Into the Drowning Deep (Rolling in the Deep, #1)

by Mira Grant

“You know what I like about the ocean we do have?” asked Dr. Toth. “The part where we’ve dumped so much crap into it that it would be justified in becoming something out of a horror movie, and yet the horror movie it’s giving us isn’t related to any of those things. Not really.” “What do you mean?” asked Tory. “I mean if the mermaids are real—and they are—and if the mermaids are smart enough to be watching us—which they also are—they don’t have anything to do with humans. They evolved on their own. They stayed in their own environment until we started sending ships into their living room. To them, we’re the myths. We’re the monsters. We appear out of nowhere, we’ve probably snagged more than a few of them in fishing nets and trawler rigs, and half the things we have on us at any given time are going to be incomprehensible to a preindustrial society with no concept of manufacturing. They aren’t our fault. We didn’t mutate some flatworm into a murderous new form, and we didn’t melt a glacier that freed a prehistoric predator. They exist because they exist. That’s nice.” Dr. Toth smirked. “I’m so used to humans being responsible for everything that it’s a pleasant change when we didn’t do it.”