Page 11 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

One more question remains: Should I delete the poster’s account because of his offense?

So far he’s uploaded scenes from the video gamesGrand Theft AutoandRed Dead Redemption, very violent but computer generated. No real San Andreans or Old West settlers were killed in the making of those games.

However, I see his journey. From those games and violentJapanese anime, he’s moved on to posting more real-life scenes of gore and death, lifted from other sites, of people killed in various genocides and mass murders—after the deed is done.

Today’s cartel beheading is the first real-time murder he’s posted.

Will, someday, he decide that this isn’t enough and move from observer to participant?

Lust transports you.

A fact I know very well.

Cancel, or not?

I’m God. I can do what I want.

My finger hovers over the keys.

Ah, let him have his little hobby.

After I close out the beheading video another pops up in its place. A helpful algorithm shot it my way.

It’s the conspiracy theorist going by the name Verum, who posts several times a week. We are on the lookout for politically inflammatory material too, in addition to the blood and sex. And the anonymous Verum certainly walks a fine line.

The figure pixelated past recognition sits at a desk. The room is white and a curtain is drawn over a large window. There are hooks on the walls, where paintings would hang when taping is not in progress.

Verum is obsessed with secrecy.

For good reason.

The deep voice is also distorted and all the eerier for it.

“Friends: I’ve come into possession of a classified report about a program the Hidden have created in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. The K to Twelve Improvement Project is a secret program initiated to map every student in the system by facial recognition. The data will be used to track the whereabouts of the youngsters and their parents and will allow the government to create political, religious and economic profiles far more invasive than anything we’ve ever seen.

“The Hidden will stop at nothing to destroy our privacy! In the comments below this video you’ll find the names and addresses of the superintendents of those schools. Don’t let them get away with using our children as fodder for the War!

“Say your prayers and stay prepared!

“My name is Verum, Latin for ‘true.’ That is what my message is. What you do with it is up to you.”

Below is a URL for a site in the dark web where one can contribute money to fight the Hidden, which Verum passionately attacks but has never quite defined. The ads are targeted: survival gear, weapons, books by other conspiracy theorists.

One could block Verum’s posts for containing purported facts that are “inaccurate” or “cannot be verified.”

Or—ever useful—the community standard thing.

Some of the posts have also incited followers to violence. It’s us versus the Hidden.

I let it stand.

Rising, I walk across my workshop floor, worried and uneven oak one hundred and fifty years old. I get a cold cola.

The space isn’t large. It has a raftered ceiling and brick walls. Wooden posts rise. The windows are covered with steel security panels. This was so that a hundred and twenty years ago no one would break into the Sebastiano Bakery Supply Company and steal equipment. The sheets serve my needs well too. I hardly want intruders, though I’m less worried about thieves than others who might come a’calling.

I keep it well lit because when it’s dark it reminds me of the Consequences Room and that just makes me furious.

I happen to glance at a rough-brick wall into which I’ve pounded tenpenny nails and hung on them my collection of locks. Onehundred and forty-two of them. Also mesh bags of keys, of which I own at least a thousand.