Under Her Black Dress

The truth isn’t hidden. It’s encrypted.

Soup. That was the name of the notorious hacktivist. She mentioned she drank soup whilst hacking large corporations out of their boxers. So comfortable, in her element, a multitasker.

Soup took down fucking corporate titans alone. She was just a nerdy eighteen year old in her dorm room, not wearing panties, using her laptop and the student WiFi. It was easy — but you needed her brains.

That was six years ago. Soup had faded from mainstream media. Nobody was buying “They call me Soup because I serve it hot” t-shirts.

Soup had a new identity now. It was the one she was born with — Veronica Miles, aged 24, works at Beau’s Car Manufacturing Limited in the IT department. She pretended to know just enough to get by. Sitting in that sweet spot where you reset company passwords and wrote up the FAQs. Actually, scratch that. That sounds fucking lame.

She knew it was lame. Yet she had worked there for two years.

She took care of herself. She wasn’t vain. She was tall — 5’8”. Long legs. Thin. A reasonable perky chest. Pale white skin — almost vampiric. Long black hair with a fringe, and the most darn evil pink irises. They glinted in the low light. Suspicious. Weary. Powerful.

She wore a lot of baggy black cardigans and striped t-shirts. Black jeans. Doc Martins.

She had a boyfriend. Alex. He was a nice guy. Video game designer. He was the only thing that made this boring life worth it.