Full text article on business services franchises and the B2B market

---------

Chapter 1

---------

The city had suffered. The multitudes of refugees that had flooded into the city had brought disease and crime. Inflation had risen to unheard of levels. The food was gone, the water was gone and many desperate people were willing to shed blood and worse to keep what little they had.

The city had suffered, and suffering was now the new state of being for these people.

The streets were filthy, filled with overflowing garbage and broken people. The streets of the city were filled with castoffs from society. Those with no hope. The desperate sewage of humanity.

Nathaniel stood in one of the higher levels of the city, eyes full of hatred for the creatures below. They were like animals, and that was the way he treated them. This was all the fault of the people below him. If they had not fallen so far, all this would not have happened.

His eyes stared at something off in the distance. He quickly shifted his gaze in that direction, moving his eyes in a wide arc for clarity. There was something about the people below him. The city was full of people. Many more than usual perhaps, but despite the hundreds of people milling about the streets, many still managed to stand out.

The street that he was standing on was filled with injured people, people down on a knee trying to get up. Some people were just quietly sitting on the street, books or small objects in their hands. There were the usual thugs, tiny emaciated blonde girls with roving eyes and too much makeup, the black boys and the Latinos, the whites and the Asians, they were all around him, wandering and wondering what to do next. People were starting to save up whatever they had left.

He looked down. There were a few people at a street corner haggled over something. He blinked a few times. Yes, it was something valuable. He looked back at the people he had seen stop.

They were not human. He could see that now. Even at a distance he recognized them as not being human.

He had gone down the staircase after he had spotted them. There weren't many in the stairwell all at once, but the fact that there was a group was already suspicious. He waited and listened for a few minutes. They weren't talking much, as if they were uncomfortable being in a tight room with so many people.

He waited and when it was clear that they were not up to much, he moved up the stairs and prepared to move by them silently. But just as he was passing by they started talking.

A man and two women stood there, dressed in dirty green, and gray clothes. He couldn't see their faces well. It was plain to Nathaniel that something was not right about these people. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, whatever it was. The conversations slowed him down. From what he could gather, the two women were sisters and the man was the man that had been with the two girls. He was dead.

There had to be something off about the situation, but he wasn't able to piece it together. There were many questions but none of the answers.

"Where are you going?" said the man.

"Where are you?" asked the man's sister.

"They told you where we are going, I am sure. There is nothing more I can say here," he said staring at his sister. "What is the problem?"

"You! You lied! Why should I follow you?" she asked.

"I told you, I have a better chance of surviving alone. No one will follow me here. You, however, need to move with the group. If that's alright with you."

"It's not alright with me! Why do you want us to trust you? You betrayed us. You lied."

"I did not lie to anyone. I told you I would go ahead, and I did. I just didn't tell you that they would catch up to me. To tell you that would've been lying. I promised to go first. But I didn't promise to stick around. I had no idea that it would end up being like this."

"It's your fault," she said, pointing to her sister's broken leg.

"It isn't my fault. She broke her leg falling down a flight of steps. It's not like she was running from them when it happened. She was getting ready to leave.

Conclusion: Tell us you're staying. Tell us you will give us that information that you promised us, and that they won't catch up with you on your own, shut. Here. I will make it happen. Otherwise, we're leaving."

The man looked at his sister and then looked at the two men as they waited nearby with their rifles. The man looked back at his sister and then turned to the others.

"Have to trust someone, right? Why not them? They are not my enemies.