Missing People, Part 5

Missing People

The day started in a most unusual way. I found myself taking a case for a missing girl. People in Lucid are never missing. I’ve gotten very good at finding people, so good I’ve attracted the attention of the creator of Lucid.

I don’t have a lot to go on. The missing person is a female, aged seventeen, named Kristen. She is the daughter of Dr. Liccardi and a woman named Joyce. Six years ago, Kristen was thrown from a horse while riding on her father’s land. Despite Dr. Liccardi owning a whole hospital, Kristen slipped into a coma.

Shortly after, Joyce began getting very anxious around Dr. Liccardi. She demanded that Kristen be moved to another facility. Dr. Liccardi went so far as to get a court order to keep his daughter in his hospital. But Joyce was determined. She took Kristen and fled. Dr. Liccardi has been looking for her ever since.

In her file was a still of Kristen. It was a screenshot of a book cafe in Lucid. The bugs were designed to track her down and see if they could get an address on where Kristen was hooked in.

I was already very anxious about the case. It was one thing to be discovered, but I got the feeling if I failed I’d probably get my account banned. I couldn’t think about that. I needed to do my job. I was good at my job. First stop, the book cafe.

I walked into the cafe and took a seat at a booth. The book that sat on the table had a series of titles across the front. It worked like a menu. Select the title, and the book would fill in the pages. But I wasn’t interested in what was for sale.

The screenshot I had was time and date stamped. I scrolled down the list of books till I got to a title called, “The Lamont Override”. A perk of working for the guy who created Lucid is that I get access to these kind of things.

Selecting that title turned the book into a log of who accessed the cafe. I ran through till I got to the date on the screenshot. There were seven books being read at that time. The records showed a lot of information. One of which was a minute by minute log of what page everyone was on.

But there was a strange entry. Seems someone started reading The Wizard of Oz and managed to finish it in two seconds. I knew what had happened. Someone downloaded the book. Something that is almost impossible unless you know what you’re doing.

It wasn’t a great lead, but it was an anomaly. I’ve learned that if something is odd in a case it’s worth looking into. The name listed was Franklin J. Dorton. I had to find this guy if for no other reason than to clear him off this list of people.

Back at my office I pushed Franklin’s name into my desk and the search popped up. The map showed him sitting in a park. “Probably reading his stolen book”, I thought. I hopped into the phonebooth and stepped out nearby.

I made my way to location on the map, hoping to see a young lady. But Kristen wasn’t there. Just some kid reading The Wizard of Oz. At least I could move on to the rest of my list.

But then Franklin did something odd. We made eye contact, then he went invisible.

This is actually very common in Lucid. But I kinda took it as a sign of disrespect. So I loaded up my “Private Eye” and tipped my hat brim so I could still see him. He was still sitting there. But there was more to him. It looked like three people sitting in the same spot.

One of them was Kristen.

Dr. Liccardi had given me a number of new powers. One of which was the ability to summon my own bug. I pulled the little guy out of my pocket. He was a blue cricket that I named Hopps. I pushed my intentions into Hopps and let him go. Quickly, he scurried over to Franklin and latched onto his shoulder.

I waited a few days for Franklin to log back on. When he did, Hopps reported his spawn point to me. It was a private server. More importantly, it was a secured server. It took me hours to hack my way through the access point. After I got through security I had to directly teleport there.

The wave of nausea hit me as my internal simulation caught up with my surroundings. I was in a simple room, decorated in pastels. Kristen sat in a chair reading The Wizard of Oz. I was invisible so she didn’t notice me.

I started a program to find my location in the real world. It may not be the place Kristen is, but it’d be a starting point. The trace was having trouble with the heightened security so I was stuck for a few minutes.

Then, things got weird. First, the room changed. Its pastel colors were replaced by an assortment of grey tones. I looked at Kristen, but Franklin sat in her place. He seemed confused about the book and set it down.

He walked over to a painting on the wall and put his hand on it. I felt the room rumble for a second. Then, the wall opened up. Franklin stepped out into the Lucid public server. This was the first time I’d ever seen another hacker on the system.

With the new door Franklin built, the trace completed almost at once. I followed Franklin out the door. Something wasn’t right about all of this. There was something more here. Something I wasn’t being told.

I put the email together, but it only stated where the trace said I was, Singapore. It wasn’t a very good trace. But It was more than six years had turned up. I decided to see what Franklin knew. I caught up with him on the street and decided to play a little bad cop.

“Excuse me, Mr. Dorton”, I said in my most official voice.
He looked like a rabbit in a trap.
“Y-yes?”
“My name is Cade Lamont. I need to talk to you about a book you downloaded.”
His face went white.
“I didn’t download anything. That book just appeared.”
“Listen, you’re not in any serious trouble. I just want to ask you some questions.”
Franklin was fidgeting now, unable to keep eye contact.
“I-I.. What kind of questi..”, his voice trailed off.

All at once Franklin just shifted into a young boy. He couldn’t have been any older than seven or eight. His big blue eyes just stared up at me.

“Hello mister”, the boy said.
“Franklin?”, I asked him.
“No, my name is Danny.”
“Hi, Danny, my name’s Cade.”
He looked around at the street we were on.
“I’m not supposed to be outside. But sometimes I wake up outside.”
We weren’t far from the door Franklin made.
“Do you want me to take you home?”, I asked him.

He shook his head yes then took my hand. He was silent the whole way back to the private server. When we stepped in the room had changed again. It was a child’s room. The walls painted with bright colors.

I thought about sticking around just to keep an eye on him, but my alarm went off. I had a visitor in the real world.

“I gotta go buddy. But can I come see you again?”
“I’m not supposed to have anyone over.”
“What if I’m super sneaky and no one knows? Can we keep that a secret?”
Danny slowly nodded.
“Good, I’ll see you soon, little guy”, I said then logged off.

When the real world settled back in I noticed a shadow sitting at the foot of my bed.

“The lead any good?”
“It’s the best I’ve seen. Thank you Candice”, said Dr. Liccardi.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“How does multiple personality disorder manifest in Lucid?”

Dr. Liccardi’s eyebrows raised.
“We’ve never had a chance to study it. Why?”

I started telling him about Danny and Franklin. He was transfixed on my words. I could see he was fascinated by the possibility, and saddened that it was his daughter suffering through it.