Prey (novel)

Prey is Michael Crichton's thirteenth novel published under his own name, and his twenty-third overall. Released in November 2002, it was his first book of the 2000s. An excerpt appeared in the January–February 2003 issue of *Seed* magazine. The novel combines elements from two of Crichton's earlier bestsellers, *Jurassic Park* and *The Andromeda Strain*, and acts as a warning about emerging technologies: specifically nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and distributed artificial intelligence.

The story incorporates then-recent advances in computing and science, including artificial life, emergence (and complexity), genetic algorithms, and agent-based computing. It also draws on population dynamics and host-parasite coevolution. Film rights were acquired by 20th Century Fox in 1997, but no movie was ever made.

The protagonist, Jack Forman, is an unemployed software programmer and stay-at-home father. His wife, Julia, works as an executive at Xymos, a nanorobotics company, and claims to be developing a revolutionary imaging technology that consumes most of her time, making Jack suspect she is having an affair. Julia shows Jack a video of Xymos nanobots being injected into a human test subject, which impresses but also worries him. Their baby, Amanda, wakes up in severe pain but is instantly cured after an MRI that same night.

Julia begins acting strangely and abusively toward her family until she is injured in a car crash. Jack then goes to Xymos, where project manager Ricky is struggling with the nanobots. Jack is taken to the Xymos research facility in Nevada's Basin Desert. There, he meets the programming team: Mae, Charley, David, Rosie, Bobby, and Vince. He is shown a machine that produces nanobot assemblers from bacteria, but not the source code for the nanobots. Ricky claims that improperly installed filters in a vent caused assemblers, bacteria, and nanobots to be blown into the desert, where they formed autonomous swarms. These swarms are clouds of solar-powered, self-sufficient nanobots that reproduce and evolve rapidly (a process called necroevolution). They exhibit predatory behavior, killing wild animals using Jack's own code. Jack learns that Julia had been helping to make the swarms less aggressive, but they regressed when she stopped coming to the facility.