Prologue
Far beneath the surface of the Pacific, at the bottom of the Regasala trench, an enormous creature slides along the ocean floor. The area is pocked and strewn with garbage, a dumping ground where the currents have deposited all manner of jetsam and waste. The creature comes here often. It comes here to feed.
Its many tentacles sluice across the piles of accumulated debris, disturbing a cache of tiny cylinders. A few of the containers rupture as it passes, releasing their contents. The monster's senses alert it to the presence of the strange new substance. Not organic, exactly, but still consumable.
It settles its bulk in position, and begins plucking the small containers from the surrounding waste, passing them into its bony, snapping beak. Bits of the rotting metal shells are swallowed along with their contents, and some bits break away. They all bear one thing in common; the markings and symbols that designate the nature of their contents. They all bear the identifiers of drums of nuclear waste...
Far beneath the surface of the Pacific, at the bottom of the Regasala trench, an enormous creature slides along the ocean floor. The area is pocked and strewn with garbage, a dumping ground where the currents have deposited all manner of jetsam and waste. The creature comes here often. It comes here to feed.
Its many tentacles sluice across the piles of accumulated debris, disturbing a cache of tiny cylinders. A few of the containers rupture as it passes, releasing their contents. The monster's senses alert it to the presence of the strange new substance. Not organic, exactly, but still consumable.
It settles its bulk in position, and begins plucking the small containers from the surrounding waste, passing them into its bony, snapping beak. Bits of the rotting metal shells are swallowed along with their contents, and some bits break away. They all bear one thing in common; the markings and symbols that designate the nature of their contents. They all bear the identifiers of drums of nuclear waste...