Prey

The monitor shows a young man in a white T shirt. Jack thinks he looks like the man who was in Julia’s car. They realize that it’s Ricky, even though Ricky is in the room with them. The figure has no facial features, but he has the same build and even the same clothes as Ricky. Then Jack notices that the figure is hovering. The swarms have learned that imitation is one possible solution to their goal. This latest in their many rapid advances makes Jack uneasy. He thinks, “A human being is actually a giant swarm. Or more precisely, it’s a swarm of swarms, because each organ—blood, liver, kidneys—is a separate swarm. What we refer to as a ‘body’ is really the combination of all these organ swarms” (260). Bodies are not solid; they are cellular, and what he calls “swarm intelligence” is what runs humans (260). The swarm loses its Ricky shape as its energy drops. Jack says they will be able to destroy it in three hours.

Jack learns there has been an available vehicle with keys in it the whole time; he doesn’t understand why Ricky didn’t tell him. He goes out with Bobby and Mae and sees that Rosie’s body is gone. There are white streaks on the ground, like something dragged her away. Mae gathers gas masks for them, and Jack notices that they’re the same as the ones the men in the white van were wearing at the site of Julia’s crash.

At 10:43 p.m., using a motorbike and an ATV, they follow the radiation counter into the desert, where they eventually lose the trail. Mae realizes that the swarms jumped off a small cliff above a streambed. They knew they were being tracked and tried to mislead them. Bobby sees what he thinks are glowing eyes. Through the binoculars, he sees that he is looking at Rosie’s body as something drags it.

When they get closer to her body, the binoculars show that Rosie is moving across the ground without anything obvious dragging her. Mae sees a shadow under the corpse and realizes it is made of the particles, moving her along like a carpet of ants. Jack doesn’t understand. The swarms weren’t supposed to have more than three hours of power. Now it’s possible that they won’t be dormant when they find them. Mae wonders if they’re alternating swarms, passing Rosie’s body to each other like a baton in a relay race, extending the use of their energy. This means they are coordinating.

Jack sees that they are taking Rosie toward a mound of earth in the distance, approximately six feet tall. He realizes that it is a constructed nest, which reminds him of African termites, which are a good example of decentralized command: They accomplish their complex buildings without a leader, and their creations are intricate even though the rules the termites follow are simple. They reach the nest in time to see the particles drag Rosie down through the mouth at the top. Twenty feet from the mound, the smell is nauseating. Mae sticks her camera over the edge of the rim after they climb up the small slope. They look down into the entrance to a large cave in time to see Rosie’s body disappear around a bend. Then a figure appears at the mouth of the cave. It is one of the swarms, mimicking Ricky’s form. Then another version of Ricky appears on the screen. The two figures appear to be listening; then they go back into the cave and a version of David appears. He changes into Ricky, then back to David. Mae tells Jack she had been in the cave two weeks earlier during daylight, but there had been no swarms. It had contained only bats.

They decide to trap the swarms in the cave and destroy them. A version of Rosie appears, then changes into Ricky. A helicopter approaches and stops above Jack before moving on. Jack sees four versions of Ricky coming toward them, investigating the noise. These versions of Ricky are more detailed: the mimicry is improving. The helicopter returns, and the swarms flee at the threat of the wind produced by the rotors. Mae and Jack enter the mound.

They walk into the cave and encounter three Rickys. Mae throws a lit thermite cap toward the trio and tells Jack to turn away. The blast vaporizes them, and Jack and Mae move on. They come to a large hole, and Mae rolls a cap down the slope. This time, the figures they encounter don’t approach; they are already learning that the thermite represents danger. She throws two more caps, which is enough to clear the tunnel.

As they go deeper into the nest, the swarms back away from them. They reach a central chamber in which dark spheres hang from the ceiling; the particles are mimicking the molecule creator—the octopus—from the lab. Worms from the bat guano are helping with the molecular processes and the creation of bacteria. Jack and Mae reach a smaller version of the mound, which contains the heart, where the assemblers work. They light several clusters of thermite caps and then run. There is an explosion behind them, and Jack realizes he is standing on David’s corpse. They throw more caps behind them and make it to the exit as the swarms chase them. Bobby throws a Molotov cocktail inside the cave when they pass him at the rim of the nest. They board the helicopter, and Jack believes they succeeded.