April 4, 2142

Connecting to LRPD Server. You have 1 unread message.

Marc: Thirty-two years old. Brown hair, blue eyes, 175 centimeters and 91 kilograms. No prior convictions. They caught him trying to hack the control pad to the vault door.

Jon: How the hell did he get that far?

Marc: We’re not sure if he had a signal jammer tuned to the security cameras or if he just got lucky. Probably not any sort of cloaking. Forensics is reviewing it now.

Jon: Any connection to the other ones?

Marc: Nothing we’ve been able to dig up.

Jon: What is this, the ninth one? There’s no way it’s a coincidence.

Marc: What I can’t figure is why they’re all going after that vault. There isn’t really anything important there. It’s all a bunch of server banks.

Jon:. The perp is employed by Spriget Corp. Some sort of project developer for Istrius, their vr mmo. Heh. I think my son plays that. And it looks like they’ve got servers in that building.

Marc: None of the other perps had any connection to Spriget.

Jon: Could be a lead.

Marc: I doubt it. Focus on finding a more concrete link between these guys. Maybe run down that signal jammer. Find out where these bozos are getting their hardware from.

Jon: But—

Marc: Signal. Jammer.

Jon: Alright. I’ll see what I can do.

Marc: Good. Keep me in the loop. My boss is breathing down my neck on this one.

Jon: And shit rolls downhill. Got it.

------

June 12, 2142

Marc: Damn it Jon, what were you thinking?

Jon: That I would do my job.

Marc: How’d that work out for you? Broken leg’s going to make it hard to get around. And what, two broken ribs? How many floors did you fall?

Jon: I’m fine. I’ll get a remote android from the armory.

Marc: The hell you will! You shouldn’t have even been there in the first place.

Jon: So what? I’m riding a desk now? You want me to run down connections on the net?

Marc: I want you to keep your ass home. You’re on involuntary leave.

Jon: What? Why?

Marc: Lucky it’s not a suspension. I told you to run down the street hardware, and instead you end up jumping out a damn window to avoid a security drone monitoring a building you had no business being in. You’re damn lucky you’re just “on medical leave” for the next six weeks. And I promise you if you come back, pending your disciplinary review, you will not be on this case.

Jon: Fuck, Marc. Come on. I’ve been working this case for six months now. No one knows more about it than I do. I’m telling you, the Istrius angle is playing out. I keep finding more pieces connecting back to this game.

Error Code 62557: Your user credentials have been suspended. Your connection to the LRPD server has been terminated.

The message flashed in front of Jon’s eyes. He ended his session and blinked as he readjusted to looking past his HUD at the hospital room he was in. “Fuck,” he said. He was so close. Every thread led back to Istrius somehow. Message boards, roommates, even a super creepy fan-fiction account, all of it. Every single perp connected back to that vr mmo somehow.

“Well, I’ve got the time now, I guess.”

If he was off-duty, he’d just have to come at the problem from a different angle. He refocused back onto his HUD and opened up a browser. The neural implant at the base of his skull picked up the signals his brain fired off and within seconds, he was at the landing page for Istrius. It didn’t take long to get himself signed up.

His HUD wouldn’t support a log in from the hospital, but he’d be home in a day or two. In the meantime, he pulled up his contacts list and fired off a message to his son. If he was going to be playing, it would be nice to have a guide.

Jon sighed, then winced in pain. It turned out broken ribs hurt like hell. He accessed the medical AI and pinged the nurses’ station to get someone to up the painkillers. If he was lucky, they’d do it remotely instead of making him wait for someone to show up.

A minute passed. Two minutes. Then five. Nope, Jon wasn’t that lucky. He tried to keep his breathing shallow and not move around too much. The next week was going to suck while he waited for his ribs to heal.