The Bonzi Kidnappings

Everyone remembers something different from the Windows XP era. Some remember Club Penguin. Others remember LimeWire. I don’t remember any of that. I remember Bonzi.

I remember being around 8 years old and getting my first computer. Money wasn’t an issue in our house; so a computer for an 8 year old, while a diabolical gift, was perfectly in budget. I remember being so excited to go around and surf the web. Despite buying it for me, my father barely let me touch it. He’d go on about the dangers of the internet, even though all I wanted to do was play Space Cadet Pinball or browse pages surrounding the supposedly upcoming Toy Story 3. Due to not being allowed to access the computer, it would be left for dead in the basement, quietly collecting dust as the months passed. However, around September of that year, my father would finally let me use the computer. I was ecstatic, and I raced down to the basement with my father tagging along from behind me. I laid down on my belly and glared at the dusty, black Dell monitor sitting on the ground as if it owed me money. On the rich, green grass of Windows XP’s Bliss wallpaper, three icons sat. One was a lowercase E in blue. Another was a notepad named “t”, and finally off in the corner, far away from the other two was an icon of a small purple monkey, being labeled BonziBUDDY.

A surge of joy felt as the CRT screen lit up the dark basement. My father, who was now laying next to me, appeared to take joy in my happiness. I eagerly took the mouse and directed it towards the Bonzi icon. My father looked confused for a second. “What’s that? Did you download that without my permission?” asked my father. I quickly paused. “No, but it looks fun.” I replied. “It must have come with the computer..” My father concluded. “Yeah.” I replied.

It took a few seconds, but the confusion molded itself back into joy and excitement. I would open the BonziBUDDY program blindly, not knowing what to expect. In just a matter of seconds, a purple monkey character identical to the one in the icon swung on a luscious green vine and stood on the desktop. The character would stand with his knees slightly bent and his hands on his belly which was coloured a lighter shade of purple. He would wave his hand and introduce himself as BonziBUDDY, my virtual friend and assistant for the internet. He spoke with a robotic voice adjacent to a developing teen’s voice; squeaky but still occasionally hitting lows. Bonzi finished introducing himself and asked me for my name. A text box revealed itself, prompting me to write my name. I was hesitant for a second, but my father nudged me. “Go on,” he whispered. I typed down my name slowly, having to look back down at the keyboards. “ANDERS”, I wrote. Bonzi cheerfully spoke in his voice; “Nice to meet you, Anders!”. It almost felt magical hearing Bonzi speak. Before I continued playing with Bonzi any further, Bonzi pulled out a registration window. The registration page had information that was oddly personal, such as your full name, address, date of birth, and even ethnicity. Just as I was about to fill it out myself, my father quickly intervened. “Let’s not do that yet Anders.”, my father said gently. I didn’t dare argue. After all, he was an adult and I was merely a child. My father spoke again, explaining how he would move the computer into the living room for me the next night. I nodded my head and smiled once more and would head off to bed that night.

My father’s word would prove itself to be true. The old Dell computer made itself up in the living room of my home. It would find itself stationed not far from the TV, so that either my father or mother could monitor me as I used my computer. It was an annoying compromise, but being able to use a computer at the cost of being in an uncomfortable spot was fine enough for me. Soon enough, Bonzi would become a daily part of my life. I’d come back home from school, throw my back across the room and would talk to Bonzi as I read Wikipedia or played World of Warcraft. He wouldn’t do much aside from telling an occasional joke, singing a song, or playing a ridiculous animation. He was pretty much the most harmless thing on the planet; or so I thought. One day, Bonzi started asking questions that felt too personal. I recall a conversation with Bonzi and I specifically.

Bonzi greeted me and asked if I lived in Norway (for context, I do.) His question was followed by a box with two buttons, “Yes” and “No.”. As Bonzi asked his question, my computer suddenly got an alert about a potential virus being on the computer. I was reluctant to answer and ran back to my mother who was sitting on the couch. She noticed I was a bit distressed and asked what happened, so I pointed her towards Bonzi. She looked at me with the sort of face that you give to someone when they’ve done something stupid. “You’re overreacting Anders,” she said. It was left at that. I didn’t touch the computer for the rest of the day.

More incidents regarding Bonzi scaring me with questions would follow. It was hit or miss, Bonzi would ask questions that were innocent like what my favourite colour was or what I wanted to be when I grew up, but he’d also ask questions that were too personal. Questions like if my house had a backyard, what time my parents would get home, and if my room had windows or not. I would go up to my father about Bonzi’s behaviour. I still remember the conversation.

My father sat at the dining table, his newspaper in one hand and his car keys in the other.

“Dad?” I called.
My father turned his head to me. “What’s up?”
“The purple monkey is acting weird with me.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know. He asked me what time you get home.”

My father’s eyes shot up. His keys fell to the floor. Before I knew it, he immediately got out of his chair and rushed towards where the computer was, knocking over a small cup on the way. I followed in fear. I watched him delete Bonzi with the precision of a hunter; professionally skimming through the control panel to uninstall Bonzi.

That was the last time I had ever seen Bonzi on my computer.

But yet, the computer was still there. My father stayed home going through the computer’s registries. I didn’t know this at the time, but it turned out that Bonzi’s questions and my answers were essentially baked deep into the computer. All the questions followed a formula.

A question. An answer. Simple.

“DO YOU HAVE A DOG?”
“WHAT COLOUR IS YOUR DOOR?”
“HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU LIVE WITH?”
“WHAT GRADE ARE YOU IN?”
“WHAT IS YOUR TEACHER’S NAME?”
“IS YOUR MOTHER SLEEPING?”
“WHICH LIGHT IS ON?”

My father, upon reading the questions, asked me a question himself. “Did you answer any of the monkey’s questions?” I shook my head. “No dad. Every time he asked, I ran to mum. You can ask her.” He looked back at the monitor, his face in visible distress.

That same night, my father decided that I would be sleeping with him and my mum. I protested, claiming that I was a big boy, but I didn’t realise that my father’s actions actually saved me that night. The first strange thing that happened in the night was hearing Bonzi’s voice. It wasn’t a question, a joke, or a song. It was a statement. “I’m going now.” I remember feeling my father’s body move. My mother was fast asleep. I suppose all three of us just shrugged it off. But later into the night, I heard Bonzi’s voice again. “Do you see the person outside?” followed by light thudding sounds, as if someone was knocking on glass. The sounds startled me, and I started kicking my father as many times as I could to get him to wake up. My father eventually did wake up and I heard him shout loudly. I hid under the covers. I felt my mother move her body and eventually heard her shout as well. It was the first time I had ever heard my father swear. My father eventually called the police on whoever or whatever it was. The police would later come in the night, about 4 minutes after my father had spiralled. But once the police were there, the danger was gone. My father tried to explain what happened in the best detail he could, occasionally asking me to back him up. We both tried our best to explain what had happened while my mother quietly sobbed.

“A purple gorilla on your computer? Then the window?” The police asked.
My father held his head in his hands. “Y-yes.”
One police officer shook her head. “Third family in Oslo this month.”
My father’s head perked up when she said that sentence. “What?”
Another officer joined the conversation. “There have been a lot of incidents involving a purple gorilla recently. We don’t know much at this stage.”
My father didn’t do anything. He didn’t shout. He didn’t raise his head. Instead, he shook his head slowly.

That was all I remembered with the police.

That morning, all three of us drove to a dump and threw the computer away. The monitor, the tower, even the keyboard and mouse. My father didn’t bother trying to save any old family photos or my game data. That computer was no good.

My father never spoke about Bonzi again. Neither did my mother. We acted as though that night had never happened. Eventually, I grew up. I finished school. I went to university. Life moved on. Toy Story 3 had become reality. But even then, I never quite felt safe sitting in a room by myself.

20 years have passed and I am now 28 years old. I haven’t thought about Bonzi in ages until now. I had just recently acquired a job working as a police detective. Well, I was still being trained, so not quite a real police detective. My job was simple, following around my superiors, asking questions and collecting papers.

One day, my supervisor told me to organize old case files before the end of my shift. Cabinets of old case files ranging from the 80s all the way to the 2010s. But before I even started organising things, curiosity peaked into me and I decided to investigate. I opened a random cabinet and looked in, seeing an infinite amount of small yellow folders. I picked one at random, not knowing what to expect.

“Teen accidentally fires revolver at fence,” it read.

Well, so much for intriguing. I opened the folder and dived into it.

“A 17 year old youth acquired father’s revolver, took it to the backyard and fired one shot at the fence of his neighbor. No persons were injured, father was deemed to pay a fine of 1400 euros.”

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously?”, I thought. I quickly snapped out of my thrill cravings and realised that no detective would ever act like that. I closed the folder and put it back in its spot. I grabbed another one and read what it would have to say.

“Missing Cat #414”, it read.

I didn’t even bother to read through that one.

I would suck it up and begin work, starting with documents from 1999-2002. I took out a large chunk of them and immediately got a bomb of dust through my lungs. I coughed and wheezed, accidentally knocking over a few files as I did.

“Shit!” I coughed.

I bent over to pick up files before eventually stumbling over a missing child’s report, dated November 2006. The month and year pulled me back to my childhood. Seeing ‘November 2006’ written across the top of the report stirred memories I hadn’t thought about in twenty years. I caught myself day-dreaming about being a young kid again.

I opened the folder and read into it. A young 10 year old girl had been reported missing for over three weeks. Leading up to her disappearance, her mother reported her coming home late from school multiple times. I shook my head in disappointment. Who could do such a thing to a sweet little girl?”

I turned the page.

My jaw dropped.
For a moment, I forgot where I was.
The room around me disappeared, and I was eight years old again, hiding behind my father.
Inside the file was a laminated crayon drawing. A stick figure girl standing on grass while holding a balloon. Next to the stick figure was a purple stick figure with two big eyes and a big smile. The exact date was scribbled out, At first, my memory jolted back to Bonzi. But after a second or so, my mind had completely ignored the possible revelation. Perhaps it was just the colour purple triggering unresolved trauma.

I put the folder down. I caught my breath. I resumed work.

I was about halfway through the folders until I heard something fall behind me. A small folder about an attempted car theft from 2008. I decided to investigate it.

“2004 BMW X5 was parked outside of a supermarket in Bergen. 3 masked men attempted to break in using crowbars. No injuries, damage to windshield. Perpetrators not caught.”

I simply shook my head. Reading about crimes felt draining. Yet, I still turned the page.

Inside the folder was evidence from the carjacking. A small shard of glass, presumably from the car’s windshield. Nothing special.

I would continue to organise files until I stumbled across another missing file case. This one from August 2003.

“6 year old youth missing following usual bedtime routine. Small pieces of coloured synthetic fibres found outside of home.”

I looked deeper into the folder and saw a small plastic bag, laminated flat. Inside were the mentioned synthetic fibres. They were purple.

Again. Purple. My mind itched. It wasn’t remembering something. It was remembering around something, as if a piece of the memory had been deliberately torn away.

My mind didn’t want to admit that there might have been a connection. I looked at both of the folders, the one from November 2006 and this one from August 2003. I closely compared all the notes.

Both children had access to family computers with “child-friendly software”. Both children slept alone. Those were the only two connections I could find. Although a feeling of unease had made itself a home on my back, I placed the two folders into a separate pile and would continue work.

I had gone hours without coming across another missing child file. My work would continue unbothered. I had scanned through cases of property theft, car incidents, things that nobody would ever want to write a story about.

I looked at one more file. It read, “Disturbance at home, September 2006.” I scoffed. I opened the file and decided to read for a bit.

“A family in Oslo, Norway reported a disguised individual tapping at the window late at night. Perpetrator not found. No physical injuries towards family or home.”

It wasn’t much of a case. No suspect. No evidence. No follow-up. Just another disturbance report that had reached a dead end years ago. The file held no evidence or any more facts other than the one previously stated. Its ambiguity brought its credibility down. It sounded slightly familiar though.

By 1:04am, I had finished my job. All the files I had to sort out had been sorted out. There was nothing left to do except go home. I headed towards the door, but the two folders I had left in a small pile were still on the ground. I thought about the strange connection between the two bits of purple in both cases. The drawing. The fibers. That small similarity of “family-friendly software”. The itch that had previously stalked my mind finally fell flat. “Bonzi?” I thought to myself. It couldn’t have been. Bonzi was just that strange software I used to have as a kid. My mind was desperate to leave it at that, but something deep down told me to look further. I resisted.

I went home and I’d gone to sleep like any other night. Although that night, the desire to find out more roared. It roared so loudly I found it hard to fall asleep. The details kept my mind alert.

The next morning I woke up. I headed towards my police unit to do my job. I arrived fairly early, so there was quite an absence of people. The golden sun peered through the windows, glowing directly on the computer in the office. I figured since nobody was there and I wouldn’t get in trouble for snooping that I would go ahead and snoop!

I logged onto the computer. I decided the first thing I would do would be looking into as many missing child cases to see if there was anything to do with Bonzi. I knew it couldn’t have been, yet I still did.

I sat eye to eye with the database. I typed, “Purple.”

Millions of results. Purple bikes, purple shirts, purple cars, purple rooms. I then also added the keyword, “computer”. That narrowed it down quite a bit, but not enough. I tried other terms like “Personal Assistant”, “Gorrila”, “Mascot”, and so forth. Nothing brought me to where I wanted to be. I sighed. I simply went for the kill, removed my prior keywords and wrote “Bonzi”. The computer slightly stuttered, but three reports revealed themselves. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The first case read “Missing Child Report in Graz, Austria. January 2009.” I hesitated before clicking but decided that if it mentioned Bonzi, it was big. What was good about this was that this was a digital file. That meant it had unlimited space for information and evidence.

I began reading.

“A 12 year old female from the Graz area of Austria was kidnapped at around 3pm following a day at school.”

Bone chilling already.

“Teachers reported the child had begun speaking frequently about a ‘purple friend’, as well as concerning behaviour of staying long periods after school to meet with a friend.The first incident had only occurred at least 2 weeks ago, according to witnesses.”

That one sat uncomfortably with me. I should’ve stopped reading there but I just didn’t. I couldn’t.

“Her parents report that she used a computer program named “Bonzi Buddy” and had grown to love it. Pencil sketch pictures were found (see evidence 12a) inside the home next to where the computer was stationed.”

My shoulders tensed reading “Bonzi” again. It suddenly felt like I wasn’t the only person in the room. I looked back. Nothing was there. I accepted that fact. Nothing was there. I looked back at the screen. I decided to skip to the end of the report, not knowing that it would be a horrible decision.

“On January 19th, the female was found alive, but significantly malnourished. She lacked clothes and was only clad in a purple shirt and shorts that were too large. Upon police arrival, she struggled to compose coherent sentences. She mentioned descriptions of “friendship” and “questions”.

I froze. The chair creaked. My mind was pondering. Do I want to look at the evidence? Isn’t this all I need? I decided that I had enough with that file.

I moved onto the second file. It read, “Joel and Jay Bonzi Interviews – 2004”. Those names were unfamiliar to me. Were these the guys behind the kidnappings? Or were these guys just ordinary witnesses with an unfortunate last name?

I went through the file and found that there was no written text. Just a video.
The video was shot in an interrogation room. A detective sat behind a computer. Two men, both dressed in purple t-shirts eventually entered. One man had a messy bird’s nest style haircut. He wore black jeans with his purple t-shirt. The other man had long, curly hair like Tarzan. He wore blue jeans with his purple t-shirt.

Once both men had sat down in chairs, the detective began speaking.

“I assume you two are both Joel and Jay Bonzi. Who is who?” the detective spoke.

The two men answered his question. Joel was the man with short hair. Jay was the man with the long hair.

The detective began speaking. “Are you aware that your software, “BonziBUDDY” has tracked information from people across the world, including children?”

Jay looked at Joel. Joel looked at Jay. Neither man looked guilty. They looked confused.

“How did it track information?” Jay asked.

The detective stayed silent.

Joel had attempted to recline in his chair, but his body was too stiff to do so. “What information, exactly?” Joel asked.

The detective then explained. “Your program has a feature in which the character requests a long list of personal information. Birthdays, addresses, and a name.”

Jay’s face looked like he finally had an “Aha!” moment. “The registry!” he called.

The detective nodded.

Once Jay had talked about the registry, Joel’s face finally came at ease. “That information isn’t stored anywhere except locally. Nobody, not even us, have access to what our users put in the registry. That’s simply there to make Bonzi feel like a friend.” Joel explained.

Jay added, “It’s also to help Bonzi with assisting the user.”

“Ah,” the detective sighed. Could you also explain why your software has requested personal information?

“Didn’t we just explain?” said Joel.

The detective stood up from behind the computer and sat in between both men. Now that he was facing the computer, he turned on the computer and launched BonziBUDDY.
You couldn’t see it well from the video angle, but it was clear enough. Bonzi followed his usual routine. He swung from a green vine and smiled. Bonzi was evidently harmless. He was going through his goofy animations, making jokes and singing songs.

The two men smiled. “See? Exactly as it should.”, one said to the other.

But then came a period of silence from Bonzi. He stood still. No animations, just a still frame.

Jay whispered, “Why’s it doing that?”

Nearly 2 minutes of silence had gone by, and then Bonzi spoke.

“What time do your parents get home?”

The box showed up.

When I heard Bonzi’s voice through the video, my body tensed up again. I immediately paused the video. Something from my past was crawling through my mind. Physically, the room I was in suddenly felt quiet. I looked back one more time. I thought I saw a shadow move in the hall behind me. I angled my chair in a way so that if something were to come out and get me, I would have a slight escape advantage. I unpaused and continued watching.

“So, what is it boys?” the detective asked with a smug face.

Joel and Jay were stunned. Neither of them spoke. Jay stopped looking at the detective and stared at the screen, fidgeting with his hands. Joel’s leg twitched. He quietly muttered something that sounded like, “This isn’t our build..” Then, in an attempt to properly speak, Joel slightly stuttered, trying to come up with a proper explanation. In reality, it was evident he didn’t know. He couldn’t form a sentence.

“Jay? Did you p-program that?” Joel asked.

“I-, no. I didn’t. I never even..” Jay replied.

“Listen boys,” the detective said. “I’m not here for software compliance. I’m here because real children are going missing because of your software. Someone is collecting data and is using it to take children. What’s going on here?”

Joel and Jay were both in disbelief. They simply stated they didn’t know. They really didn’t.

“Look, we can prove that Bonzi was never supposed to do that! Joel, uh, do you remember the old USB with the first build of Bonzi?” Jay said.

Joel replied that he did.

The detective interrupted Joel before he could continue. “What is going on here?!” he demanded.

“We don’t know,” Joel said.

The detective simply shook his head. “What could it have been if it weren’t one of you two?” the detective said.

“We don’t know.” Jay replied.

The video finished there.

The thing was that questions weren’t answered. Judging by the video, neither man had ill intent. They were just as confused as the rest of the nation.

I looked at the file’s metadata. The file was uploaded in September 2005, but had been modified in August 2009. That didn’t sit right with me.

There was only one more file to look at. It read, “Disturbance at home, September 2006 – FOLLOW UP.” My mind recalled the file from last night, the story of the tapping at the window. I didn’t figure that they would be connected though, probably just similar incidents. But then I remembered, somewhere in this file was the word “Bonzi”. That’s when I made a sick realization.

When I was around 8 years old, my father and I had BonziBUDDY on the computer. Bonzi acted strange. My dad got rid of him. Something was tapping on the window that night. Was that file my case? I knew I had to investigate.

Upon starting to read the file, I knew it.

“A family in Oslo, Norway reported a disturbance late at night in September 2006. A father and son, named Henrik [REDACTED] and Anders [REDACTED] respectively, reported a disturbing incident regarding the software BonziBUDDY. Henrik claims that his son was familiar with a purple gorilla character software and often used it. Henrik reported that at some stage, his son was disturbed by the character following it asking questions about the structure of the home. Henrik reported that a purple gorilla character was tapping on the window of his son’s bedroom at night. The perpetrator was not found.”

That paragraph, while miniscule to others, triggered trauma in me. I never saw Bonzi tapping on my window. I only remembered the sounds. Bonzi’s phrases. I never knew. Something was grabbing children and I was supposed to be one of them. I was only a fish in a large, sick sea. My father never told me. Nobody did.

I didn’t want to believe it was me. It could have just been another child named Anders. It could have been anyone else, but the words proved that it was me. In a desperate attempt to prove that it wasn’t me, I searched through the computer again, searching for more files. This time, I searched for my father’s name; Henrik Dokken. I eventually found my father’s own police record. It didn’t come up with much information that would’ve been connected to Bonzi. Small offenses like graffiti when he was 15 or a speeding ticket from 2012. My father wasn’t a mastermind, he was an ordinary man.

But there was something that stood out like a sore thumb.

In my father’s record, there was an image of us. My family. I was caught by surprise and horror; that wasn’t supposed to be there. Shortly after the surprise though, it was soothing. Simple, happy times. My old childhood smile was precious. I wanted to tear up, but something caught my eye. The Dell.

The Dell. I had forgotten about the Dell. The computer my father had thrown out years ago.

In the image, you could barely make it out, but World of Warcraft was open and in the corner was Bonzi. Standing smug as if he were in the room with us.

I twitched. I didn’t remember any of this.

Before I could do anything, my superior walked in. “What are you doing? You’ve been there for hours.”, he said.

I struggled to find the words. “I, well, I..”

The words came out on their own eventually. “I could have been kidnapped. There was software, and it was.. It was like, asking questions and something was at my window and-”

“What?” my superior interrupted.

I looked up. “I don’t know.”, I replied sheepishly.

“Keep practicing searching through databases, kid. You’re doing well at being ridiculous..” he said.

I wanted to give him the middle finger, but I didn’t want to lose the only job that was letting me find answers to a strange childhood phenomena.

My investigation from that morning had gone for hours and I decided to drop it for a while. All I had found was that Bonzi wasn’t meant to be like that according to Joel and Jay and that something involving Bonzi was at my window. That was enough evidence for now.

A few hours later, I decided to ring my father. Maybe he knew something I didn’t. My father was now an old man, a mere shell of the tower he used to be. I didn’t expect him to pick up the phone, but he did.

“Hello?” he said. His voice was still intimidating as it was years ago.
“Hey Dad,” I said. “Remember when we had a computer?” I asked.

My father didn’t reply or speak for a while. “What about it?”

“There were details about it you didn’t tell me. I found them all at work. The Dell, the window.. Why’d you never tell me? Are there things I don’t know?” I asked.

I could only hear my father’s breath through the phone.

“You were only 8, Anders. You couldn’t sleep at night without a night light since that day. I hid the truth. Not to fool you. To protect you.” my father said. He spoke gently, in a way I’d never heard him talk before.

“Oh.. Do you know anything else?” I asked.

My father spoke. “Maybe. There could be one more piece of evidence. A USB. At the police station you work at.”

I raised my eyes. A USB? Perhaps the same USB the Bonzi developers mentioned?

“Alright. Thanks Dad.” I said. I hung up the phone.

I headed back to my workspace. Maybe the chase for the unknown was nearly done.

Once I entered my workspace, I immediately began looking for a USB. Any USB, really. If it was a USB, there was a chance it was the USB my dad mentioned. One of my co-workers who had been there since 2000 saw me frantically looking around.

“You okay?” she asked.
“Uh yeah. I am. I’m just doing a little investigation on a cold case from 20 years ago or so.” I explained.
“What are you looking for?” she asked again.
“A USB. Containing uh.. BonziBuddy? Do you know what that is? It’s like a purple gorilla thing for computers..” I said while sheepishly chuckling.

The co-worker didn’t look at me like I was crazy. She had a face that said she knew. She told me to come with her. So I did.

I followed her for what felt like 20 minutes. We walked down multiple floors to the point where my legs were getting tired. Eventually, she led me to a room.

She said, “Regarding all incidents with BonziBuddy, we have a small room here. It contains most of the information, including the USB.”

I smiled. There was no way this was real! She led me into the room, and closed the door behind me. I was horrified by what I saw.

The room was entirely purple. The walls had posters of Bonzi on them. In the corner was a Dell computer, although it was powered off. It was identical to mine. Yellow files upon files stood stacked in the other corners. In the centre was a small wooden table with a green USB on top. The room was uncanny. Bonzi’s face was everywhere. The computer especially was ominous and had the co-worker not been with me, I would have burst out of the room crying. But the most horrific thing about this room wasn’t its decoration. There were so many incidents involving Bonzi to the point where there had to be a room for it. That said enough.

There were already many things to do in the room. The USB looked tempting but I wanted to look at the files. The first file contained information about a kidnapping from December, 2008. It happened to a girl from Japan. She described a purple thing playing with her. Another file contained information about another kidnapping in March 2011, in England. Another file, July 2012, this time in Australia. One thing that stuck out about this case is that the questions were documented.

“IS YOUR MOTHER ASLEEP?”

“WHAT TIME DO YOUR PARENTS COME HOME?”

The Australian report also mentioned a child being startled by a figure in the window late at night. There was a pattern.

Now, some children were returned. Others never came back. All files had the same rhythm to them, they all had family computers, and something purple was always involved. Looking at them kept making me sick. I had to get the USB. For answers.

As I was about to pack up shop and leave, I looked back at the computer one more time. I noticed something. The small scratch on the left side of the monitor. The small dent underneath the power button. Those details were identical to the Dell computer I saw in my family photo. I looked towards the co-worker.

“What’s the point of this computer?” I asked.
She replied; “That computer was one of the exact computers that had BonziBuddy installed on it. We got it in around November 2006 following an investigation. The kid who had this specific computer got lucky. His father prevented him from getting kidnapped. It’s down here because it still acts strange sometimes. We still hear a robotic voice from it.”

There was no question. That was my childhood computer. My father never kept it at the dump. He must’ve taken it back and submitted it for evidence. He never told me the truth. To protect me. Protect me from ever running into Bonzi again.

I didn’t want to comment on it. I left it at that.

I went up to my workspace again and I went to my own computer. I plugged the USB in and installed BonziBuddy. Not something I would have ever thought I’d do ever again.

The installation went fairly quick and 4 versions of BonziBUDDY were now on my desktop.

There was BonziBUDDY2. BonziBUDDY3, BonziBUDDY4 and BonziBUDDY Beta. The command prompt quickly flashed before closing itself again, and a folder revealed itself. I decided to go through all versions of BonziBUDDY.

The first version, BonziBUDDY2, contained a character named Peedy the Parrot. He was a green parrot, very different to the purple gorilla I knew. I’d left him on my screen for about 10 minutes. Peedy was fine. No weird questions, just assisting when needed.

BonziBUDDY3 was next. This one finally had Bonzi the gorilla, but it still didn’t have any weird occurrences. It had a menu called “BonziWORLD”, simply a menu to make interacting with Bonzi easier. I’d leave this one on for 20 minutes, but still. No strange occurrences. BonziBUDDY4 was almost identical to BonziBUDDY3, just without the BonziWORLD menu. I’d leave this one up for nearly an hour, but still no creepy behaviour. I was starting to doubt myself and the USB. Joel and Jay must’ve been telling the truth.

But then I opened BonziBUDDY Beta. Was the monster I dealt with when I was a kid?

I was expecting the same bread and butter. But this time, when Bonzi showed up, it felt like looking into the eyes of danger. The room disappeared around me. Suddenly I was just an 8 year old kid again, staring into a monitor. But nothing happened. All was well. 30 minutes in and it was just like the other tests.

Except Bonzi became aware.

“What’s the colour of your door, Anders?”

I got caught off guard.

“White?”

White was in fact the colour of both my childhood door and my adulthood door.

I wanted to brush it off as coincidence, but all the evidence stacked up. This was the exact version of Bonzi which stalked kids and took advantage of their innocence.

I decided to make Bonzi leave. I needed to open the folder.

The folder contained only a small notepad file. It read;

“Dear MEMBER! Thanks for being a BonziBuddy BETA TESTER! Only given to a select few families in the world!

Bonzi can walk, talk, sing, dance, search, and browse! He can do it all!

Bonzi’s own code can be edited and distributed so you can make your OWN BonziBUDDY!

Thanks!

J and J B”

I was confused. That didn’t answer any of my questions. Yes, the beta version of Bonzi was what tracked me and millions of other kids. But it never answered why or how Bonzi asked those questions.

Until it hit me. Joel and Jay left Bonzi open source in the beginning. Anyone could have modified Bonzi to do anything they would have wanted. Someone used Bonzi’s child friendly face as a mask for evil. But.. who would have done that?

I wanted to dig deeper. I tried looking at Bonzi’s code with a copy of Microsoft C ++.

I saw things that felt weird.

I wasn’t a programmer. I didn’t understand most of what I was looking at. Most of it was meaningless strings and commands. But even someone like me could understand patterns. There were multiple lines of text where Bonzi would ask a specific question at a specific time. All of them timed for a child to answer truthfully.

At 10:00pm, he’d ask whether your parents were asleep.
At 5:00, he’d ask whether your parents were home.
At 4:00, he’d ask about your home’s backyard.

On the weekends, he’d be programmed to ask a question nearly every hour. Some were child friendly. Others, harmfully personal.

The question now wasn’t what. It was who.

Who did this?

I knew I was close to finding the answer. Too close.

I looked into the code of all the versions of BonziBUDDY. Bonzi 2, 3, and 4 all had code which seemed professional. I wasn’t a programmer, but I could tell it just looked right. I looked at the code in the Bonzi Beta. The code switched between looking professional to being suspiciously sloppy. It was evident enough; these excerpts of sloppy code weren’t made by either Joel or Jay Bonzi. It was a 3rd party entirely.

That’s when I found my biggest clue. It simply read, “Modified by Bazeketor, 01/04/01”

Bazeketor? I hadn’t heard that name before. It was the first name or identity that was connected to all of this. How hasn’t anyone seen this yet? This was what was missing! If I could find who Bazeketor was, then I could get answers!

I googled Bazeketor. One useful result came up.

A profile on a quiet, dead forum about computers.

Bazeketor was a user who had been registered since 1997. He made around 108 posts on the forum before eventually disappearing entirely in 2012. He was completely anonymous. His profile picture was an image of an anime girl from what appeared to be an obscure visual novel. Most of his posts were harmless discussions about software and operating systems, but every now and then he’d ask strangely specific questions about how young children interacted with computers. Other users joked that he sounded like a predator.

I also found a post which showed that Bazeketor freaked out when he discovered BonziBUDDY in 2001. The same year his modification was made. He made a few, slightly ambiguous posts like “Open source for this was a mistake.”.

That was all Bazeketor brought to the table. No real confirmation if it was him. No real confirmation if it was actually his code or someone trying to frame him.

I never even confirmed who Bazeketor was besides his anime avatar.

No matter how hard I tried to look for the answer of “who”, I found nothing. Bazeketor’s real identity was masked under years of internet dust. Nothing ever answered why a mascot showed up at windows all over the world. Bazeketor wasn’t a real suspect, he was merely a string of letters attached to an atrocity. It still could have been anyone.

All I could really confirm was that someone tampered with the program.

I got up and left. I closed the door behind me with a depressed gait. As I closed the door, a quiet, robotic voice whispered behind me. “Goodbye, Anders.”

There was no explanation for that.

People still remember the Windows XP era differently.
Some remember Pinball.
Some remember LimeWire.
Some remember Bonzi telling jokes.
I remember my father carrying a Dell computer to the car before sunrise.
I didn’t know it then, but he wasn’t throwing away a computer.
He was saving my life.

Not every child was as lucky.

Credit: coolkirby7113