Chapter 28: .oxycotton%s_story
“I need to tell you something,” Chrissie said. It was silent except from the ticking from the clock.
“What if I don’t want to hear it?” I asked. Chrissie became cold. Her eyes were bloodshot. She was trembling ever so slightly. It looked like she hadn’t slept in forever.
“You are right, right about everything,” Chrissie said. Her eyes swelled with tears.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” she cried.
“Am I not supposed to tell anyone that you’re a part of a human trafficking ring?” I shouted as loudly as I could, hoping someone would hear it.
“What?” Chrissie asked in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You are Oxycotton.”
“No, I’m addicted to Oxycotton. Oxycodone pills. They are nicknamed Oxycotton.”651Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡesRGbNPvJ9
It was my turn to say what. I looked at her, more confused than ever.
“Wait, so you aren’t Oxycotton on Ex-Fortify?” I asked.
“Ex-Fortify?” she looked at me. “What, no. I have a problem. I was going to plea to my dealer, Ubel Ullix, that they needed to get more oxycodone. They said they weren’t dealing in drugs anymore, but I was going there to beg him.”
“That night you saw me outside of 45 Sundrive, I was helping her pay of her drug debt. I have been dating Chrissie for two years, and I only recently found out about her addiction. I was giving Moreno his money.”
“What?” This was hard to wrap my head around.
“There are strict rules about fraternisation. We couldn’t make our relationship official,” Darren explained. I just sat there dumbfounded by this new information.
“Do you even know about Oxycotton?” I asked Chrissie. “The person, that is.”
“No, I’ve never heard of a person called Oxycotton,” she said.
“Do you even know why John Bashor did what he did?” I continued. Darren put a lot of notes on the table. They were Scott’s notes; I could see it from the handwriting. They were the missing pages.
“I didn’t find a lot of information in his notes,” Darren said.
“I need to tell you the story, or else this investigation will never lead anywhere.” And then I started telling the story of a man called John Bashor, an Internet kingpin called Bastyboy and a place called the Deep Web. They had heard of the Deep Web before. Not surprisingly, as they worked in law enforcement. Child pornography and abuse videos, drug markets and human trafficking. It was all a part of their day-to-day life. I started up Darren’s computer and installed Ex-Fortify. Then I showed him Document10, and told him about the other Documents. Midways throughout the conversation Chrissie came with a recorder and cups of coffee for us. I continued talking into the recorder. I told them about how I had been stalked without knowing, and how I had my privacy violated by Ubel. The recorder continued taping the very intimate details about my life. Then I told them about my relationship problems, and about my newfound care for Scott. When I was done talking, I was breathless.
I went back to the Extra Wiki and showed them the index.
“CP, P2P, forums where sickos can talk about whatever they want. This is a nightmare,” Darren said.
“As you just saw, the Documents are even worse. They are the human trafficking ring’s equivalent of an IKEA catalogue. You just put in your order, and they deliver,” I explained.
Just as I talked, a chat box appeared on the screen.
Oxycotton says:
Hello, officers!
“Hell, they know we’re watching,” Darren screamed, quickly turning off his computer with the reset button. Chrissie started making hysterical calls, and Darren nearly pushed me out of the station, telling me to come back tomorrow.
I met Jen in the parking lot. She had been waiting for about an hour. The talk with the attorney hadn’t taken all that long, but it was giving my statement that had taken forever. She was on her phone, listening to music as I came out.
“How was it?” she asked as we started driving back. I collapsed in tears.
“I’ve been stalked since May by this creeper who is in a human trafficking ring. I’m afraid someone has paid for me, and that he will take me away.”651Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoJltUKDjuf
We drove through dense forests, out of town. “Oxycotton is one of his helpers, and I laid the blame on an officer. An officer who has been nothing but nice to me, and that has a serious drug problem.”
“That’s awful. I understand why you’ve been distracted,” Jen said, taking one hand of the steering wheel and grabbing my hand, squeezing it. I felt safer with Jen around. She was like my own personal safety blanket. I just wanted to rest my head on her shoulder and go to sleep.
“By the way, as long as you’re with me, Ubel won’t harm you.”651Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcMYw2wwq6M
“I’m not so sure about that, I mean, he is a serious criminal who…,” I trailed off as something didn’t feel quite right.
“I never mentioned his name,” I said. Her face changed. There was a slight anger behind the collected façade.
“I’m sure you let it slip.” We drove in silence for a while. I grew increasingly uncomfortable. The silence was tearing at my walls, wrecking them and ripping them apart. When I saw how dense the forest was around us, I realised we weren’t going to Jen’s house. We were going out of town. North. To the big country that lay outside the safe boarders of the city.
“Where are we going, Jen?” I asked. She didn’t answer, she just continued driving. At this point she was speeding. I hoped some officer would pull us over and give her a ticket. Maybe even arrest her.
“I didn’t tell you the ending of my story,” she suddenly said.
“What, I thought that was it…”
“You’re wrong,” she snapped. She ran her fingers through her blonde hair and smiled sweetly at me.
“Benjamin didn’t stop contacting me after we came back. One day, after school, he picked me up. And as the silly little girl I was, I got into the car. He told me that I could get money for sweets if I followed him to his house, so I did. I felt uneasy, but calmed down as we reached a blue mansion. The little boy was there, and we talked and had fun.
Benjamin then gave me money and told me that I couldn’t tell my parents about it. I asked why, and he just said that something very bad would happen to my dog.” She took a breath to steady her voice. “I told him I wouldn't tell anyone, and he drove me home. I didn’t see him for some years. When I started secondary school, I met Ben’s son, he presented himself as Ubel, and asked if I remembered him. Of course I did, he was the reason why I had to move as a kid. We got involved. It was only innocent at first, but then we became romantically involved. We didn’t have sex though. He said he couldn’t sample the merchandise.”I trembled. He told me the exact same thing when he kidnapped me. “I met his father again, and he said his name wasn’t Benjamin, but rather Bastian. Bastian Mayer. It probably isn’t his real name, but he has got passports and driver’s licenses in that name.” She laughed for a while, thinking about something that clearly was funny. “He asked me if I wanted a job. Really easy money. I would just have to on webcam with some of his friends. I agreed, and it was good money. In the beginning it was innocent enough, just chatting to people. Then I would have to take my clothes off. At fifteen I lost my virginity, but not to my beloved Ubel, to a strange man that paid good money for it after we had auctioned it away.”
“That’s horrible,” I said, trying to sound uninterested.
“Ubel called me Oxycotton because the feeling he got from being with me was just as relieving of pain, as oxycodone. I lived through the dawn of a new era. From being a small-town drug cartel, to becoming a world recognised human trafficking ring. After Bastian took over Ex-Fortify and created the Wiki, everything became possible.”
“How could you do this, Jen. I knew you as a kid. How could you?”
“Why does anyone really do anything? Money, love, the thrill, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we hand over the merchandise and move on.”
“Why me?”
“In the database we have pictures of pretty much everyone in town. We’ll find yearbook pictures, class pictures, everything. That’s where the idea for the Documents came in. People would message us, requesting more information, more footage or even the kidnapping of certain people from the database.”
“So, someone requested me?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“We deal in anonymity, discretion is our only guarantee.”
“So you don’t know, in other words?”
“He lives in a foreign country.” Jen said, pulling into a dirt road.
“What does he want me for? My organs or my genitalia?”
“Probably a little bit of both,” she admitted. She stopped the car. We were at an old farmhouse. At the doorstep two persons were standing. Big grins on their pale faces.
“Welcome, Onila,” the blond one, Bastian “Bastyboy” Mayer said. Ubel just stood there. I was pretty sure I screamed at this point. Screamed for Scott to come find me. He didn’t.
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