Holding Their Own XI: Hearts and Minds by Joe Nobody Read Free Book Online Page B

time he’d begun to deliver badly needed energy to the military and key civilian users. It was a drop in the bucket compared to what the deprived nation needed, but every little bit counted.
    With prominence came power and control. Slowly, he gathered a war chest of men, equipment, and most importantly, knowledge.
    There had been setbacks. When news came that Washington was pulling the U.S. Army out of Texas, Cameron had been discouraged. Rumors of the Alliance slowly restoring electrical power to the state’s larger metropolitan areas had further darkened his mood for weeks. There had been periods where it seemed that returning home was nothing more than a distant, fading dream.
    Now, that had all changed.
    Turning back to the two men seated in front of his desk, Cameron found himself needing confirmation of what he’d just heard. “Are you sure of this? Absolutely certain?”
    “Yes, sir,” answered the older of the two. “The Alliance’s council made the decision just a short time ago. Our sources are confident this new program will be initiated in the next 10 days.”
    “It’s also part of the public record,” the other visitor stated. “The meeting minutes of the last four council sessions all contain numerous discussions about the ownership of private property and how the situation is growing critical. Diana Brown even stated that it was the Alliance’s single largest issue, now more important than the five directives.”
    Cameron’s eyes darted between the two men, waiting for more. His visitors were happy to expand.
    “They’ve hit a wall,” continued the first, “They’re trying to restart the banking system, industrial production, and service based industries. But no one has paid on a mortgage since the collapse. Over half of the debtors are dead or missing, another significant portion of the population is sick or not working. Most of their economy is barter, and they just started collecting minimal taxes.”
    “They have hundreds of thousands that are homeless, many living in tent cities and working the fields by hand. Houston alone has armies of transient workers, bussed in to clean up the half of the city that burned. Yet, one estimate presented to the council claimed that 40% of the homes left standing were empty. The problem is, what do you do with them? Who owns them? Where are the owners? Which bank holds the note? It’s a huge mess.”
    One of the visitors chuckled, “I heard a story about a farm equipment dealership outside Brownsville. There were hundreds of new tractors, just sitting on the lot gathering dust. The owner and his family were all dead. The entire inventory had been there for months and months, half of the tires were flat, or so the story goes. Anyway, along came the Alliance… and they needed transportation. They were trying to organize work crews to plant fields, and they had a limited supply of gasoline. So they started taking the implements and using them. Two months ago, a woman showed up and claimed she’s the owner’s daughter… says she deserves to be compensated for all the missing vehicles. She told a great story about being trapped in New Orleans ever since the collapse. Had an ID with the same last name as the owner of record. Presented a yearbook from the local high school with her picture. The Alliance paid her off, only to find out a short time later that there never were any daughters – only three sons. They still haven’t found her or their money.”
    “That’s not even taking into account the fiasco at Ocean Towers,” added the other.
    Cameron grunted and then rubbed his chin, imagining the dilemma facing the Alliance leadership. “So they’re going to set a time limit? They’re going to give people a window to make claims. Anything that’s left over will be divided between the government and the banks. That’s not a bad idea.”
    “No,” responded one of the visitors. “There’s really no other way to go about it. Records, computer