"## Reyaansh ##" "Is it programmable matter?" "Technically, sure." "But then, so is a liquid crystal display." "Which was also a breakthrough and also thought to be as inconceivable as claytronics." "Olivia..." "Your encouragement is much appreciated." "I think I'm gonna grab a coffee." "Yes." "Um...of course." "I have a big day tomorrow." "Bye." "Bye." "Hello?" "Hello?" "Professor Donovan?" "Chris!" "Chris." "35-year-old male, shallow breath, widespread internal hemorrhaging." "He hasn't stopped bleeding." "O2 -- 10 liters." "125 of methylprednisolone, I.V. push." "Let's get him on the table." "What's his name?" "Dr. Chris Donovan." "What kind of doctor is he?" "He works with artificial intelligence -- robotics." "What's wrong with him?" "Oh, God!" "Damn, Jenny." "Just plug it." "His blood -- it's moving." "This is a cellphone video taken by an emergency-room technician at a hospital in Pittsburgh last night." " What am I looking at?" " Nanites." "Highly advanced robotics on a microscopic scale." "Nanite technology has not advanced this far." "This is a -- a scientific impossibility." "So is a microchip in the brain." "They somehow got into this man's bloodstream causing massive internal bleeding." "And who's the victim?" "Dr. Chris Donovan, one of the nation's premier experts on..." "Artificial intelligence." "I knew Chris." "Shen, I'm so sorry." "It gets worse, unfortunately." "Dr. Ezby Grant of Portland, Oregon," "Dr. Horatio Cameron of Dallas, Texas -- both dead in the past 24 hours." "There are two more in Europe and South America that seem to match " "Elian Vega and Susanna Delacroix." "Delacroix?" "Scientists working with bio-inspired robotics is a really... small circle." "They're not just scientists, son." "They're giants." "Their loss is incalculable." "Is the CDC involved?" "No, nanites are not a contagion." "What we are dealing with are intelligent machines programmed to kill." "Okay, look, the first thing we need to do is find out how the nanites are being distributed, right?" "We need to trace them to their original source." "Until that happens, we should isolate any of the doctors, the E.R. staffs -- anyone who has been in potential contact with these victims." "I'll institute a full quarantine." "You said the scientists work in small circles." "Any chance they traveled to the same location?" "Maybe a conference or something?" "Accessing passports and e-mails." "No conferences, but I'm looking through crime photos, and I did find a link." "They each received identical packages " "Small yellow boxes, minimum postage, which means they're nearly weightless." "Chris had an open one in his office." "No return address, I'm assuming." "No." "Without being able to I.D. the sender, it's impossible to know how many more packages are in transit." "We should send a team out to the doc's house, check his mail." "My mail?" "Gabriel's right." "If they're targeting giants in the field, you're certain to be on that list." "Which is why you're not leaving this facility until we find who's responsible for slaughtering the great scientists of our time." "Gabriel Vaughn" "One of our nation's most decorated soldiers." "He's a hero, and now our country's most secret weapon." "Gabriel possesses a rare genetic mutation that allowed us to implant a microchip in his brain." "We connected his mind directly to the information grid." "It's something the chip does that nobody expected." "I can create a virtual snapshot of an event in my mind and then walk through it." "It's like a virtual evidence wall." "At U.S. Cyber command, we created a highly specialized unit around him..." "Satellite in five." "...and assigned an agent to protect him." "Gun!" "He's the first of his kind -- the next evolution of intelligence." "Are we crowding you?" "You just tell us if we're crowding you." "I could do with a tad less heavy breathing." "Thank you." "Guys, stop breathing." "They look like...bugs." "More like a monster-truck rally." "I would love to browse the patent portfolio behind all this." "You really think whoever designed these nanites applied for a patent?" "If they didn't, they should have." "It'd be worth a fortune." "Why does every advancement in technology end up being used in anger or for violence?" "I don't mean you, obviously." "If the chip fits..." "I searched the list of potential targets you gave me, Nelson, including your father, and I put all the local post offices on alert." "But...?" "One box managed to slip through." "Who's the recipient?" "Bryce Tyler." "Bryce?" "Oh, god." "He was one of my dad's PROTéGéS." "He wrote the book "Warp Evolution"" "about the merge of man and machine, transhumanism, the singularity." "He was the most ambitious student I ever had." "Please, you have got to reach him." "Don't worry, doc." "We'll get to it." "Nobody's answering the phone in Bryce's office, and he's still not picking up his cellphone." "It's still early." "He might not be in yet." "He's got his cellphone on "Silent."" "I'm changing the setting." "Making the call now." "Yes?" "Bryce Tyler?" "My name is Gabriel Vaughn." "I'm a friend of Shenandoah Cassidy's, and I work at U.S. Cyber Command." "I need you to listen carefully." "Cyber Command?" "What's this about?" "I'll explain more when we get there." "There's been a credible threat to your life." "Do not open any packages that come to you." "Oh, no." "My assistant." "Hello?" "Dr. Tyler?" "Mr. Tyler?" "Why are you calling my cell?" "Audrie, do not open any package addressed to me." "Understand?" "Why not?" "Just put them on." "We still don't know how the nanites are spread." "No." "Wait." "She's dead." "Nanites are meant to cure world hunger, attack cancer, create fuel." "But this is..." "Someone with a different idea." "Which is why we need to concentrate our efforts, Bryce." "to stop them." "Okay?" "That's why you're here." "Now, come on." "Now, the nanites were delivered in the box in the form of a dust." "Open the box, and the dust is released." " So they're airborne." " Right." "But since we don't have a long list of dead doctors, nurses, or mailmen, we're assuming the nanites were programmed somehow to only attack their targets." "But we haven't caught one alive long enough to study it." "How can they be alive?" "Well, obviously, they're not completely organic." "They seem to enjoy a capacity for growth." "Apparently, they have a purpose." "Combine that with the element of intelligence, artificial or not, and I defy you to tell me the distinction between a living organism and these remarkable creatures." "Tell us what you see." "It's more your area than it is mine." "Uh, encapsulated in polymer," "CMOS front end, piezo core." "But this particle size is leaps beyond anything we're doing in my company." "Whoever did this knows their business." "Huh." "Wait till you see the note." "It's a simple binary code." "Has anybody translated it?" ""Welcome to the future."" "Whoever had the ability to do this knows how to hide himself." "Whoever had the ability to do this does not want to hide." "What do you mean?" "Someone with a mind this twisted doesn't want to be in the shadows for long." "They want to be famous." "They want us to know why." "Yes, of course." "Can I use your electron microscope?" "Sure." "Why?" "We're not thinking small enough." "This is the letter the killer left us." "On the surface, it's binary code," "A Series of 1s and 0s, a single hidden message," ""Welcome to the future" " "At least, that's what we thought." "Right -- now check out what we see when it's magnified by 200 nanometers." "There's text embedded inside each typewritten number." "This is a manifesto." "Yeah." "We see a lot of these loon letters at Secret Service." "Angry guy with a lot to say." ""A lot" is right." "How about 300 pages of text?" "I want to see the whole document." "Can you extract it?" "Yeah." "What are you doing?" "Reading." "35,000 words?" "I'm skimming." "Look at the phraseology." "There should be a pattern." "Then locate document where certain word groupings have been used before." "Nelson, can you run a program like that or something?" "Uh..." "I-I -- yes." "I can...do that... here." ""Evolution is earth's deepest breath." "Technolution, its dying gasp."" "Poetic." "He's repeated it on at least six anti-government, anti-education, and conspiracy websites." "There are other matches, too." "Do you have a name?" "User name belongs to a Gordon Greyson." "Gordon Greyson?" "Oh, yeah." "This guy's the real deal." "NSA watchlist, tsa no-fly." "He's corresponded with at least four of the five victims." "How could you know that?" "Well, 'cause he's looking at my screen." "I have all the e-mails pulled up." "Do we have an address?" "Uh...no." "This guy's careful." "He's I.P. ghosting all over the place." "I got him." "He's in an industrial area in Baltimore." "What is he?" "Excuse me?" "You..." "You finally did it, didn't you?" "Did what?" "You overcame your fear of what might happen -- or you were convinced." "Dr. Cassidy, would you please escort Dr. Tyler out of here?" "How much of him is organic -- human?" "Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm all human." "No, you're not -- not all human." "Dr. Cassidy." "Bryce, please come with me." "Embrace what you are." "Bryce, that's enough." "And what am I?" "The future." "Don't tell me you let that guy get under your skin." "It's not skin." "It's more like..." "leatherette." "I refuse to accept that leatherette is the future." "You watched the title fight on pay-per-view saturday night." "And in the morning, you had a soy latte after your run." "How do you know it was after and not before?" "'cause you checked your e-mail at 6:00 A.M. from your apartment and again an hour later from your phone on the other side of Rock Creek Park." "I'm just saying it'd be nice to come in monday morning and not already know what you did all weekend." "You knew I had a soy latte because you know me." "It's not the chip." "This is the place." "I don't like this without a full tac team." "If we're ever gonna find out what other packages are already out there, we need this guy alive." "Sometimes tac teams aren't so good at that." "Neither are you." "Greyson last accessed the Internet from here this morning." "The building's lined with wire mesh." "I can't chip any of the systems inside -- at least not clearly." "So he could have eyes on us and we can't see him?" "Great." "Any ideas on a way in?" "That ladder activates in case of a fire." "Camera." "Can you chip it?" "No." "It's heavily encrypted." "Guess we're gonna have to do this like normal people." "Move." "Gabriel." "Check the handwriting." "Is this our guy?" "Matches the manifesto." "He's our guy." "Greyson!" "Stop right there!" "Put the gun down now." "Now turn around slowly." "If you're really gonna take me in," "I'd at least like to know who you are." "U.S. Cyber command." "I would have thought CIA or FBI." "But that actually makes more sense." "Meet and greet's over." "Now get on the ground." "Why?" "So you can put me in some deep, dark hole?" "Exactly." "That would be a little redundant." "What are you talking about?" "Oh, I have a hole of my own." "No." "It's booby-trapped." "He just activated some kind of I.E.D." "I'm pulling up diagrams of the warehouse and the city's underground railroad tunnels." "As in the underground railroad?" "This place was built on the site of an original slave market." "Looks like the tunnels lead into the city's sewage system about 200 yards from here." " Turn here." " You sure?" "That tunnel back at the warehouse leads to two others." "I think one of them's filled with water." "This will be his only way out." "There." "This area's wide open." "He couldn't have got far on foot." "He had a vehicle waiting." "Tire tracks lead that way." "He's got a head start on us." "He was definitely prepared." "I'll give him that." "I'm in the treadmaster national database." "It's a pickup, late model, bias ply," "O-8 tires, probably American." "Wheelbase is pretty narrow." "I'd say it's a Ford." "My little brother's a gearhead." "Let's go." "I'm in the DMV database checking late-model Ford pickups in Baltimore." "Nothing registered to the name Gordon Greyson." "I'm looking at known aliases right now." "There's nothing." "This guy's doing everything to stay off the grid." "There's no way he's gonna fill out a credit report to buy a car." "He'd pay cash." "Check with the I.R.S." "Cross-reference with local dealers." "What am I looking for?" "Form 83-100s filed in connection with the purchase of a Ford pickup in the last 10 years." "Right -- dealer would be required to file an 83-100 with internal revenue." "It's a money-laundering thing." "Got it." "2005 Ford F-150 registered in his mother's maiden name." "Jameson, we need eyes on that truck." "I got D.C. sat coverage moving into position any second." "Checking a 2-mile radius from the tunnel." "Hold on." "Found a match." "All right, do you see it?" "It's on the move-- heading northwest." "I'm gonna chip the traffic lights just ahead of him." "Greyson!" "Don't move!" "You people think you can shut me up, but you can't." "Don't worry." "I'll let you talk all you want." "Can you tell me exactly what my crime is?" "You're a terrorist." "A terrorist?" "A term as lazy as it is overused." ""The architects of human extinction must be struck down"" "You are taking my words out of context." "I've never advocated violence-- never." "Funny, coming from a guy that just shot at federal agents." "You-- you were trespassing." "The Second Amendment affords me the right to shoot and kill" "I'm sorry-- is it the right to program nanites to kill scientists you don't like?" "Nanites?" "Where are the other packages?" "Who else did you send them to?" "I don't send packages." "I send letters" "Warnings about the consequences of their work." "Like this?" ""Dormitories of mediocre minds filled with insidious promises and empty lies."" "So, that's the great Gordon Greyson." "Incredible." "He was working with nano-technology when it was in its infancy." "You two talk as though he's to be admired." "Once upon a time, Lillian, that man inspired a generation." " Right?" " Yeah." "Till he got scared." "What do you mean, scared?" "Greyson claimed he'd developed an algorithm which could conceivably make artificial intelligence autonomous." "Now, in all our simulations of the human mind, what limits us is the ability of the computer to program itself." "So if that were possible, so the theory goes, we-- meaning people" "Well, we suddenly become unnecessary." "It's called transhumanism" "The biological synthesis between man and technology." "And it's nothing to be afraid of." "Your...creation is certainly proof of that." "Gabriel is not what you think he is." "And he's certainly not my "creation."" "If you say so." "These scientists, these people that you killed, they had families." "They were mothers and they were fathers." "Look, if-- if-- if nanites did this, they are creating their own end." "You're blaming them?" "I-I-I" "I-I want you to imagine a machine devoid of humanity, able to learn on its own, create on its own." "But how do you control it?" "How do you reason with it when it's thinking in ways that we can't even comprehend?" "I blame them " " I blame them for their insatiable hunger for technology." "I blame the government." "The people that you work for " "They are the real terrorists." "You realize you're nuts, right?" "No, the government " "The government is trying to plant chips into our minds, into our heads." "It's true even if you don't believe it." "It's true." "I swear it " "Trust me when I tell you this." "Frankenstein's monster will walk among us." "And when he does, the world will be no more ready for him now than they were then." "And this, this, this, and this is proof of it." "We're not getting anywhere." "What the hell is he doing?" "Did he just turn the cameras off?" "Come on." "What did you just do?" "Meet Frankenstein." "What?" "What are you talking about?" "There's a little red barn in Alton, Kansas, with two silos." "You use it as your dead drop ever since you went awol." "And your I.P. address that ghosts your anonymity is pinging off a serbian server right now." "But you never send any e-mails, do you?" "You just read the ones from your sister, Emma -- the same ones over and over again so you don't feel so alone." "Everything you predicted in your little manifesto here is standing right in front of you." "No." "I don't believe you." ""There will come a point in which there will be so much data, man will need to augment the human mind just to process it."" "The singularity." "You?" "No." "It's not possible." "You're gonna tell us where the rest of those packages are in the next 30 seconds... or everything you've ever been afraid of is about to happen." "I don't know." "I swear to you." "I don't know." "Gabriel?" "Oh, god!" " No." "No." "No." "I'm bleeding!" " What's happening to him?" " I don't know." "Hang on." "What happened in that room when you turned off the camera?" "Nothing." "I was just trying to freak him out a little bit " "Shake something loose." "You shook something loose, all right." "Hey." "I didn't make him go all Niagara like that." "Gabriel, there is a reason that we have surveillance in that room." "You're not so special that you can disregard standards and protocols." "Standards?" "I just watched a guy implode because microscopic robots ate his flesh." "That's not standard." "That's a freak show." "Consider yourself lucky." "You have your own freak." "Yes, I feel very lucky." "What?" "I don't like you calling yourself a freak." "The youngest one's always a freak." "I was the only one my mother forbid from joining the army." "Well, if she could see you now." "She'd probably have another breakdown." "I'll be lucky if I don't have a breakdown." "Probably millions of them on this gauze alone." "Just think " " I could have gone my whole life without seeing something this...disturbing." "Thank you for this, dad." "Yeah, I knew you wouldn't want to miss a chance to study the nanites up close." "I was employing sarcasm." "Never mind." "Oh, what the...?" "Electron magnet." "We're gonna pull the little bastards out of his arm." "Just think " " Greyson develops one of the most elegant, undetectable microscopic weapons of the century and then dies of his own creation the moment we catch him." "Well, that would be poetic, except now he can't tell us what the rest of his plan was, now, can he?" "True." "Would you like to take the sample from his nasal cavity?" "Oh, that sounds...awesome, but I am gonna pass." "Dad, why are we wearing these suits if the nanites are dead?" "The ones in his body are dead." "Are you saying there are others?" "Well, he must have been infected at some point." "It stands to reason he was carrying them around on his person somewhere." "Or he was infected before he came in here." "No, because in the other cases, the victim died quickly." "Greyson was here for, uh -- whew -- about three hours before " "Before..." "Oh, hell." "You're right." "I am?" "He wasn't infected here." "Well, then how could he poss" "No, we're thinking about this all wrong." "We're treating this like it is an organic infection." "What we are dealing with is a mechanical infection." "Viruses and bacteria are active before they enter the body." "But a machine can be turned on at any time." "All right, good." "Let's get out of here." "This is..." "That's disgusting." "He was capable of it." "He was brilliant." "He was crazy." "What if he isn't guilty?" "What if Gordon is just a patsy for somebody else?" "Go on." "The nanites that killed Greyson, they could have been in his system for hours, days, even weeks." "The only reason he died when he did is because at that exact moment, someone else activated them." "Remotely." "Activated?" "How?" "They're digital creatures." "They can communicate with each other," "And they can be made to communicate with whatever controls them." "I never picked up a signal." "You also can't hear a dog whistle." "The signal the nanites are receiving would be on a very special spectrum." "Your chip wasn't programmed to access it." "How was the signal sent?" "It's called an S.A.R. signal," "And you could piggyback it on a cell signal." "The nanites take phone calls?" "The call would have to be cellphone to cellphone," "But the nanites, they just have to be in the vicinity to be triggered." "My cellphone buzzed during the interrogation." "It was a blocked number." "Yes, yes." "That must have been when the nanites were activated." "But no cellphone from the outside can penetrate our shielding." "Maybe he wasn't outside." "Are you kidding me?" "You son of a bitch." "We gave him complete access to this building." "No." "I gave him access." "Come on." "Let's go." "Bryce selected Greyson because he matched the profile of what we'd be looking for " "Anti-government paranoia, a history of violence." "He planted Greyson's manifesto under each letter to seal the deal." "This man sent a package to his own office, killed an innocent girl to throw us off." "So be cautious." "There's no telling what he's capable of." "It's over, Bryce." "Your phone." "I don't understand." "No more games." "Where's your phone?" "Why do you need my phone?" "This phone has never accessed the deep net." "He used a burner phone." "Where is it?" "Dad, your phone's ringing." "What?" "Not my phone." "How did this happen?" "Bryce infected my dad with nanites." "Then he planted a cellphone in the lab to activate them." "You got this?" "Are you in pain, Shen?" "Yep." "Okay, this electron magnet should slow down the nanites." "Possibly." "Probably!" "Just...probably." " Okay, you ready, dad?" " Yeah." "Turn it on." "It appears to be working." "Nice job, Nelson." "Now, this will only delay them." "These nanites, they're smart." "They'll adapt." "Once they adapt, they'll pick up speed" " and get right back to..." " Killing me, yeah." "This is merely slowing down the death process." "Well...at least I won't be the first scientist to be ironically felled by science, huh?" "Madame Curie died of radiation poisoning shortly after discovering radium." "Dad!" "Lighten up, Nelson." "You love a good joke when you're nervous." "Well, you need better material." "Someday you'll have a child of your own." "You'll see what it feels like to be as... as proud as I am." "I just wish I could have met him." "Or -- or her." "Okay, look, I like the jokes." "Let's just get back to the jokes." "Gabriel?" "I'm here, Doc." "I cannot imagine what I will be missing with you, what you'll become." "You can cut that out right now, Doc." "The Cassidy I know doesn't give up." "Look at me." "This is not goodbye." "Just know that I could not have chosen a better candidate... a better man." "He's bleeding!" "There's got to be some way we can treat him!" "This is not a disease, okay?" "He's being attacked by microscopic A.I." "He doesn't need a doctor!" "He needs me!" "He needs you!" "Bryce is in holding." "I'm gonna make him fix this." "Hang on." "How do we deactivate the nanites?" "Tell me -- what do you see when you look at me?" "Data streams?" "Just a murderer." "Tell us how to stop the nanites, and we'll see to it that you're tried in Maryland, where there's no death penalty." "You know, any futurist will tell you that the world doesn't advance by a cacophony of voices but evolves only through a singular vision." "One man " " Henry Ford," "Steve Jobs, Bill Gates." "Bin Laden." "This isn't about a vision of the future." "It's about a vision of your bank account." "You're eliminating competition." "Are you just guessing that?" "Or is that your chip telling you?" "It must be difficult for you to reconcile the two." "Not really." "They're both telling me to kick your ass right now." "You're quite a curiosity." "You are so average," "But your augmented mind is extraordinary." "We're not even the same species." "No, you're not." "Gabriel is warm-blooded." "Warm-blooded." "We got to get up to the lab." "I think I know what to do." "That's your plan -- to kill my dad?" "The nanites just have to think he's dead." "You said they can only live outside the body for a few minutes, which is why you couldn't catch them alive." "That has to be temperature." "Yes." "Yes, yes, yes." "When one dies, they all die." "It's called swarm intelligence." "So we lower his body temperature to simulate a clinical death." "Make the nanites think their job is done." "You okay, doc?" " He could really die from this." " I know." "His temperature dropped to 93 degrees." "Okay, he's gonna need a fast active-core rewarm." "On my signal, you pump him with this." "How are we gonna know they're dead if Gabriel can't access the S.A.R. signal?" " Electron magnet." " What about it?" "It's hooked up to the computer, which means you can chip it." "Okay, use it for imaging, like an MRI." "Hurry, Gabriel." "His body's shutting down." "At what point does he enter hypothermia?" "We're past that already." "I can see them." "They're still alive." " Nelson." " Dad?" "Dad." "He's shutting down." "Gabriel!" "Not yet." "They're slowing." "Do you want me to give him the adrenaline?" "No!" "No." "I'll " " I'll do it." "Just -- just hold him down." "He's gonna seize." "Now?" "Not yet." "We're gonna lose him." "Wait." "Now, Nelson!" "Give him the shot now!" "Go, go, go!" "Come on, dad!" "Come on!" "Come on, dad!" "Come on!" "Come on!" "Don't give up on us, doc!" "Come on." "Okay." "Glad to see you're okay, old friend." "Are you?" "I'm not the one you want." "You made a call to your assistant right before she died." "I was trying to...warn her not to open the package." "Oddly, you called her cellphone, not the office line." "So what?" "Well, we examined the phone." "When you dial a specific sequence of numbers before the call, it sends the required S.A.R. signal -- the one that triggers the nanites." "You're wrong." "Well, we're gonna find out." "The post office found another box." "A-a-are you crazy?" "These nanites can kill you, too." "You programmed them to make one lethal attack, like a bee with one stinger." "Let's see who will get stung." "So... go ahead, Bryce." "Breathe it in." "And now, that sequence was... 7..." "7... 4..." "4... 7..." "7... 7..." "7... 4..." "4..." "Don't!" "Don't." "Powdered sugar." "You were one of my favorite students, Bryce." "But you were never the brightest, and you were certainly never a visionary." "I guess that's why you had to murder all of your competition in order to succeed." "Yes?" "Uh, we're way past our nightly check-in." "The sun is almost coming up." "Did you want to... borrow a cup of sugar?" "Maybe." "Well, actually, I was just... calling to say thank you." "What for?" "You know what for." "You know, Lillian told me once that... we were defined by the decisions we make." "Robots don't make decisions." "They execute code." "You make decisions, Gabriel." "And, from where I sit... they're pretty good ones." "Okay, well..." "I have a decision for you to make." "Shoot." "Paco's for bacon and waffles." "I need sleep." "And sleep would make sense if you're 90." "Come on." "Downstairs in 10." "Five." "## Reyaansh ##"