Author : Jules Jensen

She needed a couple more voice samples. And then this would be the perfect catch, exactly what the buyer wanted.
She sidled up closer to him, and nodded to his wife as she browsed the wares for sale at the next booth in the bazaar.
“So, does your wife have an eating disorder?”
“No, she does not! What’s wrong with you?” He whispered back, just like she wanted, and he even did her the favour of offering up several inflections of horror and annoyance.
“You‘re just too cute.”
He blushed. Oh, that was gold. She sincerely hoped that she got that on her hidden camera. She winked at him and cheerfully bounced away. Just as she ducked into an alley, her phone rang and she answered.
“Christen, I need another identity before you come back.” The voice of her buyer barked over the phone.
“Another one? I just got the best hot-young-nerdy-male identity you could ever ask for.”
“Then get me the perfect one to go alongside it. Maybe an older woman, the cougar type.”
“Just what do you need these identities for?” Despite her hesitation, she was standing at the edge of the alley and already looking for the right kind of lady for the job.
“Foreign advertising, for those poor countries wracked by skin disease.”
“I’ll be done in an hour.” And with that, Christen dove back into the fray, stepping into the middle of the bazaar.
Not even an hour later, she had the perfect identity.
Back at her apartment, she uploaded the identities to her buyer’s server, and he gave her a code. She typed into her bank account, and watched the funds pour in. She decided tonight was worthy of being pizza night.
The next morning, she turned on the TV and snatched up a piece of cold pizza. She flopped onto the couch and watched the muted news while she ate.
The bite she just took fell out of her mouth. The reporter was talking on mute, but she could see that the man from yesterday was paused in a film where he was crawling all over a naked lady. Who happened to be the other identity she stole yesterday.
Christen scrambled for the remote to un-mute the reporter.
“-accusations are totally false, according to the man in the video. As the heir to a very successful hover-delivery company, this kind of behaviour is clearly inappropriate-”
Christen rapidly dialled her buyer‘s number.
“What? It’s too damn early.”
“The news!” She sputtered, nearly choking on a piece of pepperoni that was stuck to her tongue. “How’d this happen?”
“Oh come on, did you really buy that crap that those identities you steal are used for advertisements? I sell them to some skin-flick company-”
She hung up on him. She was horrified as she thought about all the people she scanned, what their identities were used for. She was never going to steal another identity again.
A knock at her door made her jolt. She reluctantly went to the door.
The moment she opened it, a man snapped a magnetic cuff onto her wrist. His black police uniform was unmistakable.
“Christen Dorden, you are under arrest for drug trafficking.”
“What? I have never-” She started to protest, but then she thought about her buyer. Who’d just told her the truth about what he does with stolen identities, when he had no reason to trust her.
And how many times has she walked into his computer shop, surrounded by all that recording equipment?
“That son of a-”
“Ma’am, I’d advise you to remain silent.”