…I don’t know who the cheer for anymore. I don’t want them to stop the game, because it would kill the people plugged into it, but I also don’t want anybody getting shot over it.
Its already been established that characters in the game continue to do act independently of a person logging on. Why people still consider this a game when its clear “players” have no control over what their characters do is a mystery. Its more like a TV show that people watch from the point of view of a particular character.
The players probably influence their Avatar when playing, having direct control of their actions. Think of their Avvies as alternate selves in an alternate dimension. That’s where H.R.’s magick comes in.
And based on what the player does in the game, the magic algorithm determines the kind of person the character is and gives them an appropriate story line.
Right, but I meant for us the readers. Without Kaye at Scipio’s helm, with only the NPC scripting/magick to enable his dialogue and actions, what kind of person will Scipio be now that his “pilot” is gone?
Plus I personally won’t be able to look at Scipio the same, knowing what I now know. He won’t be the same person, he’ll be a puppet.
I think it’s more like molding. The actions that were taken by Kaye SHAPE Scipio. Who will act as he always has acted when she’s not there. Any more changes to Scipio will be done by Scipio himself, who won’t notice the difference.
Technically, wasn’t he a puppet of the player, before?
Now the strings are cut, and he can be a real boy!
(Or if you ask Fr’Nj, a real man, wink wink nudge nudge.)
Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing how the _other guildies_ react to Scipio, now that they know his player is dead.
Likewise how they’ll start treating the Big Four now they know what they know.
Also I have to wonder if JJ realizes how stupid this stunt is. Skype calls can be recorded and he just put his face and the face of a newly-killed woman on live feed.
Not sure how the tech works either in the real world or Sepia World, but won’t this Skype call be logged by the ISPs? Would this video evidence be saved somewhere?
Doubtful, unless the caller was already recording it. (Also doubtful, who does that by default?) Video takes a lot of storage space, so storing a lot gets expensive. Why would Skype do so themselves? Plus, I’m pretty sure doing so without the user’s consent is a pretty big breach of privacy rights.
This is, to be honest, one of the reasons I use an NVIDIA graphics card and let the “GeForce Experience” software stay installed and updated. NVIDIA Shadowplay means I can, at any time, get the last 30 seconds of my screen saved as a video and immediately start recording or streaming. Obviously not to catch a murderer on Skype, but to capture particularly interesting events in-game that are rare enough I don’t want to just keep recording all the time.
Video would be an ideal media but what about just jamming “Print Screen” on their keyboard? They could get his face or any still frame out of that video call.
I admit it’s kinda ghetto but one of them is already on the phone with 911, they can tell them there was a murder.. Putting his face to it seems like the best way to throw a wrench into things. Well, unless he knows a really good, no-questions asked plastic surgeon and has abundant false identities to assume. Or if his ‘face’ right now is actually some sort of mask that he uses for public appearances. Although that might seem too Mission Impossible I suppose. *shrug*
I imagine JJ must have some experience in erasure of audio-visual data and disposal of remains, such that the police won’t believe the group’s story. Or he wouldn’t have done what he just did. He’s been too shrewd so far to suddenly be handed the Idiot Ball for plot convenience.
Fair’s fair – Kaye managed to grab the ball just long enough to get killed. JJ just inherited it.
To be honest I’m not sure what JJ’s gameplan is here. He’s clearly demonstrated a willingness to use lethal force, and by all appearances is quite a far distance from everyone else. Now not only are there more witnesses, but they’re going to know to get as far away from him as possible, and spread the word as much as possible.
Actually, she’s been one of the most intelligent members of her group. Two crazy people jump in with a cockamie story about a video game company holding its players hostage in people tubes, possibly killing a third, and they expect a group of gamers to start some kind of rebellion when they don’t have any evidence that specifically damns the company?
How was she to know that Shana and Xan were right when all she had to go off of was their word? And how was she to know that JJ’s moustache was lurking behind her door?
-Especially- because her friends were so immediately ready to accept the story. She was being quite correct in taking the anti-stance, if only so that they could be 100% about what they were about to get themselves into.
That said, I think she’d definitely have been the most use out of the group, so JJ has done a lot more than just intimidate them with this murder.
Well, she’s have known JJ was lurking right outside her door if she’d actually looked before opening it. Speaking as a former delivery guy, most people on my deliveries actually checked to see who was at the door before opening it. Also, we wear uniforms, which JJ doesn’t seem to be wearing.
Not 100% but it seems she was sitting right next to her front door when he got there, and from what I could tell it didn’t look like a door with a peephole. AFAIK she lives in an apartment so it wouldn’t be that uncommon.
At this point, I think his plan would have been, poison the well against Shanna, convince the one person far enough away that she’s selling a sham, offer some hush money, and be gone. The fact that he could hear the conversation (She only muted the Mic) and that Shanna had already met with the group and everyone heard the story, means that his plans changed horribly. He is probably very pissed off, his ego is bruised, and he most likely at this point isn’t thinking too straight.
He’s not Winston Wolf, either. From what we’ve seen, he solves problems exclusively by the proper application of violence and/or intimidation.
I’d like to hear him try selling this: “Hello, young lady. I represent… doesn’t matter whom. The important thing is that if a crazy journalist comes knocking, you should know that her tales of corporate conspiracy slash murder are a total sham. That’s right, not a word of truth to them. Now, here’s some hush money to back my claim.”
I think he’s doing this to both scare the group, but also likely is that he is ANGRY. A group of nonathletic untrained gamers are giving him far more hassle than he is likely have not encountered before. His pride (and the bullet graze) is sorely injured. JJ is likely not thinking all this though. Now everyone knows he is willing to kill, I say the gloves are off.
I think that speaks more then anything else. It’s gone past “Take the money and shut up” levels. Mustache is in “Clean up the mess” mode. Murder them all, get rid of the bodies, and it’s back to Costa Rica and his barber shop.
He gets paid to stop problems, and since they refuse to take the non-lethal problem solving means…
“I knew where you were probably going, and I’m difficult enough to escape that you probably couldn’t do it twice. That’s why I killed a person far away from you and videotaped this confession.”
Yeah, I can see how their initial escape blew up his usual script and his wounded pride might push him to do something rash, but just because this might be in character doesn’t make it at all a good idea.
Actually, after the first escape, doing so again tends to be much easier. You now know someone is coming after you so the element of surprise is gone which is crucial in a lot of cases to getting a quick kill because the person doesn’t instantly recognize you as a threat (same reason people hide bombs instead of sticking them in plain sight). In addition he had the idea that she would now have multiple people with her, possibly more weapons as well as a chance to deal with the mental soup of if she is able to shoot a man. The hand has already been tipped and the percentage of success is dropping.
I think there is a saying that doing the same thing over and over, while expecting different results is insanity.
JJ has to change tactics because it is clear that unless he take a plane ticket to where he knows for sure she is going so he can get there first and buys a high powered rifle that he is trained with and can pick her off from two city blocks, he is not likely to get another decent chance to silence her.
There’s still the problem that the person he’s accused of killing went missing fairly close to the time the frantic 911 call happened, as evidenced by the pizza guy either not getting anyone answering the door (or getting mugged while making the delivery as the alt-text says).
Isn’t this basically the Worst Thing he could have done? As an attempt to DISCOURAGE Shanna? He could have just drugged Kaye with something that’d wipe her short term memory and used her as a LIVE hostage. Shanna complies by walking into Hurricane’s arms, and he releases Kaye, who would have never seen his face (blindfolds ftw). Shanna refuses, Kaye dies.
At this point, he’s just ensured that she’ll NEVER cooperate…
Ehhh… Shanna seems committed enough at this point to respond to a hostage situation with a rescue attempt, not caving and complying. JJ simply cut out the middle scenario by going straight to “You didn’t play along, so now there are consequences.” The lingering threat here is “keep resisting, and the next death is on your head.”
Thing is, you’d have to be an idiot for that to work on you. The deaths are very clearly the killer’s responsibility, and at that point the only rational thing to do is to take said killer down as hard and as permanently as possible because somebody who will do this kind of thing isn’t going to stop doing it anytime soon.
He has basically set up a situation in which the only winning move for the other side is to take him down. Fail to do so? More people die. Don’t try? More people die. Give in? This guy has already killed an innocent to make a point. Chances are, more people die. Take him down? Nobody else has to die.
That’s logical, rational thinking. And the way you framed it “winning move for the other side” indicates that you have some game-playing skills/talents too.
Not everyone thinks like that. A lot of people might think. “OMG. He killed Kaye. If I don’t do what I want, he will kill me too. If I do what he says, he’ll leave me alone, and go kill other people, strangers, and I don’t care about them.”
Three flaws: one, that panicked thinking MIGHT work if JJ was RIGHT THERE and the reactions would all be immediate. He’s so far away from her that she’ll have hours – at minimum – to think things through. Panic will subside and she’ll realize how bad that idea is.
Two, he knows that Shanna and Xan don’t fall into blubbery piles in a bad situation already. He experienced this, firsthand. He has the (aggravated) bullet wound to prove it.
Three, like he says right on this page, Shanna is motivated partially BY the plight of the Five, who ARE strangers. By his own logic, he doesn’t need to threaten her with people she knows.
I would have put it the other way.
His parting comment “Someone would have had a better day if not for you” is evidence for me that JJ is trying to guilt-trip Shanna.
In other word, his approach is not “shut up or I will kill you”, but “keep making splashes and I will kill people AROUND you”.
And this is something Shanna care about, as evidenced by her advice to the comic writer she met.
It’s also in line with JJ’s usual modus operandi. His approach has always been about fear of physical reprisals: first cowing people into compliance by his sheer physical presence (comic writer), then beating them into submisssion (Xan – well, knifing/torturing). Murder is the next logical step.
And since the splashes he has been hired to contain are spreading faster than he can stomp them, thanks to Shanna meddlings, he has to ante-up his game.
A murder may not be the smartest approach, but I feel it is in-line with his character of a fixer.
Rescue him from where, though? Don’t tell me a man like JJ doesn’t have the resources to disappear if he needs to. Obviously he wouldn’t have Shanna turn herself in to HIM. Maybe turning herself directly into Hurricane is too risky (she could wear a wire going in or whatever), but with his distance from them, and how little they know about him, he’s got the advantage.
And it’s just like Matt says. JJ has now effectively proven to Shanna that she has nothing to gain by surrendering, and that her best bet is to take him down. … And he’s done so by showing himself standing over a dead body on camera.
This is completely out of character for the man who managed to win over someone pointing a loaded gun in his direction by calmly, rationally talking her guard down, turning the gun against her, and explaining that she only needed to discredit herself for his job to be done with the minimum amount of violence and the maximum amount of convenience. The only thing that’s changed since then is that Shanna and Xan have proven themselves more resourceful than he anticipated, which should only be further incentive not to back them into a corner and leave them feeling as though they have no options at all.
Perhaps he doesn’t really want her to back down? Maybe he took issue with the way the two of them escaped (and took his CAR!) a little more personally than he lets on, so he’s just saying: “See this? That’s you guys in four weeks, only there’ll be more holes by the time I’m done.”
If that’s the case, he’d like nothing more than for Shanna & co. to take a heroic stand against him and fail miserably because things they’ve learned watching Scoobie Do don’t work that well in Sepia World.
If they’re clever, though, they’ll take the fight into Arkerra instead. Bandit, E-Gurl, and perhaps Rachel’s former player as Scipio, working against the Five to break out of the world and spoil H.R.’s fun.
Maybe this is a refuge-in-audacity kind of strategy. Can you imagine trying to explain to the police that a respected gaming company is running a “discount matrix in their basement”, that their most popular game is possibly sentient, and that the CEO is sending a professional assassin to shut you up? No one would believe that, even with the evidence. People would probably believe that it was some sort of hoax and maybe even arrest Shanna and Xan for conspiracy and murder — hiring an assassin carries the same penalty as actually committing murder. That’s a weird case, too, but even “psychotic anti-gaming zealot framed gaming company for crazy things” is more believable than the truth.
That’s the only way I can see this working out for him — if Chrissie completely botches letting the police know what’s going on without, y’know, letting them know what’s going on.
After the bad guy is caught, then you can spin your crazy-sounding (but totally legit) story about why he murdered her. Not before.
You don’t need to explain the Hurricane angle. In the short term, if your goal is to get Hurricane’s Hitman off your back, it’s good enough just to mention that this dude’s murdered a lady in cold blood and threatened the witnesses. Over a video call no less. What could JJ possibly say in his defense, and how could Shanna and Xan possibly be implicated when they have three people right next to them who can vouch for their account?
Maybe, but odds are good that the sleep deprivation, constant panic, and the horror from watching a bystander get murdered might be enough to make our protagonists make some unwise decisions. Decisions like telling the police what’s actually going on, or even just letting slip a mention of Hurricane. It wouldn’t be hard for them to screw this up given their emotional state. And a few hours of police interrogation will only make it harder for them to stay believable and consistent.
I’m kind of curious how JJ thinks this is a good idea. The call might not be recorded, but he just 1) committed a murder, the kind of crime that will get law enforcement’s undivided attention while 2) absolutely convincing the rest of the gang about imminent threat who 3) know EXACTLY where he is AND 4) what he looks like! And I’ll find it incredibly surprising if no one in that room either hits the screen-capture button or whips out a phone to take a picture of his face, so they have a record of it.
…I saw this coming, and based on the previous strength of writing was hoping they’d avoid going for the obvious. But this is just about the dumbest goddamn thing he could do. All any of them would have too do is hit record, or reach over and hit PrtScn, and boom, evidence. Plus, of COURSE they are going to call the police, they have her address, after all! He’s got MAYBE ten minutes to clean up any and all evidence and get out of there. Twenty at the outside. “But he couldn’t have known she had sided against his target,” Perhaps not. But there would have been ways to find out! And if he can hack well enough to erase AV files on their end, he’s good enough to have hacked their feed and seen the whole convo anyway. This is just…blargh…
As for the whole evidence thing… Sure, if he does get caught he’s in a pickle, but I’m not sure “big dude with a moustache who we claim gets paid by a gaming company in a completely untraceable way” would be enough for the police to catch and arrest the dude.
Ehhhhh, at this point they don’t need to explain the little details like that, he just killed someone and threatened a bunch of others. Feign cluelessness (Especially since the group doesn’t seem to really want to buy the whole story), but there’s enough to get him into some trouble.
Actually, a look back says that she had the gun when her and Xan were running, I’m very doubtful she just dropped it right outside the apartment building. Seems fairly safe to say that she still has it.
Which in theory could work, except for the fact that she’s too far away to have committed the murder and there’s a room full of witnesses to testify that she didn’t, combine that with the fact that they can all give witness to what did happen, and their stories will have just the right amount of variance for the authorities to tell that it’s not something they agreed on, it simply doesn’t work anymore.
Villains just can’t resist the monologue, can they. He’s admitting on a recording that he’s been hired to stop Shanna, and that Hurricane is involved in the disappearances of the 6.
Is this guy retarded? He literally just committed a murder and threatened other people on camera. That’s enough to get the whole corporation taken down if their connection is revealed.
Am I the only one who finds it weird that a guy who said he’d rather not kill to the one person he should have killed just killed someone who had nothing to do with any of this and could have easily been scared off on account of being alone? It seems awfully out of character for JJ, based on what he has said previously. Not to mention shooting someone in her apartment is noisy and messy. I have a feeling there is more going on here.
Well… if this works like the real world, he might have even less time to clean up and escape. Guns, even with silencers, are REALLY loud. It is possible Kaye’s neighbors could have already contacted police to report a gunshot. For a professional, Mr. Berten should have gone for the more quiet and given his large physique, also surefire method of physically overpowering and strangling the target. I agree with the assessment that he’s not thinking things though and falls into a cliche villain trap.
Nevertheless, the stakes are getting higher every second, so this is SUPER EXCITING!! What will the gang do? What will Mr. Berten do? Can’t wait to read more!
A suppressed pistol of the type JJ would probably be using though sounds about somebody slamming a door. Yeah, it’s distinguishable if the people listening know what they’re listening for, but most people won’t think twice about it unless they’d already noticed something odd going on.
Of course, there’s good probability that he used Shanna’s gun to do it and is going to phone the murder in himself to cause her extra problems.
I feel you.
I know we didn’t get to know the sepia-world gang very well yet, but dang. I liked all of them enough that I didn’t want any to end up dead. :(
It’s a clear sign that the End Times are nigh. For was it not written that “When the Dark Age of Kali Yuga has come, do not wander lost in doubt and delusion, but look to tie up loose ends and murder characters all over the place. It is not the season to start new plot lines.”
And this, right here, is why Shanna should have shot him in the head when she had the chance. She really should blame herself for everyone he kills, not because she refuses to give in, but because she had a chance to prevent it all and didn’t take it.
So now they’re calling the police. And when the police is convinced that a murder has occurred they’re going to want to ask some questions. And that might take some time. Is JJ Berten’s plan to let the police keep track of Shanna until he can catch up to her, and then he’ll just patiently wait until an opportunity presents itself? And if she chooses to run, the police will start looking for her?
And if she chooses to publicly accuse Hurricane, she’ll appear crazy? But that’s where JJ Berten calculates wrong, because Hurricane might actually have trouble standing up to scrutiny at this point, what with its boss having tubed himself? I imagine that when the police has a murder case and don’t get to meet the big boss, they’re going to get suspicious enough to want to investigate further.
That fiendish Mr. Berten! He gave Kaye a week-old pizza that hadn’t been properly refrigerated, thus upsetting her stomach, and now she has barfed all over herself!
Plot twist: She’s just drugged / knocked out and had ketchup (or a bag of donated blood) spilled onto her with a small rip in her shirt for effect.
Alternate plot twist: She actually was impaled, but not in a way to cause immediate death – she’s merely in a state of shock/unconsciousness, and he will call the hospital after the call ends.
Most interesting plot direction: She remains dead. Not that I didn’t like her as a character, but it’ll be curious to see how the rest of the cast reacts, both in-game and out-of-game, particularly Scipio in-game.
Huh… you know, the wound could have indeed been a puncture wound to the heart. I assumed it was a bullet caused wound, but a knife never crossed my mind… and it is silent.
I totes went there too… trying to resolve JJ’s shrewdness with the apparent dumbassedness of Skyping his kill. “Play dead for your friends or it won’t be play.”
I don’t think Kaye is dead. Remember JJ’s “warning shot” to Shanna? That little monologue contained a number of reasons why killing people isn’t a good idea, and most/all of those reasons still apply. Now, convincing Shanna that Kaye is dead, that’s something else again. Note that JJ’s been doing this sort of thing for some time now, and however long it’s been since he showed up at Xan’s place, he’s had that much time to prep for this little encounter.
I think JJ knocked Kaye out (drugs? blow to head? something else?) and applied a bit of “stage SFX” to make it appear as though he murdered her. What better way to destroy the credibility of someone who’s filed an accusation of murder, than for the alleged murder-victim to show up alive and well?
That would work right up until Kaye reveals to her friends that she’s not dead. Shanna isn’t the only witness here, and there’s no story Kaye can tell her friends that wouldn’t feed their suspicions.
This is an elaborate gaslighting scheme to destroy Shanna’s credibility. Kaye has been bought and is helping JJ stage a murder illusion. When the cops arrive, they’ll find her alone and unhurt with no signs of anything unusual having happened. She’ll deny having spoken to her friends since yesterday.
Honestly, I kinda like that twist a lot. Because it means she’s alive, for one, (and I liked her!) but it means it’s a whole new layer of “Oh noes!” on top of everything else.
And if that’s the case, she could still be bought back the other way, too, maybe.
Also, it would deal with the problem of witnesses several people mentioned above.
My only concern with that twist is that it doesn’t seem T’s and Phil’s style, somehow. They tend to be more “what we’ve just shown you is what really happened” writers.
i dont get why everyone is saying JJ is a fool for showing his face on a skype call. simply put, it doesnt matter if he does.
this man is an ASSASSIN. he is part of the underworld. not to mention a corporate sponsored one. he has connections to get what he needs without stepping foot in a place where his face will be recognized. he can do what he needs to do, then melt away without a trace. im sure the police already have a file with his face and dna attached, but they still cant catch him unless he seriously messes up.
yes, showing his face is a bit of a risk, but a minor one.. for him. and what he gains from intimidation as shanna realizes how much information and freedom he has to pursue her is very valuable. worth the risk.
Welp, never mind my ideas from before. That’s pretty dead.
Pretty gorked, she is. Never liked her.
…I don’t know who the cheer for anymore. I don’t want them to stop the game, because it would kill the people plugged into it, but I also don’t want anybody getting shot over it.
WHO DO I ROOT FOR!?
I guess Kaye was… K.I.A.
YEEAAAAHAAA!
Dude. Too soon.
It’s times like this that I regret not buying that t-shirt I once saw.
“Chest Wounds SUCK (when properly inflicted)” *large splotch of bright red*
Well, at least you have a fitting gravatar.
Time for them to freak out when Scipio returns.
Well….they know that PCs are basically turned into NPCs when their player is offline, so there wouldn’t be a need to freak out.
Is it weird that my second thought was: “what happens to Scipio now?”
Its already been established that characters in the game continue to do act independently of a person logging on. Why people still consider this a game when its clear “players” have no control over what their characters do is a mystery. Its more like a TV show that people watch from the point of view of a particular character.
The players probably influence their Avatar when playing, having direct control of their actions. Think of their Avvies as alternate selves in an alternate dimension. That’s where H.R.’s magick comes in.
And based on what the player does in the game, the magic algorithm determines the kind of person the character is and gives them an appropriate story line.
Yeah, probably even an advertised feature. “Behavior analyzing algorithms ensure your avatar’s decisions while offline reflect how you’ve shaped them”
So it’s gonna be super weird now to jump back to Scipio in the next scene change.
It has been mentioned only a few comics back that PC characters act on their own when the players are not logged in…
Right, but I meant for us the readers. Without Kaye at Scipio’s helm, with only the NPC scripting/magick to enable his dialogue and actions, what kind of person will Scipio be now that his “pilot” is gone?
Plus I personally won’t be able to look at Scipio the same, knowing what I now know. He won’t be the same person, he’ll be a puppet.
That’s debatable.
That depends on how much magic is in the system. Scipio might be all that’s left of her or what’s left of her will be drawn to him.
I think it’s more like molding. The actions that were taken by Kaye SHAPE Scipio. Who will act as he always has acted when she’s not there. Any more changes to Scipio will be done by Scipio himself, who won’t notice the difference.
You’re thinking of a computer game. We know this is no game.
S’real.
Technically, wasn’t he a puppet of the player, before?
Now the strings are cut, and he can be a real boy!
(Or if you ask Fr’Nj, a real man, wink wink nudge nudge.)
Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing how the _other guildies_ react to Scipio, now that they know his player is dead.
Likewise how they’ll start treating the Big Four now they know what they know.
Also I have to wonder if JJ realizes how stupid this stunt is. Skype calls can be recorded and he just put his face and the face of a newly-killed woman on live feed.
Not sure how the tech works either in the real world or Sepia World, but won’t this Skype call be logged by the ISPs? Would this video evidence be saved somewhere?
Doubtful, unless the caller was already recording it. (Also doubtful, who does that by default?) Video takes a lot of storage space, so storing a lot gets expensive. Why would Skype do so themselves? Plus, I’m pretty sure doing so without the user’s consent is a pretty big breach of privacy rights.
NSA: “big breach of what?”
Slow clap, sir. Slow clap indeed.
This is, to be honest, one of the reasons I use an NVIDIA graphics card and let the “GeForce Experience” software stay installed and updated. NVIDIA Shadowplay means I can, at any time, get the last 30 seconds of my screen saved as a video and immediately start recording or streaming. Obviously not to catch a murderer on Skype, but to capture particularly interesting events in-game that are rare enough I don’t want to just keep recording all the time.
I have an NVIDIA card and I’d like to know more.
The question is whether or not they knew and/or had the time to hit the “record” hotkey when a cat showed up on the feed.
Maybe they recorded when they saw the cat, thinking it would do something funny after knocking over the computer.
Video would be an ideal media but what about just jamming “Print Screen” on their keyboard? They could get his face or any still frame out of that video call.
I admit it’s kinda ghetto but one of them is already on the phone with 911, they can tell them there was a murder.. Putting his face to it seems like the best way to throw a wrench into things. Well, unless he knows a really good, no-questions asked plastic surgeon and has abundant false identities to assume. Or if his ‘face’ right now is actually some sort of mask that he uses for public appearances. Although that might seem too Mission Impossible I suppose. *shrug*
If nothing else, that giant mustache might actually be fake.
It makes a surprisingly good disguise.
I think that’s just some sort of hired assassin
Pretty sure he doesn’t care about that
…Yeah, that’s potentially very damning. Going to be interesting to see what moves both sides make from here.
I imagine JJ must have some experience in erasure of audio-visual data and disposal of remains, such that the police won’t believe the group’s story. Or he wouldn’t have done what he just did. He’s been too shrewd so far to suddenly be handed the Idiot Ball for plot convenience.
Fair’s fair – Kaye managed to grab the ball just long enough to get killed. JJ just inherited it.
To be honest I’m not sure what JJ’s gameplan is here. He’s clearly demonstrated a willingness to use lethal force, and by all appearances is quite a far distance from everyone else. Now not only are there more witnesses, but they’re going to know to get as far away from him as possible, and spread the word as much as possible.
Actually, she’s been one of the most intelligent members of her group. Two crazy people jump in with a cockamie story about a video game company holding its players hostage in people tubes, possibly killing a third, and they expect a group of gamers to start some kind of rebellion when they don’t have any evidence that specifically damns the company?
How was she to know that Shana and Xan were right when all she had to go off of was their word? And how was she to know that JJ’s moustache was lurking behind her door?
-Especially- because her friends were so immediately ready to accept the story. She was being quite correct in taking the anti-stance, if only so that they could be 100% about what they were about to get themselves into.
That said, I think she’d definitely have been the most use out of the group, so JJ has done a lot more than just intimidate them with this murder.
Well, she’s have known JJ was lurking right outside her door if she’d actually looked before opening it. Speaking as a former delivery guy, most people on my deliveries actually checked to see who was at the door before opening it. Also, we wear uniforms, which JJ doesn’t seem to be wearing.
That’s all she had to do — look out the window.
Not 100% but it seems she was sitting right next to her front door when he got there, and from what I could tell it didn’t look like a door with a peephole. AFAIK she lives in an apartment so it wouldn’t be that uncommon.
There’s still way too many variables for this to have been a good move on his part.
At this point, I think his plan would have been, poison the well against Shanna, convince the one person far enough away that she’s selling a sham, offer some hush money, and be gone. The fact that he could hear the conversation (She only muted the Mic) and that Shanna had already met with the group and everyone heard the story, means that his plans changed horribly. He is probably very pissed off, his ego is bruised, and he most likely at this point isn’t thinking too straight.
He’s not Winston Wolf, either. From what we’ve seen, he solves problems exclusively by the proper application of violence and/or intimidation.
I’d like to hear him try selling this: “Hello, young lady. I represent… doesn’t matter whom. The important thing is that if a crazy journalist comes knocking, you should know that her tales of corporate conspiracy slash murder are a total sham. That’s right, not a word of truth to them. Now, here’s some hush money to back my claim.”
I think he’s doing this to both scare the group, but also likely is that he is ANGRY. A group of nonathletic untrained gamers are giving him far more hassle than he is likely have not encountered before. His pride (and the bullet graze) is sorely injured. JJ is likely not thinking all this though. Now everyone knows he is willing to kill, I say the gloves are off.
“Not many people have done that”
I think that speaks more then anything else. It’s gone past “Take the money and shut up” levels. Mustache is in “Clean up the mess” mode. Murder them all, get rid of the bodies, and it’s back to Costa Rica and his barber shop.
He gets paid to stop problems, and since they refuse to take the non-lethal problem solving means…
“I knew where you were probably going, and I’m difficult enough to escape that you probably couldn’t do it twice. That’s why I killed a person far away from you and videotaped this confession.”
Yeah, I can see how their initial escape blew up his usual script and his wounded pride might push him to do something rash, but just because this might be in character doesn’t make it at all a good idea.
Actually, after the first escape, doing so again tends to be much easier. You now know someone is coming after you so the element of surprise is gone which is crucial in a lot of cases to getting a quick kill because the person doesn’t instantly recognize you as a threat (same reason people hide bombs instead of sticking them in plain sight). In addition he had the idea that she would now have multiple people with her, possibly more weapons as well as a chance to deal with the mental soup of if she is able to shoot a man. The hand has already been tipped and the percentage of success is dropping.
I think there is a saying that doing the same thing over and over, while expecting different results is insanity.
JJ has to change tactics because it is clear that unless he take a plane ticket to where he knows for sure she is going so he can get there first and buys a high powered rifle that he is trained with and can pick her off from two city blocks, he is not likely to get another decent chance to silence her.
A TV Tropes reference…nice!
There’s still the problem that the person he’s accused of killing went missing fairly close to the time the frantic 911 call happened, as evidenced by the pizza guy either not getting anyone answering the door (or getting mugged while making the delivery as the alt-text says).
I am glad she is dead. The threat would have been lackluster and boring, completely PG, if he had just tied her up or something.
Isn’t this basically the Worst Thing he could have done? As an attempt to DISCOURAGE Shanna? He could have just drugged Kaye with something that’d wipe her short term memory and used her as a LIVE hostage. Shanna complies by walking into Hurricane’s arms, and he releases Kaye, who would have never seen his face (blindfolds ftw). Shanna refuses, Kaye dies.
At this point, he’s just ensured that she’ll NEVER cooperate…
Ehhh… Shanna seems committed enough at this point to respond to a hostage situation with a rescue attempt, not caving and complying. JJ simply cut out the middle scenario by going straight to “You didn’t play along, so now there are consequences.” The lingering threat here is “keep resisting, and the next death is on your head.”
Thing is, you’d have to be an idiot for that to work on you. The deaths are very clearly the killer’s responsibility, and at that point the only rational thing to do is to take said killer down as hard and as permanently as possible because somebody who will do this kind of thing isn’t going to stop doing it anytime soon.
He has basically set up a situation in which the only winning move for the other side is to take him down. Fail to do so? More people die. Don’t try? More people die. Give in? This guy has already killed an innocent to make a point. Chances are, more people die. Take him down? Nobody else has to die.
That’s logical, rational thinking. And the way you framed it “winning move for the other side” indicates that you have some game-playing skills/talents too.
Not everyone thinks like that. A lot of people might think. “OMG. He killed Kaye. If I don’t do what I want, he will kill me too. If I do what he says, he’ll leave me alone, and go kill other people, strangers, and I don’t care about them.”
Three flaws: one, that panicked thinking MIGHT work if JJ was RIGHT THERE and the reactions would all be immediate. He’s so far away from her that she’ll have hours – at minimum – to think things through. Panic will subside and she’ll realize how bad that idea is.
Two, he knows that Shanna and Xan don’t fall into blubbery piles in a bad situation already. He experienced this, firsthand. He has the (aggravated) bullet wound to prove it.
Three, like he says right on this page, Shanna is motivated partially BY the plight of the Five, who ARE strangers. By his own logic, he doesn’t need to threaten her with people she knows.
http://www.shortpacked.com/comics/2012-10-29-ransom.png
I would have put it the other way.
His parting comment “Someone would have had a better day if not for you” is evidence for me that JJ is trying to guilt-trip Shanna.
In other word, his approach is not “shut up or I will kill you”, but “keep making splashes and I will kill people AROUND you”.
And this is something Shanna care about, as evidenced by her advice to the comic writer she met.
It’s also in line with JJ’s usual modus operandi. His approach has always been about fear of physical reprisals: first cowing people into compliance by his sheer physical presence (comic writer), then beating them into submisssion (Xan – well, knifing/torturing). Murder is the next logical step.
And since the splashes he has been hired to contain are spreading faster than he can stomp them, thanks to Shanna meddlings, he has to ante-up his game.
A murder may not be the smartest approach, but I feel it is in-line with his character of a fixer.
Rescue him from where, though? Don’t tell me a man like JJ doesn’t have the resources to disappear if he needs to. Obviously he wouldn’t have Shanna turn herself in to HIM. Maybe turning herself directly into Hurricane is too risky (she could wear a wire going in or whatever), but with his distance from them, and how little they know about him, he’s got the advantage.
And it’s just like Matt says. JJ has now effectively proven to Shanna that she has nothing to gain by surrendering, and that her best bet is to take him down. … And he’s done so by showing himself standing over a dead body on camera.
This is completely out of character for the man who managed to win over someone pointing a loaded gun in his direction by calmly, rationally talking her guard down, turning the gun against her, and explaining that she only needed to discredit herself for his job to be done with the minimum amount of violence and the maximum amount of convenience. The only thing that’s changed since then is that Shanna and Xan have proven themselves more resourceful than he anticipated, which should only be further incentive not to back them into a corner and leave them feeling as though they have no options at all.
So what’s his game?
Perhaps he doesn’t really want her to back down? Maybe he took issue with the way the two of them escaped (and took his CAR!) a little more personally than he lets on, so he’s just saying: “See this? That’s you guys in four weeks, only there’ll be more holes by the time I’m done.”
If that’s the case, he’d like nothing more than for Shanna & co. to take a heroic stand against him and fail miserably because things they’ve learned watching Scoobie Do don’t work that well in Sepia World.
If they’re clever, though, they’ll take the fight into Arkerra instead. Bandit, E-Gurl, and perhaps Rachel’s former player as Scipio, working against the Five to break out of the world and spoil H.R.’s fun.
Not “against”, dammit. I meant “with”. Or “on”. Or something.
Maybe this is a refuge-in-audacity kind of strategy. Can you imagine trying to explain to the police that a respected gaming company is running a “discount matrix in their basement”, that their most popular game is possibly sentient, and that the CEO is sending a professional assassin to shut you up? No one would believe that, even with the evidence. People would probably believe that it was some sort of hoax and maybe even arrest Shanna and Xan for conspiracy and murder — hiring an assassin carries the same penalty as actually committing murder. That’s a weird case, too, but even “psychotic anti-gaming zealot framed gaming company for crazy things” is more believable than the truth.
That’s the only way I can see this working out for him — if Chrissie completely botches letting the police know what’s going on without, y’know, letting them know what’s going on.
After the bad guy is caught, then you can spin your crazy-sounding (but totally legit) story about why he murdered her. Not before.
You don’t need to explain the Hurricane angle. In the short term, if your goal is to get Hurricane’s Hitman off your back, it’s good enough just to mention that this dude’s murdered a lady in cold blood and threatened the witnesses. Over a video call no less. What could JJ possibly say in his defense, and how could Shanna and Xan possibly be implicated when they have three people right next to them who can vouch for their account?
Maybe, but odds are good that the sleep deprivation, constant panic, and the horror from watching a bystander get murdered might be enough to make our protagonists make some unwise decisions. Decisions like telling the police what’s actually going on, or even just letting slip a mention of Hurricane. It wouldn’t be hard for them to screw this up given their emotional state. And a few hours of police interrogation will only make it harder for them to stay believable and consistent.
I’m kind of curious how JJ thinks this is a good idea. The call might not be recorded, but he just 1) committed a murder, the kind of crime that will get law enforcement’s undivided attention while 2) absolutely convincing the rest of the gang about imminent threat who 3) know EXACTLY where he is AND 4) what he looks like! And I’ll find it incredibly surprising if no one in that room either hits the screen-capture button or whips out a phone to take a picture of his face, so they have a record of it.
I know right? Print Screen is a button right there on the keyboard and not many people realize what it’ll do for you.
Do we have the slightest idea what he looks like without the moustache, with a shaved head, in a hoodie?
Maybe the entire reason for his weird hair style is a backup plan for when he needs to go poof.
…I saw this coming, and based on the previous strength of writing was hoping they’d avoid going for the obvious. But this is just about the dumbest goddamn thing he could do. All any of them would have too do is hit record, or reach over and hit PrtScn, and boom, evidence. Plus, of COURSE they are going to call the police, they have her address, after all! He’s got MAYBE ten minutes to clean up any and all evidence and get out of there. Twenty at the outside. “But he couldn’t have known she had sided against his target,” Perhaps not. But there would have been ways to find out! And if he can hack well enough to erase AV files on their end, he’s good enough to have hacked their feed and seen the whole convo anyway. This is just…blargh…
Pizza’s done with, it’s hamburger time.
More hamburger than Jean-Pierre before the incident.
That’s actually just tomato sauce on her chest. She’s in a pizza coma.
As for the whole evidence thing… Sure, if he does get caught he’s in a pickle, but I’m not sure “big dude with a moustache who we claim gets paid by a gaming company in a completely untraceable way” would be enough for the police to catch and arrest the dude.
Ehhhhh, at this point they don’t need to explain the little details like that, he just killed someone and threatened a bunch of others. Feign cluelessness (Especially since the group doesn’t seem to really want to buy the whole story), but there’s enough to get him into some trouble.
Gonna post this again just to be sure: HAMMERHEAD has been moonlighting on “The Flash”, apparently:
http://observer.com/2015/10/in-praise-of-king-shark-the-giant-half-man-half-shark-on-the-flash/
Though he apparently uses the stage name “King Shark”. And I guess he had some work done to his face (in that he’s not a hammerhead on the show). But boy does he look great!
That’s cool! I guess I need to watch “The Flash” now. :)
You really do. First season’s on Netflix!
Well, this is brash. A bit too brash, really. You can only cover up so many bodies.
that’s what the barrels of acid are for
I’m calling it: He shot her with Shanna’s gun, he’s framing Shanna for murder.
Actually, a look back says that she had the gun when her and Xan were running, I’m very doubtful she just dropped it right outside the apartment building. Seems fairly safe to say that she still has it.
I remember Berten grabbing the gun, must have missed Shanna or Xan picking it up. Shame, it would have been a good hook.
Which in theory could work, except for the fact that she’s too far away to have committed the murder and there’s a room full of witnesses to testify that she didn’t, combine that with the fact that they can all give witness to what did happen, and their stories will have just the right amount of variance for the authorities to tell that it’s not something they agreed on, it simply doesn’t work anymore.
Villains just can’t resist the monologue, can they. He’s admitting on a recording that he’s been hired to stop Shanna, and that Hurricane is involved in the disappearances of the 6.
It’s not a recording, though. Skype calls aren’t, by default, recorded.
That’s how far you are from where Kaye is, Shanna: just one bad day.
Is this guy retarded? He literally just committed a murder and threatened other people on camera. That’s enough to get the whole corporation taken down if their connection is revealed.
So what exactly is Xan doing in that first panel?
I’m wondering that myself. Hopefully it’ll be something that helps shut JJ down.
The mustache steals this scene for me
Am I the only one who finds it weird that a guy who said he’d rather not kill to the one person he should have killed just killed someone who had nothing to do with any of this and could have easily been scared off on account of being alone? It seems awfully out of character for JJ, based on what he has said previously. Not to mention shooting someone in her apartment is noisy and messy. I have a feeling there is more going on here.
So JJ just threatened a large group of friends, by killing their friend and alerting them to his existence. Not much for subtlety, is he?
I hope he likes bullets, because I suspect at least one of them already owns a gun and will now be carrying it at all times.
OK, I need an adult. This got too real.
I mean, you can’t say for sure is she dead or is she paralyzed and has spilled ketchup.
Congratulations. He just provided the police with at least four credible eye witnesses to him murdering that woman.
Well… if this works like the real world, he might have even less time to clean up and escape. Guns, even with silencers, are REALLY loud. It is possible Kaye’s neighbors could have already contacted police to report a gunshot. For a professional, Mr. Berten should have gone for the more quiet and given his large physique, also surefire method of physically overpowering and strangling the target. I agree with the assessment that he’s not thinking things though and falls into a cliche villain trap.
Nevertheless, the stakes are getting higher every second, so this is SUPER EXCITING!! What will the gang do? What will Mr. Berten do? Can’t wait to read more!
Yeah, silencers… aren’t. They are suppressors, and are meant more for outdoor work, preferably with other ambient noise to help disguise the sound.
A suppressed pistol of the type JJ would probably be using though sounds about somebody slamming a door. Yeah, it’s distinguishable if the people listening know what they’re listening for, but most people won’t think twice about it unless they’d already noticed something odd going on.
Of course, there’s good probability that he used Shanna’s gun to do it and is going to phone the murder in himself to cause her extra problems.
Swear Word. Swear Word. Expletive. Swear Word. Wrath. Expletive. Deity’s Name. Swear Word.
My friends tell me I take stories too seriously, I say good writing makes me attatched to character.
I feel you.
I know we didn’t get to know the sepia-world gang very well yet, but dang. I liked all of them enough that I didn’t want any to end up dead. :(
WHY ARE ALL OF MY FAVORITE WEBCOMICS KILLING OFF SO MANY OF THEIR CHARACTERS!?
Sad truth, they’re all looking towards a near endgame.
It’s a clear sign that the End Times are nigh. For was it not written that “When the Dark Age of Kali Yuga has come, do not wander lost in doubt and delusion, but look to tie up loose ends and murder characters all over the place. It is not the season to start new plot lines.”
Wow. This comic is getting dark.
Or should I say “noir”.
Hmm he just gave the NSA new methods of justifying their surveillance I see.
Wow, harsh.
RIP, K.
And this, right here, is why Shanna should have shot him in the head when she had the chance. She really should blame herself for everyone he kills, not because she refuses to give in, but because she had a chance to prevent it all and didn’t take it.
Yeah seriously, who’s going to feed the kitty now?
Okay, Hannibal.
She was terrified, and has never taken the life of a human being. Her inaction, while obviously unfortunately in hindsight, isn’t surprising.
So now they’re calling the police. And when the police is convinced that a murder has occurred they’re going to want to ask some questions. And that might take some time. Is JJ Berten’s plan to let the police keep track of Shanna until he can catch up to her, and then he’ll just patiently wait until an opportunity presents itself? And if she chooses to run, the police will start looking for her?
And if she chooses to publicly accuse Hurricane, she’ll appear crazy? But that’s where JJ Berten calculates wrong, because Hurricane might actually have trouble standing up to scrutiny at this point, what with its boss having tubed himself? I imagine that when the police has a murder case and don’t get to meet the big boss, they’re going to get suspicious enough to want to investigate further.
That fiendish Mr. Berten! He gave Kaye a week-old pizza that hadn’t been properly refrigerated, thus upsetting her stomach, and now she has barfed all over herself!
Plot twist: She’s just drugged / knocked out and had ketchup (or a bag of donated blood) spilled onto her with a small rip in her shirt for effect.
Alternate plot twist: She actually was impaled, but not in a way to cause immediate death – she’s merely in a state of shock/unconsciousness, and he will call the hospital after the call ends.
Most interesting plot direction: She remains dead. Not that I didn’t like her as a character, but it’ll be curious to see how the rest of the cast reacts, both in-game and out-of-game, particularly Scipio in-game.
Huh… you know, the wound could have indeed been a puncture wound to the heart. I assumed it was a bullet caused wound, but a knife never crossed my mind… and it is silent.
I totes went there too… trying to resolve JJ’s shrewdness with the apparent dumbassedness of Skyping his kill. “Play dead for your friends or it won’t be play.”
[b]But where would he find enough pizza sauce to sub as fake blood at this time of night?[/b]
Alternate alternate plot twist: She’s been flipped by JJ and is staging this whole thing to silence and discredit Shanna.
I don’t think Kaye is dead. Remember JJ’s “warning shot” to Shanna? That little monologue contained a number of reasons why killing people isn’t a good idea, and most/all of those reasons still apply. Now, convincing Shanna that Kaye is dead, that’s something else again. Note that JJ’s been doing this sort of thing for some time now, and however long it’s been since he showed up at Xan’s place, he’s had that much time to prep for this little encounter.
I think JJ knocked Kaye out (drugs? blow to head? something else?) and applied a bit of “stage SFX” to make it appear as though he murdered her. What better way to destroy the credibility of someone who’s filed an accusation of murder, than for the alleged murder-victim to show up alive and well?
That would work right up until Kaye reveals to her friends that she’s not dead. Shanna isn’t the only witness here, and there’s no story Kaye can tell her friends that wouldn’t feed their suspicions.
Ooh, 100 comments. I guess death sells almost as well as sex.
Runs off to film zombie porn.
This is an elaborate gaslighting scheme to destroy Shanna’s credibility. Kaye has been bought and is helping JJ stage a murder illusion. When the cops arrive, they’ll find her alone and unhurt with no signs of anything unusual having happened. She’ll deny having spoken to her friends since yesterday.
Honestly, I kinda like that twist a lot. Because it means she’s alive, for one, (and I liked her!) but it means it’s a whole new layer of “Oh noes!” on top of everything else.
And if that’s the case, she could still be bought back the other way, too, maybe.
Also, it would deal with the problem of witnesses several people mentioned above.
My only concern with that twist is that it doesn’t seem T’s and Phil’s style, somehow. They tend to be more “what we’ve just shown you is what really happened” writers.
This is why you never post your real address on WoW (or Facebook).
So what he’s saying is that Kaye was
shot through the heart
and your to blame
She gives ga-ames, a bad name!
…Wait, how does Shanna know J.J. Berten’s name?
Wait…how does she know Berten’s name?
I’m pretty sure Mr. Berten tends to introduce himself when he first arrives and is in “playing nice” mode.
I’M NOT A CONTINUITY ERROR, *YOU’RE* A CONTINUITY ERROR
KAYE ISN’T DEAD. THAT’S A SQUIB. SHE’S IN ON IT.
…what, I’ve been cutting onions! Don’t look at me like that!
Alternatively comment:
Wait, when did George RR Martin start writing Guilded Age?
i dont get why everyone is saying JJ is a fool for showing his face on a skype call. simply put, it doesnt matter if he does.
this man is an ASSASSIN. he is part of the underworld. not to mention a corporate sponsored one. he has connections to get what he needs without stepping foot in a place where his face will be recognized. he can do what he needs to do, then melt away without a trace. im sure the police already have a file with his face and dna attached, but they still cant catch him unless he seriously messes up.
yes, showing his face is a bit of a risk, but a minor one.. for him. and what he gains from intimidation as shanna realizes how much information and freedom he has to pursue her is very valuable. worth the risk.
Awww… She died too quickly. She didn’t get to suffer for her crimes against grammar first. =(