-- Trigger Warning: Self Harm –
My great grandpa was an eccentric man. Eccentric would probably be putting it mildly. My dad likely would’ve committed him to an asylum if it weren’t for my grandma’s insistence that she could take care of him. Unfortunately, with the old man kicking around as long as he did, that arrangement couldn’t last.
After that, the burden of his care went to me and my parents. My folks had moved out of the state for retirement, so the responsibility mostly fell on me. It really wasn’t much work. He was fairly lucid except for the occasional bout of incoherent rambling. I’d go out to his home about once a week with some groceries and do some cleaning. He’d normally thank me by making me dinner, and I’d be home that same night. The one uncomfortable thing about these excursions was the fact that I didn’t need to be there. The man was incredibly self-sufficient and, despite his frail appearance, was probably stronger than me. I suspect that the only purpose for my weekly trips was to make sure he wasn’t dead.
Well, one day I found him with a hole in his head and a splatter of dried blood on the bathroom wall. His body was crumpled in the bathtub smelling awful with a pistol lying in his limp hand. On the countertop was a brief note in his characteristic clean handwriting:
Hey Franky,
Sorry about the mess, but I didn’t feel like hanging from the rafters for 5 minutes. The house is yours if you want it.
Bye,
Francis Saila
My parents and I were the only attendees at his funeral. The death got ruled a suicide pretty quickly. The agents assigned spent more time squabbling with local police over jurisdiction than they did coming to a conclusion, despite the fact that they couldn’t account for the origin of the gun.
After leaving his house on the market for 13 months, I decided to quit paying rent and just move in. Turns out people aren’t too keen to move into houses of the recently deceased on the outskirts of town, even if it does have a nice view. This brings us to a few hours ago.
I was cleaning up the kitchen when I noticed a floorboard was slightly raised. It would be imperceptible to an undiscerning gaze, but I’ve cleaned these floors for years. I fiddled with it and realized it was loose. After pulling it out I saw that the space housed a large, old, beaten-up suitcase. What I saw inside after opening it up was troubling.
An imprint was left in the dust of the suitcase where a gun used to be. There were stacks of cash in various currencies totaling a couple hundred thousand dollars, an old flip phone with a charger wrapped around it, and many forms of identification, including government credentials of various countries with pictures of what I imagine was my grandpa in his early 50s. None of the identification had consistent names. There was also a black card with a bunch of silver lines running through it all intersecting at a red dot in the center. A-7324 was written on the back in the same silver.
All these things piqued my curiosity, but they were clearly just accessories to the true centerpiece of the suitcase. In a neat bundle secured more tightly than all the illegal contraband was a cassette player and a few cassettes.
Each of the cassettes was labeled with writing on duct tape over the side of the cassette. The first and only one I’ve listened to so far was labeled “Project Morbi: Statement of Necessity.” I’ve transcribed the audio from it below.
You lose some of the appreciation you had for the world as you grow older. You grow up and things just aren’t quite as impressive as they once were. You walk around a city enough and the skyscrapers, once regarded as feats of human ingenuity, look dull and expected. It’s almost as if people lose their respect for scale. Consider an ordinary moose. Most people wouldn’t think of them as being quite unremarkable, but just think, have you ever thought about how big they are?
As a phytologist, I deal with the sheer scale…
I’m sorry what?
A phytologist. We study the scientific nature of plants.
Why can’t you just say botanist?
I am being more specific. Accuracy is key to understanding.
I promise you, none of the council would think you’re a florist.
Anyway, my point is, things get pretty big. The blue whale is large enough to fit 3 school buses in it, and there are thousands of them swimming in the ocean as we speak. However, even they are mere specks when you consider how large life can get. Even publicly disclosed plant species like the Pando tree colony or “Humongous Fungus.” These organisms stop being measured by mass or height and start being measured in square miles they take up. However, as large as these plants are, they’re still limited by the fact that they are on the surface. They haven’t had the same level of extreme competition that exists in the oceans that has evolved all inefficiency out of the gene pool.
Sorry sir, but we don’t have all day. Do you plan to get to the details of the investigation at any point?
I’m building to it. It is important that you have context.
[Muffled grunt]
Anyway this leads us to the purpose of our investigation. I was contacted to investigate seismic anomalies occurring in Southeast Asia. Considering my specialty is in marine phytology, I believed I was meant to just be an advisor to geologists on the mission about any damage that could happen to the marine ecosystem in the area. If only my role was so insignificant.
The geologists did some experiments that are frankly beyond my expertise. All I can repeat right now was the conclusion they came to. The volcanic activity was occurring at a far faster rate than would be considered natural. To uncover the cause of this behavior, we had to travel deep into the ocean. The bottom of the ocean in fact, which is an accomplishment that would normally make headlines across the world. However, for obvious reasons, the details of this investigation will likely never be publicly released.
What we found at the bottom of the ocean, specifically the bottoms of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, was endless pastures of two species of aquatic plants. This was beyond surprising, as I couldn’t believe that these species had managed to evolve to a degree where they could survive with such little natural light and thrive. We navigated some of the waters and began to understand what was happening. From our observations, it seemed like some of the plants on the Pacific Ocean side had formed in a way that seemed to reroute magma. This rerouted magma ended up increasing the pressure on a few underwater volcanoes leading to additional activity. Satisfied with this explanation, we decided to collect a few samples and return to the surface. However, when we tried to pull out a few of the plants, we came to a startling discovery. The two species of aquatic plants were just two aquatic plants.
These plants were two massive clonal colonies. We couldn’t even begin to theorize how deep their roots went or how far they were connected. Eventually we decided to chop off one of each plant for research purposes. Once we surfaced, we sent the plants off for some rigorous testing. Curious from our new discoveries, we authorized more expeditions to various parts of different oceans and came to similar findings. There were pastures of these plants covering seemingly the entire surface of the ocean.
After the lab work came back, we were confronted with a few concerning realizations. First, many of the samples were identical, suggesting that plants a quarter way across the globe from one another are actually connected as a part of one big plant. The samples tend to follow a trend of a plant being dominant in each of the major oceans, specifically, the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Southern Oceans. It seems that across billions of years of evolution, these plants arose as the genetically optimal creature for each environment and outcompeted all of the other life of the same or different species.
While it is an uncomfortable realization that 70% of the Earth’s surface is controlled by five organisms, this alone should not warrant much worry. However, the second realization definitely implies an existential threat to humanity. The plant covering the Pacific Ocean, dubbed Titanus Pacifica, was sentient. The samples we collected suggested that Titanus Pacifica contains a sprawling decentralized nervous system, similar to what you’d seen in an octopus. It seems possible that these plants also have a degree of motor control regarding where the roots focus on extending.
This suggests that magma rerouting that was being done near the border of the Pacific and Indian Oceans may not have been a coincidence, but rather, a deliberate tactic of war. This is definitely cause for concern.
For now, these titanic organisms are keeping each other in check due to their competition. However, the genetic superiority and possible sentience of the Titanus Pacifica could lead to its complete dominance of the marine ecosystem. This could completely reshape the global ecology and throw ecosystems across the world into disarray.
That’s terrible to hear, but we don’t have resources to allocate to saving a few fish.
The resulting imbalance of the ecosystem already poses a major threat to human life. However, I know it is difficult to convince members of your organization to act on such abstract threats, so I will pose a few facts to you. The Titanus Pacifica has already proven itself to be a brilliant adversary. It has shown itself to be aggressive and invasive. We have possibly made ourselves known to it by collecting samples of it. Once it has taken over the oceans, it will only be a matter of time before it looks for more room to expand to on the surface. By that point, it will likely be prepared to deal with the threat we pose to it.
We must strike now. Due to its clonal nature, there are no major targets to focus on. The best way to deal with this problem is likely with a bioweapon, such as the one we plan to produce with Project Morbi.
At this point there was an abrupt cut in the audio. I don’t know if this is a prank or something I should report to the officials. What should I do? Is this all a hoax, or do we truly live among giants?