Read Online Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5) by Niall Teasdale - Free Book Online

not much of a change. I cross-checked against the blocked list. LifeWeb should have blocked the account earlier given that the personal data is obviously faked. However, since assuming control of LifeWeb, MarTech has suspended several hundred thousand accounts which broke the rules in this way.’
    The shower was already running, at just the temperature Fox liked. She pushed her head under the stream of water and let it wash the last of the sleep from her mind. ‘Okay. So he created a fake account specifically to post to Sakura’s page?’
    ‘He created it on the twelfth of August last year, favouriting Miss Sakura’s page immediately and not looking elsewhere. His first post was on the twenty-third of that month, a rather effusive fan posting about how Miss Sakura’s music “spoke to his soul.” He posts once a day after that, each post just as flowery as the last, but we get extra posts when he finds anyone suggesting that Miss Sakura’s work is less than perfect. He is blocked on September twenty-eighth after suggesting that one poster did not deserve to live and that he would “erase the freak from existence.”’
    ‘Okay…’
    ‘BeastOfKnossos logged in once on the twenty-ninth, presumably discovered the block, and the account was not used again. Having received only one block, he did not trigger LifeWeb’s automated checking and the account remained active but unused until October ninth when MarTech instituted the new auditing system.’
    Fox nodded. ‘You’ve looked at obsessive fan posts before. What’s your opinion?’
    ‘The posts themselves show an obsessive aspect to Minotaur’s personality which is worrying and might warrant further investigation. However, there is another factor which I believe suggests a greater threat.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Yes, Fox. I scanned the account of the person Minotaur said he would “erase” and found a number of posts indicating the difficulties that person has had since September. His accounts on a number of private music sites have been deleted along with any posts he made there. He has also had problems with banking and access to his apartment block on several occasions. Minotaur has not erased him, but someone is making life hard for him.’
    ‘But his LifeWeb account is okay?’
    ‘MarTech acquired LifeWeb last August, if you recall. LifeWeb’s security was upgraded almost immediately, and further upgraded at the end of September.’
    ‘Okay…’ Fox rubbed shampoo into her hair and considered. ‘Send a message to Ryan indicating that we may have an issue. Give him the basics, and tell him I’ll call him when it’s a reasonable hour in Chicago. Send something to Charlie saying we’ll drop in and see Sakura this afternoon. And find me a slot in the schedule when I can do that.’
    ‘You were planning to come back here to change for the party, correct?’
    ‘Yeah, that was the plan.’
    ‘If you change in your office at the tower, we could easily fit in a visit to Miss Sakura’s suite before socialising.’
    Fox smiled. ‘Good thinking. Okay, get Belle to put my dress and shoes out and I’ll take them with me. Check with Charlie that they’ll be in the suite at that time.’
    ~~~
    ‘All right, let’s settle and we can get on with the fun.’ Fox waited a few seconds as her team fell into silence. They had decamped to another part of the kilometre-high arcology for the final item she wanted to cover in the course: choice of weapons.
    The morning had been fairly hard. Terri had come over to give them a load of detailed background on the technology they had available. It was probably overkill and they had all looked a little shell-shocked at the end of it, but both Fox and Terri felt it was useful to know a bit more about the inner workings of the equipment. However, Fox had scheduled in something a little more fun to finish up with.
    ‘I know you’re all checked out on basic firearms,’ Fox said when silence fell, ‘but we have two sidearms