MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious (35 page)

When he was finished, he obviously wanted to take the extra laptop computer with him. He actually went so far as to put it into some special bag, when Rebecca put a stop to that. While Robert had been feeling deflated and dejected since the night before, she had been getting angrier by the minute. He had been watching her simmering anger build up with some trepidation, so he wasn’t surprised when she erupted. All her frustration poured out, aimed at the poor technician. She tore the computer bag out of his hands with such force that he relinquished his grip by pure surprise alone.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she yelled in his face. Robert saw the man flinch and take an involuntarily step backward. Computer Whiz started to say something, but Rebecca wasn’t interested.

“Do you have a search warrant?” She poked him in the chest, forcing him another step back. “Well, answer me!” Another poke. “Do. You. Have. A. Search. Warrant?”

“Eh, no,” he stammered. All his former bluster and bravado was gone now. “But I thought, I was told-”

“You were told that those stupid amateurs would cooperate with anything, right? You were told to take anything you deemed necessary, right? You were told not to pay too much attention to us, right?”

Robert could see in the man’s eyes that Rebecca’s remarks had struck home. They were being pushed out of the way, and the taking of their computer equipment was part of the process. She was right, nobody could take his property away like that. The irony was that, if the man had only asked politely, he wouldn’t have objected at all. Now, fueled by Rebecca’s anger, and a wish to stand by her, he supported her with a fierceness that surprised even himself.

“That computer belongs to me,” he snapped. The man’s terrified eyes flicked his way. He took another step backward and was now almost touching Robert’s bed. “And this room as well,” he continued. “You have exactly ten seconds to remove yourself, or you can explain to the local police why you trespassed and why you had my computer in your bag!”

A bead of sweat rolled down the man’s face. Fascinated, Robert followed its descent along his cheek and watched it disappear inside the thin hairline of the man’s beard.

Rebecca chose that moment to step up again. She raised her finger and made another move. It was too much. The technician tried to turn and flee the room, but he was unaware of how close he was to the low crossbar of Robert’s bed. His legs touched the wood and he lost his balance, stumbling backward onto the bed. His head hit the wall with a hard bang. Robert could see the pain ignite in his eyes.

Rebecca was relentless. She grabbed the man by his shirt and hoisted him upward with almost inhuman strength. Robert stepped in and helped her pull the man upright. Together, they shoved him toward the door.

“Get out and tell your bosses that we appreciate their gratitude for all our efforts and the time we spent,” he spat. Suddenly, he was as angry as Rebecca, just by thinking of all the valuable time that had been wasted. “All of that because you were too stupid to believe us for weeks. Now go, and take your superior self out of here!” With a mighty shove, he pushed the man through the door and nearly down the stairs. Rebecca threw the door shut with satisfying force.

They were both panting with the physical effort and the emotion. The footsteps of the poor computer expert could be heard receding down the stairs. He looked at her and smiled wanly. She met his gaze, and he would have sworn that he saw the color of her eyes change for a second. Her eyes were usually dark brown, but now she looked at him with such intensity, he would have sworn that he saw them turn black. He didn’t know what was wrong with her. Was she angry with him? He started to say something, but found that he couldn’t. His throat was locked. He had once read that certain snakes immobilized their targets simply by looking at them. He felt like a little mouse at that moment, hypnotized by the eyes of Rebecca.

As in slow motion, he saw her reach out to him with one arm. Her hand locked behind his head, and she drew him toward her with unsuspected strength. Their mouths locked with such force that he was surprised he didn’t taste blood when he finally found the strength to kiss her back. At that, she turned frantic. Her breathing became ragged, and she started to pull at his shirt. When she couldn’t get the buttons undone fast enough, she ripped it open. He heard a moan, and only then realized that it came from himself. She stepped away from him and started to tear the clothes from her own body. Her T-shirt snagged in her hair, but when he tried to help, she pushed his hands roughly away. She finally got the piece of clothing free and threw it away. It landed at the side of the room on his wine cabinet. His breath caught in his chest. He felt his legs go liquid. With some effort, he remained upright.

She looked up and smiled. They kissed again, and he held her like that for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, she broke away and pushed him backward on his bed.

The world exploded in more colors than he ever believed existed in the universe.

The next morning, Robert discovered a message from Khalid in his mailbox.

~~~

Chapter XXXII

It
was by pure chance that he logged in with Hunterino, the character he had been using to interact with Khalid’s Drimm in World of Warcraft, instead of Gunslinger. He had been awake for over an hour, not daring to move because he didn’t want to wake Rebecca. The bed was too narrow for the both of them. In the end, he got up slowly and carefully switched on his computer. He was so preoccupied with beautiful Rebecca, who was slumbering only a few feet away, that he accidentally logged on with the wrong account.

This launched Hunterino into the virtual world. His eyes immediately focused on the icon in the upper right of screen, signaling that he had new mail waiting. By moving his cursor, he saw that the letter was from Drimm. This jolted him wide awake.

He hurried toward the nearest mailbox and retrieved it. Even before he started to read, he made a permanent copy of the letter.

Dear Robert,

You have probably discovered by now that I had to leave suddenly. I had to go home because my father is ill. I also need to concentrate more on my study, so I terminated my account of WoW. Sorry, but I can’t help you anymore.

I wish you luck and success.

Regards,

Khalid

Rebecca wasn’t asleep anymore. She was standing behind him. With both arms around his neck and her cheek pressed to his, she read the message as well. They stood like that for quite some time, each coming to grips with the happenings of the last few days. Robert felt at peace. He let the events catch up with him, his brain processing them at their own pace. His thoughts turned to his parents and his brother, whom he hadn’t talked to for longer than he should have. So much had happened that he hadn’t shared with them. How was he ever going to explain the excitement, the fear, and turbulent encounters in and out of the virtual world, and their failure to achieve anything in the end? The brusque way in which they had been tossed aside by the authorities? Still, there was a sense of liberation in the fact that the Hammer of Righteous Justice wasn’t their responsibility anymore. The knowledge that lives were at stake, and that they might be the only ones standing between the terrorists and the next act of senseless violence had weighed heavily on him. Now that the burden was lifted, he realized how much they had been driven by simple fear. He felt strongly, however, that the girl next to him was worth every single second of the past weeks. Rebecca was another thing that had changed in his life. A good thing, he thought. He leaned back into her, luxuriating in the press of her soft breasts against the back of his head. In response, she stroked his head. Her fingers whirled through his hair, tugging softly at the ruffled strands.

He turned around and kissed her flat stomach. Rebecca gently pulled him back to bed. He went willingly.

The thought came to him an hour later, while he was in the shower. He digested it, turning it over and over in his mind, willing himself to visualize the various screens of WoW’s login interface. When he reached the conclusion that his hunch was on the mark, he abruptly shut off the water and strode back to the room, not even bothering to towel his wet body.

“Listen!” he nearly shouted when he entered. Rebecca, who had showered before him, hadn’t dressed yet and was wearing one of his white cotton T-shirts. It was too large for her, and fitted like a mini dress. She looked incredibly sexy. She turned toward him, and he noticed only now that she was on the phone. She motioned at the device, indicating that she was trying to terminate the call. Almost quivering with excitement, he waited until she finally hung up.

“Khalid’s WoW username is an email address, right?” he asked without preamble.

“Yes, all usernames are email addresses these days. It wasn’t like that before, but they changed that some time ago.”

Robert nodded vigorously. “Whatever. The point is, he uses a Hotmail address, like we do. I set up an account specifically for my WoW username, because I didn’t want any spam or advertisements in my regular email. I believe you did the same, because you use another account for your other emails, isn’t that correct?”

“Yes,” she replied, gesturing for him to go on. He could see she was already catching up with him.

“Well, let me guess,” he continued, “do you have the same password on your dedicated WoW email account as on the one you use for logging on to WoW?”

“Yes!”

“Exactly, so do I. Now-” With these words he hesitated for a moment. “Just suppose that Khalid also used one single password for both his dedicated email and his WoW account. And suppose he didn’t change the password on his email. That he forgot, or simply didn’t bother. What would that mean?”

Rebecca frowned. “That would mean that we could access his email. Through that, we’d be able to hack into his account after all. We could request a new password. There’s a procedure, in case someone forgets it. I believe the new password is sent to the email address attached to the account. If we can access that email, we can pick up the new password. He wouldn’t be able to log on the next time he tried, because we changed the password. So he would know that someone messed with his account. Khalid would have to do the same thing as we did to get his account back.”

“That’s what I thought. Would there be some way to cover up what we did?”

She concentrated deeply. A thin line appeared above her eyebrows as she thought it through. “Not really,” she said finally. “We could erase all our tracks. That would leave him guessing as to what happened exactly.”

They dressed first and had a cup of coffee. And another. They didn’t say much, both feeling the tension building. When there was no more reason to postpone the moment, they sat at the desk side by side. Rebecca was at the keyboard.

“We just log on and log off, nothing else!” Robert repeated. “We see if it works and that’s it.”

“Yes, don’t worry,” she replied, clicking on the bookmark of MSN Live Hotmail. The familiar blue screen immediately popped up. Rebecca’s own email address was displayed as default in the appropriate box. Carefully, she erased it and typed in the email address of Khalid, the same one he used as his username for WoW. She studied it for a few seconds, making sure she typed it right. After that, she proceeded with the password. She hit the keys one by one: GEHENNA321. She pressed the button to log on. It didn’t work. In red, a warning appeared:
The email address or password is incorrect.

Robert’s reaction was one of equal disappointment and unexpected relief. He released the breath he had been holding. It was over. Now they could finally put it to rest.

“Well, that was it,” he said. “At least we tried.”

“No, it isn’t over,” Rebecca replied. “Not yet anyway. Don’t forget, passwords of Hotmail are case sensitive. I used capitals. Let’s try again with lower case.”

She followed the same procedure again, but now she entered gehenna321 in the password box instead. She clicked on the button again.

They were in.
Hello Drimm!
large letters read on the upper left side of the screen, above several file folders. Rebecca clicked on the inbox. It was empty.

Shocked, Robert reached over and took the mouse out of her hand. He pointed the cursor to the upper right corner and clicked on the log out icon.

They simply looked at each other for long seconds. Robert released the mouse and found that his hands were shaking.

Andy was totally opposed to their plan. He argued vehemently that they had been officially called off and that it wasn’t their responsibility anymore. He also didn’t want to go through another session with the AIVD like the one they had to endure the night before.

“It’s over,” he repeated for the third time. The three of them were sitting at a quiet table in the back of Einstein, a large pub at the Nieuwe Rijn, one of the charming canals in Leiden. He looked from Rebecca to Robert. “Besides, I know someone who really needs to push on with his studies. I know a guy who missed over half of his classes already and who’s going to fail spectacularly at the upcoming examinations and tests!”

Robert looked down. He fingered the remains of the milk out of his empty coffee cup. Andy was right, of course. He had felt some liberation at the knowledge that their hunt for the Hammer of Righteous Justice was over. All avenues had seemed closed. It was easy to give up in the face of total defeat. It was a lot harder now that they had possibly found a new opening.