Katyusha was disappointed. [Ran^Text^Library] [ ] It took so much effort to crack the code into this computer, but it turned out to be not as useful as she expected.

"As for the time he spends in the virtual world, most of it is spent playing Dimension Tracking games." He nodded at the computer screen, "I've done some research as well. This is the most played online role-playing game in the world, with around 12 million registered players. ”

"More than the population of New York City"

Boleyn describes the game as a combination of The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Second Life, a social interaction site where you can generate a virtual life for yourself. "As far as I know, he spends 4 to 10 hours a day playing Dimension Tracking."

"Every day?"

"Oh, that's perfectly normal for a multiplayer RPG." He chuckled, "Some people even take more time." In the real world, there's a 12-step program called Dimension Tracking that helps people get addicted to the game. ”

"Really?"

"Oh yes." He sat forward, "So far, I haven't found anything on his computer about where he's been or his friends, but I know something that might help." ”

"What is it?"

"That's him."

"Who?"

"Travis himself."

Katyusha was a little surprised, waiting to hear his witticism.

Jon wasn't kidding.

"You found him? Where?"

"Avuria is a virtual place in Dimension Tracing."

"He's surfing the Internet?"

"Not now, but he's been on it before, just recently."

"Can you find out where he is in real life based on that?"

"There's no way to know, we can't track him down. I called the game company, which was in England, and talked to some of their top executives. Dimension Tracking's servers are in India, and 1 million people are playing the game every now and then. ”

"His computer is with us, which means he's using a friend's computer." Katyusha said.

"Or maybe he's at a public terminal or he's borrowed or stolen a computer and logged in via Wi-Fi."

"However, as soon as he goes online, we will know where he is and we will have a chance to catch him."

"Theoretically, yes." Boleyn agreed.

"Why is he still playing? He must have known that we were arresting him. ”

"I used to say that he had an addiction."

Katyusha nodded at the computer, "Are you sure he's Travis?"

"Definitely. I went into his in-game folder and found a list of avatars he used to represent himself. I asked a few students to look for those names on the Internet. He quit after the strange recording today. His character's name is Stricker, which means striker, and the letter in the middle is a y instead of a 1. He is in the role of the commander of the thunder princess, so that he can become a samurai, that is, a killer. One of my students, a girl, had been playing Dimension Tracking for a few years and found him an hour ago. He wandered the countryside, waiting for an opportunity to kill. She saw him kill a family, men, women, and children, and then he had to camp with corpses. ”

"What does that mean?"

"In these kinds of games, if you kill another character, it loses its power, its score, and everything it carries. But it doesn't die forever. The avatar will resurrect after a few minutes. However, it will remain in a state of weakened power until it regains its power. Corpse camping is when you kill a victim and wait for it to come back to life, then kill it again while it's defenseless. It's a cruel way to do it, and most players don't do it, it's like killing a wounded man on the battlefield. But Travis apparently plays this way a lot. ”

Katyusha stared at the home page of Dimension Tracing, and it was a picture: foggy canyons, towering mountains, fantastical cities, rough seas, mysterious creatures, warriors, heroes, elves, and gangsters, including Kichar, the devil with a mouth sewn and a pointed head, staring at her with wide eyes.

The dream demon docked with reality here, and slammed into her law enforcement range.

Bolin tapped on his phone hanging from his belt, "Owen is spying on this game. He designed an online bot program called an automated computer program that would tell us when Stricker was online. As soon as Travis logged in, he called or texted me. ”

Katyusha glanced towards the kitchen and saw her mother staring out the window with her hands clasped.

"At the moment I think," Bolin continued, "that it is no longer useful to hunt him down, but if we can find him online and spy on him, perhaps we can learn something about him: where he is and who he knows." ”

"So how?"

"Look at the content of his instant messages. Players do this in Dimension Tracking. But he can't do it until he logs in again. He leaned back in his chair. They silently sipped their wines.

The silence was suddenly broken, and Wess shouted at the door: "Mom!"

Katyusha jumped.

"When are we going to eat?"

"Martini and Steven will eat when they arrive."

The son went back to watching TV. Katyusha and Bolin walked into the house, wine and laptops. The professor put the computer back in his bag and took a bowl of pretzels from the kitchen counter.

He walked into the living room and brought a bowl of burritos to Wes and Stuart to eat, "Rationing food for each of them to keep them strong." ”

"Great!" The boy shouted and grabbed it, "Grandpa, go back to the shot where you missed the ball and let Mr. Boleyn see it." ”

Katyusha helps her mother and daughter set up the food on the kitchen counter, a buffet style.

She chats with Edie, about the weather, the dogs, the kids, and Stuart. Then we talked about the aquarium, from the aquarium to the sea referendum, and from the sea referendum to a few other small topics. All of them have one thing in common: to stay as far away as possible from the topic of Edie's arrest.

She saw Wes, Jon, and his father sitting together in the living room, watching a sports show on TV. They burst out laughing when they saw a pick-up player hit the water tank and doused a photographer throughout. They kept reaching for the burritos, as if there was no hope for dinner. Katyusha couldn't help but laugh at this warm and comfortable scene.

She glanced at her phone, Hugh hadn't called yet, and she was a little disappointed.

As she set the table on the observation deck, another guest arrived Martini and her husband, Steven, up the stairs, followed by their two 9-year-old twin sons. They also brought a tawny long-haired dog, Rey's Bury, to Weiss and Maggie's liking.