Transdem Laboratories is watching the beta run carefully so when the error warning initially came up the tech watching the computer raised his eyebrows. A moment later the Chronivac sent the message to the server that it had isolated the error and was making repairs, all should be good in a few minutes. So the tech, Dave, began his break.
Just as Dave locked his PC and stepped away, Jeff was pressing Alt+Ctrl+Del to circumvent the built in diagnostic repair features. By the time the Dave got back everything appeared normal, Jeff's Chronivac was no longer sending the distress signal and there appeared to be no pending transformations, meaning it had completed all its requests and everything was back to normal.
On a whim, Dave checked the history log and compared it to the profiles of the subjects within range of the emitter; It was a slow day, and prying on the customer's data is looked down upon but that is what he is paid to do... Upon seeing that a transformation halted before completion and was not sending the warning signal to Transdem, Dave immediately attempted to override the program and even remote access in, after using all his tools and knowledge he called his supervisor to alert him to their worst fears...
A Chronivac that has gone rogue.
The whole Chronivac system is based on the principal that if things got out of hand, Transdem could remotely shut the system down and revert the changes. If the machine was connected to the transformation server, wasn't responding to server commands, but was still making transformation requests... well, lets just say that could get bad.
"How bad?" you may ask. Anyone and anything could potentially be transformed. Imagine your carpet being made sentient but existing in silent agony, its just inhumane and horrific to think about. Many of the transformations you have read about left someone in just this situation, but as time went on, they slowly became accustomed to their new life and ultimately grew to like it, even prefer it. Often this wasn't the initial users benevolence but the transformation server on Transdem's side determining that the original transformation was not ethical and requesting minor mental adjustments.
In addition to the nature of the requests being unmoderated, the protections that Transdem employees take to not be involuntarily transformed is server side nanotechnology. Jeff's Chronivac is ignoring the halt command, meaning if a team goes into Jeff's house to try to fix the problem, they are just as likely to be effected by the errors as anyone else. Again, if the server requests are ignored, things could get bad.
Since the system is not receiving anything from the server it is not displaying anything to Jeff about what is going on at Transdem.
Dave explained everything that led him to this point, to his supervisor, and watched as the blood fell away from her face. "Hold on a second Dave." Jessica said as she scurried back to her desk.
She returned a moment later with a thick manual entitled "Rogue Chronivacs: What to do when a good Chronivac goes bad" She quickly browsed through the first few pages and the color seemed to return to her face. "In testing, it has been found that most of the time rogue Chronivacs can be retrieved without incident and our first step is to see if the owner can disable the device themselves before the retrieval team gets there."
With a big smile dripping with false confidence, Jessica said, "Dave, call the customer and see if they can turn off the computer and remove the power supply from the emitter. I will request an Emergency Response Unit to retrieve it immediately. What are the last few programmed commands it glitched on, its best to be prepared."
Dave tried to put on his best face as well, "It appears to be purely age related, the users age was quartered and the targets age was quadrupled. Though from my initial review, the user was not intended to be a target and the user is the only one aware of the reality change."
"Damnit", Jessica cursed, "I hate that setting so much, it makes everything so much more difficult and dangerous to fix."