Chapter 7: The Great Shortage Crisis

The Kingdom of Palm Beachonia

President Hakeem Jeffries in a meeting of his Economic Response Council

Chapter 7: The Great Shortage Crisis

At first, everything inside the golden walls of Palm Beachonia looked exactly the way its citizens had been promised:

• Trucks revved patriotically along new boulevards.

• Sunsets were broadcast in high definition across RoyalNet, airbrushed to perfection.

• Ice sculptures of King Donald the First (actual height plus twenty percent) adorned every major intersection.

It was, briefly, exactly the fantasy they'd signed up for.

But fantasies, like carnival balloons, have a way of popping at the first brush with reality.

And Palm Beachonia, it turned out, was terribly allergic to reality.