Claude walked into Dane's office carrying a laptop computer and what looked like an old fashioned transistor radio.
Dane looked up from his desk and started to say something when Claude put a finger on his lips and shook his head no. Now he had his attention. Claude was one of their younger lab techs but one of their most accomplished. He held three different doctorates and was considering a fourth. He was proficient in not only his neurobiology background but also in coding. He was the perfect employee for them. If Dane could have cloned him he would have. Alas, cloning wasn't within his reach just yet.
Claude put the radio on Dane's desk and turned it on. Static noise poured through the old tinny speaker. Then Claude opened his laptop and typed for a few moments before turning the monitor toward Dane.
There was a picture of Jean. Dane wasn't sure what he was supposed to be noticing then Claude pointed to the bottom of the screen.
It was a missing persons link. The information listed was for a Joanna Fairchild.
Dane looked up at Claude puzzled. Claude then scrolled down the page and pointed again.
Dane was reading a post on an internet forum he had never heard of, Claude caught his eye and mouthed, "Back channeled."
Dane nodded his head as though he knew what that meant. He didn't really but could get close enough to figuring it out. This wouldn't be something you could find just by a quick Google search. And the fact that Claude brought it in on his own laptop meant that his own search was being bounced all around the globe and hidden from anyone who might want to trace who was looking at this site. Dane knew Claude did these sorts of things in his free time. They had talked about it when Claude was first hired and then even more once the government wanted to get involved with the technology.
Dane read the rest of the post. Joanna Fairchild had disappeared a year ago. Her on again off again boyfriend had been looking for her ever since. She had no family, she was an only child and her parents had passed years ago. She had quit her job and gone to work for a new company right before her disappearance but the boyfriend did not know the name or what she would have been doing there, they hadn't had a chance to talk about it yet. He had filed a missing persons report with the police and at first they had listened to him and said they would investigate but then said he had no standing to file and they didn't believe she wanted him to find her, they were in an off again moment after all.
There were replies on his post agreeing with the police. That he was probably a stalker and if she wanted to be found by him she would have let him know where she went. Then he posted screenshots from his phone of the day he last heard from her. They had been making plans to meet for a movie over the weekend. He also posted numerous screenshots of other text exchanges showing that they had always maintained a good friendship even when they weren't dating. He then asked for their help in tracking her down. He was out of leads.
Dane continued reading and it was like a mystery novel unfolding in the space of replies. Her apartment had been rented to a new tenant. Her bank account had been closed, all of the money withdrawn in cash. The video recording from the day she supposedly withdrew the funds was missing so they couldn't see if it was her on the tape. Dane looked up at that point and motioned for Claude to read that section. Claude read it over and nodded. Dane mouthed, "How?" Claude shrugged.
So this board was populated by people with connections. But not enough connections to find Joanna Fairchild. She was just gone. No more records of her anywhere. Her cell phone had been disconnected. Her bank account cleared. Her student loans paid off. Her credit cards cancelled. Her driver's license suspended. She just stopped.
All within a few months of her boyfriend reporting her missing.
Gone.
And then she was Jean.
Claude took the laptop back from Dane when he finished reading and closed everything down. He pointed at the radio and then at the door making a walking motion with his fingers. Dane got up and joined him.
Once they had walked outside and few blocks away from Memory Lane, Dane spoke, "What the hell is all of that?"
"Jean was someone else. All of those memories? They weren't from a Joanna Fairchild. The people in her implanted memories all called her Jean. She knew she was Jean when she was reliving them. But this," Claude tapped his laptop, "seems to show that that was not who she was."
"Well shit...what do we do with this?" Dane thought they probably should call Detective Green, and possibly the number on the warrant from the feds. This had to be important. But on the other hand he just couldn't help but feeling that might not be the best idea.
Claude nodded seemingly following Dane's thought process, "So my first idea is that we post a copy of Jean's photo ID from when she started at the clinic and a link to her file at the morgue."
"You have a copy of her morgue file?"
"Well, not yet, but that is pretty easy to get."
Dane shook his head, "I don't even think I want to know. You said that was your first idea, what is your second?"
"Do you feel like you trust Detective Green?"
Dane thought about it for a moment. She had been incredibly confrontational with him and she clearly didn't like him or the memory technology but..."Yeah, I do. She's not my biggest fan but I think she's good at her job and actually cares about what she is doing."
"Okay, then that is our other option. Instead of tipping them off to where Joanna went, we tip her off as to where Jean came from."
"But that's not your preference?"
Claude shrugged, "I don't trust people in authority as a rule. I don't like how the police started out helping in the search then decided that a missing woman was not actually a big deal. I think they've bugged our offices, I don't have any proof but I'm getting a weird electric pulse on my equipment that's not coming from anything we are running. I just don't know that the police are the best shot. But I also know that Detective Green was not involved with the confiscation of our files and wasn't informed that this other agency would be involved. I also know she's continued researching both Jean and the California woman even though those cases are supposedly closed so..."
"How do you know she continued?"
"Digital footprints are easy to follow if you know what you're tracking."
Dane wasn't sure his idea of cloning Claude was sounding as good to him as it had been just a few moments ago.
"Let's think about it overnight and decide in the morning."
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