Page 36 of Control

I knew they had hackers in their midst as they would often gloat about how good they were and about some of the places they had hacked before. Some of this had even been previously confirmed to me by “White Hat” hackers, programmers that only did hacking, or as they prefer to sometimes call it, Cracking, for legitimate business purposes. The troll hackers, also know as “Black Hats” didn’t care about right or wrong and would often just hack or crack into a system or company intranet for fun. Sometimes they did do it with a particular goal in mind - stealing as much data as they could to try and secure some sort of payment for the promise of never releasing the data. The same thing had been offered too the Dev team, but they declined to pay it.

What if one of the players or maybe even a small group of players in the game had actually decided to try and hack the developer? What if they went in and grabbed all the information they could with the sole purpose of exposing all the players in the game and linking them to their avatars? What if the demand for money was just a smoke screen or a swing for the fences sort of deal? One might also think that if they released the data, surely they would be exposing all the trolls and hackers as well so why do it. Maybe the reason they weren’t worried about that was because they were the ones who controlled the data and could release only the portions they wanted others to see…such as my data and Cris’s data and a few other select players that they felt needed to be knocked down. It was with this realization that I knew what I had to do.

CHAPTER 11 - EVERYTHING

I WAS AWARE of the more popular troll rooms, but I wanted to know where one notorious troll was hiding out. Ronnie Rarko was an individual I actively ignored in the past because of his often crude and juvenile manner of treating people, especially women. He’d never had much luck with us in the real world from what I’d heard and he wasn’t fairing much better in Aurora. Knowing that his inability to have much success with woman was his main motivating factor, I had a strong feeling that he may just know who was behind the hack. I didn’t think he would tell me straight out, but I felt if I paid him and therefore a massive portion of the trolls in the games a visit by going to one of their rooms, I might get them to slip up and say a few things they didn’t want me to know.

I searched for his name in the active player list and found that he was in a room called The Stormfront which is also a name used in certain circles that often support racial bigotry and segregation. When asked why such a room was allowed to remain open, the reasoning we got from the developer was that they were not breaking any rules so it was allowed to stay. Most players knew to never visit the room or others like them where certain discussions were always held. With as much sex, booze, gambling and other vices as there are in the game, it was always the trolls that were often looked upon the most as undesirable and no one wanted anything to do with any of them.

After making my location visible again, I tapped on Ronnie’s name and highlighted Teleport to Location from my available options. I was about to enter the hornet’s nest and I knew I would immediately become a target. I knew if I needed to I could call someone like Mustafa or a few other close friends to come with me as backup, but for some reason I felt that this was my battle, my fight. It was something I needed to handle on my own if possible. I knew my chances of success were extremely low, but I couldn’t sit back and wait for all the data to be released. I felt compelled to take action, anything to offer solace to the good people who sought refuge in Aurora.

It wasn’t nearly the first time I’d gotten myself into a serious problem while trying to help someone out. This time, however, felt much bigger than any other. It felt personal, and if nothing else, maybe the hacker was in that room and maybe my presence would make him focus on me more and only look to release my information and skip over all the others, at least for now. Maybe if I went in their and gave them every reason come after me, I could in turn save everyone else. All I knew in that moment was I had to do something and I would worry about the consequences later. I had too many friends that had too much to lose. Even if I became the lone target of the trolls and the hacker and ended up with a dozen incels stomping up to my real world front door, I felt it was worth the risk. I had no qualms with sacrificing myself for the greater good. I didn’t even care if anyone knew what I was doing or trying to do. I just felt in my heart that it was the right thing. I had to try.

I took a few deep breathes to prepare myself for what would in all likelihood be a fruitless venture. I spoke to myself for a couple of minutes to try and hype myself up so I could give my best performance. It had started to sink in that I was for all intents and purposes the face of the community, representing tens of thousands players from all over the world. I also knew that whatever happened in there would definitely be streamed to everyone else in the game and to those who watched game play on the internet. I closed my eyes and prepared for the teleport. Up until the second before I hit the button on my HUD, I still had doubts. As I had so many other times in my life, I told myself that doubt was the obstacle to progress and no amount of it was going to stop me this time. With that, I selected the ‘Teleport to’ option and within a second, I was in The Stormfront.

I loaded in at what I figured was the primary spawn point which was in a corner of a very large and filthy looking building. The ceilings were high like those of a large commercial warehouse and the lighting was white, simplistic, and optimized. Chairs of all types and designs were strewn about and several tables and bar tops were near them in no particular arrangement. The room overall was windowless with the exception of a single skylight placed near the center which appeared to let in a small amount of natural light and wasn’t centered correctly. There was no music playing in the room and all I could hear was a light rumbling of several dozen voices that were gathered near what appeared to be a makeshift stage on the far side of the room. Given the haphazard way in which the room was created, the maker was either awful at making rooms or they designed it with this specific aesthetic in mind.

Following the noise, I walked along the concrete floor for a couple hundred steps before I finally got a good look at the group. From what I could first make out, almost all of them were men with the exception of 2 female avatars I was able to spot. While all the men wore fairly simple outfits, the women were dressed scantily as if their outfits were thrown together without much care, only wanting to show off some skin, and possibly to please the large gathering of men around them.

I knew as I got closer that a few people in the group would get a good look at my face and immediately recognize me. It also didn’t help that I’d turned the color of my nameplate back to it’s normal rotating colors and redisplayed my title. As I got closer to the stage, I could see there was someone on it, speaking. It didn’t take long for me to recognize that annoying and nasally voice that belonged to Ronnie Rarko. I’d always known he was neck deep in the trolling groups in Aurora, but seeing him on stage speaking to everyone cemented him in my mind as the leader, at least in this room.

“Ronnie!” I called out from a short distance away which caused the entire group of people to turn around and look my way. A few light gasps were heard from them as I stepped closer, keeping Ronnie in my sights. As I walked forward, I could see from the look of amusement on his face that he recognized me straight away, almost as if he were expecting me. It wasn’t the first time he and I had had a run in. I knew he’d been suspended at least twice for attacking me in the in game chat boards with some very choice and colorful words. Those short suspensions did nothing to stop him from his rants about me and several other women in the game whom he’d, for some unknown reason, came to despise. While I’d never acted rudely to him before, I was willing to forgo any pleasantries if it meant getting him or anyone else for that matter a reason to refocus their trolling efforts on me.

“What do we have here,” Ronnie said followed by a chuckle. He watched me as I moved closer to the steel stage, the crowd in front of me splitting in two so I could approach. I paid them no mind, instead choosing to focus on Ronnie alone for the moment. With each word he spoke, his sarcasm became more and more aggressive. “Looks like we have some royalty in the building tonight, boys! The ‘Queen’ has chosen to grace us with her noble presence! Well, come on everyone! Give our ‘Queen’ the respect she deserves.” With that, everyone in the crowd began cussing at me and flipping me off as was expected. After several seconds of mockery, Ronnie spoke again. “Now tell me, Your Majesty! What in the dimwitted fuck are you doing in my room! You didn’t even call ahead! Hell, we would have rolled out the red carpet for you!”

“Cut the horse shit,” I said, matching his aggressive tone and not wanting to show any signs of weakness. I knew if I did, I was dead meat. “You and I have some urgent business to discuss.”

“Oh!” Ronnie said, his mocking tone continuing. “Do we now! And just what does her ‘Royal Highness’ have to discuss with me?”

“Don’t play dumb,” I shot back, his annoying and continuous usage of royal terms irritating me as was his intention. “You know why I’m here and I know the person I’m actually looking for may be here among you.”

“Ana,” he said, taking a turn toward a more serious tone which was unexpected. “I don’t know exactly what you came here for and I really don’t give a fuck.”

“The hack!” I said which brought a newfound silence to the surrounding crowd. I’d already figured that at least a few of them were also worried about their personal information getting leaked, but may have up until then been playing it cool and acting as if they didn’t care. “I need to know who did it.” The eerie silence continued and Ronnie, for a moment, stared at me silently as if trying to figure out why I was asking. After a few seconds more, he shook his head at me.

“If I did know,” he said, his voice lowering and his eyes squinting at me. “Why the hell would I tell you?”

“Because,” I said, taking a moment to look around to the crowd around me. “This hack has the potential to hurt all of us. If that data gets released every single one of us in this room could be exposed. Our real names and faces could be linked to our avatars and the things we do here which would potentially lead to real world consequences.”

“You don’t want everyone to know you suck dick for money?” a voice screamed out which caused the crowd to burst into laughter. Ronnie also chuckled and used the opportunity to mock and ridicule me further.

“He’s got a point,” Ronnie said. “I doubt you’d want anyone in the real world to know you do the kind of shit we all know you’ve done here.” Ronnie then hopped down off the stage and approached me. “We all know about your little ‘adventures’ with your friends. What was that shit you were doing for a while? That whole ‘Latinas for White Cocks’ crap? Really, what the hell was all that? That your thing? You get off sucking all that white dick, Queenie? God forbid the rest of the players here were to find out about all that!”

“I’ve never hidden any of the things I’ve done here,” I said, countering his personal attack with truth. “I may not necessarily be proud of my sexual exploits, but I’m also not ashamed of them. I do what I do here by choice just as you do the things you like in Aurora. I have never kept it a secret that I was an escort and I still hold my license even to this day. I’m not ashamed of what I did or who I am. You want me to be, but I’m not.”

“So you admit you’re a whore,” Ronnie said, again eliciting a reaction from the crowd. “Wow. Who’d have thought our own Queen of Aurora was nothing more than a dirty, good for nothing whore.”

“Call me whatever you want,” I said to Ronnie and to the crowd around us which appeared to be growing as more and more people around Aurora got word of what was going on and where I was. I knew this would happen so I wasn’t surprised. “I am what I am and I won’t be shamed. Yeah, I’m a whore and I had sex for money. A lot of people here do it and there’s no shame in it other than what you’re trying to make me feel right now. I don’t take clients anymore but sure. I’m an escort and I’m damn good at it.” I paused for a moment to look around more into the crowd. “Hell, I can probably scan everyone here and tell you all the people in your group who’ve used escorts in Aurora. Some of you may not even realize it, but all those encounters, all the times when gold is exchanged, there’s a record of it. The developers store all those transactions so before you act like you’re somehow better than me and pass judgment, maybe you need to think about your own actions first.”

“Professional cock sucker!” someone just behind me called out. I turned to see who it was and it was a man I’d seen around before, notably around Cris’s brothel. “Goes to show you can only glam up a whore so much!”

“Strange words coming from you,” I said to him, staring him right in the eye. “Who designed your avatar? You look like Picasso’s Dora Maar. You look like Bono from U2 fucked a Christmas tree.” My comments were harsh and scathing, and took him and the rest of the crowd by surprise so I continued. “You look like an advertisement on why a vasectomy is a good idea. You look like you were born under a very dim street light. You look like being in a car accident would be an improvement. You look like a warthog had sex with an avocado. You look like someone threw up on a potato and called it a face.”

The crowd and even Ronnie stared at me as I went off on the guy. Their stunned silence was somewhat satisfying as I let myself get into my rash of insults. I’d never once thought of what I might say to any of the trolls that actively insulted me on the chat boards. I know Cris and the other council members sometimes ranted about the things that were said about them, but I refused to let it bring me down. Still, I have to admit, putting them in their place face to face was exhilarating. Just then another person yelled out to me with an attempted insult.

“You’d still fuck him for enough gold!” they yelled out. I turned slightly and spotted their face in the crowd.

“I’d rather fuck a chainsaw,” I said back to this other man who I had never seen before. “I’d rather fuck a ghost pepper with a razor in it. I’d rather fuck a lemon strapped to a horse cock.” I wasn’t holding back and I didn’t care what they thought of what I was saying. “What can I say? Even a whore has standards.”

---