“Are you sure this will be all right?” I asked Phil as he opened a fire-exit door on the back of the factory to let me in.

“Oh, sure,” he said. “I don’t know why they’re even so paranoid about security. We’re just working on some heat-resistant alloys. Pretty boring stuff really.”

“Well…if you say so.” I stepped over the threshold and looked around. It was a slightly dingy hallway that didn’t seem to see much use. There was a security panel next to the door, but Phil had disarmed it with a key. I stumbled and caught myself against it, covering the act of slipping a small square of plastic between it and the wall. “Oops!”

“Hey, careful! Don’t want to set off an alarm by accident.”

“Sorry! Everything okay?”

He glanced at the display. “Yeah, we dodged a bullet this time. Come on, I’ll show you the smelting floor.” As we walked up the hall, I knew that square of plastic was melting into thousands of nanobots which would infiltrate and subvert the security system.

And then I’d lose Phil forever.