Welcome to the story which I will write with your help. This project is a simple speculative fiction communally inspired but in the course of its creation I have found other people’s very real stories being told within the lines of my words……
How it works: I tell part of the story and you can be a part of this journey by using the poll at the bottom and or in the comments to let me know how you feel the story should proceed.
Thank you all for your input last month from the story HERE: The Ogbanje Hacker
The story so far:
It all started when I got an email from a stranger, which turned out may or may not be from someone abducted by an extremist group. In my quest to get to the bottom of the story I joined a Facebook group for a religious group that advocated for the safe return of abducted people and held prayer vigils, and anonymous vigilante hacker from this group called my phone:
“Hello my friend, you know me as Mr OG. I believe its time we talked ….:”
I froze…..
The poll indicated a tie of three choices so I will incorporate all three:
“Hello” The voice on the other end of the phone squawked again, somewhat mechanically, he must have been using some sort of voice altering software.
“Hang up this phone” whispered a voice at the back of mind, I don’t know if its my guardian angel or just instinct but that’s the voice that keeps me grounded, its probably my conscience. I slid my thumb on the phone screen, to end the call, but as if it had a life of its on the thumb double tapped activating the speaker phone and call recording function.
“Hello” I replied in a calm confident tone that was worlds apart from the me who could hear my heartbeat drumming loudly in my ears, as if they were drums being played by someone relaying a black smoke signal that the apocalypse is here abandon all hope.
“I would have preferred to wait and gradually introduced you to our world but time is no longer on our side and October is almost over” The mechanic voice droned
I interrupted him as if we all we were having perfectly reasonable ordinary conversation
“erm... Look, what, what do you mean about a deadline” my voice faltered a little at first but otherwise held steady.
“I take it you haven’t been watching the news. You need to watch the news more, you need to keep your eyes open and your ears on the ground” He sounded like a parent would lecturing a child indulging in the type of behaviour that is the equivalent of throwing away a bright future to roll in the gutter with pigs.
“Never mind let me bring you up to speed, the people who abducted our possible mutual friend executed a medical worker and announced that in a month they would be more killings if their conditions were not met. A month has passed from then and they executed yet another and now here we are.” He delivered his chilling news in the monotone mechanic voice and it helped cushion the shock of the nightmare that was some people’s everyday existence.
“So what do we do?” I asked like I was a part of all this craziness as if I could possibly make a difference from the other side of the world.
“I need remote access to your email address so we can run an IP address trace and try to ping email servers used by the sender” OG explained it easily
“Why don’t you just trace it like you did my phone number how did you even get it” This is what had scared me the most about these guys I had not told anyone my number and it was not listed on my Facebook, if I was to go to the police I needed to be able to explain myself.
“That was easy one of your friends posted a screenshot of your whatsapp conversation your number was clearly visible, you ought to tell your friends to be careful of what they share online”
“Dammit Shingie” I cursed in my head I had told him to delete that post, I had hidden it from my timeline and forgot about it.
“The password my guy” The voice squawaked.
“Oh I.. I…I… my… my… phone is always logged in I… I don’t remember the password” I tried to stall for time
“That’s ok, I have initiated a password reset can you tell me the verification code that was just to your phone ” OG coolly countered.
The phone beeped an SMS notification that I had new voicemail
“But how did you do that? I hadnt told you my email address, ok let me hang up and retrieve the voicemail” I tried stalling again.
“You don’t have to worry I have accessed your voicemail and retrieving it now…..” in the silence I could hear keyboard keys being pressed then shortly after he announced “and I am in…. dude your emails are so dry there’s no juicy stuff here, anyway that email….. lets see ok … I got it”
The was nothing I could do I just stood there as he scrolled through my business I was rooted to the spot like that lady from the bible who was warned to not look back when God was destroying a sinful city but she did and was transformed into a pillar of salt, I should have listened to the voice that told me to hung up…
“Excellent, we’ll know soon enough am running the IP trace. Hey listen I need you to go to The Cave to deliver a message” The way he said The Cave made it sound like a sinister place where no respectable individual had business delivering messages.
“I don’t know where The Cave is” I declared with a touch of triumph.
“Of course you don’t someone will be in touch and guide you, just follow the white rabbit and down the rabbit hole you go… Also one other thing don’t go to the police”
The call ended.
What should I do
1. Call the police
2. Pretend none of this happened
3. Follow the white rabbit
4. Move, Change phone numbers and get a new identity
5. consult a cyber terrorist unit
~B
this entry story is also a blog battle entry themed Cave
Becoming The Muse 
Your thoughts.. if you will?