“What we’re dealing with now is not a hoax or a leftover dinosaur,” said Brigid. “It’s a real, living creature, and according to our telepath, it’s full of rage and a desire to kill.”

We all looked around for a minute until we realized that the “telepath” was Angel. Well, “telepath” sounds better than “creepy little mind-reading kid,” so I was cool with it.

“But what do you think it is, Dr. Dwyer?” asked one of the other researchers.

“I think it’s either a created life-form or a life-form that’s been affected, mutated, or enhanced,” she said, “by radiation.”

“Created life-form?” One of the researchers frowned.

“Like us,” I said. “Right? Ninety-eight percent human, two percent avian.” Might as well name the elephant — or bird kid — in the room.

“Well, yes,” Brigid said awkwardly, not looking at me. “Only not as successful. But I’m more inclined to think that it was an ordinary life-form that was irradiated and has mutated.”

“Radiation?” Nudge asked. “Like, they microwaved it?”

“Not exactly,” said Brigid. “There are many sources of radiation, both naturally occurring and man-made. I’m thinking of some of the mutations observed after Hiroshima and Chernobyl.”

“I’ve heard those names before,” I said, wondering if it had been on a TV show.

“Hiroshima is a town in Japan,” John said. “The U.S. dropped a nuclear bomb on it near the end of World War II. The bomb killed a hundred thousand people outright, but tens of thousands more later from radiation sickness. Plus, as time went on, it became clear that lingering effects of radiation caused some human genes to mutate. This mostly showed up as birth defects, miscarriages, and cancerous tumors.”

“Fun,” I muttered.

“Chernobyl was a nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union,” John went on. “The site of the worst nuclear-reactor accident in human history. The area around it is still contaminated with radiation, and it’s unclear whether people will be able to live anywhere near it ever again. Huge amounts of radiation were released into the atmosphere and caused genetic problems and contaminated food and milk as far away as Sweden and England. The thing is, radiation can cause unpredictable and often fatal genetic mutations in living creatures.”

“You’re saying you think there’s radiation in the ocean, and it caused these creatures to mutate into these attacking monsters?” a researcher asked.

Brigid nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Now we just have to find out where the radiation is.”

60

“I LIKE BOATS better than subs,” I said.

I looked up at the sky above us, and back at the foamy white wake we were leaving behind us. I breathed in deeply, the fresh, salty air still seeming like heaven after being on the sub. We were on the marine research station’s biggest boat, a forty-five-foot tri-hull that sliced neatly through the water.