Off Interstate 94, west of Wibaux in Montana, grew the town of Virhead which served the genomic research group Yewsun. The population of Virhead was 426. 22% of Virhead’s population worked at Yewsun.

Yewsun was working on a man-made variant B.1.1.7 of SARS-CoV-2 virus known as B.1.1.7.j of SARS-CoV-2. The B.1.1.7.j variant was 2.25 times more contagious than SARS-CoV-2 and caused higher deaths among younger populations from micro-blood clots in the lungs. Yewsun based this on theoretical computer modeling from the alterations applied.

All this information was according to popular conspiracy theory channels of the social media net. Based on their information, a lab leak occurred from Yewsun infecting the town of Virhead. The town’s only medical clinic was overwhelmed in less than a week. Local police brought in state and federal forces to establish a large quarantine perimeter. They immediately put isolation protocols into place to restrict the residents from leaving. Any who attempted to leave was shot dead and their bodies incinerated.

The Operation Pixie Dust Documents

Years later came out redacted documents called Operation Pixie Dust. The state forces were withdrawn, and the Federal forces remained. The USAF brought two military-grade heavy lift planes in, each carrying a 6 kt ANFO bomb. They dropped one bomb on the Yewsun laboratory and the other on the town of Virhead without regards to the civilians present. The Federal forces performed a mob up exercise incinerating any human remains. They then placed the area on the Federal registry of contaminated and restricted zones. Any trespasser could be shot and killed on site.

From time to time, a conspiracy theory channel would air Retired Sargent Ralph Garner’s story of the events based on an online published transcript. But searches for this individual have proven fruitless. Even a House subcommittee review turned up nothing. Some believe the story was a plant to provide creditability for Operation Pixie Dust. In the Ret. Sargent’s story, he cites how potentially disloyal soldiers were shot by CIA operatives at the time to prevent leaks. The CIA denies such allegations. It claims that Operation Pixie Dust was an Airforce testing of non-nuclear weapons at White Sands, New Mexico. And as for the redacted document, the CIA notes a clerical error caused two unrelated incident files to be merged into one resulting in the confusion. The CIA’s story is Virhead suffered from a chemical containment leak from Yewsun’s chemical stores, and that’s why the town was evacuated and sealed off as a Federally restricted zone.

President Veronica Simmons

Rumors of how President Veronica Simmons had devised plans to deal with the overcrowding of the Stacks by releasing an even deadlier version of smallpox would eclipse the Operation Pixie Dust story. Her test ground was to be the camps that were established in the flooded remains of New York City. According to the conspiracy theory channels, this one action caused some of the military to take matters into their own hands and force her out of office. To this day, no government documentation has surfaced to support these claims. Most of these shows use supposed “insiders” claiming firsthand knowledge, but none of these people reveal their true identities. They go by handles like SwiftMule or AwesomeOyster. And yet no one has seen or heard from President Veronica Simmons since stepping down.

On SNL, Elon Musk joked that Dogecoin was a hustle. This was followed a couple days later, as reported on Bloomberg, that Mr. Musk tweeted Tesla would no longer accept the cryptocurrency Bitcoin as payment for his cars. He cited green energy issues. This sent the prices of Bitcoin tumbling.

Following all this, the Economist had a piece on the idea of central banks issuing digital money and if banks could survive. The piece noted that in October 2020 the central bank of the Bahamas became the first group to issue a digital currency. China has since followed with the e-yuan. Other central banks are now looking into the idea.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has had a dual mandate [price stability (i.e., the rate of inflation) and maximum sustainable employment] for a long time. They do this through the control of monetary flows through the various areas of the economy. This is not the same throughout the world with other central banks. But could this change with digital currencies? Digital currencies allow for greater control features not part of the current fiat money supply.

So, What Happened?

As the First Age of Humanity continued to unfold, cryptocurrencies kept having issues. There were problems with the mining aspects from how block chains worked. An ever-increasing number of anti-trust lawsuits were launched by miners against other miners, to increasing social concerns over power and resource consumption. There was also the ever-increasing pressure by the SEC against various U.S. entities launching cryptocurrencies in violation of trade and security acts. Then came a big Federal crackdown effort on cybercriminal activity involving not only general hacking, but also the use of cryptocurrencies for money laundering and other criminal activities. Arrests of crypto crimes were becoming news click bait as people became increasingly reluctant to use the digital currencies for trade. Then Wall Street became unwilling to deal with the space until the government developed greater oversight. This is when the ride stopped with the current known cryptocurrencies as the market collapsed.

It was at this point the U.S. federal government reasserted its authority under Section 31 U.S.C. 5103 and Title 18, Section 471 to issue any currency for trade, debt, and any obligation by creating its own digital version of the US dollar. It then relegated the remaining cryptocurrencies to a variant of tradable security like stocks, bonds, and futures. These moves reassured Wall Street allowing the reopening of trading in the cryptocurrency space, but in doing so subjected the transfers to greater scrutiny. Such as removing off book transactions, the public announcement of certain transactions by insiders, and subjecting domestic cryptocurrency exchanges to the same rules as all other security exchanges.

The Digital USD Technology

The adoption of a digital USD, or d-USD, caused a consolidation of the US banking industry. Left were shadow bankers, investment bankers, credit unions, and saving & loans associations. Gone were retail bankers, commercial bankers, and cooperative bankers. The accounts from lost banks were redistributed and merged into either the remaining bankers or under the new division of the Federal Reserve handling the d-USD working with the Treasury Department, the Commerce Department and Small Business Administration.

The US Treasury continued to print coin denominations but discontinued the printing of paper bills. Except now all coins had Nano-chips imbedded in them, making them digital and traceable.

By Rosella’s time, d-USD transactions were tracked through an A.I. reinforced Byzantine consensus mechanism instead of older block chain technology. People kept all their d-USD transactions online in a “g-wallet” maintained by the Federal Reserve. The “g” isn’t for government but is for gene. This is because it granted access through a gene scan from a person’s finger. Some people employed a second layer of security using a “key chip”. Key chips could be imbedded in the hand or kept in something physical, like a card. They used a special form of algorithmic encryption that required both parties to know the formula. Each key chip formula is unique and registered with the g-wallet that there is one.

A g-wallet ties in all aspects of the finances of a person into one digital location allowing individuals to get loans, buy stocks, or conduct any wide range of financial transactions. The downside was the government now monitors all transactions.

Cord Cutters & Criminals

There are hold outs who’ve cut the cord from digital money. This is common for poorer or remote areas of the United States. It’s also found in the communities of Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and parts of San Francisco, California. These areas have returned to basic bartering or use of any precious commodity, like jewels or gold for trade.

Many criminals have also moved to physical gold and silver for transactions finding it has a lower digital footprint. More clever criminals have multiple fake g-wallets using 3-D printed DNA fingers to do money laundering. These criminals act as the go between for transacting gold and silver for goods and weapons then passing the metals on to other people for d-USD. Allowing them to purchase more supplies for gangs.

Local, State and Federal law enforcement are constantly investigating links between the cord cutting communities and the criminal networks. In Seattle and Portland there are street protests, even in Rosella’s time, by those who support the people’s right to barter and not deal in the new digital currencies.

The Rest of the World

As for the rest of the world, by Rosella’s time you see other central banks with digital currencies and government monitored digital wallets. Some places removed all their banks while others kept private banking systems in place. With the digitization of currency came a precise control over the economy by nation states that rivaled all previous control measures. For the first time nation states could stop certain sales of products because of illegal activity or safety issues with the push of a button. But it also made central banks an increasing target for cyberwarfare and espionage creating a security tech race among the nations. This alone helped to power the increasing development of more powerful A.I. systems for both defense and attack.