Micro

Micro
First edition cover
Author(s)	Michael Crichton Richard Preston
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction, Adventure
Publisher	HarperCollins
Publication date	November 22, 2011
Pages	424
ISBN	978-0-06-087302-8
Preceded by	Pirate Latitudes

Micro is a 2011 techno-thriller novel written by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston. The novel was found in Crichton's archives following his death in 2008 along with the completed novel Pirate Latitudes, which was subsequently published in 2009. Approximately a third of Micro was completed by Crichton, and the publisher hired Richard Preston to finish the book according to the author's remaining outline, notes, and research.^[1][2][3]

Plot

Marlo Rodriguez is hired to spy into the company of Nanigen but soon finds himself with cuts spreading all over his body. He goes back to Willy Fong's office where Rodriguez, Fong, and another Chinese man dies from mysterious cuts all over their body. The three deaths leave the police confused as no murder weapon was found and the office was locked.

Meanwhile in Massachusetts, seven graduate students, Peter Jansen, Karen King, Danny Minot, Erika Moll, Jenny Linn, Rick Hutter, and Amar Singh are welcomed by Nanigen's president Vin Drake, Vice-president Alyson Bender, and Peter's brother Eric, to come to Hawaii to see if they would have the chance to work for the company. All seven agree to go but two days before their planned departure, Peter receives a text message from his brother saying 'don't come.' Peter is unable to reach Eric and is asked by Alyson Bender to come to Hawaii to help with the case of his brother's death due to a boating accident where his engine failed to start. In Hawaii, Peter assists the police who have eyewitness reports that Eric jumped from his boat and that there was also a video shot by a couple. While watching the video, Peter sees that Alyson Bender had been at the scene of his brothers death and hires a friend of Rick's named Jorge to hack her phone to see if she had any part in his brother's death. Jorge sends Peter a message with a voice recording of Alyson reporting the incident to Vin Drake. With enough evidence that Vin Drake and Alyson Bender were responsible for Eric's death, he plans to show the other graduate students and the two murderers the message that Alyson sent after he burns it onto a CD. The other six graduates join Peter in Hawaii for the tour of Nanigen. Once the tour is over, Peter wants to share the CD but learning what it holds, Drake attacks Peter and once he learns that his mike was on and the other graduates heard what had happened, he fakes an emergency and rushes the seven graduates to the "safety room" which is really a Tensor generator which shrinks people and things down to half an inch tall. To leave no witnesses besides himself and Alyson Bender, Drake pushes a Nanigen employee named Jarel Kinsky into the generator too and prepares to feed them to a snake. Peter manages to stop the snake and Alyson, not wanting the eight to die, rescues them, only for Drake to find out and follow her to Fern Gully where the students and Kinsky escape. Drake says there is no choice but to fake their deaths and the two begin to put clothing items and belongings of the students in their car. Alyson prepares to get out of the car but Drake smashes her head against the dashboard and pushes the car over the side of a cliff, killing Alyson Bender.

In the micro-world, the eight learn from Kinsky there is something called the micro-bends which causes internal bleeding after several days in the micro-world. They go to find shelter at station Echo, one of several bases that goes from Alpha to Kilo. Kinsky spots the shelter and begins running for it only to be ripped apart by ants while the others reach the safety of the station and take some things to survive including some machetes and duct tape. Danny is determined to stay at station Echo while the others move on. After getting all of the gear together, the students fall asleep.

Drake has his head of security go around and collect all of the stations with the exception of Kilo that he can't find. When he comes to station Echo, he cuts it open with his knife. The seven escapee but Jenny Linn receives a bad wound to the arm and in the micro-world, the tiniest cut could cause the micro-bends to come. While fleeing, a rainstorm starts and Jenny Linn begins to drown. Danny tries to save her but realizes that if he doesn't let go, they both will die and he lets her go. The six remaining students find her corpse after the storm and have a quick funeral for her.

Two Nanigen security members, Johnstone and Telius are sent in to hunt down the survivors, Drake claiming that they were spies trying to steal the companies technology. The two enter the micro-world in vehicles called hexapods. The two make camp for the night as do the students who make a fortress. During the night, a centipede attacks the fortress the students built. Amar delivers a lethal blow to the centipede with a harpoon the survivors made but he is also bitten in the chest. The six climb a tree to get away and spend the night there. When morning comes, Peter, Danny, Erika, and Karen climb the tree to get a view of the parking lot of the greenhouse they are going for to catch a shuttle truck that goes there but finds that the area is poisoned so there will be no escape from that way. They decide to head for a base called Tantalus, a place with micro-airplanes that they could use. Danny is attacked by a Wasp but is saved and the six students descend the tree and start making their way to Tentalus. Johnstone and Telius ambush the students and kill Amar and Peter with gas-rifles. Rick uses a blow gun he made and shoots and kills Johnstone while Karen distracts Telius long enough for a brown huntsmanspider to kill and devour him. With only four over the original eight left, they take Johnstone's hexapod and gas-rifle and continue on their way.

Police Lieutenant Dan Watanabe pulls the car belonging to the graduate students out of the water from where it was dumped over the cliff. They find Alyson dead in the driver's seat and becomes suspicious with the deaths of Alyson Bender, Eric Jansen, the graduate students, and the disappearance of Jarel Kinsky who were all in someway affiliated with Nanigen. Unknown to Watanabe, Drake, or anyone else, Eric Jansen is still alive and has begun searching for the graduate students.

With the hexapod, Karen, Rick, Erika, and Danny begin to climb a mountain towards Tentalus. They come to a small pool where Rick, Karen, and Erika rinse off but are attacked by Mynah birds. During the attack, Erika takes the Hexapod which has most of the team's supplies and attempts to escape without the other three. Erika is killed by the birds and the hexapod falls down the mountainside. Karen is eaten by a bird but is still alive and is saved by Rick. The team looses most of their gear including the harpoon and gas-rifle and Danny spots the great bolder which is where Tentalus is supposed to be.

The deaths of Rodriguez, Fong, and the Chinese man are discovered by the Nanigen head of security as when Rodriguez was inside Nanigen, the micro-robots that the company made attacked and cut Rodriguez and went with him to Fong's office where all three of them died from the cuts they sustained.

Karen, Rick, and Danny are about to reach Tantalus when it is discovered that there is wasp larvae on Danny's stung arm and Rick is captured and paralyzed by a solitary wasp and brought down into its nest. Danny acts as lookout while Karen goes in to save Rick. She manages to save Rick from one of the larvae and kill the mother wasp but finds that Rick needs immediate attention or he could die. Karen goes and finds a Theridion grallator which she needs to help Rick and uses one of his blow darts to paralyze the spider. She uses its venom mixed with the wasp's and gives it to Rick which saves him.

The three reach Tantalus and find there are no miniature airplanes but they do find Ben Rourke, the inventor of the tensor generator. He gives Rick and Danny medical attention and determines that Danny's arm must be amputated before the larvae reach his brain. After feeding and letting the three bathe, Ben tells the three his story. He had been hired by Drake for the tensor generator and was one of the first people in it. Then he and two others were sent to Tantalus to see if people could survive the micro-bends. Both of Ben's colleges died but he managed to survive by using a large magnet and learned that Drake had never planned for the three to return, that they were supposed to die. Rick and Karen spend the night in the magnet room while Danny sleeps in the main hallway. The larvae begin to cocoon themselves and Danny calls Drake for help, requesting medical attention for the information on how to heal the bends. Danny is told to fly to Diamond Head to a lighthouse where Drake will be. Danny steals a micro-plane to get there but his plane is attacked by bats and he is killed.

Eric learns that Peter had been killed and of the meeting at the lighthouse and he heads towards the lighthouse. Back at Rourke's house, Karen tells Rick that she is staying in the micro-world and Rick confesses that after the bird attack, he learned that he loved her. Vin Drake starts a fire at Rourke's after learning its location from Danny's transmission. Karen and Rick escape via micro-planes while Rourke sacrifices himself so they can escape. Eric comes to Tantalus after Drake leaves and he finds Karen and Rick and is determined to get them back to Nanigen.

Drake's security chief confesses to Watanabe about what had happened and Watanabe sends a police force to Nanigen to arrest Drake. At Nanigen, Eric encounters Drake eho activates the same bots that killed Rodriguez, Wong, and the other man which are programmed not to attack Drake. Drake and Eric get into the room with the tensor generator and continue to fight while Rick and Karen use a control panel for micro-humans to make them normal sized again. A bot gets in with them and Eric smashes Drake's controls, causing the bots to turn on him. Rick and Karen are restored to normal size and they pull a wounded Eric from the room and leave Drake behind where the now large bot kills him. Watanabe and his force extract the three survivors while the bots destroy the generator, causing it to explode and destroy Nanigen.

Karen still wants to return to the micro-world while it turns out that the Chinese man was an employee from one of Nanigen's rival companies and that Eric was attacked by the bots on his boat. It is also revealed that Drake had attempted to kill Eric for uncovering Nanigen's secret about micro-planes that could be used to kill anybody and he was trying to sell them to foreign countries.

Writing

Michael Crichton spoke about working on Micro in three interviews before his death. Crichton described the project as "an adventure story like Jurassic Park. I'm enjoying myself," and said the novel "would be informative in a way that would be fun, and would give...some information about how our environment really is structured." ^[4]

In the book, there is a somewhat detailed sketch of the setting in which the story takes place titled, "The Pali." Near the base of the waterfall in the sketch, reads the small inscription "NUMQUAM OBLIVISCEMUR MICHAELIS CRICHTONIS," which translated from Latin, reads "We Will Never Forget Michael Crichton."

References

1. ^ http://www.michaelcrichton.com/books-micro.html
2. ^ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110522/ap_en_ot/us_books_crichton
3. ^ http://www.harpercollinscatalogs.com/harper/527_1939_313333323036.htm#readmore
4. ^ "What Michael Crichton said about Micro"

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