Stealth Genesis — Vikki Kestell

Genesis means origin or beginning. Stealth Genesis, the prequel to Stealthy Steps and its award-winning series, Nanostealth, reveals the never-before-told backstory of Dr. Daniel Bickel. Bickel, world-renowned nanophysicist, and his devoted technicians, Rick and Tony, explore the tunnels of the old Manzano Weapons Storage Facility and brave the danger of discovery in order to locate a forgotten Cold War devolution site-a cavern carved deep within the mountain to be used as a presidential command center in the event of nuclear war.Forgotten by most, two such caverns were carved out of the mountain's rock. While the location of the first devolution site is known, the second cavern, situated far deeper than the first, was intended as a secret fallback position should events of war require it. This second site was so highly classified that knowledge of its existence has all but perished over time, as those charged with its secrecy died and carried their knowledge to the grave. Dr. Bickel has spent more than a decade seeking and obtaining documentation and schematics that would prove the second cavern's existence and, eventually, lead to its location.When Bickel and his team at last locate and gain entrance to the cavern, they establish a hiding place for Bickel and his greatest achieve-ment: a cloud of smart nano devices-a swarm trillions strong-able to learn and adapt to new circumstances. Bickel calls these submicron devices nanomites. He predicts his technology will eventually eradicate diseases, correct birth defects in utero, and rid the world of the pests that destroy crops. Within the safety of the mountain, Bickel studies and teaches the nanomites, intent on preparing them for their triumphant public reveal. Bickel will succeed only if he can evade a black-ops branch of military intelligence bent on seizing the nanomites. Ambition-driven Air Force Brigadier General Imogene Cushing has dogged Bickel's career for decades seeking the right moment to appropriate the nanomites for national security purposes. She is the woman with whom Bickel, thirty-some years prior, shared his first love affair-the same woman who subsequently absconded with Bickel's paper outlining his vision of the nanomites and, by her duplicitousness, irrevocably doomed their relationship.