A Taste of Earth

When a meteorite exhibits unusual behavior, a team of scientists must discover its composition ... and its intentions.

NASA's Near Earth Asteroid team is tracking asteroid 2027 UX25 when, without explanation, it changes direction and heads for Earth. When they inspect the impact sites, they discover that the meteorite fragments are not what they expect. The press has nick-named the asteroid Hachiman, after the Shinto god of war and patron god of the samurai, an omen of things to come. Hachiman does not behave like a meteorite should. It fragments and impacts across the globe. Our environments change: diseased plankton in the Atlantic Ocean, silicon-based killer organisms in northern Russia, and green-house gasses spike globally.