Maelstrom - watts peter

This is the way the world ends: A nuclear strike on a deep sea vent.

The target was an ancient microbe--voracious enough to drive the whole biosphere to extinction--and a handful of amphibious humans called rifters whod inadvertently released it from three billion years of solitary confinement.

The resulting tsunami killed millions.

Its not as through there was a choice: saving the world excuses almost any degree of collateral damage.

Unless, of course, you miss the target.

Now North Americas west coast lies in ruins.

Millions of refugees rally around a mythical figure mysteriously risen from the deep sea.

A world already wobbling towards collapse barely notices the spread of one more blight along its shores.

And buried in the seething fast-forward jungle that use to be called Internet, something vast and inhuman reaches out to a woman with empty white eyes and machinery in her chest.

A woman driven by rage, and incubating Armageddon.

Her name is Lenie Clarke.

Shes a rifter.

Shes not nearly as dead as everyone thinks.

And the whole damn world is collateral damage as far as shes concerned.