SUMMARY

99% of international data traffic travels through submarine fiber-optic cables resting on the ocean floor, many routing through the telecommunications hubs in Hagåtña. Governments frequently use nuclear submarines to tap these cables. However, Maintenance Submersible Logs from AT&T Submarine Systems reveal a series of physical cable breaches that cannot be attributed to human engineering.

INCIDENT REPORT

• During a routine repair of the TGN-Pacific cable at a depth of 4,000 meters, an automated ROV discovered a massive, unauthorized splice.
• The protective Kevlar and polyurethane sheathing had not been cut by tools; it appeared to have been dissolved by a highly acidic biological secretion. More concerning is the tap itself.
• Woven directly into the fragile glass fibers of the cable was a network of organic filaments belonging to an unidentified bioluminescent cephalopod.

STATUS

When telecom engineers attempted to sever the organic filaments using the ROV’s manipulator arms, the ROV experienced a total catastrophic software failure. The final burst of data transmitted from the ROV back to surface command was not error logs. It was a massive text file containing the entire genetic sequence of the creature, cross-referenced with a timeline of Earth’s previous extinction-level events. Something at the bottom of the ocean is downloading our internet, and it is responding.