55 million years ago, a sudden burst of lightning frightened a herd of small prehistoric horses. One of the horses, a five-year-old mare, fell into a lake and drowned. 1975, in Austin, Texas, a drop of oil combusted in a car engine. This tiny explosion happened just as the Ford Pinto, driven by a hitchhiker named Jimmy, pulled into the parking lot of apartments, home to the young woman in the passenger seat, a 22 year-old biology student. Machine is the story of the hidden connections between these two seemingly unrelated events. Omnivorous in its pursuit of knowledge, this short novel relentlessly pursues one of life s great mysteries: where does Fate end and coincidence begin?