I think he knows I want to stop him. I don't think he'd okay putting this up on the site. Can you guys help me?
Steve
[email protected] (Jill Wright) 6/13/13, 4:12pm
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I don't think that's such a good idea, Steve. Ken will figure it out eventually, and we both know he's been in a terrible mood lately.
[email protected] (Brett Jackson) 6/13/13, 4:19pm
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Sure, I'll put it up. Why the fuck not? We gotta do something.
Jill, lighten up, what the fuck is Ken going to do to us, anyway? Worst case scenario is he gets HR to fire the kid, and he knows what he's getting into. Besides, HR loves the kid after what he did for Anna. Seriously, let's just do it.
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/13/13, 4:35pm
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Thanks! I really appreciate it. I will write something up tonight.
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/13/13, 6:51pm
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re: re: The Plot Thickens
Yancy:
I think there's one more step that you're missing. It's just a hunch, but I believe that two years after he was pulled out of Monmouth Hills High School, Alex Grant joins the newsgroup rec.games.video. There, he sends a copy of Room 127 to a fellow member of the board who then kills himself.
According to Vivek Archer, the man who contacted me to tell me the game was a hoax, the poster who sent the game was named Alex Gogoasa. Alex G. Think that's the same guy? I do.
You're right. The substitute teacher might be the linchpin to all of this. Maybe he's the one who created the game. Maybe he can tell us how to stop it. I'm putting up an update to an article. In it, I'm going to state that I found the creator of the game. I'm going to credit it to him—to Corey Thatcher. We don't know that he made Room 127 yet, but maybe we can stir the pot a little.
Steve
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/13/13, 11:00pm
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re: Room 127 Update
attachment: Room127followup.wps
Brett:
Here's the follow-up I want to put on the site. Thanks again for your help. I think we're getting close to cracking this. I just need a little more...
Steve
[email protected] (Yancy Rand) 6/14/13, 7:19am
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re: Hold up on Corey Thatcher
Steve:
I'd wait on putting that article up. I don't think that Corey Thatcher's the one who made the game—not based on what you've told me about it and what I've just learned.
There wasn't any hope for tracking down Thomas Smith and Alex Grant. Even assuming that Alex was Thomas's adopted son, the names are just too common. But Alex Gogoasa? Now we're getting somewhere. I Googled the name. All I could find was a Romanian chain of donut shops, Gogoasa Infuriata. Apparently his last name means “donut”. Go figure.
This might sound silly, but it gives us two things. First, it tells us that Corey Thatcher isn't the one who made this game. You said yourself that the music that plays throughout Room 127 is the Romanian National Anthem. Doesn't that make it far more likely that Gogoasa—who also spread the game to the message board—is the creator?
Second, we now have a lead. If Thomas Smith adopted Goagasa, it was likely done in a very specific time frame. You're not old enough to remember this but shortly after the fall of Communism in Romania, it was all over the news: Romania was full of orphans. The previous regime had outlawed contraception, leading to thousands of unwanted children abandoned to the state.
Many of those orphans were adopted to Americans over the years—to the point where Romania ended up shutting down adoptions to American families. But we know that if Goagasa came over in that first wave of orphans to enter the United States, it was likely between 1990 and 1995, when he was a senior at Monmouth High School.
He was likely adopted when he was 13 or 14, in the very earliest days of the crisis hitting the news in the U.S. Very few children who came over were teenagers. I wouldn't be surprised if there are State department records about this very adoption. I will start looking into it.
In the mean time, I'd just try and wait patiently. Don't publish the story. Not yet. Let's be cautious for the moment. We're making great progress. Better than I expected.
Yancy.
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/14/13, 9:22am
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Yancy: It's too late. I already put the article up.
Steve
[email protected] (Tom Smith) 6/14/13, 10:01am
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re: Fucking Idiot
What did I tell you? Shut it down before you get yourself killed. You obviously haven't actually played the game.
Are you just taunting him? What do you want?
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/14/13, 10:36am
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re: re: Fucking Idiot
Mr. Smith:
I know who you are. I know what's going on now. Alex Gogoasa is your son, isn't he? And he's the one who created Room 127, not Corey Thatcher. You found out. You knew what he was going to do. That's why you tried to blow up the computer lab at Monmouth Hills in the middle of the night. You were trying to prevent the students from playing Room 127. But you set the bomb wrong, and you had to call in the threat so the police would disarm it. You didn't want to hurt anyone yourself.
We really have a copy of the game. It's killed one of my friends already, and severely hurt another. Someone else is playing it right now, as we speak. I need your help. How do I help him? What do I do?
At the very least, tell me I'm right. Reply back to me and explain what the game does. Some people kill themselves. Other people go crazy. How is it possible? Give me something to show my friend so he stops playing.
If you do that, I'll shut everything down. I'll destroy the disk. Just tell me the truth.
Steve Norman
[email protected] (Delivery Subsystem) 6/14/13, 10:37am
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re: re: Fucking Idiot
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
[email protected] Technical details of permanent failure: The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try double-checking the address of the recipient for typos. See information located at support.izmail.com.
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/14/13, 10:44am
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re: re: Fucking Idiot
GOD DAMN IT FUCK FUCK FUCK I WAS TRYING TO WORK WITH YOU WHY WON'T YOU HELP ME?
I know this is going nowhere I know you can't read this. Maybe you can. I don't know how this works. FUCK. Just please help me. You're the only one who can. You didn't stop it once. You can stop it this time. I don't know who Alex is. I don't care. Just help me save my friend. Quit being a fucking coward!
[email protected] (Delivery Subsystem) 6/14/13, 10:45am
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Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
[email protected] Technical details of permanent failure: The email
account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try double-checking the address of the recipient for typos. See information located at support.izmail.com.
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/14/13, 11:01am
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re: Giving Up
Hey Sam, I don't know what to do anymore. You probably saw my update on the site. I was trying to smoke out more information about Room 127. I came close. I had a source e-mail me again, just to disappear again.
I don't know what I'm doing. Nothing I do gets me anywhere. I wouldn't even be close to where I am now on this story without the help of another reporter. A real reporter. I just want to give up. I don't know how to help Ken. I don't know what I have to do to keep him from finishing the game...
Do you have any ideas?
Steve
[email protected] (Samantha Strickland) 6/14/13, 11:49am
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Steve, you know I'd rather you stop... But I don't think you should give up just yet. It's obvious you're really passionate about this. If anyone can stop this thing, it's you.
Call me tonight. We'll talk.
Love,
Sam
[email protected] (MacTavishfan98) 6/14/13, 12:19pm
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re: room 127
Hi Mr. Norman,
I have read both of your stories about the Room 127 game. In your first story, you say that it was on a 1.44 megabyte disk. That is small enough to send in an e-mail.
Do you think you could send the game to me? It sounds interesting and creepy and I can't find it for download anywhere on the internet.
Thanks,
Nate
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/14/13, 12:41pm
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re: re: room 127
Nate:
Sorry, I can't send it to you. And please don't go looking for it. You won't find it anywhere. You don't want to.
Sincerely,
Steve Norman
Intern, GameCore.net
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/14/13, 12:59pm
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re: SHIT
Brett:
We have a problem. I didn't think this through. Thanks to my articles about Room 127, people are looking for this game. Now, I don't think it's anywhere to be found. But what if I'm wrong? Someone sent it to our offices for a reason. What if they're trying to spread it around the internet?
We need to pull down both my stories. Thomas was right. Can we do that?
Steve
[email protected] (Brett Jackson) 6/14/13, 2:03pm
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re: re: SHIT
Who is Thomas? Not like it matters. You sure you want to pull down the stories? It won't be easy. Easier putting something up on the god damn internet than it is to take it down. Let me tell you...
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/14/13, 2:29pm
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As soon as possible... Thanks. I'll have to find another way to get information about this game.
[email protected] (Ken Greene) 6/14/13, 3:51pm
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re: Nothing So Far!
Steve:
No thanks to you, I'm still progressing in Room 127. I think I'm getting close. And I'll have you know that I haven't felt any ill effects. The headaches have even stopped, and the music is starting to grow on me.
[email protected] (Corey Thatcher) 6/14/13, 8:38pm
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re: Room 127
I have dreaded this moment for almost twenty years. I feel like only recently I was able to convince myself that it would never come. Now here you are, bringing up my name... Tying it to that monstrous project.
I suppose I deserve it. There's no clearing my conscience. The game is not mine, as you claim, but my fingerprints are all over it. I have to live with every life it takes.
When you posted your first article, I thought I could ignore it. Now I can't. At the very least, I need to correct you. I am not the creator of the game. It comes from the mind of another, though even now I do not believe I could tell you who he truly is. I knew him as Alex Grant, but I suspect that name was just a lie.
I would ask you to re-attribute the game to him, but I fear that the results may be worse if you do. In truth, all I would ask of you is this: tell me where you received the game. I thought it was long buried, and now I fear I was wrong.
Corey Thatcher
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/14/13, 8:50pm
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Yancy:
I've made contact with Thatcher. Looks like my article worked after all. Though I told my editors to pull it as soon as possible, so it should be gone soon.
Steve
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/14/13, 9:24pm
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re: re: Room 127
Mr. Thatcher:
I apologize for the article. To be completely honest, I didn't have any reason to believe you authored Room 127. I posted the article in the hopes of getting your attention, or the attention of Alex or Thomas Smith.
A few weeks ago, Room 127 showed up on a disk in our offices. I played it first, but didn't get very far. One of our editors picked it up. He's dead now. When I was trying to get into his computer, the game claimed a friend of mine. She worked in IT.
I know that you taught for a brief time at Monmouth High School. I know that you substituted for the sponsor of the technology club. This club membership included Alex Grant, as well as a few others. They've turned into maniacs and killers. Every one.
I need to know what happened. I need an explanation, because I have an editor nearing the end of the game. Even worse, I have people e-mailing me trying to find it. I'm afraid that someone is trying to distribute it again, and I may have provided the marketing.
Please, Mr. Thatcher... It sounds like this game weighs on your conscience. This is your chance to make good. Help me stop this.
Steve Norman
Intern, GameCore.net
[email protected] (Corey Thatcher) 6/15/13, 1:03am
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Steve:
I have written and re-written this e-mail a dozen times now. I've thought about what I would say, how I would phrase it... How I would unburden my soul. But when it all comes down, it doesn't matter. You will think poorly of me no matter how much I cushion the truth. And if you have played the game for even a brief moment, or you have lost people to the game, you deserve the truth.
When I temporarily joined the staff of Monmouth High, I was fresh out of undergraduate school. A degree in computer science wasn't the solid career path it is now, or the gold mine that it was back in the early 2000s. It was a risk, and I didn't know what to do with it. While I searched for a job, I put in to substitute in schools all around Vermont.
Monmouth Hills was my first and last assignment, for reasons that will soon became clear. I didn't know what I was doing. I was a programmer, not a teacher. How could I connect with these kids? I didn't understand them.
But there was one boy... A senior. I understood him, or at least I thought he did. He was a delinquent and a malcontent. He didn't care about school. He didn't seem to care about anything, except for computers. His name was Alex Grant, and he reminded me of myself.
Just a little younger.
Alex was strikingly ambitious. He wanted to make a computer game. Now, this was something I could understand. I was big into old school gaming. Wizardry. SSI Gold Box. At the time, I was obsessed with Dark Side of Xeen. Not that this matters at all... Alex wanted to do something bigger than any of this.
He said he was a refugee from Romania. He wanted to make a game about his experiences at an orphanage there, before he was adopted to the United States.
Keep in mind, this was 1995. Just a year after the first Myst game was released. No one was trying to tell real, serious stories like this with video games. I was enthralled by the idea that someone could express these painful experiences with interactive media... I wanted to help him. I was in awe of him.
You can probably guess what happened next. I crossed a line—a line between student and teacher that should never be crossed. The feelings I felt for him turned into something wrong... And he led me along, like he felt the same way about me.