distraction. Ruby, that was all I could think about. Where was my wife? What was happening to her? I wanted her back with me like I wanted air. To me, there was no difference.
In my research explorations, I discovered that Sick World made a bunch of these games, but See Evil was by far their most popular. The head of Sick World was a twenty-nine-year-old California native named Peter Rosenheim. He had a Facebook page, set to private; a LinkedIn account, with fifty connections and no picture; and a Twitter feed with about a hundred tweets, all announcements for his games. A Google search didn’t turn up much on Rosenheim, but I figured he was an underground sort of guy, adept at communicating with his user base while keeping in the virtual shadows. We were both small-time game developers, but Rosenheim cultivated very a different sort of following from mine. Still, Elliot Uretsky played my game and his, so there was overlap. The Fiend could be a registered player of my game. In fact, he could be online playing it right now, using my servers and code for his enjoyment while holding my wife hostage.
Who would play these games? Why would they play them? I dug up an article in WebMD about the attraction of torture porn. I wanted to understand the Fiend better—figure out for myself why playing See Evil no longer satisfied his sick fantasies.
The article discussed something called the “horror paradox.” By our very nature, we’re programmed to want to experience only pleasant emotions. As it turns out, when tension and fear get built up and released—the climax when good triumphs over evil—the brain produces lots of those pleasure sensations, hence the paradox. But games like See Evil? Well, I just didn’t see anything pleasant or pleasing about it. Evil wins no matter what.
Maybe the Fiend played the game to cope with his own fears about violence but discovered within himself a hidden bloodlust. Or maybe he believed that he’d actually act out his fantasies, and hoped the game would serve as a release valve for his darkest impulses. Perhaps the game itself ignited a long-simmering sadistic streak—a deep desire for power and control. Whatever the cause, this psychopath had my wife, and I had just over eleven hours to get her back.
A vibration pulled me back to the moment. My phone! It had buzzed. I jumped up, grabbing it with fumbling hands. I took a look at the display screen. The two-word message sent my heart racing again.
Let’s chat.
CHAPTER 59
Agent Bob was doing something with my phone, but I didn’t care. I rushed to my workstation in the living room, knocking over a chair in the process. The mouse moved herky-jerky, imitating—in fact almost exaggerating—my shaky hand. Checking the admin e-mail queue for my One World game, I was not at all surprised to see an e-mail from Elliot Uretsky. He wasn’t speaking to me from beyond the grave. It was the Fiend, pretending to be someone he was not, just as I once had.
I clicked the link in Uretsky’s e-mail, knowing it would open one of those live video chat sessions. A Web browser did come up, with a view window showing only a black rectangle—a precursor, I supposed, to a two-way video conference. I wasn’t asked to provide a password, as I’d been the last time. I guessed the Fiend knew he was communicating with a trusted computer—the computer at the Harvard Street apartment.
Bob had his computer connected to mine, analyzing the data packets from my computer connection in real time. He was looking for the Fiend. The data he collected was being relayed back to a network operations center manned by scores of FBI agents. He sighed and groaned and threw a pen across the room; whatever he was doing, it wasn’t going to work.
Agent Bob grunted in disgust. “This guy is using a pool of anonymous proxy servers to keep hidden. Some of our tracking tools are being blocked by a firewall, too. He’s good. Damn, he’s good.”
Agent Robert was on the phone, I guess speaking with the FBI’s computer forensics operation center, while I watched the computer screen like it was a stove-top pot working toward a boil.
“We’ve got some early feedback on the text message he sent,” Agent Robert said to Agent Bob. “They think he’s using a burner phone.”
“Burner phone?” I said.
Agent Bob said, “Burner phones are prepaid cell phones, replaced frequently, sometimes weekly. That’s why we call them