2020-09-08 - Eminent Domain

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : Ms. Machinae? It's Alexander Clayton.

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : You’re going to make this a thing, aren’t you?

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : I don't understand what you mean.

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : Call me Mac.

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : That's not your name. Do you play video games? Computer games?

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : (Bouncing dots)

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : I've typed like 15 responses and I'm just at a loss.

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : Mac IS my name. Yes, I play video games.

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : Have you played Battle for Babylon? Found the secret quests?

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : Dude, I love that game. What secret quests?

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : The sacrifices to the gods. I can show you. But I think one of the developers may be a local serial killer. Or someone's adding content to the game without dev permission. Is that possible?

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : I'm going to hedge and say it's probably disgustingly hard? Games patching from build to production wouldn't just pile code on top of the live servers. Most MMO's patch a ton. If they are adding stuff to the game, they'd have to compile and edit every time it was patched to add their content. So... Unless they hacked the company themself and edited the game master, they're a dev.

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : Could we meet? I can show you one of the quests, and some forum posts, and explain in more detail. You could come to my place, if you don't mind Elm.

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : The lair of Clayton. Interesting.

(TXT to Alexander) Abitha : Yeah sure, send me feets.

(TXT to Abitha) Alexander : It lacks chains or bloodstains. I do have a cat and a conure, though. 13 Elm Street.

13 Elm Street is a rundown, ranch-style rental somewhere along the middle of Elm, just before the neighborhood goes completely downhill - most of the people in the houses nearby are mill workers or retail workers just barely getting by, and it shows. 13's yard is actually one of the tidier ones, and aromatic herbs and flowers have been planted in neat little beds in the front yard. The house itself has cracked and peeling paint, but signs of recent repairs on more structural things. There's no car out front, and all the windows are blocked by blinds, but Alexander is...probably home. Surely he wouldn't have invited someone over and then buggered off somewhere to leave her standing outside.

It would likely be a little while, which Alexander would likely identify with. Mac walked everywhere and given her current living situation on Oak, she'd show up in an appropriate amount of time given the walk. She shows up in her traditional mix of casual, faded denim shorts over leggings and cConverses, antisocial joke-emblazoned tee and her hair pulled up into a bun on the back of her head. She was carrying a courier bag with a Blackwatch logo, big enough to lug her laptop in, and a bottle of water dangles in one hand.

She knocks on the door.

The door is opened promptly, so yes, Alexander is home. He's...very Alexanderish, really. Faded Pantera concert t-shirt, with a long-sleeved, oversized flannel thrown over it and hanging open, worn jeans, and bare feet since he's inside. "Miss...Miss." He bobs his head awkwardly, and waves her inside. "Come on in. Hi. Mind the cat." The cat is a white ragdoll with big, blue eyes, who sits regally by the door, her eyes fixed on Mac, clearly sizing her up for whether she will make a good giver-of-pets. The living room is sparse - jumble shop sofa and coffee table, an old television with an original Nintendo hooked up to it, some family photos on the wall, and an indoor garden instead of a dining table in the dining nook, with plants giving off subtle floral and herbal scents.

Alexander closes the door once she comes in, and locks it, because this is Elm Street. "My office is over there." He points down the hall to an open door, which does lead to a small bedroom that's been converted to an office. An older desktop is on the desk, there's filing cabinets, bookcases. Mostly standard, although all the books are cheerful things like forensics textbooks, criminal history and psychology, and true crime novels. And, for some reason, a small collection of old school occult texts - Golden Bough, Satanic Bible, etc.

“Say it with me: Mac.”” Abitha attempts to instruct Alexander, both palms held up toward him and bobbing like a conductor trying to coax the music from him. She steps inside with that typical sweeping gaze of her eyes, taking in the front foyer, then doing as commanded and minding the cat. She squats, knees together, offering the backs of fingers to be sniffed, then attempting a scratching above the ears before rising back to her feet and following along.

Alexander can likely observe what she was observing. She peeps the system, a grin an a faintly arched brow to her expression. Old-school, admirable. The plants draw a faint twitch of her eye, like she were trying to make sense of the space swap. She eyes the pictures, but doesn’t intentionally snoop, as that would likely come off as rude. She abandons the attempt at subtlety when she sees the occult books, though, betraying the little subset of her interests as she stands and checks the collection with a faint grin.

Alexander's jaw sets in a stubborn line. "No," he says, bluntly. There's no anger in him, just a bone deep resistance to the idea. The cat, though, is much friendlier; she sniffs the offered fingers delicately, then headbutts for a good scratch, a rumbling purr coming up. The bird cage in the corner has a green bird in it who is...less thrilled with an invader. The bird stares at her with beady black eyes, then rings his bell in angry protest. "Hush, Luigi. She's fine." The bird turns his tail to them both.

He leads the way into the office, and gestures for her to take the one chair if she wants. He doesn't seem to mind her checking out the books, although he seems so generally nervous that any discomfort might get lost in the static. "You've heard about the murders in town? Fitzgerald? And a new one found, which was actually an old one, in the Firefly woods. And just recently, the newest." He reaches for a file on his desk, opens it, and pushes some printouts of digital photos of...a burned human body, still burning, tied to a post. Because that's definitely something you spring on new acquaintances.

There’s an intake of breathe, widening eyes, and her lips make an ‘O’ shape as she just finds the bird’s name adorable, but she refrains from further comment, clamping her mouth closed, lips sucked in in mischief.

“If you call me Mac, I’ll fix your police scanner.” She offers, voice sing-songs. Normally, she’d demand, rail, huff. Something about how staunch he was about it made her think cajoling might work. Maybe. It was worth a shot.

“I mean, I guess?” Abitha did work at the precinct regular enough to have heard of murders, but as they’d not seemed to the officers as having been related to organized crime problem she’d been hired for, she hadn’t heard much else. The revealed photos are glanced at, her expression turning to a frown. She doesn’t look long. Sure, she could handle a little grossness, she was a child of the digital age, and media bombarded her with gruesome images. But still best not to linger, contemplate. “Nothing somebody has brought to me, anyhow.”

Alexander gives Mac a suspicious, sidelong look at her reaction to the bird's name. "Don't stick your finger in there. He bites strangers," he says, at last, perhaps misinterpreting the source of it. He visibly twitches at the offer. "It's not...right. It's not your real name. It's amputated. A bleeding, incomplete stump of an identity." A pause. "...but if you fix my scanner, I'll try." His face is drawn in grumpy lines...but he really likes his police scanner, damnit.

He clears his throat. "Anyway. Yes. Murders. I'm working with others to try and catch the killer. He seems to believe that he's sacrificing his victims to appease gods. Specifically, Babylonian gods. More," he takes a seat on the edge of the desk, and reaches over her to bring up his computer and then log into Battle for Babylon. He's playing only one character - a Rogue DPS type, although an experienced player will easily see that he's got some...weird abilities for a character. 'Summon Shadow Sheep', for one, and he's got 'underwater breathing' when the ability to even swim is only weeks old, and it doesn't seem attached to any particular skill tree.

Alexander's character name, surprisingly, isn't Alexander_Clayton or something similar. Instead, it's AttacKur. Because apparently even Alexander can be bitten by the MMO stupid character name bug.

“That’s...” she starts at his protest, her eyes lifting, her face pensive, contemplative, she false-starts on another word, closes her mouth, then slowly continues, “Actually, not too wrong. I like it. Amputation.” She lets her look go back to Alexander, a brow twitching as she shrugs, “But it’s healing more than bleeding.” She makes a gentle, straight-handed motion like a little chop, and her hands then move like they were setting something aside, “That part is me though.” She opens her mouth, then shakes her head and stops again, all sorts of thoughts wanting to me made known, but settling instead for. “That’s a whole other conversation we’re gonna have when we don’t have other issues.” Because they totally will have time away from other issues in Gray Harbor. Totally.

She moves to observe the character, and he can tell she was in full-interest and analysis. There’s a smirk at the Sheep power, a subtle, teeth-gritted, ’Yessss.’ of appreciation for a hilarious joke of an ability, then a brow-furrowing glance from the water-breathing to Alexander, as if she were sizing him up for a second time. The grind on that must have been real.

“But is he doing it like the real-world myths, or like it is in game? I think there were subtle differences, to make a cohesive story, but... honestly, I was kinda busy with PVP most often to check.”

Alexander falls silent at that. He actually seems to be listening rather than just reflexive no, nicknames bad, for once. "Ah." A long pause. "I see. I'm sorry. I'll try. Mac." That last syllable has to be dragged out of him, but he does try, and then looks away. He seems to play mostly the MMO side rather than the singleplayer, and actually has a fairly decent rank for the local team. Considering that the character doesn't seem all that OLD, he must have been putting serious work into the game. "Ah, that's where it gets interesting. My theory is that the Babylonian gods are an easy reach for legitimacy to cover over a bloody mythology of his own making, something with dark gods who demand blood sacrifice. He's using the game, though. And it's...curious. Here. The sheep ability? I received it from a hidden quest to sacrifice a shepherd to the god of fertility, along with one of his sheep. It's a son of a bitch to pull off, since all the NPCs turn hostile if they see you killing the guy. But about three weeks ago? A man was murdered in the Firefly forest, with an invocation to that god of fertility. His head was replaced with that of a sheep." Thankfully, he doesn't show her pictures of that. "A recent quest was added to sacrifice to the god of the watery underworld. That's how I got the waterbreathing. It involved drowning a fisherman on his ship. A man, a ranger, was killed, his head replaced with an octopus, and his body carved with a prayer to the same god."

He lets that sink in for a moment, then says, "The player bit that's been giving out these quests? I asked for another one, and was told that Gibil craves sacrifice but the time is not right." He nods to the photos. "This body which was just found? The inscription in the sand was to Gibil. And I'm willing to bet that if there isn't a quest NOW, there will be soon."

Rather than celebrate, laugh, or cheer him for his bravery, Abitha settles for a small smile. It was a work in progress, but progress nonetheless. As she waits and watches, listening to his explanation, he can probably see the growing look of excitement, her eyes getting progressively wider, eager, her mouth growing into a delighted grin. Because this was about murder, right? No, this was about gaming. And gaming was her life.

“Ok, I have so many questions.” She immediately looks around to try to identify a seat for herself, “One is gonna be your WiFi password.” Her bag was being opened, that custom-built laptop making an appearance, the screen opened even before she has a solid place to sit, starting the boot-up.

“Two, which comes first, murder or quests? Do I need to find out? I can check the data-mining for each patch to see what gets added when. A player is giving the quests? And if give you an ability? That sounds so wild and crazy, has to be a dev for the game.” At this point, her numbering had seemed to go out the window at the stream of consciousness an obsessed mind spouts, her mouth not moving near the speed her mind was, but it wasn’t too far behind, “What gods haven’t been touched? Are they all major or minor deities? Is there a pattern? Fertility, water... Gibil is fire, right? And that body was still burning, right? Fertility is sometimes thought of in the same strain as Earth, so we may be looking for a murder or quest related to air next, as they tend to like following elements mainly thought of in ancient times.”

This of course, was all off the top of her head. The game was already loading on her laptop, displaying a lightly armored avatar, definitely way more covered than most females characters seemed to generally equip themselves. It seemed Abitha had taken extra time hunting down cosmetics to fit her aesthetic. The spear was visible because of practicality, but the main weapon was certainly a long knife, because the name ‘MacTheKnife’ wouldn’t be caught without one. She seemed to have made herself a rogue-like DPS as well, focusing primarily on burst and assassination skills.

But she couldn’t log in without internet, so...

Alexander reaches for a pad and pen, and writes down the wifi password before showing it to her. Mostly because it's 12 characters long, and looks randomly generated. Proper wifi security at least. The network itself is just 'Wifi'; not exactly creative.

There's a bob of his head at the questions, his eyes on her screen as she logs in. He studies her avatar and abilities with keen interest. His main weapon is also the long knife, but his secondary is ranged, so a lot of abilities focus on movement. "Interesting, " he murmurs. "There are still a number of gods left, and if it is following classical elements I suppose air would be next. But here, it gets better." He brings up his friends list and points at certain names. "The forums say these are the bits that give out the quest hints. They're always on and they always respond in a few minutes. Bots? I dunno. This is the one I talked to." He glances at her. "And there is a poster on the forum that I think is the killer. Can you somehow trace his IP?"

“So, Javier has kinda read me the riot act about misusing police resources,” Which was absolutely true, given he hired her on to help with things and she’d absolutely been ready to just go after people, not really thinking about legal ramifications. Now she was sort of having to. “Legally? No. But...” She alt tabs as her character starts to load in, and she opens up a webpage, going to the website for the game, following links until she was looking at the pages crediting the developer and its employees. She starts to read through, looking for people she may know, or people her friends may know. “I might know people who work for them, and not know it yet. From my streaming.”

She opens up one of her thinking files, something much akin to Scrivener or another platform for note-taking and filing, starting a new one for this investigation. She slaps in a link to the credits page and starts adding in the random ideas they were having in how to track this down.

She alt-tabs back in. The character was reasonably high level, if the timers showed she hadn’t logged in for a reasonable amount of time. She was guildless currently, which she notes with a quirk of the brow, not unexpected given her idling. The button press to open that menu instead opens a list of the main groups of the game, which she peruses.

“Does there seem to be a level-gate to being able to talk to these people? If I made a whole bunch of lowbie accounts, I could just send a whole bunch of random shit to test it out and see if its a bot or live people.”

"He does that. Don't worry about it too much. The police misuse their resources all the time." Ruiz will be delighted to hear that advice coming from Alexander to Mac, for sure. Alexander starts. "Streaming?" He frowns at her. "You...let people just. Watch? While you play games. Why?" There's fascination and not a little bit of mild horror on his features as he contemplates the idea. He drags his attention back to the game, and the murderer. Which is TOTALLY NORMAL, not like STREAMING. "Uh, I don't think so. You have to be a certain level to be able to successfully complete the quests - you've gotta have some way to handle the aggro you draw, whether it's stealth," his method, "or kiting things while someone else completes it. And you end up getting killed a lot, either way. I've been trampled by so many fucking sheep..." he trails off, with a shake of his head. "But there's no level to talk to them, as far as I can tell. I'm only mid twenties-ish."

"Anyway. If you wanna pick up the sheep thing, I can run you through that one so that you can see the actual mechanics. It doesn't feel like an intended quest? But there's graphics on the ability you get and everything. It's just that nothing in the game points to it, and apparently if too many people try to do runs on a quest, it lags to hell and back, and starts kicking you. One quest in the Tower of Babylon apparently can't be accessed anymore because of that."

There’s probably a joke here about how some people will let you watch anything online, gaming or otherwise. Abitha was not the kind of person to make that joke or even think about those sorts of people, so instead she offers an easier explanation, “At first? It made me feel like I wasn’t playing games alone, which I absolutely was. Now, I think about it and I think, well I wouldn’t want to mess with this many people in real life, it only makes sense.” There’s a little side eye as her words are made through a tighter expression, lips held in a way to make almost a ventriloquist impersonation. “Also, it’s really good money if you get enough of a following. It’s how I opened my store in the first place.”

Something occurs to her though, and her face pinches in thought, even while she was reacclimating to the controls, throwing knives at lizard critters outside town, snap-assassinating a low-level mob. “But... this is an MMO. Why is there an area not built to accommodate the MM part?”

Another side eye, “And eff the sheep... Well not literally... You’re helping me with the water breathing. You know how many scrubs I can merc if I could just pop up out of the water like a kelpie?”

"Money? Really?" Alexander blinks a couple of times. "I knew people could make a lot of money doing livestreaming...but I guess I thought they were streaming other things. Why wouldn't someone want to play a game? Rather than pay to watch someone else play it?" The concept seems to baffle him. Then again, it's not like Alexander stands out as an exactly social sort of guy in the first place. "I'm glad it works for you, though. Money is nice."

He grabs his keyboard and mouse, pulling the cords on both to stick them on the filing cabinet so he can send her a friends request. He IS in a local guild for the 'area control' PvP aspect of the game, taking over territory with the groups being RL geographically based. He's got a mid-high rank in the Washington-based one. "And I've got a couple of thoughts about that. Psychologically, I think this might either be a way for the killer to reassure himself of the rightness of his actions...or it's a giant ritual. Like, sympathetic magic increasing the powers of the sacrifices, if he can get people to recreate symbolic representations of them in the game, it's sort of like having...worshipers, or acolytes. Yeah? But the thing about being chosen to save the world from evil gods, is that it doesn't really count as being special if you're just one out of /everyone/. So, you don't want it to become super well known or common. Because if it does, then it loses power. This way, we as acolytes have to engage with him as the high priest, and when he feels 'enough' people have reached enlightenment - or, more cynically, that the quest is becoming so well known that people don't have to learn the secret from him - he can just...glitch it out? I mean, there's no official recognition that these quests even exist, so it's not like people can complain that they're not there anymore."

“Huh.” is how Abitha absorbs all that information, the sound indicative of the fact it all seemed to strike her in a way that made her think. She accepts the friend request and guild invite nonchalantly, quick clicks between more of her idle shenanigans. She calls up a Rhino mount and starts riding around the landscape as she peruses the guild list and other stats in separate in-game windows. Things start popping up in the group chat in response to her joining message which she basically ignores.

’Yeah right.’
’Are you serious?’
’Probably just stole her name.’
’OMG HI MAC 😃 Mouthbreathing Neckbeard here!’

Fandoms were weird.

“Weird thought. I know this is a smallish game community, but the guilds are region based?” She looks to Alexander for confirmation briefly before her eyes return to the screen, “We could try putting together a local meetup. Like reddit sometimes does? Maybe we could suss something out from that.”

Alexander peers over at her screen, shamelessly eavesdropping. "They know you. Or. Of you." He sounds impressed, and even has a few chat messages of his own, although they mostly seem to be asking his availability for various upcoming raids. And one message asking him if he really flirted with the dev for secret tips, and didn't he know that the dev was a GUY?? He largely ignores it, as well. "I...don't know if we want to get the killer in the room with a bunch of potential victims," he says, quietly. "He's almost certainly got abilities, and he hunts people who have abilities - successfully, thus far. Put him in a room with a bunch of gamer kids, and if he gets spooked..." he shrugs. "It could get messy. I'd rather take him on when he's alone. Track down where he lives, find evidence to connect him directly to the crime, send in the cops with suitable backup."

“They think they know me.” Which was of course, the age-old problem with streaming summed up in a sentence. Abitha’s mouth opens and forms the letter before the, ’Oh’ that pops out, the expression that lets Alexander know he had elucidated her to possibilities she hadn’t thought of. This was all still a little new to Abitha, of course, and her line of thinking seemed to line up with TV dramas, movies or the like, where the common man did all the work because the authorities were woefully inadequate! Not saying that wasn’t the case, but Alexander’s plan did at least seem more sound.

“Wait, he’s like us?” Abitha looks shocked, as if it never occurred to her that people with Glimmer would turn on their own, especially so far as to kill each other, “What the fuck?”

"Ah," Alexander says, with understanding. There's another nod at her shocked face. "I think so. He must be. His victims have all stood out, so far, and the manifesto he carved into the trees suggests that he was specifically going after people who 'shine' to sacrifice. The only way to know someone does is to do so yourself - or have someone feeding you the information. And it's possible we're dealing with a pair of murderers...but we've only read one person off of them, yet, and it's rare for serial killers to work with others. Not impossible. But unusual."

His voice gentles. "We're just people, Mis...Mac. Some of us are evil. Most of us are broken in some way or another. It wouldn't be the first time someone's turned on others like them. A distant relative of mine burned women who stood out at the stake. Another was one of the most prolific serial killers in history." A crooked smile. "I have good genes."

It’s clear Abitha was a little disappointed by the information, like their connection via abilities was some sort of cool club that people should all be friends because of. She understood the ideas of being broken, feeling she was in many ways, whether it be because of the powers or not. Unfortunately, any smile Alexander may get from finally using her name unprompted is almost immediately dashed by his maybe inteiontal, maybe not bragging about his previous ancestors.

“Ok, that is a terrifying way to put that.” She comments, staring at Alexander wide-eyed, her attention locked on him, if only because she realized just how crazy that made him sound, “And Protip: not the kind of thing you volunteer to a solitary, anxious girl at your place the first time she’s been here.” Alexander had already earned his creeper pass in her mind for multiple reasons, friendship with August the forefront, but he was pushing for its revocation. It’s ok, though, she carried a taser. In her brain.

Alexander's shoulders droop. "It was sarcasm," he says, after a moment. "This is why I don't use sarcasm," he adds, not quite under his breath. "I'm sorry. I'm trying not to be...," me is what's clearly on the tip of his tongue, but he goes for, "unpleasant," instead. Not that he was in her personal space to start out with - Alexander's personal bubble is larger than usual - but he slinks more to the side and away, like a kicked dog. A weary hand rubs at his face. "I apologize. Um. Do you think you can help? You don't have to talk to me if you don't want. You can just give the information to the police when you have it. And maybe an e-mail?" A hopeful peek at her from between his fingers.

Abitha sucks in a breath and lets it out in a heavy sigh, throwing her head back in frustration. She’d reacted by reflex in the bookstore as well and gotten a like reaction. “No, Alexander, I’m sorry.” She was staring at her computer screen rather than look at him, because admitting fault while staring at them was a much harder thing to do.

“Sometimes I just say shit before thinking. It’s not like I’m... I guess afraid of you. Genes or not, you’ve got good friends, which says shit about you.” As if in demonstration of her frustration, her character is dismounted and drops with blades out onto a random mob, slaying it, looting it, then almost instantly remounting.

“So I will do what I can, and keep you in the loop, and you’re gonna help me get water breathing... Once I give you your chair back...” she stands to give him access to his desk and in probably an annoyed lay assuming way, moves to go find a chair or something for herself, “And probably order some food, because this is going to be a thing now, since no one else in this town fucking plays games with me...”

"You don't have to be sorry," Alexander is quick to say, with a frown. "I creep people out. I know that. I don't mean to, usually, but," he shrugs, "I do. It's not their fault. Or yours." But there's a hint of a smile when she mentions his friends. "I have good friends," he agrees, a shy and bashful sort of pride creeping in around the edges. He doesn't seem annoyed when she stands up to go looking for a chair, although he says, "There are fold ups in the closet," because the man seriously has the bare minimum of furniture necessary for living.

He turns to watch her, his head tilted to one side. "I like playing games. I don't do a lot of online things, though. This, for the investigation, and Minecraft. And Civilization. Otherwise I play Nintendo." A nod to the system in the living room. "But...I'd like that." He settles into his chair and rearranges his keyboard and mouse, before moving to clear off a space along a table where she can set her stuff without having to look at autopsy photos or other charming information. "Pizza is traditional, I think? There's soda and chips in the fridge."

Said fold-up is sought after, the closet opened, though she freezes completely, her head wheeling around as she hears his list, laser focused, “Civ? Five? Six? Beyond Earth?” Her eyes had lit up, “Oh, Alexander Clayton, we are going to play some goddamned Civ.” The chair is retrieved soon after, the little gamer coming back to get comfortable, arranging herself so she can use one of his cabinets to mouse on and getting comfortable, or as comfortable as she was going to be in such a seat. Her phone is dug out of her back pocket and brought up, swiping through some options, opening a page.

“But first, we have more important matters to discuss.” Her eyes slide ominously up from the phone.

“Pineapple on pizza.”