CHAPTER 8
755 Words
I stared at my screen, fingers hovering over the keyboard, my pulse pounding in my ears. Darren had to be here—somewhere. Somewhere in the vast, sprawling veins of the government’s digital infrastructure, his name had to exist.
I ran the search again, breathing shallowly and scrolling through the results.
No matches were found.
The words burned into my vision. My stomach twisted into a tight knot. Impossible. Nobody just vanished, especially not from a system that tracked everything—bank records, medical files, social security numbers, employment history. And yet, Darren was a ghost. A glitch. A name wiped clean from existence.
My fists clenched, and before I knew it, I slammed them against the desk. "No. No way."
I pulled up my secondary hacking interface, digging deeper. Bypassing firewalls. Scraping encrypted archives. Pulling fragments of forgotten data like a desperate archaeologist clawing through ruins.
Nothing.
I checked birth records, school transcripts, and hospital visits. Zero. Zilch. Darren Barnes did not exist.
But I knew him. His lopsided grin, the way he twirled a pen between his fingers when he was deep in thought, the inside jokes only we understood. He wasn’t just data in a system. He was real. And I refused to believe someone like him could be erased so completely.
A bead of sweat trickled down my spine as I shifted my search—social media, old emails, chat logs. Anything. But every attempt came up the same. Empty. Even the messages we had exchanged were gone, as if someone had reached into my past and deleted every trace of him.
I swallowed hard, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Darren… where the hell are you?"
The screen flickered. At first, I thought it was a glitch. Then a new message popped up:
[Anomaly Detected. Correction In Progress.]
My throat went dry. That wasn’t my code. That wasn’t from any system I had hacked.
This was something else.
A cold chill crawled over my skin as I stared at the message. My fingers twitched over the keyboard, hesitating.
This was bad. Very bad.
I wasn’t just searching anymore. I had triggered something.
Before I could react, my screen distorted—colors bleeding into digital noise. Then, my entire system shut down. The fan whined, then died. The room plunged into eerie silence.
I bolted up, shoving my chair back. My mind screamed at me to move, but my body wouldn’t cooperate.
Someone knew I was looking.
And they were powerful enough to erase Darren—and shut me down in seconds.
My phone vibrated on the desk. I snatched it up, hands clammy, nearly dropping it. Unknown number.
I hesitated. Then swiped to answer.
"Who is this?"
Static. Then a voice—low, distorted.
"Stop digging, Tony."
A sharp spike of fear shot through me. "Who are you?"
A pause. Then:
"Walk away. This isn’t your fight."
I gripped the phone tighter. "Like hell, it isn’t. Where’s Darren?"
Silence.
Then the line clicked dead.
A shiver slithered down my spine. My hands trembled as I set the phone down—carefully, like it might explode. I forced a breath through my teeth, trying to keep my head from spinning.
Someone didn’t want me to find Darren.
And whoever they were, they had the power to make people disappear.
I needed help. Fast.
I grabbed my backup laptop from the closet, fired it up, and started reconfiguring my network. If they had tracked me once, they could do it again. I needed to move, change locations, and wipe my digital footprint clean. But before I could even finish, another message blinked onto my screen.
[RUN.]
The overhead light flickered.
Outside, a car engine roared. Tires screeched. Doors slammed.
Shit.
Adrenaline slammed through me like a lightning strike. I didn’t think—I moved.
I yanked the laptop’s hard drive, shoved it into my backpack, and bolted for the fire escape.
Behind me, my apartment door burst open. Heavy boots thundered inside.
I didn’t wait to see who they were.
I swung myself down the ladder and hit the pavement hard, pain jolting up my legs.
Shouts erupted above. Flashlights cut through the darkness.
I ran.
Heart pounding, lungs burning, I weaved through the backstreets, slipping between dumpsters and disappearing into the shadows. My mind raced.
Who were they? Government agents? Private contractors? Whoever they were, they weren’t taking chances.
And that meant one thing.
Darren wasn’t just missing.
He was taken.
And if I didn’t find him soon…
I’d be next.
- Writer
