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Trouble Brews in the "VW"

Published: October 22, 2007 at 08:02 AM GMT
Last Updated: October 23, 2007 at 08:02 AM GMT

By Bob Harrell

The Southland gang “community” had evolved rapidly in both its prominence and the violence of its tactics. The execution-style hits grew bolder each month. No longer satisfied preying on tertiary or secondary avatars, Southland gangbangers started gunning for master avatars directly, with ruthless brutality and no apparent concern for the virtual world (VW) law.

What's more, there were signs that Southland gangs were growing bored with their dominance in their virtual turf. They wanted more, and it seemed they would soon expand the war front – the fight was slowly but surely creeping from online to the on-land world.

First Southland gang leaders threatened that anyone who dared to regenerate their master avatar identity (MAI) after a Southland hit would face severe on-land consequences. It was a threat no one took seriously at first. Particularly for old school VR vets who cut their teeth on Second Life, this notion seemed ludicrous, even laughable. Laughable, that is, until their threat was tested.

In early September, Fred Balliet, a local journalist and vocal critic of the Southland gang movement, published an open letter to the Southland gang leaders. It was Fred's public retort to the much-talked-about and brutal beating death of his MAI in the virtual world by Southland gangbangers. He mocked their "juvenile" tactics and vowed to regenerate his MAI that very afternoon -- and as many times as needed -- until they abandoned their petty intimidation.

But just a week after the open letter was published, less than a week after Fred went missing, his friends found him...his on-land self rotting in the corner of the cozy midtown apartment, with a very real bullet lodged in the back of his skull. All the while, Fred's freshly regenerated MAI remained alive and chatty in the VW, unaware that he had just become a disembodied virtual ghost, an ironic in-joke Southland members would exploit to rehash Fred's gruesome fate and warn all others who might dare cross the Southland gang.

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For the Philly on-land police, the situation turned standard protocol upside down. They suddenly found themselves in the humiliating position of playing second fiddle to Southland's VW police unit, as the case was already firmly established under their jurisdiction.

Truth be told, the Philly cops' outrage and blustering about their "on-land jurisdiction" were more about ego than substance. Given how many of the top Philly police officers -- especially the seasoned detectives -- had themselves gotten their start as Southland VW beat cops, there was hardly space for the typical on-land snobbery.

Everyone knew Southland VW had become, de facto, the local farm team for the Philly on-land police force. And notably, some Philly officers who skipped an initial Southland rotation (and instead started their careers with "boots on the dirt") found themselves struggling to play catch up with their "Southland native" counterparts.

In some ways the career track within Southland had become even more competitive than in Philly itself. After all, no Lt. (and certainly no Captain) wants to find himself stuck in his off hours having to do virtual grunt work at the whim of a VW superior officer, who by day is in fact one of his on-land subordinates. Even if you have the power to torpedo a guy's performance review on-land, it's still no less embarrassing having to be his lackey in the VW.

No matter. The body count was rising, so it was getting pretty real for all the players involved, both on-land and in the VW. This was no time to quibble over the niceties of jurisdiction and bragging rights.

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First order of business would be to establish a good intelligence network to span both the on-land and VW territories. But in recent years, penetrating the Southland gangs had proven to be a challenge. The Southland initiation rites were not for the faint of heart, so there wasn't exactly a long line of undercover agents raising their hands for the opportunity.

The first officer sent in squealed like a stuck pig during the gender-locking ritual, so they pegged him for a cop right off. The next volunteer seemed more promising. She was a square-jawed female graduate of the Southland Police Academy, with advanced training in special ops. She didn't look, smell, or act like a cop. And she breezed through Southland's gender-locking ritual (and all their other initiation rites) without incident.

The problems with her appeared later. The headquarters team noticed that her avatar began to morph quite dramatically in both features and behaviors. She quickly lost her ability -- or perhaps desire -- to keep her identity fixed, as she had clearly been instructed to do during the assignment briefing. Her escalating aggressiveness flagged her as high risk. Either Jessica was aping a killer impression of Southland’s worst characters, or she was simply turning into a killer. Quietly, she was made to disappear.

So now all eyes turned to Keith Dulik, the great white hope of the Philly/Southland joint task force. His on-land skills were untouchable, and his VW persona was no less impressive. He could interview an avatar relentlessly until they broke - sometimes even to the point of getting a walk-in confession from the avatar's on-land sponsor. Keith was unflinchingly cold as ice, but stable. Exactly what the team needed to place a mole deep in the heart of Southland gang country...

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