Deep Fake (Shifter Hackers #1)

Chapter One

Malone

I haven’t eaten. Again.

Those not in the know assumed keying insurance codes was boring, but I begged to disagree. Once I settled in, my focus narrowed until my day’s work was completed. I once described it as an altered state, almost meditative.

A few years before, when I first did this job, I fell into keeping my phone facedown and set my computer without a time icon, to avoid clock watching. It was never a problem, but I never changed the habit.

Blinking, I shut down the laptop and flipped over my phone.

Fuck. Thirty-seven notifications since noon when I checked last.

Not that damned popular, I had friends on social media, people I worked with and a few friends from high school and locals, but I rarely posted myself. Lately, the notifications had been from people I knew, and it scared me more than I liked to admit.

Standing up, I stretched and performed some squats.

The routine, according to a social media post or six, would prevent a flat ass from sitting all the time.

Of course, once I watched one of those videos, my reels were flooded with nothing but the algorithm telling me how my hips were going to rot and my back was going to hurt if I didn’t do said exercises.

Oh, right. Food.

I made it to the fridge and stretched while heating leftover quiche and lo mein in the microwave. Breakfast or lunch or maybe dinner of champions for those of us who had begun to feel hollow in their lives.

At first, working from home sounded like a dream come true. Working my own hours. Wearing my boxers sans pants if I wanted to. Only one scheduled in-person monthly meeting, and most often canceled.

I was able to have coffee with my friends more often.

Go to the gym.

But before long, I was putting off the coffee dates, tired from working through the night. The gym, well, it wasn’t happening. I slept until almost noon and then settled at my desk. No life outside of work.

My eyes burned.

I was going pale.

I really needed to take better care of myself. The money was good at my job but if I had no inclination or will to spend any of the money, then there was no point.

“Look at you, Malone. Eating weird leftovers and hunching over the coffeepot like a lifeline.”

There was more to it than not eating and not going out.

My lifeline to the real world, social media, had become a place I feared. It started with random emails and messages on my social media. So I did what the internet told me to. I blocked people. Made my profiles private. Deleted messages. Never clicked links.

That only seemed to inflate things.

I began to get more emails, some of them posing as people I knew in real life. The bodies of the emails had details about myself that no one else would know. Where I got my food delivered from and how much I tipped.

How long it had been since I’d left the house.

Three days, for the record, and that wasn’t my longest run.

And then last night, I got the first text asking me if I was lonely.

I’d been asked that before. Messages. Emails. Even a comment on one of my pictures from high school.

When the quiche came out of the microwave, curdled, I knew it was time to get groceries like a real person.

Some of my staying in of late came after one of the messages on my social media had a picture of me at the laundromat down the road.

I couldn’t tell if someone had taken a picture of me, or maybe it was a security camera shot.

I watched my back now. Easier when inside.

“It’s fine. Probably just someone playing pranks or trying to get a rise out of you. It’s bullshit.”

Except a stirring inside me told me it wasn’t so innocent. I ignored it.

Kind of.

At the market, I felt someone watching me. The hairs on the back of my neck raised. Goose bumps covered my skin.

Whatever was happening, I decided not to give them the satisfaction of seeing my fear. I went through the list, purchased what I needed, and left. Slowly, scanning right and left but finding no sign of anyone tracking me.

Even though I’d just picked up groceries, I stopped at my favorite burger shop and got the special double cheeseburger, Cajun fries, and a coffee milkshake. I snickered, as I took the first sip of it. Yeah, my nerves really needed more coffee.

I’d made it back to the apartment, proud of my small accomplishment. Taking a walk and getting decent food. Maybe things would get better.

I should’ve known better.

As soon as the front door shut behind me and I’d secured all the locks, a text came through. I’d blocked the numbers from before, but this was a new one.

Safer to stay inside, omega.

It broke all my resolve and what little calm I’d retained. This was getting to be too much.

I blocked the number and tossed the phone into the bottom drawer, the one with my pots and pans, and kicked the damned thing closed.

This wasn’t funny. Never had been.

I tossed the milkshake into the trash. My stomach churned, and I had a night of work ahead of me.

Sure, I could take the night off and stew in my fear, but I refused to let these people or person derail my work and life any more than they had.

In that vein, I eyed the walking pad I’d bought and never took it out of the box. It was leaned against the wall, sad and forgotten.

Whoever was texting and emailing and sending those messages, well, they could kiss my ass and leave me alone.