He clicked on the door. But it wouldn’t open.
Doobie: Both doors are locked.
Chas: How did you get in, then?
Doobie smiles knowingly.
Doobie: Same way we’re going to get out. An old griefer’s trick.
Twist: You know it, Chas. It’s almost the first thing I showed you.
Doobie climbed over the broken floor to the door and zoomed in, swivelling tight on it to get an exterior perspective. Chas did the same and watched as Doobie rezzed a couple of poseballs from her Inventory onto the wooden deck outside.
Doobie: Just click on the blue.
Chas right-clicked, and his AV immediately appeared out on the deck, standing legs astride, arms open wide. Doobie clicked on the pink, and her AV ran to Chas, throwing herself into his arms, crossing her legs behind his back, and the two turned two full circles before locking together in a long, passionate kiss.
Twist stood watching impatiently from inside.
Twist: When you two are finished, would you mind vacating a poseball so I can get out of here!
They both detached themselves, and Twist materialised out on the deck, disentangling himself quickly from the animation. Chas stood breathing heavily.
Chas: Wow! Wasn’t expecting that.
Doobie Littlething smiles.
Doobie: Sorry about that. It’s called Awaited Embrace. First poseballs I could lay my hands on.
Twist: Yeh, right.
The three AVs stood looking around them. Asian windchimes made a constant musical accompaniment to the ambient sound of SL and the constant crashing of waves on the beach. Wooden steps led down to a pier, where a junk with a red-and-black striped sail was anchored. Torches flamed on the end of long uprights strategically placed to light the garden at night. Sunloungers with sunbathing and cuddle animations sprawled on the deck, and at the side of the house, a wooden bridge arched over a small stream to a tiny, sandy island shaded by leaning palms, where deckchairs were arranged around a campfire.
A path led round the side of the house to the back, where another landing stage providing docking for a red-sailed yacht anchored between the uprights of a tall Japanese gate. Hanging lanterns provided light for a circular table and half a dozen seats where food was set out for a picnic. More stairs led up to a raised deck, another Japanese gate, and a swinging bench seat with a view across the property. A screen of sand dunes hid the far side of the island from view. It was empty, as yet undeveloped.
Chas followed a wooden path around the edge of the dunes and climbed steps down to yet another deck. Slow-dance poseballs were placed with a view through a third Japanese gate toward the spot on the horizon where the sun would set. He wondered with whom Maximillian Thrust might have danced in the red light of the setting sun, or whether they had been placed there in anticipation, or hope, of future romance.
Doobie: It’s a stunning property.
Chas turned to see Doobie and Twist coming down the steps to join him.
Chas: What will happen to it when the tiers fall due again?
Doobie: If they remain unpaid, ownership will revert to the sim owners, and everything you see will automatically be returned to Thrust’s inventory.
Twist: Which doesn’t exist.
Doobie: No. Which, I guess, means that they will simply be deleted from the asset server. Lost forever. Like most things in SL, nothing lasts for very long. Someone else will buy the island, and six weeks from now you won’t be able to recognise it.
Twist walked to the edge of the deck and stared out over the ocean. Distant islands had partially rezzed close to the horizon.
Twist: What I don’t understand is how it was possible to actually “kill” Thrust’s AV. I mean, I know we can do passing damage to avatars. But it’s not usually permanent. And I’ve never heard of anyone actually being able to destroy one.
Doobie: No.
She paused.
Doobie: But clearly someone did.
Chas: How?
Twist: Well, if anyone in SL can tell us, it’s Kuro.
Doobie: Who?
Twist: Gunslinger Kurosawa. He crafts some of the best weapons in SL. It’s where we got Chas his handgun the other day.
Kurosawa sat behind his desk, feet up in his favourite animation, glancing from time to time at his watch, as if he was impatient to be rid of them. Twist and Doobie sat in leather client chairs, and Chas stood with his back to the window. A green laser security beam moved disconcertingly about the office, and downstairs they could hear Kurosawa’s guard dog barking.
Kurosawa had been giving the notion that a script might be able to destroy an AV some silent thought.
Kurosawa: I guess it would be possible. You hear rumours of such things. But I’ve never actually seen one that would do it.
Twist: How would it work, Kuro?
Gunslinger Kurosawa releases a long, thoughtful sigh.
Kurosawa: Well, like Doobie suggests, it’ll be a script of some sort. Something pretty sophisticated. Way beyond my abilities as a programmer. The only way it could actually destroy the AV would be by hacking into the main server and deleting it. Cloning it and creating bullet wounds and blood, is just a bit of window dressing. A bit of fun for the programmer.
Chas: Is that possible? I mean, that someone could write a script that could hack into the mainframe?
Kurosawa: In theory, yes. In practice very difficult, but not beyond the bounds of possibility. In this world, my friend, almost anything is possible.
Twist: So if the script hacked into Linden Lab’s main server to delete the AV, presumably it could also delete the whole account and any record of it.
Kurosawa: Sure. Once you’ve actually hacked your way in, you could write your script to do whatever you wanted.
Chas: Which would explain why there’s no record of Maximillian Thrust ever existing.
Twist: It also means that whoever killed him in SL probably murdered him in RL. So we’re looking for a killer in both worlds.
Doobie suddenly interrupted.
Doobie: Hey, guys. Fascinating though this is, I’m afraid I’ve gotta go. Rendezvous with a client. Seeya.
Her head tipped up to the top left of her screen as she selected an LM, and then she vanished.
When they got back to the office, Twist jumped into the seat behind his desk and sat gazing idly at his screen. Chas slipped into the client chair opposite and crossed his legs. Each was lost in wordless contemplation of a question that neither was sure he was ready to address. It was Chas, finally, who broke the silence.
Chas: What are we going to do about this, Twist?
Twist O’Lemon shakes his head.
Twist: I don’t know. What do you think?
Chas: I think if we were being sensible about it, we would pass on everything we know and leave it to the pros.
Twist: But?
Chas sighed beyond the screen.
Chas: Well, I can just hear us telling Laurel and Hardy that we are private investigators in Second Life, and that we think Arnold Smitts’ AV was murdered in the virtual world before someone killed him in the real one.