Page 4 of Deep Fake

Like asking if I wanted them to tuck me in for the night.

I shuddered just thinking about it.

My online profile on this thread with the black background was Pretender. Lame, but I didn’t see myself trolling for long. Only enough time to find out what I needed to do. I read for a while. The people posting and asking questions and the answers skirted the lines of legal, but predatory activity wasn’t legal either.

So I posted the question, hoping they would help me and not kick me out for being so unknowledgeable.

A few answers came in immediately. Block. Virus protection. Move apartments. Ignore.

I’d tried all of those except the “move apartments” part, but that wouldn’t stop them since they’d infiltrated my entire online life. Location meant nothing to this person or people. Hell, they knew when I stopped for gas.

I was living in a nightmare.

More comments. Some asking what I’d done to this person. Why were they doing this to me? I would’ve liked to have known those answers myself.

Some of the answers were sinister. Telling me they wished they knew who it was so they would peep in on me too.

I pushed back from the desk and scrubbed my hands down my face. Fuck. This was hopeless. At this rate, I was going to move to the country and not have anything to do with the internet ever again.

Someone asked me to message them directly.

I did.

More nonsense.

I was so screwed.

Chapter Four

Riglan

I never expected to pick up work from a dating service, but it was intriguing to see. Very hush-hush because the corporate bigwigs did not want to know another hacker or group of them had gotten into their system and done some very naughty things.

The call came in just after I woke up that afternoon, and at first, I thought it was a joke. When someone begins with, “Have you ever considered using a dating service?” a client needing my services was not the first thing to come to mind. I was about to press disconnect and block when the voice said, “Don’t hang up.”

“Not interested in a dating service,” I replied.

“Not asking you to sign up,” they went on. “Have I reached the contractor called…Sketch?”

Hmmm.

“Maybe you should start out with what you are looking for and where you heard that name.”

He cleared his throat. “First thing I need to say is that we work with a particular clientele. I have to be sure that isn’t an impediment for you. We run into prejudice sometimes.”

“What is the name of your service?” They were winding around in a way that was making me wonder how far I wanted to go with this. “Because if it’s something unsavory like…”

“Oh no! Nothing like that.” He chuckled. “We match up shifters. And as to how we got your name, you worked with one of our clients a while back. Helped them out of a difficult situation. They mentioned your name as a computer wizard.”

“But they didn’t say whether I was willing to work with shifters?” For whatever they were beating around the bush about.

“No, it just didn’t come up.”

“And you didn’t think to ask? I mean, if you were wondering if I was a good fit for your needs?”

A silence lasted long enough, I wasn’t sure if the caller remained on the line, but finally they huffed out a breath. “Sketch, our business is in trouble. Someone has gotten into our algorithm and wreaked havoc.”

It took some work, but eventually I was able to determine that their matching system had gone completely wonky. Nobody was being matched with the right people, and they were getting inundated with complaints.