Meg: Hell's Aquarium Read online

  Praise for MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror

  “An adrenaline-pumping thriller . . . the perfect antidote to a sunny day at a crowded beach.”

  —New York Post

  “Two words: Jurassic shark!”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Nonstop excitement.”

  —Library Journal

  “Hellishly riveting . . . an utterly amazing climax.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Praise for The Trench

  “An entertaining tale of gripping nonstop horror.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “A fast-paced thriller with many plot twists.”

  —Booklist

  “Alten can still write a mean prehistoric shark scene.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Praise for MEG: Primal Waters

  “An exuberant potboiling action thriller. The shark attack scenes . . . are numerous and exciting. Fans should devour it.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Alten’s imaginative tale will keep readers turning the pages.”

  —Booklist

  More Thrillers by Steve Alten

  MEG SERIES

  MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror

  The Trench

  MEG: Primal Waters*

  MEG: Hell’s Aquarium*

  MEG: Night Stalkers (forthcoming)

  DOMAIN SERIES

  Domain*

  Resurrection*

  Phobos (forthcoming)

  GOLIATH SERIES

  Goliath*

  Sorceress (forthcoming)

  The Loch*

  The Shell Game

  * From Tom Doherty Associates

  STEVE ALTEN

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

  NEW YORK

  NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  MEG: HELL’S AQUARIUM

  Copyright © 2009 by Steve Alten

  Previously published in hardcover by Variance Publishing in 2009.

  Interior art by William Louis McDonald

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  ISBN 978-0-7653-6585-9

  First Tor Edition: May 2010

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To my father, Lawrence Alten,

  for always rescuing me when I need it.

  Thanks, Dad.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Part 1

  Chapter 1.

  Chapter 2.

  Chapter 3.

  Chapter 4.

  Chapter 5.

  Chapter 6.

  Chapter 7.

  Chapter 8.

  Chapter 9.

  Chapter 10.

  Chapter 11.

  Chapter 12.

  Chapter 13.

  Chapter 14.

  Chapter 15.

  Chapter 16.

  Chapter 17.

  Chapter 18.

  Chapter 19.

  Chapter 20.

  Chapter 21.

  Part 2

  Chapter 22.

  Chapter 23.

  Chapter 24.

  Chapter 25.

  Chapter 26.

  Chapter 27.

  Chapter 28.

  Chapter 29.

  Chapter 30.

  Chapter 31.

  Chapter 32.

  Chapter 33.

  Chapter 34.

  Chapter 35.

  Chapter 36.

  Chapter 37.

  Chapter 38.

  Chapter 39.

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It is with great pride and appreciation that I acknowledge those who contributed to the completion of MEG: Hell’s Aquarium.

  First and foremost, many thanks to my literary agent, Danny Baror of Baror International, along with his assistant, Heather Baror. I am also indebted to my friend and producer, Belle Avery, at Apelles Entertainment, as well as Craig Roll at The Masada Group for their tireless efforts to bring the Meg franchise to the big screen. My thanks as well to Tim Schulte, Stanley Tremblay, and Shane Thompson at Variance Publishing, who published the original hardback.

  It’s an honor to have Tor/Forge publishing this mass market edition. My grateful appreciation goes out to Tom Doherty, Linda Quinton, my editor, Eric Raab, and editorial assistant Whitney Ross.

  I have been very fortunate to have been associated with talented artists during my writing career, two of whom made valuable contributions to this book. Many thanks to Erik Hollander for his tremendous cover design and graphic artistry in the YouTube book trailer (listed under MEG: Hell’s Aquarium) and to William McDonald (www.AlienUFOart.com) for the original artwork found within these pages.

  Special thanks to the staff at the Georgia Aquarium for their information, insight, and behind-the-scenes tour of their amazing facility . . . especially Dave Santucci, director of public relations. Thanks also to David Zelski at the Georgia Public Broadcasting for arranging the visit. My appreciation to Dr. Maria Sdorlias and her colleagues at the University of Sydney’s School of Geosciences for their expertise regarding the mystery of the “undersea shelves” located in the Philippine Sea Plate, as well as the contribution of their outstanding maps of the area.

  To my assistant, Leisa Coffman, for her talent and expertise in updating the www.SteveAlten.com website, as well as all her work in the Adopt-An-Author program.

  Last, to my wife and partner, Kim, for all her support, to my parents for always being there, and to my readers: Thank you for your correspondence and contributions. Your comments are always a welcome treat, your input means so much, and you remain this author’s greatest asset.

  —Steve Alten

  To personally contact the author or learn more

  about his novels, go to www.SteveAlten.com.

  MEG: Hell’s Aquarium is part of Adopt-An-Author,

  a free nationwide reading program for secondary

  school students and teachers. For more information,

  go to www.AdoptAnAuthor.com.

  Prologue

  Philippine Sea, Pacific Ocean

  Encompassing sixty million square miles, the Pacific Ocean is the largest and oldest body of water on our planet, and with an average depth of fourteen thousand feet, it is also the deepest, possessing some of the most biologically diverse creatures ever to inhabit the Earth.

  The Pacific is all that remains of the Panthalassa, an ancient ocean that was once so vast it covered everything on our planet but the super-continent of Pangaea. Life first began in these waters 3.5 billion years ago as a single-celled organism and remained that way with very little change over the next 3 billion years. And then, 540 million years ago, life suddenly took off. From multi-cellular organisms sprang trilobites and corals, jellyfish and mollusks, sea scorpions and squids. Amid this Cambrian Explosion arose one other creature—a unique animal, tiny in size, that possessed a backbone, which separated its brain and nervous system from the rest of its organs.

  The age of fish—t
he Devonian Era—had arrived.

  The first of these vertebrates were filter feeders, possessing no jaws in which to seize prey. Because their internal skeletons were composed of cartilage, many species grew a thick armor-like, bony shield that covered their heads as a means of protection. Others developed senses that allowed them to see, taste, smell, hear, and feel within their watery environment. And then, some 80 million years after the first fish appeared, a revolutionary feature came into being—a set of biting jaws.

  It would be an innovation that would lead to mass diversification, separating predator from prey, instantly reshuffling the ocean’s food chain. The planet’s first true hunters evolved, and with them the wolves of the sea—the sharks.

  For many species of fish, the Panthalassic Ocean quickly became a dangerous place to live.

  Necessity is the mother of invention, adaptation the means to survival. One hundred seventy million years after the first vertebrates hatched in the sea, a lobe-finned fish crawled out of the Panthalassa onto shore . . . and gasped a breath of air. Gills would evolve into nostrils and internal lungs, ventilated by a throat-pump. Within 20 million years these new animals had colonized the land.

  The age of amphibians had arrived.

  Adapting to a terrestrial lifestyle demanded more evolutionary changes, propelled by the need to survive more efficiently. Limited by their need to re-hydrate, amphibians developed a rib cage that allowed for expansion and contraction while increasing the volume of air that could be processed by the lungs. Changes in internal fertilization and the composition of the egg shell further protected the developing embryo from drying out.

  Sixty million years after the first lobe-finned fish crawled out of the sea, the first reptiles were born.

  More anatomical adaptations would follow. Positioning of the hip girdle gave some reptiles the ability to stand and run on their hind legs. Skull weight was reduced with the addition of new temporal openings that replaced heavy bone with tendon-like materials. These openings also served to increase the bite power of the jaws . . . and a new subclass of reptile rose to prominence—the dinosaur.

  By this time, Pangaea had separated into two continents—Gondwana and Laurasia. As the planet’s landmasses continued to break apart and drift, the Panthalassic Ocean divided into the Atlantic and Arctic Ocean basins and, eventually, the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Changes in atmospheric and geological conditions would lead to global warming and ice age cycles, affecting the inhabitants of both land and sea. The survivors evolved into the next dominant species; the weak dead-ended into extinction.

  While the dinosaurs ruled the land and air, another subclass of reptiles—the placodonts and ichthyosaurs—returned to the ocean. These were the planet’s first true sea monsters; the long-necked Elasmosaurus; the massive-skulled Kronosaurus; Shonisaurus, a sleek, dolphin-like, fifty-foot, forty-ton Ichthyosaurus; and the largest beast of all—Liopleurodon.

  Over the next 170 million years these fearsome predators would dominate the land and sea . . . until one fateful day, 65 million years ago, when a seven-mile-in-diameter hunk of rock fell from the sky and, once again, everything changed.

  The firestorms brought on by the asteroid strike caused a global nuclear winter of sorts by emitting caustic gasses and millions of tons of ash and soot into the atmosphere, blotting out the sun. The fires subsided, giving way to an ensuing ice age that officially ended the age of the dinosaurs, sparing only those species that could adapt to the sudden drop in temperatures.

  But there were other planetary changes going on as well.

  Earth’s continents and ocean floors rest on a giant jigsaw puzzle of crust known as the lithosphere. Composed of fourteen massive tectonic plates and thirty-eight minor ones, the lithosphere floats over our planet’s hot interior like a constantly moving glacier. These movements are driven by volcanic forces that appear along the plates’ boundaries—the engine behind the planet’s drifting continents.

  When molten rock (magma) pushes up through the sea floor, it forces tectonic plates to spread apart, or diverge, creating valleys known as rifts. Should two or more continents collide, the result is an upheaval that creates mountain ranges. When the collision occurs underwater, the denser of the two tectonic plates slips beneath the lesser at the subduction zone, creating deep fissures, or trenches—the deepest parts of the ocean. The denser plate melts into magma, reemerging as erupting lava, which leads to the formation of island chains.

  Nowhere are these volcanic interactions more evident than along a minor lithospheric plate known as the Philippine Sea Plate.

  Forming the basin beneath the Philippine Sea, shaped like a diamond, the Philippine Sea Plate is unique in that it is completely surrounded by subduction zones. Bordering the plate to the east is the massive Pacific Plate, which is converging and subducting beneath its geology, forming the Mariana Trench, the deepest gorge on the planet. To the west is the Eurasian Plate, to the south the Indo-Australian Plate, and to the north the North American, Amurian, and Okhotsk plates—each tectonic border forming a deepwater trench.

  With an average depth of 19,700 feet, the Philippine Sea Basin represents the most unexplored, isolated region on our planet, its tremendous pressure making it inaccessible to all but the world’s deepest-diving submersibles.

  Scientists have had to rely on bathymetric equipment in order to obtain any kind of significant data on this ancient geology. In the process, they failed to discover the sea plate’s true anomaly—an isolated sea, hidden deep beneath the basin’s crust, that dates back to the Panthalassa. Harbored within this enclosed habitat is a thriving food chain that has sustained primitive life since the very first marine reptile returned to the ocean over 240 million years ago.

  It moves effortlessly through depths’ perpetual darkness, its albino hide casting a soft glow along the silent sea floor seven thousand feet below a tempest surface. Streamlined from the tip of its blunt bullet-shaped snout to the upper lobe of its powerful half-moon-shaped caudal fin, the fifty-eight foot, thirty-ton behemoth reigns over its habitat.

  Concealed behind the barely visible gum line are hundreds of razor-sharp teeth, each edge serrated like a steak knife. The bottom teeth, totaling twenty-two, are stiletto-sharp, designed for puncturing and gripping prey. The wider upper quadrants, twenty-four in number, are powerful weapons capable of cutting and penetrating bone, sinew, and blubber. Behind the upper and lower front row are four to five additional rows of replacement teeth, folded back into the gum line like a conveyor belt. Composed of calcified cartilage, containing no blood vessels, these dentures are set in a ten-foot jaw that, instead of being fused to the skull, hangs loosely beneath the brain case. This enables the upper jaw to push forward and hyperextend open—wide enough to engulf, and crush, an adult bull elephant.

  As if the size and voraciousness of its feeding orifice were not enough, nature has endowed this monster with a predatory intelligence honed by 400 million years of evolution. Six distinct senses expose every geological feature, every current, every temperature gradient . . . and every creature occupying its domain.

  The predator’s eyes contain a reflective layer of tissue situated behind the retina. When moving through the darkness of the depths, light is reflected off this layer, allowing the creature to see. In sunlight, the reflective plate is covered by a layer of pigment, which functions like a built-in pair of sunglasses. While black in normally pigmented members of the species, this particular male’s eyes are a cataract-blue—a trait found in albinos. As large as basketballs, the sight organs reflexively roll back into the skull when the creature launches an attack on its prey, protecting the eyeball from being damaged.

  Forward of the eyes, just beneath the snout, are a pair of directional nostrils so sensitive that they can detect one drop of blood or urine in a million gallons of water. The tongue and snout provide a sense of taste and touch, while two labyrinths within the skull function as ears. But it is two other receptor organs that make this predator the
master of its liquid domain.

  The first of these mid-to-long-range detection systems is the lateral line, a hollow tube that runs along either flank just beneath the skin. Microscopic pores open these tubes to the sea. When another animal creates a vibration or turbulence in the water, the reverberations stimulate tiny hairs within these sensory cells that alert the predator to the source of the disturbance miles away.

  Even more sensitive are the hunter’s long-range receptor cells, located along the top and underside of the snout. Known as the ampullae of Lorenzini, these deep, jelly-filled pores connect to the brain by a vast tributary of cranial nerves. This “neural array” detects the faint voltage gradients and bio-electric fields produced by aquatic animals as their skin moves through the water, by the breathing action of their gills . . . or by their beating hearts. So sensitive is the ampullae of Lorenzini to electrical discharges that the creature, while moving through the depths of the Philippine Sea, could locate a thin copper wire connected to two D-size batteries if it were stretched from Japan to the Chinese mainland several thousand miles away.

  Carcharodon megalodon: prehistoric cousin of the modern-day great white shark. The alpha predator of all time, the Meg bears a ferocity and disposition that condemns it to a lone existence. And yet, while its numbers have dwindled over the last million years, members of the species have survived extinction by adapting—in this case by inhabiting the nutrient-rich, hydrothermically warmed waters of the Philippine Sea Plate’s trenches.

  Ringing the creature’s gray-blue right eye and football-size nostrils are a series of gruesome scars that extend down to its upper jaw line and an exposed section of gum. These wounds, along with a near-lethal bite that stole a twenty-inch chunk from its six-foot dorsal fin were inflicted by a larger rival sibling many years earlier.

  To the few humans who have crossed this adult male’s path and survived, the Meg is known as Scarface. To the sea creatures that lurk within its considerable range, its pale bioluminescent glow means death.