Corporate designed the tiny robotic insects to smother fires. The inexpensive nano-carbon design has superior electrical and mechanical properties while resisting extreme temperature distortion. The power supply proves so innovated as to seem inexhaustible. One can step on or even drive over the mechanism and it springs back into flawless application.
The equally simple nervous system that motivates these crawling, beetle-like machines directs them toward the flames. They crawl in mass forming a blanket like army ants, sensing only heat and movement to guide them. Spreading their wings, they seek out fire to cover it with their bodies. The next closest flames then pull them onward. Since they float, even burning spills become a simple task to extinguish.
The firebeat, as they have been nicknamed, remains dormant stored in a truck packed full until they receive an instructional signal to call them into action. The industry has now grown to the capability of making millions at a time. Every key firefighting installation has a firebeat truck to supplement their force. Training tapes show them poring into basement windows to quench toxic fires.
With the great success, the potential for such a non-conscious tool to be used wrongly was limited to a few Doom Sayers, that is, until a week worth of shipments were discovered missing. Also missing was a young engineer capable of programming the instructional signals that give purpose to the bug’s actions. There was no trail or sign of the missing shipments or the key suspect until three weeks later.