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.

The Invisible Girl, Part 4

The Invisible Girl

Lucid, the breakthrough of the millenia. A place where you can live while your body rests. It used to be my safe place. A place where I could be more than just a sixteen year old girl. The real world is full of pain. The real world doesn’t see me.

Well, it didn’t. Not until now. The image of seeing myself in that hospital bed stayed with me. I never looked as alien as I did there, so helpless in that bed. I wish the real world saw me as I see me. The strong man I feel I am, Cade not Candice.

When I first started I was so afraid of losing my own identity. Scared that Candice would disappear from me forever. The more I lived as Cade the less concerned about that I’ve become. But out there is the grave I made for her.

If the bugs are looking for me, they’ll find it, they’ll find her. I have to know what they want. Better even to know who they are. Some security team for the hospital? Or some actual police force. A lot of what I do isn’t exactly legal.

This could most certainly be a trap. But I have to know if they found her. Her spawn point is random. I did that in hopes they’d never catch on. The only way to get there was through Stan.

Stan was one of the first programs I’d written. He’s a guide of sorts. He can navigate the back access of just about any server. He can also lock on to a few key avatars in the system.

I walked out to the street and whistled. The program loaded in immediately. And Stan’s cab pulled up next to me. I got in and set my destination: The Grave of Candice Lamont.

About ten seconds later we pulled up to a park in some remote part of the server. I’d never been here but that wasn’t saying much. The server was almost infinite.

I leaned against the cab and lowered my hat. I opened Private Eye and began looking around. About five yards away sat a girl reading a detective novel. She was invisible. Her face and eyes were mine.

I created her first, when I was learning to code here. She’s a doppelganger designed to hide my entrance into the server. It was working just fine. But I had to see her, to be sure.

I shook off the feelings of sentiment and let the paranoia sink back in. Glancing around the park I didn’t see a single bug. Did they already identify her and move on? I slowly started walking across the field. Everything seemed normal.

I bent down when I reached her to get a better look. The book she was reading wasn’t a detective novel. It was a Doctor Seuss book. Someone had changed some of her code. Then it hit me. Trap!

I stumbled backwards. Scanning wildly around. I noticed it as it crawled out from under her skirt. A bug, with it’s anteni pointed right at me. I sprinted for the cab. But the bugs were already destroying it.

I considered just logging off. But I was equally afraid of what I might find in the real world. The bugs started to turn towards me. I needed to hide, give myself a chance to figure this out. I teleported back to my office.

We don’t teleport in Lucid. Sure, it sounds like a wonderful way to get around. But the simulation running in our heads doesn’t do well with things like that. The phone booths overcome this by giving you fixed surroundings to focus on. Full out teleporting left my head spinning, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t safe.

The bug on my wall noticed me right away. It leapt onto my desk and started to scurry toward me. I ran out the door and downstairs. The Chinese restaurant was mostly empty. But I didn’t create it to be a real restaurant.

I ran into the kitchen while bugs seemed to swarm out of the cracks in the walls. I made it to the walk in freezer and locked myself inside. The freezer was a panic room, designed to hide me from any tracer or tracker.

I sat down trying to gather my thoughts. I needed to see if I was alone in my hospital room. The Hive Vision glasses would tell me if WnDy was standing over me, but I couldn’t use them in here. The panic room wouldn’t let me.

I had planned for this. Well, not exactly this, but something like this. I opened the back door of the freezer. This allowed me to connect to the world without being noticed. At least, I hoped I wouldn’t be noticed.

I put on the bug eyed glasses and recalled WnDy’s view. She was working in another patients room. With a sigh of relief I took the glasses off. I could just log out. No nightmare waiting for me in the real world.

I checked my surroundings through my hat brim just to be sure, no bugs. Out of curiosity I put the glasses back on and started scanning the other bugs views. They were all outside the freezer. Every view was just waiting for me to open the door. Every view but one.

I was looking at a leg, my leg. I pulled the glasses off and looked down through the hat. Wrapped around my leg was one of the bugs. I don’t know when it latched onto me. But it was here now.

Out of panic I logged off. The real world came back into view. I pulled the hood off and sat up in bed. Across the room sat an man. I’d say he was about fifty or so. His white hair circling a bald peak on his head. He wore a lab coat and name tag. But I couldn’t make out the name.

“Candice”, he said.
“Y-yes”, I stuttered.
“I am Doctor James Liccardi. It wasn’t easy finding you.”
“Couldn’t have been that hard. I’m stuck in a hospital bed.”
“Well, not you, but Cade.”

All the color faded from the world. No one has ever known my secret. Suddenly, I felt exposed. I pulled the covers up to my neck to protect myself.

“What do you want?”, I whispered.
“Your help. I’m looking for someone. And I’m told you are the best at finding people.”

The blanket was now almost over my head. It engulfed me in the emptiness I felt as my world dropped out from beneath me. Cade was fiction. He was my fiction. And here I sat with the creator of Lucid. And he was seeing past the broken girl in the bed. He was seeing Cade.

“How could I say no.”

Hive Minded, Part 3

Hive Minded

It was darker than usual on the server. Normal day/night cycles exist, but this was far more ominous. I sat at my desk, toiling away at nothing. The door to my office slowly creeped open. I looked up to see what new client found their way to me. Slowly, their face moved into view.  It was WnDy. She peered at me like a floating head. Her smile stretched unreasonably across her face. I wanted to stand up. But I was stuck fast to the chair. My avatar just wouldn’t respond. I watched in horror as anteni slowly sprouted from her forehead. Her eyes, becoming huge and black. Suddenly her hair sprang out of it’s neat bun into six long legs. The WnDy bug latched onto the door and scurried up to the ceiling.

I was now frozen with terror as the thing made its way above me. I looked up into it’s black eyes staring down at me. Then it let go. The creature turned in midair. Its legs reaching out for me. I sat up panicked in my bed.

This is what happens when you try to sleep without Lucid.

The door opened a little. I looked over at the light to see who was coming to check on me. WnDy stood in the doorway.

“Candice, you’re heart monitor just spiked. Are you ok?”, she asked, never losing that smile.
“Yea, fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Alright then, I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

I can’t keep living like this. It’s been days since I’ve been back online. I need to know who is watching me. Hell, maybe they’ve given up by now. It took all the courage I could find to put that hood back on.

The world fell away and Lucid came online. I was at my usual spawn point, my desk. I looked around and saw nothing out of the ordinary. But I knew better than just assume things were back to normal.

I pulled my hat down off the coat rack and started the Private Eye program. I didn’t have to look far. The black bug sat perched in the corner of the room. It’s anteni swinging wildly in my direction.

I had to stay calm and think about this rationally. The bug couldn’t actually be an insect. But it was definitely modeled after one.

“Maybe I could get it to accept a trace program”, I thought to myself.

I took a tracer out of my coat. As soon as the trace came online the bug shuttered. It’s anteni now swept back and forth toward my hand. I stretched it out and watched as its attention followed.

“Oh, you’re detecting pirate code aren’t you, little guy”, I said to it for some reason.

I gotta say, talking to it helped calm my fears a bit. Slowly I sat the trace down on the desk and stepped back. The bug now transfixed on the trace leapt from the wall and landed on it. I watched in morbid fascination as the thing ate the trace. It jumped back onto its perch. Carefully I put my hand on the desk and pushed for the trace program to be displayed. It wasn’t there.

The bug hadn’t just eaten the code; it had destroyed the program. The trace screen did list this office as its last location. Which means that it fired once just before it was deleted. That was a bit of useful information.

I pulled up my terminal. The bug didn’t like that at all, but it’d have to eat my desk to stop that. Not saying it couldn’t, but it seemed unlikely. I began coding a new virus. What I needed was a way to dissect the bug. I needed to pull it apart and see what made it tick, who was controlling it.

I labeled the new virus “Roach Bait” and pulled it out of my coat pocket. The bug immediately locked onto it, as if it could smell the malicious code. I tossed it onto the desk. The bug lept from the wall and caught the program in mid air. I stumbled back in a mild panic.

The program was devoured in a matter of seconds. Then the bug scurried up to it’s post. However, a second bug now sat on my desk. A copy made by the virus. I sat down in my chair and watched as the bug on the wall slowly fell apart. Scattering away in a breeze that couldn't be felt.

I loaded my terminal back up and looked into the copy of the bug. It had several layers. The first being the insect construct itself. There I found an author tag, “Liccardi R and D”. So, the bug belonged to the makers of Lucid. That scared me a little.

The second layer was its drive. I found a very complex pattern recognition system. It was operating almost like a consciousness. The author tag on that, “Sonadim Corporations”. I had never seen anything like it. The program was making decisions based on previous experience. Previous experiences that were all fabricated.

I started looking at its motivations. First, it was to seek out any unauthorized code. Which explains why it was in my office. The entire building is unauthorized. The second directive was to destroy any malicious code. And the third was to seek out a specific person. The data file on ‘who’ was encrypted.

This brought up so many questions. The first was if I was the suspect the bugs were looking for. But it was probably only drawn to my illegal tech, not me. Since I could only see them using unauthorized programs, it made the most sense.

I got to its final layer. Deep in the code was a connectivity program. This program let the bug communicate with all other bugs in real time. If one of them found something, the others would know immediately. This sent a shiver of panic through my spine.

I looked up in the corner of the room, through the brim of my hat. Sure enough, a new bug sat watching me. Its antenna pointing at its dead brother on my desk. At this point in time, most people would walk away. But I couldn’t. There was a mystery here. And that’s what I do. I’m Cade Lamont, The Best Private Detective. And I have the fake certificate to prove it.

I began working on another virus. Something that would let me get between the bugs body and its mind. Took me almost two nights of work. But soon I had finished “Hive Vision”.

I pulled the virus out of my pocket and tossed it onto the desk. The bug on the wall did exactly as expected and ate it. With the virus implanted I loaded my end of the program. A pair of bug like sunglasses manifested in my coat. I put them on.

I was looking at my office but from the vantage point of the bug on the wall. The first thing I noticed was the red square around me. It was tracking me to some degree. I reached up and adjusted the glasses, pushing a command into them. The connectivity of the bug let me jump from one to another.

I noticed red squares on almost everyone. It must be part of its search. Each red square a failed match to its encrypted file. I jumped through a few more. There were so many. I started flipping even faster. Looking for something, anything to tell me the purpose of these things.

Suddenly, I was staring at a nurses station. I watched as charts were passed back and forth. I recognized these nurses. I sat with my mouth open as I saw my room come into focus. The door slid quietly open and there I was. In bed with the white Lucid hood over my eyes. And a green square around my body.

The Bugs, Part 2

The Bugs

I had been awake for several hours now. I could feel the pain in my head threatening to go from a dull roar to a thunderstorm. When this happens I normally just pull on my Lucid hood and go back to sleep. It’s my mask. Out here, I’m just sick little Candace Lamont. But inside Lucid I’m Cade Lamont, the private detective. The strange thing is I always felt more comfortable as Cade. Like I didn’t fit into the skin I was given.

Before I could get situated, the door slowly creeped open. My condition, myalgic encephalomyelitis, made it hard to take loud noises. So, my hospital door was marked with a quiet sign. The face of one of the nurses, Stacie, popped into the room. She smiled at me when she saw I was still awake.

“Lunch?”, she whispered.

I wasn’t feeling very hungry. My prolonged stay in the real world had left me kinda nauseous. So I shook my head, no. The nurse looked back over her shoulder and then at me again.

“I want you to meet someone. We have a new prototype on the floor and she may be checking in on you.”

I sat up in the bed and tried to look presentable. Stacie pushed the door open and behind her pushing a lunch cart was another nurse. She followed Stacie into the room leaving her cart outside. She was a small, unremarkable woman. Her blond hair pulled back into a bun made her look professional and sorta cliched.

“This is Wendy”, Stacie whispered.

Wendy walked up to the edge of the bed. Something about her made me just a little uneasy.

“Pleased to meet you, Candice”, she said in a low voice.
“Likewise”, I said nodding at her.

With very little warning, Wendy just walked out of the room. I looked at Stacie. My confusion must have been noticeable.

“She’s not a real person.”, Stacie began to explain.

That statement made me curious, but the storm in my head was beginning to rage hard and my discomfort must have been noticeable.

“You get some sleep. I just wanted you to know she was safe if she wandered in here without me.”

I smiled at Stacie as she walked out the room. “Not real...”, I thought to myself. I had to know more. Fortunately my office inside Lucid was the perfect place to find out. I relaxed into the bed and pulled on the white hood. I felt the world begin to drift away as the Lucid system pulled me into a controlled sleep.

I opened my eyes and I was sitting at my desk, Wendy’s face still bothering me in my mind. There was something familiar about it. I put my hand on my desk and pushed a command into it. All the made up certificates on my wall disappeared, leaving a large blank screen.

I focused on her name, “Wendy”, and the hospital I was living in, “The Liccardi Institute of Health and Medicine”. The search page appeared on the wall. But Wendy had auto corrected to “WnDy”. It wasn’t a name. It was a model number.

WnDy was a joint venture by The Liccardi Foundation and a tech group called Sonadim. Sonadim was a familiar name; a few years ago they invented the Synthetic Consciousness. At first, it was believed to be a method to reconnect with departed loved ones. But that was all shot down when a man filed a lawsuit against his ex wife for using it to resurrect her son. Identity laws got stricter that day.

Now they make the popup people that try to sell you things at shops. That’s when it hit me. WnDy’s smile. It was the same stupid smile the pop ups had. The interesting part was the body, it looked absolutely human. But the search page gave me little on that. All it would tell me is that the body was what The Liccardi Institute contributed to the project.

Fortunately, you can’t keep info from me. I had many ways of finding things out. I’m not the best cyber detective in Lucid for nothing. Or at least that’s what the fake certificates say. To get into the Hospital’s files I’d have to do a few not so legal things.

First, to secure the office. I pushed a command into my desk. The lights in the room turned red. I cleared my mind. But before I could do anything the lights switched back to normal. I looked around, very confused. I put my hand on my desk and asked for a diagnostic.

The wall showed that there was a connection to my office. Someone was inside with me. Carefully I stood up and took my hat off the coat rack. I put it on and loaded the “Private Eye” program. At first the room looked empty. No invisible person, which I was expecting. But then something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.

There was a large bug perched in the corner of the room. It’s long black body seemed seated in place. While it’s anteni swept back and forth wildly. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m very glad no one was around to see my six foot five, manly avatar shriek and shudder like the sixteen year old girl I really am. I grabbed my coat and ran out of the office.

The hallway wasn’t safe either. I counted three of them on my way down to the chinese restaurant. All about a foot long. All black. All creepy. I must have been noticed. I’ve never seen cyber security like this. But there was little other explanation.

I momentarily thought about un-Altering myself. But I didn’t want to do it where they could see. I’d be banned for sure. I thought about just logging off. But I could still feel the pain in my head. It was duller now. But it’d be worse if I woke up.

Maybe if I went to a public place. I got into the phonebooth and dialed a number for the center of town. I stepped out onto a busy street. Hundreds of people working and playing in Lucid casually walked around me. I lowered my viser looking for anything out of the ordinary, no bugs.

I walked for a few hours just trying to calm my paranoia. If they were just in my office they had to be targeting me. I slipped into invisible mode, not wanting to be around people for the moment.

Looking through the visor of my hat I could see the world when I wanted. Everything calmed down. I glanced again just to make sure I wasn’t being noticed. And something strange crossed my screen.

In the window of the shop across from me was a pop up talking to a man and his daughter. The ad was for some sort of new game. But just behind the pop up I could see something moving. I started walking over. Ignoring everyone but the pop up. As I got into the store It crawled up on his shoulder. The bug was waving it’s anteni in my direction. It seemed almost drawn to me. I stumbled backwards as it scurried in my direction. In shear panic I sprinted through the door. But the street was swarming with the things.

I logged off. I sat up in the hospital bed frantically gasping, my panic subsiding into furious pain. I laid back down in hopes it would stop. The door cracked open. I squinted toward the light. In walked WnDy. Her eyes fixed on me for a second. Her smile seemed to widen a bit. Then she closed the door.

A Girl of Many Faces, Part 1

A Girl of Many Faces

It was a dark and stormy night when he walked into my office. My taxi driver, Stan, stood behind him. The rain outside seemed to mirror this poor man’s emotions. His name was David, or at least that was what he signed the “Request to Meet” form as. He didn’t give any more details. But in situations like this it’s best to discuss things in person, or close to it anyway. I motioned at Stan to close the door. He’d go sit in his cab till we were done with our meeting. The privacy makes the clients feel safe.

David looked nervous. He probably knew that my services weren’t completely on the level. He understood that his account could be flagged for just talking to someone like me. You see, I work in the grey area of the virtual world. I’m a detective of sorts. It’s been four years since The Liccardi Institute gave the world Lucid; a device capable of letting a person be online while they sleep. 

This gave birth to a new community, and with it a seedy underbelly of con artists who found a new way to make a living. 

“What’s her name”, I asked.

“H-How do you know why I’m here?”, he stammered, paranoia creeping into his face.

“People walk into my office with that look, it’s always about a girl”.

“Are you sure it’s safe to talk here, Mr. Lamont”.

“Yes, the entire office is not just encrypted, it’s not exactly on a registered server. And please, call me Cade.”

I could see him relax just a bit. He passed the folder he was carrying to me. Inside I found several pictures of an attractive woman, a redhead with bright green eyes. I examined each photo in turn while David stared at me. Many of the photos had indications of fraud. Her face was very symmetrical, her eyes seemed to be just a little too big. 

In the public Lucid system, avatars are based on our own self images mixed with reference photos. Sure there are apps that let you make minor adjustments, and self help professionals that can improve your self image, but nothing major. Then, there are Alters.

An Alter has spent years training their self image to be someone completely different. It’s a Lucid rule violation and will get your account banned. Alters are willing to accept that risk though. The act known as Catfishing has been around for as long as the internet has existed. But in this world, it can destroy a person’s life. 

“She looks like an Alter”, I said after a moment.

The air just seemed to escape David. He slumped into the chair. 

“How much did you give her?”, I asked him.

“Too much”, his reply was just a whisper.

“Well, I won’t be completely sure till I find her. My fee is one hundred a day.”

He was reaching for his eWallet before I even finished my sentence. 

“Just find her”, he said nodding to me.

I reached out my payment hand and accepted the transfer. 

“How do I…?”, David’s words trailed off as he stood up.

“Just go back downstairs, Stan is waiting at the car for you”, I advised.

I looked back down to the assortment of papers in the folder as he closed the door. Chat logs, emails, photos, this was a well put together con. David had been reluctant to tell me what price he paid to her, but in the folder I found a wedding announcment. 

“He married her”, the shock forcing me to speak out loud.

The email read, “You are invited to witness the union of David Preston and Samantha Samson”.

“Samantha Samson, not the most creative name.”

It seems our society was becoming more and more comfortable in this virtual world. Maybe a little too comfortable. I put the folder on my desk and pushed a command into my mind. The lights in the room turned red. This was a visible indication that I was connecting to a public server. I turned to a wall in my office where a series of old certifications hung. With a wave of my hand the frames disappeared and I was looking at the contents of the folder displayed on a screen.

The first thing I did was to pull up her profile. Going back through all her pictures, I could see some telltale signs of photo editing. I’d have to get closer to her  to be sure. I pushed another command into my desk. A map of all the public servers in Lucid appeared. But there was no sign of ‘Samantha’. I refined my search, looking into the hidden servers. And there she was, in some BDSM related server.

Hidden servers are a lot less restrictive than the public ones. For starters, you can look however you want. So it’s a good place for Alters to hone their craft. But it’s also a good place to pick up viruses. Reasons I prefer not to go into them, save my own office. Instead I ran another program. This one looks at your travel history. The map on the wall displayed several icons. But I was only interested in the one before she entered the hidden server. A place we call a gateway. She didn’t have to come back through there, but people are habitual. The last known place was an accessory shop called “Lion’s Tattoos”. 

I picked up my trench coat and hat and headed for the door. I made my way downstairs through the Chinese restaurant and out to the payphone. Lucid had a pretty good way of keeping track of where you were, but the ability to travel by phone booth was very useful. I stepped in, called the tattoo shop, and stepped out across the street from it.

I brought up my menu and made myself invisible. Being invisible in Lucid is a provided feature of the network. However, to prevent stalking, when you go invisible everyone else disappears. It’s an eerie and unsettling feeling when a crowded street just empties. I leaned back against the wall by the phone booth. I tipped the brim of my hat to cover my eyes and pushed an illegal program into it. It was something I had written myself. The brim of my hat seemed to turn transparent. And through it I could see all the people walking down the street as if I hadn’t turned on my invisibility. I called this program the “Private Eye”.

I staked out that location for about two days. I don’t need to log off much, so It wasn’t very difficult for me to just sit there and play solitaire. I had almost given up on the spot when I noticed her. She was coming out of the tattoo shop. Which meant she had something to do on the public server.

I started walking behind her. Keeping her in view of my visor so I didn’t lose her in the crowd. She was headed for a jewelry store. And not one that just sold virtual jewelry. I had to catch her before she confirmed her purchase and logged off. Quickly I changed my appearance. A nice suit should do. My avatar selector is another custom program simply called “Disguise”. The French accent takes a second to get used to, so I stalled a second, dropped my invisibility, then followed her in. 

I took a trace program out of my jacket. 

“Excuse me miss, I couldn’t help but notice you looking over our fine selection of jewelry.”

She smiled at me and immediately ignored me. But I pressed on as if I didn’t notice, like any pop up ad would.

“Today we have a special gift for our new customers. Select any one piece of jewelry and we’ll give you a virtual copy to try out.”

Now, I knew she wasn’t looking for jewelry to wear. She was looking for a way to store her new virtual husband’s money. But it’s hard to pass up ‘free’. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. I could tell she was trying to figure out if I was a real person or not. I did my best to be neutral. 

“Accepted”, she said and touched a pendent on the counter.

I smiled my biggest customer service smile and put my hand over the pendent. I copied it to the trace program, using another one of my little tricks, “Copy Cat”, and handed it to her. She smiled again and put it on. Another ten minutes and  she had finished her order and logged off.

I raced back to my office. At my desk I pulled up the trace. The last known location was a real world address. I reversed the address and found a man named Jeremy Collins. Jeremy had a criminal record for identity theft amongst other crimes. More importantly he looked strikingly similar to Samantha. The trace also gave me her Lucid serial number. It was also registered to Jeremy Collins. 

I put everything into a single email and sent it out to David. What happened next was his decision. I sat down at me desk and disconnected my office from the public server. A notification appeared in my vision.

“Visitors”, is all it said.

I opened my menu and logged off. 

I blinked my eyes to clear my vision. The black Lucid hood blocked out all the light. I removed it and sat up in the bed. The hospital room was still mostly empty. At my left there was a small table with two different detective novels on it. One was my favorite, the other I had just finished reading for the first time. 

The door slowly opened and my mother walked in. She was doing her best to make very little noise. I have been in the hospital since I was thirteen, diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis. It’s a disease that affects my ability to be conscious and functional. Being in Lucid is the only way I’m truly free, and it’s been my life for the past three years.

“Candice”, my mother whispered into the room.

“I’m up mom, it’s ok”, I assured her.

She came in and sat down next to me. In her hands was another detective novel and a bag of fast food. Quietly she started to read to me and I listened as I ate. 

“It was a dark and stormy night”, she began.

The Anchor

~Side Note~ Sorry I've been away. Self published The Unchained Moon which will be available October 3rd. And the new novel Lucid had been taking up my time. But as I'm able to adjust to a schedule I intend to post more. Thank you for your patience. And without further adieu, The Anchor.

The brave knight climbed the steep mountain to the cave at it's peak. Inside he knew the dragon slept. He steadied his sword and cemented his courage. Into the darkness he charged. The cave was different though. It's blackness was not just as absence of light.

The walls were covered in scales. At once a giant eye sprang open. Our hero knew then the dragon wasn't sleeping in the cave. It was in fact the mountain. His armor shined as he retreated from the giant eye socket. His feet slipped on the rocks as they began to fall into the cavern below.

As if the dragon had possessed the world a storm ripped though the sky. Everything began to spin in the violent winds. The noble knight shoved his sword into the ground to allow him a handle. But his sword was tossed away as the scales of the beast broke free of their rocky prison.

In his moment of absolute defeat our hero saw a tree. It grew from the ground and spiraled into the sky. The dragon must have been wrapped around it.

Just as the last rock flew into the storm he grabbed hold of a branch. He felt as though the beautiful tree cad reached out for him. The dragon pulled it's massive body into the sky. Our hero could only see it's shadow back lit by the lightning.

But he wasn't afraid. He watched the tree sway in the wind. Such pure strength. Even though he only had one hand clasped around it's branch it was enough. He felt safe.

"You OK", her voice brought him back to reality.

He was standing in the park. The sound of cars and people in the distance. He looked down at her hand in his.


"Yea, I'm fine."

Witches and Wolves |NSFW|

The village of Renton was a very progressive town just outside the Hollow Forest. Their legends say that they were children of Father Night. And so their festivals and stories were rich with tales of the Moon. 

In this village lived a young man named Derek. Derek dreamed of becoming a Knight of Renton, the highest goal one could achieve in this small village. However, the path to knighthood was dangerous. Deep in the Hollow Forest was a mighty beast. Only the bravest men ventured in to find it. Killing the creature and returning with its hide was the only way one could ever call himself a knight.

Derek trained every day since he was old enough to pretend a stick was a sword. But he wasn't very good. His friends always seemed to outpace him. Every year he'd watch as the would be knights would venture out and return each with a hide. But never Derek. He'd sit by the fire and listen to the tales the men would tell upon their return. But he wasn't confident enough in his skills.

One day a merchant was making appeared at the edge of the forest. This was an unheard of event. The forest was considered extremely dangerous. The villagers were excited. The merchant brought with him items they'd never seen. Derek was excited too. But he was not interested in trinkets.

When the villagers had mostly gone to bed he made his way to the small camp the merchant had built. Lucky the merchant was still awake, tending his fire. Derek introduced himself and sat down. The old eyes of the merchant stared at him suspiciously.

"So, what is it you seek", asked the merchant gesturing to his cart.

 "Oh, nothing really. I just want to know how you made it through the wolves."

At this the merchant raised an eyebrow.

"Wolves, you say?"

"Yes, the forest is full of them. Every year we send out men to kill them."

"Kill them? Hum, cant say I saw any wolves."

"I dream of going on a hunt myself, but I'm far too weak."

The old man looked at the pipe in his hand. He seemed to be trying to make up his mind about something.

"Oh yes, the wolves. Dangerous creatures you are wise to stay out of the forest."

"But you passed through unharmed", Derek said.

"Very true, but I have a secret", said the old man.

"Please, tell me your secret. I'll buy it from you. I have gold."

"It's not mine to sell."

The old man pulled a small scrap of leather from his cloak. Carefully he untied the small binding.  Derek watched as the leather opened to reveal a small cake, half eaten.

"This keeps most monsters away", said the old man.

Derek stared at it.

"How much do you want for it", he said.

"Not for sale. Besides it'd only take you half way. You'd need to find the witch that lives in the Forest to make you more."

"There's a witch in the forest?'

"So much you don't know. Well, an old man needs his sleep. Off with you, Off with you. I'm closed."

The old man placed the leather and cake on top of the stump next to him and stood up. Then, he began to shoo Derek away.  Derek got to his feet, but his eyes never left the cake. In the flickering light of the campfire he could make out something written on the leather. It looked like a map. But before he could completely understand what he was looking at the merchant doused the fire.

Derek made his way back to his small house. But he wasn't ready to give up. He waited till the night was dark and the moon was high. He crept through the sleeping town doing his best not to make any noise. He could hear the old man snoring as he approached the camp. To his astonishment the cake and the leather sat right where the old man had left them.

Derek eagerly scooped them up and darted away. In the moonlight he could read the map clearly. Standing at the edge of the forest he gathered his courage. He'd find his way to the witch, buy more cake, and be back before the merchant knew what he'd done. Then, he'd be ready to take on the wolf.

First, Derek ate the cake. It was sweet and delicious. He could feel a sense of calm come over him. He looked at the map. It didn't look far. Derek felt fearless. He darted into the forest. He made his way though by moonlight. The cake lived up to the merchant's promise. He never saw a single creature.

Wasn't long till a small hut appeared in the trees. Derek didn't think that the witch would be sleeping. He wasn't even sure if witches slept. Quietly he crept up to the cottage. There wasn't a single light on. He found his courage again and knocked on the small door. Inside he heard things move. Slowly the door creaked open.

"I'm sorry to disturb you so late", he said, "But I was told you make special cakes".

"Come in", a sleepy voice called from the darkness.

Carefully Derek stepped through the door. A flash of light set the fire in the oven a blaze. In the warm glow Derek could make out the shape of a woman. She was pulling a robe up over her soft shoulders. Her sandy brown hair was pulled up into a bun. She turned back towards him. Derek quickly adverted his eyes. She walked over to him holding the robe closed with one hand. Derek felt himself flush.

"So what brings you here", she asked.

He looked into her dark eyes almost forgetting why he'd come.

"Oh, um, I was told by a merchant that you make cakes that keep the wolves at bay", he said.

"Wolves at bay", she said squinting at him.

"Yes, it worked really well. I sorta stole the last the merchant had. I'd like to purchase more. And if you have something that can make them easier to kill that's be great." 

"Oh, the merchant. Yes, I have more of that cake."

She lifted a tin lid off a plate on a table. Under it was a stack of cakes just like the one the merchant had. She pulled down a square of leather with a map on it and stacked two pieces on it. She turned and presented to Derek bound.

"10 pieces", she said.

"Oh, sure. And the cake that will help me kill one?"

"That's harder. I don't have all the ingredients."

"Oh. What do you need?"

"Well, maybe you can help me."

With those words the witch dropped her robe. Derek stared at her naked form in the light from the oven. He began to flush again. She crossed the room to him and kissed him hard. Derek was in shock. She pulled her lips away and smacked him, hard, across the face. Derek reeled backwards. But before he could get his footing she pushed him to the floor. His head bounced hard on the wood. Everything felt fuzzy and went out of focus.

The witch climbed on top of him. he could feel her hips grinding into his pelvis. He shook his head and reached for her. She smacked his hands away. Then stopped moving. Derek could feel himself grow beneath her, under his slacks. She stood up and dragged his pants off him. He felt embarrassed at his erection. He attempted to cover himself with his hands.

The witch smacked his hands away landing a blow between his legs. The pain shot through him and he sat up. She straddled him he could feel her warmth inches above his injury. Softly she stroked his face. Then she began to bounce. He wanted her more than anything he'd ever wanted before.

He grabbed her hips in an attempt to pull her down. She smacked him hard across the face again and got up. Derek felt himself growing angry. He'd never really been mad before. He pulled himself to his feet and stormed over to her. He reached out his hand and spun her on her heels. A smile curled across her lips. He pushed her backwards onto a shelf. Her legs parted. She hit him again, hard across the face.

The room seemed to have a red glow to it. His hand gripped around her throat. She smiled wider. He pushed himself in to her. Her hands found his back and she pulled him to her. Derek couldn't help himself. He pounded hard into her. He could feel her hands grab onto tufts of hair on his back. All at once he began to explode inside her. Spent he let her go.

He pulled himself from her and staggered backwards. The witch stood up and walked over to him. She ran her hand down his now bare chest. Derek followed her fingers. He was covered in hair.

"Every year I watch your kind come out into the woods and kill themselves", said the witch.

"I never understood why. You are such magnificent creatures. Father Night blessed you with such pretty gifts. So I guess you have a choice. You can kill this beautiful wolf and go home a hero or you can stay in the woods and learn to accept what you are." 

Derek stepped backwards and slowly shrank back into a naked man. He looked at the witch with a new understanding in his eyes.

"Either way, you better bring that merchant his cake. He gets cranky without it."