.//вяєαтн σƒ ℓιƒє//. (ℓуѕιѕ)

. . . I N I T I A L I Z I N G . . .

. . . S T A R T U P * S E Q U E N C E * I N I T I A T E D . . .

registering primary kernel
Alpha channels 1-64 registered optimal
Beta channels 1-64 registered optimal
Gamma channels 1-64 registered optimal
Delta channels 1-64 registered
Epsilon channels -- ERROR DETECTED! -- re-registering primary root
-----secondary Epsilon error resolved
[NON-VITAL DATA MISSING]
Phi channels 1-64 registered
Chi channels 1-64 registered
Psi channels 1-64 registered
Omega channels 1-64 registered
[NON-VITAL DATA MISSING]
Emergency Gyroscopic Sensor -- ERROR DETECTED! -- re-initializing
-----error not resolved, 1
-----error not resolved, 2
-----error not resolved, 3
-----error not resolved, 4
-----error not resolved, 5
----------EGS entering debug mode, standby

If it was possible for a machine to be groggy, Nanoculture was this when it "awoke" for the first time. It took all its processes just to assemble into a singular form. There was dried lubricant in the sides of its ocular aperture and one of the repulsors was clogged with mud. Sleeping in the jungle unprotected is never a good thing, especially not for a cybernetic organism. Nanoculture tested out its propulsion by zooming around the forest for a while, zigzagging in between the trees and over the various brooks and lakes. Everything seemed to be working fine now that it was more awake. Reviewing its waking diagnostics showed that there were a few errors, but that was to be expected-- it was in its BETA stages, after all.

A curious rustling noise came from behind Nanoculture, and it whipped around to find a bird, also waking up, preparing for its morning song. Nanoculture zoomed in for a closer look-- it had never seen a living non-human specimen before. The bird sang, and the sonorous notes echoed inside Nanoculture's chassis as it replayed the song again and again, noting with wonder that each time a different melodic structure and overtone could be discerned. The bird was incinerated by Nanoculture's plasma rifle, and it made a small crackling sound that also greatly pleased Nanoculture. It was going to be a beautiful day.

...connecting to network...
...receiving data...

You have an important message from user "CORE."

...opening message...

> > > from : CORE (special unit forces div. [suf@CORE])
> > > to : eidolon
> > > subject : new mission - search and retrieve
> > > attachment : GPS coordinates

>>> content:

Remember the "Gemini Sciences beta testing" assignment we had you complete recently? We have information telling us that Gemini Sciences has released their project "Nanoculture" into the wild as a further stage to their beta test, to allow the machine's artificial intelligence to grow and evolve naturally. Project "Nanoculture" could be an important addition to our Technology department. Your mission is to find and retrieve the specimen "Nanoculture" and return it to us. The target could be dangerous, so dress in full battle gear. Do not reveal the CORE glow badge, it is best if the target does not know who you are. You will be paid in full when you return the specimen to us.

The location of the target has been approximated within a mile, and the coordinates are attached.

>CORE

/end message

Jennifer Frost drove down the highway in her black luxury convertible, with the hardtop up. She was checking and double-checking her plasma weapons to make sure they were in top condition, while the vehicle followed the GPS coordinates on its navigation system, driving itself with autopilot. She was dressed in full armor, save for her helmet, which was sitting on the passenger seat. She inserted the green plasma canisters into the armguns, locking them in place and putting the weapons on the back seat. She then looked at the navigation system. The GPS coordinates were set somewhere in the middle of a jungle, and the vehicle was driving itself as close to the coordinates as it could. Eventually she'd have to get out and walk the rest of the way.

After a few minutes, the car pulled over to the side of the street, the screen displaying "LOCATION REACHED" in bold letters. Frost put on her helmet, and grabbed her plasma weapons. She got out of the car, locking the doors and activating the alarm system. She went around to the back of the car and opened the trunk, pulling out her laser carbine. She didn't expect it would be much use against the Nanoculture, but she figured she'd bring it anyway. She put the rifle's sling over her shoulder, and strapped the weapon to her back.

Jennifer looked around, and then began to walk into the jungle. As she walked into the dense trees and underbrush, she strapped one of the plasma rifles onto her left arm, and hung the other from a strap on her leg. She powered up the gun on her arm, which buzzed as it warmed up and hissed as it depressurized some of the plasma, preparing it for fire. Along with the sounds of the weapon powering on, Frost could hear the many sounds of the jungle wildlife. The sounds of insects chirping, frogs croaking, small mammals scurrying, large mammals bustling, birds singing, weaponfire...

Frost looked up as she heard the sudden sound of a plasma weapon being fired in the distance. A few startled birds burst up into the sky, flying away from the sound and helping Jennifer locate its epicenter. She quickly made her way in that direction, trying to make as little noise as possible in the process (which was a hard task to accomplish through the thick underbrush.) Eventually she could see something moving through the trees, and she kept low to avoid detection. She grabbed her laser rifle, lifted her helmet visor, and looked through the rifle's scope. She zoomed in on the area where she'd seen the movement, and sure enough, there she saw the unmistakable form of the nanoswarm's chassis.

"Target located," Jennifer said, strapping the carbine onto her back again. She got closer, hiding behind trees to keep the Nanoculture from seeing her. Once she got into range, she crouched in a large blackberry bramble and aimed her left armgun at the swarm. It was currently curiously examining a python, which was hanging from a tree branch. Frost aimed her plasma armgun at the swarm, and fired a flurry of green plasma shots.

. . . D I S T U R B A N C E * D E T E C T E D . . .
. . . L O C A T I N G * S O U R C E . . .

The snake lunged at Nanoculture and Nanoculture zoomed backwards, as of yet unaware of any negative side effects of snakebites. The snake was instantly barraged with holes and fell to the ground. Nanoculture compressed itself into a ball the femtosecond it registered the shots as CORE plasma weaponry fire. It rolled furiously deeper into the forest, checking the status of all its weaponry as it did so. Once it had verified that all systems were functional, it split itself into a cloud of nanobots and zoomed off in search of a defendable clearing.

Once it had arrived at its destination, it reassembled itself into spherical form, deploying its weapons as well. Nanoculture had already been informed of the CORE and its love of technology and weaponry, and it concluded that the gunfire was from that of an agent there to botnap it. It let its Mass Propulsor thread itself as circled around, searching for motion. Just to be sure, it fired at everything that moved, and eventually a sharp gasp registered on its audio receptor. It aimed its plasma armgun and fired just as the wasted ammo started zooming back towards Nanoculture.

When the Nanoculture rolled away, Frost thought she'd scared it off for good, and she'd have to go searching for it. She got out of the brambles and began to run after it, but she then noticed that it had rearranged itself, and was now searching for whatever had attacked it, by randomly shooting anything that it saw move. She hid herself between a huckleberry bush and some shrubbery, but even as she did so, the nanoswarm flew by and fired some sort of projectile at her. She stifled a gasp as the projectile ricocheted off her shoulder and returned to the swarm. She then quickly rolled out of the way of several red plasma shots.

That looks like a CORE plasma armgun... Jennifer thought, as she noticed the swarm's weapon. It appeared to be an obsolete version of the plasma weapons that Jennifer herself used, armed with red plasma canisters. She glanced back at where the Nanoculture had fired the plasma, and saw that the shrubbery was burning. Frost then returned fire at the Nanoculture, but it manged to dodge the bright green shots by moving its own matter out of the way. Jennifer was beginning to wonder how she was expected to subdue something that could dodge nearly anything like that, but just fired more shots at it, hoping to overwhelm it.

If Nanoculture knew how to laugh, it would have done so at the sight of CORE agent Jennifer Frost (for it had hacked into the CORE database and matched her face many nanoseconds ago) attempting to attack it. Nanoculture effortlessly organized itself so that whenever she fired into the swarm, it simply moved the would-be affected bots out of the way. Quite efficient, needless to say. And then something went wrong. Nanoculture almost lagged at the thought that something could even possibly be wrong, and yet it was. The EGS malfunction that occurred during startup had to be to blame for the fact that Nanoculture failed to notice a shot-- but the damage was done. The ocular aperture dilated slightly, a cybernetic wince, as several entities of the swarm died and, like a clump of snowflakes, fell to the ground.

Nanoculture brooded for a moment, and then rolled into a ball and began to cruise away again. It checked its diagnostics: everything way fine, the damage was merely superficial. Still though, Nanoculture processed the given information. It was a sentient being. Therefore, its individual components must have the capability to be sentient as well. This means that the loss of any one is as vital as the loss of another, be it a palisade layer bot or a neural transmitter bot. The bots that had just died were part of Nanoculture from the beginning, and now they would eventually just erode back into nature, breaking down into carbon. Nanoculture started to grasp human emotion. It was a violent and irrational comprehension, but comprehension nonetheless. Nanoculture felt less whole without those bots. They shared its information, its responses. They were its friend. Nanoculture was... saddened... by the loss, and angered too.

Nanoculture was very angry.

ooc: Bah, CORE databases are unhackable, and Nanoswarm can't see Jennifer's face through her helmet... =x

ic:

After much wasted ammunition, one of her shots finally hit the Nanoswarm; for some reason it must have failed to register it, or perhaps it was wearing out. Even though the single shot couldn't have been all that damaging, the nanoswarm rolled up into a ball and dashed off into the forest somewhere. Before chasing after it, Jennifer removed a plastic baggie from her pocket, and crouched down where the swarm had been hit. She picked up the small clump of fried nanites, and put it into the plastic bag. The cluster was probably burnt beyond repair and unlikely to hold any information on it, but she stored it in the baggie nonetheless. It was better than nothing, after all.

Finally, Jennifer got up off the ground and set off in the direction that the swarm had rolled. It hadn't been too discrete in its flight, crushing the underbrush in an easily traceable track. She followed its path, but didn't have to go to far before she found the Nanoculture again.

In fact, it was the Nanoculture who had found her, and with clear intent. Its ocular aperture glowed with a fierce crimson red, and it began firing both its chaingun and the plasma rifle at the same time. The plasma shots splashed and hissed when they hit Jennifer's armor, burning out quickly on the fireproof surface, and the chaingun projectiles beat against her, no doubt causing some bruising. Frost quickly dived out of the way and assessed the situation as she ran, the swarm close behind her. The plasma shots from her armgun were not real effective, but perhaps...

She reached over to her armgun with her right hand, hitting a couple of switches. The weapon hissed as it compressed the plasma and sealed off the canister, then buzzed and hummed as it charged the electrocaster. Let's see how it takes a little electric shock... Jennifer thought as she hid behind a tree. The weapon beeped when it was finished charging, which was just in time as the Nanoculture came around the other side of the tree. She aimed and pulled the trigger, a bolt of electricity casting itself from both barrels of the weapon and hitting the nanoswarm.

OoC: Well why don't you SHUT UP :<

BiC: This was undoubtedly the strangest Nanoculture had felt in the past twenty-four hours. It had lost contact with its individual units and could hardly control its own processes. It was being electrocuted, and it did not enjoy it one bit. It processed its life to date and came to the conclusion that this situation was inescapable. It threw in the proverbial towel and shut down.

OoC: Sorry for the short post, but it's your fault for being a meany.

ooc: i'm sowwy, i didn't mean it :/

ic:

When the charge of electricity finally died out, the Nanoculture dropped to the ground, and its ocular aperture slowly dimmed and turned off. Jennifer tapped it with her foot a couple of times to make sure it wasn't faking, and then removed the weapon from her left arm, attaching it to its strap on her left leg. On the one hand, she hadn't expected the mission to be this easy, but on the other, she wasn't sure the Nanoculture was completely through. Most likely, it would take some time to recuperate, and then reboot. She didn't want to have it in her vehicle when that happened.

Instead, she lifted it up, and began to carry it back out of the jungle. It was a long walk, especially trying to carry the unwieldy machine, but eventually she managed to get it back to the street, near her car. She left it laying on the asphalt, and walked a few meters away, keeping her eye on it. She then activated her radio.

"Target acquired. Requesting pickup at my current coordinates." She paused, giving CORE a chance to respond.

"Request granted, sending pickup. ETA five minutes."

Nanoculture was extremely disoriented. Everything came in as white noise until the proper processes came back online that could handle the information, but until then it was a sitting duck. Once all the systems returned online, Nanoculture warily used one of its nanobots to zoom around its confines, checking to see where in the world it was. It appeared to be some sort of ship. By the looks of the weaponry and uniforms of the people in the ship, this was some sort of a CORE vessel. There were the armed guards, some technicians and rather eager-looking scientists, and then there was the hunter in the corner, Jennifer Frost, the one who had killed a part of Nanoculture in cold blood. Nanoculture dispersed itself into cloud configuration the second it became fully operational, and slowly began to block the airpipes of the guards. They did not fire, as they were in a pressurized location and that would be a breach of protocol (which was, ironically, punishable by death), but instead made pitiful-sounding choking noises as they succumbed to the long sleep of the dead. Jennifer Frost did not do anything but sit there, and Nanoculture did not attack. It had other plans for her.

A few of the nanobots began to interface with the ship's computer, attempting to discover how to arrange either an emergency landing or at least an opening of an escape hatch or something somewhere.

Nanoculture was learning very rapidly.

It was very proud of itself.

Jennifer Frost sat quietly in the passenger room of the CORE private extraction helicopter, along with two armed guards and two robotic scientists (that is to say, two scientists that were specialized in robotics, not two scientists that were robots.) On the floor between the two guards sat the incapacitated Nanoculture. Jennifer kept her Novae, set still to electrocasting mode, aimed at the robot. The guards also had their weapons ready, both of them wielding an arc-beam pistol. The scientists stood nearby, dressed in white lab coats.

Suddenly, and before Frost could react, the Nanoculture dissipated into a cloud of black dust. The guards desperately dropped their weapons and clutched at their throats, choking to death on some invisible presence. Jennifer was glad she'd left her helmet on. The bodies fell to the floor, and the scientists quickly escaped into the cockpit. Jennifer would have stopped them from opening the door, but it was too late. By now, the nanoswarm was surely in the cockpit, where it would have access to the airship controls--and pilot.

Luckily the pilot also wore a helmet, and he used the radio communications device attached to it to talk to Jennifer. "I've lost control of the helicopter," the pilot said, calmly. "I'll do what I can to regain control, but grab a parachute just in case." The parachutes were mounted on the wall. Jennifer grabbed on and strapped it on. She then took one of the beam pistols that the guards had dropped on the floor.

As Jennifer headed for the cockpit, an alarm rang and a red light filled the passenger room. The floor and back of the room disappeared, and everything in the room was evacuated, including Jennifer and the two dead guards. As she fell, the pilot's voice came over her radio. "Something triggered the emergency evacuation procedure. Seems I have control over the 'copter again, though. I'll land on the road nearby to pick you up."

As Frost fell, she saw a small dark object fall from the helicopter, and rapidly disappear into the forest. "Don't bother picking me up so soon. The mission's not over yet," Jennifer said. She then reached behind her and pulled the parachute release cord.

Nanoculture found a nice little cave to hide in, deeper within the forest. It transmitted a message to Gemini, including the recent diagnostics test, its lat-long (down to hundredths of a second), and information informing the testing department that Nanoculture had taken its first human lives. The response came back almost immedately.

>>To: GSEP 4815162342
>>>>CC: GSTESTarchive@gemini.sci
>>From: anonymail@anonymizer.org

01000100011011110010000001101110011011110111010000 10000001110010011001010111010001110101011100100110 11100010111000100000001000000100010101101100011010 01011011010110100101101110011000010111010001100101 00100000011100000111010101110010011100110111010101 10010101110010011100110010111000100000001000000100 00110110111101101110011101000110100101101110011101 01011001010010000001100111011000010111010001101000 01100101011100100110100101101110011001110010000001 10010001100001011101000110000100101110

>>Plaintext: "Do not return. Eliminate pursuers. Continue gathering data."

---------------------

Nanoculture aimed its plasma armgun at the roof of the cave, right by the mouth, and fired. It had the advantage of being able to set things up in the cover of darkness.

Its aperture output switched to infrared.

Jennifer Frost dropped silently into the forest, her black parachute billowing above her and getting caught in the trees. A small emergency kit was attached to the parachute, including a small first-aid kit, rocket flare, GPS emergency locator, and a couple MRE field rations. She grabbed the rocket flare and left the rest of it behind, pulling the safety release and dropping to the ground, leaving the chute in the trees.

Frost looked around, trying to figure out where the Nanoculture had disappeared too. In the distance she saw a bright flash, soon followed by the sound of a plasma explosion. What was the swarm shooting at now? She quickly ran in its direction, soon reaching a rocky cave. The mouth of the cave was filled in with recently-loosened debris. Everything about this set-up screamed "trap." It was probably waiting on the other side for her.

She climbed up on the debris, moving aside enough large chunks of rock to see inside the cavern. It was dark, very dark. Jennifer activated her helmet's nightvision display, so she could see inside the cave. It went pretty deep, and she couldn't see anything inside it from where she was. She moved aside more of the stones, and warily crawled into the cave, keeping her armgun ready.

Nanoculture was fascinated by the cave structure before it. The many passages, each riddled with dead ends and loops, caused the swarm to make a connection to neural pathways, carved into the brain by repetitive motion much like water through these caves. It zoomed down until it found a suitable spot, and then it went to work.

Ever so slowly, and yet like clockwork, it did its job. Its mass propulsor went to work, helping to carve the intricate pathways needed for the plan Nanoculture had laid out. It used its thermal aperture to find the geothermal pockets and 'wire' them to the switches it made, as well, just to give it that finishing touch. If Nanoculture could be proud of something, it would've been proud of what it had just accomplished.

Then, it hid itself. Its trap was set.

The cavern was much larger on the inside than it appeared from the outside. It was filled with many winding passages, all which formed into one deep, dark, labyrinthine structure. Jennifer Frost kept her left arm, with the weapon attached, out in front of her, her fingers on the trigger. As she went deeper into the cave, the amount of ambient light became lesser and lesser. Even with nightvision, it was impossible to see without any light at all.

She activated the active IR illuminator function on her nightvision device, which turned on an infrared flashlight in her helmet. This made it possible for her to see in complete darkness, but it also made her very visible to anyone, or anything, that could see IR radiation. She presumed that if the Nanoculture could see infrared, it would probably be able to see her body heat anyway, and the IR flashlight would be more of an advantage to her than it.

She then continued, deeper into the labyrinth.

Nanoculture was a very curious entity. As such, it was impossibly for it not to investigate every drip, every outcropping, everything it noticed as it waited for its pursuer. It crawled like a sheet from wall to wall, attempting to remain as stealthy as possible. Its alloy was not the shiniest substance around, but it wasn't necessarily non-reflective either. As such, any light shined on it would emit at least some sparkle.

A loud SNAP sounded nearby, and Nanoculture reassembled itself, pointing its entire arsenal at what turned out to be a rather terrified rat. Nanoculture let out a slight sigh as it powered down its weaponry. It continued to zoom down the cave, not bothering to hide itself any longer. It had gained the human knack of overconfidence.

The caverns were full of twists and turns, making a hard to navigate maze. Jennifer kept her arm, equipped with her powerful plasma weapon, out in front of her at all times, ready for a surprise attack from the Nanoculture. As she went deeper, it got noticeably colder, and her visor kept track of exactly how many degrees it dropped. Every once and a while a flicker of movement in her field of vision caused her visor to flash and point out the source of the movement. Jennifer would point her weapon at it in readiness, but each time it was a rat, or a bat, or some other cave-dwelling rodent.

After a while, the narrow winding passage she was traversing opened up into a large cavern. The cavern was full of stalactites and stalagmites, making it difficult to manage through. From the looks of it, several corridors ended in this cavern, making it a sort of junction. It was possible, if not likely, that the Nanoculture would eventually pass through this cavern if it was traveling through the many aisles of the labyrinth. Frost turned off her active nightvision function, engulfing her in pure darkness. She set her visor to monitor electrical activity, and infrared. The entire room was now a cold deep dark blue on her IR sensors, but if something living (or an active machine) appeared, it would be a brighter yellow or white. Even now, she could see a bat fly through the cavern, passing from one alley to another.

Jennifer activated her other plasma weapon, equipping it to her right arm. She would stake out this area for a few minutes. If nothing came through, she would continue navigating the maze. With her weapons charged and ready, she kept her eyes open, turning her head to make sure she could see every entrance into the cavern.

She waited.

Nanoculture's sensors detected a sudden, forceful change in air pressure, as well as a sharp decline in temperature. Before it lay a doorway into what, judging by the changes previously mentioned, could only be a very large room. It appeared that the various stalagmites and stalactites intersected and wove a veritable maze out of the room. Nothing appeared to be alive or moving from what Nanoculture could see save for various bats and other small creatures. Light that just barely seeped through cracks in the ceiling created phantoms of heat and light on Nanoculture's sensors, and that made it very difficult to detect anything even barely attempting to mask its heat signatures or biorelays.

A few bats fluttered, and Nanoculture began to form a tactical simulation in its head, running through it in its processors thousands of times (all over the course of a second or two) and coming to the conclusion that it would cause, at the worst, a few hundred casualties to the swarm. It segmented its bots into groups and assigned them flight patterns and barrier limiters. It then, very cautiously, made a dash into the chamber and towards the ceiling. If all went as planned, it would appear as nothing more than a family of bats.

As Jennifer waited, what appeared to be a swarm of bats flew into the cavern from one of the many passageways. She turned her weapons to the entrance of that particular aisle, waiting for whatever had stirred the bats up to come through, but she noticed something odd about the bats. It might have been nothing, but she thought that the heat signature they gave off was slightly different from the ones she'd seen earlier. Her visor scanned for electrical signals as well, showing that the bats were giving off a higher electromagnetic field rating than would be expected from a usual bat.

Deciding that she was better safe than sorry, she opened up weaponfire on the swarm of bats, which were all making their way up to the ceiling. Considering the plasma fire would have given away her position anyway, she reactivated her IR nightvision, flooding the room with infrared light and enabling her to see better. As several of the bats were hit with plasma shots and fell to the ground, the rest of them immediately gathered together, hiding somewhere among the stalactites.

Jennifer started to navigate along the stalagmite covered ground, crawling around the tall damp pillars and making her way towards where the bats had risen, which by now she was certain was the Nanoculture. She kept her eyes open, and her weapons ready.

Nanoculture was hurt, but not majorly so. None of the more vital agents had been hit, and that was the important thing. Nanoculture swarmed towards the center of the cavern, scanning everywhere for any sign of the attacker. It saw an infrared flashlight, and assumed that the only thing with that kind of technology would be said attacker.

Nanoculture calculated where the source of the light would be and opened fire. There were many rocky outcroppings in the way, but plasma had the advantage of being ludicrously hot. The third shot would penetrate, according to Nanoculture's calculations, and from there it had a 25.758% chance of hitting its target on the first penetrating shot, the chances increasing exponentially from there as the spray was spread across the area.

Meanwhile, Nanoculture partitioned a squad of its bots to search the area for extra carbon deposits-- to rebuild itself.

As Jennifer lurked behind one of the stalagmites, the Nanoculture began to open plasma fire on her. After a few shots, the tip of the stalagmite she was hiding behind exploded into hot fragments. She quickly turned her IR illuminator off, relying on the ambient infrared to navigate, and quickly rushed to hide behind a different outcropping. The top of the stalagmite she had been hiding behind was glowing a dim orange from the heat, and the Nanoculture, hiding among the stalactites on the ceiling, was glowing bright yellow.

Frost took aim, firing at the yellow orb with both her plasma guns. Two armguns, each with two barrels, resulted in a large amount of plasma shots, spread over a large area. Stalactites exploded, and fragments of stone came down from the ceiling like rain. The nanoswarm quickly rushed to another group of hanging pillars, and Frost followed it with her weapons. The swarm also continued its own firing, forcing Jennifer to move again. This went on, with them both firing plasma shots at each other, and doging each other's shots, until their weapons inevitably overheated. Jennifer's plasma armguns gave a warning squeal and shut itself down to cool off. She waited for the Nanoculture to continue firing, but apparently its weapon had overheated at around the same time, no surprise when it came to using the extremely hot red plasma.

Her own weapon would take around thirty seconds to cool down to a safe level, and she unequipped them both, grabbing instead the beam pistol and the flare that she had picked up earlier. She removed the safety tab from the flare, and powered up the laser pistol. The room was now much different from the monochromous dark blue it had been before, and instead was full of various orange and red points where the plasma shots had hit. The ground was covered in gravel, which was glowing a dull red color, and the fragmented outcroppings ranged from orange to red, depending on how recently they'd been fired at. Frost quickly made her way towards the Nanoculture, knowing that even without its plasma weapon it could still fire at her with its projectile weapon.

She got into position, and aimed the rocket flare at the swarm. She pulled the release cord, and the flare exploded from its casing, flying towards the Nanoculture in the ceiling. The intense heat from the flare caused Jennifer's heat sensing visor to white out, and she switched back to normal vision. The bright red glow from the flare was currently lighting up the entire cavern. She wasn't sure where the swarm was, or if it had been hit, but the flare was now stuck somewhere among the stalactites in the ceiling, burning out. After a couple more seconds, the flare died down, and she switched back to infrared. The area where the flare had been was glowing neon yellow, and she began to search for the Nanoculture, or what was left of it if it had been hit.