Trackers

By Maurice Devaraj

Detective Richard Zimmerich of Fort Myers PD is faced with three deaths and one case of alleged child abuse by her nanny at the SWFI airport. All four cases have only one thing in common. The victims wore a fitness tracker with the brand name, Joggit.
Meanwhile, Lt. Mark Skitter is on board a military Medivac copter which is carrying a comatose Lt. Stan Crammer. They are headed. to a contractor's research facility on an island south west of Captiva islands. Lt. Crammer has been testing the contractor BioNev's new technology, which directly interfaces human brains with computers, through a wearable device resembling a fitness tracker.
This technology is being developed for DARPA's BTO Division under its NESD program for its HTV - 3 project. Now, something has gone wrong and BioNev's team needs to find a cure for Lt. Crammer.
Detective Zimmerich finds that the comatose child Anne has woken up and claims to be Lt. Crammer. He contacts Lt. Skitter with the information that Anne gives. Lt. Skitter flies Zimmerich along with the child, her nanny, and the child's mother to the island.
Things take a turn when Skitter and Zimmerich discover that the core technology behind BioNev's breakthrough is a biological computer built out of living cells. BioNev's principals have shared the technology with a sister advertising firm that plans to sell 'active' advertising through the technology.

Using this technology, sellers can force wearers of the interface devices disguised and sold as fitness trackers to buy specific products, and even force their decisions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maurice Devaraj
• Release date: Aug 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370784301

Maurice Devaraj

Maurice Devaraj works as an elearning consultant and does research in evolutionary biology as a passion. His research papers can be accessed from his Google Scholar page. One research paper outlines a potential treatment for anti-microbial drug resistance, while another is on a solution for the Dengue virus. He has also written several screenplays. While most of his screenplays were on spec, he worked on three paid projects, an adaptation, an optioned screenplay, and a collaboration. He works out regularly, is addicted to caffeine and books.

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INTRODUCTION

The HTV –3 Project

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is an independent research and development arm of the US military and reports directly to senior department of defense (DoD) management. DARPA, usually known to the outside as a funding agency that primarily administers and manages defense funding, has been working on an ultra-secret project named the FALCON Hypersonic Technology Vehicle – 3 (HTV-3). The project is still underway, though with several modifications to the original specification that had been originally drawn up.

The HTV 3 aircraft is a drone, that like its predecessors, the HTV -1 and HTV -2 looks very simple in the shape of a truncated cone. There is no fuselage, no visible flight control and stabilizing surfaces or sections such as ailerons or tail. The HTV’s flight, if and when it does fly, will be unparalleled and unlike anything else that has been built to fly so far, and that includes rockets and missiles.

The aim behind the HTV program was to build reusable hypersonic drones that could hit targets anywhere in the world in under an hour. Flying at speeds of Mach 20 and more, such a vehicle had to be unmanned and flown by a remote pilot as no human pilot would survive sitting in the plane while being subject to the g forces that were being generated at those speeds.

Only the HTV – 2 has been flight tested so far.

While the HTV-2 and its flight tests was termed successful, the word ‘successful’ was used with qualification. It was true that the HTV-2 did separate from the booster rocket as planned and reached its cruise speed of Mach 20 within 2 minutes, but it proved difficult for its remote pilot to control. By the time that the highly trained pilot was able to recognize, react, and respond to the inputs from the plane, the flight parameters had changed considerably. The slow reactions of the remote pilot was insufficient to compensate for the quick changing conditions, causing the HTV-2 to roll violently, a reaction similar to the way a car would weave when a novice driver’s attempts to steer ends in overcorrecting from side to side.

The mixed result of HTV-2’s second flight caused the HTV program to be closed, at least on paper. But the program was secretly continued. Detailed analysis was conducted on the HTV – 2’s flight data even before the plans for HTV – 3 were drawn up. The HTV-2 was completely computer operated, the computer analyzed data from the million sensors from the aircraft, computer for the best corrections and relayed it back, computer based automated piloting was insufficient for proper flight guidance at those speeds. A faster and predictive method of piloting was required.

With the HTV-3 design, the problem was expected to worsen because of the speed capability promised by the design.

When an aircraft moves through air, there are two forces that are in play as a result of its design and shape called Lift and Drag. Higher the LD ratio, better the flight and glide capability of the aircraft. Commercial aircraft have an LD ration of close to 20, and smaller aircraft have much higher LD ratios, more than double that of commercial aircraft. The reason for this is simple. Commercial aircraft use very powerful engines that compensate for their low LD ratios.

In comparison the HTV aircraft had LD ratios in the low single digits. While the HTV-1 had a lift-drag ratio of 2.5, the HTV-2 design had a lift-drag ratio of 2.6 as against the 3.5 that was expected. The enormous thrust capability of its rockets and engines was sufficient to overcome such low LD ratios and produce speeds of Mach 10 plus. This meant that any design changes that produced even minuscule gains in LD ratios would logarithmically increase the speed capabilities.

The compensations were made to the design of HTV-3 with the result that it showed a lift to drag ratio of more than 4 in the wind tunnel tests and the simulations. This meant that the HTV-3’s cruise speeds would be considerably higher and consequently, faster guidance response times were required for piloting the aircraft.

And as it was already seen, computer based guidance was not sufficient.

Simulation test were designed using the data from the HTV-2’s flights. They were run using both computer based predictive response guidance and human pilot guidance. The results were surprising. Human pilots performed with accuracy that ran a close second to computer based guidance and in one instance, surpassed the computer based guidance system.

There was much speculation if HTV-3 should use a human pilot based guidance system.

However there was a problem. Analysis show that the biggest time lag in a human pilot guidance system was from the time taken by the pilot to physically work the control devices. No human pilot intervention could be as quick as the HTV-3 required, unless the need for the physical operation of devices was eliminated. If there was a way, it would be one where the human operator’s thoughts could directly interface with the HTV-3’s controls. The HTV-3 plans were about to be dropped when an unexpected break came.

It happened during an inter-departmental workshop between various arms of the US Army. One of the HTV program’s team members was in attendance and happened to sit through a presentation from the head of a program named BTO within DARPA, which was working on a project named NESD for a US Army division called CECOM.

CECOM, (US Army Communications Electronics Command) is a part of the US Army Materiel Command, which plays the central part of the US Army’s Weapons System Research and Development. CECOM’s focus is naturally on communications and they are focused on ground-ground, ground-air, and air to air signaling systems, encryption protocols, problems of restricted bandwidths available for communication systems and so on.

On April 1st 2014, DARPA had launched a division called the Biological Technologies office (BTO). The BTO has one core purpose. To integrate biological systems and technology as a seamless whole. The purpose is ambitious as well as lofty. To create tools that could improve the lives of veterans who had lost limbs through haptic devices, to find ways of using electronic medicine to combat illnesses such as PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), to control organisms and their populations through electronic interfaces and so on.

But there is one program that was and still is much more ambitious than the rest. And the purpose was completely military. Called the Neural Engineering System Design (NESD), its purpose was to integrate the human mind with digital devices. The ambitious aim of the program was to invent a device that could interface with the neural network of the human brain, transmit and receive data in the typical data format that was used by computers and other programmed and programmable devices.

It was doomed to fail from the start.

In the fall of 2015, an EOI or expression of interest was sent out to select companies. An expression of interest is not an actual invitation to bid for a project, but one that sends out feelers to evaluate whether the project is viable, and companies are interested. A bid would be solicited if the EOI was successful in attracting the attention of bidders.

The variations in size and type of companies that were selected by BTO were bizarre. Some of them were specialist electronics companies, some were pure R&D companies, some were into genetics, some into synthetic bio-products and some were into telecommunications, just to name a few.

During the spring of 2016, DARPA had dropped the EOI for the NESD project due to lack of response and apparent lack of viability. At this point of time, an unsolicited response was received by the director of the program, Dr. Shelly Vale. It was from a company named Biological Neural Electronic Vectors Inc., based out of Florida.

Dr. Shelly Vale would have thrown out the BioNev proposal since it was unsolicited. But there was a problem. Since the EOI had been a closed one, an outside firm shouldn’t have had access to the EOI. Unsure of the protocol, Dr. Vale had consulted the defense procurement committee in pentagon. A background evaluation was performed on BioNev and a low level enquiry had been made. The answer as to how BioNev had come across the EOI was simple enough. The EOI was automatically uploaded by the system into SALT, a military procurement website. BioNev had accessed the EOI and had sent its response. The defense committee cleared BioNev of any security breach, though BioNev was unaware of the slight consternation that they had caused by sending in the proposal.

The automatic upload feature was removed from the system and Dr. Vale was informed that she could retroactively include BioNev in the EOI if she required. Dr. Vale had had no intent to do so, but when the defense committee’s closure report had come in, she took a look at the thick package that had come in from BioNev.

A cursory look at the document showed her that BioNev’s proposal had merits. Unlike the other proposals, it was a ground-up proposal. Instead of attempting to convert between the language of the human brain and that of computers, the proposal was to read the neural information as a code itself. Just as sounds were depicted in the form of a graph on a computer. The interfacing device that would read, transmit, receive, and push data between a human and a computer would be in the form of a simple wearable device. And the document claimed that they had already made a prototype and tested it.

The invitation to send a proposal was sent out only to BioNev. They responded with an even larger package of documents as their proposal.

DARPA approved the proposal and was prepared to finance it. CECOM was intimated.

DARPA proposed that the NESD project be taken up as a joint project with CECOM as a solution to the direct human digital interface requirement of the HTV-3 project. It was readily accepted. DARPA exchanged details of the BioNev proposal with CECOM. Initially wary, because the concept sounded too simple to be true, CECOM agreed to take it up as a joint collaboration with DARPA. DARPA would fund the project and take joint credit with CECOM. CECOM would have general oversight of the project, perform the testing and evaluation prior to any commissioning that would take place. But CECOM and had a caveat. The research had to be done on US military premises. For one, the HTV-3 was officially an abandoned project. The costs incurred by HTV-2 was close to half a billion US dollar and that of HTV-3 was unofficially 2.5 billion US dollars. (The reason for the extremely high jump in the HTV-3 cost was an attempt to be rid of the rocket propelled launch and launch the HTV-3 autonomously). The prohibitive cost of the HTV-2 project had leaked and had caused furor from the congress. The funding for HTV-3 was therefore masked and any further expenses had to be held in absolute secrecy. Two, the proposal had required extensive animal testing. And animal testing was a headache. The military in general and both DARPA had faced enormous pressure from animal rights lobbyists to stop animal testing. Any leak of a project that was remotely connected to the US military would open up a can of worms. The military PR machine would have been the first to jump on their backs. An audit would be called for and there was risk that it would unearth the HTV-3 project itself.

An abandoned US Army base on an uncharted island south west of the Captiva islands was suggested by CECOM and accepted by DARPA. The BioNev team had been called in and informed of the conditions imposed by CECOM. BioNev readily agreed as long as funding wasn’t a problem.

Funding wasn’t a problem.

DAY 1

Chapter 1

The First Incident

06:32 – 07:05

The hot Florida sun was well on its way to the 100 degree Fahrenheit mark. Casey Shawn both loved and hated Florida and Fort Myers. The sun kissed sands and the blue seas had initially been a welcome change for Casey from her hometown, Moreau, New York. But the heat was incredible. And Casey was on a mission to lose weight.

Casey felt her lungs on fire. And her thighs burned as she continued to run. Or what passed as running for her. She gasped for breath and she jogged and lifted her hand to look at the gadget on her wrist. It looked like a slick trendy watch.

She’d bought it from a concession shop in the South West Florida International airport yesterday. She’d returned from a brief trip to Moreau and had been waiting for her ride home. She’d browsed the shops when the fitness tracker had caught her eye. Funny guy he was. Asked for cash. Said that the card machine wasn’t working. She’d decided not to buy it. But the guy said he’d knock twenty dollars off the box price if she’d gave cash. She couldn’t resist a bargain like that.

And because she’d bought it, she’d decided to use it. To start jogging.

Casey squinted at the gadget.

The sleek little thing showed her the distance she’d run, the time she’d run, and the calories she had burned.

She’d run a little more than a mile. In 36 minutes. One could hardly call it running, but for someone at at five feet seven and two hundred pounds, it was sheer torture. The air was hot and humid. Fort Myers had the most number of days of hot blistering burning sun, even beating Miami into second place.

She had sweated a river down her face, and chest, and back, and everywhere.

She was bent over the side walk. She felt nausea. Maybe she had overdone it on the first day. That run should have accounted for at least a thousand calories.

She checked the gadget again for the calorie count. A measly 224 calories.

Damn!

This was not worth it. She raised herself back to the vertical. She felt her knee burn. Her throat burned. She was parched. She needed water.

There was a sidewalk coffee shop just ahead. She started limping towards it. She could rest there and maybe have a coffee. The seats outside were not up yet. There would be bar stools inside. And in any case, Casey wanted to feel the breeze of a fan or air-conditioning instead of the burning heat.

How many calories did a latte have? Maybe she’d ask for a sugarless one. Suddenly Casey felt she couldn’t care less. Calories could go to hell. She’d ask for a tall ice cold latte with cinnamons. She could hire a cab to go back home.

Casey reached the little shop. The door jangled as she opened it and went in. Thankfully it was air-conditioned inside but there was no one behind the counter. She felt the sweat drip off her. Presently a middle aged man came out from the kitchen door.

Can I help you?

I’d like an iced latte. Said Casey. Her breathing still seemed to be ragged, but it was slowly returning to normal.

Sure. In a minute.

He disappeared again. Carol seated herself at one of the bar stools. The fiery feeling in her lungs seemed to have gone out, only to be replaced by a pain in her sternum. She’d have to remember to bring a water bottle. Her throat had gotten parched half a mile after she had started.

That is, if she still wanted to jog.

After five minutes of rest, it didn’t seem so bad now. The memory of the exhaustion and nausea she had felt had slowly faded away. Had it really been so bad?

Here you go. The man placed a tall glass of the iced coffee in front of her.

Thank you.

He smiled in acknowledgement.

"Will there by anything else?

Not for now. Thank you.

Casey slowly sucked the iced coffee through the straw, savoring its delicious flavor and chillness that seemed to drain the heat from her body. But she seemed to break out in fresh sweat that was quickly evaporated by the air conditioning, leaving behind a cool, if not a chilly sensation.

Within a few seconds, the coffee was over. She sucked the straw noisily. Her stomach felt full.

The damned fitness tracker was tingling again. It had been doing that on and off since she had put it on. Maybe it was some kind of vibrating alert. Or some kind of a sensor.

Suddenly she felt that she had to have another coffee. But her stomach felt full. She belched. She felt a craving for more coffee. The craving was growing stronger. She knocked on the counter top. It took a few seconds, but the man who’d served her came back again.

Yes?

Casey held the empty cup up. I’d like a refill.

The man nodded and went in.

Casey impatiently surveyed the shop surroundings. The place way spotless. The counter was polished clean. There was a glass door refrigerator at one corner stacked with sodas in cans and plastic bottles. Large and small. She felt the gadget on her wrist tingle again.

The man came back with her second iced coffee. Casey almost grabbed it out of his hand. She pulled the top off the cup along with its straw and took a long gulp.

The man looked taken aback at the abruptness with which she’d grabbed the cup from him. Casey was surprised herself.

Sorry.

The man went