He tried to click the Stop icon, but his hand shook so badly he couldn’t control his mouse. He clamped his left hand over his right wrist to steady himself and tried again. He let out a tense breath when the screen displayed upload aborted. Simmons was getting that crap pumped into his brain over and over. That explained the headaches. But it didn’t explain why it happened.
Josh had designed the application to support looped transmissions. But he only planned to use that for small uploads that needed repetition to “take,” like training that included a motor skill component. Never for large static items like the tech documentation. Simmons’ brain could have been severely damaged if the loop had continued. Hopefully, damage hadn’t already been done.
Was there a flaw in his program? Was there a defect in the device itself? Was there something fundamental about the device being in a human subject that triggered the looping? His mind spun through the possibilities.
Josh set his phone to route directly to voicemail, then sat quietly for a moment to try to quell his rising panic. He couldn’t allow this to happen again. If something damaged Simmons that could be blamed on Genesis, it would endanger the entire program. As enthusiastic as Harris was, he’d surely shut it down and start asking questions Josh didn’t want to have to answer.
Questions about his research methodology, for a start. In his own mind, he knew he’d made reasonable projections about the function and capabilities of Genesis in human subjects. Others might feel he’d taken shortcuts—it wouldn’t be the first time his peers criticized him out of pure jealousy. The documentation he’d provided during the negotiations with Harris had been…enhanced, just a bit, to head off needless concerns that could have derailed the deal.
Calmer now, Josh returned to the crisp, logical thinking that was his forte. First, he’d set up a monitor for the upload queue’s activity, both for Simmons and for Weston. He chided himself for not having built that into the program in the first place. Such a monitor would have caught Simmons’ problem right away, and he could have at least stopped the looping manually.
That was the easy part.
His second problem would be harder to solve: figuring out how to diagnose why the program looped in the first place. Outside of the controlled environment of his research lab, Genesis was exposed to innumerable factors that could affect its behavior. How on earth would he be able to pinpoint the cause…or causes?
CHAPTER 30
Evan scrutinized the clinic’s online calendar. Ever since they’d implanted Weston, he’d made it his end-of-day ritual to scour the day’s appointments to see if either Weston or Simmons had come in for any reason.
As he scrolled through the listings, an entry jumped out at him as if it had been typed in bold red letters. Simmons had been in—and had seen Tyler! And of course, Tyler hadn’t said a word to him about it.
He retrieved Simmons’ soft file and found no mention of the day’s appointment. So Tyler thinks he can hide it! Then he remembered it sometimes took up to a day before the manual entries were transcribed and loaded online. He’d have to find the physical file to see what it said—if anything—about today’s visit. It should be in the bin where they left the day’s files for transcription.
Evan checked his watch. Half past five. Tyler’s appointment calendar indicated his last patient had been at 4 PM. Evan hoped he’d gone home; he’d prefer that Tyler not catch him snooping through Simmons’ file.
He shut down his computer and left his office, closing the door behind him. Just in case he ran into anyone else still around, he wanted it to look like he was on his way home for the day. Thankful for the noise-dampening carpet, he walked down the hallway toward the back office area as quietly as he could without looking furtive. The receptionist and nurses usually left at five sharp, and the clinic didn’t routinely take appointments past 4:30 PM. He was most concerned about running into Tyler.
He held his breath as he passed Tyler’s office. The door was closed and light came from beneath it, but that wasn’t proof he was in there. It was common to leave office lights on for the cleaning crew to shut off later when they finished up. He kept going, hoping Tyler had left, or at least would stay in his office.
Evan entered the back room. Computers, printers, and cables covered most of the tabletop space. He approached the far table, on which sat the bin holding the day’s files. Judging from the number of them, they were backlogged a day or two. Since the files were simply dropped off after exams, they were in a vaguely chronological order, not alphabetical. Evan bent down and flipped through them, hoping to hit Simmons’ quickly so he could sneak it back to his office and examine it in private.
All the technical expertise at this place, and we still handwrite and transcribe the records. Seemed like double work to Evan, but then again, he couldn’t quite warm to the idea of taking notes on some electronic gadget while performing an exam.
“Looking for something?”
Tyler stood in the doorway, a patient’s file in his hand.
Evan straightened up, a caught-in-the-act shot of adrenaline wiping out his verbal skills. “I…uh…” He cleared his throat. “I was checking I didn’t forget a notation on…”
“Looks like the transcriber was out sick today. Would you mind adding this to the stack when you’re done? I don’t want to interfere with your search.” He smiled as he approached and handed over the file.
Evan kept his right hand in the staged files as a placeholder and accepted the file from Tyler with his left hand. The patient’s name caught his eye. Terry Simmons. Tyler was so cool about handing it to him, as if he had nothing to hide. Trying to sound natural, he decided to use the opening. “Simmons? You saw him today?” He waited for Tyler’s reaction.
He looked as relaxed as if Simmons were just any patient. “Yeah, he was having some discomfort. I’m pretty sure it was a migraine, so I prescribed Topamax.”
“You don’t think it’s related to—”
Tyler frowned slightly. “Of course not. It was a classic migraine. He’ll be fine. It’s all there in the file, if you must know. But it’s just not that interesting.” He moved to leave. “Good luck finding your file in that heap.”
Evan set Simmons’ file in the front of the bin and pretended to continue searching while Tyler headed back down the hall toward his office.
He waited a few minutes to try to guess if Tyler was headed out for the day, or was going to occupy himself in his office for a while. He didn’t return, so Evan quickly grabbed Simmons’ file and read over the latest entry.
It was just what Tyler said it was.
Evan read it again to be sure. It was brief, simple, and routine. Was it really true, or did Tyler falsify the entry?
Or was Tyler not seeing what he should be seeing—side effects from Genesis—because he didn’t want to see problems with it?
There was no way to know without examining Simmons himself. But how could he manage that without Tyler getting wind of it—or Simmons asking him more questions than he dared answer?
Evan decided he’d best go home and think his way through this. He didn’t want to run into Tyler again right now; he didn’t trust himself to effectively hide his suspicions. He dropped Simmons’ file into the bin with the rest.
CHAPTER 31
Josh glanced at his watch. 10:30 PM. He leaned back and ran his hand through his hair as he waited for the simulator to test his latest program, the culmination of two weeks of late nights in front of the computer.
Setting up a program to monitor and report in real-time what Genesis was transmitting into the brain had presented no real challenge. He had simply piggybacked some additional logic onto the existing upload program, and it had tested clean on the first try.
Monitoring Genesis to make sure it didn’t inadvertently loop was necessary, certainly. Simmons’ recent experience was proof of that. But it wasn’t enough. What if the implant was working fine, but the recipient’s brain experienced some form of distress in response? W
hat if a prescribed upload from the device resulted in some kind of overload?
Creating a monitor to read the brain’s activity was necessary both for the immediate situation, and to establish the framework for the bidirectional dynamic transmission capability that was Josh’s ultimate goal. So he’d pawned off some of his clinic appointments on Cleary and worked hard these past couple of weeks to develop a program to enable Genesis to monitor and report the brain’s reactions.
The simulation’s progress bar chugged along at a maddeningly slow pace. Josh tapped his fingers on his desk, anxious to see if this would be the first clean run out of seemingly countless tries. This program had been tricky, pushing his skills to the edge. He knew exactly what he wanted the code to do, but developing the logic at such a low level was his weakest area.
If his new code worked, Genesis would transform into a two-way communication link directly into the brains of its recipients. Any time he wanted, he could tap in and see the subject’s brain stress and mood at a fairly coarse level, presented in waveforms like an EEG.
Josh could see more late nights ahead of him, refining the program to get at discrete thoughts. Then later, reshaping those thoughts and sending them back to their source. He looked forward to that achievement.
The screen flashed testing complete. Josh leaned forward and clicked open the results window. He could feel the excitement build like a physical wave as he scrolled through the results.
As expected.
As expected.
As expected.
He held his breath as he continued, closer and closer to the bottom of the listing. Still all as expected. One more screenful. He kept scrolling.
And reached the end of the results list.
He did a quick Find command to check for error tags, in case he’d missed one in his haste.
Clean.
Josh sat back in his chair and let out a hoarded breath. He’d done it. He’d been fairly sure he could, but seeing the clean test results was the proof he needed. The idea of refining the monitor to report at the thought level rose again in his mind.
He forced himself to focus on the task at hand. He still needed to install both his new programs in Simmons’ and Weston’s Genesis devices to avoid a recurrence of the looping problem.
Josh started with Simmons. He set up an upload queue for his device containing both the new programs, then transmitted the package in just a few seconds. He opened the monitoring panels enabled by the new programs and easily confirmed that Simmons’ original tech documentation upload was not looping. The waveforms indicated Simmons’ brain was not unduly stressed. Perhaps he was even asleep.
He then performed the same steps for Weston’s device. No looping on the part of the device. But Weston’s waveforms looked a bit more agitated than had Simmons’. Not extremely so, but Weston was undoubtedly awake at the moment. And perhaps involved in some sort of discussion. Josh wished the chart could tell him more. Was Weston still here at work, busy with some task, or was he at home having problems sleeping or something?
Josh smiled. The waveform output only whetted his appetite for a more sophisticated, thought-level view—and for the ability to load new thoughts. That would solve all of Harris’ problems. Not only could he keep his staff’s skill levels ahead of the competition, but he could ensure his staff—especially management—always acted in accordance with how he wanted the company run. Then he could pretty much put that money machine on autopilot.
But if Josh could get the device to reshape thoughts, his relationship with OneMarket would stymie the full potential of his invention. Harris using it to run his company would be impressive, but would undoubtedly be kept secret, denying him the lucrative rewards and opportunities he deserved.
Its value to OneMarket was a drop in the bucket.
Government, education, military, law enforcement—the list of possible clients was endless, if he weren’t under the control of an exclusive relationship. Josh knew he couldn’t have taken the device this far without having become involved with OneMarket, but he’d have to review the contract to see how he could break free to take Genesis to its full potential when the time came.
CHAPTER 32
Terry picked up his coffee cup and his copy of Mark’s latest Venezuela project document, then shook his head and set them back down on his desk. He wouldn’t need them for a meeting as short as he anticipated.
Mark had asked Terry to critique his proposed security profiles before he scripted them into the system. Terry scrutinized the proposal and could find no flaw. It reflected the approach he would have taken. In fact, it was almost as if he’d designed it.
He felt bad about how his previous meeting with Mark ended, so he looked forward to delivering good news as he headed down the hall to the huddle room. He was amazed at Mark’s progress over these last few weeks. The Venezuela project had started out so badly for him, but he’d turned it around and was now tracking to the original schedule. He had no doubt Reyes would have fired Mark without a second thought if he’d screwed this up. He was glad it hadn’t come to that. Mark showed a lot of promise, and he genuinely enjoyed working with him.
Mark hunched at the tiny huddle room table. He leafed through his document as if he expected to find some last-minute tragic flaw in it.
“Hey. You ready for me?” asked Terry as he stood in the doorway.
Mark glanced up. “Oh, yeah. I was just going over it one more time.” He raised his eyebrows as he noticed Terry’s empty hands. “You didn’t bring your copy. Didn’t you have a chance to review it? I need to—”
Terry raised his hand to stop Mark. “Yes, yes, I did. Twice. And I really have nothing to add. It looks perfectly valid to me.” He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “So, I didn’t bring it.”
Mark sat up straight and stopped shuffling through his papers. “You’re kidding. You found nothing you’d do differently? There’s nothing I left out?”
“Don’t look so surprised. You worked hard on this, and you got it right.”
Mark jumped up. “In that case, I’d better start the scripting. Thanks!” He quickly strode past Terry and down the hall toward his cube.
A quick jab of pain seared through Terry’s head as Mark passed by. Shit! Not again! He massaged his temples, trying to lessen the throbbing. The sharp pain subsided, only to be replaced by the full-skull agony of one of his migraines. He went into the huddle room, closed the door and turned out the light. Then he sat down and rested his head on the table in the calming darkness.
He thought he was done with the migraines. His first—and so far, only—dose of the Topamax had done the trick. It stopped that headache fast, and he’d had none since. He didn’t even bother to keep the pills with him, so if this didn’t clear up on its own, he’d have to go home to get the medicine.
Terry tried to relax his muscles, to think of something else—anything to coax the pain away, but it refused to wane. He left the huddle room, stopping at his cube to grab his keys. He decided to send an email when he got home, rather than take the time now to tell people he was leaving a little early. Right now, he just wanted to get to his pills and crawl into bed while they took effect.
On his way home, Terry was glad he’d decided to leave work early. His commute wasn’t that bad in terms of miles, but rush-hour traffic made it obscenely long. He was relieved there were few cars on the road with him this afternoon. The pain, combined with the glare of the late-day sun, made his eyes water. His view of the road swam as he tried to blink it back into focus.
A horn sounded and his rearview mirror suddenly filled with the reflection of a huge SUV as he moved to exit the freeway. He accelerated to create more leeway, then waved his arm in an apologetic salute. He grimaced as his racing heart accelerated the throbbing in his head.
Anxious to get home, he zipped through the residential streets faster than was prudent as he neared his house. He swung into his driveway and punched the button several times with a trembling thumb before th
e garage door began to lift.
Once inside the house, he realized he couldn’t recall where he’d left the pills. He first searched the kitchen, flinging open the cupboards and shoving countertop appliances and storage containers around in his haste.
His skull throbbing, he staggered to the master bathroom and rummaged through the medicine cabinet. A tube of toothpaste and a bottle of useless Excedrin crashed into the sink. As he slammed the cabinet door shut, the glimpse he caught of himself in the mirror froze him. His eyes were bloodshot, his face drawn. Even the brief view gave a frightening impression of someone with a chronic illness.
He forced himself to look away and tried searching his bedroom. At last he spotted the vial on his dresser next to a stack of receipts that had accumulated there.
He grabbed one of the tablets and downed it with tap water from the bathroom sink. Then he closed all the curtains in his bedroom and crawled into the bed fully-clothed.
Terry drew the covers over his face to block out all traces of light and tried to wait it out while the medicine kicked in. The throbbing was worse than ever. It felt like his brain was trying to expand and contract within the confines of his cranium. He could feel it pulsating, and could envision his skull giving way under the pressure before long.
He lay there, his body limp, his consciousness fully consumed with the ache in his head. Tears seeped out from the corners of his eyes as he prayed for the medicine to do something, even a little. It worked so fast last time. He started to wonder if he should call for help. What if it didn’t work this time? Could he double the dose to get rid of the pain?
As he was trying to decide whether to take another tablet, the pain changed character. Now it felt like someone was at work on his brain with hot knives, piercing and slicing. Twisting and pulling. He moaned and shifted position, hoping for relief, any relief.
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