Identity theft never ceased to be a problem. With advances in technology, it actually got worse. Criminals were no longer interested in taking your identity for credit purposes, running up a bill and leaving the victim to pay for it was simply a first stage, an opening act of this new and more sinister crime. In the modern era, people with a surplus of money and an absence of morals could find a skilled thief to steal them a new life.
A thief would start by amassing information on the victim, likes, dislikes, habits... everything a person would need to know to live their life. Personal information, their job, friends, access to their social media networks. All of it. But, this reconnaissance was just the beginning. For the second step, the victim would need to be kidnapped.
Medical science had advanced far enough to allow highly skilled automated surgical systems to replicate one individual completely. Surgery really could make you look younger, taller, shorter, completely change your gender. You name it, the sky was the limit, or close enough to it. Retinal printing had become a universal form of identification because surgery couldn't alter retinal prints, even if it could color shift an iris. But to identity thieves, this wasn't a barrier, as surgery was more than sufficient to the task of removing a set of 'donor' eyes, and grafting them onto someone else.
For an astronomical fee, an identity thief would steal a life, surgically alter their client to be able to assume that identity, and kidnap the person to whom that identity belonged, making them disappear. For the right fee, a client could pick the type of life they wanted, could even pick the specific person who's life they wanted.... For people with less money to pay, a thief would often target 'easy victims', people with few connections, people who wouldn't be missed. For the desperate client, becoming a nobody was better than being who they were.
The victim suffered any number of fates once their identity was stolen. Some were killed out of hand, leaving no lose ends. Others were 're-purposed,' given lives that were of value to the thief, or to the people who employed the thief. A lucky few managed to escape, but proving yourself a victim was exceptionally difficult, especially if the thief was good at their job.
So who shall our story follow?
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