I Lost My Samsung Galaxy Smartphone And Now Someone Is Pretending To Be Me Online
99xxxxxxx[4:03am]: ur a big bitch until someone calls the police huh?!
99xxxxxxx[4:03am]: fuck you!!!!!!
Self[4:06am]: I
Self[4:06am]: See
Self[4:06am]: You
99xxxxxxx[4:07am]: im sorry im sorry stop it now please stop
99xxxxxxx[4:07am]: ill go i wont tell anyone anything ill never call again
99xxxxxxx[4:07am]: I CAN HEAR U STILL PLS LEAVE ME ALONE
99xxxxxxx[4:09am]: IM SORRY
99xxxxxxx[4:09am]: IM SORRY
99xxxxxxx[4:09am]: IM SORRY
Missed call from 990-xxx-xxxx
99xxxxxxx[4:11am]: IM SORRY
99xxxxxxx[4:12am]: IKEJM SORTRY!
99xxxxxxx[4:12am]: IKEJM SORTRY!
99xxxxxxx[4:12am]: I’;M SOERRYH!
I felt the sick taste of panic crawling up the back of my throat. I scrolled through the conversation a hundred times. That wasn’t me. I hadn’t done that. I sleep like the dead and for at least nine hours every night. I get up at 6 AM and I hit my snooze alarm twice.
I got dressed for work and rushed to the IT Department of my office. I slammed my fist against the door until Kane popped it open, looking about as half dead at 7:42 AM as I did.
“I need your help.” I sputtered. I must’ve looked as panicked as I felt, because he silently stepped aside and waved me in.
IT had individual offices for their four senior technicians, one of which was Kane. He had a massive multi-screen system with more USB and serial ports than I could fathom and about a billion system and network diagnostics running at all times.
“What’s up?” he grunted into his coffee, plopping down in his chair. I unlocked my phone and brought up the texts, handing it over. Kane read through them and I watched his right eyebrow slowly lift into an arch. “What’s this?”
“I don’t know. I was asleep.”
“Well yeah, you sleep like a third grader. Nine to six every single day…” Kane sounded like he wanted to tease, but he was too focused. “…but what is this?”
I shrugged, shrugged again, and then dropped into an extra chair on the side of his huge wrap-around desk. “I have no idea. I didn’t know what else to do. Can you see…where? how?”
Kane nodded, plugging the phone in and turning to his computer. “Yeah, give me a couple of hours. Want a spare phone?”
I shook my head and moved back toward the door. “No.”
“Really?” He was staring at the back of my head and I could feel it. Like I said, total technophile; you typically couldn’t catch me without a phone in my hand or to my ear.
“Yeah, really,” I sneered, though I didn’t mean to. I slammed the door behind me — that I meant to do.
I should clarify, as it is important to this story, that Kane and I have been friends for a long time. Almost 13 of my 25 years of life. We met online on your typical alternative-goth unique black snowflake forum and bonded pretty well. When I moved to his area for university, we bonded further.
He took over the website we met on when the original owner decided he was ready to abandon the project. I stepped up as an admin and with his technological smarts and my wordsmithing, we were able to get it back up and running in a few days. We filled out the rest of the staff for further help and the misplaced misfits slowly started to find their way back.
It’s a nice little online family, about 100 active members at any time. Most of them have been around for years, most of us are friends on facebook and follow each other on tumblr.
Kane called me back down to his office about three hours later. I was there quicker than I probably should have been, but he was waiting at the door to jerk it open.
“Get in here.” He pulled me in by my wrist and locked the door behind me. Before I could even get upset with him, he turned on me. “What did you do?”