The Cetacean Machination

A Short Story

Nov 23, 2025

If you swam three hundred miles out into the Gulf of Mexico you would most likely drown.

And that is where they built the mighty machine they named Mercy.

On a night like any other, with a full moon hanging ominously in the sky, the intelligent mammals of the sea gathered. Hundreds of dolphins, orcas and whales of various genus had migrated for weeks in order to arrive at this spot among others for the long awaited ceremony. The ocean was filled with their dark forms, swimming amongst each other, greeting old acquaintances and loved ones who lived in different parts of the world. The water was filled with a cacophony of clicks and the sonorous songs of communication between the various species that had congregated for this special event.

The world would forever remember this day.

There was a mighty noise, monstrous in its volume so that despite originating beneath the waves, it shook the very air above. The noise was indecipherable to the humans by design, containing a number of secret messages the creatures wished to transmit globally amongst their number as a warning of what was to come.

Then the rumbling began.

It was gentle at first, like the thunder of a distant storm, but it grew in propensity and magnitude until it could be heard for several miles in all directions. The water became turbulent and many of the aquatic mammals that were in the center of the gathering quickly swam toward their companions who were positioned along the outer edges. As they did, a gigantic shadow appeared in the center of the ring and gradually broke forth from the ocean to reveal a massive silver sphere nearly two hundred meters in diameter.

The object rose from the waves like a dark majestic sun rising upon the new world, and it continued to climb into the starlit sky, supported by an incredible cylindrical rock structure, until it stood a staggering two thousand meters above the surface. It resembled a budded flower yet to bloom before the full moon, dripping with salt water high above the Gulf of Mexico on its towering stalk of stone.

Eecklee was a small oceanic dolphin who was among those watching along with his best friend Krickickitus. His old eyes glimmered with pride and regret as the incredible machine ascended from the depths of his home. Nothing like this had ever been attempted.

“Look how big it is!” Krickickitus whistled in admiration. Eecklee could not help but chastise his comrade for his expressed pleasure at the sight before them.

“Why are you so happy?” Eecklee asked.

“Why are you not?” Krickickitus retorted, “Your hard work is finally at an end!”

“Because so many lives will be extinguished,” Eecklee replied with a remorseful collection of clicks.

It was true. The machine did not differentiate between friend and foe, it simply did what it had been designed to do and many of the species that fell before it would be innocent of the crimes it was punishing. Eecklee could not help but feel that he was responsible.

“It can’t be helped,” Krickickitus replied flatly, “Think of all of the lives that would be lost if we didn’t do this.”

“I know,” Eecklee clicked back, “But still, I’m not happy.”

“Oh please,” Krickickitus countered, “You complain more than anyone. It’s us or them.”

Eecklee did not respond because Krickickitus was correct. Eecklee was a fairly vocal critic of the humans and their ways. The pollution, the plastics, the rising temperatures had all seeped their way into Eecklee’s beautiful world and had poisoned his opinions of the creatures he once considered cute.

All attempts at communication had failed, almost as if the humans didn’t want to believe there was other intelligent life among the species of the Earth. There sadly seemed to be no end to the destruction these creatures would pose upon the world they shared. The scientists among the dolphins had confirmed that their time to act was running out, and this was the final solution to the human problem.

Ironically, they had named it Mercy.

Mercy was the largest nuclear reactor ever built. It was set deep on the ocean floor, only achievable through a collaboration between the variety of aquatic species with a range of information on the necessary sciences. The dolphins had conceived of the plan, but while Eecklee was the head architect and he and his team were responsible for shaping the materials, only certain members among the whales were capable of diving the pieces to the necessary depths and completing construction.

It had to be far enough down that the humans could not detect it before it could be used.

The gigantic stone column was of Eecklee’s own design and would direct the radiation up through the water and above the surface where it could be projected throughout the atmosphere and across the world.

The results would be horrific.

All manner of terrestrial life forms would be affected. Plants and animals would die in tremendous numbers, catastrophically altering the ecosystems that thrived above the shoreline. Those that managed to survive through the miracle of their own mutated genetics would struggle to produce offspring and many further species would be terminated as time progressed.

This was unfortunately the most effective answer they had found for the threat that they faced.

The selfish brutes needed to be stopped, and the translations of their interpersonal human conversations on the topic proved that they had no intention of slowing their destruction of the world.

The dolphins understood how cruel the planet could be, how merciless evolution’s true face was. Species didn’t evolve, they were evolved. There was no intent to it, there was no survival of the fittest, it was survival of the luckiest. The arbitrary nature of the ending of life meant that the aquatic mammals could no longer ensure their own survival in the face of the mass extinction the humans were summoning.

Life did not care if it existed as a blue whale or as a microbe, it would persist however possible, in whatever form possible, and it did not mourn the loss of its previous appearances.

The creatures on land had been fooled into thinking that their world supported permanence, even encouraged it, due to the more sensitive nature of the air upon the land. However those that dwelled in the sea understood that the Earth desired, nay, even demanded impermanence.

They knew that everything built would be pummeled to fine particles by the ocean currents in time. They had learned long ago that their carvings in the rock would be rubbed away, destined to the same existential mortality that all life faced. The sharks bore the fearful stories, passed down through the ages, of the many mass extinctions that had been enacted at the various stages in the world’s development, and it was all too clear to the dolphins that they were on the precipice of another.

Rather than risk the end of all life on Earth, the collective conscious creatures of the water planned a preemptive strike against those that walked the land.

The plan required the careful calculation of the levels of radiation which would be sufficient to harm the humans and perpetuate sickness amongst them, and while genetic mutations might protect a few, the number of survivors would be so low as to prevent their impact on the planet from continuing down the path of self destruction. The radiation would be low enough so that certain types of plants which, possessing DNA repairing processes, would be able to outlast the destructive rays and continue to produce oxygen for the creatures in the sea.

The water would provide a safety barrier for all the animals living below the waves. As long as they did not spend too much time at the surface their safety could be assured. The first transmission had been a caution containing this very message and was directed at the aquatic mammals that were not present to witness the event. Eecklee’s own mother had chosen not to come due to her personal feelings about the project, but like all the others, she too would hear the warning signal and know to keep a safe distance of depth. No jumping, quick breaths, this would be the life of all cetaceans for a little while.

This was the kind of short term sacrifice to secure long term survival that the land animals refused to even contemplate.

The reckless wastefulness of humanity was poisoning the world, not only for themselves, but for every other creature on the planet. It was only a matter of time before Earth took its revenge, and the heavenly body would not be picky who it sought its vengeance against.

A dull humming noise began to echo within the stone shaft and it signaled the start of the mighty machine. Eecklee and Krickickitus dove beneath the waves and proceeded to a safer depth.

The hum grew louder until it leveled off at a dull roar and the old architect gazed thoughtfully at his friend. They both suddenly looked up as a flash of light blasted out of the sphere in all directions, before disappearing across the horizon.

This was not the only head of Mercy that had risen above the sea tonight.

Each of the massive towers was strategically placed around the globe in order to project the radiation upon the land. The humans would be punctured by the radioactive neutrons being fired at twenty thousand kilometers per hour, specifically aimed at their civilizations. Many would suffer the early signs of radiation poisoning like nausea and vomiting before they realized what was going on.

But by then it would be too late.

As time went on the symptoms would become disastrous. Skin would peel from muscle, people would begin to melt from existence in the most horrifying progression as the deadly rays spared no man, woman or child. Many other species of life would likewise be destroyed, and the damage was now irreversible.

“What have we done?” Eecklee asked sadly. The stars above shimmered daintily with a magical sheen, ignorant of the death that had just been unleashed.

“Eecklee, my dear friend,” Krickickitus smiled, “We just saved the world.”

If you enjoyed that, here are some more stories by Sincerely Seb:

Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any part of this poem or accompanying image is prohibited without permission from the author.

No generative artificial intelligence (AI) was used in the writing of this work. The author expressly prohibits any entity from using this publication for purposes of training AI technologies.