## 2018:05:24:21:55 - Real Life: Dasomov's Apartment, Saratov, Russia

The glint of lamplight off his glasses posited itself as a incessant irritation to the concentrating coder as a fly on a dry day would tickle the eyelashes of a lion viewing its prey, hoping for a sip of water and finding none. In the white of the man's eyes grew tiny canals of bright red in proportion to the power and duration of his gaze, depths growing in simultaneity.

After an hour of persistent disregard, Dasomov could no longer ignore the luminous aggravation. It was uncanny how, no matter how many times he moved the darn thing, it was never perfect. Every evening, his eyes would adjust and he would feel inclined to move it again, but he usually didn't. Tonight was too much, he thought, though in truth, it was his extreme concentration that amplified the effects of even the tiniest source of irritation. Dasomov relocated the lamp a few inches without so much as taking a second away from his gaze at his monitor. He punched away into chat.

Doslad: "Noro301 is online in alpha Notre Borealis."

He waited.

Zontna: "I'm getting unusual readings on our network."

Doslad: "It could be the login of Noro301."

Zontna: "Are they using a proxy?"

Jyos: "Thanks for the notice. I'll proceed then."

Doslad: "Could be."

Doslad: "You're welcome. Let us know what you find."

Zontna: "It's from Japan."

Jyos: "Will do."

Doslad: "Interesting."

Zontna: "But that's odd. It's not tied to Noro301."

Doslad: "Say what?"

Zontna: "Noro301 is, in fact, located in Russia."

Zontna: "I can't tell who this other login belongs to."

Dasomov pulled up a terminal, typed in some commands, and began scanning the listings of internet connections to his server running the game. Sure enough, there were both a connection to Japan and unknown connection to Russia. The Russian connection was a commercial proxy company in St Petersburg, but Dasomov figured it was just a cover for a spy in Moscow. Why not use a proxy outside the country? - It would have drawn suspicion, especially since this mysterious follower may have figured Anastasia would mentioned his presence. No sense in hiding location, so he was pretending to live in St Petersburg. Whatever.

The curious one was this connection to Japan. Again, it may have been a proxy server, but who could it be? Was the mysterious person behind Noro301 operating two accounts? Not possible, he ruled. This person was logged into the World without even gaining permission. Had they found a hole in Dasomov's server security? What did I do wrong? He wondered.

"I wonder if Jyos - or Evan - could solve this mystery," he muttered.

Tapping his fingers to the beat of his befuddlement, he pondered the possibilities. After a minute of musing, he called in the cavalry.

Doslad: " Fusota-ri - Are you familiar with the proxy service companies in Japan?"

He waited a minute. No reply. Fusota-ri had already logged into the world and obviously wasn't checking chat.

Zontna: "I think he logged in already."

Doslad: "Yeah, I figured. Drat."

Zontna: "You could easily look them up."

Doslad: "That'd take too long. We need to operate in real time. I'm going to cut off that connection. Keep an eye out in case it's one of us just using a weird proxy."

Everyone on the team used proxies, but being cheap, most guys used the ones that were either free and located in Russia or the United States or they were in Sweden. Dasomov, Zontna, and Fusota-ri had good proxy services, but the integrity of Kreigbrot's was unknown.

Dasomov opened another terminal and punched in some commands to boot the connection, but before he could hit "Enter", his curiosity held the reins. I wonder... he thought if this person has a character in the game we could track. Maybe they're connected with the person stalking Anastasia. Assuming there was a connection, Dasomov realized that letting a second character wander around - albeit monitored - might provide insight into the true intentions of "Evan Yeltsin".

Doslad: "On second thought, I want to see if we can monitor them in the game as well. Maybe they'll tell us about the spy following Tovia."

Zontna: "Ok..?"

Doslad: "I'll leave it to your discretion if you want to boot them for meddling."

Zontna: "Ok. I can't monitor both of them and the server data, so I'll need help."

Doslad: "Don't fret. I'm on it. I'll watch this new connection since it interests me so much."

To be clear, it was impossible for Dasomov to know where this mysterious connection's avatar would show up within any one particular server. As long as they stayed away from the mu and delta servers, Tovia would remain hidden, so there in lied his primary concern. The question remained, what was this new individual truly wanted. Were they in collusion with Evan Yeltsin or did they have something else in mind? Were they even playing the game? Server data suggested they were, but that was all.

If only everything wasn't so cryptic! the seasoned hacker mentally griped. We'd be done fixing this game by now. Nevermind trying to figure out who's where inside.

Breathing a heavy sigh, the megabyte master set to work on watchdog duty. With his ghost cam, at least he'd feel as invisible to this newcomer as the newcomer thought he was to them.