The morning sun streamed through the blinds when Ethan's mother knocked gently.
"Ethan, breakfast's ready."
"Coming," he croaked, pulling himself out of bed.
He dragged himself into the kitchen, where pancakes steamed and coffee brewed. His father sat in a worn T-shirt, scrolling through the news with bleary eyes. His mother was by the stove, pretending not to stare with worry.
"You look better," she said softly, placing a plate in front of him.
"I feel better," Ethan replied. "Thanks… mom… for last night. And for not pressing too hard."
Her smile was thin but real as she scooped the breakfast onto the plate and handed it to him. "There you are."
His dad looked up from the newspaper. "You slept like a rock. Thought we might have to get a chisel."
"Funny. I'm fine," Ethan said, easing into the chair. "Just… really tired."
The table went quiet.
His dad cleared his throat. "Okay. Are you ready to tell us what happened?"
Ethan had rehearsed it in his mind—carefully.
"I was walking home from the library," he began. "This black car pulled up. I thought it was just some guy lost… but he pulled out a gun. Told me to get in."
His mom gasped.
Ethan continued, forcing his voice to tremble slightly. "I didn't have a choice. He took my phone, tied me up, and drove off. I don't know how long I was in that van. Hours maybe. Then… I blacked out."
His dad leaned forward. "You said some heroes saved you?"
Ethan nodded. "I think so. There were… lights. Shouting. Some kind of fight. I woke up in a room with a woman and another girl. She was unconscious."
He let just enough real emotion creep into his voice.
"They said we were safe now. That the people who took me were caught. A few hours later, someone dropped me off near my house. Everything was so fast that I didn't even have time to think before I was already home."
His mother reached over and took his hand. "I don't care about the details. You're here safe. You're alive."
His father was less moved. Still frowning. "Did they give you names? Badges? IDs?"
"No. They just said it was classified. Shield or something." He met his father's eyes. "They said the cops will follow up at a later time and might ask questions. I really didn't know what was going on, so I just nodded. I didn't want to say anything that would make the situation worse."
His dad sat back, processing.
His mom sighed. "Well, the police did call and they do want a statement. We called yesterday to report that you returned home. They said to come by tomorrow afternoon. You were reported missing, so they have to close the case, apparently."
Ethan nodded. "I'll talk to them. I'll tell them what happened."
"Good," his dad said.
His mom stood. "In the meantime, you're not going to school for a few days. You need rest. I'll call and say you're recovering from an injury and trauma."
Ethan didn't argue as he needed time to work on a few things anyway.
This was exactly the window he needed.
That afternoon, back in his room, Ethan booted up his laptop again.
Time to continue.
He opened the secure cluster controlling the six aliases. The bones were there—basic identities, photos, social presence—but nothing that would stand up to a serious background check.
He clicked on Alias 01: Gavin Rowe.
Target: Canada
He'd planned to embed Gavin into the Ontario system. He found the identity of a boy who died 20 years ago and altered the records to include new details: adoption into a private family, school records from obscure charter institutions, a university diploma generated with official formatting.
Now he began the delicate process of spreading breadcrumbs.
Gavin's LinkedIn got its first legitimate post—a commentary on dark web encryption ethics, shared from an obscure German tech blog.
His Twitter account tweeted: "Finally got the Cisco contract—offshore work is a nightmare but the money's good. #networklife"
He programmed ten bots to engage.
Then he opened a separate project window:
Alias 02: Diego Fuentes
Target: Mexico
This one was trickier. Mexico's registries weren't centralized, and postmortem data was often paper-based. He accessed a digitized archive of municipal death notices from Monterrey. Cross-referenced them with obituary mentions and church records.
Found one: child reported dead in a fire. No birth certificate ever filed. Age: 7. That gave him room.
He crafted an alternate record: Diego Fuentes, adopted survivor of the Monterrey fires. Attended a rural boarding school. Worked in a Guadalajara robotics startup. He fabricated company letterhead and planted PDFs on an abandoned business directory.
Another trail formed.
Alias 03: Luc Moreau – France
This would take longer.
Too many modern European registries were tightly managed. He'd need to write a phishing protocol targeting an old public works database—something rarely used but still hooked into national ID services. That would take weeks at least.
But he was patient.
This wasn't about rushing.
This was about becoming invisible.
By evening, Gavin Rowe had four followers, a peer-reviewed paper citation, and a public résumé. Diego Fuentes had a business registry entry and a poorly-rated Android app credited to him. Both had half-formed digital histories linking them to mundane, believable lives.
Ethan stepped away from his desk, staring at the wall.
He didn't plan on being Ethan Kane much longer.
Soon he would be six people.
Six lives.
And no one was watching the strings but him.
At dinner, his mom served lasagna and salad. They kept the conversation light—no more questions about the kidnapping, just the usual awkward parental attempts at normalcy. His dad told a story about someone at work breaking the printer again. His mom complained about gas prices.
Ethan smiled in all the right places. Nodded, laughed, asked about how thing were while he was gone.
He didn't mention he was digging through Chilean morgues for alias number four.
He didn't mention he had ShadowStitch trending in three hacker forums.
He didn't mention that part of him didn't feel at home anymore.
After dinner, he returned to his room.
Logged back in.
And began working on the next phase.
He opened his private terminal and typed two words:
"Plans for Phase 2."