Brittany placed her index finger on a scanner inside the forensics room of the precinct. She then pressed on her right temple, and an NeuReality (NR) screen and keyboard appeared in midair with the brief flash of the brand CyberBolt. After entering her credentials, she inserted a blood sample she’d obtained from Allan’s home into the tray next to the fingerprint scanner. The profile for Lillian Thatcher pulled up instantly.
“We have a match,” she confirmed to her partner. “According to this woman’s profile, she’s been dating our suspect for over four years.”
“You were able to get a DNA match that quickly?” Jill asked. “I’m never going to get used to this new technology.”
“You really need to join the new century,” Brittany teased her. “You’re getting feeble in your old age.”
“Excuse me?” she winked, “I’m still only twenty-nine.”
“Yeah,” she mused, “maybe for twenty years and counting.”
She chuckled. “So what do we know about this woman?”
“Redhead. Five foot nine, has a Bachelor’s in Mathematics and a Masters in Cryptology, makes six figures annually...” Brittany rambled on. “Oh, hey! This is interesting. As it turns out, Lillian Thatcher works at CyberBolt!”
“So does half the city.” her partner scoffed. “What’s your point?”
“According to her profile, Lily is a game developer and tester.” Brittany explained, “In fact, one of her greater accomplishments listed here is that she developed this Law Enforcement Terminal program that we’re using.”
“Oh? Go figure.”
Brittany continued to read through Lily’s profile, when suddenly the screen went blank. Confused, she pressed her temple several times.
“What happened?” Brittany stammered. “The data… it’s gone.”
Her partner laughed. “Well, would you look at that? Your perfect AR hardware isn’t so reliable after all!”
“Nonsense.” She placed her index finger on the scanner again. The Forensics screen reappeared, and she made sure the blood sample was still inserted correctly. This time, the search bar continued to load for several minutes. After nearly five minutes had passed, an error appeared on the virtual screen:
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NO MATCH FOUND
She waved her hand until she landed on the Skip Trace page, and entered “Lillian Thatcher” into the search bar. After a few more minutes, the same error message appeared.
NO MATCH FOUND
Confused, she entered the following keywords ‘CyberBolt’ into the Advanced Search function. She followed this up with ‘CyberBolt Entertainment’, ‘Chicago’ ‘Developer’, ‘Tester’, ‘Mathematics’, and ‘Cryptology’.
NO MATCH FOUND
Curiosity getting the best of her, she decided to test the server by entering her own name. Within moments, her profile popped up.
Brittany Ann Parker, Officer.
Chicago South Precinct
Relationship: Single
Love Interest: Lieutenant Jason Shapley
This thing is downright creepy!
Her face went crimson as she closed her profile.
“Well, I was able to find my own profile just fine.” she muttered aloud.
Brittany waved her hand until she landed on the forensics screen again. She ran the blood sample scan once more.
“There she is!” she recognized the photo as the profile loaded. “Wait… something’s wrong here.”
What on Earth?
“This isn’t her profile!” she stammered. “This says her name is Jamie Davenport from Tallahassee, and she’s an adjunct professor of mathematics at the University of Florida.”
“Well, at least the mathematics part is close.” Officer Brown shook her head in disapproval. “I still say the server has a glitch.”
“I don’t think so…” Brittany wondered aloud. “I think someone deliberately changed her profile.”
“That’s preposterous. You think someone hacked into CyberBolt’s servers and changed it? I may not know much about how the program works, but I do follow the news. Their mainframe is unhackable.”
“So they claim,” Brittany argued as she printed off copies of the profile details. “I need to talk to Chief Herbert. This could be a huge development.”
“He won’t listen to you.”
She turned, and their eyes met. “What do you mean?”
Officer Brown fidgeted uncomfortably. “It’s not important. Just be aware that he will shut you down and tell you to forget the incident.”
Brittany’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What are you not telling me?”
Her partner looked around in alarm and then leaned forward to whisper, “You’ve heard about former officer Doug Carlton, haven’t you?”
“I’ve heard of him,” she nodded. “Didn’t he get put on probation for insubordination?”
“Actually, he’s suspended from duty…” her partner said. “… permanently.”
“What?” she asked, incredulous. “What for?”
“He raised too many questions about a similar ‘glitch’ in CyberBolt’s software.” she straightened up. “But that’s all I know. So please, just drop it.”
“But don’t you think it’s odd that both victims had degrees in Cryptology? Do you think there could be a link?”
“I said drop it.” Her partner pointed at the printout. “Besides, Jamie here only has a degree in teaching Mathematics.”
“Her name’s not Jamie!” Brittany said. “It’s Lillian! Can’t you see there’s a serious problem here?”
Officer Brown raised her hands in surrender. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
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