Unrecoverable Error

FOREWORD

This is the third novel in the Silex Trilogy.

Crossover-the first story describes how electronics company Cybio Inc developed a biocompatible Silex chip and under project, Crossover, planned to explore how an operating system called Anthropos, driven by neural network programming, might grow connections to the nervous system and brain.

Unknown to the Project Team the brilliant lead programmer, Carsten Pietersen, and first recipient of the chip, downloaded his own version of the operating system -Anthropos XT, which comprised all the modules intended to be installed under controlled conditions over a five-year programme, plus a series of changes designed to give the chip greater autonomy. The results were amazing with Carsten’s ability to learn, work and live at breakneck speeds greatly enhanced. He cured his type 2 diabetes, which had developed at an unusually young age and this development led to him being viewed as a commercial threat by a South African insulin manufacturer already financially stretched by an ambitious acquisition programme.

Attempts on Carsten’s life revealed another astounding development -the ability to self-heal even after major trauma. However, the attack and restrictions imposed by Cybio’s Management and Project Team triggered a reaction in which the chip perceived its current host might be incapable of sustaining its existence, so subjugated Carsten’s personality imposing a more ruthless digital alternative with a priority to survive. When the CIA learned of Carsten’s ability to self-heal and optimise his health and mind, they moved to kidnap him but failed. This pushed the young scientist further into the clutches of the ruthless Anthropos XT operating system triggering increasingly violent and extreme action. Concerned that Pietersen would leave Cybio and risk capture by an enemy state, higher powers decided the only safe solution was to put this walking experiment on ice.

Silex-M-finds Carsten incarcerated in a secret DS&T Facility where knowledge of his presence was lost after the people responsible for his detention died in an accident. A new Facilities Manager, Patrick Calloway, discovers the secret to cryo vat 17 and speculates about the benefits of transferring Pietersen’s unique abilities to an elite Special Forces team. Carsten is removed from the cryo tank and persuaded to help create a military version of his chip and operating system. The results are astounding with enhanced special forces teams proving almost invincible. Suddenly Carsten falls ill and similar symptoms appear amongst the elite Forces Team. Diagnosed with a rare and fatal condition caused Moyamoya, there is no choice but to return Pietersen to the cryo vat. Then civilian recipients of the commercial DB1 diabetes chip produced by Cybio begin exhibiting symptoms of Graves disease and early Moyamoya. The cause and treatment must be found quickly and a small team of scientists come together to find the solution and save both lives and the reputation of the US science sector.

In this novel, Unrecoverable Error Carsten escapes his incarceration and his fatally diseased brain by hijacking another person’s mind and body and downloading a digital copy of himself. To differentiate the combined personality from the original person the suffix ‘C’ is used with the host’s name e.g. JaydenC or PowellC It will become clear as you read the first Chapter.

UNRECOVERABLE ERROR

IMOMM

The third and final book in the Silex Trilogy

A novel by Elliott Trevor

CHAPTER 1

Carsten Pietersen woke to discover he felt different but great. As he had been unconscious for several weeks, he was unaware of his return to the cryo tank at the secret DS&T Facility where he was incarcerated for over ten years. All he knew was the blinding headaches and blurred vision were gone. Slowly his mind fed him the background details of his last weeks of life as Carsten Pietersen and then the realisation that his plan to escape his dying body had been a complete success. Whilst unconscious, his rogue Silex XT chip activated a copy of itself and a digital copy of his mind to locate a suitable target into which to download their combined abilities. The chosen target, an African American entrepreneur named Jayden Powell owned and controlled OYA, a successful communication’s empire -a vast digital highway via which the chip could explore its full potential. On the day, the target visited a Silex licenced clinic to receive a routine upgrade to his Anthropos DB1 diabetes operating system; the upgrade was not the only thing downloaded.

Even by manipulating the upgrade process to extend the normal 15-minute routine to over 35 minutes, the chip only downloaded a compressed version of the XT OS and a small part of Carsten’s persona. It involved a risky and delicate balancing act to subjugate Powell’s free will while leaving enough of his persona and memory to enable Carsten to access what he needed to impersonate the guy. Time was the only enemy. Further downloads were needed to install fully Carsten’s digital brain and combine it with Powell’s knowledge and memory. Once complete Carsten Pietersen could access all his old enhanced abilities yet project a convincing impersonation of Jayden Powell. It would also take several months to grow all the additional neural pathways to mirror the stage of development that Carsten reached before becoming ill.

However, for now, Carsten and the Anthropos XT system were free and without the restrictions previously imposed on them. The husk of his old body and damaged brain, remained in cryostasis at the San Diego DS&T Facility that represented his home, workplace and prison for many years.

The full story crystallised in Carsten’s consciousness as the preliminary data download completed providing all he needed to maintain a believable impersonation of his hosts, drawing on memories, attitudes and opinions like an actor thinking himself into a role.

This all happened in a few seconds so by the time the staff unhooked him from the monitor he easily assumed the role of Jayden Powell entrepreneur. As he sat up on the bed and slipped on his shoes, he realised with great amusement he had swapped his Scandinavian heritage for that of an African American. A trip to the toilet established that the popular myth about the black male’s appendage was true. When he returned from the toilet, the clinic technician informed him that a car was waiting for him. Not wanting to put his ability to impersonate Mr Jayden Powell to an immediate test, the new JaydenC mumbled a thank you to the medical team and once in the car instructed the driver to take him to his apartment. Before he drove off the driver handed him an IPad saying, This thing has been beeping almost constantly whilst you were in the clinic Sir, so I’d guess you will have dozens of messages waiting for you. Carsten turned on the device having been supplied the password by Jayden’s memories and scanned the email Inbox. Nothing required urgent attention as most items involved end of week management reports. As it was Friday, he sent a brief email to his PA, Grace Franklin, telling her he was going home and to cancel or reschedule all meetings for the coming week. He told her something had come up which demanded his attention and he would be in touch on the following Monday. His acquired memories told him she was very efficient and capable of tackling any task he set. Other memories informed him Jayden Powell was something of a hermit who only visited his HQ for Board meetings and delegated management to an efficient team of executives. Such unpredictable behaviour was normal and as a loner, he supported only a small circle of friends, no family and a few people whose interest extended beyond a commercial level.

Within half an hour the chauffeur had delivered the new JaydenC to his penthouse apartment and much to the driver’s delight was told he was not needed for the rest of today nor for the weekend. Once inside his executive apartment JaydenC allowed his own mischievous personality to come to the fore as he explored the luxurious surroundings. He concluded that the man had style albeit a little corporate for his liking but overall the clothes were high quality and casual. A quick search of the kitchen revealed well-stocked cupboards and a freezer full of specially prepared ‘cook-in-the- bag’ gourmet meals to keep him going whilst he mastered his new role. Further exploration found a compact work area with the latest in IT hardware and a bank of monitors displaying stock market figures, OYA news, updates and the results of searches of interest to the entrepreneur.

Without knowing why, he contacted the local DHL office and asked them to deliver a package addressed to Mr C Pietersen which carried a note saying that a friend would provide the final delivery address and disclose the password included with the instructions. JaydenC instinctively new the password, and knowledge of the package and its contents eased into his consciousness. He realised that it contained one of his Bluetooth relay boxes, which would allow his chip to access the IT systems, whilst he slept and complete the full download of his memories and knowledge, along with the rest of the XT operating system. He provided the password and his new address. The DHL dispatcher said he would send the package by special courtier and it would be within him in around 30 minutes. True to his word, the concierge called from the lobby to tell JaydenC that the package had arrived, and that he had taken the liberty to sign for it and would bring it up at once. When the concierge arrived minutes later at JaydenC’s door, he thanked him and kept the conversation brief saying he was on the telephone to a colleague. He unpacked the unit and feeling suddenly tired headed for the master bedroom. He turned on the relay box and let it hand shake with his chip and then laid down on the bed and fell asleep.

Whilst he dreamed of entertaining many beautiful women in his bachelor pad, the chip set to work completing the transformation of Carsten’s mind to JaydenC. It would involve a delicate balancing act to project a believable impersonation of Jayden Powell, whilst retaining the maverick genius of Carsten Pietersen. By 8.00 am, the next day the strategy was complete, checked and re-checked for potential problems and then it inserted the configuration into the conscious areas of JaydenC’s mind.

Because of the new host’s hermit like existence, it proved easy to formulate a story to take the recipient out of circulation for up to 3 months whilst the XT operating system hijacked the DB1 chip and re-established itself in the new body. With luck and the advantage of previous experience, the process would be faster. The plan would be for JaydenC to contact his PA and his C.E.O, Mitchell Ritcher, by email over the weekend and call a virtual Board meeting at which he would announce that during the routine health check that had proceeded the upgrade, an unspecified medical condition had been diagnosed. Although at a very early stage, the treatment would mean he would need to take leave of absence for up to 6 months with immediate effect. His absence needed to be handled with total discretion to avoid any impact on shares. JaydenC would continue to attend certain public events, particularly those, which he supported as a donor but would otherwise leave all day-today operations to his executive team.

JaydenC awoke the next morning feeling refreshed. What appeared to be a dream quickly crystallised into the strategy developed by the chip and over breakfast, he sent the two emails, then showered and awaited a response from OYA. During the day, he received a stream of questions from his Board members and a request from Mitchell Ritcher to come over for a chat but he replied politely saying he needed a little time and space to order his thoughts and that he would try to explain more at the meeting scheduled for Monday at 4 pm. He also received a touching message from Grace Franklin expressing her concern for his wellbeing and asking if she could help in anyway.

The rest of the weekend was given over to enjoying the benefits of his newfound wealth and lifestyle with some online shopping for gadgets he had always wanted but could not afford. The old sexual itch returned early Saturday evening but his mind warned him against any out of character activities that might draw attention to his assumed personality, so he satisfied himself with a night in watching porn downloaded under a false identity he had created for himself. He then transferred funds to an account belonging to this false identity from a PayPal account he had set up during his time working at Cybio and into which he had diverted funds in anticipation of escaping from the research project.

On Monday, at 4 pm prompt JaydenC, suitably dressed in smart casual clothes logged onto the OYA intranet and joined the virtual Board meeting. He had familiarised himself with the profile of each Board member to help him carry off the impersonation. Hoping that any slight hesitation would be explained by the stress under which it was assumed he was operating. He thanked everyone for attending and repeated his earlier statement about needing to take time out and expressing his confidence in the abilities of the team to cope in his absence. Despite several subtle and not-so-subtle attempts to elicit a more detailed explanation, he firmly refused to offer any further information on the fictitious medical problem, saying only that an air of business as usual must be maintained. In reassurance, he promised to attend occasional Board meetings via his video conferencing link but only when his input was required. Similarly, if the team believed he needed to be seen in public he would do his best to accommodate them but only on his terms. All general contact would be via his PA who would either copy the team for action or forward to him what she judged important.

Although the Board expressed shock and dismay, few considered this a real problem as the management team already effectively controlled the day-to-day operations. However, the C.E.O, Mitchell Ritcher, did his best to discover more about the Chairman’s medical condition and whether a tangible threat to his life existed. When the meeting ended. he asked for a moment of private discussion in which Ritcher quite blatantly asked about what provisions existed regarding the Chairman’s 85% shareholding, should the unthinkable happen. Fortunately, enough of Jayden Powell’s mind remained accessible to JaydenC for him to react as if he was still the original personality and achieve a balanced response that both reassured the MD and confirmed that further discussion on this subject would not be tolerated. With that last attempt to gain information thwarted JaydenC signed off. He spent a few minutes talking to his PA, who seemed genuinely concerned about his health and JaydenC wondered if something more than a business relationship existed between them but found no sign in Jayden Powell’s memories to confirm his suspicions, concluding that perhaps it was a one-sided affection.

After pleasantries and reassurances, he would still be around in the background, JaydenC ended the conversation and the video link. Alone once more he found the silence a little daunting concluding, he did not share his host’s preference for solitude. Perhaps the knowledge he was alone in the world took his thoughts to Mary McClusky. He had not been very pleasant to her after emerging from the cryo tank and had assumed that she was part of a deal between Cybio and the CIA to put him on ice. However, during the months he worked on the Silex-M project he learnt that Mary and even Mark Morgan had been given no choice but to cooperate in his incarceration and that the episode destroyed their relationship with Mark becoming a recluse in a remote mountain cabin.

News of Mary’s death had been withheld from Carsten during the last few weeks before he lapsed into a coma. Karen Blake CIA Regional Director and the person running the Silex-M programme to develop a military version of his rogue chip and OS, insisted that his medical and I.T. colleagues should work together to keep the ailing Carsten focussed on completing outstanding tasks and passing on as much knowledge on his approach to neural programming. So now healthy and a little ashamed at how he had treated Mary, he resolved to repair the harm he had done and find her. With no clear idea, how to approach Mary or tell her he was Carsten loaded into a new body that strange, all too familiar sense of threat returned as if the digital side of his personality wanted to warn him that this was a bad idea that risked both of their survival. Despite the discomfort, the desire remained strong, and he pushed aside the feelings of fear and threat and considered how to find her.

He started searching for her in San Francisco assuming she had returned home after leaving the DS&T Facility. When he found no trace, he expanded his search and found her obituary. The shock and emotional pain was almost unbearable. He was truly alone. A little more digging turned up the brief description of her apparent murder during an unsuccessful robbery. The news shook him to his core. How could this happen? He had cheated death only to find she had been taken from him. Murderous rage quickly replaced his initial despair, a rage made the worse because there was no one at which to direct it. His present circumstances made it impossible to contact other people close to Mary and until the new XT operating system grew the extensive neural connections he once carried, he was far from the mental or physical superhuman he had once been. Time and patience were imperative but so hard to contemplate in his current mind set.

JaydenC swore someone would pay for Mary’s death and had an intuition there was more to the incident than a failed burglary and he resolved to find the truth and reap revenge.

The trail to Mary’s murderer was annoyingly cold and JaydenC was temporarily stumped on how to proceed. Then he realised as CEO of one of the largest media organisations in the U.S. he had massive resources at his disposal. He wrote and email to his P.A., Grace Franklin, explaining that an old friend had contacted him about a relative named Dr Mary McClusky. The guy had just arrived in California and on trying to contact Mary discovered that she had been murdered in what appeared to have been a burglary that went wrong. The guy was so distraught that he asked JaydenC to recommend a private detective to investigate the case but was persuaded to wait while JaydenC made enquiries. He requested Grace to instruct one of OYA’s best researchers to find out as much as possible about the case including any rumours or unanswered questions. Also, they should find out the names of anyone she was seeing, working with, etc. The reason Mary was in San Diego was already known to JaydenC through Carsten’s memories but as Carsten could not leave the Facility, he knew little of what Mary did in her spare time.

JaydenC warned Grace to instruct the investigator that this was a private project and should not be brought to the notice of the OYA’s management team. Jayden Powell maintained a special project code for this type of private research, with the costs charged directly to an executive account outside OYA’s accounting process. Grace Franklin knew better than to ask questions about these unofficial projects, which Powell requested every few months Although the nature of this request was a little out of the ordinary, she surmised it formed part of his wider industry assessment and future planning that kept him one step ahead of the competition.

It took three days for Grace to respond with background information on Mary McClusky’s death. She confirmed that McClusky was shot dead in an upmarket executive home on Bankers Hill, Balboa Park, San Diego. The rented property was paid for through a shell company which had so far been impossible to identify. The research team invested a little cash oiling the wheels at the coroner’s office and obtained a copy of the autopsy report and by accident the police report, which had been misfiled in the same folder.

McClusky died from three gunshots in her back from a 45 mm handgun. The bullets severed her spinal cord causing instantaneous death. There were no other signs of injury. Forensics found traces of cocaine in the bathroom suggesting the perpetrator might have been a drug addict interrupted during a burglary who panicked with deadly consequences. The case notes were minimal suggesting the local police put little effort into finding a culprit. When JaydenC dropped the police papers on his table, he noticed a handwritten note on the back of the last sheet. It related to a telephone call from Brad Clifton to the investigating officer. Clifton had been Head of Security at Cybio when they all worked on the Crossover Project. The gist of the note described a heated discussion in which Clifton questioned the police’s assumption that this was a random murder by a drug addict and the decision to close the case after only a week.

With JaydenC’s own scepticism now alert he was even more determined to find out what happened to Mary and began compiling lists of people involved in the Silex ‘M’ project who might be implicated. Top of the list was Karen Blake, the CIA bitch who ran the show. Then Patrick Calloway, Dr Yamaguchi and now Brad Clifton. Clifton’s concern about the circumstances of the death only reinforced JaydenC’s belief that Mary was murdered by someone attached to the Silex ‘M’ project. He wanted to contact Clifton but realised that Jayden Powell’s high profile would attract considerable attention if news of his interest in the case became known. Similarly, he preferred not to involve OYA’s researchers in further work as this might also start rumours. No, this was something he would have to pursue himself. Something inside his head was urging caution, and he surmised this might be the chip protecting its investment in the new host body.

After several hours of brooding JaydenC could not sit idle any longer and decided to do a little uninvited perusing of the San Diego police files. He discovered that all closed case files were converted to optical disc and lodge in one of two locations. Using the case number as a reference it took less than an hour to track down the records file. It would have been faster, but the file was not stored in the normal case archive directory but in a separate sub directory called SCF-DF. Access was password protected, but he felt confident that a relatively straightforward phrase would be used so that several people could remember it. He started to compile a logical list beginning with the assumption that SCF-DF represented San Diego Case Files-Delta Force. It was a good hunch, and he had to start somewhere.

Helpfully the password login had a formatted box into which to enter the password and this was divided into a single lead character followed by two sets of five characters. He started the list with …..

?-DELTA……FORCE

?-Delta…….Force

and tried a variety of first characters starting with 1 -10, then A –Z. none worked.

He was beginning to wonder if this might prove to be more difficult than he had thought when an idea came to mind. Perhaps the first letter was the Greek character for Delta - ∆?

So, he added:

∆ ……….FORCE……?????

∆ ……….Force……..?????

And tried ‘Files’ as the last word with no success.

Then he tried ∆……Force……Open

And he was in!

Using the case number, JaydenC located Mary’s folder. Although he could open and read the various files, the Save and Copy commands were disabled, so he started up a simple video screen capture programme and