Chapter Six: The Numbers Game
Felicia sat hunched over her battered laptop, the blue glow of the screen painting deep shadows on her face. The static in her head was quieter tonight, as if her tormentor was giving her a rare moment of peace—or perhaps just watching, amused, to see what she'd do with it. She took a deep breath and began to dig.
She'd always had a knack for numbers. Years ago, before her world turned upside down, she'd worked as a tax preparer at Jackson Hewitt. She'd learned how to spot a fake W-2, how to decode a Social Security Number, how to trace a paper trail through a maze of bureaucracy. Now, those skills were all she had left.
It started with a hunch. Felicia had tried, again and again, to access her own records—bank accounts, credit reports, medical files. Sometimes she'd get in, only to find the information warped: her name spelled wrong, her address off by a single digit, her birth date shifted by a day or two. Other times, she'd be locked out entirely, as if she didn't exist at all.
But then she noticed something strange. In some places, her maiden name—Hook—was used. In others, it was her married name—Hagler. Sometimes her middle name, Ann, was included; sometimes it wasn't. She saw "Felicia Ann Hook," "Felicia A. Hagler," "F. Ann Hagler," and even "Ann F. Hook." Each variation seemed to live its own life in the system, attached to different addresses, different jobs, different debts.
She started to track them, building a web of identities that all led back to her. She realized that someone was using her information in multiple places at once, creating a tangle of aliases that made her impossible to find—or to prove she was herself.
The real breakthrough came when she looked at the numbers. Her Social Security Number—549-87-6943—had always been her anchor, the one thing that never changed. But now, even that was shifting. In some records, the number began with a 9, not a 5. She remembered from her tax days that ITINs—Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers—always started with a 9. She'd seen plenty of them, often used by people who couldn't get a Social Security Number but still needed to pay taxes or open a bank account.
Felicia pulled up a spreadsheet and started to map out the variations. She saw how her SSN was being spun into ITINs, the digits rearranged or replaced according to patterns she recognized from her old job. Sometimes the 54 at the beginning was swapped for 9 and 9, layered to mimic the structure of an ITIN. Other times, the numbers were spun using simple math tricks—adding or subtracting a digit, flipping the order, or replacing a number with a letter that looked similar. She saw how 9 could be read as a "g" in some systems, how the CIA's redaction protocols could turn a number into a letter, how "ir" or "ac" could be inserted to spin the remaining numbers.
It was a dizzying game of hide-and-seek, played on a national scale. Someone was using her identity—her real one, and a dozen fake versions—to move money, open accounts, apply for jobs, even buy property. Every time she tried to prove who she was, the system spat out a different version of her, each one just close enough to be plausible, but just far enough to keep her trapped.
She realized, with a sickening jolt, that this was how he was hiding her. By flooding the system with variations of her identity, he made it impossible for anyone to pin her down. If she went to the bank, they'd find "Felicia Ann Hook" with a different address. If she tried to get a new ID, they'd see "F. A. Hagler" with a different birth date. If she called the IRS, they'd ask for her ITIN, not her SSN. And if she tried to explain, they'd look at her like she was crazy—just another woman who couldn't keep her own life straight.
Felicia's hands shook as she scrolled through the records, piecing together the puzzle. She saw how her tormentor was using her own knowledge against her, exploiting the loopholes she'd once used to help clients. He was laundering her existence, scrubbing her from the world by making her too complicated to find.
She dug deeper, searching for patterns. She found accounts opened in her name in states she'd never visited, jobs she'd never worked, debts she'd never owed. She saw her children's names, too—Lillian and Gary—spun into the web, their identities twisted and scattered like hers. She realized, with a fresh wave of horror, that he was preparing to erase them, too, to make them just as invisible as their mother.
But Felicia refused to give up. She printed out every record she could find, highlighting the connections, drawing lines between the aliases. She started a new journal, this one filled with numbers and codes, a map of her stolen life. She hid copies in the freezer, behind the toilet tank, under the floorboards. She encrypted files and sent them to every secure dropbox she could find.
She wrote out her story, step by step, explaining how the numbers worked, how the system could be gamed. She hoped that one day, someone would find it—someone who knew how to read between the lines, who could see the truth buried in the data.
The static in her head grew louder, and his voice returned, mocking and cruel. "You really think you're clever, Felicia? You really think you can outsmart me? I own you. I own every number, every name, every breath you take."
Felicia closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and whispered, "You don't own me. Not really. Not forever."
She kept working, her resilience burning brighter than her fear. She would not be erased. She would not be hidden. She would find a way to break through the numbers game, to reclaim her life, to save her children.
And as the night wore on, Felicia Hook became more determined than ever. She was more than a name, more than a number, more than a ghost in the machine. She was a mother, a fighter, a survivor.
And she would not stop until the world knew the truth.