Click Here

Click here.

I frown, my finger hovering over the article.  The Citizen's Daily isn't renown for Easter Eggs or any of that secret stuff, but they don't often allow ads in their zine either.

Click here.

The icon is half-hidden and flashes up only as my finger skims the glass of the public wall - yeah, there are some of us who still can't afford private lenses; I've been accessing my brain-chip from public glass ever since the redundancy issue six months ago.

Click here.

This is getting annoying; I want to catch up on the Daily, not cos it's any good as a zine (it isn't), but cos of the job ads and cos it's what all good citizens do.  If they want to avoid the policia that is.

I flick the wall and the glass flashes bright lights as pages zip by.  The click here link follows me.

Dammit, I hate tracking ads.  Last week it was some moron trying to sell new lift pads for liteflyers - I can't afford eye-glasses, no way do I own a car.  I scan through the pages faster, hoping something catches my interest; it's not like I have anything to do with my time any more.

Trace, click here.

My jaw tightens.  Trace?  The bastards dare call me Trace?  No-one's called me that in years, which either means it's a prank or they've hacked my brain-chip, and not just the superficial public layers either (whoever they are).

Tracey-Dacey click here.  Now would be good.

A cool chill trickles down my spine.  Tracey-Dacey's even worse than Trace.  This must be a trick, a trap, something.

Almost on auto, my finger reaches up to the warm interface glass and I tap.

Click here.

*    *    *

Well done, finally.

How many times did you see the click here before you actually clicked here?  Look, I'm guessing this is a public wall, no?  Get yourself over to Tosser's.  He's got a secure wall you can use.  Access this code and do it QUICK.

Underneath was a ridiculous passcode - twelve alphanumeric digits followed by another two sets of six.  A twenty-four digit passcode?  Seriously?  And Taoser (ol' Tosspot Tao) was hardly gonna let me use his backroom wall now was he?

And yet....  Something niggled in the back of my mind.  Trace?  Tracey-Dacey?  I had been Tray Deigo for so long now, there could hardly be anyone left who knew me as Trace.  And yeah, okay I know you can't completely wipe brain-chips, but I was certain I'd expunged the old hard-drive.  Even thought about having a new mind-drive put in (black market of course, no way I'd be getting one on legit prices).

So, who could have hacked my head enough to leave cryptic messages on my chip?

Chewing my lip, I knew there was only one way to find out.

*    *    *

Hey Trace.

I know you don't remember thinking this message, but I need to assure you this isn't a hack, crack or any sort of worm.  This really is you.  Me.  Us.  Whatever.

Spydance - that film you saw with Trench.  You told him how much you loved flyer-chases and techno-thrillers, just to impress him.  Left ring finger - the one that hurts in the cold, cos you trapped it in the door at infant school when you were seven and the nail never grew back quite right again.  You drink your coffee with milk and sugar cos you need the extra calories, even though you'd rather have it weak and black and unsweetened.

You want me to go on?  Trust me, Trace.  This is us.

You're going to be made redundant - maybe it's already happened.  I can't tell how fast they're going to work.  But you need to get off-world, girl.  Ship out to a station or get work on a galaxy-cruiser for a few months.  You stay dirt-side and you won't last the year.  That message Darrel pinged through your chip?  The one you nearly thought out loud?  That wasn't a chip error, he deliberately thought it onto your mind-drive.  He's setting you up for a fall.

Can't prove anything yet.  Maybe I will soon, in which case I'll find someway of embedding a link deep into our chip, but at the moment all I know is Darrel's the embezzler and us his pascal lamb.  Get off-world.  Please.

He'll wipe our surface memory - he'll have to, and I don't know who deep he'll go.  But one thing's certain, he's setting you up for his fall and not even a tacit redundancy is going to save you once they find out what he's done.  Once they realise it's not just credit he's taken, but data from half a dozen different brain-chips, they'll be after you.  Money's not an issue.  You can nick that from them, but Darrel's taken thoughts and I don't even know which ones or from whom.

Just get out.  Please.

Word count: 814

Prompt: A message the writer doesn't remember writing