
Cookie for Your
Thoughts!
​
An encrypted past, an unexpected present,
and a lunchbox full of memories.
A Short Story by
Nathan Gregory
​​​​​​
Alex settled into his usual spot at The Byte & Brew Cyber Cafe and connected his laptop to the B&B’s locally famous Wi-Fi. Fastest in the known universe, or so the sign over the bar claimed. Fast? Sure. But security? Not so much. He flicked on his quantum-proof VPN—his own creation, of course. Trust isn’t in his vocabulary—especially not for firewalls or VPNs he didn’t set up himself. He glanced at the router hanging from the ceiling. Cracking its password had been easy; tweaking the firewall with his own secret sauce even easier.
Amateurs, he thought, tugging at the frayed cuff of his hoodie and adjusting his tinted screen filter. He managed the firewall in secret—for his own protection, of course. He had fresh updates to install today—the Russian Sandworm (APT 44) had been busy lately.
His VPN icon turned green in the same heartbeat as his signature Arabian Mocha-Java parked itself beside his laptop. He blinked, glancing up to see the pretty dark-haired barista had once again brought him his regular, unasked. He smiled at her while struggling to remember her name—until he spotted her name tag.
“Hey, uh… Babs. Th-Thanks.” He cleared his throat. “How’s your day?” He stuttered in his nervousness, unsure of what to say next.
Babs grinned, and he made a mental note to leave an extra tip today. But she offered no small talk—just that same mischievous Cheshire grin before disappearing behind the bar.
This wasn’t the first time she had refused to engage. In fact, he realized she rarely spoke beyond a simple “hi” or “what’ll you have?” Babs was an enigma—always smiling, rarely speaking. Maybe she was just as socially awkward as he was.
With a shrug, he launched a VM, updated the firewall, and logged off. He used disposable, hardened VMs for all interactions outside his personal secure domain.
Alex sipped his coffee and noticed the familiar Phantom wallet icon blinking in his browser toolbar. The very thought of browser extensions—attack surfaces wrapped in shiny interfaces—made his skin crawl.
But knowledge was power, and Phantom was a necessary evil. Installed on a hardened virtual machine, its only purpose was observation, nothing more. No private keys, no secrets—just enough to let him peek into the darker corners of the blockchain without exposing himself.
The blinking icon popped up a notification.
“New asset detected: Claim your airdrop?”
His brow furrowed. He hadn’t touched Phantom in weeks. Hell, he barely used it—just to monitor phishing attempts and see how far the rabbit hole went. The wallet was empty. Who would send him anything? More importantly—why? Airdrops didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Not without someone knowing too much about him.
Rather than accept the invitation, he shut down the VM and wiped it clean. If it was an infection, it ended here. Then, spinning up a fresh instance of the VM, he opened the wallet. The airdrop offer was still there, persistent and unsettling.
So, not an infection. Someone really sent him an airdrop!
He opened the wallet and accepted the airdrop. The airdropped NFT loaded, revealing a simple doodle—two stick figures sharing a ridiculous-looking spaghetti lunch and a purple lunchbox. His stomach twisted. “Noodle.”
A warmth, or maybe fear, crept into his chest. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, his coffee cup trembling. Fourth grade. SpaghettiOs and deep black Betty Page bangs. No way. It couldn’t be… The faint smell of canned spaghetti seemed to drift through his mind.
Alex stared, mouth open, pulse ticking up. No signature, no sender. Just that haunting shade of purple from his childhood lunch breaks. Had to be a coincidence. Right?
The metadata included a name—"Noodle." Her fourth-grade nickname for him, from the noodles he ate every day for lunch. No one knew that name. No one except... Vika!
A memory surfaced—Vika giggling across the cafeteria table, SpaghettiOs spilling onto her tray. He swallowed.
He stood, eyes locking onto Babs. She met his gaze, wiping down the counter with deliberate ease, as if she’d been waiting for this moment. She smirked. “Took you long enough, Noodle.”
“Yeah, well... you still owe me a cookie.”
Babs grinned. “And you still owe me that pudding cup.”
