Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm by Kevin J. Anderson

Tomiko played the ten-year-old daughter of a gunned-down hit man. Nolan Brad-dock had been the kindly FBI agent keeping her safe while rival mobsters tried to rub out the rest of her family.
    Tomiko had stolen many hearts in that film, but though her parents loved to perform for crowds, she preferred to perform for herself and meet her own challenges. Such as being miniaturized and attempting a quickie repair job on a complicated computer chip…
    Realistically, Tomiko couldn't believe it would ever be cost-effective for tiny crews to slap together repairs on an ultra-complex integrated circuit. Such chips were designed to be mass produced, and not even the most sophisticated ULSI circuit would ever warrant such tender loving care.
    But this was only a test mission, practice before the team went inside an alien body. They all had to be at the peak of their capabilities.
    Next, Wilcox swung his beam over to the copper wall, playing heat over the rough surface until it shimmered orange. The two rivers of metal streamed toward each other until the circuit paths collapsed together and fused into a dam. Now the electrons could flow through, and the circuit would function as designed. Almost finished.
    “We have seven minutes,” Pirov said. “Please hurry.”
    Tomiko raised the heat to complete her work. “Ready to get out of here?”
    Wilcox relentlessly concentrated his beam on the already-molten copper. Unexpectedly, the metals began to boil.
    “Hey, enough, Garrett.” Tomiko yanked her laser away and switched off the beam.
    Hot globules boiled off, wavering spheres bound by liquid-metal surface tension. They sprayed upward, then drifted down in an avalanche of hardening, molten metal.
    Tomiko jumped into the air, levitating with her jetpack and dodging the hot spheres that drifted around them. For a moment, it looked like a cascade of sparkling balls from the sky, as if someone were throwing metal flowers to celebrate the team's victory. Then a hot globule passed in front of her face like a comet, and Tomiko felt its blistering warmth, saw the shimmering crystallization of its cooling skin. She bent backward like a reed, out of its way.
    Wilcox dove under the rain of molten metal. “Before I call a retreat, we've got to verify that the circuit works.” One of the trembling spheres crashed into the floor next to him, but the team captain dodged to the left. When it struck, the globule burst its hardened outer skin and spilled hot metal in a puddle.
    With spare movements and careful precision, Wilcox dropped to his knees and removed electrical leads from his test pack. “Sending another pulse through.” He slapped down one and then another onto the gold surface. Wilcox glanced over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows at Tomiko.
    With the hot spheres still raining down, Pirov crouched, trying to make himself even smaller. “We should get out of here,” he said in a tiny voice.
    “Watch out, Doctor P!” Tomiko swung the laser cutter and vaporized a globule that tumbled toward the old man. The Russian ducked in surprise. The metal blob ruptured into smaller cooling spheres, which spread out like gumballs floating backward in the air, crackling as they cooled.
    “Everybody clear!” Lifting his feet off the surface, Wilcox sent a test pulse into the connector. The metal walls thrummed as a surge of electrons smashed into the newly fused gold and copper microwires—and flowed through. “You bet!” He did a little victory dance. “Full connection.”
    Then a shimmering ball of molten copper crashed into his right leg, splattering hot metal. He screamed.
    Tomiko was already in the air, knocking him away from a second falling sphere. Wilcox writhed, grabbing at his leg and burning his fingertips on the coating of liquid metal. The fabric of his jumpsuit snapped and smoked; the flesh underneath sizzled as his skin and muscles cooked.
    Tomiko held him down, shouting for Pirov. “Come on, Doctor P! Need your help here.”