#14
The city streets were empty, the condition was no longer a joke. Like terrorism or global warming America was not able to laugh off the situation and deny its progression until it went away. Even worse there was no room in a non existent economy for products or profit to exist. All we had left were valuable shared resources to ration out.
Solar panels never made it. The corporations had decided that it was more important to invest money in the vital food we were shipping in from other countries rather than use the time and man power to proliferate the existence of alternative energy sources. We no longer drove because we couldn't and we had no where to go anyway. We rarely left the house because our growing paranoia that the condition was "out there" kept us indoors wearing SARS masks huffing the same, contained recycled air.
Luckily the powers that be were able to con a few sad sacks into generating electric power and water for the rest of us. Stacks upon stacks of government issued I.O.U's were printed on fancy paper with official stamps and signatures. They were handed out the the "heroes" who elected to risk early contraction of the condition so that their children and children's children might live comfortably after the whole epidemic thing blew over.
