Reckless Disregard Read Free

embraced that advice, often to my great regret. I’m interested in the truth about this Poniard. And without work to do, I’m mightily bored. But there’s something else. For the past six weeks, I’ve been caught in the throes of a low-grade despair that makes the days flatten out, makes the nights sere and empty. The woman I adore left me. Anyway, this silly chat with a hacker is the most amusing thing to happen in weeks, and I want to hold onto it for a while longer.
    I switch to Microsoft Outlook. An e-mail from Poniard is at the top of my inbox. The message contains an attachment called scan.pdf . I click the icon. If scan.pdf contains a malicious virus, JADS will just have to deal with it.
    As soon as the file launches, I recognize the gold-embossed letterhead: The Louis Frantz Law Office . Lou Frantz is a bully and a blowhard. Also one of the top trial lawyers in the country, and someone who’ll never forgive me for what I did to him in the case we tried against each other a couple of years ago. I’m sure that Frantz would welcome a rematch, but I have no intention of giving him one. I’m now a mediator.
    September 12, 2013
Via e-mail The Individual known as Poniard
    Dear Poniard:
    This office represents William M. Bishop, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Parapet Media Corporation. We write to demand that you retract certain statements made against Mr. Bishop and that you immediately cease and desist from making false and defamatory statements of and concerning Mr. Bishop, to wit, that Mr. Bishop is responsible for the disappearance of an actress by the name of Paula Felicity McGrath. Such statements are made, and continue to be made, in a video game called Abduction! (the “Video Game.”)
    More specifically, the Video Game depicts the circumstances of McGrath’s disappearance in 1987, and then contains various levels and scenes that a reasonable person would understand as accusing Mr. Bishop of criminal activity. The language is false and defamatory and has been uttered with malice, i.e., with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard for its truth, all to the grave damage to Mr. Bishop’s reputation.
    Please acknowledge by September 19 before the close of normal business hours that you will refrain from all publication, distribution, or other dissemination of the Video Game. Please also make all efforts to retrieve all versions of the game that you have distributed. If you do not do so, Mr. Bishop will have no choice but to file a lawsuit seeking tens of millions of dollars in compensatory damages to his reputation, plus punitive damages. Please also be aware that you will be subject to deposition and other discovery and the obligation to testify in court. The deposition will be recorded on video and will become a matter of public record. Be governed accordingly.
    When I finish reading, I can barely steady my fingers to type into the keyboard. William Bishop is a billionaire, in control of a movie studio, a television network, seven newspapers, thirty radio stations, and a record company, among other businesses. And I certainly remember Felicity McGrath. She was an up-and-coming star, breaking out in 1983 in the role of a drug-addicted young housewife in The Fragile Palace . She got rave reviews, but after that she became typecast. By 1987 her once promising career was on the decline. And then she vanished.
    PStern
    >Who are you?
    Poniard:
    > You read the letter?
    PStern
    >Yes. Who are you?
    Poniard:
    >So you don’t play video games
    PStern
    >You’re right about that.
    Poniard:
    >I’m simply Poniard, a video game developer of some renown among some people
    PStern
    >Legal name, address, telephone?
    Poniard:
    >I exist here in cyberspace . . . no other address than the e-mail you already have, no other name but Poniard
    I should call security or maybe the cops. But I keep typing.
    PStern
    >And yet you’re real enough to accuse William Bishop of kidnapping Felicity McGrath? In a video game?