The portal to Calvin Williams' world, at least the one where he spends most of his waking hours, is tucked into a nondescript storefront in a Garden Grove strip mall.
Inside iNET, one of several cyber cafes in the city, the lanky Anaheim teenager can be found 10 hours a day, most days of the week, slouched in a chair, his fingers a blur of motion over a computer keyboard and mouse.
He wears headphones to better immerse himself in the virtual reality on the screen.
"This," the 19-year-old said, "is my second home."
Williams is playing Counter-Strike, a cyber version of cowboys and Indians in which terrorists and counter-terrorists armed to the teeth score points by blowing each other away.
Like Williams, countless teenagers and young men around the globe spend an extraordinary amount of time playing the game. Thanks to computer networking technology, several players can connect to a single machine and test their skills against each other, sometimes across continents.
The popularity of Counter-Strike and other interactive computer games is credited with sparking the recent growth of cyber cafes around the country, also called PC rooms or Internet cafes.
But some officials are becoming increasingly concerned that the violence on the screen is spilling into the real world.
In the early hours of June 8, Edward Fernandez, 14, was followed from a Garden Grove Internet cafe and shot to death. Four suspects have been arrested. There is no word yet on a motive, but the crime has prompted the City Council to consider putting more restrictions on cyber cafes.
New Security Measures
Several cities in the state, fearing that cyber cafes are magnets for troublemaking youth, have begun limiting the number of hours such businesses can stay open, usually until 2 a.m. Some require security measures such as video surveillance and guards. In Garden Grove, Diamond Bar and Lakewood, minors are not allowed in PC rooms during school hours or late at night.
Many Internet cafes do operate safely, officials say, and in some places parents and their children often play together. The Costa Mesa City Council declined to pass cyber cafe restrictions this month, saying the two businesses in that city have had no such problems.
But the mix of violent interactive games and youthful bravado concerns law enforcement. Disputes that arise within the games, between players, are sometimes settled with real fists and more dangerous weapons. Officials are also concerned because cyber cafes attract minors who will play into the night if allowed.
