Abject in the Dust

Prologue

Greed killed the world. The unquenchable quest for wealth and power.

Great armies were not the weapon of choice. Nor bombs capable of destroying entire civilizations in a single brilliant flash of light. Something smaller – much smaller – was the nemesis of mankind.

The true way to win against an enemy was not to fight a war, but to make it so that your enemy was incapable of even raising a hand against you. Many had probably understood these words over the centuries, but there came a time when some understood how to put them into action. But how could an enemy be so incapacitated? Disease? Illness? That was where it had started. A logical starting point; Spanish Flu had wiped out almost a quarter of the world's population at the start of the twentieth century. So, terrible biological weapons were created; capable of delivering death on a colossal scale. But biological weapons were tricky things, particularly in a world so inter-connected. The viruses created had no way of knowing friend from foe. So, the only way nations had to protect themselves from their own creations was to develop the means to kill the very viruses they had created. A threat with an antidote. A threat which was no threat.

And there was another challenge. Taking life was not enough to incapacitate an enemy. Not on its own. Wealth needed to be taken as well. History provided the solution. Famine. Blight. Death on a massive scale and economies destroyed in one fell swoop. Not famine through deprivation of water or trying to influence the weather. The solution was far easier to manufacture. Genetically engineered nematodes - microscopic worms designed to destroy rice crops. That had been the intention. A calculated attempt by Western powers aware of their own decline and determined to rewrite their fate, by halting the economic progress of others – to try and restore some form of corrupted imperialistic balance. Famine on a massive scale, supported by economic blockades and sanctions. And it worked, for a time. Economies collapsed. Governments were overthrown. Millions perished - and as some nations fell, others ascended.

Then the precarious balance changed again beyond any measure of expectation. Their food source exhausted, the nematodes would remain dormant in the soil, ready to pounce should any errant grain of rice be foolish enough to try and establish a foothold in the sterile soil. And, eventually, their food source completely exhausted, they would die. That was the theory. That was what all the years of laboratory testing had confirmed. But mankind had created a new apex predator and given it life – and it was not ready to die. It adapted, and within a generation, all that was once green turned to dust. Crops, flowers, any form of vegetation disappeared as did the birds, animals and insects that relied upon them for food and shelter. Only those that ate nothing but meat or thrived in decay survived. They did more than survive – they flourished, until the carrion ran out. Then they sought out what fresh meat remained, whether it be their own kind or mankind.

Only the biggest seas and rivers remained unaffected. The flooded rice paddies were no obstacle to the nematodes. The creatures would crawl across the dead bodies of their kin to find safe ground and restart their destructive purpose. But fast-moving water and tides made their normal means of progress impossible. Yet even the largest oceans could not stop the destructive force of the nematodes. Carried on the soles of shoes, the tread of vehicles and the feathers of birds, the biggest oceans were little more than an inconvenience and the destruction which had been wreaked upon others was soon on the doorstep of those who might have thought themselves safe.

Those that had the means took to the oceans. Colossal floating structures which disappeared beyond the horizon. Able to harvest the sea, safe from predators - small and large alike. With the promise that they would return with a cure.

Decades had passed. None had returned ... save for one.