CHAPTER 57
It took about a minute for Brewer to go through a dozen questions that virtual Sugar asked virtual Ted. As soon as that bar filled in completely, the city scene faded to black and a new scene took its place. I felt my stomach drop.
Sugar, animated to be wide-eyed and terrified, was tied to a sturdy oak chair, trapped in a grimy animated cellar. On the bottom of the screen were graphics depicting implements of torture: pliers, blowtorches, knives, thumbscrews, nails, to list a few. There were also selectable items of the living variety, like snakes and bugs. A new status bar replaced the trust one I’d seen on the previous screen.
This bar was titled Fear Index.
“The game play here is pretty simple,” Brewer said. “You have to find the right mix of torture implements, applied in the proper sequence and for the correct duration, to raise the Fear Index.”
Brewer clicked on the blowtorch graphic. Animation made the blowtorch appear lit. Using the remote as a mouse, Brewer maneuvered the blowtorch close to Sugar, her animated eyes popping out of their sockets while sweat sprouted from her forehead like a sprinkler. Her terrified noises sounded very realistic. The closer the blowtorch icon got to Sugar, the wider her eyes grew, the more she struggled to break free, the louder her moans, and the more cartoon sweat she secreted. When Brewer touched the blowtorch to Sugar’s leg, her character shrieked in pain—again very realistic sounding—and her face contorted to display her agony. The color of her skin in that one spot went from peach to black, while the Fear Index increased by 5 percent.
“It’s easy to play the game, but hard to find the right sequence,” Brewer said. “In other words, it’s easier to kill your victim than it is to keep her alive and increasingly afraid. You’ve got to keep track of a lot of variables to find the right combination that will make the fear factor complete. I’m sure there are hard-core gamers who have written code to help them solve the puzzle.”
“This is all very fascinating and rather disturbing, Detective Brewer,” Higgins said, “but how is this going to help us catch the SHS Killer?”
“I think that Uretsky was playing this game and became friends with another player. I think this other player might have gotten bored with all the cartoon violence. They arranged a little face-to-face meeting, but Uretsky didn’t realize what was in store for him. It’s fitting with what he’s done to John,” Brewer said, motioning with the remote control in hand. “This guy is all about playing games and creating an environment of fear.”
Agent Brenner stood, her agitation apparent.
“While I appreciate your behavioral analysis, Detective, pardon me for saying so, but you’re a computer jock. You’re not qualified to make that sort of judgment.”
“You’re right,” Brewer said, shrugging off her rebuke. “Maybe I am way off base here. But I haven’t shown you what happens when you torture your victim to death before the fear factor is complete.”
Brewer took the animated blowtorch to Sugar’s animated body, covering every pixel of skin until she looked like wood turned charcoal from a fire. Sugar screamed in horrible pain throughout her virtual ordeal, while I just cringed, unable to distinguish between the simulated violence on-screen and what I feared the Fiend could be doing to my wife at that very moment. A new status bar appeared, this one showing the victim’s health. It had started off at 100 percent but went down precipitously the longer Brewer applied the blowtorch.
A warning flashed on screen: Ted, You’re Killing Your Victim Too Fast. When Sugar’s body went limp, it was obvious that she’d been rendered to appear dead. The fear factor was only at 50 percent complete. All-caps words materialized above her head: YOU KILLED YOUR VICTIM.
That gruesome scene faded to black, and when a new image appeared, everybody in the room, myself included, released a collective gasp. The words Sorry, Ted Bundy! You See No Evil, the letters dripping blood, materialized above a cartoon drawing of a decapitated head. The lid of each shuttered eye was partially concealed by a severed finger dripping blood as well. Severed fingers protruded from the ears, and two more covered the lips. Below the bloody stump of a neck were the game’s credits, written in the same drippy blood font.
“I may be just a lowly computer jock, and not a tried-and-true FBI agent,” Brewer said, “but I think the SHS Killer got tired of playing this game virtually and decided it would be a heck of a lot more fun to do it in real life.”
Higgins rose to his feet with startling quickness.
“Gant!” he said, barking out the name. “I want you working with Brewer on getting that user database from this game manufacturer. Pronto! Brewer, find out if Swain was playing this game as well. He might have been using an alias, so look hard. Kaminski, we’ve got to get the word out through the media about this game, too. I want anybody who has played it to get in touch with the Boston police. You know the drill. Work the media, get the press releases out there, and hit up the social networks, too. We might get something from that. We want to find people SHS has been trying to lure into a face-to-face meeting.
“Clegg!” Higgins continued, turning his attention to my friend. “I want you to pull together a team and work the phones, calling every medical school within a two-hundred-mile radius. We’ll helicopter in a body if that’s what it takes.”
“So we’re going through with John’s plan?” Clegg asked.
“I’m not going to let this woman die.”
Agent Brenner stood, hands glued to the back of the chair in front of her. “Chief Higgins,” she said, her face flushed. “May I remind you this investigation is still under the direction of the FBI.”
Higgins glared at Brenner. “Then I suggest you get your team involved, because this is what we’re doing. I shouldn’t have to remind you that Carl Swain is still an official person of interest, and at this moment we have no idea of his whereabouts. If you want to run this show, how about helping us find and apprehend him? We’ve got a clock set on a woman’s life, and we don’t have time to argue jurisdiction!”
“What about me?” I asked. The sound of my voice had a calming effect on the evident tension between the police and FBI.
“You, Bodine, you need to go home and wait,” Higgins said.
“Wait for what?”
“Wait for this guy to contact you. I’ve got a very strong feeling that he’s not done playing games.”
I nodded because I agreed. Then I checked the time.
Twenty-one hours to go.