MidReal Story

Ethan , a digital forensics expert , gets caught in

Anonymous

May 7
Scenario:Ethan, a digital forensics expert, gets caught in a deadly game when his family is kidnapped. He must follow cryptic digital clues to save them.
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Ethan, a digital forensics expert, gets caught in a deadly game when his family is kidnapped. He must follow cryptic digital clues to save them.
I’m Ethan Black.
I’m a digital forensics expert, and I work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Right now, I’m supposed to be enjoying the weekend with my family, but I’ve been staring at my computer screen for hours.
I’m deep into a case I’m working on in my free time, and it’s been a rough one.
I can’t step away from it.
I need to solve it.
When you’re me, solving cases isn’t just a job.
It’s a way of life.
My phone buzzes next to me, and I ignore it.
I’m almost to the end of this mountain of data, and it’s been hard enough for me to concentrate without the constant interruptions.
But then it buzzes again, and this time I recognize the ringtone as that of my wife, Olivia.
I glance at the screen, seeing her name displayed there in bright pink letters.
I almost ignore it anyway, but then I feel guilty.
“Hey,” I say, hitting the button to answer it.
“Hey,” she says, sounding way too cheerful for a Saturday morning.
I glance at the time and realize that yeah, it’s not really morning anymore.
“Hey,” I say again, but this time I’m smiling.
I’d know that voice anywhere.
“Where are you?”
she asks immediately.
“You’re supposed to pick up your brother in an hour.”
I frown and glance at the calendar on my computer.
“No, that’s next week.”
Mason has a baseball game today, and then we’re all taking him out for pizza with his friends afterward.
He said he wanted to have everyone here for his birthday party this year.”
“Yeah.” She laughs softly.
You’re supposed to pick him up in an hour.”
“How can that be?”
I say as I click on the calendar, but then I see that she’s right.
Damn it,” I say out loud.
I really wanted to finish this case today.”
“I’ll pick up Mason,” she says easily.
“Then we’ll grab his friends and head out for pizza.”
She says it so casually that I almost don’t catch what she said at first.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s no big deal, Ethan.”
She knows me so well that it almost makes me laugh.
Almost?It does make me laugh, because Olivia is an angel who doesn’t have a mean bone in her body, and I know exactly what she’s thinking right now.
She thinks that I’ll be disappointed if we don’t have pizza with Mason at home, but she’s wrong about that, because I’d do anything to keep from disappointing my little brother on his ninth birthday.
It’s not that.” I sigh and run a hand through my hair, trying to gather my thoughts long enough to put them into words.
“I just hate letting you down like this, Liv.”
She doesn’t laugh at me, even though I know that to her, it probably seems ridiculous, because it is ridiculous, but it’s hard for me to explain myself sometimes, because it’s not something that makes logical sense; it just is what it is, and there’s not much that either of us can do about it.
Ethan , a digital forensics expert , gets caught in
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