V:O: Virtual training log #4202

Val knew not to shz where she ate and kept above board when studying the art of knowledge mapping. One can get duped into malware, losing sight of what is real, learning things one should not know.

So her shadows were well guarded, inspected. Dark corners and corridors in the net have ways of disorienting. They used to call them liminal. Now they call them vectors. What is really critical is sealing all points of ingresss, egress, and maintaining boundaries.

"Take care not to look for trouble, dear." is what she heard every time V:O dove into a sim.

V:O: Virtual training log #4202

It was a dark and stormy night in Wyatt county. George.B, a private investigator, sat alone in his dimly lit office, nursing a glass of bourbon. The rain tapped against the windowpanes, creating a hypnotic rhythm that soothed his troubled mind. 

As he sat there, lost in thought, a sudden knock on the door startled him. He checked his revolver, then opened the door.

"Mr.B?" a young woman asked, her face half-hidden by a hooded cloak.

"Yes, that's me. Can I help you?"

"I need your help," she said, her voice trembling. "My sister has gone missing! She was last seen hiking in the foothills, and she never came back, please."

George ruffled his newspaper, glancing momentarily at the lanky figure. She did not like to be looked at, he could tell immediately. Some kind of androgynous pale and dark nomad. Biker probably. She had a rather sonorous voice, with a bit of a drawl.

"Please, Mr. B," the woman pleaded. "I'll pay you whatever you want. I just need to find her."

George sighed. He didn't want to get involved in another case, but he couldn't turn away a damsel in distress.

"Fine," he said. "I'll take your case. But you have to tell me everything you know."

George.B wanted to take the woman's case, despite the fact that he was already investigating the cryptid sightings. (attempting to anyways, he was a little unsure where to start.) He took down her sister's name, description, and the last known location. As she left, the woman closed the door without touching the handle. She withdrew her gloves slowly...


:intermission:


The next morning, George's wife was preparing for her bridge game when her partner arrived. The silhouette of long russet hair, cut to the belt. the glance of a hard blue eye in the mirror.

"Morning, George," his wife greeted him. "Have you met my bridge partner, Ms. Watson?"

George nodded, greeting the woman with a curt nod.

:Intermission:

The next morning, George woke up in a cold sweat. He had been having nightmares of scales and blood, and they were unlike anything he had ever experienced before. In his dreams, he saw a strange symbol that he couldn't decipher.

The woman turned from the peephole in the house next door. She closed the oculi, turned off the instruments, and put everything away. She dusted every surface, and left quietly. George did not hear from the woman again.

:epilogue:

V:O took of the headset, fatigued from the sweaty helmet. Men could be difficult to map. Especially the highly intuitive types who mostly sat around staring at nothing while pontificating about little tidbits of information. It could be maddening. But she knew every experience was XP in the bank, to bake some levels into her profile. To get her ass out of dodge and into that workshop. the #077 model tatsmis blueprints were arriving soon, she wanted to see what was in there.