Saturday started off like any other. The man woke earlier than he would have liked, tried to get back to sleep, and, failing, got up and went to his computer. His inbox was empty, as usual, so he jumped onto his favorite online game.
His name was Charles Vincent Alexander, but all of his friends called him Charlie, except those who teasingly called him Chuck. Charlie was a rather unassuming individual, nothing much was special about him. He was average height, just a few hairs under 6′, average build, maybe a little stocky, but not overly so, he had nondescript brown hair and brown eyes. He had a few friends, probably a few enemies as well. He worked 9-5, Monday through Friday. He made a reasonable living, enough to live comfortably, but still lived paycheck to paycheck. Charlie was what one might call an “everyman.”
During game chat, Charlie came out of his shell a bit and would flirt with other players, not particularly concerned with gender or orientation. His username was gender-neutral and he knew that words on a screen didn’t mean anything anyway. One person, in particular, was more fun to flirt with. ’69Ace’ was the name on his screen and as far as he knew, Ace was female. They would get pretty intense with their flirting in the public chat area, but in private messaging, the two were merely getting to know each other. Simple questions like, “What’s your favorite show?” and “Hey, did you get a copy of that new album yet?”
Over the course of a few short weeks, Ace and Charlie had become close friends behind the scenes, and everyone in public chat thought they were an item in real life. Charlie still flirted with just about anyone in chat, and Ace would teasingly scold him.
This particular Saturday, however, after Charlie had made an off-color sexual innuendo towards someone, Ace popped into private chat, telling Charlie he should log off, go outside, to his car and get further instructions from the note he would find on his windshield. Before he could reply with a witty comeback (that he had not thought of yet) she had logged off. So, he posted an AFK-BRB and went outside. There, on his car was a yellow post-it note with the words, “I told you to log off!”
This was exactly the kind of thing he should have expected, he told himself, as he started looking for the next note. But, of course, there was no second note. He gave up after a few minutes and headed back inside.
When he got to his computer, Ace had not been back online, according to his logs, and public chat had continued along without him, same as it would have if he’d only gone to the bathroom. When he let the room know he was back, one of his other friends PMed him to say, “69Ace wanted me to give you this message when you came back, ‘I told you to log off to get your instructions.’ WTF does that mean anyway?”
Charlie only answered with, “Thanks. Gotta go,” before he logged out.
This time, he took care to thoroughly log off the server, his computer account and even shut down the computer. Then he went out to his car. In exactly the same place was a new note, this one with an address. Shrugging, he typed it into the GPS on his phone and started following the directions. It was on the other side of town, probably about a 30-minute drive, with the current lack of traffic.