Wednesday, April 6, 2016

BOOK OF STONE: Oswald and Olivia Emerson

For April, Stone Soldiers.info is celebrating the A to Z Blog Challenge with daily letter-themed entries. A separate page with a list of all these entries, plus Character Profiles and Book Synopses will appear on the right hand side of the page in coming weeks, detailing the people, places and things of the Stone Soldiers universe.




OSWALD AND OLIVIA EMERSON

First Appearance:   Infernal Machine

Description:  Psychic Hackers

Last Known Status:   Unknown

Summary:
Twins possessing a unique psychic connection that allowed them to effectively network their brains, Oswald "Ozzy" Emerson and Olivia "Olive" Emerson became child prodigies in the 1980s, bypassing other computer geniuses and establishing themselves as the pre-eminent hackers in the United States. With this rise to the top however, they quickly found themselves on a Most Wanted list and were arrested by Federal authorities.

Rather than sentence the teenagers to prison however, the National Security Agency hired them to construct a computer network capable of analyzing and decrypting radio transmissions from around the world, replacing hundreds of analysts.

In 1987, Oswald used the MAXIM computer network he and his sister devised to decode an unusual Extreme Low Frequency sound emanating from far below the city of Sydney, Australia.

Detachment 1039 was tasked with investigating the source of the encrypted plea for help, and uncovered an ancient, supernatural computer built by a malevolent entity intent on erasing mankind from the surface of the Earth.

In the aftermath of the machine's destruction, the Emerson twins were transferred to Detachment 1039's command to oversee the use of the MAXIM network to track and monitor dark threats to humanity.


Author's Notes:
I admit it, I love the show Person of Interest. Partly because it reminds me of Remo Williams, the Destroyer, partly because the Machine is one of the coolest characters ever. It's darn near what I've wanted to do for years, and was leading up to in my own series, Stone Soldiers. 

So I was inspired... to reveal (or rather, retcon) my own A.I.'s backstory, I needed hackers. Psychic-linked twins sounded cool. And what better name than Emerson? As always, Fringe played a big part in Stone Soldiers continuing evolution, so I wanted a character named "Olive". Ozzy and Olive were born.

Where are they now? Well, I would imagine that once Max was entrusted with operations on his own (1995), the super-twins were whisked away to some other project. Or maybe they are working on their own. In any event, now that I've made them in the prequels, I guess I'll just have to fit them in, grown up a little, somewhere in the Stone Soldiers or Shadow Raiders series...


2 comments:

  1. I read psychic hackers and was intrigued. The premise sounds great! I also enjoyed Fringe and Person of Interest. I'm a visiting minion with the Joyful Brigade!

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  2. Infernal Machine is FREE on Kindle April 8 & 9.

    Http://amzn.com/B018PK0PIS

    ReplyDelete