Storyline:

Herman Mao was not pleased. He stood on the beach, the lights of Singapore behind him, the endless warm waves of the Indian Ocean before him. The waves seemed luminescent under the full moon. While he stared out his eyes focused on a point somehwere between the sea of green and the bejeweled sea of black, his fingers were busy sending one text message after another on his ultra-slim wireless. He was not pleased, but he was not entirely displeased either, for he was waiting for Angelista. Would she bring Timmy to him as he had asked her too? It was a coin-toss.

"How black the night. How black the soul of man." He thought to himself. He drew in the sand with his toe the following shapes. A hammer, a nine pointed star, a five petaled flower, a saddled fish with wings, and a spindly legged wombat. He knew the meanings of each. Then he began to dial the sequence: 11235813213455... He knew the number and he knew its secret kin.

About 200 yards from shore, beneath the glowing water a massive dark shape began to emerge. It was ellipsoidal, windowless, doorless. He needed no ruler to know that it was 23.14069 meters long and 2.71282 meters in radius. As it surfaced, the sea water poured from all sides It was blacker than the sky above. A smaller shape just under the foam was rapidly closing the gap between Herman and the submarine.

Herman, put the wireless back in his pocket. With an explosion of saltwater, the horse and rider emerged from the waves. The massive snorkeling gear made the horse's head look insectoid, its body fitted as it were in an equine wetsuit looked eel-like. The four horse flippers gave it the appearance of a platypus. The man, similarly outfitted, seemed to merge with the beast. But Herman knew that this was none other than Juan Henri McGill of the Andoraccan Mounted Marines.

Juan pulled the mask from his face. "The Queen is fittest!" Juan called out. "Survival of the fittest." Herman replied.

"How goes it brother."
"We have failed. Timmy spoke."
"That is unfortunate, but hardly unforseen. You must put into action the omega plan."
"I am afraid so. What is recombinent must remain recombinent."

Juan dismounted. He slapped the sleek beast on its hind quarters and it dived back into the emerald sea. Juan looked reflective for a moment, his chest swelled and deflated in a deep but silent sigh, and the corners of his lips beneath the bushy mustache turned down by a fifth of a radian on each side. "Is she coming?"

"I don't know."

Just down the beach but out of sight from the Andoraccan operatives, the hulking bear-like man dressed as a nutter butter, stumbled out of the shadows on his fatal approach.