Chapter 2
Let’s back up for a second.
A couple decades ago, there was rampant identity theft.
Conventional measures—passwords, two-factor identification, security questions—couldn’t deal with it.
People wouldn’t pick up phone calls because there was a nine out of ten chance it would be a recording saying that “your social security number has been compromised, so please input your credit card…”
With voice-cloning apps, deepfake generators, and tech-savvy criminals, the scampocalypse began.
It drained bank accounts, ruined lives, disrupted elections, and overwhelmed law enforcement.
Celebrities hired entire legal teams to issue takedowns of deepfake porn—only for those same videos to reappear in a few hours.
Phone companies scrambled to filter scam calls with little success.
A bank attempted three-factor identification.
And then the vice president’s car was hijacked using a counterfeit recording of his voice.
After that, an inventor had an idea. What if we put our ID in a place that couldn’t be hacked or stolen?
Under our very skin.
Enter the era of electron-ink tattoos. Instead of fumbling around in a purse or wallet for a plastic ID card, you could just scan the back of your hand.
The tech itself was powered through the tiny electronic pulses of a heartbeat—so if someone tried to remove the tattoo through gruesome means, it would go dark, the information gone.
The tattoos couldn’t be duplicated, as the ink was strictly regulated.
Most DMVs quickly created a room for tattoo application, once the demand roared to life.
It took less than a decade for the technology to become ubiquitous.
I was first inked when I was six years old.
What I remember most was the smell: burning metal and diluted bleach. A whisper of cold cotton across the back of my hand. It was the bare essentials: my identity, my school, and my home address.
The process was quick—there were machines built to administer basic biometric tattoos with as little discomfort as possible.
Pain flared in my hand, and I squeezed my eyes shut, burying my face in my mother’s shoulder.
Afterward, we went for ice cream and the taste of strawberries banished the bee-sting discomfort that still hummed beneath the bandage.
I wasn’t allowed to soak in the bath for a few weeks, to let the ink and nanotechnology fully set up.
There are still some holdouts. Tinfoil hat–wearing anti-technology cults, religious organizations, and a few people who prefer the paper and plastic of old ID cards.
But these days, most people use tattoos.
And for more than just identity protection.
While the government-controlled electron-ink is the only one used for ID and social security, private companies sell mods that will do almost anything: control your phone, lock your car, monitor your house, access your credit cards, check your body temperature, or even change the channel on your TV.
And for the most part, these new technologies work. Since the government began using electron-ink for their IDs, the number of frauds and impersonations dropped.
In a world where identities are written in flesh and blood, it’s harder to slip between the cracks.
But not impossible.
And thus, the Identity Security Division was born. It was given autonomy and funds to track down identity fraud—and on paper, it’s a boring office brimming with agents that couldn’t get jobs at a more exciting alphabet agency.
But the ISD is far, far more dangerous than most people know.
Because they don’t just track identities.
They create them.
Wraiths.
The government still needs people in the shadows: undercover agents, informants, spies.
People with identities that could be tailored for every mission, people no one would look for, people who had skills that would let them ghost through the world.
And if they were caught, the government needed plausible deniability.
Wraiths are a rumor, an unconfirmed conspiracy. They are the unseen heroes, the ghosts in the machine. They are people who died just long enough for their biometric tattoos to deactivate. Then they are used for black ops, for undercover work, etc.
You would think most wraiths are highly trained soldiers, former military and intelligence operatives.
The truth is a little more frightening.
Wraiths are criminals.
Rather than serving our sentences in prison, wraiths are given a handler, a few months’ training, and then we are tossed out into the field. If we serve our given term, our slate is wiped clean and we are sent back into the world with a new identity for a second chance.
And if we die on a mission—no one misses us.