He turned to smile at her. “Stop worrying; we got it this time.” He kissed her forehead.

“Good,” she said. “I didn’t want to just scare it off to someplace else. I just wish we could see the carcass.” She sighed. “I should be sad, or angry, or something – such a unique creature.”

Mironov sat forward. “Do you remember, Cate? Sometimes evolution, or maybe God himself, makes mistakes. And that abomination was certainly one of them. We can live without it.”

She nodded as the huge helicopter began to settle in the water. “Amen to that; let’s all go home.”

EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

BREAKING NEWS: An Australian film and science team in southern Australia is dismayed and confused about the fate of their ten-foot Great White Shark they had been tracking for their research.

According to the tracking data, the shark started to behave erratically, and then vanished just over the edge of the Australian continental shelf. Strangely, the electronic tag that had been implanted in its skin was found washed up on shore, several miles from where the shark disappeared.

When scientists were able to retrieve the data from the tracking chip it led to even more confusion, as an analysis of the shark’s last movements showed that the animal turned to head closer to the shore at high speed, but then was stopped dead. Inexplicably, it then took a rapid dive down the side of the shelf to a depth of fifteen hundred feet.

Strangely, the data indicated a large temperature change from thirty-five degrees, the ambient water temperature, to then jump to seventy-six degrees, the gut temperature of a large Carcharodon species shark, where it remained for eight days.

The researchers refused to state their conclusions on the record, but later said there was really only one observation they could make – their Great White had been eaten by a mega-predator that had risen from the depths – at this time, type unknown.

Channel 29 Technology News - 3:40pm June 8

AUTHORS NOTES:

AUTHORS NOTES:

Many readers ask me about the science in my novels – is it real or fiction? Where do I get the situations, equipment, characters or their expertise from, and just how much of any legend has a basis in fact? In the case of the Carcharodon Megalodon, it is all fact. The only disputed area is whether the creature may still exist in the deep, dark depths of our oceans.

CARCHARODON MEGALODON

Our oceans are vast, and the massive sea reptiles were long gone, the sea serpents of old, now all died out. The Alpha predators were missing, the oceans were still warm, and nature abhors an unfilled niche. It was soon filled.