Dear Readers;

This is Fargo speaking. I have decided to break format for a moment, if you'll indulge me, and tell you about a real life Daily Victim. The story you are about to hear is 100% true, and even today tugs at my consciousness with a nagging curiousity that, I fear, will remain forever unquenched.

It begins some time ago, when GameSpy acquired a truckload of dot-com debris from another company (this inspired the infamous Salmon Jerky Victim, by the way.) What we didn't use was donated to local LAN parties as prizes or (I'm not making this up) given to needy kids. Among the pile of stuff was a collection of games: I was given the opportunity to horn in on it, so I picked a couple choice PC titles for, uh, research purposes.

One of the games I picked up was Sid Meier's Gettysburg, as I've been told that it is a wargaming classic. I was looking forward to leading my troops into a decisive conflict on the muddy plains of that quiet Pennsylvania town.

It took me a couple of weeks to get around to actually opening my new score. I held it gleefully in my hands. Is there anything better than the smell and feel of a brand new unopened video game? The weight of the box, the feel of smooth cardboard, the tantalizing box copy? I opened the lid, and the sticker gave way as though it had already been split, but I didn't think anything of it because the contents were still shrink-wrapped. I slowly worked the inner box from the outer box (we all know How I Feel About PC Game Boxes) with the intense pleasure of a kid opening his Christmas presents. I prepared to rip the plastic shrink wrap open, but first turned the inner box around in my hands to see where the CD was nestled. I turned it over and over. Something was awry... I realized that the CD was gone.

At first I thought it was an error at the packing plant, I mean, the inner box was still shrink-wrapped and the manuals rattled around inside the cardboard sleeve unmolested. But then I looked closer and -- to my astonishment -- I saw a very tiny slit in the plastic wrap, perfectly straight with measured precision, just large enough to slide a CD through. The sticker that held the box shut was also, upon closer inspection, similarly slit, with such care that it still appeared to be in-tact when the box was closed.

Slowly it sank in. Someone, long before, had already ganked this CD! But this was no Clumsy Run-of-the-Mill Gankage. What blew me away was the sheer surgical precision of the transaction! Someone, with delicious accuracy, intentionally removed the CD from its home with the delicate hands of a surgeon performing a liver transplant. Afterwards, the box was carefully closed up and replaced on the shelf with nary a fingerprint on it. When had this happened? Did it happen at GameSpy? Did it happen at the box's previous home? When, and why, did the gank take place? Who would go through so much trouble, abandoning the hefty game manuals in order to, with overtly anal precision, make the CD disappear? For me this elusive gaming stranger will forever be known as ... The Surgeon.

Sadly, I may never ever get to meet The Surgeon. Were I the perpetrator of such an unimaginable crime, I'd want to keep my identity completely secret. Nobody with such a talent would want the world to know about their dawdlings in the dark art of precision stealth ganking.

This Daily Victim is dedicated to The Surgeon, wherever you are. Our burning hatred of you is diminished by worshipful awe at your accomplishments. We salute you.

Ass.