"Hey! over there!" I point out to an open spot for a gamer. Finn quickly snatches the controller, getting ready to start the match. "Move and I'll blow your head off." Finn comments while playing the game, shooting at the opposite team. "You want to hide now. Let's see if you can handle this grenade."
"Oh, look out!" I call back, hearing the footsteps behind him.
"Damn." Finn calls, the screen labeled with 'slaughtered' across it.
"Who did that?" Rollins asks.
"Behind you." Carisi directs to him as he spawns again.
Finn moves in the game "I'll kill him. Damn campers."
"What's a camper?" Rollins asks looking at Finn then at Sonny and I.
"Lazy creeps who just hide behind stuff." I inform her, knowing a thing or two about video games.
"They Don't engage. Wait until you try run by and then shoot you in the back. They're all pieces of crap." Finn adds on to my words.
A small group of boys from across the way laugh and Rollins chuckles as well "you were saying?"
"Enjoy the tournament." Finn drops the controller as he dies again.
We begin to walk away "this is awesome." Sonny comments looking around "this is better than Comic Con."
"Yeah." I agree, being the second one I've been too.
"Really?" Rollins asks looking at me with a wondering stare.
I shrug back at her with a small smirk. "Wait until you see the main event." Finn turns around and points to a T.V. "these teams practice eight hours a day. They are not newbs."
"Newbs?" Rollins asks, not following along.
"Short for newbies." I elaborate for her.
Finn and I chuckle when Sonny says "Oh yeah, that's much shorter."
We walk from booth to booth, game area to game area. "It's like overgrown boys, like, staring at a screen pressing buttons. Isn't there a basketball game on or something?" Rollins asks looking around.
"You seen the Knicks lately?" Finn laughs and Sonny joins in.
"Oh, hold up, there's that manny, the uhh, Leslie Connolly." I point forward to the cut out of 'Glasgoman.
"He's the one that babysat for the kids." Sonny remembers "the two girls who stabbed their little sister."
"Okay, he's the guy that drove all those Glasgow Man pictures?" Finn makes sure he gets it. "He's turning it into a video game now?"
"Hey, Leslie?" Rollins calls out to him, stepping closer.
"Hey." He answers, recognizing us.
"A little too soon, isn't it?" She asks.
He answers back, a bit nervous "detectives. What can I say? Trial created a lot of buzz."
I shake my head "yeah, you're taking full advantage."
He shrugs "well, the developers came to me. They were gonna make it either way.'" He turns the glasses towards us "want to give it a try? Virtual reality."
"Virtual reality?" Rollins asks.
"It's like you're actually inside of the game." He explains.
"I'm good." She smirks smuggly and walks past him.
We make our way to the main floor, getting ourselves up front to see the action. Finn and I are the only ones who are actually familiar with the game, but Sonny seems pretty interested as well. The tournament begins, and the three of us get invested right away, About half way through the match, Leslie makes his way to us, his face showing only concern. "Detectives," He calls to us once in front of us. "My co-worker thinks that someone's in trouble in the ladies room."
I look to Rollins who looks to me but the boys go along with the crowd and chant "Ohh!"
"Don't worry about it, guys. We got this." Rollins rolls her eyes and pushes her away out of the crowd followed by Leslie and I.
The two of us get into the ladies room and see the women standing up off the floor of a stall. "Hey, you okay?" Rollins asks going in first.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She says, putting her glasses back in place.
"Okay, 'cause we're a police officers. What happened?" I ask, offering to help her walk over to the mirror and sink.
She looks at her face "these guys. They just can't stand women in gaming."
She presses at the cut on her lip, wincing with pain. "What did they do to you?" Rollins asks.
"They leveled up." She back. Rollins to me and I look to her, giving her a knowing eye raise and head nod.
"I'll get the boys." I tell her, leaving the stall to grab Finn and Carisi.
Rollins and Finn fill Benson in while Carisi and I stay back to grab all the footage from the day. After being there for an additional hour, we head back to the station to go over what we have. The two of us sit at our desks, reviewing the tape that shows the bathroom entrance as well as the one near Sarah's booth.
"I got something." I tell Sonny.
He sighs with frustration when he see's we don't have their faces on camera "damn." He mutters. "Send it to the ipad." He directs me before walking off to get the others. "This security footage, it's like trying to find a geek in a geek stack." I tell them as I walk in, to Benson's office, being the last one in and shutting the door.
"Yeah, we got two suspects coming out of the ladies room. One's wearing a baseball cap, the other's wearing a hoodie." Sonny shows them the footage.
"We only got partial views of their faces." I add on thought.
"Well, you buy tickets to this on a computer, right?" Benson asks.
"Yeah, we're running the buyers' names against the Sex Offenders Registry right now." Rollins adds on, helping us with the footage.
"That's not what this is." Finn explains. "These guys want Raina Punjabi out of the gaming world."
Benson questions "just because she's a woman?"
"There's a lot of haters out there that think she slept her way into the business." I tell them, knowing a little bit about it.
"Oh, right, right, she's engaged to that venture capitalist, Steven Kaplan." Sonny remembers.
Rollins pipes in "Okay, so because her fiancé has money, that means she has no talent?"
"To them, and they want to take her down no matter what." Finn tells her.
"Then why attack Sarah? Why not just go after Raina?" Benson asks. "Finn, Rollins, head over to her office. Carisi, Grey, keep going with the footage, see if you can more on those two perps."
Sonny and I work on finding more angles of the two perps but we can't get a clear view of them at all. "So, you went to one of these things before?" Sonny asks me as we search through videos.
"Yea, the big one in Las Vegas." I tell him.
Sonny remembers something "isn't that were that Spencer kid is from?"
"It is. But I went with Penelope. She's into the computer games, kind of suckered me into it. But I learned a lot, got really into it." I tell him, fast forwarding a clip.
He hums, then asks another question "these guys hate all women in gaming?"
I shake my head "Gamer girls are more Gods to them, females who can kick ass gaming are legends. But female game makers are the total opposite. You don't see many out there having much success." I explain.
"Except Raina." He comments. I go to respond but I notice Leslie standing in the middle of the precinct, looking uncomfortable and out of place. "What are you looking at?" Sonny asks me, following my gaze and seeing Leslie standing there. "Let's see what he wants." He says standing up. I follow him out of the room and over to Leslie. "What do you need Leslie?" He asks him.
"I came across something on a forum." He pulls out his phone and scrolls through his screen grabs.
"When did this happen?" I ask him, reading what was being said.
He respond "a few hours ago."
"Get it pulled up on the screen. I'll talk to Benson." Sonny directs and I take Leslie over to the computer so he can pull up the live information for us. "Go ahead." Sonny directs once Benson and him have returned.
"After the tournament I wanted some feedback on Glasgow Man, so I checked a few gamer sites online." He explains.
Sonny elaborates for her "forums for players to rate games, comment, fulminate, spew-"
She stops him from going on "yeah, I got that, Carisi. And?"
"Came up on this thread. "Amazonian Warriors bitch got what she deserved."
"Lovely" I roll my eyes. "There's a lot of crap like that. Guys puffing their e-chests out, high fiving." I explain.
"It could be anybody." Benson says, not sold on the information.
"Hold on. Give me a second." Leslie comments.
"D. M. me for more deets on what an Amazonian Warrior's tits are like." Sonny reads off the thread Leslie just pulled up. "My boy and I copped a feel at the I. V. L. That could be one of our guys."
"Did you D. M. him?" Benson asks.
"I don't want to talk to that guy, that's why I came to you." Leslie responds back.
Benson drops her head for a moment "so I'm guessing that this message is untraceable."
"That's why we got to go with Leslie here." I smile at the game developer. "They know you. They trust you."
Sonny wraps an arm around him, knowing what I'm saying. "Which is why I'm deputizing you an official C. I. of the NYPD.
"What?" He stammers out "I don't want these guys knowing that I ratted them out.
Benson is on board with our plan "these guys are criminals, and if you don't cooperate with us, we're gonna shut your game down and invoke the Son of Sam Law. You can't make a profit from a crime."
He drops his head this time with a big sigh. "So let's get those deets from your buddy." Sonny directs him now that Leslie is sitting in front of the screen. "Tell them that you were in the booth next to that girl. That she was a complete bitch.
He starts to type "okay, here it goes." He says. "Now what?"
I respond "tell them that you doxxed the girl that was sharing the booth with her.' I look up to Benson to explain "Doxxing's when you publish personal information, phone numbers, passwords, online. See if he wants to hook up, talk about pranking her."
Sonny finishes explaining, leaning over his shoulder. "Tell him that you'll meet him there with a buddy. That'll be me." He looks to Benson.
"I got that too, Carisi." She semi smirks. "Get going you three." She directs us, giving final approval on the undercover sting.
