Machine Sickness: Deirdre's a brilliant microbiologist, gene modifying bacteria engineered to clean up oil spills. The first real-world results are off the charts and everything seems to be going great. She's shocked when the bacteria run rampant, consuming not just oil but petroleum products of every type, including asphalt and plastics, spreading as a sickness from one machine to the next. Captured by Federal agents who consider her a terrorist, she has to escape. She luckily reconnects and joins forces with a hard-working Texan she's met on the way. They fight their way across a disintegrating landscape, attempting to reach a secure science haven where they might have the resources to solve the problem: who corrupted her culture's DNA? And how to stop it?.