Chapter 25: Social
(A/N: ' ' = Thoughts, " " = Spoken out loud. Oh, by the way, Patreon.com/TheGreatestHunter. I now feel the NEED to put that every. single. time. I want to just leave well enough alone, and not add it, but alas the world has a right to know.)
............
'How could I have been so stupid!" Jeremy couldn't help but berate himself. A rare moment of self-blame emerging from a man who once walked forward through life never looking back. However, sometimes a man needs to slap himself awake and it was one of those rare times for him.
He was sitting there, looking at his computer screen. The information being relayed telling him far more than he thought it would, when he began threading the strings that were the Mystic Falls online community and scrying through the facebook profiles of nearly everyone in town.
'Such a font of underutilized information in the palm of my hand and I have been wasting time contemplating setting up security cameras over such a large range.' He thought to himself, as he clicked on Anna's social and saw that she was a new girl in town actively making connections with the residents. Specifically, the children connected to the founding families...but only online, and not enough to draw attention.
"This could be good." He said, as he rubbed his chin and contemplated all the benefits that can come from catfishing the majority of the supernaturals in the world and how the young ones in the old organizations and clans would definitely open doors for him that he could not on his own.
'It's only 2009. Facebook is surging in popularity and Myspace is falling off. It will be a while before I can use it to really build a clear picture of the individuals of interest in the world and how they relate to each other, but one thing I know for certain is that those human-run supernatural hunting organizations are definitely active on social, if even it only includes some of their members, because in this day and age, and in the coming years, it would be more strange to not have a social than to have one.'
He began typing away on his computer, gathering the source code used on the site and then going to Myspace, since it was still a thing, and breaching their firewall and user information as well, and started ghost walking through their systems, looking for people or keywords of interest.
'So, Marcel looks like the actor. He always was "hip".' He thought to himself, as he looked at the Myspace of the vampire king of New Orleans and shook his head at his choice of using blues music on his page.
From there, he stepped right into Marcel's user page, email, and passwords. He read the messages sent, received, deleted, since nothing is ever really deleted, and noted down his connections in the modern world who were engaged in the culture and the evolving ways of communication and staying connected.
With that, finding different sources and some of the ways they touched the world wasn't difficult.
The only difficult part was the lack of speed at which his computer moved, but if he complained about that, he knew it would be the epitome of whining, seeing as how he was using the internet itself like his own personal looking glass into the lives of silly people who trust their online security.
'VPN's weren't even a thing in this time period.'
After finding himself lost on the road called life and going down the rabbit hole that was social media and invading others privacy, he decided to refocus himself and go back to the main reason he called himself stupid in the first place.
'Anna is a girl looking to infiltrate a town, gather information, and connect with the people, preferably young people, in it in the most efficient way possible. She's intelligent, resourceful, and willing to harm others to get what she wants. It only makes sense that she would employ social media as one of her tools, and even if she is not yet ready to make the in-person approach, there is nothing stopping her from doing so online. Especially, if someone carrying the last name Gilbert is active on the sites.'
And with those thoughts, Jeremy got to work. Re-vamping, no pun intended, his social media profiles and making himself less of a niche artistic loner who only followed or friended people with his own small world interests in such a small town, and got himself started on fitting in...making it all the easier for anybody to run across his page.
What he did not expect was how long it would actually take to get the shit done. Social media was truly a way to turn off your mind and get lost in all the people and possibilities it presented, if a person wanted to, and the more his unclosed tab that was the profile page of one Sean O'Connell kept popping into his vision as his eyes roved over the screen, the more he wanted to get back to exploring that part of the world and see what else he could find...and who else he could know. He was certain if he looked at Sean's page, Camille would definitely show up. As would many players in the human faction in that city...who had connections to other humans in the know in other parts of the world. All of which had knowledge and resources that were ripe for the taking, and so on and so forth.
'Social media truly is a black hole when it comes to pulling one in,' he shook his head at the thought. Feeling pity for all those out there in the world who knew not the advantages that it held. 'As well as the disadvantages....'
[Friend Request Sent] "Well, I look forward to getting to know you Sean."
Then, he really did get back to working on his profile. Filling it out, and making certain that there were no pictures nor connections to Elena whatsoever.
He didn't need anybody seeing her and thinking 'Katherine!!!!!'.
Once he was done, he immediately deleted his friend request to Sean and pretty much everything personal about himself, put in all the barest amounts of information, and then his reviewed his Jeremy Gilbert profile. One with no personal profile picture, but one of the school football team jersey and decorated the page with a few other typical high school boy shit that wouldn't tip off Anna that he was anyone interesting and launched it. Sending out friend requests to pretty much the whole student body.
And then, he went and created another profile, using a completely different email, another spoofed IP different from his Jeremy one, and made it look like he was based in a random state he didn't bother to glance at, only confirming it wasn't his current one. Once that was done, and he chose a picture of a dope looking sword and cross as his profile picture, he once again sent a friend request to Sean. But not before first friending a few people that were heavily involved in religious endeavors and making the world a better place, but not involved in the supernatural from what he could find.
'I can't believe I almost got Jeremy Gilbert involved in the supernatural world through social media due to a whim and the name continually catching my eye and itching for the access it brought to his father.' He once again berated himself and reminded himself of the dangers that social media holds and how easy it is to lower one's guard online. 'You almost caught me slipping Sean, but I'm on to you, pal.'
The next few hours were spent, not doing what he was supposed to do, which was finding different avenues to inflate his bank account and purchasing the cameras and tech that he wanted to get his hands on. No, it was spent searching for various people's socials, emails, and personal details.
He saw Hailey Marshall. Sophie-Anne Deveraux, and a few other big names. However, his search ended when he saw the profile of one Lexi Branson.
'Lexi Branson connects to Bree. Bree was the one to inform Damon of the importance of the grimoire before he killed her. Which means, Bree has information on the tomb and on the grimoire...but how?'
He could feel his curiosity mounting and was tempted to create another profile...but he didn't.
These were some long-lived people, and while Sean might be easy to manipulate, he wouldn't push his luck tangling with those long lived and knowledgeable individuals.
For all he knew, they could spell the name he uses online to do any kind of mumbo-jumbo and boom, he's got a nose where his dick should be.
'Nah, not worth my time, for now. But the weapons that Kieran has access to and the knowledge he holds are worth my time. Greatly worth my time.'
Somewhere in the void that separates one side from the other, Emily could be seen just sitting and watching Jeremy continuously sit, type, and then rub his chin with a profound look on his face, then going back to sitting and typing for the past few hours, and began to wonder if he had forgotten about their deal.
"There is nothing interesting about watching a person sit and play with themselves." She said to no one, as she began to watch what Bonnie was doing with her day, leaving Jeremy to his stuff, only glancing at him a few times to find him still doing the same thing, making her wonder when the boy would find something better to do.
(Hours Later)
"Yes, he clearly forgot."
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