The hospital locker room was empty.
Brendon was early for his shift and the current one hadn't finished yet, so he had the place to himself for a little while longer. He got to his locker and shoved his gym bag into the bottom. He admired his new haircut in the mirror on the locker door. His goatee was coming along nicely too. He was experimenting with a moustache and chin combination that he thought made him look debonair. An Errol Flynn on top with a Johnny Depp on bottom. It was only a few days old, but he thought it showed promise. He felt good too. The past few weeks he'd started eating healthier and exercising more and as a result felt more focused and energized.
Kross walked in, still wearing his running gear. He was panting. "Hey man. You OK?" he asked, exhaling hard and dropping onto the bench in the middle of the room.
"Yeah, good thanks. Just been to the gym," replied Brendon. Kross opened his locker and pulled out a drinks bottle. He glugged from it, keeping his eyes on Brendon.
"You do that in OR scrubs too?" teased Kross. Brendon gave a sideways smile. "Try to wear something decent tonight, will you. There might be people I know there, OK."
"Don't worry, I have a very nice shirt picked out for such an occasion. I won't embarrass you, so relax," reassured Brendon with a juicy dose of good humor.
Kross remained unmoved. There was a lull in the banter as Kross prepared for a shower and Brendon unpacked his white coat from the locker and loaded it up with the pens, torches, stethoscopes, and key cards he needed to operate in the ER.
He started to feel his wrist buzz. His smartwatch was vibrating.
He had a call. "It's Riley," he said. Kross half heard him and looked around holding his shower bag and wearing a towel. "Hello."
"Hey hon, it's Naomi, how are you doing?" Naomi was Riley's assistant.
"Hey Naomi, yeah, all good, how are you?"
"Good thanks, hon. Listen, Riley wants you to come in ASAP, babe. He thinks he's got something for you and wants to run it past you. When can you make it?" Brendon's face changed and he turned towards Kross. Kross sensed the shift in energy and started paying attention more closely.
"You mean come into the office?"
"Yeah."
"I'm just about to start a shift, but I might be able to get cover." He looked at Kross for approval. Kross gave it. "I can leave here in ten, be there in under an hour."
"Great, babe, see you soon. Mwah."
"Wait!" Brendon cut in. "Do you know what it is?" He paused. "What's he found?"
"Oh, I don't know, hon. He just asked me to get you over here as fast as I could."
"OK," said Brendon, taking a breath. "I'm leaving now." And hung up. "That was Riley's assistant. She said that Riley might have something."
"Did she say what?" asked Kross. Brendon shook his head.
"No, just to come in ASAP. You can get me cover, okay?"
"Sure, I'll get Anderson to pull a double, he's always after overtime." Kross could see Brendon's mind racing. "You need to go," he said. "Now." Brendon composed himself. He took off his white coat and hung it back in his locker. He grabbed his jacket and put it on aggressively. The two friends looked at each other. "Good luck Brendon, let me know what he says." Brendon nodded and started to move. Holding his towel up with one hand, Kross gave him a pat on his arm as he passed. He watched Brendon as he broke into a light jog leaving the locker room.
He then reached into his locker and picked up his cell phone to send a message.
Riley's office was on the other side of town. It was mid-morning so traffic was lightening up. As Brendon drove his mind raced through the possibilities. Had he found her, or had he found a body in a morgue somewhere that might be her?
He started re-living the conversation with Naomi, trying to gauge her tone. Was it upbeat or sad? Did she know it was bad news and just didn't want to tell him? Fuck! He pulled in hard round the back of Riley's building into a small car park and parked in the only visitor space for Apex Investigations. He got out and climbed the fire escape to the door on the top floor.
Through the door was the waiting room.
A couple of office chairs pushed up against the back wall with a coffee table in between. Some magazines arranged loosely and a plastic coffee cup on top of it. Immediately by the door a heavy duty filing cabinet and another one on the wall opposite. A few office-lounge chairs against that wall brought the chair count to five.
To the right a couple of metal cabinets had some pretty heavy-duty pad-locks on them. There was a coffee machine and water cooler in the corner. The carpet was old, dark and stained. The once thick pile had flattened and matted into a compact melange of fibres and dirt. The walls weren't much more appealing. A mauve striped wallpaper in varying degrees of decay peeled itself around the room.
Naomi sat behind a big desk with a large screen and assorted office paraphernalia scattered around it. Two more office-lounge chairs in front of it. She was holding an e-cigarette in one hand and using the mouse to do something on the screen. She turned with a jolt, "Hey Hon, you got here fast!" She stood up from behind the desk.
Naomi was petite. Brendon estimated mid-forties but given her bone structure and flawless caramel-colored skin she could have been older. She still had her figure and she dressed fashionably. Her hair was short and cropped but her strong face could carry it. Today she wore a short black leather jacket, a mauve vest top underneath and tight jeans. Every time Brendon had seen her she wore some kind of heeled boot.
"Yeah," agreed Brendon, "Traffic was light." He was panting as he walked towards the desk, "What's going on?"
"I don't know sweetie, but he's been dying to see you all morning."
"So, you think it's good news?"
"I don't know. Why don't you sit down and I'll get you a coffee Hon, OK?" Brendon nodded and sat down on one of the chairs on the back wall. He could hear Riley on the phone in the next room. Naomi handed him a porcelain mug, "Black, right?"
"Thanks." Brendon took the mug and placed it down on the coffee table. No way was he in a state to drink it. He rubbed his knees. Naomi sat on the chair next to him.
"How you been keeping? I like the moustache by the way."
"Thanks," Brendon said coyly, "OK, I guess. The last few weeks I've started to deal with things, and consider possibilities, but it's still tough, you know, and then things like this happen and it just sends you into a spin." He was rambling. Naomi looked motheringly at him. There was a hard click on the other side of the door. Riley must have slammed the phone down.
"Naomi! He here yet?" yelled Riley. Naomi rolled her eyes and smiled an ironic smile at Brendon. Then in an animated voice.
"Mr Blake will see you now sir," she said sarcastically as she got up to open the door to the office. Brendon moved past her and through.
Riley's office had an unorthodox layout.
Desks skirted the two walls adjacent and perpendicular to the door. On them an array of laptop and desktop computers. Some running some kind of code or program, others playing an endless screen saver, others just blank. Some clearly broken.
The floor was almost entirely a well-worn marbly blue linoleum, except for a rectangular piece of carpet in the back corner. On it was a brown two-seater futon and an ottoman that served as a coffee table. On the back wall, facing the door, were more cabinets with heavy locks and an open shelf unit with a printer and various pieces of equipment. Riley spun round across the floor on a tall office chair on wheels. It was about the height of a bar stool.
"Brendon, good to see you, son!" He came to a slow stop in front of the two of them. Naomi put a hand on his shoulder and gave his back a rub. Riley looked up and smiled at her a warm smile.
"Do you want me to get you some tea or coffee, baby?" she asked him in a low voice.
"Could you make me some of that nice green tea with lemon and ginger you made me yesterday?"
"That was for your cold, silly." She nudged him coquettishly.
"Well, my cold's all better now. Could I get another, please?" replied Riley in a similar manner. Brendon started feeling like a third wheel.
"OK, hon," said Naomi. "Would you like one?"
"No, I'm fine, thank you," smiled Brendon politely, wishing things would move along. Naomi left. Riley watched her leave.
"OK!" Riley exclaimed all of a sudden. "We have some progress." He raised his hands in the air and looked up as if he was giving thanks.
Brendon's heart started pounding. It started to seem like this could be good news. "Sit down, son," instructed Riley. "Do you have any other clothes? I only ever see you in scrubs." Brendon forced out a soft laugh.
"Ah, I just came from work," he said as he moved to the sofa and perched on the edge, paying attention intently. With a flick of his feet, Riley coasted back to one of the desks and picked up a large tablet. He then flicked at it a couple of times and coasted towards Brendon. "So this is where we're at," as he spoke, he flicked through screens with swift long strokes like he was scrolling down something.
Brendon scratched his face nervously in anticipation. He couldn't see what Riley was doing. Riley got up and sat next to Brendon on the sofa. "So, I set a watcher on every social media account that follows any one of Grace's accounts. Standard practice. It's set to flag anything that could be related to Grace, a hashtag she once liked, a mention of her name, her likeness, anything. Anyway, yesterday it flagged up this." He handed the tablet over to Brendon.
Brendon was looking at an Instagram account for @BohemianTatler2005. It was a picture post of a woman warmly hugging another woman. Both women were smiling and had their eyes closed as they squeezed each other tight. One woman was middle aged, curly short, silver blonde hair. The younger woman had blonde, voluminous, wavy hair. "Tatler was her maiden name," he said, staring at her.
He couldn't deny pangs of recognition were firing off, but he wasn't sure. Riley could see the cloud of doubt starting to roll in. He continued, "So the facial recognition came back with a match probability of fifty-six percent, but I figured it was worth a look. So this post was two days ago. I went through the other posts on this account," he started scrolling down the page looking for something, "and then found this one."
He jabbed the screen with his index finger hard. Brendon held the screen in both hands and focused on the image. This time it was a group of people standing around an ornate fountain in the middle of a park. It might have been Central Park, but Brendon wasn't sure. It was like a group shot for a boot camp or something; everyone was dressed in gym gear. He scanned the faces looking for more pangs of recognition. Then Riley leant in and zoomed into a face on the second row, far right. It was the same blonde woman again, this time looking straight into the camera, her eyes wide open, her face in a shallow natural smile. This time the pang came in more like a bolt.
It was her, it must have been.
"Facial re-cog has this one at a ninety-three percent match," said Riley slowly, emphasizing the number. Brendon's gaze did not shift from the screen.
"When was this taken?"
"About six weeks ago."
"Where is this place? New York?"
"That's the kicker," said Riley. "I processed the statue in the fountain through an image identifier and it came up with this. May I?" He gently lifted the tablet from Brendon's hand and navigated to the browser. He typed "Arlorn Park Fountain" into the search field. Images came up of the fountain and the park; it was definitely the same place. Some of the images were from Instagram, others were Pinterest and TikTok.
"Arlorn Park!" exclaimed Brendon. "This is Cyberdome, this is V.R.?"
"That's right," replied Riley. "This is from one of the communal spaces in Cyberdome."
"Are you sure that's even her, not someone who tweaked themselves to look like her or something?"
"There's more," Riley said. "Step over here."
He got up and led Brendon to a big screen on a desk on the opposite side of the room. On the way he pulled the chair in for himself. Brendon stood next to him and watched as he logged in. He clicked some nameless application on his desktop and a dashboard popped up.
"Now, I'm letting you in on some trade secrets here, my son, so you keep this to yourself, you hear?" Brendon nodded in the affirmative, not feeling particularly playful. "This is the Cyberdome archive. They log, catalogue, and record absolutely everything. It's like going back in time." Brendon's eyes widened; he was impressed. Clearly, this was a level of access that Riley wasn't supposed to have. "I was able to pull the metadata of that image from the fountain, so we know when and where the picture was taken." Now pointing at the screen, "I plugged that in here and could see which accounts were by that fountain at that time." He paused and clicked through some menus on the screen. "And this was one of them." He pivoted the screen towards Brendon, who studied it.
The handle was @Audi_Edwards2011. The profile picture was a close-up of the blonde woman's eyes, with a few strands of blonde hair curling down. Could this be Grace? Next to the profile picture were a few stats: Date profile created, last logged in, and a few other items listed below. Underneath that was a calendar view for the last three months. Riley scrolled back to where the timeline started nine months ago and clicked into the first day, the twenty-third of February. A page of video tiles opened up.
Arranged chronologically, running across the screen, the video files were all of different durations. "So this is her first day in Cyberdome." He clicked on one of the first videos. A player popped up in an overlay and started playing on the screen. It was of an empty User Space, identical to Brendon's. The footage looked as if it was shot from a CCTV camera fitted in the corner of the bedroom. Slowly, a figure started to materialize on the bed; it was a woman in black underwear and a black sports bra. She seemed young, athletic, and with raven black hair. Her chest started to breathe slowly, and despite the angle, Brendon could just make out her eyes opening. He swallowed slowly; his senses were starting to feel on edge. She slowly lifted herself up. Riley clicked something on the player, and the angle changed.
There she was.
Staring right into the camera. He paused the playback. Brendon was looking at her face. He had no doubt it was Grace.
"Are you sure this is her?" Brendon asked. "No alterations, no filters, nothing?" Riley clicked the mouse a couple of times and opened what looked like a history view.
"Twenty-third of February, twenty forty-six, oh nine thirteen @Audi_Edwards2011 logs in for the first time on a free account. No additional plugins or appearance altering filters running. Her avatar is a true likeness."
"What name did she give on the account?" Riley clicked a few times.
"Jane Doe. Probably like ninety-nine percent of everyone on a free account in CD," answered Riley.
Brendon's mind was starting to race. This was undoubtedly progress, but what did it mean? He put his hand to his mouth and slowly pulled it down his chin.
"When was the last time she was online?" he asked.
"She's online now," replied Riley.
"Can I see her?"
"Afraid not," exhaled Riley, navigating back to the history view. "Two days after this, her account was upgraded to an Ultra Tier, and she moved to a closed community."
"Ultra Tier?"
"Yeah. Three K a month," said Riley. "Could she afford that?"
"Can't see how, nothing's moved in any of her accounts, has it?" asked Brendon. Riley nodded no. "What about this closed community?"
"It's called The Sanctuary, and it must be one of the biggest CCs in Cyberdome. It covers the equivalent of around two hundred and fifty miles, and there is no way I can get any kind of data on it. It's completely closed off." He started scrolling through the history view. "No entries, no recordings, no information."
The entries on the screen just had time and date stamps followed by "Access Denied" in italics underneath.
"I've never seen anything like this before."
"How can we get in there?" asked Brendon, thinking three steps ahead.
"I can't see how, right now," returned Riley. "But there is something. Every now and then, let's say every ten days or so, she leaves The Sanctuary and goes out in the public areas where her movements are logged again." He stopped scrolling.
He pointed at the screen again.
This time at a section of the history timeline that was actually populated. "She visits a coffee shop in Arlorn Park near the fountain in that picture. She seems to like the carrot cake they serve there," Riley brought up a video. It was from inside the coffee shop at an overhead angle looking down at Grace sitting at a table talking to someone he couldn't see. She was laughing, eating cake and drinking coffee. Her now blonde hair tied back. "This was two weeks ago."
Brendon studied the footage.
She looked happy.
"If you want to get to her this is the only way," said Riley. Brendon nodded, visualizing a plan in his mind.
"OK," he agreed, turning to look at Riley. "OK, and there is no way you can find out where she's logging in from, no way to trace her IP address or anything like that?" Riley was emphatically shaking his head.
"Everything is stored in the Community's archive. There's no way I can access it from outside. If you want to talk to her you can only do it when she's out of the Community space."
"Fine, makes sense." Brendon was still staring at the screen. "So how do we do this?"
"I can set up an alert whenever her account is detected outside of The Sanctuary. I'll contact you and we'll be able to track her that way. Are you on a paid account?"
"No, I just use the free one."
"Upgrade to a tier two or three, that way you'll be able to start your session from anywhere. You won't have to land in your user space."
"OK," agreed Brendon. "I'll be on standby."
"Good. You hang tight son, I reckon she'll be jonesing for her next hit of carrot cake pretty soon." He tapped Brendon on his shoulder. Brendon gave off a weak smile.