Prey (novel)
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| Author | Michael Crichton |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Harper Collins |
| Released | November 25, 2002 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback, Paperback) |
| Pages | 320 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-00-715379-1 (first edition, hardback) |
Prey is a novel by Michael Crichton first published in hardback edition in November 2002 and as a paperback edition in November 2003 by Harper Collins. According to IMDB there will be a film adaptation due out in 2007; details are unavailable. Like Jurassic Park, the novel serves as a cautionary tale about developments in science and technology; in this case, nanotechnology.
The book features relatively new advances in the computing/scientific community, such as artificial life, emergence (and by extension, complexity), genetic algorithms, and agent-based computing.
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
High-tech whistle-blower Jack Forman used to specialize in programming computers to solve problems by mimicking the behavior of efficient wild animals — swarming bees or hunting hyena packs, for example. Now he's unemployed and is finally starting to enjoy his new role as stay-at-home dad. All would be domestic bliss if it were not for Jack's suspicions that his wife, who's been behaving strangely and working long hours at the top-secret research labs of Xymos Technology, is having an affair. When he's called in to help with her hush-hush project, it seems like the perfect opportunity to see what his wife's been doing, but Jack quickly finds there's a lot more going on in the lab than an illicit affair. Within hours of his arrival at the remote testing center, Jack discovers his wife's firm has created self-replicating nanotechnology — a literal swarm of microscopic machines. Originally meant to serve as a military eye in the sky, the swarm has now escaped into the environment and is intent on fulfilling its new, self-instated prime directives of self-preservation and replication – at the expense of its creators' lives.
[edit] Plot summary
The book's protagonist and narrator is Jack, an unemployed software programmer who used to work with artificial intelligence. He was fired for attempting to expose an internal scandal in his company. As a result, no other company would employ him and he is forced to take the role of "househusband" while his wife works as an executive for Xymos, a nanorobotics company. Xymos claims to be on the verge of perfecting a revolutionary new medical imaging technology based on nanotechnology, but Jack is skeptical.
One day, Jack's baby daughter Amanda develops a very strange rash that propagates and becomes very severe. He takes her to the hospital, but the doctors cannot find the cause of the rash. Eventually she is taken to an MRI and, strangely, she is instantly cured. Later, his son's MP3 player is damaged, and Jack is surprised to see that the memory chip has been completely disintegrated.
Jack is contacted by his old company which has become a contractor to Xymos, who offer to rehire him to help deal with an alleged software problem. Jack travels to the remote Xymos manufacturing facility in Nevada. Ricky, the Xymos development leader, shows him around and tells him that the company is under contract from the Department of Defense to create a swarm that acts as a camera for reconnaissance and spying. The swarm is created by genetically modified E. coli bacteria, which create gamma assemblers from raw material which in turn churn out new nanobots. However, the swarm could not work in the wild because they were quickly blown by the light winds, a problem the engineering team could not solve. The Pentagon decided to cancel their contract as a result. Ricky tells Jack building contractors failed to install filters in a vent in the building and the assemblers, bacterias and nanobots were blown into the desert, forming a swarm on its own. They were given solar power and memory. They appear to be self-sufficient, reproducing and evolving rapidly. Most alarmingly, the swarms exhibit rudimentary intelligence and what seems to be predatory behavior, attacking and killing small animals. Jack can not explain this behaviour as Ricky says the code did not include genetic algorithms to allow for evolution.
Here he is joined by members of his old software development team - Mae, Charley, David, Rosie, and Bobby. But his attempts to end this threat are hampered by Ricky, the Xymos development team leader, who appears to be more concerned with the profit of the company rather than the safety of the crew.
The nanoswarm kills a rabbit outside the complex and Jack goes outside with Mae to inspect. She checks the rabbit and finds that it died of suffocation resulting from the nanobots blocking its bronchial tubes. Mae goes inside for equipment while Jack waits for her. Meanwhile, two swarms approach Jack. He outsmarts the swarm temporarily using his knowledge of their programming. However, the swarm figures out his trick, proving that the swarms are indeed learning. The swarm attacks him and he manages to get inside the lab before going unconscious.
He wakes up and Mae tells him that he went into anaphylactic shock. He explains the situation to the team and concludes that the swarm must have nested in the desert to reproduce. They decide to attempt to find this nest by tagging the swarm and following them back to their nest. A strong wind picks up, forcing the swarms to remain dormant, and the team goes to a shack to find radioactive isotopes they can use as tags. Eventually, the wind dies down and four swarms surround the shack. Jack uses his knowledge of the swarm's programming again and organizes the group to exit the shack in a formation similar to a flock of birds, effectively confusing the swarm. However, David undergoes a mental breakdown and breaks formation, running for the door to the complex. The swarm surrounds him, and Rosie runs after him in a hopeless attempt to save him. The swarm kills them both.
With only three people, their numbers are not great enough to confuse the swarm. They are forced to take shelter in the cars parked outside. Eventually, the swarm enters the car through the hood of Charley's car and he sprays it with the isotope used for tagging. Mae and Jack get back to the lab, but Jack goes back out again to save Charley. Jack manages to use a motorcycle in David's car to get them both to safety by confusing the swarms' timing by varying the speed.
Jack and the rest of the surviving team try to relax after the devastating attack. At dinner, Charlie wonders whether or not the nanoparticles can get into a brain. Jack thinks about this, when suddenly alarms go off, and outside stands "Ricky". The swarms have now advanced enough to effectively mimic their prey. Jack, Mae and Bobby travel to destroy the organic nest and succeed, exploding the nest using a combination of explosives and by using an ATV as a Molotov cocktail.
At this point, his wife, Julia, who had been hospitalized after a suspicious car accident, flies out to the facility. When Jack, Mae and Bobby return to the facility, they are enthusiastically greeted by Julia and Ricky. They find Charley dead in a locked room with a swarm flying around him and the phone wires cut. Jack cannot understand how the swarm got inside the rigorously protected, airtight building, nor why Charley would have cut the wires, stopping the facility's communications and cutting them off from the world, nor why Julia and Ricky seems to be making up tales of how he died.
Jack goes to sleep and has a terrible nightmare involving Ricky (whom he thinks Julia is having an affair with) and Julia. He wakes up and strangely finds the lights on in the other bedrooms as they sleep. Mae is awake and is looking over a security video (which Ricky said was lost because the wires had been cut) and to Jack's horror, finds both Ricky and Julia kissing and making love. Later in the video, Charley arrives and he and Ricky fight viciously, ending up in the communication room where Julia kisses him. Jack notices something like a black fly in Charley's mouth. Julia suddenly arrives while Jack and Mae are watching and grows suspicious. She tries to seduce Jack into kissing her, saying that they've been apart for too long. However, Jack refuses, remembering that Julia kissed Charley before his death.
Eventually, Jack and Mae then discover that everyone in the facility except themselves have been infested by a parasitic version of the nanobots that are capable of controlling their hosts, including Ricky and Jack's wife, Julia. These nanobots evolved alongside the other swarms, and they evolved to a milder form that slowly devours their host, while allowing the hosts to travel and contaminate others.
Jack comes up with the idea to contaminate the sprinkler system with a phage that kills the nanobot-producing E. coli bacteria. Mae takes a bottle of phage to give to the other team members while Jack secretly goes to the sprinklers, but the other members aren't fooled and Julia kisses Mae. However, having drunk the phage herself, she is not contaminated. Overcoming many obstacles, Jack succeeds in setting off the sprinkler system, killing the last of the nanobot swarm and their hosts (Ricky, Vince and Julia) as well. Jack and Mae escape the facility in a helicopter shortly before the facility explodes due to a methane gas leak.
Jack puts together all the missing links. Amanda's rash was caused by gamma assemblers, which irritated her skin. The MRI's strong magnetic field pulled the assemblers right off. His son's MP3 player was also damaged by the assemblers. These assemblers were most likely brought home by Julia. Mae continues working, trying to find out if any of the swarms survived. Jack also discovers an e-mail on Julia's laptop that indicates that the release of the swarm in the wild wasn't accidental but was done intentionally. It was she who authorized the release of the swarms in the first place. They released it in hopes that it would evolve and solve their problem, failing to realize the potential consequences of their actions. The swarm infiltrated Julia, Ricky and others, influencing their minds, causing them to turn against everyone, killing all but Jack and Mae.
[edit] Characters in "Prey"
- Jack – The protagonist. A programmer with a strong background in biology, he is an expert in the field of agent-based artificial intelligence software.
- Julia – Jack's wife, she is the vice president of Xymos and a driving force behind the development of the nanorobots.
- Ricky – The team leader for Xymos' nanotechnology research project.
- Mae - A field biologist on Jack's consulting team.
- Charley - A member of Jack's team who specializes in genetic algorithms.
- David - An engineer on the team
- Rosie - A specialist in natural language processing
- Bobby - A programming supervisor
- Vince - the maintenance operator of the Xymos lab.
- The 'Swarm' - Any of the many predatorial clouds of nano-machines serving as an antagonistic force in the novel. A notable aspect of the swarm is its capacity for fully Lamarkian evolution, as each cloud's 'members' can effect choose exactly which aspects are to be transmitted or modified down into the next generation through manipulation of the E. Coli used to produce the new robots.
[edit] Major themes
Prey deals with the threat of intelligent nano-robots escaping from human control and becoming autonomous, self-replicating and dangerous. It loosely deals with the grey goo concept that has been widely explored in science fiction. Many aspects of the story, such as the cloud-like nature of the nanoparticles, their evolution, and even their hiding place all closely follow Stanisław Lem's 1964 novel, The Invincible.
Another theme is how short-sighted decision-making at the corporate level can lead to disaster when the companies involved control dangerous new technology. Michael Crichton states that the book is about what will happen if suitable controls are not placed on biotechnology before it develops to such an extent that it can threaten the survival of life on Earth.
