Salt & Betrayal: 1

In 2055, the United States is a ghost, and the continent has fractured into a grim matrix of warring successor states. Down South, where the air smells of salt, diesel, and gun oil, the Florida Republic and the Carolina Republic survive on a razor's edge of mutual suspicion. They trade in timber, tobacco, and ammunition, but every handshake comes with a knife in the other sleeve. Florida is an iron-fisted maritime fortress built to hold its coastline at any cost, while Carolina operates as a lean, hyper-militarized state running deniable, black-water operations out of the gray morning mist. For twenty years, an uneasy truce has held the line, but the peace is running on empty. The equilibrium shatters when a high-stakes transaction in a cartel-controlled Mexican port forces a collision course between two elite operators who share the same old-world training. As black-hull stealth vessels cut the midnight currents of the Gulf, a dark, institutional game of chess begins to unfold, threatening to rip open every border on the map. From the suffocating, neon-lit sanctuaries of hidden power grids to the bleeding, drone-haunted mud trenches of the Appalachian peaks, the fuses have been lit. In a smaller, meaner world where the darkness has teeth, the question isn't who will win the coming conflict, but who will be left to collect the bill.