“Ok, yeah, that’s weird.” Tom squinted at the scramble of words on Jimmy’s computer that had not changed since yesterday.
“Let me try something.” Jimmy looked up Tom’s NUII, and sure enough, Tom Ellis’ name, location, school, everything was on there as it was supposed to be. Jimmy clicked back on his own NUII. Nothing, not even his name, Jim Truscott, graced the screen. Tom and Jimmy exchanged nervous glances as Jimmy opened up a message to Tom, sending a simple “Hey” on their favorite messaging application. Tom checked his phone, revealing that he had received a message from “anonymous”.

“Yup.” Tom said in disbelief, “That’s what I saw yesterday when you messaged me on the game. Shouldn’t we report this? What are you going to do now?”

Hundreds of thoughts raced within Jimmy’s mind, but the dull ache in his face where he had fallen brought one of those ideas to the forefront.

“I’m gonna get even.”

Tom scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion as Jimmy opened up a message to Bruce. Finding his contact information was easy enough, in 2025 everyone’s information was online. After all, there was no such thing as “anonymity”. What you saw on the Internet was what you got, no lies, no deception, no false identities. Luckily, Bruce was online and responded quickly.

hey handsome ;)

who dis? it says “anonymous” fr me?

Oh weird, must be a glitch with your computer?
It’s your girlfriend Lydia, dummy.

o hey baby what’s up.

was thinking about you while trying to sleep
got all hot and bothered
wanna help a girl out <3

mmm yeah i can thnk of sm ways i can hlp ;)

“No WAY bro!” Tom and Jimmy devolved into wheezing laughter as Bruce began to send some… not safe for work pictures of himself along with some corny one-liners. Jimmy snapped some hasty screenshots and navigated to the school’s unofficial, non-moderated Reddit page, where students would gather to chat. Of course, everyone was civil, anyone starting rumors would be identified easily by their NUII and have real life repercussions as a result. However, not for Jimmy.
“Ah here we go, aaaaand...”