MMORPG: How a Computer Game Becomes Deadly Serious (40 page)

He hadn’t considered that. Suppressing the urge to look around for hidden cameras, he hunched over his keyboard a little more, shielding it from possible prying eyes. He replied, “You’re probably right. Do you think they’re watching us?”

“Who knows. I have to ask you a personal question.”

He hesitated. What was this all about? Involuntarily, he looked up and caught her watching him. He huddled behind the screen again and typed: “Sure, what do you want to know?”

“Do you want to back off or do you want to catch those guys?”

He took his time to think the question through. Their close brush with death had taught him that he didn’t want to come near any of those terrorists again. The death of Lisa Duchamps, his housemate, had shaken him as well. He felt angry, terrified and furious at the same time.

“Of course I want them behind bars,” he replied. “I don’t want to pay for it with my own life, though. So shadowing in WoW is okay, but in real life I want to stay far away.”

She typed: Good. Same here! Then she looked around the screens and smiled warmly at him. Then she typed some more.

When he looked back at his screen, he read:
Because they’ll be coming after you!

“It’s a matter of ego,” she explained that night. They were lying in bed in what could only be described as the master bedroom. Nellie had prepared them a traditional Dutch meal which didn’t look attractive but tasted very well. It was called
andijviestampot
, cooked potatoes and a slightly bitter vegetable mash called
andijvie
. It was topped off with bacon and some greasy sausage. Robert claimed it was eaten in the UK as well, and was called endive, but Rebecca didn’t believe him. Even his protest that his father was a restaurateur, didn’t convince her.

At the end of the afternoon they reported back to Fitzgerald by phone. There wasn’t much to tell. As expected, none of the previously known characters existed anymore. The guild
Sphyrnidae
didn’t exist anymore either, at least not under that name. Fitzgerald had an interesting piece of information for them. He had looked up the meaning of the word
Sphyrnidae
. It turned out to be the scientific name of a shark variety commonly known as Hammerhead sharks.

“Predators with a hammer,” Rebecca answered to that. “Unfortunately, I see little justice in a shark.”

Their heads on the pillow were so close to each other that her hair tickled his forehead. Their whispering was so soft he had to concentrate to understand what she was saying.

“What those so-called professionals don’t understand is that Muhammad al-Moutti hasn’t been playing by the rules from the beginning. The man is a lunatic on a personal crusade to avenge the murder of his son, his wife, and his brother. He’s here in Holland because it happened to be a squad of Dutch military forces who killed them. Had it been Canadians, he’d be on the other side of the Atlantic. This guy takes things personally. I think you can be sure he’ll come after us.”

Robert had to admit she certainly had a point. It was quite possible that the authorities were having no success because they were trying to predict Al Mouddi’s behavior by applying ‘normal’ standards while this man and his team were on a mission of personal revenge.

“How do you think he’s going to find us?” he whispered.

“I think he knows, or at least suspects.” She was barely audible now. “He must have been trying hard to reconstruct what went wrong. He knows his guild has been compromised, infiltrated even. He must have been looking for coincidences, for things out of place. Now, who were there all the time, hovering right behind his shoulder? Who were there, conveniently, to form up a party with them to ride into the dawn of Cataclysm together?”

“Gunslinger and Killermage,” he said breathlessly.

“Correct. He might even remember your encounter with Drimm and him on the beaches of Stranglethorn Vale. If so, he must wonder at the speed with which that little helpless hunter leveled up to eighty.”

“How are we ever going to find them?” he asked.

“I don’t think we’ll need to,” she answered. “I think they’ll find us this time.”

Rebecca’s assessment of the reaction of Muhammad al-Moutti was accurate. Almost forty-eight hours after the failed assassination attempt, Khalid still heard him raving about it. That worried Khalid. He preferred their leader to be cool and collected. Khalid had a lot to worry about these days. Their secret communication channel, their meeting place and training ground, had been exposed. He had always prided himself on their impregnable security. As far as he knew, they had been the first to use a MMORPG in this fashion. Their security had been breached, with almost catastrophic results. He didn’t fool himself; he was fully aware of how close they had come to being arrested at their various hideouts.

And now this botched mission. It had been a gross violation of their established protocol. So far, every operation had gone exactly as planned because their preparation and training were always thorough and meticulous. Pharad wouldn’t accept anything less than perfection. How could he ever have ordered a mission, born out of anger and frustration, with just a briefing of two hours and no preparation or training whatsoever? He admitted that he had been eager to participate. It had been his account that had been compromised after all, his riches that had been looted. He wanted to taste the blood of Robert Barnes and that skimpy girlfriend of his.

Khalid didn’t underestimate the consequences of their recent setbacks. Their communication channel was no longer secure. Their training ground was compromised. The members of the Hammer narrowly escaped arrest. Above all, they failed to kill some twenty years old students, simple amateurs. It was in the eyes of his team members. It was in the way they walked, how they held themselves. Their confidence had been shaken badly. They had always been invincible, invisible even, most of the time. The realization that they were vulnerable after all was gnawing at morale. That didn’t bode well for the upcoming mission. It was to be the crown on their work in the Netherlands. After completion, they would all disappear and enjoy some much deserved rest in Yemen or Pakistan.

While Pharad should have been directing his energy to bolstering the morale and confidence, he seemed preoccupied with those students. Instead of finalizing their attack plan, he was thinking of ways to get back at them. If not in real life, he wanted to humiliate them inside the virtual world. He was convinced they were freelancing, operating without supervision or consent of the police.

Khalid had gotten the assignment to watch for the appearance of Robert and Rebecca, his former neighbors. They had deduced that they must be the people behind the characters of Gunslinger and Killermage. Nearly every member of the Hammer of Righteous Justice recognized the names. The mage and the hunter had been seen in their vicinity a little too often; far too often, to be a coincidence. And, of course, they were the players who joined their group so conveniently right after the launch of Cataclysm. He had some grudging admiration for the way they had achieved all that.

This afternoon, Gunslinger and Killermage had been online briefly. They logged on and logged off together. They went nowhere; they just stayed in Ogrimmar. He tried to find them there, but they disappeared while he was still combing the area. One of the drawbacks of Cataclysm was that Ogrimmar had become a busy beehive. So far, the Englishman and his girlfriend proved to be as elusive in the virtual world as in real life.

Only this time, as Pharad had repeated several times, they were chasing them. The tables had been turned. He just hoped the man was right. The good news so far was that his gear and gold had finally been restored to him this afternoon. Good old Blizzard had delivered, his recent renaming and change back to the Horde faction notwithstanding. All his things had been sent to him by in-game mail.

What worried him most was the way in which Pharad kept looking at him. The fact that he, Khalid, was to blame was undeniable. Somehow, he had given himself away and allowed his secret account to be compromised. It was hard to swallow for a perfectionist as himself. Were there going to be repercussions for him? He couldn’t stop thinking.
Is it going to be my turn next time around to undertake a suicide mission?

Sometimes, unexpected things turn the tide of events. Neither Robert and Rebecca nor Muhammad al-Moutti had counted on Andy. Their friend, the loyal Andries van Eck van den Berghe, had been so furious at the vicious attack on his friends that he entered the virtual world all by himself. Afterward, he confessed he didn’t even know exactly why he did it, just that he wanted to undertake some positive action, to have the feeling at least, that he was contributing something. Anything. As far as he knew, they were still in the hospital, maybe even fighting for their lives.

He had played several times with Gunslinger, Robert’s hunter, while they had been grinding through endless battlegrounds. During some idle time, he halfheartedly tried to level up an Orc shaman, using an account he had opened for himself. Now, he had taken that pathetic little level nine Orc and gone in search of their enemies. Against all odds, and by pure chance, he had succeeded. Having uncovered one member of the terrorist group, he was able to identify others as well.

He couldn’t reach them by phone, and the house on the Pieterskerkhof appeared to be closed down for the foreseeable future. He could think of only one place where they might be reached: Azeroth. So he looked around for a mailbox and sent letters to both Magekiller and Gunslinger.

~~~

Chapter XXXVI

“
Terokkar
Forest?” Rebecca exclaimed in disbelief, forgetting about their self-imposed rule of silence.

They were both reading Andy’s letter in astonishment. It was just that Rebecca’s surprise was aimed at another subject. Robert was simply amazed by his friend’s perseverance and spirit and more than a little proud of his achievement. When he finished the letter, he started again, rereading the message word for word. It was sent in installments, because there was a maximum to the length of a single letter.

Dear Robert and Rebecca,

I do hope this letter finds you soon, and in good health.

I have no idea of what exactly went down at your place, because nobody is telling me anything. I did speak to Michael, one of your housemates, and he told me they were being relocated because that French girl has been murdered. How terrible! I liked her. Rumor has it that you two were dragged out of the Rapenburg more dead than alive. A friend of mine, a med student who works at the hospital, won’t tell me anything more than that the part of you being brought to the hospital in the middle of the night is true. Someone else said that Robert was seriously injured, but I don’t know how trustworthy that info is. However, it’s clear to me that the Hammer tried to kill you and nearly succeeded.

Good job, staying alive!

Today, I used my own account to enter WoW. You know I have this level nine shaman. I was in Ogrimmar when I saw something weird, a level eighty-two Tauren hunter who was all naked. That got my attention, because I was there when we stripped Argus. He was at a mailbox for a long time, and suddenly he was dressed. He was wearing exactly the same stuff as Drimm used to have!

His name is Esjnn. He belongs to a guild called Odin. Not subtle, don’t you think? Like hammering me on the head, lol! I looked up the guild on the Armory and there are seven members. I’ll send you all the names separately. Like we did before, I entered the names in my social log and waited. At around five thirty, each of them came online. They went to a place called Terokkar Forest. I couldn’t follow them, of course. They stayed there for nearly two hours. After that, most of them logged off.

That’s all for now. I’ll try to keep an eye on them. I really hope to hear from you soon!

Andy

“What about Terokkar Forest?” he typed when he was ready.

“I’m trying to figure out what’s there to do for them,” she replied. “It’s a totally uninteresting zone for a bunch of level eighty plus characters. So it must be connected to their next operation, don’t you think?”

He thought about that briefly. So far, each time they witnessed the Hammer of Grimstone converge on a low level zone, it had proven to be a training ground. It had been that way in Ashenvale, Stranglethorn Vale and the Blood Furnace.

“I think so,” he replied. “They must be operating out of Stonebreaker Hold, now that they’re Horde again.”

“Or Shattrath City. Don’t forget that’s the capital city over there, with all the facilities they could possibly want. And it’s more anonymous, with Horde and Alliance mingling.”

He shrugged. “One way or the other, we’ll find out more in less than an hour.”

“You’re right. Arena training each day at 11:00 and 18:00 hours. Something must be going down at those times!”

“Do you think we should change the names of our characters as well?”

“Maybe later. I do think we should keep our heads down just now. We don’t want to distract them from whatever they’re planning to do. So we log off now. I’ll switch to my Alliance rogue Magekiller, and you create a new level one Horde character for the occasion.”

Robert created an Undead priest. He didn’t even bother to move it from its starting position. He just opened the social tab and added the seven members of the guild of Odin as friends. Now he would be kept abreast of their comings and goings and their approximate location whenever they were online. At the moment, they were all listed as offline. Meanwhile, Rebecca transported her level eighty Alliance rogue, of which they could safely assume the Hammer had no knowledge, to Shattrath City. She positioned it at a strategic location in the doorway of the center hall. From there, she could keep an eye on the spot where players using portals appeared, as well as on the flight master outside. They sat back and waited.