called Stacy back to his office around dinnertime, and the two joined Governor Prince in a vid-con. The president told the governor that he was going to institute a full lock-down of the disaster zone and feed the press a story about a chemical spill and a quarantine zone. The cover story was to prevent widespread panic. The president told Governor Prince that the only truth the press would be told was that an aircraft carrier was en route to the Florida coast to begin search and rescue missions. Governor Prince was pleased.

Several days later at the infamous meeting when she cussed out the president, Lori Prince was anxious to get to the bottom of things. The promises made to her had yet to even begin to happen. A great many soldiers in the Unified National Guard stationed in Florida had been killed right along with the citizens. Governor Prince called in every favor she had accumulated during her political career, calling every governor she knew well and other she only knew by name. She begged and pleaded with them to send every guardsman they could spare to try Florida. Not one governor was willing to help her. They all had their own states to look after. Their guardsmen were busy maintaining law and order in their major cities. To make matters worse, every governor she spoke to told her to be patient; the White House was sending help. Since President Powers was sending an aircraft carrier to render aide, their guardsmen would be wasting time in Florida when they could be at home. Governor Prince left the White House enraged. She returned to Florida, resigned to the fact that she was on her own and powerless to do a thing.

Twenty-two years prior, Governor Prince had been in her senior year at the University of Miami and followed the horrors of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Kathleen Blanco, then governor of the state of Louisiana, failed miserably at handling the crisis. In Lori Prince’s opinion, President Bush and the Federal Emergency Management Agency were more to blame. Watching the news footage of people stranded on their rooftops waiting for rescue was the most heart breaking and outrageous thing that the college senior had ever seen in her life. Lori was already a political science major and had aspirations of going into politics. She believed in democracy and had a strong desire to serve the people and make their lives better. She would spend her political career ensuring that the gross negligence seen during Katrina would never be repeated.

Twenty-two years later, she was governor of the fourth largest state in the country and considered herself a total failure. History would forget Kathleen Blanco and her poor response to New Orleans in 2005. History would brand Prince as the worst governor in the history of the United States.

Governor Prince sat on the balcony outside her bedroom and looked at the bottle of Ambien in her hand. She was contemplating taking the entire bottle and falling into an eternal, peaceful slumber. The only thought that gave her pause was that of Malcolm Powers. He had betrayed her and hung her out to dry. He’d sat behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office and lied to her face. Her hatred for the man was the only thing that saved her from taking her life.

Benjamin Black was quickly amassing a large fortune and formidable power in the greater Orlando area. His experience at the Kissimmee Super Wal-Mart opened his eyes to the opportunity that the wasteland of Florida had to offer. Where other people saw chaos, Benjamin saw a chance at power. Once they took Chester Stephens’ retail store from him, they stripped it clean of everything that would help his group survive and prosper. Benjamin quickly fled from the fallen Wal-Mart, the dead bodies inside not something he wanted to answer for should law and order be restored. A week after they left the Kissimmee Super Wal-Mart, his group returned to move in and set up shop. If Benjamin Black had any doubts about civilization returning to the way it was, the passage of time removed any lingering hope. The former Jiffy Lube manager knew that in this new world, he would be king.

Benjamin thought back to the battle he had with Chester Stephens and reversed roles with the slain manager. What would he have done to repel his own attack? If he were Chester, how would he have done things differently? Benjamin corrected all of Chester’s mistakes. The pedestrian entrance to the loading docks was camouflaged and barricaded from the inside. Benjamin completely closed off the door so it could never be used again. The next order of business was to draw up a rotation for guard duty. Sentries were posted on all four corners of the roof and would contact Benjamin by radio if anything suspicious was happening. The south entrance that Benjamin’s people had plowed into with a makeshift bulldozer was now fortified. A twenty-four foot truck was tipped over on its side directly in front of the entrance. Two armed guards sat atop the U-Haul truck, and another two sat inside the sallyport. A champion sharpshooter was happy to pull double shifts sitting on top of the U-Haul. He relished the opportunity to repel an attack. Every few days a band of thugs would try to shoot their way in, and he gleefully dropped them like flies.

Benjamin sent out scouting parties everyday to find more supplies and every night they returned with their booty. Crowds of people showed up at Benjamin’s fortress; the price of admission was to fill a shopping cart with useable supplies and hand them over. A five-gallon container of gasoline granted immediate entry. Benjamin welcomed new recruits into his growing militia and didn’t tolerate disorder, disobedience, or laziness. Those not willing to pull their weight got an ass kicking as the only warning. The next violation resulted in banishment from the community. After a few people were sent packing with a broken jaw or nose and told not to come back, the rest of the group got the message and dared not cross Benjamin.

Benjamin had bigger plans for his growing enterprise. Once he amassed truckloads of supplies and his fortress became uncomfortably overcrowded, Benjamin set his sights on a much bigger piece of real estate. When the preparations were complete, every man, woman and child loaded up backpacks and rolling luggage with supplies. Every working vehicle was loaded to capacity and staged in a convoy. Benjamin was the last man out the door of the Kissimmee Super Wal-Mart. He pulled out his lighter and threw it into a pool of gasoline. The vapors ignited and followed a trail to the center of the store, where a bonfire soaked in lighter fluid erupted into flames. The center bonfire lit three more trails of gasoline, which led to three more bonfires. The Kissimmee Super Wal-Mart was quickly engulfed in flames and by morning, all that was left was smoldering ash. Benjamin Black had no intention of leaving a solid structure for another group to move right into. What was left of Orlando would soon belong to him. He would not permit another group to pose a threat.