Prologue One
Please allow me to introduce myself.
I am a man of wealth and taste. And I have a story to tell you. It may be the most important story never told. But this story is different from what you may think you know about the world around you.
My part in all of this is as a relative spectator. Of course, I had the honor of being involved in this epic journey. But to say that this story is only about me would be to take away from how it actually happened, and the brave men involved.
How we all got to this point.
You are living in trying times. An age where information travels faster and farther than our ability to understand it. An age that has taken us all by storm, under the guise of bringing the world together . . . but all the while separating us from each other. Hiding behind the anonymity that technology has granted Humanity, people are now farther apart than at any point in human history.
Personal connection and intimacy has been gleefully traded for efficiency. What was once becoming a global community is now a daisy chain of hubs and nodes . . . no longer needing the human contingent. A society of individuals. Lonely as a dead planet floating through space.
This world of yours, is a community of silent, hidden monsters. Some of them you see on television, some of them you read about in small, smudged print. But these are only a tiny portion of the creatures that lurk in and out of the shadows.
This story . . . this is about the monsters.
The monsters you don’t know. The ones that may be nearer to you than you think. The kind of beasts that linger in the back of our nightmares, waving at us from the darkness, waiting for a chance to swim up to the surface, and do their bidding.
This is their story.
Our story.
