Later that afternoon
The calls with Melissa and Jet had caused Nigel to become behind on his forensic work. He had barely finished the imaging process when his client interrupted him.
“Do you have my computer ready yet?”
I didn’t hear him come in! I’d better start locking that door.
Nigel looked toward the voice. Peter stood in front of him with an impatient look.
“Not yet—it takes time to diagnose and fix this kind of problem,” Nigel explained.
“I can’t wait. Give me back my computer.”
“It’s not ready. It’s likely infected, and you could risk all of your data getting corrupted, deleted, or worse.”
Peter gave Nigel a curious look.
“What’s worse than having your data deleted?”
“Having it stolen,” Nigel said.
Peter appeared to be in deep thought, his brow furrowed. He looked like he was holding the weight of all creation on his shoulders.
“Fine. I’ll give you a few more hours before taking the computer back. I have a video shoot scheduled for tonight.”
I wonder what kind of video shoot it is, Nigel pondered. This seems to go beyond innocent fun with his girlfriend.
“Can you delay your plans? I need the system overnight to properly diagnose and fix the problem.”
“I’ll be right back,” Peter said as he stormed out of the shop.
Nigel resumed his examination. He disabled the Wi-Fi on Peter’s laptop on a hardware level; this was a precaution, because he couldn’t afford Peter’s laptop auto-connecting to the nearby coffee shop—or to Peter’s cell phone—and thereby compromising all of his work. He worked on the forensic image anyway, so this wasn’t an issue.
“Yes, Donnie, please reschedule the girls . . .”
Peter walked in with his cell phone, engaged in conversation. He trailed off when he saw Nigel.
“I need to call you back,” Peter barked into his cell phone.
Peter is definitely hiding something, Nigel noted. Then something occurred to him. Is it the same Donnie? Jake’s best friend from high school?
“Keep the computer until tomorrow. I’ll come by after school,” Peter said.
“Great. Give me your number, just in case I finish early.”
Peter hastily wrote down his cell phone number and thrust it into Nigel’s face, then left without another word.
Nigel watched Peter leave. The cell phone was back in his hands the moment he left the shop.
Nigel turned on a light to fend off the darkness as menacing clouds moved in. He shut down Peter’s laptop and worked on the forensic image he’d taken earlier. While he suspected the system had some sort of malware, Nigel wasn’t totally prepared for what he found.
He started his examination by reviewing the cache folders on Peter’s system. Most operating systems he was familiar with downloaded pointers to files that either were or had been on the system. This gave Nigel an understanding of how the computer was used.
Peter was right; there were a lot of video files on there. Nigel loaded hash libraries that contained a list of known files for every known operating system. Since a hash is a cryptographic representation of a file, no two files are the same. Once he eliminated the operating system files, there were more than five hundred gigabytes of video files and pictures. He ran his standard set of filters on all files.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
About an hour later, Nigel’s computer was alerted with a message:
System processing of 1,014 files complete.
A summary of categories was automatically displayed:
Warning: 567 files or 56% of the scanned files contain explicit material.
Nigel reviewed the categories, which, of the 567 files, at least 314 were reported as underaged pornography.
If these files contain information about children, then I have to report it to the police.
Nigel expanded the folders with the highest score. Several images of naked woman and men in various positions appeared. None of the models appeared to be under eighteen. Nigel let out a long sigh.
Was I holding my breath?
When he checked the video folder with the highest explicit rating, he braced himself as he opened it. A teenage girl was strapped in a chair wearing a bikini that was a little too small. She might as well have not been wearing anything at all, Nigel thought.
She was bound to the chair, but she didn’t try to struggle or move. Nigel scanned the room; other than some differences of color in the paint, the room was nondescript. It was like someone had removed the paintings and other furniture from the room. The walls were a ruddy brown color. Nigel unmuted his speakers to analyze the audio portion of the recording. He heard several cheers and voices in the background. Nigel could make out some words. “Take it off” and “spray her” were the only words he could understand.
Where was this filmed?
It was like watching a video with half of its audio tracks removed. After several minutes of the girl only moving slightly in her chair, he detected movement. A masked man entered the room with a burlap sack in one hand and a plastic bag in another. He held the sack up to the camera. The man put down the bag, then opened the burlap sack and shook it over the girl’s head. Four or five enormous-looking tarantulas fell on the girl. She fidgeted as they crawled on her bare skin. One of the spiders fell between her breasts, and another crawled in her hair. The camera zoomed in. Although the girl was blindfolded, Nigel recognized terror when he saw it. As the camera panned out and across her body, the video shook. It was as if the person holding the camera was convulsing. She did her best to keep from screaming. The spiders didn’t seem to have the desired effect, because the masked man came back into view and yanked the girl’s hair back. Her face glistened with tears. Nigel heard moaning. He wished he could help her.
Did Peter film this?
No wonder why he hadn’t wanted to take the computer to Mr. Henry at Better Buy Computers; Mr. Henry was a former NSA agent, and Peter could get into some serious trouble for this.
Nigel’s heart ached for the girl. He wanted her to be okay, but he was riveted to the screen. The man caressed the girl’s face; then, as he progressed to other more private parts of the girl’s anatomy, the spiders moved suddenly, and the girl screamed. She began to thrust violently in the chair, desperate to get the spider off. The more the girl moved, the more the spiders reacted. The camera zoomed in on one of the spiders. Nigel could see red bumps forming on her bare skin.
I’m going to be sick.
The video ended abruptly.
What the hell is Peter doing? I have a bad feeling about this.
Nigel observed a naming pattern for much of the video content he’d found on Peter’s computer. He was able to link the files in the particular series by following the naming convention.
This is going to take a very long time.
He glanced at the directory listing of the thousands of video files on the computer. Nigel selected the next file in the series.
The timestamp was two hours after the first video. The video opened on an empty chair. Moments later, the girl in the bikini that he’d seen earlier was herded into the room by a man. He wore dark clothes, and it was difficult to make out any distinguishing features because he also wore a mask.
“Sit down, bitch,” the man said.
I recognize that voice. But from where?
The man tied the girl up. He pulled back her hair, revealing her face. She was beautiful and appeared to be in her early twenties. She tried screaming, but only a muffled sound emitted since she was gagged.
I should show this to John Appleton. He is a former FBI agent. Maybe he can look into it. But—is this illegal? Peter could just be making a movie. This all could be fake.
Nigel decided to continue watching to see if any crime was being committed. He didn’t want to risk his new business by invading his client’s privacy, but he decided to call John if he knew he was witnessing a crime.
Several minutes passed without anything of note. The girl dropped her head and continued to sob. The man pulled her hair back; she looked at him with a fearful expression then he punched her. Nigel stood up and started pacing; he couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed his phone and pulled up the contact for John Appleton. He was just about to dial when something changed on the video; the camera zoomed up on the girl, revealing a high-definition view of the woman’s body. The spider bites he witnessed before were gone. He rechecked the video timestamp, and the time was correct.
“Are you ready to show the world?” the man said.
The woman shook her head.
“Fine then—I’ll need to force you.”
The man punched the woman. Nigel found himself jumping a little. The man started digging his fingers into her skin, and the woman screamed. Then he took a tool out of his pocket and started pealing her skin off. Nigel jumped involuntarily again, then rapidly tapped John Appleton’s contact information.
“Hello? Nigel?” a voice emitted from Nigel’s phone.
Nigel was about to respond when he saw something on the video that took his breath away. The man started to peel her skin back. A pink, mucus-like substance poured out of her as she screamed. Nigel thought he could see metal underneath.
Am I seeing things?
Nigel attempted to speak, but his mouth didn’t obey his command. He hung up the phone, then rubbed his eyes.