Episode transcript: Stinky Dan was a “hacker” that Squatty knew. He was massive, like a figure drawn by someone who recently learned that the human shape is just a series of different circles, and he hulked behind his mutil-screened desktop. And, he did have a kind of chemical odor that Linda couldn’t quite place.

“Is that why he doesn’t live at the squat?” Linda asked Squatty.

Squatty smiled tightly, “Everyone is on their own path, and no judgement, but you also have to have your own boundaries, you know? But I think he can help you.”

It was the first time Linda had seen Squatty slightly uncomfortable. They had come to Dan’s with Joe, another member of the Squatty crew who seemed to be the actual connection here. Joe and Dan exchanged cryptic hellos that Linda tuned out as peacocking blather. She also thought she saw something change hands during their elaborate high five, but she also, also didn’t care.

Squatty and Linda sat on Dan’s fairly nice couch in his fairly dark living room while Dan and Joe hunched over the computer screen. Linda asked if there were any new Western Toilets but Squatty said he didn’t like to watch them when he couldn’t give them his full attention. Joe kept hurling questions over to Linda as they worked.

It didn’t take too long for results. Once Dan got down to digging, he found that all of the bleats urging Linda to rejoin “The conversation we’re all having” — they all came from a similar cluster of IP addresses. Which suggested that one person had taken control of the various accounts.

“If you look at, say, Sarah’s posting history,” he said of an old neighbor’s daughter’s account, “she stopped posting regularly about 2 years ago. This post here, ‘This place is getting stale. I’ll see you on the Green Mountain!!’”

“That’s that platform for all the weenuses,” Joe interjected.

“That was May 2030,” continued Dan, without acknowledging Joe. “And then she doesn’t post again until a few weeks ago. ‘Have you dabbed, yet?! Don’t miss Beany Beanz,’ with a ‘z.’”

“Beany Beanz is so based,” said Joe.

“Don’t click that link,” warned Dan. “Beany Beanz is malware dressed up as cryptocurrency.”

“That’s what I meant,” said Joe.

“I mean, that sounds bad, but what does this have to do with someone impersonating my dead aunt Rose?” asked Linda.

Dan summed up his findings: “It’s bots. Someone has taken control of these dead … sorry, abandoned accounts to hawk shit to idiots, and someone else hired out these accounts that have a connection to you to target you.”

Dan said that he could set up a blocklist of the IP addresses, so that Linda didn’t have to see them anymore. “Or you could join your friend Sarah on Green Mountain, where most people are now anyway.”

“But, like, can you get them?” Linda asked, feeling both bored and enraged by what was happening to her.

“What do you mean ‘get’ and who do you mean by ‘them’” Dan asked.

“Is it Button? I know it’s Button,” said Linda.

“This IP address is in Moldova,” said Dan, like that meant anything.

“So do your little clicky clacks and find out who it is in Moldova!” she said. They had spoofed her aunt’s account, or whatever, and Aunt Rose had been Linda’s favorite. Desecrating her memory should come with some consequences. “What if I really did think it was her ghost?”

Linda was on the verge of tears, which had made Joe retreat to the kitchen. Dan just shrugged his shoulders. “If you wanted to monetize this solution, we could talk next steps.”

Squatty put his hand gently on Linda’s shoulder. “Maybe let’s get some fresh air before we put any money down on … something we might regret.”

“You came to me, these are the tools I have, man,” said Dan.

Linda was shaken out of her rage by the quickly escalating tension and let Squatty bundle her out of Dan’s apartment. But she filed away “next steps,” just in case.

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