I told Malibu he could drop by whenever he wanted. I’d meant it at the time. After all, what’s the point of having a nice place if you’re the only one who enjoys it?

That thought had reduced my place to the modifier “nice” when it could also be characterized as “your own.” What’s the point of having your own place if you couldn’t enjoy it alone and uninterrupted now and then? My oversight.

The door’s unexpected buzz triggered a routine. I paused the television and punched the security camera on, without having to leave my desk. This was usually followed by me staring at a delivery driver. Leave the stuff on the porch and I’ll come get it. After you’re gone. After I’ve finished whatever I’m watching on Xbox and saved whatever board game I’m designing on the laptop. In other words, when I’m damn good and ready.

It wasn’t a delivery driver. I pressed the mike button. Ironically, it was Mike, AKA “Malibu.”

“Hey, dude,” I said. “Hold on.”

I could’ve gotten an automatic lock with the security camera set-up, opened with the punch of a button, but I don’t trust electronics that much. Which was also ironic, since Malibu is the computer guy who’d integrated my security system with my laptop. But my laptop was online, and online means it’s connected to every asshole on the planet. It’s bad enough worrying about someone stealing my game designs, much less unlocking my doors.

So, old-fashioned keys and dead-bolts for me.

The political podcast on the television was not something I wanted to have a conversation about with Malibu. I grabbed the Xbox controller and retreated to the home page.

Your controller batteries are low, the screen told me.

“Motherfucker, my batteries are low.”

I walked into the hallway, noted the Independence Day decorations still up a week late, and scolded myself for not switching out to generic summer decor. Meh. It was an 18th century house in 18th century Port George, just down the river from Mount Vernon. It had seen the Revolution. Maybe it was fitting to just leave the patriotic stuff up until August.

Dead-bolt, dead-bolt, knob lock. Twentieth century additions.

“Come on in, man.”

He stepped in and I closed the door.

Malibu America. Both names concocted. His grandfather had picked the surname when he immigrated from Nigeria. His friends in Colorado had stuck him with the nickname because they thought he came off like a white surfer. His casual and unannounced appearance on my porch forced me to struggle with that. Not my job to dive into all that politics, I decided. He preferred Malibu to his real name, Mike, which was convenient since that was also my name. Still, he used his mother’s maiden name, Guzman, professionally. Maybe to throw people off, maybe because Malibu America sounded like a bad joke.

He had on a black t-shirt with some obscure symbol on it, a band logo or fantasy reference. Three concentric white rhombuses in a red-and-blue spiral. Jeans, sneakers, stubble. Not his shaved and suited-up professional self. But, he knew that bullshit didn’t move me.

I wagged my head toward the office with a shrug. He shoved a manila envelope at me. I took it and started opening.

“You’re not going to ask what it is?”

I squinted at him.

“I can read it and find out.”

“Usually people ask ‘What is it?’ first.”

“Dude.” I started walking toward the office, pulling a few dozen papers from the envelope. “In books and movies they do.”

“For a reason.” He seemed disappointed.

The first few pages were computer logs. Something about attempted log-ins and probably hacking. That’s what Malibu was typically hired for. Cyber forensics.

“That reason,” I said, “being clumsy writing.”

I sat at my desk and lay the computer logs to the left. Under them were legal papers, two intellectual property suits filed by the attorneys of Sydney Elbridge. I recognized the name. A local author who was just starting to buzz. Something about adaptation of her series for television.

“You want me to play the tough guy showing how unflappable I am. What is it?”

That made him happy. He grinned and wagged his eyebrows.

“It’s a case the DC police are looking into. Looks federal to me.”

Under the legal papers were newspaper reports of deaths.

“Looks federal or is federal?”

“Just DC,” he shrugged. “For now.”

As I suspected, several of the defendants named in the legal papers matched the deceased in the newspaper reports. Two authors, an agent, and an editor.

“Dude,” I said, as slowly as possible.

“I know, right?”

I checked the dates on the three sets of data spread out on my desk. I caught Malibu glancing at the Xbox home page on my television and congratulated myself on pulling back out of the political podcast I’d been watching.

The dates on the three stacks of paper told a story. Malibu’s computer sleuthing was first. Then, about a year later, the court filings. Then, a few weeks later, the newspaper articles. Someone stole something from the author, wrote something based on that, and got sued. Then, got dead.

“Okay, what do you want me for? Are you on her defense team now? I don’t know what I can add to this.”

He waved toward the newspaper print-outs.

“There’s more.”

I moved the court filings up onto the laptop and dug under the print-outs. Underneath were more print-outs, this time of message board conversations. I moved them to the near edge of the desk, creating a neat rhombus of paper stacks.

“Reddit?”

“No,” he said, pointing to the banner on the print-outs. “A website specific to her writing.”

The usual internet suspects were debating the “hidden meanings” in Elbridge’s latest novel. I couldn’t follow most of it, since I didn’t know her work. Something about the history of Washington, DC, and a lost artifact. Or, a stolen artifact and what might be in it. Dated a few days after the computer logs, months before the court filings. So, here’s the hackers’ insider information.

“I’m missing something from this,” I said. “Sounds like typical online fanboy bullshit. Hacker fanboys, maybe. Plagiarists, obviously. But, I don’t get how ripping off her stories tells me anything about the deaths. I don’t know her books.”

He pointed to the court papers.

“She wrote the Dark District series. Plato Weatherly, detective of the arcane. Picked up for adaptation by Amazon.”

“Plato Weatherly.” I already hated this franchise.

“Set in pre-Civil War Washington,” he said. “Gaslamp fantasy.”

Okay, so I knew that term. I had designed games in that setting. Gothic tales of the alternative 1800s, when streets were lit by lamps of whale oil. Not quite retro scifi enough to be steampunk, more horror-oriented. I had to confess, that might be interesting. Still… Plato Weatherly?

I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration, about as gallingly a literary cliché as asking “What is it?” Which, ironically, made me feel I couldn’t just ask Malibu what is it he wanted me to see.

So, up-and-coming author Sydney Elbridge—a name probably as concocted as Malibu Guzman—wrote novels about a concocted history of Washington, DC, featuring a protagonist whose utterly concocted name was Plato Weatherly. Some idiot fanboys stole her files, wrote concocted fan fiction, got sued, got dead. I was nowhere further than before.

I shrugged and waved my hands in the air. Malibu nodded sympathetically and leaned on the desk.

“She does a lot of research into DC history for her novels,” he said. “It gets the fanboys rabid, so they do their own research. See this?”

He pointed at a particularly nerdish exchange between the two basement-dwellers, whose user names were so absurdly concocted that I won’t repeat them.

“Her latest book in the series, Boundary Stones, is about a time capsule containing property titles, hidden inside one of DC’s original surveyors’ monuments.”

I scanned the rhombus of documents, looking for connections. It was like scanning a chessboard for moves. This piece here opens up that move there. I shuffled through the four stacks of papers and found the connections. They spiraled outward, linking the rhombus of papers together.

“This guy,” I tapped one fanboy’s message board post, “wrote this unauthorized sequel to Boundary Stones mentioned here.” I tapped the court papers.

“Yup.”

“The added details from his posts are the same ones mentioned in the legal papers naming him as a defendant.” I glanced at the newspaper stories. “And, now he’s dead. Along with his editor, also named in the suit.”

“And,” Malibu pointed at the computer logs, “he stole her research notes.”

I scanned the computer logs. The only thing I could work out was that there were two sneaky log-ins.

“And, this second hack?” But, I already knew the answer. It was the other fanboy, and the other unauthorized Dark District novel mentioned in the suits.

“He and his agent are dead,” Malibu said.

“That’s fucked up.”

“Yup,” he said, “and now the police are looking at Sydney as a suspect.”

“Sydney,” I said. First-name basis.

He shrugged. “Elbridge.”

I wasn’t buying it. “You’ve met her. You like her. You think she’s cool?”

“Yeah. Pretty cool.”

“And hot.”

He laughed and pointed at one of the newspaper print-outs. A promo photo of a dark-eyed brunette with a shelf of books out-of-focus behind her. I could see, despite the blur, that there were series of books here and there of the same size and color. So, it was a bookstore photo, probably a book-signing, perhaps cosmetically blurred to look like a personal library to give her an air of the intellectual. She was in focus, looking up, something artificial about her eyes. Maybe more cosmetic fakery. I guessed she was in her late thirties, made to look early twenties. But, yes, Malibu thought she was hot.

“Come on, man,” he said. “What do you think about the time capsule stuff?”

I scanned the message board posts and legal papers for information about titles stashed in a boundary stone. Apparently, while setting up the capital city, there were legal shenanigans with property. A lot of valuable land was changing hands, not always squarely. According to rumor, a surveyor agreed to hide away some telling documents to be recovered later. But, one of the stones went missing, guess which one. That was all real-world, apparently, but also part of Dark District canon. Both the official canon and in the illegal fan fiction.

“You think it’s more likely that someone doesn’t want those property rights looked into than a cool,” I looked up at him with lowered lids, “and attractive author is having her plagiarists knocked off.”

“See?” He held his arms out wide. “You gamed it.”

I looked at the timeline again. From the court papers, I found the publication date of Boundary Stones. A few weeks later, the hacks. Then, the message board discussions. Then, again from the court papers, the publication dates of the unauthorized books. Then, the lawsuits. Then, the deaths.

I shook my head.

“Allergies. Suicide. Unexplained. There’s no mention of foul play in these newspaper stories.”

“There is in the DC police department.”

“It is a hell of a coincidence,” I confessed. “Even in Washington.”

“She didn’t do it.”

I side-eyed him.

“She didn’t do it,” he repeated. “So, who did? Process of elimination.”

“Motive?” I was giving his assumption of Elbridge’s innocence a pass, for the moment.

“You’re good at figuring out the motives of players.”

I gave him what I hoped was a stereotypical weathering look.

“Dude, I design games.”

“You understand games. This is a real-world game.”

I rescinded my pass on Elbridge.

“I’ll have to see what kind of player she is.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I mentioned you to her.”

“Did you mention what I do for a living?”

“Didn’t have to,” he said. “She belongs to a Flintlock gaming group.”

So, not only was Malibu on the defense team of his author crush, but I was on the defense team of a gamer fan-girl.