#trusted platform module | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

Text

Demon-haunted computers are back, baby

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

As a science fiction writer, I am professionally irritated by a lot of sf movies. Not only do those writers get paid a lot more than I do, they insist on including things like "self-destruct" buttons on the bridges of their starships.

Look, I get it. When the evil empire is closing in on your flagship with its secret transdimensional technology, it's important that you keep those secrets out of the emperor's hand. An irrevocable self-destruct switch there on the bridge gets the job done! (It has to be irrevocable, otherwise the baddies'll just swarm the bridge and toggle it off).

But c'mon. If there's a facility built into your spaceship that causes it to explode no matter what the people on the bridge do, that is also a pretty big security risk! What if the bad guy figures out how to hijack the measure that – by design – the people who depend on the spaceship as a matter of life and death can't detect or override?

I mean, sure, you can try to simplify that self-destruct system to make it easier to audit and assure yourself that it doesn't have any bugs in it, but remember Schneier's Law: anyone can design a security system that works so well that they themselves can't think of a flaw in it. That doesn't mean you've made a security system that works – only that you've made a security system that works on people stupider than you.

I know it's weird to be worried about realism in movies that pretend we will ever find a practical means to visit other star systems and shuttle back and forth between them (which we are very, very unlikely to do):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

But this kind of foolishness galls me. It galls me even more when it happens in the real world of technology design, which is why I've spent the past quarter-century being very cross about Digital Rights Management in general, and trusted computing in particular.

It all starts in 2002, when a team from Microsoft visited our offices at EFF to tell us about this new thing they'd dreamed up called "trusted computing":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/05/trusting-trust/#thompsons-devil

The big idea was to stick a second computer inside your computer, a very secure little co-processor, that you couldn't access directly, let alone reprogram or interfere with. As far as this "trusted platform module" was concerned, you were the enemy. The "trust" in trusted computing was about other people being able to trust your computer, even if they didn't trust you.

So that little TPM would do all kinds of cute tricks. It could observe and produce a cryptographically signed manifest of the entire boot-chain of your computer, which was meant to be an unforgeable certificate attesting to which kind of computer you were running and what software you were running on it. That meant that programs on other computers could decide whether to talk to your computer based on whether they agreed with your choices about which code to run.

This process, called "remote attestation," is generally billed as a way to identify and block computers that have been compromised by malware, or to identify gamers who are running cheats and refuse to play with them. But inevitably it turns into a way to refuse service to computers that have privacy blockers turned on, or are running stream-ripping software, or whose owners are blocking ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

After all, a system that treats the device's owner as an adversary is a natural ally for the owner's other, human adversaries. The rubric for treating the owner as an adversary focuses on the way that users can be fooled by bad people with bad programs. If your computer gets taken over by malicious software, that malware might intercept queries from your antivirus program and send it false data that lulls it into thinking your computer is fine, even as your private data is being plundered and your system is being used to launch malware attacks on others.

These separate, non-user-accessible, non-updateable secure systems serve a nubs of certainty, a remote fortress that observes and faithfully reports on the interior workings of your computer. This separate system can't be user-modifiable or field-updateable, because then malicious software could impersonate the user and disable the security chip.

It's true that compromised computers are a real and terrifying problem. Your computer is privy to your most intimate secrets and an attacker who can turn it against you can harm you in untold ways. But the widespread redesign of out computers to treat us as their enemies gives rise to a range of completely predictable and – I would argue – even worse harms. Building computers that treat their owners as untrusted parties is a system that works well, but fails badly.

First of all, there are the ways that trusted computing is designed to hurt you. The most reliable way to enshittify something is to supply it over a computer that runs programs you can't alter, and that rats you out to third parties if you run counter-programs that disenshittify the service you're using. That's how we get inkjet printers that refuse to use perfectly good third-party ink and cars that refuse to accept perfectly good engine repairs if they are performed by third-party mechanics:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

It's how we get cursed devices and appliances, from the juicer that won't squeeze third-party juice to the insulin pump that won't connect to a third-party continuous glucose monitor:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

But trusted computing doesn't just create an opaque veil between your computer and the programs you use to inspect and control it. Trusted computing creates a no-go zone where programs can change their behavior based on whether they think they're being observed.

The most prominent example of this is Dieselgate, where auto manufacturers murdered hundreds of people by gimmicking their cars to emit illegal amount of NOX. Key to Dieselgate was a program that sought to determine whether it was being observed by regulators (it checked for the telltale signs of the standard test-suite) and changed its behavior to color within the lines.

Software that is seeking to harm the owner of the device that's running it must be able to detect when it is being run inside a simulation, a test-suite, a virtual machine, or any other hallucinatory virtual world. Just as Descartes couldn't know whether anything was real until he assured himself that he could trust his senses, malware is always questing to discover whether it is running in the real universe, or in a simulation created by a wicked god:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/28/descartes-was-an-optimist/#uh-oh

That's why mobile malware uses clever gambits like periodically checking for readings from your device's accelerometer, on the theory that a virtual mobile phone running on a security researcher's test bench won't have the fidelity to generate plausible jiggles to match the real data that comes from a phone in your pocket:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/google-play-malware-used-phones-motion-sensors-to-conceal-itself/

Sometimes this backfires in absolutely delightful ways. When the Wannacry ransomware was holding the world hostage, the security researcher Marcus Hutchins noticed that its code made reference to a very weird website: iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com. Hutchins stood up a website at that address and every Wannacry-infection in the world went instantly dormant:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#the-matrix

It turns out that Wannacry's authors were using that ferkakte URL the same way that mobile malware authors were using accelerometer readings – to fulfill Descartes' imperative to distinguish the Matrix from reality. The malware authors knew that security researchers often ran malicious code inside sandboxes that answered every network query with fake data in hopes of eliciting responses that could be analyzed for weaknesses. So the Wannacry worm would periodically poll this nonexistent website and, if it got an answer, it would assume that it was being monitored by a security researcher and it would retreat to an encrypted blob, ceasing to operate lest it give intelligence to the enemy. When Hutchins put a webserver up at iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com, every Wannacry instance in the world was instantly convinced that it was running on an enemy's simulator and withdrew into sulky hibernation.

The arms race to distinguish simulation from reality is critical and the stakes only get higher by the day. Malware abounds, even as our devices grow more intimately woven through our lives. We put our bodies into computers – cars, buildings – and computers inside our bodies. We absolutely want our computers to be able to faithfully convey what's going on inside them.

But we keep running as hard as we can in the opposite direction, leaning harder into secure computing models built on subsystems in our computers that treat us as the threat. Take UEFI, the ubiquitous security system that observes your computer's boot process, halting it if it sees something it doesn't approve of. On the one hand, this has made installing GNU/Linux and other alternative OSes vastly harder across a wide variety of devices. This means that when a vendor end-of-lifes a gadget, no one can make an alternative OS for it, so off the landfill it goes.

It doesn't help that UEFI – and other trusted computing modules – are covered by Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which makes it a felony to publish information that can bypass or weaken the system. The threat of a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine means that UEFI and other trusted computing systems are understudied, leaving them festering with longstanding bugs:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/09/free-sample/#que-viva

Here's where it gets really bad. If an attacker can get inside UEFI, they can run malicious software that – by design – no program running on our computers can detect or block. That badware is running in "Ring -1" – a zone of privilege that overrides the operating system itself.

Here's the bad news: UEFI malware has already been detected in the wild:

https://securelist.com/cosmicstrand-uefi-firmware-rootkit/106973/

And here's the worst news: researchers have just identified another exploitable UEFI bug, dubbed Pixiefail:

https://blog.quarkslab.com/pixiefail-nine-vulnerabilities-in-tianocores-edk-ii-ipv6-network-stack.html

Writing in Ars Technica, Dan Goodin breaks down Pixiefail, describing how anyone on the same LAN as a vulnerable computer can infect its firmware:

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/new-uefi-vulnerabilities-send-firmware-devs-across-an-entire-ecosystem-scrambling/

That vulnerability extends to computers in a data-center where the attacker has a cloud computing instance. PXE – the system that Pixiefail attacks – isn't widely used in home or office environments, but it's very common in data-centers.

Again, once a computer is exploited with Pixiefail, software running on that computer can't detect or delete the Pixiefail code. When the compromised computer is queried by the operating system, Pixiefail undetectably lies to the OS. "Hey, OS, does this drive have a file called 'pixiefail?'" "Nope." "Hey, OS, are you running a process called 'pixiefail?'" "Nope."

This is a self-destruct switch that's been compromised by the enemy, and which no one on the bridge can de-activate – by design. It's not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last.

There are models for helping your computer bust out of the Matrix. Back in 2016, Edward Snowden and bunnie Huang prototyped and published source code and schematics for an "introspection engine":

https://assets.pubpub.org/aacpjrja/AgainstTheLaw-CounteringLawfulAbusesofDigitalSurveillance.pdf

This is a single-board computer that lives in an ultraslim shim that you slide between your iPhone's mainboard and its case, leaving a ribbon cable poking out of the SIM slot. This connects to a case that has its own OLED display. The board has leads that physically contact each of the network interfaces on the phone, conveying any data they transit to the screen so that you can observe the data your phone is sending without having to trust your phone.

(I liked this gadget so much that I included it as a major plot point in my 2020 novel Attack Surface, the third book in the Little Brother series):

https://craphound.com/attacksurface/

We don't have to cede control over our devices in order to secure them. Indeed, we can't ever secure them unless we can control them. Self-destruct switches don't belong on the bridge of your spaceship, and trusted computing modules don't belong in your devices.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/17/descartes-delenda-est/#self-destruct-sequence-initiated

Image: Mike (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/stillwellmike/15676883261/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

#pluralistic #uefi #owner override #user override #jailbreaking #dmca 1201 #schneiers law #descartes #nub of certainty #self-destruct button #trusted computing #secure enclaves #drm #ngscb #next generation secure computing base #palladium #pixiefail #infosec

576 notes · View notes

starhvney · 5 months ago

Text

𝐒𝐔𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝟑 | 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏𝟖: 𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐋?

𝐂𝐖: ptsd and descriptions of depression and anxiety, descriptions of reader’s hair being short, reader has scars, reader is medicated

𝐀/𝐍: this is the last chapter of subject 3! but not the end of this story…

𝐖𝐂: 8,800+

𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐑: the absolutely amazing @arienic! she's so cool guys

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 | 𝐀𝐎𝟑 | 𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 | 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐒

Your parents had brought you your favorite pair of pajamas to change into. The fabric's softer than you remember, soothing against your skin as you were ushered into the back seat for the ride home. After you'd settled in, a blanket wrapped around your shoulders, you were given your phone in a plastic bag. The screen was cracked, and when you turned it on a black line went down part of the screen. Apparently it had been dropped off the side of the road, likely to keep from tracking.

Still, it was usable.

“It’s probably best for you to wait until you’ve settled in at home to respond to anyone's messages. And I highly recommend waiting until going on any sort of social media platform.”

Maybe it's for the best that you wait, because as soon as your phone turned on you were overloaded with more messages than your screen could even keep up with.

302 messages, 107 missed calls… So many random message requests from people you didn’t even know on social media.

Even if you weren’t still groggy from all of the anti-anxiety medicine, you don’t think you'd be able to even start unpacking most of this. Like the doctor said, it was best if you waited for a moment. You’re not even sure you can trust your parents at this point; not with how much they were clearly hiding. You’ll question them later. Later, not now, because right now… well, it’s just too much to think.

☆

The warm draft of the afternoon is gentle on your face as you gaze out at the street, the curtain sheers swaying behind you with the wind before settling across your back. This repeats in a rhythmic motion as you stay perfectly still with your chin on the edge of your windowsill, watching the world turn without you.

A silver car had pulled into the driveway about ten minutes ago, and since then there had been distant voices downstairs, too faint to make out but loud enough for you to know someone else was here in the house. So when there’s a gentle knock on the doorway of your otherwise silent room, you don’t startle or jump like you had been doing for the whole week you’ve been back.

“Good afternoon,” a man greets.

It takes effort that you don’t have to turn your head, still slouched against the wall as you examine the visitor. He has a kind face, the wrinkles that were imprinted on his skin showing he’s done a lot more smiling than frowning in his life; his voice is perfectly modulated and low in timbre.

“I’m Dr. August McCoy, do you remember me?”

He was the kindest doctor you'd spoken to in the hospital. You nod.

Dr. McCoy gives you a small smile and steps into your room. “Wonderful.”

You probably need to move now, to sit up from this spot you’ve been planted in for hours. So, after taking a moment to gather your energy, you do. The joints in your knees ache as you unfold your legs from beneath you, hands leaving your lap and flattening against the hardwood floor.

“Oh no, you don’t have to move. That’s quite a comfy spot you’ve chosen.” He smiles gently, walking closer and gesturing to a spot across from you, by the other side of the windowsill. “If it’s alright, I’ll just sit here with you.”

You nod again. With a quiet grunt, he takes a spot a few feet away from you, rubbing his knees when he’s settled in a cross-legged position.

“These knees don’t work like they used to,” he chuckles lightly, setting down a notebook and pen next to him before his brown eyes pivot back to you. “You seemed like you were pretty lost in thought, there.”

Yes—surely in the long period you'd been sitting here in silence, some train of thought had passed through your mind. But, truth be told, you hadn’t been thinking. Not at all. The emptiness making itself home in your chest was the only thing you could focus on, its heaviness pulling in your soul like a black hole, slowly consuming you.

“Ah, perhaps not thinking at all,” Dr. McCoy answers for you. “Simply sitting in silence and letting your mind rest is also quite the healthy practice.”

“I wasn’t really thinking about anything, yeah,” you admit. You're relieved when he hums in understanding.

“I see.” He casually rests his elbows on his knees. “Well, the last time we talked, you mentioned that you were going to talk to the couple who found you. How did that go?”

Donna and Logan. They came by to visit you a few days after you’d returned—by your request and their—or at least Donna’s—eagerness. She was a sweet woman with an endearing Southern accent. Her husband wasn’t so sweet in comparison, but he at least seemed to want to know if you were alright.

They'd been on a long drive back from their honeymoon when you'd ran onto the road, covered in blood, and collapsed in front of their car. Donna told you she recognized you when she saw the news, that she remembered you as the “cute little girl who came in the store with that punk ass Gene” sometime during the school year. After she brought it up, you remembered her as well—though at the time, skipping school and the… stalker were your biggest concerns. You thanked them both for saving you, and she gave you her number in case you needed any help, including “kicking Gene or any boy that gives you trouble's ass”.

“It was nice,” you tell Doctor McCoy. “Donna's… She's a good woman.”

“Yes, I’m positive she is.” He pauses. “After you had that conversation with them, can you tell me what you thought; what you felt?”

You glance away, back out to the street. After Donna had gone off about simple teenager problems like boy drama, the memories of your life last school year came flooding back.

“Ah, I see something there,” he notes, reading you like a book. “A thought? A question?”

Silence falls as he gives you time to answer.

“Will I ever be normal again?”

He smiles, tilting his head. “Well, what is normal?”

“...What?”

“To answer your question I need to know how you define normal. It varies from person to person, you know.”

“I… I don’t know. Happy. Not always feeling like something bad is going to happen.” You sigh, shrugging. “Like how I was last year. Even though I was still worried about things happening, I still had fun.”

He nods, looking very assured of himself. “Then yes, you can.”

“…How do you know that?”

“Because! If you want to get better, then you shall.” He leans forward again, tapping his finger against the side of his head “The human mind is the most powerful thing anyone can own. You can heal yourself by just believing more than any pill I give you.”

You lower your head. “You’re making it sound like it’s simple.”

“Oh, I never claimed it was. It’s going to be a very difficult journey, and you’re likely going to fall down, many many times. But… you know what?” He turns his finger towards you. “You are a very strong young woman. And the fact you’re thinking about getting better instead of just giving up is a big enough sign to me that you have the strength to get through this.”

“What should I do then?” you whisper, looking back up at him.

“Well, for starters, you said you want to be “normal” again, yes?”

“Yes…”

He gestures out the window. “Well, what would a 'normal' girl your age be doing right now? Where are your friends?”

The start of your junior year began yesterday.

“At school.”

He leans back, now gesturing to you.

“Then why don’t you return to school?”

Return to school?

Was that even possible? Whoever had taken you still hasn’t been found. You’re a risk, a liability. The special treatment on top of having to deal with everyday high school issues… would that have to be your life? Were you supposed to deal with Ivy shit-talking you while downing your daily Citalopram at the same time? Could you do your Algebra homework while dealing with night terrors and only getting three hours of sleep again?

He chuckles. “Oh, that’s quite a face you made to that. I don’t blame you for not wanting to go to high school right now. I mean, being surrounded by so many people your age at such a time in your life… Well, that sounds like a nightmare, doesn’t it?”

That’s an understatement. “Yeah.”

“That’s understandable. But, sometimes, the best way for people with PTSD to be on their way to becoming 'normal' is to simply return to the same life they had before—even if it’s a bit out of their comfort zone.”

Talking right now to this man one-on-one feels like pulling teeth, never mind going to a place with hundreds of kids your age every day. It was daunting before, but now… isn’t it almost impossible to imagine? Would the childish bullying you endured last year get worse, or will everyone treat you like a ticking time bomb?

“How am I supposed to act normal in school when everyone knows what happened to me? They’re going to treat me like I’m some—some case.”

“Oh, you will get quite some attention at first, good and bad,” he says lightly. It’s a little aggravating. “But, with time, that will fade, and your friends who truly care about you are the ones you can trust to help you through it. I heard from your mom that you have a pretty great group of friends. Don’t you?”

You glance at your wall, covered in photographs, drawings, and notes—all from just one year since… today? No—yesterday. “Yes.”

“Since you mentioned you were having some trouble trusting people, I want you to take a moment to think about the friends you truly trust.” He emphasizes his words with a determined closed fist. “Do you have a diary?”

A journal with beautiful gold gilding lays on the corner of your desk, untouched since summer.

“...Yes. My friend Nana gave it to me.”

“Then, I want you to read over your journal and think about all of the people you know through the perspective of the journal, not through your current perspective. Then, on a sheet of paper, write down every person you trust. Don’t write down people you don’t trust, either. Only a list of people you know you can rely on. Maybe this Miss Nana can be one of the first you write down, yes?”

“Why not people I can’t trust?” Your eyebrows pinch together.

“Because, just like you have, people can always change. You don’t want to doom someone to be permanently on your untrustworthy list, just like you don’t want people to treat you differently because of what happened.”

“...Even people who I know are bullies?”

“Well if you already know that they are, you don’t need to write down that you need to stay away from them, do you? You seem to already remember!” he laughs, clasping his worn hands together. “Make that list, and think about what you want to do. Maybe try hanging out with the friends you trust after making it, and then decide from there if you want to return to school or not. How does that sound?”

☆

You stare down at the blank page on your desk, a freshly sharpened pencil twirling mindlessly between your fingers. Your hair was still damp from the shower; your goal of feeling warm under the running water quickly losing its appeal as you shiver in your chair.

December 29, 20xx

Nana gave me this journal. It’s so pretty that I almost don’t want to write in it and mess it up. But I figured I shouldn’t let her gift go to waste, either. She’s always been so sweet. This isn't the only thing she got me, either—there's way more sitting on my bed right now, and all because she was so grateful I’ve been a good friend to her. I wanted to tell her that I was even more grateful that she and everyone else was friends with me, but I can't remember if I actually said it out loud like I meant to.

Speaking of gifts, actually—Vylad really loved the gift that I gave him! I was a little nervous he wouldn’t be all that excited about it, but I should’ve known better. He was as grateful and cheerful as ever. I’m really glad he’s become a part of the friend group, not just as Garroth’s little brother but as himself. I kinda wish Zane would try, too, but also… I don’t know what his deal is. I’m still mad at him for trying to be one of Gene’s little gang members. For how amazing Zianna is, I’m surprised he’s turning out to be a bit of a punk. It might be because of Garte. No, it definitely is. I just hope he gets his shit figured out before he starts doing stupid stuff to be “edgy”.

Anyway, right now everyone’s doing their own thing with their families, but I think we’re going to go to Laurance’s house for fireworks and stuff on New Year's? I’m pretty excited, cause I haven’t been to his and Cadenza’s house yet. Apparently they have a few sheep that their dad takes care of? So cute! Cadenza told me she was going to show me some string she literally spun HERSELF from the wool to use for making clothes. She is so much cooler than me.

You suck in a breath, then bring the graphite down onto the dauntingly white page.

People I trust:

Nana

Vylad

Garroth

Zane?? Not really

Definitely Zianna

Laurance

Cadenza

Next pages…

January 8, 20xx

It’s the first day back from the break, and surprisingly enough I still haven’t had to deal with anybody being rude. At least for now. It’s pretty great, actually. Instead of being a loser freak everyone points and yells at, I’m just a normal loser with some cool friends. I think after Katelyn and Lucinda stood up for me and cussed out enough people, everyone took the hint and turned on Ivy. Who knows if that’ll last, though? I bet she’ll find a way to be as popular as before. But I’ll bask in my victory until that happens.

Gene, Sasha, and Zenix surprisingly have kept their word and haven’t messed with me. I caught them looking at me today during lunch, and Sasha even smiled at me in a not contemptuous way. I still don’t really like them, but… I don’t hate them, either. I guess we have some sort of weird mutual respect for each other now.

February 14, 20xx

Dante and Travis are weirdo little goobers, but they’re hilarious. I thought today would be kinda boring, but they started the day bright and early by attempting to use their best one-liners on me? All of them were shit, but it was entertaining, to say the least.

Also, PDH does this event where you can send flowers, candies, and sodas to people for Valentine's Day. I thought I was getting pranked when I got my entire desk covered in gifts. Some were from my friends (Teony sent me like three things, love her), but a bunch were from anonymous senders? I tried questioning everyone about it but—well, if they knew anything they were doing a good job of acting like they didn’t.

Aaron gave Aphmau a ton of gifts, one of them being a cute plushie. I was a little nervous about them being a thing at first, but with the way she talks about him and how sweet he is to her, I think I’m opening up to it. I still haven’t talked to him much at all, but he seems cool enough when I do. Maybe he was just going through something when school started up. Kinda like me. His friends (some of the werewolf kids I’ve kinda met—Blaze, Rylan, Dottie, and this kid named Daniel) seem pretty fun to be around, too. Anyway, I’m just glad Aphmau gets to have a boyfriend that treats her well. Sylvanna is not super happy, and I understand her overprotectiveness… to an extent. I guess we’ll see how that situation unfolds in the future.

Okay…

People I trust (cont.):

Katelyn

Lucinda

Maybe Gene, Sasha, and Zenix??? Maybe not.

Dante

Travis

Teony

Aphmau

Probably Aaron

Sylvanna

That’s already eighteen people you know at least aren’t wishing for your demise, and most of them are likely still waiting for a response to their messages. You’d replied to a few, but it was hard to know what to say.

“Hey, twentieth person to check in on me! Yes, I am super traumatized, and life will never be the same, but I’m doing great! Alive and well!”

Yeah, probably not.

Eighteen people is a lot of people to trust, doesn’t it? But, you suppose that’s the point Dr. McCoy was trying to make. Still, for this many people (or at least fifteen depending on how accurate you are about the Shadow Knights) to care about you… you guess you hadn’t really counted just how many people you’d become close with over the last year.

Above you on the wall are all of the pictures you’d accumulated; the memories held within the glossy paper are so fond, so warm in your heart, and yet… so distant.

Aphmau and you in your uniforms, posing by the entrance of the school. Your eyes look a little glossed over from how anxious you felt that day, but it was a little funny to look back on.

Katelyn, Nicole, and you: sweaty and laughing after practicing volleyball in the gym. That was the day Katelyn started begging you to join the team.

A candid of Lucinda applying your makeup for prom. You felt so pretty; she had taken extra care to make sure it was perfect for you.

A funny note Dante wrote you in class. He’d drawn a really stupid iteration of the teacher, and you almost got caught cause you'd laughed so hard.

Everyone sitting out on the Ro’meaves' back porch. Zianna had insisted everyone pose for pictures. You were cuddled between Teony and Nana, their arms draped over you.

The collaborative drawing you guys did at the Fall Festival. Garroth’s looks so silly—you remember having to defend him against Laurance’s teasing for a good five minutes. It was so hard to stop laughing.

A selfie Cadenza had taken with you, Aphmau, and Laurance in her car. The siblings’ silly bickering and good music taste started becoming the highlight of your mornings.

Travis, Vylad, Aphmau, and you at the movies, and the ticket you used. You all watched a corny romance movie Aph had begged you all to see with her.

Oh my God… why haven’t you talked to them? You cover your mouth, the features of your face crumpling as a whimpering noise leaves your throat. Why haven’t you seen them?

Shakily, you stand and reach for the closest picture pinned to the wall, weak fingers pinching onto the photo and pulling hastily. It gives easier than you expected, and your socked feet slip from beneath you, sending you tumbling down onto the floor. The tack holding the picture up slips from your grip in the process, finding itself unfortunately underneath you when you crash against the wood, lodging the pointed end right into your hand.

“Ah!” you hiss, tears springing to your eyes. Your turn your palm over to look at the injury. Damn it. “Ow…”

The pain's brief, replaced by a dull throbbing as you sit up. With a grimace, you pinch the thumbtack between your fingers, slowly removing the sharp metal. Though, where blood should’ve gathered in a small drop, the skin immediately seals over the puncture, as if nothing ever happened.

You wipe your face, aching weeps turning into a deep frown.

People I trust (cont.):

My parents…?

You recognize the footsteps of your mother approaching the doorway. “Sweetheart, are you okay? What was that noise?”

Staring at your palm, you offer a bitter response. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“...Are you sure?” She’s quiet, just as cautious as her footsteps as she inches towards you.

“Sure. It healed up in a second, anyway. You know how better than I do,” you snip, whipping your head up to glare at your own image reflected back at you. Her eyes are much more worn, though, the lines in her face creasing as she kneels down to your level.

You don’t want to be mean to her. She’s your mother. But why was she keeping things from you?

There's a shameful twist in the corner of her mouth. Tentatively, her hand reaches out for yours, fingers trembling as she waits for you to take them. Even through the bitterness, the confusion—you take it, your cold skin warmed by hers.

“I… I know you aren’t stupid.” She squeezes your hand. “We do know things about… who it was that took you—”

“Then why are you keeping it from me?” Immediately, your voice raises. “It happened to me! I of all people deserve to know why!”

She tilts her head, her expression pained as she looks at you. It’s love and guilt in one confusing mix.

“I know. I know. And I’m not keeping anything from you on purpose.” She sighs, her shoulders sagging and head dropping. “There are… mistakes your dad and I made. We trusted people we shouldn’t have trusted, and—”

She sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes welling up with tears. “Baby, I’m so sorry. There’s things we kept from you because we thought that—maybe… maybe it'd be easier to protect you if you were in the dark, but…” She closes her eyes, swallowing. “We realize now that was a mistake.”

“...Then why won’t you tell me?” you whisper, your own voice trembling. “And why are other people involved? The Ro’meaves, Sylvanna, Katelyn’s dad—Travis’s dad? The Lycans? Mom, I’m so—I just—I'm so confused—”

“I know it’s frustrating, sweetie. And I don’t blame you for being upset with me. You have the right to be.” She nods, opening her eyes again and squeezing your hand again. “Right now we’re all planning to tell you and… their kids together. In a meeting. We're just trying to figure out the best time to do it. I promise you. We’re going to tell you.”

Your heart drops as the suspicions that have been haunting you for the past few weeks are confirmed, outweighing the relief in the fact that you would be brought to light in everything else. The words that leave your mouth next are panicked and rushed. “Why do they need to tell them, too? Are they targets?”

Her free hand reaches out, clasping onto your shoulder in an attempt to steady the spiraling of your mind—of the possibilities that were already forming into nightmares. “No, no, everything is okay now.”

It was getting hard to breathe. Your lungs strain to get in a full breath, the muscles tightening like a vice and causing your head to spin. “No, the person who did this is still out there. They’re going to get me again, and then they'll go after them! And then maybe, they—mom, what about you, mom—”

“Shh, no they won’t, baby.” She swipes at your face. “You and everyone are perfectly safe now. Your dad and I aren’t… to let anything like… to… or any of—”

No. No, no, no.

Her voice is—it's gone, overpowered by a terrible ringing in your ears.

There’s the metallic clang of a door shutting to your right, and suddenly the room is dark. The bitter taste of blood stings your tongue, and long, shadowed fingers creep along your shoulders. Ready to dig in and rip apart your flesh. It’s going to get you. It’s going to get you. You never left. You never—

“Look at me…” The owner of the gnarled hands taunts you, in a voice so menacing and deep that you find yourself curling down into a ball, trembling and begging for it to stop, for it to spare you from its malicious intent.

“Look…”

It calls your father’s name.

“Help her!”

Strong, warm hands tug you up by the arms, wrenching you from the dingy stone floor and onto your feet. When the soles of your feet settle flat beneath you again, they’re greeted by the rug in your room instead, the material warmed from the sun shining through your window. The hands that hold you now are lifting you up, sturdy and protective—no claws. No claws..

“Sweetheart. Sweetheart, look at me.”

Your father’s eyes stare down at you, full of indescribable pain as his eyebrows furrow, creasing his forehead. Your mother is behind him, though her face is turned from you as her shoulders tremble.

Oh.

Your heart still pounds, blood swirling through your veins much too fast; fingers prickling at the tips, lips numb.

“I–I’m sorry.” A lump sits at the base of your throat, choking your next words. "I'm so sorry, I—I'm sorry, I don't know—"

“Don’t.” His voice is strained. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

He pulls you into his arms, cradling your head to his chest, where it shudders with a shaky breath. You close your eyes, trying to ignore the lingering panic trying to trick you—trying to convince you that you were still clawing at bars to escape your surely lethal fate. That you were still there, with all the stone and grime and—and blood. No, you were in Dad’s arms. He wouldn’t let that happen, would he?

What was it that Dr. McCoy told you?

“...it can be very disorienting when you get intense flashbacks. But when it feels like you can’t get out of that memory, I want you to use the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. Do you know what that is?...”

You see… the color of your room’s walls. The pile of letters you’d received at the hospital lying on your bedside table. The sun glinting off the medal you won at the Athletic Fair. The fuzzy pink blanket from Nana, hanging off the side of your bed. Your mom coming to stand beside you, wiping her face as she joins your dad in embracing you.

You can feel Dad’s arms. Mom’s. The light breeze through the cracked window brushing against your skin. The soft rug under your feet.

You can hear the cars, when they occasionally pass over the street below. Your parent’s synced, yet shaky breaths. Dad’s calming heartbeat against your ear.

You can smell your mother’s perfume. The lingering scent of the candle she’d burned somewhere in the house.

You can taste the leftover saltiness of the tears that had landed on your lips.

“We want to wait until it’s a good time to tell you,” your mom whispers, her fingers squeezing against your shoulder. “Because we don’t want you to hurt anymore. I’m sorry, baby. I know it’s hard, but please trust that we’re doing everything we can for your safety. Not just your physical safety, either, but your mental wellbeing, too.”

…You know.

Of course you do.

…They’re confused and scared too, aren’t they?

When they held you as a small child in their arms, did they ever think the sweet laughter and innocent twinkle in your eyes would slip from their fingertips in this way? They never imagined the baby they once rocked to sleep would grow up to be someone they didn’t recognize, someone broken and distant, trapped in a world of pain they couldn’t reach. You were gone, scared you’d never make it out—but they were scared too. They’re trying to cope as well, aren’t they?

People I trust (cont.):

My parents.

☆

You stare at the dark screen of your new phone, fidgeting with your hair and trying to recognize the face staring back at you. With a held breath, you lift your chin, fingers brushing along the scar that swept across your neck. It was so straight and smooth, the indent lacking any evidence that whatever caused it was violent. Though, when the pad of your thumb trembles over the healed wound, it fills you with a sense of dread; like this is the defining line between the girl you once were and the unrecognizable one you were now.

“What are you thinking about, sweetheart?” Dad asks, interrupting the silence that had strung out over the car. You glance up at him through the rearview mirror as he mindlessly taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. You can still back out.”

“No, I do,” you murmur, turning to look out at the wealthy neighborhood around you.

You're only a minute from the Ro’meaves’ house, now. Your lips press together as you steady your breaths, the long driveway leading up to the tall brick colonial home—a familiar sight. Several cars already fill the driveway, and though you recognize them as belonging to the very people you had begged to see, the fact there are so many of them is daunting.

All of their eyes, their expectations—everything would be trained directly on you. Will they hesitate when they realize how much you’d changed? Will the month of separation feel more like a year? Will you still fit in their puzzle, now that your edges were jagged? Will they still try to make you belong, even if your image is awkward beside theirs?

Truthfully, you couldn’t tell if the tightness in your chest is excitement or anxiousness. The two could be interchangeable, after all. But as you wipe the sweat from your hands on the fabric of your clothes and the car comes to a stop, there’s nothing you want to do more than jump out and run inside.

Everyone seems to be inside, but then you notice a familiar boy jump up from where he'd been waiting on the front porch steps, his light brown hair bouncing as he sprints to your car. Before your parents even have a chance to get out themselves, PDH’s soccer captain himself is flinging open the car door, eyes wide and hopeful as he looks you over.

“There she is!” He leans forward with a wide grin, arms spreading for a hug. From how his fingers are twitching, he looks like he wants to lunge on you without a question—yet he holds himself back, waiting for your reaction.

“Laurance!” you cheer through the surprise of his swift greeting, unbuckling your seatbelt and turning into him—a sign he takes in full stride as he pulls you into him.

He makes a happy noise as his arms squeeze around you and he pulls you out of the car, your feet leaving the ground when he spins around. You can practically feel the joy he radiates, the warmth of it seeping into your skin and rushing into your lungs, forcing an eruption of giggles from your mouth. The sound is… odd. Not because it wasn’t right, or it sounded weird, but because you forgot what it felt like to feel this giddy—to have someone be this elated to see you. How could you forget?

“Wasn’t everyone supposed to wait inside?” Mom chimes in lightheartedly as Laurance sets you down, tucking you under his shoulder.

“Well, yeah…” he chuckles sheepishly. “I made an excuse that I was taking a phone call so I could be the first one to see her.”

“Oh, how sweet,” she coos, eyes darting to meet yours slyly as she walks towards the front door.

Your dad hasn’t said anything, but as he passes you to follow Mom, he gives Laurance’s shoulder a rather intimidating clap, patting him a few times with a serious look before moving on. The boy smiles nervously in return, before guiding you both after them, squeezing your shoulder as you go.

“Are you doing okay?” you blurt.

He smiles down at you, an amused huff leaving his lips.

“Today? I’m way more than okay,” he reaches up to poke your cheek. “Thanks to you.”

You take a deep breath, closing your eyes and basking in the moment, before you step up the stairs. The cheerful chirping of the birds, the smell of freshly mowed lawns, the distant sound of your friends laughing and talking in the house; you really were here. You were safe. And now you can actually imagine it: being… normal again. Soon enough you’ll be surrounded by their warm laughter, able to join in on all the inside jokes and cuddle up by everyone’s side. This is real. This isn't a distant dream—it isn't just a sliver of hope to cling to as you curl up on the dirty floor.

You see your parents walk in first, the muffled voices beyond the door loudening as they slip through, leaving you and Laurance alone for just a moment.

“I was there everyday when you were asleep, y’know? Well, except for the day when you actually woke up,” he says suddenly—you think that somehow, he'd sensed your need to prepare yourself. “I was pretty upset when I found out the cyclops got to see you before I did.”

You offer a quiet laugh. “Still refusing to let up on that nickname, huh?”

“Of course. The little twerp deserves it.”

Laurance guides you the last few stairs up, making the distance between you and nearly everyone you hold dear only a polished door away. You hold your breath, chest feeling tight again as he reaches out to close that distance, his hand clasping the metal.

Before he turns the knob though, he pauses, peeking at you from the corner of his eye.

“You look nervous,” he whispers, nudging you with his elbow, “and a little teary-eyed. You okay?”

“I just…” You take in another, shaky breath, licking your lips. “I’m so different now. And not just in how I act, but I also… look different.”

He smiles warmly, reaching up to pinch a lock of your hair between his fingers. “I don't know, you look as cute as ever to me—the pixie cut suits you. And you sure as hell seem like the same girl I’ve been getting to know for the past year.” He leans in closer. “I promise no one is going to think differently of you or act weird because of it. If they do, I’ll beat their ass for you. Understand?”

You try to roll out some of the tension in your shoulders, sending him a grateful look. “Thank you, Laurance.”

“No need to thank me.” He straightens, patting your head before finally letting you go from under his arm. “Ready?”

“...Yeah.”

The door pushes open, and Laurance takes the liberty to step forward first, holding the door open for you. The first thing that hits you is Dante's unfaltering, boisterous laughter, even as Nicole and a few other girls yell at him to your right—likely about whatever dumb joke he made. The next thing that hits you is the sophisticated scent of jasmine and amber that permeates throughout the house, thanks to Zianna’s investments in luxurious candles. The smell's welcoming, familiar, reminding you of a time in your childhood you can't quite remember.

You step forward, glancing over to the doorway to see Garroth leaning against it, arms crossed as he watches the group of rambunctious teenagers in his living room. Even as your hands shake and your breath trembles, you don’t hesitate to stride forward, placing a gentle hand on his arm as you step by his side. His head is quick to whip towards you, his amusement with the scene ahead of him replaced by a tender look in his eyes and a quiet, fond call of your name.

As he wraps his arm around your shoulder, you look ahead, feeling the corners of your lips curve up and the heavy pit in your chest lightening. Katelyn has Dante in a playful headlock, rubbing her knuckles into his skull as he thrashes and tries to escape. All of the girls—Lucinda, Teony, Nana, Nicole, Cadenza, and Aphmau—cheer her on, declaring her as their knight in shining armor and giggling at his pain as they lounge on the couch. Vylad and Travis were laughing along too, seeming to agree this punishment fit for whatever the mischievous boy had blubbered stupidly from his lips.

Travis was sitting on the floor, cackling with his hand over his mouth. He looks… a little different from what you remember, hair trimmed to flatter his face more and skin clearer. His eyes shift slowly to your direction when he sees you from the corner of his vision, the bright green somehow lighting up even more, his eyebrows shooting up on his forehead. His hand comes away from his mouth as he points directly at you with a wide smile.

Oh! His braces are gone. Did that happen before or after you saw him in the hospital…?

“She’s arrived!” he announces theatrically, pulling everyone’s attention to you.

At first you flinch, almost pierced by how they lean forward and stare at you with wide eyes. Even though alarm bells set off in your head, and the urge to turn and hide in some corner is powerful, so is the bittersweet tenderness and care you force yourself to see in each and every one of their faces. Shouts and cheers of your name replace the previous bickering.

They’re all on the list. You know them. You trust them.

It feels like a bright light has been shined against you—and not a spotlight highlighting your new flaws or your hesitations, but a beacon chasing the heavy weight from your shoulders; permeating your soul, warm and loving. It's so real, so genuine, that the light burned away at your fears and replaced it with hope.

They love you.

Laurance—who was still behind you and Garroth—ruffles your hair with his hand before nudging you towards them. Your footsteps stumbling forward is what breaks the unspoken barrier, encouraging Nana to leap up from the couch and rush over to you. Everyone freezes when she practically jumps on top of you without a second thought, breaths held as you yelp from the sudden weight.

You lower your head onto her shoulder when she nuzzles her face into yours, raising your arms to hold her back. Her voice comes through cotton in your ears, the pleasant melody harmonized by everyone else's as they join in, arms overlapping and warm breaths mingling, heating up your cold skin; praise and greetings fizzling out into a peaceful embrace. This group hug is lasting much longer than usual, but you won't be the first to pull away.

“Sooo… are you gonna come back to school?” Dante suddenly cuts through; he's answered by a chorus of groans.

“Dude, can you not talk for, like, five seconds?” Nicole hisses.

You feel him shift to your right when he laughs defensively. “What? I’m just wondering!”

Nicole pauses her beration of him when you start to laugh, shoulders shaking. You missed this.

After the group's settled into a comfortable silence, you say, “Actually, I think I might,” earning a few shocked gasps.

“Wait, for real?” Nana squeals, jumping up in her excitement and nearly toppling everyone over into a huge doggy pile.

“Y-yeah,” you say through stuttered laughter, focus quickly shifting from the conversation to staying on your feet as the whole group shuffles around.

“Are we gonna keep talking like this or can we sit down and give her some space like normal people?” Cadenza interjects, grunting under her breath. You look up to see Laurance ruffle her hair, the boy laughing when she sends him a deadpan look.

“In what world have we ever been normal?” he snorts. “But she’s right. C’mon guys.”

Soon you find yourself settled on the couch, squished in between Teony and Lucinda while Aphmau and Travis cling to your legs. Everyone else is sitting on the coffee table or on the couch as they lean in, latching onto every word you say.

“When will you be back?” Teony continues the conversation, fingers gently rubbing circles into your back as she tilts her head. Everyone else nods along, intent on knowing the answer.

“Probably in a couple weeks, maybe two from now,” you murmur, biting the inside of your cheek. The attention was getting to be just a little overwhelming, so you shift it back to them. “...What’s school been like this year?”

Everyone glances at the other, trying to gauge who should go first.

“Well, volleyball season just started—we still haven’t had our first game yet, though.” Kate makes a point to make eye contact with you as she adds, “We still have an open spot on the team, by the way… just saying…”

“Can you not talk about that sport for one second?” Lucinda teases, reaching over to pinch Katelyn's side and dodging a slap to her shoulder with a giggle.

“I’m just suggesting it. In case she wants to find things to do when she comes back,” Kate huffs, looking back to you. “Even if you don’t want to play, being a manager could be fun, too.”

“Hey! I was gonna ask her to be our manager,” Laurance argues, crossing his arms and sending her a dirty look, earning himself a fierce glare in return.

“Nuh-uh, she’s definitely gonna be the baseball manager,” Garroth chimes in, his hand covering Laurance’s face and pointing at himself insistently.

“Okay, you sports nerds.” Teony rolls her eyes. “She can decide that later. Why don’t we update her on other things?”

“How about the entire werewolf population in the school now looking to Aphmau as the Alpha,” Vylad says, waggling his brows and nudging the girl’s shoulder. Her cheeks warm, and she sighs under her breath.

“Oh yeah. That’s a whole thing I’m glad I’m on the outskirts of.” Katelyn leans back on her hands, shaking her head. “I don’t even wanna know about that Ein dude that keeps clinging to her everywhere she goes. Just seeing his face pisses me off.”

“...Who is Ein?” you start, not quite sure how to unpack this as you glance down at Aphmau. “What about Aaron?”

Her face drops and she wrings her hands. “...Um, he’s not going to school here anymore. His parents made him graduate early and go to a private college. That’s what he told me before he stopped talking to me, at least.”

You frown, recalling the conversation you’d overheard in the hospital—what the Lycans had said.

“…And just what are we supposed to do about this? We can’t send our son back to that school. What if he’s taken by those psychos, too? That girl is lucky she made it back in one piece!”

“Aaron won’t be staying anywhere near that high school or your kids.”

Derek, was his name? Was he really serious? Would he really do that to their son? Even force him to stop talking to Aphmau, who was basically his girlfriend?

You stay quiet for a moment, reaching to pat her head to soothe the saddened expression that had started to form on her face. “I’m sorry.”

It’s your fault, isn’t it?

“…It’s okay.” She shakes her head, smiling. “It’s a little stressful leading a bunch of kids, but it’s kind of fun! And it gives me more experience as a mentor, I guess.”

“Following in my footsteps,” Teony coos, placing a hand over her chest.

You glance over at Laurance, lips wobbling. “…Baby’s first leadership role?”

His face lights up in recognition; he snickers. “She’s growing up so fast…”

“What? Ugh, this again!” She kicks out her feet childishly, looking back up at you with reddened cheeks. “Anyways! About Ein!”

You raise your eyebrow in amusement at her not-so-subtle change in topics.

“Why do you wanna talk about Ein so bad? Interested?” Dante butts in before she can continue. She groans, taking her jacket from her lap and chucking it towards him—she misses by a good foot.

“Shut up!” she huffs. “No way!”

“You better not,” Katelyn says, tone protective. “That guy has a bad rep, probably for good reason.”

You frown, glancing back down at Aphmau.

“He’s actually really nice once you get to know him,” she’s quick to defend. “You guys shouldn’t believe all the rumors you hear about him…”

“Speaking of rumors, there’s already a few circling around. I've heard some about Laurance and Garroth having girlfriends.” Lucinda quirks a brow, looking the boys up and down with pursed lips. “Seems the fan clubs are only getting more intense this year, hm?”

The two boys make similar faces, lips curling in discomfort and eyebrows pinching.

“Uh, let’s not…” Laurance mutters, scratching the back of his neck.

“Ahem! Sorry to interrupt, kiddos, but I’d like to steal the sweet girl away for just a second!” Zianna announces from the doorway, waving at you with a smile. “Do you mind?”

“Oh, of course not…” You rise up, untangling yourself from limbs and stepping around everyone's pouting faces.

“Be right back, yo!” Zianna cheers to the teens, placing a hand on your back as she leads you towards the garage.

“Mom…” Vylad and Garroth sync their groans of embarrassment, earning an amused laugh from her before the two of you step through the door.

Parked inside is a new Toyota Highlander, the pretty grey-blue paint looking freshly polished and shining under the overhead light. Huh, Zianna must’ve wanted a new car. Her SUV must’ve been parked outside and you didn’t notice.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” She reaches into her pocket, turning to face you. “Are you happy to be here with everyone?”

What exactly did she call you in here for…?

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m happy.” You rub your arm. “I’m happy to see you again, too, Zianna.”

She tilts her head, smiling softly. She seems emotional at your words, and you're suddenly reminded of how Garroth once described her as a delicate flower. You can definitely see it now, as her eyebrows turn up.

“There’s a reason I always call you 'sweetie',” she sighs, pulling something from her pocket and stretching it out towards you. “I wanted to give this back to you.”

The locket.

It glints in the garage lighting as her fingers tremble subtly, the surface slightly scratched. Despite this, though, it looks as freshly polished as the car next to you, like she'd made sure to take great care of it. When you close your eyes, the dark street of that night and the harsh slap that knocked you down and sent the locket flying replays for a split moment.

“It didn’t quite have the use I intended it to, but it’s yours. So if you want it, you can keep it…”

You breathe deeply, ignoring the shuddering of your lungs when you do so, open your eyes, and take the necklace into your hands.

“Thank you,” you murmur, glancing back up at her.

With her eyes a little more watery than before, she’s quick to turn her head, gesturing to the Toyota as she clears her throat. “How do you like this new car?”

When you turn to take in the vehicle again, you don't miss how she brings a hand up to swipe underneath her eyes.

“It’s really nice.” You nod. “It was the first thing I noticed when we walked in here.”

“Well, good,” she smiles, reaching in her other pocket and pulling out a set of keys. “Because there’s something else I want to give you.”

Your brow furrows when she holds her hand out again, dangling the set of keys in front of you to take. She tilts her head for you to take them, but you’re frozen, eyes wide and mouth agape.

“...What?” you breathe.

“After everything that happened, I was talking to your parents and they mentioned how you shouldn’t walk alone anywhere anymore,” she explains, shaking the keys gently. “And while my boys and I are perfectly fine with being your chauffeurs, Garte and I decided you should have a car of your own, in case a friend can’t be there.”

You close your mouth—it’s your turn to tear up now. “I… Zianna, I really can’t accept this. This is too much…”

“It’s not too much,” she insists. “I won’t give this car to my boys, so if you don’t take it, it will keep sitting in this garage until it doesn’t work anymore, so I’d suggest you do.”

There’s no words to even begin with as you take the keys, blinking rapidly and shaking your head. “I… I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything, dear.” She pulls you into a gentle hug, petting your head in a motherly display. “Just guaranteeing your safety is enough for me.”

You hug her back, sniffling as you stare at the car. Sure, you might be able to accept a few flowers and teddy bears, but this? The Ro’meaves may not be running out of money anytime soon, but this is still an insane gift for someone that wasn’t even their own kid.

“Also,” she continues, “I won’t pressure you to join in if you don't want to, but I’m making my boys take some self defense classes, and I think it would be great if you attended as well.” She sways a little, rocking you with her before letting go. “I believe Aphmau, Travis, and Katelyn are going to do it as well. You don’t have to answer now, but it’s something to consider.”

“I will,” you murmur, too overwhelmed to consider it at the moment—even if it was a good idea.

“Oh, and one last thing before I let you go, sweetheart,” she says, quickly dashing over to the passenger side of the… of your car, reaching in and pulling out a small bag. She giggles when she turns around and catches your wide-eyed expression. “I promise it’s nothing big.”

You press your lips together, accepting the bag quietly and looking inside. Inside are two things: pepper spray and a…

“A taser?”

“Stun gun. Thirty-thousand volts!” she chirps, much too cheerful for someone who'd just casually gifted you two highly pain-inducing weapons.

“Uh… Thank—thank you.”

“Again, sweetie, not anything big.” She waves her hand dismissively, taking the bag from you and placing it back in the car. She gestures back to the door, smiling. “I shouldn’t keep you for any longer. Your friends are waiting for you!”

You nod slowly, following her back out. As soon as you enter, everyone is quick to pull you back right into the center of the group, the conversation flowing once again about the silly, mundane things of teenage life. As the minutes ticked into hours, not once did you find yourself bored, the calming voices almost surreal to listen to as you sink into the couch cushions.

How easy was it, to take all of this for granted? A few weeks ago, you were sure moments like these were distant dreams, ones you’d never get to experience again. Such simple moments; the way Lucinda overdramatized her stories, or how Katelyn and Nicole would lean close to threaten someone playfully. How Vylad smiled wide at anyone he made eye contact with as he looked around the group, or how Nana would squeal anytime anything cute or romantic came up. How Aphmau giggled at every corny joke. When Cadenza dramatically sighed or tossed her hair. How Laurance always made sure someone got their word in when they were interrupted, and how horrible Garroth is at controlling his expressions when someone is telling a story.

There’s a quiet understanding in your chest. You'd thought the edges of your puzzle piece were too jagged, but they aren’t. You slid right back into place. Even if the paint was a little chipped, a little smudged, you fit. Despite everything, you're still you. Everything is falling back into rhythm.

You almost died at seventeen. But you didn’t. This is reality now. You’re alive, and real. Being safe is real. Being protected is real. Being surrounded by the people you love—that's real. This is… normal. What you’ve always wanted since the beginning.

You could be normal again.

…Right?

©starhvney 2024. do not plagiarize, feed to any AI, or repost my works to any sites.

tag list: @orinlin @pain-in-the-ashe @youmake1mistake @arienic @wasting-away-on-the-internet @angelhyperfixates @remiechu @valentique @kalegrinch @izzybella1807 @marst4rz @vyladsgirl @rune-balot83

89 notes · View notes

aelincreativ · 6 months ago

Text

Show Time - D.Va

They were kind enough to show up the day after her birthday.

She'd known they were coming. Having seen the articles and posts written about the others who had been drafted and disappeared from the internet for months before showing up mid battle.

So she didn't fight it. Instead greeting the officers in uniform at her door with perfect manners and hospitality. Showing them to the table where she had the tea set prepared and waiting.

They wasted no time. Telling her that she had been drafted and would submit to her training squadron in three days time. They relayed the consequences for if she failed to comply. Then the consequences for if she tried to run. Then the consequences for if she attempted to publicly resist.

She had already researched those thoroughly.

When she didn't fight them or try to argue they seemed caught off guard. Like they didn't know what to do when they didn't have to use force to get what they wanted.

And maybe that was her first mistake. Not putting up more of a fight upfront.

She didn't fight it. Half because she knew they wouldn't let her. Half because she had believed at the time that she might actually be able to do something good.

Her mother didn't cry when she showed up an hour later. She'd asked her not to when she told her mom what would happen all those months ago when the first drafts were called. Her mother stayed strong while she was there. Taking the box of important documents and keepsakes from her hands.

She knew that after she left, her mom would put on her shoes and go walk the same path they'd taken together many times before. The walk, just fifteen minutes, would end the same place it always did. At her father's gravestone.

She'd already made her visit the night before. Promising him that she would make him proud and make sure no one ever suffered like he did again.

She would report to her training squadron early and in-process and begin her assessments. She would pass the tests with flying colors. Setting herself up as a fast track star. Set to complete her training in a record time.

It was less than a month before she made her first live flight test with a training mech. As compared to the three months most other drafted pilots took. She passed the training modules faster than anyone before her in half the time and earned the praise of all her instructors for her dedication and drive.

It seemed fitting that with her expedited training, that her live fire career would start with a bang. Her graduation ceremony from the program was a small but grand affair. With her being congratulated by the chain of MEKA command and welcomed by her new unit.

It was only fitting that as soon as her hand was clasped in the Colonel's that the alarms would ring and she'd be pulled with the rest of the unit to do what they had trained for.

Her success in her first battle was her second mistake.

Returning victorious with two Gwishin defeated and only superficial damage to her mech, she instantly cemented herself as the heavy hitter star of the unit. She let that victory settle in her spine and make her strive to be the best.

Training and learning all she could in the windows of down time between Gwishin attacks.

She worked hard to earn the respect and trust of her teammates and do her duty to her country and people with pride.

Then they approached her, and she made her third mistake.

They offered her a position back in the public eye. To become the face of MEKA by having access to her streaming platform restored. They told her that the budget was limited and low. With costs of constant repairs and upgrades, they needed public support funding.

She'd accepted without hesitation. And maybe she should have. Because once again they were stunned to not face opposition. Her first stream back was a carefully scripted fanfare of a staged tour of the MEKA facility. The one after that a test flight after an upgrade. Then a training skirmish. Then a scripted QnA with the pilots.

Then came the second test flight.

But the carefully scripted routine of maneuvers to show off the unstoppable power of MEKA was interrupted by the warning sirens. She snapped to attention immediately, switching her coms to connect to her unit and took command to organize an offensive.

She got lost in the fight, forgetting the camera feed attached to her mech. She forgot to be the person they wanted her to be and instead let herself slip. Letting lose just enough to make risky but calculated calls that ended in a sweeping victory with only one mech on the team too damaged to make it back under its own power.

It was only after the victory had been celebrated among teammates that her com was overridden and switched back to the channel she had been on. The channel that had her handler on it to feed her lines and remind her of the prompts for the scripted stream.

She was summoned back to base and given a choice. Though calling it a choice was generous, it was an ultimatum. The live battle had been received very well at first. Donations poured in like a flood as they watched the reality unfold before them. But the shift in her personality during combat had garnered negative attention.

The people didn't like seeing their bubbly streamer turn so serious and harsh as she barked out battle commands to her team. The handler had cut the stream once realizing the growing negative opinion, feigning that the camera broadcast equipment attached to the outside of the mech had taken a hit.

The ultimatum was this, stay strict to the script and maintain the personality at all times even under fire, or stop flight broadcasts and instead supplement the lost revenue with alternate means.

She'd promised to stick to the script and was given one more chance. She was permitted to do casual video game streams again but closely monitored and on a delay incase of need to censor her if the persona slipped.

She'd held out for two months until one of her team went down. Seeing her friend and ally potentially die made it impossible to keep the facade and persona.

Her return to base was met with the stern faces of her handler and an officer. They debriefed her and then laid out that since she couldn't be trusted with live fire situations on stream, they would be moving towards a new revenue system.

Sponsorships.

Something seemingly innocent at first. When it was just companies that wanted their logos plastered all over her mech. But then the logos on her started.

At first they stayed professional. On her arms and back. But as more “sponsors” became personal “investors” there was a need for more space for more logos and names.

The sides of her thighs were next and that didn't bother her too much. But those were soon filled. There wasn't any more room. She looked ridiculous at that point. And they realized it was starting to negatively affect her image.

So instead they switched the system. Reducing the number of logos and areas they were displayed to just her top sponsors. Instead they started to offer meet and greet events. Where sponsors would buy in at different levels for different amounts of her time and attention.It worked for a month. But then the novelty of it wore off. The masses were no longer satisfied with the casual group interactions. They wanted, no demanded, more.

Her handlers were at a loss for a while on what to do, and as the numbers coming in steady started to decrease, they panicked. Trying to throw her at anything to see what would stick.

Talk show interviews were one of the first they tried. It got a few whispers but not enough for them. Sending her to a celebrity hotshot party got murmurs. Doing television ads for her sponsors. Playing a game show contestant. Being a patient in a medical show. A few episodes of a reality show as a minor character. Then as the female lead in a B-grade movie.

Those worked for a while. She managed to fit it all in between her other duties. Nevermind that Dae-hyun kept looking at her with concern and making comments about pushing herself too much.

Everyone else thought she chose to do all those things. None of them knew how much of their funding relied on her. No one but her and her handler team knew that she had no choice in what she did.

She hadn't had control of anything but her own thoughts in almost a year at that point.And then the money clips tightened again.

And her handler came with a new “request”.

And this time she tried to fight it.

But you can't fight back when you're already in chains.

So began the meetings with sponsors one on one. Getting rented out like a lady of the night for hours at a time. To the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per hour.

At first they were respectful. Basking in the novel concept of having her undivided attention. But it only took a few meetings for them to grow more bold. To encroach on her personal space. To push and break her boundaries and the terms established for these meetings.

They had deluded themselves that she cared about them. Felt something for them besides their checkbook. That she thought they were special.

The first one who tried to put his hands on her suffered for it. She broke the offending hand and kneed him in the balls to make her escape.

She was sanctioned for “use of excessive force against a civilian”.

The second only had a finger broken.

She was sanctioned again, taking a pay cut and put on suspended privilege status.

The third was slapped.

She was dragged into her handlers office where she was scolded like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

She was then told, plain and simple, that the money they'd lost from those three “sponsors” would be near impossible to replace. That she was to blame now for the lack of parts and supplies in the coming months.

Told that if she lost any more sponsors, they'd have to cut her off and find a replacement for her. And then, once she was out of MEKA and their protection, the three men she'd “attacked” would go after her legally and summarily destroy her reputation and any hope of a career she could have outside of MEKA.

“Am I understood?” Her handler sneered. The look on his face was one she had seen many times before whenever she dared to go against his commands by even a single step.

“Yes, sir.” She spoke. Clearly and without a mumble as she had been scolded for before.

The man looked smug at her compliance. Like he always did.

“Then you are dismissed. Return to your quarters and prepare for the 1800 stream of game three on the roster.”

She nodded and left the office swiftly, but not too quickly as to seem she was running away.

She was not allowed to run away.

She made it to her room and knew she had an hour to get ready. But instead of moving to her makeup table, to change the look placed on her for her earlier meeting with the sponsor, she sat on her bed.

She looked at the spread of things she had once enjoyed. Soft blankets and pillows, stuffed animals of game characters and creatures, posters for shows and movies.

All things that were similar to what she once plastered her childhood bedroom in.

But nothing here had been chosen by her. It was all a carefully staged backdrop. A set that she had to make up with precision every morning. There was a reason she often slept in her workshop.

Despite what Dae-hyun and the others thought, she did not just randomly fall asleep while working too late. She chose the discomfort and lingering aches of sleeping in a chair at a desk or in a pile on the floor.

It was more comfortable to her than to try and relax inside the stage she was forced to puppet around in.

She set the pillow she had grabbed down, exactly in its designated position, and stood up. Smoothing the sheets she had wrinkled before walking to the vanity that held the hundreds of products she was to make use of.

She opened the pack of makeup wipes, a sponsored brand that she didn't like, and slowly and carefully removed the makeup from her face. Taking her time to not rub excessively and cause any redness or irritation. She wiped away the layers painted onto her. The ones that had been specifically catered to enhance the features the sponsor had preferred.

She made her way to her bathroom and wet a cloth and added a pump of a sponsored face wash she had filmed a commercial for the day before. This one at least actually worked for her skin, even if it didn't actually do all it promised to do. Not that it mattered, she had five other products that filled in the gaps.

She rinsed off the foam and braced her hands on the sink before looking up.

She stared at the girl in the mirror. Soft brown eyes that looked so tired without the layers of concealer and color corrector applied. No specifically picked and color matched eyeshadow either to give the allusion of a brighter attitude either.

She stared at the scar on the tip of her nose from her first crash landing where one of the display screens inside Tokki shattered and a piece of the glass sliced into her.

She visually traced the hairline jagged crack across her forehead from when she was ejected and slammed into King as a last resort as Tokki was shredded in the grasp of three Gwishin.

She licked the scar on her lip from the street fight she got into a few months ago that had earned her a sanction and two months of restricted and monitored communications.

Worth it though. The omnic she'd saved had escaped and she'd made it out with only bruises besides her lip. She'd snuck out of the base to try and visit her mom and instead found an omnic being beaten in the street.

She looked at the girl in the mirror.

This was her. Not the makeup and cameras and scripts.

This.

With her scars and dark circles and eyes that looked so tired.

She wondered where it all went wrong. How she had lost track of herself. How she had allowed herself to be so thoroughly beaten down until she didn't even know who she was anymore.

Was she even herself anymore? Or had all of her parts been stripped away and replaced until all that remained was the depressed spark in the back of her mind that could barely raise its head anymore to tap on the cell walls she'd been chained in.

Was she Hana? Or was she D.Va?

Hana looked back at her in the mirror. But that was the only place Hana was allowed to exist. As soon as she walked out of this bathroom she'd be forced to put on the mask of D.Va once more.

To parade around like the well trained dog she was. Following every command of her master with not so much as a single thought in her head that was not put there for her.

And what did she have to complain about when she lived a life of luxury. Surrounded by high value items and things. Having all the love and adoration from the public she could want. The people sang her praises and cheered her name. They trusted her to protect them and she honored that trust.

Casualties to Gwishin attacks had been cut to a quarter of what they were before she was drafted and joined the battlefield. Half those remaining casualties happened on the rare times she was off duty and not in the fight. She had done it. Had made the difference she had so desperately wanted to make when she first decided not to fight the orders to serve.

What was a complete lack of autonomy over her body and soul for that?How could she protest the sacrifice of herself to save everyone else?

She couldn't. At least not outloud.

So instead, she waved Hana goodbye in the bathroom mirror, and went to go greet D.Va in the vanity mirror.

Carefully applying the layers of her war paint.

Dark circles vanishing beneath a bottle that cost more than a house. Bright colors teased on her eyelids to make a sparkle appear where there had been none before.

Red blush dusted on the tip of her nose and then stamped over with a custom white bunny.

Hair curled and pinned to further shadow the filler on her forehead.

Lips carefully traced and colored to erase any sign of vagrant behavior in the defense of those who her handler would have her spit on.

She contorted her face and D.Va smiled back at her. She waved. A cute coquette thing that was just a flutter of her fingers.

She looked at the clock. Ten minutes to go.

Show time.

To her knowledge, no one saw her leave Hana Song behind in that bathroom. No saw the final shudder that shot through her frame as the spark in the back of her mind was gagged and bound into submission as lights flickered on. No one saw as the spark in her eye became artificial and painful as her cheeks stretched into a bright smile as she shouted out a greeting even though there was no one in the room with her.

No one should have seen. But someone did.

The only other being in the world who knew exactly how that scar on her lip was created.

Someone who couldn't get the figure of a tiny human rushing to his defense out of his mind. Not until he had identified her and tried to figure out why?

And now he had more questions than before.

32 notes · View notes

queenlua · 6 months ago

Text

The [Free Software Foundation]'s focus on [Trusted Platform Module]s here is not only technically wrong, it's indicative of a failure to understand what's actually happening in the industry. While the FSF has been focusing on TPMs, GPU vendors have quietly deployed all of this technology without the FSF complaining at all. Microsoft has enthusiastically participated in making hardware DRM on Windows possible, and user freedoms have suffered as a result, but Playready hardware-based DRM works just fine on hardware that doesn't have a TPM and will continue to do so.

i kinda hate that so much of the discourse around the Free Software Foundation focuses on litigating whatever dumb shit Richard Stallman's done, instead of focusing on the fact that the FSF is demonstrably, empirically incompetent at their fucking core mission. luckily at least this guy gets it.

15 notes · View notes

witchofthesouls · 2 years ago

Note

I'm wondering what his team is going to think when they realize Tarn accidentally discovered his Voice could bring la petite mort as well as garden variety death?

And Nickel going "you just apologized for giving them the best overload ever?!" Tarn is geting the Talk. He thinks his medic's giving him the shovel talk but no it's the how to use your aray in a competent manner talk. He'd have preferred the shovel talk to be honest.

Tesarus would be inwardly dying because there are mechs, even online, that discuss the other uses of Tarn's abilities and their extent. And holy hell, they were right!

Vos would be insufferable. He would lay in wait across a surface like a painted French girl, waggling his unseen eyebrows because the gunformer would love to guide a lost, little lamb into the Pits of sadomasochistic debauchery. "Pain and Pleasure until you can not tell them apart. Sex without pain is food without flavor, life without zeal."

Kaon would be interested as well. He would love to see what kind of noises Tarn could wrench out of a spark from a lovely doll/pet. Bad pets get pain, but good ones are rewarded. Imagine someone trembling and teetering between heaven or hell with a mere word? Kaon would be delighted.

Helex is Helex. He shrugs it off but thinks it's a deep shame his boss is too much a tightwad to join the brawling orgies or do an OnlyVans. Tarn could make a killing on that platform.

Nickel will be pissed because "Tarn, you had one job! One!" And because he accidentally triggered his ability, she checks if her newly acquired nurse didn't have a scrambled brain module, spark palpitations, or any damage to the developing newsparks because by Prion's shadow, she will take his kneecaps and get a device to nullify his ability because of his idiocy. Nickel has plans for the "donor collar."

She also has Enough. As the CMO of Idiot Sandwiches, she will sit her "unreconstructed killing machine" and get all the damn diagrams and holos for a fully comprehensive sex education for this stupid fucker because she lets it go on for far, too long. Tarn tries to fight at first, but then meekly accepts his fate when Nickel gets the full details of the sessions and his reasons and the Prion medic proceeded to bash over his head that 1) porn, no matter the media, has unrealistic standards, and 2) sex and intimacy is different for everyone. Tarn has questions, so now she needs to be a sex therapist because there's no way she trusts the rest of the mechs on this ship to give this one reliable advice.

55 notes · View notes

providenceadworks2 · 4 days ago

Text

Corporate Narratives by Leading Corporate Video Makers in Gurgaon

Corporate video makers in Gurgaon: In today’s digital-first world, storytelling through video has become one of the most effective tools for businesses to connect, influence, and grow. Brands are no longer limited to brochures and presentations. They now have the power to show, not just tell. That’s where corporate video makers in Gurgaon step in helping businesses translate their vision into compelling narratives that drive real impact.

With the rise of content consumption across platforms, the demand for visual storytelling is at an all-time high. Brands are turning to experts to help them shape their messaging in a way that’s not only professional but deeply relatable.

Why Corporate Videos Matter Today

Stronger Audience ConnectionA well-crafted video helps audiences emotionally connect with your brand, whether you’re explaining a product or sharing your company’s journey.

Simplified CommunicationVideos help break down complex business offerings into easy-to-understand visuals, making it easier for customers and clients to engage.

Higher Engagement Across PlatformsVideo content performs better on websites, social media, and email campaigns, leading to more clicks, shares, and inquiries.

What Sets Top Agencies Apart

Strategic StorytellingAgencies like Providence Adworks focus on creating content that aligns with your brand values and business objectives not just flashy visuals.

Complete Production SupportFrom scripting to post-production, everything is managed in-house, ensuring quality and consistency.

Versatility in FormatsWhether it’s a corporate film, brand anthem, investor pitch, or training video, the best agencies know how to tailor the format for the purpose.

How Providence Adworks Makes a Difference

As a top video production agency in Gurgaon, Providence Adworks brings together creative direction, marketing insight, and technical excellence. Their work goes beyond just creating videos, it’s about delivering stories that resonate.

Customized Creative ApproachEvery brand has a unique voice. Providence helps you find it and express it visually in a way that speaks directly to your target audience.

Multi-Platform ReadinessVideos are optimized for every platform from full-length YouTube uploads to bite-sized social media content.

Client-First CollaborationTheir process is rooted in partnership. The team works closely with clients to ensure every piece of content is aligned with their goals.

What Businesses Should Look For

If you’re browsing through the Top 10 video maker agencies in Gurgaon, keep these points in mind:

Proven experience across industries

In-house creative and technical teams

A strong portfolio of corporate films and brand content

The ability to adapt across formats, platforms, and campaign types

Beyond Marketing: The Rise of Internal Video Communication

Video isn’t just for public campaigns anymore. Businesses are now working with video and animation agencies in Gurgaon to create:

Employee onboarding videos

Internal training modules

Team-building and leadership communication content

This shift is helping companies maintain a unified brand tone inside and out.

Final Thoughts

The power of video lies in its ability to turn information into emotion. A single, well-produced corporate film can boost brand perception, drive conversions, and build long-term loyalty. In this fast-moving content landscape, having the right partner matters.

Providence Adworks, a trusted name among corporate video makers in Gurgaon, is helping brands stay ahead by combining storytelling with strategy. If you’re ready to elevate your brand with professional video content, it’s time to think beyond traditional formats and embrace a smarter way to share your story.

Because great stories aren’t told they’re shown. And the right video can make your brand unforgettable.

2 notes · View notes

mygrowthcrafter · 13 days ago

Text

Future-Ready Courses for BTech/BCA Students – Learn. Build. Grow.

My Growth Crafter is your gateway to mastering tech with AI-powered online learning. Built for students in BTech, BCA, and MCA programs with Skill development for students, our platform bridges academic theory with industry-practical knowledge. We don’t just teach—we guide you to become creators, problem solvers, and innovators.

Our platform offers comprehensive courses in Machine Learning, App Development, and MERN Stack Web Development. What sets us apart is our unique integration of Artificial Intelligence that personalizes your educational journey. Every module is tailored based on your progress, strengths, and areas for improvement, ensuring a smoother and smarter way to learn.

Whether you're just starting out or looking to upskill, we provide both theory sessions and hands-on project training. You’ll build real apps, intelligent websites, and working ML models—gaining more than just knowledge. You’ll walk away with a portfolio that proves your abilities.

We also conduct free tech workshops for students, where participants get to experience live learning with expert mentors, industry insights, and access to recorded content. These workshops are open to all students who want to experience AI-driven education without upfront costs.

The world is moving fast, and employers are hiring for future-ready skills. My Growth Crafter helps you stay ahead by offering certifications, live mentorship, and AI-enhanced feedback. You’re never alone—we help you grow with structured support and community collaboration.

As a trusted student learning platform, we’ve helped thousands of learners across India build meaningful careers. From personalized dashboards to weekly projects and quizzes, our ecosystem is built for deep, engaged, and long-term learning.

Our mission is simple: Deliver quality education that adapts to you. We combine expert teaching with cutting-edge technology to help you become the kind of professional today’s companies want to hire.

No matter your background, if you have the passion to learn, we have the tools to teach. With My Growth Crafter, you’ll gain not just technical skills, but confidence, mentorship, and direction.

Get started with AI-powered education designed for you. Choose a course, join a workshop, and begin your journey toward career success—today.

My Growth Crafter: Learn smart. Build better. Grow faster.

#Skill development for students #Online courses in India #Free tech workshops for students #hands-on project training #Career Building for BTech/BCA/MCA

2 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

Text

Subprime gadgets

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THIS SUNDAY in ANAHEIM at WONDERCON: YA Fantasy, Room 207, 10 a.m.; Signing, 11 a.m.; Teaching Writing, 2 p.m., Room 213CD.

The promise of feudal security: "Surrender control over your digital life so that we, the wise, giant corporation, can ensure that you aren't tricked into catastrophic blunders that expose you to harm":

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

The tech giant is a feudal warlord whose platform is a fortress; move into the fortress and the warlord will defend you against the bandits roaming the lawless land beyond its walls.

That's the promise, here's the failure: What happens when the warlord decides to attack you? If a tech giant decides to do something that harms you, the fortress becomes a prison and the thick walls keep you in.

Apple does this all the time: "click this box and we will use our control over our platform to stop Facebook from spying on you" (Ios as fortress). "No matter what box you click, we will spy on you and because we control which apps you can install, we can stop you from blocking our spying" (Ios as prison):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

But it's not just Apple – any corporation that arrogates to itself the right to override your own choices about your technology will eventually yield to temptation, using that veto to help itself at your expense:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Once the corporation puts the gun on the mantelpiece in Act One, they're begging their KPI-obsessed managers to take it down and shoot you in the head with it in anticipation of of their annual Act Three performance review:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

One particularly pernicious form of control is "trusted computing" and its handmaiden, "remote attestation." Broadly, this is when a device is designed to gather information about how it is configured and to send verifiable testaments about that configuration to third parties, even if you want to lie to those people:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/your-computer-should-say-what-you-tell-it-say-1

New HP printers are designed to continuously monitor how you use them – and data-mine the documents you print for marketing data. You have to hand over a credit-card in order to use them, and HP reserves the right to fine you if your printer is unreachable, which would frustrate their ability to spy on you and charge you rent:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/

Under normal circumstances, this technological attack would prompt a defense, like an aftermarket mod that prevents your printer's computer from monitoring you. This is "adversarial interoperability," a once-common technological move:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

An adversarial interoperator seeking to protect HP printer users from HP could gin up fake telemetry to send to HP, so they wouldn't be able to tell that you'd seized the means of computation, triggering fines charged to your credit card.

Enter remote attestation: if HP can create a sealed "trusted platform module" or a (less reliable) "secure enclave" that gathers and cryptographically signs information about which software your printer is running, HP can detect when you have modified it. They can force your printer to rat you out – to spill your secrets to your enemy.

Remote attestation is already a reliable feature of mobile platforms, allowing agencies and corporations whose services you use to make sure that you're perfectly defenseless – not blocking ads or tracking, or doing anything else that shifts power from them to you – before they agree to communicate with your device.

What's more, these "trusted computing" systems aren't just technological impediments to your digital wellbeing – they also carry the force of law. Under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, these snitch-chips are "an effective means of access control" which means that anyone who helps you bypass them faces a $500,000 fine and a five-year prison sentence for a first offense.

Feudal security builds fortresses out of trusted computing and remote attestation and promises to use them to defend you from marauders. Remote attestation lets them determine whether your device has been compromised by someone seeking to harm you – it gives them a reliable testament about your device's configuration even if your device has been poisoned by bandits:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/05/trusting-trust/#thompsons-devil

The fact that you can't override your computer's remote attestations means that you can't be tricked into doing so. That's a part of your computer that belongs to the manufacturer, not you, and it only takes orders from its owner. So long as the benevolent dictator remains benevolent, this is a protective against your own lapses, follies and missteps. But if the corporate warlord turns bandit, this makes you powerless to stop them from devouring you whole.

With that out of the way, let's talk about debt.

Debt is a normal feature of any economy, but today's debt plays a different role from the normal debt that characterized life before wages stagnated and inequality skyrocketed. 40 years ago, neoliberalism – with its assaults on unions and regulations – kicked off a multigenerational process of taking wealth away from working people to make the rich richer.

Have you ever watched a genius pickpocket like Apollo Robbins work? When Robins lifts your wristwatch, he curls his fingers around your wrist, expertly adding pressure to simulate the effect of a watchband, even as he takes away your watch. Then, he gradually releases his grip, so slowly that you don't even notice:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/ppqjya/apollo_robbins_a_master_pickpocket_effortlessly/

For the wealthy to successfully impoverish the rest of us, they had to provide something that made us feel like we were still doing OK, even as they stole our wages, our savings, and our futures. So, even as they shipped our jobs overseas in search of weak environmental laws and weaker labor protection, they shared some of the savings with us, letting us buy more with less. But if your wages keep stagnating, it doesn't matter how cheap a big-screen TV gets, because you're tapped out.

So in tandem with cheap goods from overseas sweatshops, we got easy credit: access to debt. As wages fell, debt rose up to fill the gap. For a while, it's felt OK. Your wages might be falling off, the cost of health care and university might be skyrocketing, but everything was getting cheaper, it was so easy to borrow, and your principal asset – your family home – was going up in value, too.

This period was a "bezzle," John Kenneth Galbraith's name for "The magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." It's the moment after Apollo Robbins has your watch but before you notice it's gone. In that moment, both you and Robbins feel like you have a watch – the world's supply of watch-derived happiness actually goes up for a moment.

There's a natural limit to debt-fueled consumption: as Michael Hudson says, "debts that can't be paid, won't be paid." Once the debtor owes more than they can pay back – or even service – creditors become less willing to advance credit to them. Worse, they start to demand the right to liquidate the debtor's assets. That can trigger some pretty intense political instability, especially when the only substantial asset most debtors own is the roof over their heads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/06/the-end-of-the-road-to-serfdom/

"Debts that can't be paid, won't be paid," but that doesn't stop creditors from trying to get blood from our stones. As more of us became bankrupt, the bankruptcy system was gutted, turned into a punitive measure designed to terrorize people into continuing to pay down their debts long past the point where they can reasonably do so:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/bankruptcy-protects-fake-people-brutalizes-real-ones/

Enter "subprime" – loans advanced to people who stand no meaningful chance of every paying them back. We all remember the subprime housing bubble, in which complex and deceptive mortgages were extended to borrowers on the promise that they could either flip or remortgage their house before the subprime mortgages detonated when their "teaser rates" expired and the price of staying in your home doubled or tripled.

Subprime housing loans were extended on the belief that people would meekly render themselves homeless once the music stopped, forfeiting all the money they'd plowed into their homes because the contract said they had to. For a brief minute there, it looked like there would be a rebellion against mass foreclosure, but then Obama and Timothy Geithner decreed that millions of Americans would have to lose their homes to "foam the runways" for the banks:

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2012/08/how-treasury-secretary-geithner-foamed-the-runways-with-childrens-shattered-lives/

That's one way to run a subprime shop: offer predatory loans to people who can't afford them and then confiscate their assets when they – inevitably – fail to pay their debts off.

But there's another form of subprime, familiar to loan sharks through the ages: lend money at punitive interest rates, such that the borrower can never repay the debt, and then terrorize the borrower into making payments for as long as possible. Do this right and the borrower will pay you several times the value of the loan, and still owe you a bundle. If the borrower ever earns anything, you'll have a claim on it. Think of Americans who borrowed $79,000 to go to university, paid back $190,000 and still owe $236,000:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#strike-debt

This kind of loan-sharking is profitable, but labor-intensive. It requires that the debtor make payments they fundamentally can't afford. The usurer needs to get their straw right down into the very bottom of the borrower's milkshake and suck up every drop. You need to convince the debtor to sell their wedding ring, then dip into their kid's college fund, then steal their father's coin collection, and, then break into cars to steal the stereos. It takes a lot of person-to-person work to keep your sucker sufficiently motivated to do all that.

This is where digital meets subprime. There's $1T worth of subprime car-loans in America. These are pure predation: the lender sells a beater to a mark, offering a low down-payment loan with a low initial interest rate. The borrower makes payments at that rate for a couple of months, but then the rate blows up to more than they can afford.

Trusted computing makes this marginal racket into a serious industry. First, there's the ability of the car to narc you out to the repo man by reporting on its location. Tesla does one better: if you get behind in your payments, your Tesla immobilizes itself and phones home, waits for the repo man to come to the parking lot, then it backs itself out of the spot while honking its horn and flashing its lights:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

That immobilization trick shows how a canny subprime car-lender can combine the two kinds of subprime: they can secure the loan against an asset (the car), but also coerce borrowers into prioritizing repayment over other necessities of life. After your car immobilizes itself, you just might decide to call the dealership and put down your credit card, even if that means not being able to afford groceries or child support or rent.

One thing we can say about digital tools: they're flexible. Any sadistic motivational technique a lender can dream up, a computerized device can execute. The subprime car market relies on a spectrum of coercive tactics: cars that immobilize themselves, sure, but how about cars that turn on their speakers to max and blare a continuous recording telling you that you're a deadbeat and demanding payment?

https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/miss-a-payment-good-luck-moving-that-car/

The more a subprime lender can rely on a gadget to torment you on their behalf, the more loans they can issue. Here, at last, is a form of automation-driven mass unemployment: normally, an economy that has been fully captured by wealthy oligarchs needs squadrons of cruel arm-breakers to convince the plebs to prioritize debt service over survival. The infinitely flexible, tireless digital arm-breakers enabled by trusted computing have deprived all of those skilled torturers of their rightful employment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

The world leader in trusted computing isn't cars, though – it's phones. Long before anyone figured out how to make a car take orders from its manufacturer over the objections of its driver, Apple and Google were inventing "curating computing" whose app stores determined which software you could run and how you could run it.

Back in 2021, Indian subprime lenders hit on the strategy of securing their loans by loading borrowers' phones up with digital arm-breaking software:

https://restofworld.org/2021/loans-that-hijack-your-phone-are-coming-to-india/

The software would gather statistics on your app usage. When you missed a payment, the phone would block you from accessing your most frequently used app. If that didn't motivate you to pay, you'd lose your second-most favorite app, then your third, fourth, etc.

This kind of digital arm-breaking is only possible if your phone is designed to prioritize remote instructions – from the manufacturer and its app makers – over your own. It also only works if the digital arm-breaking company can confirm that you haven't jailbroken your phone, which might allow you to send fake data back saying that your apps have been disabled, while you continue to use those apps. In other words, this kind of digital sadism only works if you've got trusted computing and remote attestation.

Enter "Device Lock Controller," an app that comes pre-installed on some Google Pixel phones. To quote from the app's description: "Device Lock Controller enables device management for credit providers. Your provider can remotely restrict access to your device if you don't make payments":

https://lemmy.world/post/13359866

Google's pitch to Android users is that their "walled garden" is a fortress that keeps people who want to do bad things to you from reaching you. But they're pre-installing software that turns the fortress into a prison that you can't escape if they decide to let someone come after you.

There's a certain kind of economist who looks at these forms of automated, fine-grained punishments and sees nothing but a tool for producing an "efficient market" in debt. For them, the ability to automate arm-breaking results in loans being offered to good, hardworking people who would otherwise be deprived of credit, because lenders will judge that these borrowers can be "incentivized" into continuing payments even to the point of total destitution.

This is classic efficient market hypothesis brain worms, the kind of cognitive dead-end that you arrive at when you conceive of people in purely economic terms, without considering the power relationships between them. It's a dead end you navigate to if you only think about things as they are today – vast numbers of indebted people who command fewer assets and lower wages than at any time since WWII – and treat this as a "natural" state: "how can these poors expect to be offered more debt unless they agree to have their all-important pocket computers booby-trapped?"

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/29/boobytrap/#device-lock-controller

Image: Oatsy (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/oatsy40/21647688003

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

#pluralistic #debt #subprime #armbreakers #mobile #google #android #apps #drm #technological self-determination #efficient market hypothesis brainworms #law and political economy #gadgets #boobytraps #app stores #curated computing #og app #trusted computing

230 notes · View notes