Chapter 2

"Not again," Tara muttered, opening up an e-mail and seeing a very familiar story being told by the chatter submitting the report. Once again, someone was threatening to kill Backstreet Boys, and once again, he was terrifying the teenagers in the chatroom. "Jesus christ, could enough of them report this guy?" She whispered sarcastically, running through the masses of reports that had been submitted.

Was this guy spending his whole LIFE in chat, or were Backstreet fans just that obsessive, she wondered. BSBH3t4rs had gotten a good 40 reports on him, that she'd found so far, and it was still early in the morning. Goddamn.

"Well, say bye bye," she rolled her eyes, and killed his account. Hopefully he wouldn't sign up again. The problem with being a free service….she could kill accounts until she was blue in the face, and this guy could keep signing up again. All she could do was try…

**************************************************

"Lemme see?" Nick snatched the paper out of Kevin's hands and sat down, his eyes widening as he read. "Strangle me with my Playstation controllers?"

"I've been tempted at times myself," Kevin admitted with a small grin.

"You're not actually taking this seriously."

"The FBI thinks we should."

"Do you?" Nick raised an eyebrow curiously. "Kevin, come on. Strangle me with a controller?"

"I am coming to get you, Kaos," Brian ran up to Nick, a controller held tight between his hands. "DEATH BY PLAYSTATION!!" He cackled and wrapped the cord around Nick's neck, snickering when Nick began to act like he was choking. "You think this is even strong enough to choke you?"

"Don't find out, please?" Kevin pleaded with them, rolling his eyes when Nick fell onto the floor, clutching at his neck. "This is morbid."

"Oh, damn. Someone killed Nicky," Howie remarked with a definite lack of emotion, walking into the room and stepping over Nick's body. "With a Playstation controller?"

"Don't ask," Kevin groaned.

AJ walked into the room, holding an envelope in his hand. His face was uncharacteristically grim, and he barely looked at Nick strangling on the floor before handing the envelope to Kevin. "I got this in the mail today. At HOME."

"Home?" Kevin's eyes widened, and he looked at the envelope carefully. "Here?"

"Look at the address," AJ waved to the envelope, and sat down, shaking his head. "Man, how'd he get my home address?"

"She," Howie corrected. "I thought you were so sure this was a girl."

"I ain't so sure anymore," AJ said grimly. "No girl would think up that shit."

Kevin opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of paper, his face paling when he read the typewritten note. "Jesus christ," he whispered, refolding the paper and returning it to the envelope. "We'll give this to the FBI."

"Lemme see?" Nick raised his hand from his spot on the floor, frowning when Kevin waved him off. "I wanna see!"

"Not this one you don't," Kevin shook his head slowly.

"Jesus christ is right," AJ shuddered. "What the fuck?"

"Enough, AJ," Kevin said firmly.

"Let me see!" Nick stood up and tried to grab the envelope from Kevin, glaring at him when he held it out of reach. "Why won't you let me see? What am I, a kid?"

"Trust me, Nick, you don't want to read it," AJ told him.

Brian rolled his eyes, "what's the big deal? Give it to me, Kev."

Kevin stared at Brian for a moment, before standing up and pocketing the envelope. "We shouldn't even have opened it, the FBI can check for prints and stuff, if we don't get our dirty paws all over it."

"But, Kevin…" Nick whined, his eyes widening when Kevin just walked out of the room without another word. "Hey!" He looked at AJ, frowning, "what the hell got up his butt? I just wanted to see what stupid death this guy had planned for you."

AJ shook his head slowly, "that letter wasn't about me, Nicky. I still don't know what he has planned for me."

"So? Who was it about? And how bad could it be, if mine was death by Playstation."

AJ sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. "It was about Brian."

"And?"

"He seems to want to get each of us with the things we love most. You…games."

"And Brian?" Nick prompted.

Brian's face turned white, and he sat down heavily. "What does he think I love most, AJ?"

"What do you love most, Brian?" AJ asked him, meeting his gaze sadly. "Or I should say, who?"

"Leighanne," Brian said softly.

"Before Leighanne. More than Leighanne. Leighanne loves him too."

Brian's mouth fell open, "what?"

"Jesus?" AJ said, rolling his eyes when Nick fell back to the floor with a thud. "See, I told you this wasn't funny."

"What'd he say about Jesus and Brian?" Nick asked, staring up at AJ.

"How did Jesus die?" AJ asked, looking sadly at Brian.

"Oh, jesus."

"Yeah. Oh jesus."

******************************************************************

"Goddammit," Tara cursed, impatiently yanking on the door to her office. Once again, she'd tried to open the door before the electronic lock had triggered, which meant she had to step back and wait for it to reset before she could try again. She ran a hand through her wet hair while she waited, then opened the lock and headed in to her cubicle.

"Morning, Tara," Tommy called as she breezed into her cubicle, waving at her.

Tara dumped her bag at her desk and turned around, looking at Tommy curiously. "You're in early?"

"Couldn't sleep," he shrugged. "You're in late."

Tara rolled her eyes in exasperation. The one morning she hadn't bothered coming up with an excuse, someone noticed. "I overslept," she said briskly, before marching off to get her coffee.

Back at her desk, coffee in hand, Tara opened up the abuse queue, looking over today's batch of perverts and weirdos. She groaned when she recognized an all too familiar subject line, and clicked on the e-mail, her shoulders slumping as she read.

"He's back," she whispered to herself, shaking her head. This would make five times this pervert had recreated his account, always with just one letter or number different, and each time, his stories of what he intended to do to the Backstreet Boys just got that much more graphic, more disturbing.

Her eyes widened when she saw a URL referenced in the e-mail, and clicked on it, gasping when the webpage opened. "Holy shit, he's insane," she gasped, covering her mouth in disgust at the site.

The guy had taken pictures of the Backstreet Boys and manipulated them into extremely graphic pictures of what he intended to do to them, or so he said. On the side of the page was a logo announcing the "Game Had Begun," and there was a link to his "diary."

Tara clicked.

She chewed on her bottom lip as she read the explanation of what this game was supposed to be. Torturing the Backstreet Boys, slowly, ultimately culminating in their deaths.

They felt too protected, so he said. They were on top of the world. He intended to bring them down.

His first strike was to show them that he could get to them, that they weren't invincible. Not kill them. No, he explained, he would only kill them once they knew he was coming…once he'd "adequately," scared them. And just for the hell of it, he wasn't going to say how he was going to be teasing them. Not really, anyway. He suggested AJ watch his drinks carefully, Brian should make sure he knew his pastor, Kevin, his wife, and Howie should always watch his money. Nick should check out a certain game, for he was to be living it soon. Tara grimaced when she read the title of the game, hoping the guy really didn't mean what she thought he meant with that….

At the very bottom of the page was a line that he said would let a reader know when he would strike first, a quote from a song. "I've been watching you, you've been watching me."

Tara shuddered, and went to kill the account. She held her mouse over the button for a moment, before changing her mind. This was getting a little too creepy, this guy was actually speaking english, writing clear sentences, no, something was wrong here. Just killing his account wouldn't do any good.

"Tommy? What's Matt's extension?" Tara called, still clicking around on the page. "Jesus," she cursed, quickly minimizing the browser window. Despite the graphic nature of the material she saw every day, some things still managed to get to her, and rape was definitely one of them…

"Matt the lawyer?"

"Matt the lawyer," Tara replied.

"Got something to trademark?" Tommy jumped up and walked over to her cubicle, peering at her monitor. "Nice wallpaper."

Tara rolled her eyes. Her screen was black. Just black. No wallpaper. "Nothing to trademark, just have a question."

"Oh." Tommy was an engineer for the company, and had been riding high ever since he'd developed two trademarkable technologies over the last year. Trademarking, he'd learned, was fun, when your name went on the paper. "He's 6537."

"Thanks," Tara waved Tommy off and dialed. She sighed with relief when Matt picked up on the first ring, and quickly explained the situation. "Basically, I don't think this guy's just kidding anymore. He's putting far too much effort into it, with the website, and the pictures, and scaring these girls….it's like he wants this to get back to the Backstreet Boys, he wants them to get scared."

"Kill the account," Matt advised.

"Yeah, but he'll just recreate," Tara frowned. "Five seconds, and he'll have a new account, and be doing it again."

"What do you suggest we do, then?" Matt's voice sounded tired as he asked the question.

"Tell the police?"

"It's not child pornography, is it?"

"What?"

"You said there's a simulated rape. Is the person being raped a child? We're required by law to report child porn to the FBI if it is."

"No, he's a Backstreet Boy," Tara said in exasperation. "So?"

"We can't tell the police, unfortunately, it's a dangerous precedent we'd be setting if we did."

"But, Matt, this guy, I really think he intends to do this…"

"It makes no difference, Tara. Our users have a right to their privacy, even the more off-kilter ones."

"But…"

"No buts. We can't. Kill the account."

Tara sighed heavily, and killed the account.

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"Tara baby, where are you?"

Tara was sitting on her living room couch with her laptop in her lap, trying to fit in to the crowd in the Backstreet Boys chatroom. "In here," she called, rolling her eyes as yet another chatter announced that all the boys were gay. "Andy wishes," she giggled, looking up at him when he walked in.

"What's so funny?" He flopped down next to her, looking at the computer screen. "Oooh, you ARE becoming a fan!"

"Not quite," Tara shut off the laptop and put it on the coffee table. "This guy, he keeps coming back."

"The one who wants to hurt my AJ?"

"The one who wants to hurt all of them," she frowned. "He's starting to creep me out, Andy, the things he says, he's thought about all of it far too much."

Andy made a face, and rolled his eyes, "you don't really believe this guy wants to kill the Backstreet Boys."

"Not just kill," she corrected. "Torture, terrify, then kill."

"Fine. That. Please." Andy snickered, "I think your job is getting to you. Those boys have tighter security than god, nobody's getting to them. Did I TELL you what they're doing to the office for their party next week?"

"No…."

"Ok, well, so, you know their tour is starting next week, right?" Andy began jabbering, his eyes lighting up as he talked about his favorite subject. Backstreet Boys. "Well, management, of course, is throwing a party. So they have people doing friggin walkthroughs of the office, making sure everything's clear, we're gonna have special badges that day, all sorts of stuff. All because it's going to be fairly well known they're gonna be there, and all just in case. Nothing's gonna happen Tara, you're being silly."

"You going to this party?" Tara asked, laughing when Andy groaned. "No?"

"What, like a silly webmaster gets to go to the tour party? Please," he shook his head. "No, I just get to post the pictures afterwards."

"Awww, sorry sweetie," Tara said consolingly.

"That's ok, I've been promised backstage passes when the tour hits LA. You'll come with, right?"

"If they're still alive? Sure," Tara sighed.

"So not funny."

"Andy, I tell you, if you'd seen this site…."

"What's the url?" Andy picked up Tara's laptop and opened it.

"I killed the account," she closed it and returned it to the table. "All I could do."

"I still think you're being a spaz."

"Too much detail, Andy, this guy has thought all this through."

"Like how?" He challenged. "Killing Nick with playstation controllers. Oooh, scary," he giggled. "I coulda thought of that."

"Ok, well, using Nick as the example?" Tara pulled her legs up onto the couch and hugged them tight, shuddering as she remembered. "He said he was going to make Nick live out a game."

"So? Living out a game sounds like fun," Andy shrugged.

"Not this game," she said woefully.

"What game then, darlin, tell me."

"D2."

Andy looked at her dully. "And that is?"

"Remember that Dreamcast game that came out a few months ago, the one that I was so offended by?"

Andy started to laugh, "the one with the tentacle sex?"

"It was RAPE, Andy, it was a woman getting raped by a goddamn tentacle thing, and it was disgusting," Tara reminded him, her face flushing as she spoke. "The guy said Nick's going to live out that game."

"Nick's going to have tentacle sex?" Andy giggled, wiggling his hips. "Lucky Nicky."

"It was rape, Andy."

"It was just a game, Tara," Andy rolled his eyes.

"This guy says he's just playing a game too," Tara said grimly.

"You're a spaz."

"I'm afraid, is what I am."

"So sweet, Tara's worried for my Boys."

"Tara's worried someone's going to hurt someone, and she didn't stop it," Tara corrected. "I can't do anything about it, and that scares me. It's like this guy knows that."

"I think it's adorable you care, but you're overreacting. This guy's just another freak online, relax."

"I hope you're right, Andy."

"I'm sure I am. Now, dinner?"

"Yeah, dinner."

***

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