Data. Public, private, accessible, or obscured, data is the fortune of the modern day. It controls our lives. Advertisers wage war for it. Even something as banal as dinner preferences is worth much. We are warned to safeguard it. There are ways to obfuscate it. Yet, it finds a way to escape like a cockroach slipping through a crack in the wall.

Barring death, there is no way to cease generating data. Creating data, creating a story, is a sobering, inescapable fact of existence. We are real, we affect the world, and the world affects us.

---

She sat in her darkened room, sipping black coffee, with a pack of cookies next to her keyboard. She was waiting for Shroud, an encrypted messaging service, to complete its verification process. She plucked out a cookie and ate it carefully, holding a paper plate beneath her chin. She learned long, long ago what a hassle it is to have food crumbs stuck in one's keyboard.

Shroud finished its verification process. She put down the plate, wiped her fingers on a napkin, and greeted everyone in the chat room. Her screen name, 'Virus,' appeared next to her message. Others welcomed her quickly. She was mostly respected in this virtual space.

'Virus' was a common nickname across the wider web. She had chosen it about a year and a half ago because of that fact; it'd make her harder to track. Plus, it was thematically appropriate and she had enough humor to understand that it made her sound like a cheesy villain. She giggled about it. She was glad, and surprised, that no one else on Shroud had chosen it as a screen name.

Considering her purpose today, she knew all about the importance of being hard to track. She was online to clarify the terms of a potential job. So far she knew that the customer wanted private information on some lesser known e-boy. Typical. "Hah," she scoffed aloud. The customer was probably a desperate e-girl. She had seen the boy's picture. He was handsome, sure, but too young. The boy was 24 at the oldest, 21 at the youngest. She might have had more of a personal interest in this e-boy if he was older.

The client was not in the room yet. She sipped her coffee. "Delicious, life-sustaining caffeine," she thought. She was planning to stay up. It was Friday, so there was no penalty for late night intelligence gathering. Hell, she could probably stay awake without coffee, considering her chronic insomnia.

If she had it her way, this would be her full time job. It would certainly make things easier, she wouldn't have to worry about trying to sleep. Alas, bills and taxes were a fact of life and thus she was forced to work a day job. It was fortuitous that her day job was not horrid.

Here on Shroud, her primary platform, she had built a reputation of being a dependable sleuth. People from all corners of the world came to her for assistance in gathering other's private information. To put it bluntly, she was a cyberstalker. However, not all of her assignments were nefarious. At times, a naive individual in search of a family member, or another passe goal, had been forwarded her services. Though such jobs were conventional, she accepted them because she relished digging for data and watching others. She was obsessive about it. This was her nature; she had always been voyeuristic. The extra money was a bonus.

She looked at the clock. It read '20:44.' The customer was late. Whatever. She decided to watch some videos in the meantime. Just as she was leaning forward to type on her keyboard, she accidentally sent her greeting again. Oops.

Wait.

No she didn't.

She hadn't even touched the keyboard. Was Shroud lagging? Lag was uncommon on this service.

Puzzlingly, "she" sent another message, inquiring about the job she was here for. What? She typed out a reply, asking who this other 'Virus' was, if anyone could see them, and if anyone was experiencing connectivity issues.

The other 'Virus' responded, inquiring who she was, answering in the negative for connectivity issues. So, it wasn't a lag ghost, it was a real user. It seemed choosing a common screen name had finally caught up with her. But, why would they ask about her job? She hadn't been that public about it. "Huh..." She sighed in confusion. She was respected in this space, this was unprecedented. People usually left each other's contracts alone. "Hold on," she thought, "I am respected..." Oh, now she understood. It was likely a kid who idolized her.

"That's cute. I know I'm respected here and you want to impersonate me, kid," she typed.

"No, you are impersonating me, and I am no child," the user responded.

"If you are not impersonating me, then why did you log in after me and copy my greeting?"

"As if datestamps prove much. Greetings are generic anyways."

"If you are anything like me, you'd know the value of a datestamp. If my greeting is generic, why not change it?"

"'Value of datestamps.' Hah, I bet I know much more than you do."

"Mods, remove this user." She sent.

"Mods, remove this user." They sent at the exact same time.

"Excuse me?"

"Leave."

WHAT. She pulled her hands away from the keyboard and clenched her fists. Her rational mind understood that it was futile to interact with someone of this kind. Though, something about them was... Was maddening. While it appeared they were impersonating her, it also nonsensically felt as if they weren't. She wasn't sure why she was feeling this. She had her fair share of disagreements in this space but no one had ever been so pointedly defiant. Perhaps that was why. Unexpectedly, she found her hands back on her keyboard. It was almost as if a force beyond her was compelling her to respond.

"No," she retorted.

"You're trying to take my job, too?" The other 'Virus' returned.

"Excuse me, no, it's MY job."

"It clearly is not."

"It clearly is."

"Dm me your proof."

"No. You dm me yours."

"I will not."

"Then you are a liar."

"Nope."

"Yep."

The argument went back and forth like this for quite some time, all the while becoming increasingly acidic. The other 'Virus' would lob a childish insult, she would answer with something worse, the other would escalate, on and on it went. She hoped it would plateau and cease (with her being the last word in, of course) but it never did. Instead, to her shock, she abruptly broke. The other 'Virus' broke, too. Their quarrel began to spiral out of control. Serious accusations, swear words, slurs and more filled the chat, with both of them hypocritically criticizing the other's use of foul language. The text steadily traveled up the screen as message after message fled from fury. What was left of her reasonable mind was drowned out by an unforeseen, raving urge to: Prove. Them. Wrong.

The moderators noticed the amount, and the quality, of the messages flooding the chat room. Without hesitation, they dealt both of them a swift and absolute ban.

Her next scathing remark, half finished, disappeared and startled her out of her focus. The chat interface was replaced by a page that read, "You have been permanently banned from 'The Phonebook,'" the name of the chat room. She threw her hands in the air and yelled. She kept her hands up for a few moments, then slowly lowered them and ground her teeth, breathing shakily. Her chest and face felt hot. It took a few seconds before her thinking faculties returned. She grabbed her anger and drove it down, she had to stay calm. She turned her chair away from her desk and rubbed her face. All at once, the ruminations began.

It hit her: she had lost access to a network that she had spent a year and a half building. She chastised herself for not diversifying from Shroud, considering she understood the moderators were liberal with bans. She was going to have to start over, build another network for herself, most likely under a new screen name. But, she appreciated 'Virus,' that was a complete shame. Her anger flared up again. It threatened to direct itself at her, but that wasn't where it belonged. She rerouted it to the other 'Virus' who had so effectively, so quickly, so embarrassingly, destroyed her composure.

She was going to find them.

She curtly turned back to her desk. Though she hadn't seen it, she knew that the other 'Virus' had been banned, too. The moderators appreciated the ban button too much to overlook that. Accordingly, she thought about where someone from Shroud might run to... Aha, DChat: an unconventional, unpopular, yet secure platform. She already had an account there, again under the name 'Virus,' because she had first tried to advertise her services on DChat before moving to Shroud. This was going to be easy.

Though the night had not at all gone the way she had expected, it turned out that she would not be prevented from doing what she loved, after all.

---


By Adaline Guerra