Subaqueous — Gary Gentile

The Great Deluge The environment is changing radically in the world of the near future. A runaway Greenhouse effect is causing the polar icecaps to melt. Rising sea levels are flooding seashore lowlands and inundating great harbor cities. People are abandoning their homes and businesses, and moving to higher ground. Energy resources are being depleted. Fuel reserves are at an all-time low. In its battle for world domination, the United Persian Republic is taking advantage of the global catastrophe by maintaining a stranglehold on the distribution of fuel, and by embarking on a voyage of international terrorism. Against this backdrop of worldwide conflict and competition for survival, an all-out search for alternative energy sources is being conducted on the ocean floor. Underwater communities are being constructed for the exploration of the benthic regions. Special deep submergence vessels are scouring the seabed for geothermal vents, mineral deposits, petroleum pockets, veins of coal and ores - anything that can be used to generate power for a dying humanity. Lisa Mallory is a submersible pilot trainee. Tod Mallory is an oceanography major who uses a one-atmosphere suit to study deep-water organisms. They are examining a Blue Hole - a submerged volcanic chimney - off the coast of Antarctica when they stumble upon an abandoned Persian submarine. Their recovery of the submarine sparks a series of events that leads them to the greatest adventure of a lifetime. Together with a professor of subaquatic research, and a hardcore ex-marine officer, they plunge the Benthic Explorer down to the bottom of the Blue Hole, and along vast lava tubes that lead into the Antarctic continent. They surface underground to discover the remains of an ancient civilization - either human or alien - where a spark of life yet abides, and which holds secrets that have been lost to mankind for thousands of years: secrets that have been passed down for generations in the form of myths and legends. The four intrepid explorers learn that some of those myths and legends were based on truth. These truths bring enlightenment about mankind's devastating past, and may provide a means to survive nature's unholy holocaust.