Season 1 Episode 4- What is going on?!

He managed to get to the apartment complex without drawing attention to himself from the police. His unit was located on the twentieth floor, but the elevator was down for the entire week which meant he had to take the graffiti-covered stairs. The complex looked more like market square with people trying to hock their bootlegs and digital drugs.

Devi-NT didn’t take the time to admire the view, he was on a mission to clear his name which meant having to do some investigating in the online world of Trinity Fire. A MMORPG with an economy that may have single-handedly took the country out of debt. People traded money for in-game services or goods that you weren’t even going to get physically. The prices players paid were beyond ridiculous, but lucrative. Devi-NT couldn’t complain, since he was able to get out of doing full-time jobs with just fumbling around the game.

Unfortunately, his visit was more personal than business or pleasure. He started up his laptop and searched for the main page of the video game’s developers. The site was basically built like Fort Knox except with firewalls and encryptions in place of rifles and possibly bombs. This was a cakewalk for Devi-NT—he went through the sign up page and scoped through the player database by breaking into the admin page.

A new page appeared with usernames of players with their first name “Eustace”. The results showed two pages. All it took was just matching the IP address with the one he found at the murder scene.

“Seriously,” Devi-NT scrolled through the pages, “How many people have the name Eustace?”

One by one, he searched their accounts until the addresses matched up. Two minutes became twenty minutes, but his lengthy investigation finally paid off. The culprit was named Eustace Towers, a rival of his during the weekend raids, but what drove him to murder?

Finally, he found the matching numbers as well as his username “Don_Rey”, who was currently online. This gave him a chance to exploit Eustace’s mistakes and to rub it in his face that he was the superior coder. He soon found himself logging into the game to locate the person who framed him. The raids were only open for the next hour, so he had to make each minute count.

~ ~ ~

He signed into the game with his avatar ready to do some searching for Don_Rey. The main menu opened up with the new raids and duos from the latest updates, so he knew the murderer would be checking out the newest maps. Devi-NT sent out private messages to his guild members and other players asking if they’ve seen his rival around. As expected, a couple of them pointed him to the new raids. He made us way to the entrance zone to the map they told him about.

A bunch of avatars exited the map with their newly earned loot, ready to be equipped, sold, or traded for other rare items. Unfortunately for the young hacker, he had more important things to deal with. He entered the dungeon to locate Eustace, but for sure the killer may already be halfway through the map. Devi-NT’s high-leveled character immediately rushed through the field, easily destroying the creatures of the game. He overlooked the loot with an uneasy feeling of incompleteness.

“So. Much. Gold.” He struggled to continue forward, “I need to finish this. Quick!”

He swiftly cut his way through the map until he found a field covered in battles, either against a monster or a PVP fight. Devi-NT didn’t want to attract anymore unwanted attention and silently dashed through the field before finding the name he desperately sought to find.

“Hello,” Devi-NT smiled to himself, “Eustace.”

“What do you want?” Eustace replied back.

“You know what you did,” Devi-NT cut to the chase, “I have the evidence you sent me! Don’t play dumb with me!”

Eustace’s face probably changed from arrogance to fear. He opened up his menu and quickly exited the game. Devi-NT quickly followed suit, but not before leaving a remote-viewing spyware into Eustace’s computer. This would allow him to view the usage of Eustace’s computer. The videos he watched, the music he listened to, and even who he contacted. Nothing was out of reach for him—just how he liked it.

~ ~ ~

Devi-NT quickly traced the IP address to Eustace’s home. He decided to try scaling the side of the house to the window above him. He doubted that the killer would be expecting him since he promptly left the game. He inched closer to the window, but something bugged him about it. The room looked dark and a cracked hole showed itself through the moonlight. His heart began to pump with adrenaline to quickly climb the gutter up to the second story window.

His face turned pale with the hole looking back at him, it looked like a bullet hole. Devi-NT used the sleeve of his sweater to quietly open the already unlocked window.

He silently entered the room intent on confronting Eustace with everything he learned as well as the incriminating videos.

His heartbeat began to pump even harder after viewing the floor covered with blood-smeared path leading to the corner of the room. A man sat on the floor struggling to breathe with his hand over his abdomen.

“Oh my God!” Devi-NT’s night just continued to grow uglier by the minute. He rushed to the wounded man, applying pressure to the bloody wound.

“Tell them…” Eustace struggled to let air in his lungs, “That I’m finished.”

“They?” Devi-NT couldn’t make sense of his words, “Who’s they?!”

Before he could say another word, another bullet zipped through the window to Eustace’s head, successfully finishing the job. Devi-NT quickly dived behind the dead man’s bed. Two more shots fired, but missed him by inches. His breathing sped up to an uncomfortable pace, and with his escape blocked—his only option was going down the steps. His fear didn’t allow him to make a move, even if it was the right one.

“How in the hell am I supposed to get out of here?!” He said to himself with desperation in his voice.

A sudden chime from his phone got him off-guard.

Do you want to live?

Devi-NT replied with a “Yes”.

Crawl out of the room, don’t show your face.

Devi-NT followed the stranger’s order without hesitation. He managed to escape the room in one piece, but he knew the front door would be covered by the sniper.

His phone chimed again.

Sneak out the back, there’s a black car waiting for you.

The hacker stayed crouching, but managed to throw a pan at the glass door that led to the backyard.

Devi-NT texted back with a “Who are you?”

I’m the person who’s saving your ass. Make it quick.

As promised a black car waited by the house, but he saw no one inside. He wanted to check inside the car, but was quickly pulled in by a suited man. The car skidded off to the streets ahead.

“Who the hell are you?” Devi-NT gasped with confusion.

“You know,” The suited man looked at the rear-view mirror, “A simple ‘thank you’ works.”

“Someone shot a dude in front of me and tried to kill me along with him,” The scared hacker said, “Sorry, if my manners are not top priority.”

“You searched a little deep into the rabbit hole, kid,” The suited man pulled out a large pistol from under his seat, “You pissed off the wrong crowd.”

He drifted on a turn into an abandoned warehouse—a long way from Eustace’s house.

“Where are we going?” Devi-NT bewilderedly asked.

“Someone needs to give us answers,” The suited man got out of the car, “And I’ll be damned if I let him escape.”

“Us?” Devi-NT followed him out of the car, “Answers? What the hell is going on?!”

His unpleasant night was just getting started.