Dee got my number from his older brother, who got it from Tina, my sister-in-law, who he knew from art school. He texted me just as I was starting to make progress with a gnarly bug in some logging software I was trying to get running for my cloud servers.

My phone went bloop and vibrated a little on the kitchen table, making ripples in my coffee. My mind went instantly blank. I unlocked my phone.

> Is this marcus

I almost blocked the number, but dammit, this was supposed to be a private number. I’d just changed it. I wanted to know how it was getting out and whether I needed to change it again.

> Who’s this?

Yeah, I punctuate my texts. I’m old.

> I need help with some school stuff some spying stuff at school i heard your good at that

MP3