Maelstrom - Watts Peter

n nThis is the way the world ends: n nA 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 who'd inadvertently released it from three billion years of solitary confinement. n nThe resulting tsunami killed millions.

It's not as through there was a choice: saving the world excuses almost any degree of collateral damage. n nUnless, of course, you miss the target. n nNow North America's 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. n nHer name is Lenie Clarke. She's a rifter.

She's not nearly as dead as everyone thinks. n nAnd the whole damn world is collateral damage as far as she's concerned. .

. .n