CIA officer Tom Grant got pulled out of early retirement to investigate a high-tech robbery at United States Nano-technology (USN), America's government-run agency for the development of nanoweapons. Among the stolen USN hardware is a prototype nano-assembler, a highly intelligent and self-propelled machine able to create or distroy any object allowed by the laws of physics. The thieves aren't sophisticated enough to restrain the nanoassembler and it breaks free. Grant and his team must find a way to combat the machine as it embarks on its own mission to ensure the survival of its species - even if that means the eradication of our own.