Ghost Spark - Essence Engine

All it took to ignite the new world order was a targeted viral strike on the US armed forces.
The delivery vehicle was a migratory flock of Pacific Golden Plover loaded with a viral pathogen. First infecting US scientists monitoring the Plover nesting grounds on Guam, it quickly spread throughout the island via asymptomatic transmission. Targeting only young men, the carefully sequenced pathogen tore through through the US base on Guam and on throughout the Pacific Fleet. Once the Pacific Fleet was incapacitated, a targeted EMP strike on the west coast of the US brought the United States to its knees.
In the years after the single day of war, the pathogen was decrypted to reveal its human engineered origin.
The who or why was irrelevant.
In the months after "war-day", The Russian Empire expanded into Europe and the Middle East. The Chinese "Indo-Pacific Partnership" grew to encompass all of South America, Australia and all the way to India.
The only thing that kept the United States from being invaded was its 2,000 plus stockpile of nuclear weapons and ageing ballistic missile submarines. Any further attack on any American military asset would bring with it a full retaliation on pre-selected cities around the world by a diminished US with an increasingly itchy trigger finger. The new world order slowly tilted into position.
Japan was the United States' only ally, but even in San Francisco, the Yen-Dollar only went so far. For some, it was easier to die then live in a country shattered by a war that was over before it started.
For Marcus, The day the EMPs destroyed the country's power grid was a childhood memory from a lifetime ago. Business as a freelance corporate mercenary is good. One last job before he can relax and take a few months off. But this job is different. What happens next will change the fate of humanity forever.

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