Finding Fuchsia wasn’t all that hard. She was playing basketball with a group of students in the courtyard.

Of course, I was supposed to be in a class by now, so getting her out of PE was going to be a problem. But I didn’t have to get her out.

I simply had to wait her out.

So I sat down on a chair behind the pole, in perfect sight of her, and waited. She kept glancing my way and giving me puzzled looks.

Just as I’d planned. I’m on TV, motherfuckers.

What was that? Yeah, she was blushing alright. Which made me wonder about what she’d stammered earlier. Was she serious? I liked to think so, but at the same time..

An appless and an aug… Yeah, fat chance of that happening. Her parents, whilst quite liberal, I assumed, since they allowed her to stream and all, would come after me with pitchforks if we were to… you know, get closer.

I also assumed they watched the stream. So they probably knew about me already. Fuck, just another angle I didn’t want to deal with. Damn it.

I fiddled with the headband nervously and thought about my phone. I had to get to a secure network to sign-in again, and I wasn’t willing to sign-in using the government’s public Wi-Fi. That’d be a fast and sure way to get myself hacked, if my suspicions proved correct, I’d be fucked. I mean, I was fucked already, and no way in hell were I going to make it worse. Yeah, not doing it.

My fingers itched to go online and browse the net, though. I looked towards Fuchsia and wondered how many people were watching me through her eyes right now.

Every time Fuchsia looked my way, that meant that millions of people were probably looking my way too, which made me even more nervous. It was the reason I always hated being around her, to be frank.

People around us were noticing how often she looked my way. Her little menagerie of followers kept staring at me—some were small-time streamers themselves—which meant I was being noticed by even more crowds, and that meant that there was a non-zero chance I was also being observed by whoever was after my identity.

Actually, now that I think about it. Aside from my intermittent appearances on her stream, I was nobody to society. No one knew me aside from a few neighbors at the trailer park, and some of my classmates at school. I was completely off the grid. So how did the identity thief know about me?

I nearly banged my head. It was such an obvious detail, and yet I missed it all the same. Whoever was doing this had known about me from her stream.

God damn it.

This… complicated things. Her menagerie was focusing their attention on me now, and that meant there was an active discussion going on in the background, making it easier to glean extra details about me. Whoever was doing this was assuredly watching, which meant they’d know every action I was taking against them as I went about doing it. They probably couldn’t attack me outright in front of an audience, that was true; but who said they couldn’t sabotage my efforts just as easily? Let’s see… going someplace? Let’s hack a traffic light. Going into a building? Let’s trigger a fire alarm. Trying to contact someone? Let’s give you more trouble by scrambling every single payphone—archaic, I know—in a one-mile radius around you. While this may sound like paranoid thinking, the possibility was there. Who said the criminal enterprise after me—I assumed they were such at the time—didn’t have a hacking specialist on the payroll?

Regardless, I needed to be smart about this and depending on how big or how prepared my enemies were, I had to take different measures.

First, I resolved, there would be an information blackout around Fuchsia. She wouldn’t get to know anything about what I was doing or why I was doing it. She’d have to follow me blindly.

That was going to be harder than I thought, but I had to keep her—and by proxy, everyone watching—in the dark about exactly what it is I was doing.

Granted, they’d figure it out if they were smart, but still.

Second—and to keep myself safe—I had to take extra measures to keep Fuchsia engaged socially with me. I had to be the highlight of her show for today. No… for the foreseeable future.

I glanced around. She was still playing. Oblivious to my predicament, and I noticed no strangers about. Nothing amiss with the crowd watching either.

Except… I noticed a silhouette standing in the distance, and it quickly disappeared when I turned back to look in that direction. Uhh. What would a grown man in a black blazer be doing inside a high school, watching teenagers during PE?

I kept my vigil and watched on.

It was awkward.

Understatement of the century, right there. I know.

Maybe I could go, “Hi, Fuchsia, I’d like to make up.”

Or, “Hi, sorry about earlier, I was confused.”

Yeah, not happening.

I went with the “blunt stupid special”, a.k.a. my own style; delivered by yours truly in a typical awkward teenage voice.

“Hi, Fuchsia, would you like to go out with me?” I simply asked her out in the most awkward way possible, cringing internally as I said the words.

Her face went through a couple of different phases, first, was the shock, then the anger, but that simmered quickly to be replaced by realization, maybe resignation? I wasn’t quite sure.

“So that’s why you were flustered earlier?”

“What?” I was dumbstruck.

“You pushed me away because you can't bring yourself to ask me out.”

“Yeah.” I lied, trying to keep a straight face and failing miserably.

“Fuck you. I don’t buy it.”

Shit, why did she have to make it more difficult than it was?

“You don’t buy what?” I asked.

“Your lie, you’re speaking to me now because you want something else.” She countered.

“Like what?” I played stupid. Seriously, now of all times?

“Like get in on her show.” Butted-in asshole A with the annoying voice. I hated that dude.

“You mean like you’re doing right now?” I shot back.

He back-pedaled with record speed.

“That’s not what I’m doing,” he vehemently denied, but I gave no quarter, “are you sure about that? I’ve seen you prancing about in front of her all day, trying to show off how good at basketball you were. It almost looked like you were fishing for more views, but who knows, right?”

That shut him right up.

Fuchsia turned to look at me again, “Both of you, stop it.”

I sighed, she looked me up and down in suspicion.

“Out with it, then,” she commanded, “what do you want?”

“I just wanted to apologize about earlier and spend a nice day with you, is that wrong?” I asked, making as if to move way, “If so, never mind me, forget it.”

She caught my arm, “Not so fast! I want to know why, and I’m going to.”

“Turn off your broadcast.” I countered.

“You know I can’t.” She said.

I shrugged. She seemed to understand something, at least.

“Fine then, let’s go on a date.”

And what a date it was.

“You sure know how to show a girl a good time.” Said Fuchsia as we walked through the library.

“Are you mocking me?” I asked stupidly.

She rolled her eyes.

“Why are we visiting the city’s library, of all places?”

We’d taken the mag-rail all the way out here, and I don’t suppose it was a fun ride for her. It was better than the alternative—the public bus system—at least.

It turned out the address principal Arthur gave me was the city’s public library. For now, though, I tried to hush her and get a move on.

“I need to do something here first, and then we can be off on our date,” I whispered, mindful of the quiet atmosphere.

“Fine.” She acquiesced.

I moved with her through the building, stopping only when we reached the reception desk. I told her to wait for me, but she refused and wanted to come over and see what it was I was after. I sighed.

She just had to be difficult.

The receptionist was a haughty woman in her eighties, she looked pissed to be working here. Great.

“Hi, I’m looking for Mrs. Dana, where can I find her?” I asked her.

“Two lefts then follow the corridor to the right.” She instantly dismissed me whilst chewing on something that looked like gum. Fine with me.

I moved to the left of the intersection, here the library looked absolutely crammed with destitute books no one bothered to read anymore. I mean, why read books when you can parse the entirety of Wikipedia with your augs and get all your information in a compact, digestible format? Only the appless such as me had any use for the library nowadays, and most did not even bother.

I personally think libraries still existed as a memento of days past. A reminder to everyone of how things used to be.

Well, maybe some augs did use the library for the sake of nostalgia, I don’t rightfully know. But I digress, we moved through the halls, looking up and up. Four whole floors full of books were stacked on top of each other to greet us. Fuchsia seemed to be taken by the place, probably her very first visit. I bet her audience was going wild. In fact, I bet this library would be crowded by this time tomorrow.

Fuchsia kept glancing longingly towards the books. I had to stop her from picking up a volume of something and sitting down to read it a couple of times.

“Never seen a real book?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. It really is my first time seeing one.” She said sarcastically with a roll of her eyes.

“You’re a jerk,” was all I could say to that. I knew she was telling the truth. The look of wonder in her eyes was all the confirmation I needed.

“Tell you what, you can read all you want after we’re done here, how about that?” I told her.

“And what are we doing here, exactly?” She asked me with a suspicious glare.

“I’m just here to pick up something,” I lied.

She didn’t seem to believe me, but we moved on.

We reached the second intersection and took a second left, here was the atrium. It had been converted into a holo-hall. Which—in essence—was something akin to a very large Augmented Reality museum. I could have probably used my phone to check it out, except my phone was currently locked. Here, Fuchsia paused, fascinated by all the shiny shit I couldn’t see.

“It’s beautiful.” She said as I stared at the boring sheer walls around me, it made me want to sigh.

“You know I can’t see any of this, right?”

“Use your phone.” She urged.

“I uhh… can’t.” I said defeatedly.

She gave me a sharp look, “and why is that?”

“It’s… uh… the battery is dead.”

“I see…” she let it slide, thank god, “another lie,” she said off-handedly as she fluttered her mascaraed lashes at me.

Well, shit. It seems I spoke too soon. I had nothing to say to that, though.

We silently meandered our way through the AR atrium, she slowed me down considerably, but I still managed to drag her through the invisible spectacle in a timely manner.

And just as we exited the holo-hall and emerged in a side-corridor, the shit hit the proverbial plasma thruster.