Hacking Love (Book One, Eye Candy fanfic)

chapter 8 - AMA

---Nate---

We were in the Cyber Unit.

Catherine was showing us the main screen filled with different videos. "Babylon portal. Virtual city of illegal sites where anything and everything can be bought anonymously."

"People are selling their virginity, their internal organs, brokering murder, selling their own suicides," Tommy told us.

"Nate?" Catherine asked.

"We've tried to locate where this is run from, but it's untraceable," I told them. 

"If we can get our hands on their user records, we'll have the identities of anyone who has ever bought or sold anything on a Babylon site," Catherine told us. 

"Including the Flirtual killer," Marisa told us.

"Exactly," Catherine told her. "We know he purchased you on the Dollhouse's site, and Dollhouse is hosted on the Babylon portal."

"One shop in a giant shopping mall," Marisa told us.

I played a video of a man. 

"Which is why this footage of Kent is so important," Catherine told us. The man looked terrified, picking up a pair of scissors. "He's a lead we can follow, the first that we can actually identify."

The man stabbed himself in his eye, making himself scream in agony, holding both hands over his bleeding eye.

"This video originated on a self-mutilation website posted on the Babylon portal," I told them.

Catherine turned to face us. "What do we know about him?"

Marisa typed away, bringing up videos and photos. "Kent was one of the top models in the world and became a photographer. He was all over the news a few weeks ago, said he was stabbed in the eye during a mugging. "

"This guy's got a thing or prostitutes, drugs, and definitely likes to live life to the extreme," I told them.

"Why would he mutilate his eye if his eyes are his livelihood?" Tommy asked. 

Marisa shook her head. "I think someone made him do it."

Catherine looked at Marisa. "You stay and scour the Babylon portal for any other sign of Kent." She looked from Tommy to me. "You two, go talk to him."

Tommy looked at me. "Let's go."

I nodded.

Tommy and I walked away, leaving.

  ღ  

In Kent's photography building, I knocked on the door labeled, 'Edward Kent, Photography Studios'.

A man answered. "Yeah?"

Tommy and I showed the man our badges.

"NYPD," Tommy told him. "Detectives Tommy and Nate Calligan. We believe we may have a new lead on Mr. Kent's case."

The man stepped aside to let us in.

  ღ  

Tommy and I were sitting across a table from Kent, showing him pictures of five men. 

"Any of these men look familiar?" Tommy asked. Kent was wearing an eye patch over the eye he had stabbed. "I'm sorry to make you relive it, but is there anything else you can remember about that night?"