It was discovered 25 miles off the coast of the main by a lobster fisherman, the tip

of a rusted wrong ladder, patinated and crosted up with barnacles, jutting up through

the ocean's classy skin.

You haven't heard about it on the news, you wouldn't have.

The navy buttoned it down faster than you can say simple fortice.

Zonus Kent showed the ladder descended in a vertical line for 8 miles, at 6 miles past

the ocean floor, disappearing into a newly discovered trench that made Mariner look like

the shadow end of a pool.

Okay, I'm being facetious, but it goes without saying that higher ups were concerned.

Who the hell had built a ladder in the middle of the ocean, where this trench come from?

Aliens, Russia?

That's where I came in.

I was a meta-coverser in the navy's oceanography programme, working on experimental… never mind.

Not that it doesn't matter, it does.

But if I talk about what I did, who I am and why I'm here, I had no doubt wake up on

a trap door within noose around my neck, and treason charges being read by a guy in a

starched uniform.

And I figure there's a damn good chance that might happen anyway.

Still, I'm compelled to document this, because, no, people deserve to know what I saw.

The things that hauled the back of my eyelids when I closed them at night.

I'm in a military hospital right now, laid up in my own private suite.

I'm trying to heal, but, without rest, it's proving impossible.

...