Celebrated journalist Melissa Tate—Mel to friends and enemies alike—didn't much like it when her boss called her off the scoop of a lifetime off the coast of Alaska. Actually, she pitched a fit and refused to go. But when her boss Harvey Whipple explained that she was going to be the first to interview the famously reclusive geneticist, Doctor Elias Quenby, on his floating laboratory set into the Sargasso Sea, she decided this might not be too bad at all. Plus, she was going to get to stay on a prototype sea-surface habitat.

Scuba diving. Fresh seafood. Lounging in the sun. Not bad, especially after freezing her nose off in the Beaufort Sea.

That was before she found out about the boats disappearing. And the people dying.

And the mad scientists. And the mysterious creatures...