The Room of Shrunken Souls — Michael Cale

AN EBOOKNET UNDISCOVERED GEM!

In the early twenty-first century, smart metals and nano-technology steer a quiet revolution. Humans use virtual reality systems to pilot unimaginably small machines of seeking and surveillance.

From the far reaches of pre-history, a force lies waiting. Its existence is its own reason and its weapon is fear.

And Fitz is just a man. Or, maybe, he's something else. Strung out between his own phobias and the wreckage of his life. Trying to hold onto his identity as he splits his existence between the real world and that of the "Fly," the tiny machine he pilots...

In a remote land, the members of an oil exploration team disappear. All except a single, raving madman. Fitz, a member of the team but away from the site when disaster strikes, escapes whatever fate overwhelmed his colleagues.

But whatever affected these lost souls is still with him when he returns to his "normal" life. Piloting the nanomachines, he starts to lose himself in their tiny, separate existence. When his employers force him to use his machines to infiltrate crime scenes, the horrors he witnesses trigger hallucinations and he feels his mind start to unravel.

He comes to see that there is only way to defeat the remote force that is driving him insane. He must travel back to the site of the ill-fated expedition and become his machine to travel down into the earth, to where the soul-killing power is greatest...