“What?” Remi asked, frowning at Payton. “I’ve always known computers. None of you ever bothered to ask.”
Payton raised a brow. “A likely story. Maybe they’ve replaced our sweet little Remi with a clone.”
“Right, because that’s more realistic than me just knowing computers,” Remi said.
Payton shrugged. “I’m just saying, it’s sus. Kind of like waking up one day to find your dog speaks Swahili.”
“Can we focus?” Park asked.
Morgan looked at Mos. “You play those kinds of games? The side quest ones?”
Mos scoffed. “You act like it’s impossible that I would play video games.”
“So, you do?” Jay asked, frowning like he hadn’t known that and appearing somewhat put out about it.
Mos rolled his eyes. “Fine. No, not really. But that doesn’t matter because I know what symbols like that mean in these—” He cut himself off abruptly, looking at Remi.
“Sandbox games,” Remi muttered.
“Yes. Those symbols let people know they’ve found who they’re looking for,” Mos said.
Persephone frowned. “Who they’re looking for?”
“In the game,” Mos said. When they all continued to stare, he sighed. “Fine, people who might want to…engage in criminal activity under the radar…could hypothetically build a meeting spot within a game and use a symbol to let their clients know they were in the right spot to do business.”
“Are you saying that your dad uses video games to run guns to criminals?” Dove asked, looking surprisingly excited by this news.
Mos, however, was not impressed. At all. “Right, because my dad is an arms dealer, hemustbe doing something shady. My father runs a legit business. My college friends used to meet in these games to set up times to exchange pills.”
“Pills?” Gift echoed.
“Yeah, Adderall, Percocet, Vicodin, Vyvanse. It was a convenient way to make things happen.”
“So, your friends were drug dealers?” Gift asked, eyes even wider now.
“Not dealers,” Mos muttered. “No money was exchanged.”
“So, it wasn’t a drug market so much as a swap meet?” Persephone pressed, rolling her eyes.
Morgan scoffed, wrinkling her nose at Mos. “Why not just use Snapchat like everybody else?” At Park’s raised brow, she muttered, “Or so I’ve heard.”
“Because Snapchat isn’t foolproof. Just because pictures disappear off of your phone doesn’t mean they disappear off Snapchat’s servers. They’re there for a while and Snapchat will hand over your info to the cops,” Remi said, not even slowing his typing to respond.
“So, do you think Ms. Teen USA over there”—Jay pointed to Madison’s picture—“was some kind of drug peddler using a kids’ game to arrange deals?”
Morgan shivered. “I’ve also heard of grown men using games like this to groom kids, but I can’t imagine a fifteen-year-old girl doing this. It just seems so…ick.”
Dove closed Morgan into a tight hug then looked at Park. “So…how do we proceed? Like, are we allowed to…question people? Like her friends? Do we have to do everything legally?”
“I hope not because I’ve already violated several laws and I’m not even in yet,” Remi said. “Just let me get in and have a look around. Even if nothing looks weird with the users, I can feed the data into a computer and look for any kind of pattern recognition. It could help.”
“In the meantime, shouldn’t someone just…play the game?” Diego asked.
Park shrugged. “That’s up to you guys. As for interviewing witnesses, let’s table that until we have more information.”
“I’ll have something in the next twenty-four hours,” Remi said with more confidence than Park had ever heard from the boy.
“Are you sure?” Drake asked.
