Vin Drake

Vincent "Vin" Drake is the main antagonist of the Michael Crichton techno-thriller novel Micro. He is a venture capitalist and the CEO of the fictional research company Nanigen MicroTechnologies, who plans to use his company's technology to create extremely dangerous microscopic weaponry, for sale to the highest bidder.

appearance
Drake possesses "a trim build and an expensive taste in clothes", but also a "casual" look.

Personality
Vin Drake is a cold, ruthless businessman who seems willing to cross any ethical or moral boundary if it suits his interests. He is described as "tough, smart, and unscrupulous, but above all, successful." He has been threatened with federal indictments twice, though both times he has avoided them through unknown, likely corrupt, means. He is also charismatic; protagonist Eric Jansen notes that he is able to raise money "like nobody else."

Drake is quickly shown to be not just cunning, but altogether amoral. When Eric Jansen attempts to negotiate a deal to sell Nanigen's shrinking technology without Drake's consent, Drake sabotages Jansen's boat to stall in rough surf and sends microscopic robots ("micro-drones") armed with toxin-laden blades to kill him. Later, when Eric's brother Peter Jansen tricks Drake into confessing his crime, Drake savagely beats Peter into submission and forces him and the rest of his colleagues into a Tensor chamber, where Drake shrinks them all to miniscule size and tries to feed them to a snake. When this fails, he orders his CFO Alyson Bender to kill the students; instead she releases them into the Hawaiian wilderness, and Drake kills her in retaliation. Drake focuses most of his efforts afterwards on locating and killing the escaped students by any means necessary.

biography
Very little is known about Vin Drake prior to the events of Micro. At some point he became the president and CEO of Nanigen MicroTechnologies, where he led the development of the Tensor generator, a machine capable of shrinking anything, including human beings, down to miniscule size. Twice he has been threatened with lawsuits by the United States government, but has avoided being charged both times through unknown means. Before Micro, he hired Alyson Bender as CFO of Nanigen, and more recently, he hired Eric Jansen as Vice President in charge of technology.

On October 18, 20XX, Drake travels to Cambridge, Massachussetts to recruit researchers for his Oahu-based Nanigen laboratory. He gives a presentation to the novel's seven protagonist graduate students, all of whom eventually decide to take up Drake's offer to fly to Hawaii to observe Nanigen themselves. On October 26, he seemingly murders Eric Jansen after the latter tries to sell Nanigen's Tensor technology against Drake's wishes, and tries to dress his death as an accident. However, Eric's younger brother, protagonist Peter Jansen, quickly deduces that Bender and Drake had planned Eric's murder, and attempts to expose Drake while he is giving Peter and the rest of the graduate students a tour of the Nanigen facilities on October 28. This plan ultimately fails, however, and Drake responds by holding the students hostage and forcing them, along with Tensor operator Jarel Kinsky, to enter the Tensor generator, where Drake shrinks them all to half an inch in height. Drake tries to feed the students to a snake, starting with Peter, but the latter is able to escape the snake's tank. Feeling guilty, Bender takes the students while Drake isn't looking and ends up releasing them into the Hawaiian wilderness, which Drake quickly discovers, unbeknownst to her.

On October 29, Drake retaliates against Bender's betrayal by having her drive the two of them to a cliff overlooking the ocean, where he physically incapacitates her and sets the car to roll off the edge, killing Bender. He then shrinks and sends two hitmen, Telius and Johnstone, into the woods to find and kill the students; they succeed in killing Amar Singh and Peter Jansen, but are stopped short when Johnstone is killed by Karen King and Telius is caught and eaten by a spider. Drake is informed that all of the students are dead, but he insists on verifying that claim and discovers that four (King, Rick Hutter, Danny Minot, and Erika Moll) are still alive. However, he concludes that the wilderness, combined with staying shrunken down for too long, will kill them and he switches his focus to foiling the police investigation into Bender's death and the students' disappearances.

Drake's attention is brought back to the students when Minot, desperate for medical attention, uses the abandoned Tantalus field base's computer to call Drake and reveals his location. Drake orders Minot to fly to him in one of the base's miniature airplanes, but they never meet as Minot is eaten alive by a bat during flight. After giving up on meeting Minot, Drake journeys to Tantalus base where he sets it on fire, killing Nanigen defector Ben Rourke and forcing the remaining two students, King and Hutter, to flee. Eventually they are found by Eric Jansen, who had survived his attempted murder, and the three go to confront Drake.

On November 1, Jansen, Hutter, and King sneak into Nanigen where Drake stops them short of entering the Tensor chamber. While he and Jansen struggle, Hutter and King are able to enter the Tensor chamber. Drake sends a horde of micro-drones to kill the pair, but they successfully revert themselves to their normal heights, blowing up one of the micro-drones in the process. Meanwhile, Jansen is able to destroy Drake's remote control for the micro-drones, and the three protagonists lock Drake inside the generator room. Drake feigns remorse, but when this fails, he becomes enraged and swears to kill them all. Immediately after promising revenge, he is attacked and wounded by his own micro-drones. Drake tries vainly to fend them off, and stumbles backward, putting him within striking distance of the enlargened drone. The drone impales Drake with its blades, killing him instantly.