August Melmann parked his old Volvo at a meter in front of the Student Union. It was a fair hike to the science buildings from there but it was the one place he was sure to find a legal spot. The campus cops, he remembered, had an annoying habit of ticketing misplaced faculty cars at the drop of a hat. As a result of that, among other reasons, he seldom came to the city campus anymore. It amazed him to see how crowded it had become.

Students milled around everywhere, clutching bundles of books and bags of soggy instant food. In contrast to his own quiet suburban campus August found this place unnerving and more than a little annoying. Music blared from dorm windows and the sounds of raucous frisbee games echoed off the walls.

"How can anyone think in the middle of all this," he muttered to himself, "much less get anything done?" The whole picture gave him the willies. On reflection though, he mused, it probably suited Elliot down to the ground. No doubt the whizz-pop nature of this place was the perfect stage for Garmen's flash-bang brand of science.

August made a sour-lemon face. He preferred a more staid approach to science. Physics should be a tried and tested, measured and doubtful, road to discovery; not a venue for pulling sophisticated rabbits out of even more sophisticated hats.

In short he not only practiced, but personified, the complete opposite of Elliot Garmen's headlong rush for progress. That opposition hadn't affected their friendship though, in fact their disagreement had always remained more academic than actual. Melmann always enjoyed Garmen's quick sense of humor and Garmen, in his turn, had consistently welcomed Melmann's friendship for years.

"Strange how you pick your friendships," he thought with a smile, "they're never the ones you might expect."

Heaving a thin sigh he pointing himself uncertainly across the quad and started the trek toward his ten-o'clock meeting with his illustrious colleague. He didn't want to be late, not that Garmen would care, it was a personal thing. Timeliness, like all orderly behavior, was next to godliness.

A shorter than expected five-minute walk brought him to the building he was looking for, a military looking thing that housed the theoretical physics faculty. He drew a breath and pushed through the heavy doors into the air-conditioned lobby. A few minutes later he stood in Garmens lab, watching him unobtrusively as Garmen hovered over a large transparent box.

Garmen tubed off some of the malfunctioning nanites and threw heavy gamma into the box to kill the rest. The kevlex observation port fogged as their energy levels jumped drastically under the barrage of heavy particles and then quickly bled away in a myriad of tiny flashes as they collapsed to zero-energy states and died.

"Damn." Melmann looked at the fine dust on the floor of the chamber. "That's it?"

Garmen looked disturbed as he depressurized the box. "Yeah." The dust picked up vorticity and swept out the grille on the ceiling like a thin fog. "That's it."

"Whole generation?"

"Uh-huh, all of 'em."

"What were they supposed to do?"

"Resequence things."

"Into what?"

Garmen shrugged. "Doesn't matter," he said simply, "anything but functional."

"Weapon?"

"Uh huh."

"Hmm, how did this one work?"

"It builds oxidized molecules, turns steel into instant rust."

Melmann smiled. "Cool. How do you keep it from rusting the world? Short life span?"

Garmen smiled back. "No, it's a more complete system than that. You alloy your steel with quantum levels of an isotope whose wavelength the nanite recognizes and won't attack. These nanites never really die so it's kind of a one-shot deal. If you want metal that'll work from the release date forward you'll have to know the quantum signature of the isotope and alloy it into your steel, period."

"How are they that smart?" August Melmann scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I thought these things were only a micron or two in diameter."

Garmen powered the chamber down and unplugged the monitors. "Don't forget that there are some pretty smart small systems in nature, like viruses and prions whose operation we don't even understand. These nanites are built around little clusters of particles that function like the microtubules in human nerve cells, something we understand a little better."

"Penrose," Melmann nodded. "Even Sarfatti, now that I think of it."

"Exactly," Garmen continued, "essentially the nanites are little quantum computers. Admittedly their nodal capacity is limited but that lack is more than offset by the free functionality we get when we increase their nodal density to the auto-catalysis point."

"How do you know what you're going to get?" Melmann asked. "I mean, if the system is really spontaneously auto-catalytic then how can you predict it's functionality?" He looked puzzled. "Sounds like a monsterous crap-shoot to me."

Garmen sighed. "It isn't simple but if you remember your mechanics, the probability distribution of a given state is spread across its diagonal vector. If we structure the initial state of the nanite during manufacture such that we have a probability function built on the predicted evolution of the initial state then we have a vague idea what the sub-systems Hermitian operators are and we can work from there to a more macroscopic level."

"That still doesn't answer the question. How do they know about the correct wavelength and not to attack it?"

Garmen frowned. "You teach them, you moron."

Melmann grimaced. "Ouch, I surrender. Can we get the hell out of here now?"

"Sure, want coffee?" Garmen peeled off his gloves and threw them in a can on the floor with a biohazard symbol emblazoned on it. "Got a Starbucks on the quad upstairs." He bent his head and sneezed into his sleeve. "Excuse me," he said, "these damn allergies are a pain in the ass. My head's been packed for a week."

"Yeah?" Said Melmann wryly, "where's it going?"

"Ha ha." Garmen as he blew his nose. "Let's go."

They pushed the doors to the science building open at the same time and emerged abreast into the misting drizzle that had hung on the campus for three days. Melmann held his worn leather briefcase over his head. "What happened in there, why'd you zap them?"

"They malfunctioned." Garmen picked up the pace and put his hands in his pockets.

"So you killed them all."

He turned to Melmann. "You bet your ass, I did. These goddamned things are dangerous as hell. They were building some complex local system at a hell of a rate when I toasted them and I have no idea what it was. They had to know I'd notice it."

"How did you know?"

Garmen frowned. "There was too much quantum gravity fluctuation, they were moving things around in there, building stuff I didn't ask them to build."

Melmann stopped and looked at Garmen's back. "So you don't really know exactly what the hell these things are going to do once you build them, do you?"

Garmen snorted. "Not always, they evolve too fast. If they malf, by the time it's over there's no telling what the survivors might be able to do." He turned around. "We try and keep them from interacting in large numbers by designing them in castes, like bees, each with a different function. Some castes don't get along with the others and that keeps the system fragmented. Otherwise they'd work together and autocatalyze new designs. We don't want them getting any bright evolutionary ideas as a group." He shook his head. "No thank you please."

"What if it happens?" Melmann asked.

"Simple," Garmen said blithely, "there's a nuke in the basement."

"Great, and where do you go?"

Garmen smiled. "Hell, probably."

"Sure, great." Melmann looked defeated. "I didn't really want to know any of this. I can't figure out if I feel like I'm sitting on a bomb, or carrying a loaded gun, or both. Thanks a lot Garmen." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "How do you feel about what will happen to the campus and the rest of the city if you have to pop that thing?"

Garmen put his hand on Melmann's shoulder and grinned. "It should never happen and if it does I won't be around to worry about it. Anyway it's better than letting any of these systems out, these things are end-of-the-world stuff. Come on, let's get out of the rain and have that cup of coffee."

The coffee shop was crowded and the buzz of caffeine-aided conversation filled the air like a gas. They elbowed their way to the only open table and sat gratefully down. Melmann stirred a couple of sugars into his cup. "So what failed today, your teaching or your design?" He sipped at the hot liquid.

Garmen shrugged. "Both probably, the final state of the nanite itself depends on the initial state of each element we bolt on and how they interact. Teaching, in this case, is a more matter of programming than knowledge transfer." He looked in his cup. "Got any extra sugar there?"

Melmann pushed the two pink packets across the table with his fingers. "Only phenylalanine, I'm afraid."

Garmen recoiled. "Uhmm, how can you eat that stuff?"

Melmann sipped his coffee and smiled. "I like it; it tastes modern."

"Modern huh." Garmen brought his cup to his lips. "I'll live without, thank you."

"Your choice, Mr. Megadeath." He raised his cup. "Live long and prosper."

"Very funny." Garmen said acidly. "How did you get to be such a droll chap?"

"Seriously," Melmann put his cup down and wrapped his hands around it, "I'm curious if you think you can predict macroscopic behavior based on the initial states of the bound quantum systems involved."

"Why not," Garmen looked tired. "If I properly integrate the Hamiltonian of the individual waveforms of the systems elements I should have a time-dependent model of the macroscopic waveform, right?"

Melmann looked doubtful.

"Come on, the math is square as hell. If I know what states are superposed in the system, I can quantify their probability waves. How difficult is it from there?"

"Elliot, have these things ever done what you built them for, or was today's performance the norm?"

Elliot Garmen hesitated.

"I thought so. How many generations of these things have you built."

"Three hundred."

Melmann nodded. "And did you carry design features of one generation to the next?"

"Sure, why throw away a successful mutation? That's why I tubed some of today's failures; some of my best results happened like that."

"Okay. Did it ever occur to you that some of those mutations might not have been accidental?"

"What?"

"Yeah, what if the nanites developed individual small mutations for some purpose of their own?"

Garmen snorted again. "Like what?"

"Like getting out of that box."

"Impossible, all the air ducts are dead-ended and there is no other way out."

"Except through a rubber seal and into the room."

"Even if it got into the room the level-one decon procedures would kill them on exit."

"Would it?"

"Absolutely."

"Unless they went out in a container, right?"

Garmen paused. "Yeah I guess they could be taken out in a container. Do you think we have spies running around with test-tubes full of nanites?"

"No," Melmann looked serious, "not that kind of container."

Garmen sneezed. "What kind of container do you mean, a magic box?"

Melmann shook his head. "A container like you."

"Don't be an ass, Melmann."

Melmann opened his mouth as if to speak and then simply pointed to the table.

"Spit it out man." Garmen leaned forward. "Coffee too hot?"

Melmann shook his head and pointed at Garmen's coffee cup. "Look," he said quietly.

Garmen looked at his spoon. It was rusty.