The flooded subway tunnel reeked of decay. Elaine illuminated the path ahead with her glowing wrist, the blue light casting web-like shadows on the water's surface. The floating debris weren't trash—they were shed scales and mutated fish carcasses.
"She's fading," Lisa laid Margaret on a platform bench. The elder's spine was fully exposed, blue crystals spreading between bones like alien fungi.
Elaine checked the waterproof chip's map. A red dot pulsed three blocks away at a military outpost. "Dr. Qi might be there. Only he can explain these crystals—"
A metallic screech echoed from the tunnel depths. The water rippled unnaturally, as if something massive was turning in the depths. Mark raised the stolen harpoon gun. "Dear God, that thing's at least thirty feet long—"
The water behind them exploded. A mutated eel burst forth, its head splitting into four petal-like jaws with rotating teeth. Elaine instinctively raised her arm—as the blue glow intensified, the creature froze mid-lunge as if paused.
"Go!" Mark's harpoon struck an eye, spraying foul mucus. Elaine grabbed Margaret as they stumbled toward an emergency exit.
Emerging above ground, the sight froze them in place. Times Square had become a massive whirlpool, seawater pouring into the subway. Worse, chained Beta types floated at the vortex center, their scales being mechanically scraped off.
"Deep Hunters' 'scale farms,'" the old sailor trembled. "They refine anti-rad enzymes from scales."
Elaine's chip suddenly burned, projecting a 3D arrow pointing west. As they skirted the whirlpool, underwater red lights activated—military probes with razor-sharp sampling arms.
"Avoid the beams!" Elaine warned too late. Lisa's tail grazed one, triggering a mechanical arm to stab her scales. Blood bloomed as alarms sounded in the distance.
"They smell blood!" Mark ripped the arm out, but his wound began oozing the same blue crystals. Elaine's glow pulsed in sync with them, creating rhythmic waves.
All probes suddenly turned toward them. Acting on instinct, Elaine dragged her family through a shattered storefront. They fled through the flooded boutique, pursued by metallic shrieks—something much larger than probes was moving in the water.
The navigation arrow led to a half-submerged skyscraper. Its upper five floors bristled with gun turrets, while the underwater entrance was sealed by a force field. As Elaine surfaced for air, a rifle pressed against her forehead.
"Gene scan." The guard dropped a device. When Elaine grasped it, sparks erupted: "Warning! Neptune marker gene detected!"
The force field dropped. Four armored Alpha types dragged them inside. Elaine's last glimpse showed her parents being taken separate ways, while Margaret was rushed away on a floating gurney.
"You're with me." The only officer with human features removed his helmet, revealing mechanical implants around a slit-pupiled eye. "Dr. Qi has waited long enough, Luminous One."
Through airlock corridors, Elaine noticed surveillance feeds. One showed hundreds of tank-bound specimens—all with blue crystal growths. Another displayed a massive shadow moving through a trench, its shape vaguely resembling...
"Your handiwork?" She pointed accusingly.
The officer suddenly choked her with a mechanical grip: "Wrong questions shorten your usefulness, Miss Harper." His cyber-eye flashed red. "You should ask why your grandmother's crystals match ancient structures in the Mariana Trench."
The elevator descended to abyssal levels. When doors opened, Elaine gasped—the floor was a massive lab centered around a thirty-foot water tank. Suspended within was—
"Margaret?!"
The elder floated at the tank's core, tethered by countless tubes. Worse, the blue crystals were multiplying into coral-like structures. An Asian man in a lab coat stood at the controls, not turning: "Welcome to evolution's frontier, Elaine. Your grandmother is becoming the new world's foundation."
When he faced her, Elaine's heart stopped—his gill slit patterns matched the stranger who'd saved her in the tunnel.
"I'm Qi Ye." His glasses reflected metallic hues under Elaine's glow. "Or as intelligence files call me—Project Neptune's chief defector."
Alarms suddenly blared. Screens showed the tentacle woman leading an assault, but Qi's focus was on the trench shadow now speeding toward New York.
"Seventy-two hours ahead of schedule." He drained Margaret's tank rapidly. "Elaine, your glow isn't a symptom—it's an interface. The Harpers were never human. You're sentinel genes left by an ancient deep-sea civilization."
He pressed a nano-chip into Elaine's glowing skin: "That civilization wants its 'Ark' back. And your grandmother is becoming the bridge."
The ceiling collapsed, seawater and steel crashing down. In the chaos, Elaine saw Margaret open her eyes—no longer human, but something older and colder.
Worst of all, she felt scales sloughing off her own tail as identical blue crystals pierced through her skin...