Dot Com Boom

Anna Martinez

The TV blared. "You need this phone! The xPhoneX!" Brice Bailey exclaimed from the television. He was on the show floor at CES, Consumer Electronics Show, hyping up their upcoming product. He is CEO of the largest cell phone manufacturing company in the world, Pineapple. "Just look at the emojis, they're animated! Everyone loves emoji. Take a look at this video, see what else xPhoneX can do for you!"
"Of all the technological advances they could make, and they settle on animated emoji. Pineapple is really going downhill. And this Brice bozo is a real clueless son of a bitch," Jake said in calm tone. He wasn't mad, I don't think, just stating facts to the T.V. "Just a talking head. He doesn't know anything."
Jake only got bothered by one thing, I noticed, and that was technology. It's the only time he let his true feelings be known. 
"Hey Jake," I said. "Can you turn off the T.V. and come help me?"
"Not like they're going to show anything cool anyway," he said. Then he turned the television off and threw the controller down on the sofa. "So, what we lookin' at?"
"I'm just going over all of the files for the case. Tomorrow we can watch the videos."
"That should be fun."
I couldn't tell if he was joking or serious. Not much inflection in his voice to hint at sarcasm. He was kidding of course, it's just his voice was monotone. " That's sarcasm, right?"
He looked up, wide-eyed. "Of course. What the hell." Even his 'what the hell' was monotone. No anger.
"No. I know, I don't mean to imply anything," I said. "It's just sometimes, and I don't even think you notice, but your affect is flat. It makes it hard to get a read on what you really mean." I laughed nervously. "But of course that was sarcasm. It's just something I've noticed about you. Maybe the wrong time to actually bring it up. I'm sorry."
"It's cool." He shuffled through the files. "So, we have the location of the upload points."
"Yeah, got them much too late to act, but we have them. One in California, one in Utah, one in Ohio, and the little girl, her name is Susannah, that video was uploaded from Pennsylvania."
"He really gets around."
"Yeah. One end of the country to the other."
"Are we sure he was actually at those locations? Maybe he pinged the upload point somehow to throw us even further off his trail."
"Is that possible?"
"It shouldn't be possible that he can stay hidden so well while uploading to a top website, so I would say anything's possible where this guy is concerned. Auto-upload at a specific time isn't anything difficult though."
"Each point did have physical evidence at it. They weren't the location that the videos were filmed, but each had a laptop on a table. Someone had been there."
"But we don't know when he was there," Jake said. "Why would he leave behind the laptop? Did it have any evidence of the programs he used on it? Any fingerprints?"
"No. The laptops were wiped clean. No fingerprints. I think he just wanted us to know he had physically been there. He left a note taunting us at each location. They're printed. They're short and sweet."
I handed Jake one letter after the other.
"In California, the first victim to our knowledge, a street walker was killed," I said.

HELLO LESS-THAN
THIS IS THE DOTCOMKILLER, YOU DON'T KNOW ME YET, BUT THAT'S WHAT THEY'LL END UP CALLING ME. SO PREDICTABLE.

"In Utah, another hooker."

LESS-THAN
THIS IS GETTING FUN, ISN'T IT?

"In Ohio, he switched it up and raped and killed a man, a pimp."

LESS-THAN, LONG TIME NO SEE
THOUGHT I ONLY RAPED AND KILLED WOMEN? I'M NOT THAT CLICHE. ALWAYS KEEP THEM GUESSING...

"And in Pennsylvania, poor Susannah got abducted from her own front yard."

LESS-THAN, YOU'RE GONNA LIKE THIS ONE
THEY'RE NEVER TOO YOUNG. I EXPLORED DORA REAL GOOD. HOPE YOU ENJOYED.

"Less-than?" Jake said. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"I think he thinks everyone is below him. He's Narcissistic. Egotistical."
"Sounds like Brice Bailey," Jake said. "Wouldn't that be something, CEO of Pineapple all along. Top one percent already think they can get away with anything. I wouldn't be surprised."
A joke, I took it. "There is one other thing I wanted to run by you."
"What is it?"
"There are cameras around all of the upload points. The task force pulled the video of local businesses nearby. Street posts. Anywhere they could, it looks like."
"So we have him on video, but he's concealed?"
"Not exactly," I said. "It's weird. According to the reports, the cameras only show static at certain times. All other times there is nothing that shows someone entering or leaving the upload location. It says the static comes then it passes. And here's the really weird thing. They have blocks worth of camera feed. And it's like it rolls along, camera after camera gets static then goes back to normal in a wave along the street. It isn't random."
"He causes the distortion when he's nearby."
"Exactly. I was thinking the same thing, but how?"
"Some kind of EMP, most likely, that stands for Electric-Magnetic-Pulse."
"I know what EMP stands for."
"Okay, sorry, most people don't," Jake said. "It's probably on his person. As he walks it distorts any camera and other electronics nearby. Once he's in the upload location, away from the cameras, he disables it so he can use the laptop to upload."
"That's some real Star Wars shit," I joked.
"Eh. More like Star Trek," Jake said.
"Whatever."



The next morning at FBI headquarters, I flipped open my laptop and logged into the FBI evidence database. Not like I needed to do that to see what I was about to watch, it was all over the internet by now. I navigated to the case, then the case files. What awaited me was four videos. Four victims. And one insane perpetrator performing for the camera.
I wasn’t looking forward to this.
“You ready?” I asked Jake.
“Yeah,” he said.
I started video #1. The first hooker. Upload point, California. He raped her as she lay on her back on a bed, entirely nude. She was blond and had heavy caked on make-up on. Her hands were tied to the bed board and her legs were tied to two chains that hung from the ceiling, her legs spread. The camera angle was wide, so there was a good view of the room they were in, but it wasn’t helpful. We identified the types brick in the background, the type of bed, even the chains. They were all mass-market stuff, nothing unique enough to narrow down where anything came from, or where the location might be. The perpetrator, fuck, sorry I can’t be politically correct right now, not while watching this, calling him a perpetrator is too nice. The Fucking Devil is more appropriate. The Fucking Devil was dressed in some kind of body suit, nothing showing, not even his pencil dick, that was covered with a black condom. The suit was baggy, so we couldn’t see the build of The Fucking Devil. We identified the suit as custom made from some type of mass-market rubber, not helpful. The fucking Devil didn’t have horns, he wore a balaclava on his head and had some kind of mesh grating over his mouth under the balaclava. His eyes were exposed, skin around them wasn’t. At least something was right: The Fucking Devil had bright red eyes, contacts. He finished with the woman. Then, he went postal on her with a long 12-inch blade. He was savage, screaming at the top of his lungs as he stabbed her. He stabbed her until blood covered everything. He swooshed the knife at the camera in a crisscross shape, obstructing the lens with blood, and that was the end.
“Excuse me,” Jake said as he got up.
“Should I wait?”
“No, go ahead.” He walked out of the room.
After taking a moment to gather myself. To breathe. To contemplate why I was torturing myself. I started video #2. I had to. Something could have been missed by others. I had to watch these.
It was shot differently. The angle was higher and angled downward. Nothing new was shown of the room. It looked like the same location. A dungeon of some kind. The black hooker was splayed on the bed on her stomach with her arms pointed at the top corners of the bed and legs to the bottom corners. She was nude. Black hair with gold striped through it lay down her back. The Fucking Devil climbed on top of her and raped her, but this time he didn’t wait to stab her. He stabbed her slowly as he raped her. He stabbed her in non-vital parts of her body slowly. He slid the knife in her shoulder slowly. The knife went in and out as he did. She screamed in pain. And he pulled her long hair, yanking her head far back so she could see him, see his fucking Devil eyes over top of her. As he came, he stabbed the knife right through her outstretched neck. It went all the way through and the tip came out the other side. Then he walked to the camera and turned it off calmly.
The Fucking Devil. He was corrupting me. He was corrupting everyone. That’s how I felt. I felt so dirty. I felt… Jesus, I felt so much. I was tingling. How could someone do this. I cried through both videos and when they were over, I still cried. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t breathe. I’ve been to a lot of crime scenes. They affect me, but I’ve always held it together. The aftermath is easy by comparison. No sane person can hold it together watching these videos. No one. I reached for the laptop, weak, depressed, but I had to watch. I clicked video #3.
Everything changed for this video. He was raping a man. The camera was in a different location as well. It was positioned in front of the man, facing toward him to give a large view of his face, behind him you could see The Fucking Devil’s baggy rubber torso thrusting into the man. The Fucking Devil held his large knife to the man’s neck. He was a bald black man with a gold hoop nose ring. As The Fucking Devil thrust in and out of the man he yelled, “Tell me you like it! Tell me you like it!” in a robotic voice. The man complied. “I like it!” The Fucking Devil said, “Ask for more!” and the man screamed “Give me more!” All along tears streamed down the man’s face. When The Fucking Devil came, the black man went. The 12-inch blade put an end to the tears, an end to the screaming, in an instant. It pierced downward into the bald man’s head and came out the bottom of his jaw. His final expression, agony.
I shook my head. I was exhausted. And worst of all, I wasn’t seeing anything in these videos except insanity. Nothing new to help the case. That will require repeat viewing. Oh God. I can’t think about that right now. I couldn’t think straight. Was this even helping? What am I doing? I had been sick throughout, throwing up in a waste basket many times. Was my mind going to survive this, or are some things just too much? Then, I thought, where the hell is Jake? He’s never around. And now, when I need him most. When I need to remember what humanity is, no one was around.
As I reached for the laptop to begin video #4, I wondered if this would be the one to break me. To break me completely.
The Fucking Devil had a flare for narrative. He didn’t start the next video with violence. He started it with a beautiful little girl looking innocently into the camera, unaware of what was going on, unaware of just how much danger she was in. “What are you watching?” The Fucking Devil asked in his robotic voice. “Dora Explorer,” Susannah said. “Do you watch a lot of Dora Explorer?” The Fucking Devil asked. “When mommy and daddy are not around.” Then: “Are mommy and daddy gone a lot?” The little girl, plump cheeks, black hair, nodded her head. Then The Fucking Devil changed the subject. “That’s a pretty dress you have on.” Susannah nodded. “My mommy got it for me. She told me not to get it dirty.” Then The Fucking Devil took the phone from her hands. “Let’s get comfortable over here.” He placed the camera on a tripod and pointed it at that fucking bed. That goddamn fucking bed in the dungeon. Fucker. That motherfucking son of a bitch. Fuuuuuuuuck. I broke down. I paused the video. I can’t do this. I can’t… But I had to. I reluctantly pressed play. Susannah was sitting on the bed. In the background was rustling, The Fucking Devil was putting on his rubber suit. He stepped into the picture and stood over Susannah. “Why are your eyes red Mr? What’s that silly outfit?” Susannah asked. He ignored her and walked to the camera, picked it up, and moved it closer. It was pointed directly at Susannah. She looked so confused. He didn’t say a word. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around violently so she was on her stomach. He lifted her dress and ripped her Dora The Explorer panties off. He forced himself into her. The fucking pencil dick forced himself into her until she bled. And the camera showed every gory detail. He wore no condom. He was a white man. She screamed and called out for her mommy. She cried so loud. I couldn’t look, but I forced myself to. I threw up in the waste bucket more somehow. She screamed and begged him to stop. He only yelled out, “Oh yes, Dora!” in his goddamn robotic voice, and continued to hurt the little girl. The poor little girl. She screamed until he took her tiny head in his hands and snapped her neck. He looked into the camera and behind the mesh where his mouth was, a faint smile formed, then he turned the camera off.
I was shaken. I thought about all of the victims, then thoughts wandered to my sister. My Vanessa. A Devil like this did the same thing to her. How can people be so cruel? It was no new revelation that they were, but I was always astounded by just how heartless and insane people can be. I felt like the world was crumbling all around me. Like I didn’t even want to be a part of it anymore. I cried until my head felt like it was going to explode. I had no hope for anything at all in that moment.