The Pacific Basin

For three days, the coasts of eastern Australia, New Zealand and all the Pacific islands were inundated with a strange matted fibrous material, unlike any seaweed or plant life ever seen before. Samples were rushed to laboratories to analyse its composition. Its DNA was sequenced. Rumours began that it contained mystical healing properties and a market soon flourished in pastes and unguents that could be applied to the skin or added to a kale smoothie to protect against all known diseases. Other groups, based in remote wooden huts situated on mountains above tree-lines communed over the web and speculated what dastardly chemical weapon had somehow been released into the Pacific causing the inevitably deadly fibres to gather on the world’s beaches.

Meanwhile, far above the earth, Atlas sank onto his throne and accepted the tea from Athena. She gave him a quizzical look. ‘So why are you…