Several years have passed since Lenie Clark unleashed the fury of Behemoth on the world. Rifters and corpses (i.e., corporate executives) live in the depths of the Atlantic, sustaining a fragile trust that is broken when an apparently new strain of Behemoth that can survive in saltwater deeps (theoretically, an impossibility) kills a rifter unfortunate enough to fall victim to a particularly foul-tempered deep-sea "fish." Unfortunately, those who hold grudges, especially rifter Grace Nolan, see conspiracy everywhere and in the name of self-defense go after the corpses. Lenie, though rapidly losing what little authority she had, does her best to prevent escalation into total disaster. The evidence, however, indicates a certain validity in Grace's claims; Behemoth was, at some point, altered.