"The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event" "In New York City's war on crime, the worst criminal offenders are pursued by the detectives of the Major Case Squad." "These are their stories." "What's wrong?" "Where are you going?" "That window of opportunity?" "It's closing." "I have to call in." "Someone's hacking my computer." " Hey, Carlos.!" " This hibrido won't give me my money." "Don't break it." "Let me see." "Says your account got no money." "I know what it says, ladron." "I've been robbed!" "Rick's shutting down the computers in five minutes." " Why?" "What's going on?" " All I know is those guys have badges." "They wanna check the main computer." "I can't believe you'd do that." "Then watch your back, bitch, or next time I'll have your head on a stick." "Corinne, are you all right?" "Mr. Dalton?" "Yes, I'm fine." "You should have gone home hours ago." "I'm sorry." "I got caught up in something." "I'll see you tomorrow." "Yes." "One hundred thousand dollars." "I'm not sure how it got into our account." "Yes." "The tickets were sent to me." "But I didn't make the reservations." "That's my brother." "He made them?" " I will call you back." " We have to talk." "I don't care what they told you." "I didn't do anything to their computers." "I believe you, but it's not up to me." "I need another job." "Temp work's a little slow right now." "Call me in a week or two." " Yeah, who is it?" " Right Time Temps." "I got a package here for a Corinne Kennedy." "Come on up." "Just a minute." "Do I have to sign something?" "ºó¼¾Æ® µµ³ëÇÁ¸®¿À (·Î¹öÆ® °í·" Çü"ç æµ)" "Ä³¾²¸° ¾îºê (¾Ë·º"êµå¶ó ÀÓÁî Çü"ç æµ)" "Á¦ÀÌ¹Ì ½¦¸®´ø (Á¦ÀÓ½º µðÅ²½º °æ°¨ æµ)" "ÄÚÆ®´Ï B. ¹ê½º (·Ð Ä"¹ö °Ë"çº¸ æµ)" "Law  Order CI 3x10 F.P.S" "ORIGINAL AIR DATE ON NBC: 2004/01/04" "The Columbian consul thought a plane landed on top of him." "911 got the call at 11:25." "No I.D. We're canvassing that building." "We're thinking she's a jumper." "Looks like, uh, crumbs." "There's not much discoloration." "Must've happened right before she died." "She was pushed off by someone big enough to lift her off her feet." "My doorman went off duty at 11:00." "He said Miss Kennedy came home alone at 9:30." "She have any friends in the building?" "Not that we noticed." "She was shy." "Nice, but shy." "Shame for such a pretty girl." "All right, the officer will take your statement." "This has been partially chewed." "She spewed it out of her mouth when he grabbed her by the throat." "Soon as she opened the door, he was on her." "He took her out there." "No mistaking, he came to kill her." "She was sitting at her desk before she went to the door." "Her laptop is missing." "Is it in there?" "Only two things in here with batteries." "None of them's a computer." "It doesn't look like she had much of a social life." "No makeup." "Her wardrobe's just sweats, baggy sweaters and T-shirts." " She tries to play her looks down." " Hmm." "Her father's a Civil War reenactor." "She likes action." "Kung fu movies from Taiwan." ""Corinne Kennedy." "Director of Software Analysis, Ortech, Inc."" "Now she's working at a temp agency." "Pay stub from last week." "Overdue bills." "No wonder she's staying at home eating crackers." "This is a credit card swiper." "Last year, drugstore clerks got caught using these... to steal credit card information from customers." "A high-tech lowlife." "Wonder if her temp agency knew?" "MD Accounting Services Queens New York, Tuesday, November 4" "The agency knows why we let her go." "We found a spyware program on the computer that she shared with other workstations." "We traced it to her." "She planted it?" "Well, she said it must have been a virus." "Oh." "Well, that sounds like a plausible reason." "There was something else, wasn't there?" "I was going downstairs to the Olympia Diner... when I heard Corinne arguing with a man on her speakerphone." "What did they say?" "Well, I only heard him." "He said, "Watch your back, bitch..." Sorry." ""Or I'll have your head on a stick."" ""Your head on a stick." And then what?" "That's it." "She seemed out of it, hyper." "I had her computer logs checked." "She was spending a lot of time online." "And then we found the spyware." "You see, the spyware stores everything we type... passwords, Social Security numbers..." "until it's downloaded." "This exact same program showed up five days ago at a copy store... on the main computer that serves their computer rental stations." "So someone was stealing data from the customers." "Yeah, passwords and home computer addresses." "A bank employee woke up to find someone hacking into his home P.C." "You have any suspects at the copy store?" "Seven employees and 42 customers." "Now, this spyware, is this something that" "Corinne Kennedy could have created?" "Oh, yeah, it's completely within her skill set." "Excuse me one minute, okay?" "I don't see her name on here." "If she created this spyware, the copy store hacker might be an accomplice." "The kung fu D.V.D.'s, one of the stores that sells those is on Mott Street." "This copy store clerk, Raymond Chan, he lives right around the corner." "He's erasing the hard drives." "What are you running here, Raymond?" "A group home for computers?" "I found the spyware." "That's not mine." "Somebody must've sent me a virus." "Word for word, that's what your little hacker friend Corinne said." "I don't know who you're talking about." "He skimmed a lot of data." "I'm finding hundreds of credit card numbers, PI Ns, bank A.T.M.'s." "A.T.M.'s?" "You just called him a thief." "You must have some kind of proof." "I went to the A.T.M. Two days ago." "It said my checking account empty." "Eight hundred dollars gone." "Mom, I didn't do it." "I don't steal from banks." "We need to know the name of your bank." "EL Centro Bodega 214 East 110th Street Thursday, November 6" "It's not my machine." "I just rent it." "But all I get is people complaining." "No wonder." "According to the bank, 33 people who used your machine... in the last three weeks had money stolen from their accounts." "Wait a minute." "Wait." "This doesn't belong in here." "See, it's coming off the card reader." "It's another circuit board." "It's to skim A.T.M. And PI N numbers." "Somebody tampered with this machine before installing it." "Tek-Cash Services." "Yonkers." "This $100,000, it's a business loan from our cousin in Albania." "No." "You got the $100,000... with the help of a friendly neighborhood crooked A.T.M. Machine." "I don't know about any crooked friendly machines." "Well, your brother Alexi does." "We found his fingerprints on this circuit board." "You know what's interesting, Serge?" "Is that the spyware that you used to skim the A.T.M. Codes... is the same spyware that this hacker used to skim passwords." "The same spyware that you all got from the same person," "Corinne Kennedy." "I don't know him." "I don't know her." "So it's just a coincidence that she took a header off her balcony... the same day that you bought two tickets to Costa Rica?" "What tickets?" "We found them on your brother's desk." "No, this is impossible." "I wanna talk to my lawyer." "Yes, we bought tickets to Costa Rica for a vacation." "One-way tickets for a one-way vacation?" "Yes, we fly down, we take a boat back." "Well, you handled that question much better than your brother did." "So, let's see how you handle this one." "This is from your bank account." "You deposited $100,000." "Now that's the same amount that was stolen from the A.T.M." "We found it in your brother's office." "My brother?" "It's..." "It's impossible." "Well, there's that word again..." "impossible." "This one knows about the tickets but not the money." "This one knows about the money but not the tickets." "These clowns can't keep their stories straight." "They have access codes to hundreds of bank accounts, nearly two million dollars." "And they only take 100,000." " Barely covers their overhead." " Hmm." "Now, 100,000 is just enough to catch our attention." "Just enough to, um, lead us to these two." "They've been set up." "So have we." "The A.T.M. Brothers and Raymond Chan all said the same thing." "They downloaded the spyware from a hacker Web site, which has now disappeared into cyberspace." "Just to be on the safe side, you have alibis for these guys?" "The night Corinne was killed, Raymond knocked off work at 11:00." "His mother has him home by 12:00." "The brothers are each other's alibi." "In other words, any of them could have done it." "Look, look, look, that's the point." "We're being danced around the ballroom." "The spyware, the card swiper, the D.V.D.'s, it's smoke." "That threat was not smoke." "Maybe her head wasn't impaled on a stick, but Miss Kennedy is dead all the same." "Her boss said that she was hyper, that she was disoriented." "You said maybe her head wasn't impaled on a stick." "She was spending all that time on the Net." "And the false leads, the planted software..." ""Head on a stick."" ""Head on a stick," "BloodMatch Arena."" "BloodMatch." ""In the arena, he with the most heads on a stick wins."" "Her call was about a computer game?" "Yeah." "Well, she... she might have been playing someone online while she was talking to them." "I can't see her getting killed over a computer game." "But it might be how she met her killer." "Another player." "Well, I mean, to go online, you gotta go through a server." "It has to be a big enough computer to allow several games to be played at once." "The log at her accounting firm, they might have a record of the one she called." "Gamer's City Server Farm 88 Avenue A Tuesday, November 11" "Our customers don't use their real names." "They make up new identities." "Avatars..." "Corinne was online two Wednesdays ago, around 10:00 p.m." "Can you show us which avatars were playing?" "Wednesday, that would be the 13th." "At 10:00, we had 55 people playing BloodMatch." ""Dragonbyte, Nuclear 72, Taliesin."" "Does each player have a profile?" "The customer chooses a skin for their avatar." "Can we see the skin for this one?" "ShilohAmy." "Amy Clarke." "She disguised herself as a Confederate soldier, so she could fight alongside her husband during the Battle of Shiloh." "Corinne went to Ole Miss;" "her father is a Civil War buff." "This is ShilohAmy's skin." "Yikes!" "This is how she saw herself?" "Can you show us... if ShilohAmy was playing Friday, the night of the 15th?" "That night she was playing until 11:25." "When Corinne was killed." "For real." "Does the game record the computer address of each player?" "Well, yes." "But you need to hack the game code to get it." "The guys who designed BloodMatch made sure it was hack-proof." "Jody told me we had cops visiting us." "They're saying a gamer got killed by another gamer." "This is Jack Cadogan." "He designed the game with Mr. Colby." "They want access to multiplayer network code." "You didn't agree to this, did you?" "Look, I know you're afraid there's gonna be a witch hunt." "That BloodMatch would get blamed for inciting violence." "Well, we wouldn't be the first ones." "If it's not the full moon or Twinkies, it's computer games." "We gotta take a stand here." "This is Ashcroft snooping around in libraries..." "A Ferrari?" "You got a Ferrari?" "A Maranello." "I just got it." "I understand what you're saying." "You know, BloodMatch is just a game." "It's cathartic." "You get a chance to get out of your own skin." "Right." "It's the best game the world's ever seen." "But just a game." "You know, speaking of skin, you haven't lost a lot of weight lately, have you?" "No, it's just you have some loose skin under your neck." "How much did you lose?" "Like around a hundred pounds?" "110." "Diet and exercise." "Jack has a lot to be proud of." "I still need you to look at the new polygons." "Our lawyer will get back to you." "Cadogan." "I heard that name in Wales, but not here." "I think when most families immigrated, they changed it to Cardigan." "I changed it back." "I didn't like being confused with a sweater." "Excuse me." "Taliesin." "If I were him, that'd be the name I'd pick." ""Taliesin, a hero of Welsh mythology." "A symbol of transformation and rebirth."" "Also the name of an online player." "Then there's Jack Cardigan, a.k.a. Jack Cadogan." "That's how he looked in his D.M.V. Photo two years ago." "A hundred and ten pounds heavier." "Then his game became a hit." "He transformed himself." " A Taliesin." " Maybe." "I'm online with the game server." "Corinne fought Taliesin in over 300 tournaments in the last four months." "We can watch a replay of the game she played the night she was killed." "The server keeps them in memory." "There she is." "Here are her opponents." "There's Taliesin." "He was online with her that night." "So, Taliesin, Cadogan, whatever his name is, has an alibi." "Next theory." "Don't stop it." "That's gotta hurt." "Look how slow he is." "He's getting hit a lot." "The server said he was supposed to be one of the best players." "He wasn't on the top of his game that night." "Loser." "We need an expert opinion." "Have you even looked at the new wall polygons?" "The shadow intensities are tracking with the light source now." "I'll check it later." "Jack, you're getting too preoccupied." "Remember Ginny?" "And now with these online gamers, they're unstable." "We gotta keep a distance between us and them." "Everything you need is here." "Out there is just un-engineered chaos." "Chaos is underrated, Neil." "Welcome to BloodMatch Arena." "Five tournaments are in progress." "Join one now..." "or recruit players for a new one." "Taliesin was getting creamed." "He normally averages 96 frags per game." "That night he barely managed 23." "Whoa!" "Look at those gibs fly!" "What could account for his slow playing?" "Could he have programmed some kind of automatic pilot for his avatar?" "Sure, it's called a bot." "You mean robot?" "I mean a bot." "It mimics a human player." "Gamers use them for practice." "Or to create alibis." "That's gotta hurt." "While Corinne thought she was playing Taliesin online, he was ringing her doorbell." "A computer geek who can clone himself." "Scary thought." "He used the bot to keep Corinne pinned down at home on her computer." "That's assuming Cadogan is this Taliesin character." "He has the technological chops to pull it off, to create the spyware... and the hacker Web site that Raymond and the brothers accessed." "And if they downloaded the spyware, then he would have been able to set them up as murder suspects." "Deakins." "Thank you, counselor." "I'll let 'em know." "That was Carver." "BloodMatch Studios decided not to challenge the subpoena." "Office Of Neil Colby 226 GreenWich Street Thursday, November13" "BloodMatch Two, blasting your way this summer." "The sequel's already out?" "No." "We pushed back the release date to Christmas." "I see that you're pulling a lot of overnighters on that couch, but your..." "Well, others aren't." "Maybe your partner..." "It's different for me." "My wife works here." "Everything I need is here." "What about Friday night, two weeks ago, was he out?" "I don't know." "I was working with the door closed." "Here, you're in." "ShilohAmy." "Her address is the same as Corinne's computer address." "And here is Taliesin's." "Jack played online." "That's normal." "He's testing the game." "Any way to check who else he might have been playing with?" "Uh, type "find," "slash,"" "his I.P. Address, and then press "Enter."" "Damn." "Something wrong?" "Goofy monster behavior." "Um, the programmer who writes the code for the imps, every time they jump over a puddle, he has them take two skips with the right foot and one with the left." "It's idiosyncratic." "Every programmer has their own bit of inelegant code." " Their own signature." " Mm-hmm." "You find it beautiful." "The code, I mean." "I like it." "If it achieves what I want in the cleanest way possible." "Neil, who is KillerBarbi?" "She was Jack's regular opponent up till four months ago." "Her I.P. Address is the same as the company's computer network." "KillerBarbi, that was Ginny Carlotta." "Any idea why, uh, they stopped playing?" "I guess because she quit the company." "It didn't have anything to do with Jack." "I quit because I got into Parsons." "But you and Jack spent a lot of time playing BloodMatch." " You were close?" " Well, yeah." "Why?" "The last girl Jack spent hours playing with ended up dead." "You think Jack?" "Jack's a teddy bear." "He was a big teddy bear when you were working there." " Did he do the chasing?" " He was too shy for that." "The person who hired me, Jody, Neil's wife, she saw that I had a minor in music." "She told me Jack was learning to write music." "She thought I could help." "Is that what he's like?" "When he has an interest in something..." "he dedicates himself to it, like music?" "Losing weight?" "He made all this money." "And he wanted to, you know, try new things, open himself up, drive around the world." "He sounds like a passionate guy." "Real passionate." "He thought games can help people, so he designed a game for learning-disabled kids, like my brother." "That's what he's playing." "When you make him jump and shoot, he flips and shoots three times." "Do you make him do that?" "No, he's programmed that way." "You said that Jack designed this game." "Did he program it too?" "Yes." "Jump, flip, three shots." "It's Jack Cadogan's signature move." "His character did it in every game he fought against Corinne, except the bot game." "Someone else programmed that bot, not Jack." "Somebody else made the bot that was supposed to be Jack's alibi." "Mm-hmm." "An alibi that didn't hold up." "Maybe by design, someone trying to throw the suspicion on Jack." "When we catch this guy, he's gonna owe me a bottle of aspirin." "So far, we found when the, uh, bot kills its opponent with a knife..." "It strikes once in the neck, the thigh, two to the chest." "One, one, two." "Got ya, monkey brain." "It's in the Clan of the Assassins level." "All the bad guys use the same pattern of knife strikes." "One, one, two." "Well, see if you can find the programmer of that level." "Maybe he left an Easter egg." "Let me look." "Programmers, they sometimes leave, uh, surprises." "You know, their names, pictures of their dogs." "Found it." "Abe McVee, one of the founders of BloodMatch." "Left the company just after the game's release." "He filed a suit a year ago for breach of their partnership agreement." "Here." "Someone's dragging him into court." "McVee v. McVee." "Family court." "He sounds like a sweetheart." "I said it would be ready before Christmas." "Yes, everyone's in crunch mode, even Jack." "He's grinding harder than anyone." "I've got code to write." "Why don't you tell them the truth?" "He'll be back." "I've gotta work on the wall polygons." " I saw them." "They're fine." " I need to tweak them." "I'll be home later." "When we formed the company, Neil and Jack made two rules." "Anyone could be voted out at any time." "Once you're out, you lose all your shares." "Whose idea was it to vote you out?" "Neil's." "He said I wasn't working hard enough." "I was trying to hold my marriage together." "Jack, he didn't stand up for you?" "I was floored." "Those guys were nothing until I introduced them." "They owed you." "Feelings of entitlement, you know, they... they can justify bad behavior." "I was within my rights to sue." "I'm sure you were." "You did great work on the game, like Clan of the Assassins." "The way they wield their knives." "One to the neck, one to the thigh, two to the chest." "We didn't find any other game character who behaved that way." "Well, we did find one." "See, this guy?" "That's a bot of Jack's character." "Watch how he stabs." "One, one, two." "That's just like your assassins." "Yeah, but I didn't program this." "We think you did to implicate Jack in a murder." "What?" "Why in the hell would I do that?" "Entitlement." "They cheated you." "Look, one, one, two." "That's not true." "Because when Jack found out about the lawsuit," " he paid me out of his own pocket." " I'm sure he did." "Boy, I bet your wife would like to know about that, huh?" "Because according to this paper, you're 20 grand short of your child support." " No, I'm not." " What's the matter?" "Your lawsuit wasn't going well for you, huh?" " So you had to hurt your family," " No, I didn't" " is that what it is?" " No, I told you..." " Lashed out at Jack?" " Jack paid me!" "Lashed out at your wife?" "He didn't want me to tell anyone." "He didn't want Neil to find out." "And my wife, that's all settled." "Her lawyer just hasn't filed the papers yet." "I'm telling you the truth." "Call my wife." "Uh..." "Croydon." "Croydon." "McVee is another Croydon." " Who's Croydon?" " He ran out on his wife." "Hitchens used him to get at me." "And the pattern, one, one, two, it's Wally Stevens." "I don't know who you're talking about." "He was an actuary." "He had a pattern of five." "Five notes." "Five... pins." "Eames would've known." "Wait." "I'm not following." "What do you want us to do with McVee?" "We'll send him home." "And give him my apologies." "Neil." "It's Neil." "It's about yearning." "He misses his partner." "Jack never told Neil he settled with McVee." "As far as Neil knew, McVee still had a beef with Jack." "Making him the perfect fall guy." "And somehow Mr. Colby tampered with this bot" " to implicate Mr. McVee?" " Right." "Bot's game has been sitting in the server's memory all this time." "Once Neil found out who he was dealing with..." "Meaning you." "He could've hacked in, reprogrammed the bot to simulate McVee's work." "My assistant checked with Westlaw." "Testimony from your actuary, Walter Stevens's trial... was downloaded last week to a computer... at a public library." "The testimony dealt with your predilection... for detecting obscure patterns." "Far as your predilection for hounding deadbeat dads, all anyone had to do was read a couple of old newspapers." "I'll grant you the how, but the why?" "Neil might have been jealous of the time Jack spent online with Corinne." "He killed her to drive his partner back into his arms?" " That's almostjuvenile." " It's primitive." "Panic is a primitive emotion." "That's how he felt without his partner." "Home of Neil  Jody Colby 14 West 72Nd Street Monday, November 17" "Murder?" "Neil didn't tell me you suspected Jack of murder." "Not surprising." "Your husband offered up a pretty vigorous defense of his partner." "He thinks the world of Jack." "Jack is very dependent on him." "That's why you wanted to pry Jack away from him." "Where did you get that idea?" "Ginny Carlotta." "You saw she had a minor in music." "I don't know, she was cute and... lf Jack became interested in her, maybe he'd be less interested in monopolizing your husband's time." "Neil's a hundred times the programmer Jack is." "He was creating his own games before he met Jack." "He doesn't need Jack." "He needs you." "Right?" "Maybe with Jack out of the way, that would become more clear for him." "Uh, the Ginny Carlotta gambit, that worked out well for... for Jack, huh?" "You know, new girlfriend and new interests." "How'd that work out for you?" " It's been fine." " Yeah?" "Good." "'Cause there's one coffee cup and one bowl." "He's not eating breakfast here anymore." "And I think he's working the same amount of time as he was before..." "But the new game isn't getting done." "Well, maybe he needs Jack after all." "He just thinks he does." "He's stuck on the code for the wall polygons." "I keep telling him they're fine." "But unless Jack's around to tell him something's good enough, he can't move on." "Because he's not there." "Because of, uh, Ginny?" "Because of you?" "So is that why you're here?" " Listen to me." " To rub my nose in it?" "No." "I wanted to ask you a question." "If you knew if he ever ordered takeout... from an Olympia Diner in Queens?" "It would've been the night of the 14th." "I don't know." "Why?" "We just have this, uh, credit card charge." "The Olympia Diner is downstairs from where the murdered girl works." "And, well, if, you know," "Jack had dinner with her the night before she was killed, that wouldn't look good for Jack." "I'm sorry." "I don't know anything about it." "What credit card charge from the Olympia?" "Neil Colby's worst nightmare." "They have a receipt for the night before that girl was killed." "No, I don't believe it." "I saw it." "He must have done it, Neil." "You can't be mixed up with him anymore." "Stop it." "He's not coming back." "He's going to jail." "Get used to it." "But Miss Kennedy was no longer working for the accounting firm then." "She'd been fired." "Well, as far as Neil knows, she was still working, using the same computer that he hacked into to plant the spyware." "The spyware that made it seem she's part of the credit card fraud ring." "Yes." "And now Neil might have to do a little more hacking." "You see, um, he thinks... that we have proof that, uh, Jack was in the diner." "So now he has to create evidence that Corinne wasn't." "So, we wait for him to make his move, right?" "That depends how comfortable you are with having Jack arrested." "Neil has a-a big... red panic button that really needs to be pushed hard." "Maybe the problem is this space." "It's too big." "Do you remember the dump?" "I remember picking cockroaches out of my keyboard." "But it was just you, me and McVee." "Things got done." "You fired McVee." "Oh, look who's here." "You mind standing up, Mr. Cadogan?" "You're under arrest for the murder of Corinne Kennedy." " Who?" " You'd know her as Shiloh Amy." "Amy's dead?" "I don't know anything about this." " I never even met her." " Neil didn't tell you we suspected you?" " You knew?" " I didn't tell you because it was a distraction." " There's nothing to it." " Nothing?" "I'm being arrested!" "Arraignment Court, Friday, November 21" "Docket number 7247, People versus Jack Cadogan, second degree murder." "Mr. Carver, are the People ready to proceed?" "Yes, Your Honor." "At this time the People are dismissing the murder charge against Mr. Cadogan, sua sponte." "Mr. Cadogan, you are free to go." "I don't know if we're out of the woods yet." "I'll call you." "You okay?" "What happened in there?" "The cops messed up." "They thought I met up with the dead girl," " but they found out she was working." " So everything's cool?" "We can get back to work." "Look, Neil, I'm not sure." "Not sure of what?" "They made a mistake." "The mistake's been corrected." "You move on." "That's what I'm doing." "Thanks for coming, Jody." "You can't." "I caught your back." "What are you talking about?" "You just owe me." "Well, that's not much of an answer, Neil." "Uh, you need a few days." "I get it." "Um, I'll call you next week." "Well, that might be a little difficult getting reception in the German Alps." "Especially going 150 miles an hour." "What is he saying?" "AirCar Transport." "Jack's having his Ferrari flown to Munich this weekend." "Yep, going on a road trip." "I was going to tell you." "How long you plan on being gone?" "Two months." "Jack, isn't that what you told the aircar people?" "It's just, you know, driving a car on a monitor... uh, computers..." "is different than the Autobahn." "And a real girl, you know, quivering like pudding next to you in the seat..." "I've gotta do this, Neil." "I'm driving all the way to Italy." "And then, who knows?" "It's something you should think of doing." "You can't." "We'll never get the game done." "We have..." "We've got to deliver the game." "Don't spoil it for him, Neil." "Come on." "This is his coming-out party." "What he's been building up to ever since Ginny floated into his life." "You know, if it wasn't for her, you know, he'd still be the overweight geek... spending his every waking moment with his best buddy." "She split the two of you apart." "No, it's like Yoko." "No, no, it is." "With, uh..." "With, uh, Paul and John." "Dude, she... she was an airhead." "Hiring her, it was a mistake." "There was no mistake." "Ask your wife." "I mean, there's your Yoko." "Neil, I thought I could be for you what Jack was." "You have no idea what you did." "Neil, don't be so hard on her." "Come on." "Yoko, no Yoko, John was on his way out, just like Jack." "But you weren't ready to let go... because, you know, you remembered... the first time that you designed a game on your own." "Let me just read the reviews." "I have them." "Uh..." ""Duller than Pong."" ""A game only a robot would love."" ""Neil Colby's game has the moves, but not the heart... of a great game."" "Hey, come on." "Leave the guy alone." "You were stuck." "Right?" "All the beautiful code that you wrote..." "I don't know, it meant nothing unless Jack said it meant something." "Because he's your only audience." "He's the only opinion..." "that you've ever trusted." "You're overstating it." "You needed Jack back, you know." "Cleanest way possible." "Eliminate the distraction that kept him from his work." "Shiloh Amy." "No." "You people are insane if you think I killed that girl." "Killed her and wrapped her up in a nice little story about credit card fraud." "Oh, yeah." "He-He did all this to get you back in the fold." "Can you imagine the panic..." "when we started closing in on you?" "He sent us chasing after Abe McVee." "Neil, it's not true, is it?" "First they blame Jack, and then they go after McVee, and now me?" "You're all over the place." "Let's get out of here." "Jack had a question that you haven't answered... how you caught his back." " I meant at work." " No, you didn't." "You want us to tell him what you meant?" "These logs from Corinne's work computer show she was at work when she was supposed to be at the Olympia Diner with you." "I was never at that diner." "I know that." "But we... we told Jody that you were." "Corinne was never at work that night." "She'd been fired." "But now, miraculously, the log says that she was at work." "Because some good Samaritan... hacked into the accounting firm's computer last night and altered the log." "But this time we watched." "All I did was change the record... to protect Jack." "I thought you were going to jail." "It's not what you did, Neil." "It's how you did it." "You hacked in using the same back door... the killer used to put the spyware on Corinne's computer, except this time, instead of spending two days hacking passwords, you did it on the first try." "Oh, my God, Neil." "I didn't kill his damn girlfriend." "Girlfriend?" "She's not your girlfriend, is she, Jack?" "I told you." "I never met her." "I didn't even know her name." "She was just a gamer." "Just a gamer?" "Your partner let a gamer come between the two of you." "If my partner was putting me through that, abandoning me, leaving me vulnerable, impotent, for a nobody..." "That's unforgivable." "Geez, dude, what the hell did you do?" "You bastard." "I was looking out for us." "And she was just a gamer?" "We've got millions of gamers." "There's only one us." "I should have killed you instead." "Come on, Neil." "You're under arrest." "I didn't see it." "Neil and..." "Me and Neil, we just, uh... we wanted to make a cool game." "They ended up with a game that neither of them can play." "Seven pounds, eight ounces." "Excellent." "It's great." "You..." "You should call her." "I'll handle the booking."