Dark Lethe -- Trapper John

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Trapper John

John M. Jacobs sat back in his overstuffed leather chair, contemplating the screen set on the polished walnut desk in front of him. It had taken him only a few mouse-clicks and keystrokes to determine the victim's identity. Lethe security protocols were some of the best in the business. They'd built their name and reputation on a guarantee that no one person could access all the required system data to couple a virtual ID to a real-life user. They kept careful transaction logs to prove in lawsuit after lawsuit that any such associations were the fault of users giving away their identities in their own activities in the Lethe. If the board of directors knew someone outside the organization had access to the classified databases heads would roll. If they knew that person was a lawyer, they'd have heart failure. If they knew that Lawyer was John Jacobs, there would be a contract out on him immediately. Fortunately for Jacobs, the body wrapped in chains at the bottom of the Largo River was the insurance that kept his capability both secret and current.

Jacobs reflected back to that night of opportunity when he'd gone for a walk at the lake to clear his head as he often did after a long night of consulting. The couple in the lot, the man with the scar shaped like the number seven, and the dark secret he wanted to keep submerged from view. That secret had opened the doors to the Lethe wider than money could ever have.

Jacobs brought his thoughts back to the present and peered over steepled fingers at the data. Daniel Trenton Spearman, it told him, was a 36-year-old VR junkie running up bills on his father's account. He averaged between fifteen and thirty hours per week in the Lethe, mostly on weekends. More during school breaks. Obviously, Mr. Trenton David Spearman was a man of means to afford such VR bills.

John sat forward. A few more mouse clicks and keystrokes later and he was waiting for the young Master Spearman's school records to come up on the screen. He tugged his vest back down to his waistline while he waited. He sighed as he reminded himself that he didn't have this problem six months and fifteen pounds ago. Too much desk time and too much VR, he chided himself.

He sat back comfortably again as the records began assembling, file by file, on the screen in front of him. He glanced up to the painting of a Tahiti beach at sunset hanging on the paneled wall and thought smugly to himself, 'It won't be long now, John, and you won't have to worry about desks or VR. Who needs VR when you're living the fantasy?'

Jacobs scanned through the records. They told him just what he expected. Daniel Spearman was a lack-luster student in high school - good grades in math and science, barely passing in everything else. A pattern of tardiness and absences that he assumed would trace directly to periods of high VR bills. A suspension for spying on the girl's locker room. That fit with what he'd learned so far . Employment records showed him working part-time for a local software company.

Next he looked up the father. Trenton Spearman, retired Silicon Valley executive owned a house in the Saratoga hills paid for with cash from the stock options when his software company went public in the late 90's. John noticed that this was the same company where Trenton's son now worked. Trenton's first wife, Lori, died ten years ago in a late-night car crash on the infamous Highway 17, a winding four-lane road that connects Silicon Valley to the beach at Santa Cruz. His second-wife, Rita, was doing time in the Milpitas Correctional Institution for child abuse and child endangerment in relation to their younger daughter Brittany Claire. So life at the Spearman house was anything but idealistic. That could explain the VR habit - a too-busy guilt-ridden father letting his kid escape from the pains of reality.

Brittany Spearman had run away at 16. There were no records on her current whereabouts. Daniel had an older brother, Trenton Jr. He died in battle in Angola. Jacobs clicked on the Lethe window and ran a quick search. Angola.... That fit as well...

A grin broke out on John Jacob's face. Slowly at first, but then it grew to face-splitting size. The trap was working! Months of painstaking work had yielded a VR trap so complex that it could peel away the VR persona itself and reveal intimate details of the REAL user! A sinister gleam formed in John's eyes as he thought about the potential. The Lethe was a popular place for dealings of all kinds - business, political, even sexual. Sometimes a mixture of each. Legal dealings were often carried out with VR personas that resembled the real person. It was the not-so-legal and down-right immoral dealings that were carried out under the anonymity of VR personas. Most with security accesses far above those John had acquired so far.

But with this new capability, Jacobs could alter the balance of power in the Lethe. Security protocols or not, John could learn the secrets of anyone in the Lethe. And as body in Lake Largo proved so well, many secrets were worth more when kept in the dark than in the light. His South Pacific-island sunset was coming ever closer to reality...

"...Mr. Jacobs," the intercom broke into his fantasies, "Your 10 o'clock is here."

Jacobs closed the windows on his screen, leaving the Lethe process running silently in the background. "Please send Mr. Jenkins in," he told his secretary as he pulled up the appropriate file onto his screen.

To be continued...

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