AT LEAST PHYSICALLY, SANDRA WAS feeling better by the time the tall crew cut guy walked in the room. She attributed her tenuous comfort not only to her leather outfit, but to the room’s rising temperature. On her face she could feel the warm draft blowing out of the overhead vents.

“Rod,” he said, holding out his ID. The slot listing his last name said, Rodrigo Ochoa.

“I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you I’m Sandra.”

Rod and Cynth exchanged a quick knowing glance. Sandra didn’t quite know what to make of it. She sensed something deeper in the smile Cynth directed at her.

“I told you her spirits were improving,” Cynth said, removing her arctic jacket.

Rod smiled and pulled up a chair. The two of them slid up to the table. Cynth leaned back to cross her legs. Rod rested his forearms on the table, looking up at Sandra.

“Oh, right.” Sandra took her seat. “Cynth… Cynthia tells me we’re going into… this together.”

He flicked a finger at his own black leather jacket. “Yeah.”

“Like we’re out on a date.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Sandra mulled that over. For some reason her eyes kept drifting up to his tight crew cut. It and his angular, clean-shaven face, atop that muscular neck—it all screamed federal with lots of military sprinkled in. It also seemed off, like it didn’t belong there. The haircut alone… it struck her as too perfect, as if hand-drawn by a comic artist. But then again, how would she know that wasn’t his real haircut? She hadn’t met this guy until seconds ago… except she sensed she should know different.

“Reservations?” Cynth said.

“A few.”

“Rod makes an excellent date.” Cynth patted him on the shoulder. “I can vouch from personal experience.”

He shot her an over-the-shoulder frown before he turned back to Sandra. “You’re the expert. Tell us what you think.”

“That’s just it. I’m not the expert. I don’t live in that world, all right?”

Cynth tilted her head one more time. “Come on, now. We’ve been over that. You’ve rubbed shoulders with the right people long enough to make a good go of it.”

“Me? Maybe.” Sandra pointed at Ochoa. “Him?”

Cynth grinned. “Too square?”

Sandra shrugged. “Maybe if he let his hair and beard grow for a couple of weeks.”

“We don’t have a couple of weeks,” he said. He leaned forward a little more, so that from his new vantage point, he could look up at her. “Look, here’s the cover. I’m back from deployment, so yeah, I’m military.” He rubbed his face. “Which explains the smooth face, all right? In the military, I do IT. Cyber stuff.” He drew air quotes around those last two words. “Right up the middle. They’ll take that for what they’ll want it to be. I do Cyber. Not hiding it. Disaffected, too. Got passed over during my last board, no promotion.”

“Military rebel looking for a cause,” Cynth threw in.

“How’s this for right up the middle?” Sandra said. “This whole thing’s giving me the creeps.”

“Sure,” Cynth said. “You’re a virgin. Trust me. That passes faster than you can wink at a cute boy.” She patted Ochoa on the shoulder again. “Go ahead, get it over with. Wink at him.”

“What’s giving you the creeps?” Ochoa said.

“The way you guys brought me in, the way you put me in this room, naked. Cold. The way you’ve cornered me into doing this.”

“Oh, we didn’t make that corner dear,” Cynthia said. “And as far as the record shows, you shoved your own little derriere into it all on your own.”

“I didn’t—”

Ochoa raised his hand. “I’m with you. No way you did this. But without you, we can’t figure out what’s going on. Which leaves you on the hook. So, help me help you. We go in as a team, I make sure nothing happens to you, OK?”

“He means that. He will literally die for you, Sandra.”

Ochoa raised his hand again. “I got your back, and a whole team of very capable people have mine. We walk into it together, and we make it work. We keep evaluating as we go, and the second it gets chancy, we rip cord, all right?”

“Rip cord?”

Cynthia snorted. “Like a rainbow-colored parachute.”

“We get out,” Rod said.

Sandra nodded, still feeling manipulated and pushed into something she couldn’t possibly understand, but knowing down deep she had no choice. Not if she wanted to keep her clothes on. Not if she wanted out of here. Not if she wanted her life back.

She nodded again and watched Ochoa reach into his jacket. He pulled out a cellphone. After tapping on it to wake it up, he flipped it so she could read the screen.

“See that tweet?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Came from you. An hour ago.”

“An hour ago? I was in here.”

“And you had a robot send it,” Cynthia threw in. Something about the way she said it sounded off, like she didn’t really believe it, but was forcing it to make a point.

“I don’t do social media. At all. Killed my Twitter account a year ago.”

“Because you don’t want to get chased by the fanboys,” Ochoa said.

Sandra dropped her head. Her fingernails looked awful. She should’ve put another coat of polish on them days ago. “Stalked is more like it.”

“This was your Twitter handle a year ago, wasn’t it?” Ochoa said.

Without raising her head all the way, she eyed the screen. “Yeah.”

“@sandgamer,” Ochoa said.

“Yeah.”

“Hate to tell ya, but our scans show this handle’s been active for over a year.”

Sandra shrugged. “Fabulous.” She raised her head a little more. “What have I been tweeting?”

“All about this great game you’re developing,” Ochoa replied. “Ignoring all the trolls. Not giving them as much as a peep, blocking them one by one.”

“Which is quite a feat, seeing how they keep multiplying like cockroaches,” Cynth threw in.

“Same thing on Facebook,” Ochoa said.

“I’ve never opened a Facebook account.”

“Hmm.” He tapped on his phone screen again, frowned a little at it, then flipped back in her direction. “Not according to this. Your latest post, from early this morning, when you were still in your apartment.”

She read it. Something or other teasing about her upcoming release, link to sign up for a mail list included. The link was legit, pointing to her game’s dedicated website.

“No idea how that got there,” she said.

“Of course not,” Cynth said. Her tone was cynical, but not all the way skeptical, again, like she knew Sandra was telling the truth.

“We think this is a coded message,” Ochoa said. “We had our Crypto guys work it over, and…” He tapped on the phone again. This time, when it flipped back to her, it displayed a simple text screen showing a business name and an address.

“Looks like you two are going clubbing,” Cynth said. “How fun is that?”

I hope you enjoyed reading the beginning of Virtual Identity. If you haven’t already heard, this story came out just a couple of days ago and is available at Amazon and other online vendors. To stay up to date about this and future news, join my Reader’s Club. Oh, and let me know what you think of this story!