Chapter 0 - Song Min-ji

It was her agent, Carrie Cheung, who alerted Min-ji to the vandalism. Banal as it was to need someone to handle the business end of things, Min-ji’s exhibitions were a far cry from when she first started when she traded VR data packets which induced neural ‘hits’ amongst the hyper-aware. Now her online presence required a curator to manage her darkweb site and portfolio, where her installations were the front-door to whomever came shopping. And as a native Hongkonger with all their financial aplomb, Carrie suited that role to a T.

Which is why she was first to spot the digital scrawl. It was utterly unsophisticated, like a child’s crayon rather than a graffiti artist’s work. A bit of bad code like 2D chicken scratchings on one of her works that misspelt two words: TORREDOR, and then Maskerade, with the latter crossed out.

What’s up with that boss? was Carrie's message.

That morning she woke full of a fuzziness that left her a bit cranky. She felt that gnawing pit of hunger that was always there, a remorseless oni within that demanded she consume all of a victim's blood, draining them even through the point of death. She resisted as always, and framed the Hunger as her Muse. But the fuzziness was more of an awareness, like a cobwebs at the edge of her sight. Intriguing.

Min-ji recognizes the words as western, of course, but there it becomes more difficult. Not difficult to understand, but to explain. "Oh, some one messed with my display. I'd leave it but I don't think it adds to this piece really. They should have chosen the one I did on the decrepit pet store. What do those words mean?"

She Googles the terms, and tells Carrie, "These are misspelled. How delicious. Look here, a bullfighter and a costume ball. I have an illiterate Spaniard sending me hate mail. They are no doubt angry I haven't done a show in Macau," she says humorously, holding her hand to her mouth to cover her own laughter.

She's, of course, inwardly annoyed. This was an attempt to out her in some way.

"Redirect the display to an older model, with a note that we're performing upgrades. I'll clean it up and re-upload. Did anyone send us any messages that might be connected?" She wonders what intersection of people would have such incompetence with drawing tools and language models, yet be able to hack her exhibition. She hoped they were of the barely-competent variety, and set about trying to trace their access - always a difficult prospect on the darkweb.

Minji's inferences weren't too far off. If they were worth their salt as hackers, they would've done much more damage than a teensy bit of scrawl. And if they truly knew enough of the masquerade, they wouldn't have made such egregious naming errors. Incompetent and foolish, and yet foolhardy enough to go after what they must have thought were easy pickings in someone like Minji. What she could infer further: this was unlikely to be the work of some Kindred, even if one wanted to pretend they weren't. Some kine, chancing upon her secret?

"I'll roll it back to the Walled City Park featurette, that's the lite version, always a good landing page until we put back up the 3D interactive." Carrie was chirpy with relief, for it sounded like Minji wasn't too bothered by the vandalism. "I'll get to it, you should see the update by tomorrow morning."

And that left Minji a good stretch of time to start her own investigations. She could get Carrie to hire someone to look into the breach, or if she wanted an actual hacker she could probably find one. But no harm in seeing what she could find out herself first.

Min-ji was not, in fact, unbothered. Inside she was sweating, for this likely meant someone had an inkling of the truth of her existence. Should I just gaslight my fans, do up as gothy vamp wannabe? Toilet not skibidi. Tots sus. She smiled at the westerner speak she was trying to learn, knowing it was nonsensical. Still, it was kind of fun.

Carrie was a treasure, someone who freed her from the terrible distraction of maintenance and administration. She just didn't do that stuff, at least not well, and it took some mentorship for her to reach out to find an assistant.

Her fans could be a good place for her to start digging around. What she couldn’t find by herself her loyal hivemind could surprise her with related information. She’d have to scroll through a whole bunch of stuff to get past the chaff, that would be the main headache. Carrie had not received any messages that followed up with the threat, whether to embarrass, intimidate, or worse, blackmail. Or perhaps just not yet, perhaps they were waiting for her social feeds to blow up first once her followers saw the vandalism. That said, if her fellow Kindred saw those words, they might think Min-ji compromised, and with that would come a host of problems if the masquerade were exposed. While Hong Kong had endured a spell of lawlessness that came from the lack of a Prince, that did not mean that Min-ji could get away with a delicate situation as this. Perhaps it was necessary to check in with someone wiser than her in these matters. Or perhaps she had to watch her back; they all had enemies in the shadows.

She thinks through the options.

Maybe access came from an outsider, and perhaps they approached her loyalist of followers. These ones will also notice the front page was changed, maybe even that it was defaced in the first place.

She really hopes it isn't Chan Ka Hei, her Tremere stalker. He'd never forgiven her for the reaction he had to one of her earlier installations, where he appeared to lose a precious memory, or perhaps experienced a previously lost memory, it wasn't clear to her which from the man's insensible ramblings. She'd made a point of avoiding him, but Elysium was open ground for them both.

She decides to first visit her Herd and gather information, and possibly a little blood too.