so, I get that "the nanomachines are made from the girl that disappeared" and "her personality is in the hive mind somewhere looking after her old friends through the dog" have been set up from the beginning. but....
does the author not know what dna is? robots don't really have it.
hell, to get dna you have to take the cells containing it apart. and I think the presence of organic cells in the nanomachines (neurons as brains?) would be more of a shock than who they came from.