timeless, spencer reid [ 1 ]

039. risky business

"But why would she have an empty computer set up?" Emily asks.

"I did not say empty, I said appears to be blank." Penelope says.

"Meaning?" Hotch asks.

"I'm gonna need a little while." She says.

"I got it!" Penelope calls and JJ and Hotch walk back over. "It was-- it was just a basic Trojan Horse. It just hid the directories, didn't erase them." A site loads. "Oh, God."

"What is it?" Hotch asks.

"She was on a choking game site the night she died." Penelope says.

"A what?" Rossi asks as Derek and Spencer get back.

"Uh, it's a game kids play where they choke themselves to get a buzz, to get high." Penelope informs.

"They call if the good kids' high. You get lightheaded and a sense of euphoria even though no actual drugs are involved. It's something kids in high school play." Spencer explains.

"Did Ryan have a computer?" Hotch asks.

"Not in his room." Derek says.

"What about a gaming system?" Penelope asks.

"Yeah, he did." Spencer says.

"Teenagers will find a way to get online." Penelope says.

"I have the, uh, IP address." Spencer gives her a small piece of paper.

"Oh, that will help." She says, typing, and the same site pops up. "Bingo. Ryan was on the same site on the same night."

"It wasn't suicide." Derek says.

"Hang on, this is a text to voice icon. Let's see what happens." Penelope says before hitting play.

"Come on, try it." A voice says. "We all do it. I dare you."

"I dare you?" Rhonda asks.

"Someone was orchestrating this, purposely getting the kids to choke themselves." Emily says.

"There's a whole subculture around this. They-- they make up names for it, they do it at parties." Penelope says.

"But someone is daring these kids in this area to play the game." Rossi says.

"It's a contest." Penelope says. "And there are rules. Come on, Evans High, this is the big one. Garfield edged out Casper High last week. You gonna let them diss us?"

"Who else would pit schools against each other?" Hotch asks.

"Reckless teenage competition." Rossi says.

"The school that logs the most high time this Friday wins." Penelope says.

"Friday, tomorrow." Emily says.

"Get your friends on board. Practice makes the high last longer. Gotta do it alone and video it with your webcam and upload it to the site for it to count." Penelope says.

"Doing it alone requires ligatures. He's basically encouraging them to play the deadliest form of the game with no one there to revive them." Spencer says.

"Garcia, shut the site down." Hotch orders.

"Sir, I can totally do that, but I don't think you want me to." Penelope says.

"Why?" He asks.

"Right now this site is our only way to track the unsub, and if I cut into it, he will certainly know we're watching him, in which case he'll shut it down and he'll write a simple change in code, bring it back up in a more covert fashion. Plus there's no telling how many servers it's replicated on, anyway."