Venomous Lumpsucker

A story of environmental collapse and runaway capitalism set in the near future. Tens of thousands of species go extinct yearly, and an industry has developed around preservation efforts, including biobanks that store DNA samples for potential resurrection. When a coordinated cyber-attack simultaneously destroys every biobank, erasing the last genetic traces of extinct species, recovery becomes impossible. Karin Resaint, an animal cognition scientist, and Mark Halyard, an executive from the extinction industry, focus on one species: the venomous lumpsucker, a small bottom-feeder and the most intelligent fish on the planet. Resaint grieves humanity's impact on nature, while Halyard bears responsibility for the mining operation that destroyed the lumpsucker's final habitat. Across dystopian 2030s landscapes—a toxic waste-filled nature reserve, a floating ocean city, and a totalitarian state's hinterlands—the two search for a surviving lumpsucker while uncovering the mystery behind the biobank attack. Their investigation deepens as they pursue answers about who orchestrated the destruction and why.