[with eyes turned away from Hiro, he can't see what the boy is up to; he can hear him, of course, but other than a small group of microbots moving over him as though blindly trying to feel what he's up to...]

If you have a better theory, I'll listen.

[but to hammer the point home, he reaches up with a hand to pull back his hood; the microbots pull it down fully for him, and (somewhat reluctantly) pull entirely away from his head.

there's a few streaks in his hair, white patches that weren't there the night they met...and a distinct lack of neurocranialtransmitter. he only half-turns his head, letting Hiro see his profile, and already he looks just a bit more gaunt and thin]

All I did was copy your design. So the answer as to why the design has gone wrong is somewhere here.

[a handful of 'bots skitter 'round his head, as though to illustrate the point that there's nothing controlling them

or, at least, broadcasting to them. and yet there is, and they're responding, and the little ripples in the mass may betray Callaghan's suppressed unease. he's doing a damn good job of hiding it in terms of body language, but the microbots, so linked, understand that something is wrong even if the base programming has no idea how to complete the thought.]