He had been Koen for seven years. The identity transfer had been legal and registered and certified by the civil bureau, with the full intake process, two months of matching, and the standard handover documentation. The previous Koen had been thirty-one when he sold. The man buying his identity had been thirty-four. That man was now forty-one and had been Koen for long enough that the name had stopped feeling like something he was wearing.
The history that came with it was modest: a childhood in a small coastal town, a brief apprenticeship in marine carpentry, a clean civil record, no significant liabilities. The social network attached to the identity had been thin and had not followed him into his new location. He had rebuilt from the name and the basic documented history into something that felt, after seven years, genuinely his. This was supposed to happen. It was the point.
At the dinner, eight people around a long table, a woman he'd been introduced to as an architect said, between courses, that she had grown up in the same coastal town listed in his background documentation. He had prepared for conversations like this. He had read enough about the town to navigate them.
She said: "Did you know the family from the north end? A boy about your age. Quiet. Always at the waterline early in the morning."
He said he thought he remembered them.
She said: "He left when we were in our twenties. Nobody seemed to know where. It was the kind of leaving where people don't ask too many questions." She paused. "I always wondered if he was all right."
He said: "Some people need to go where nobody knows the shape of them."
She nodded and turned to the person on her other side. The conversation moved on.
Walking home he thought about the original Koen at the waterline at five in the morning, looking at the water. He had never wondered much about what the man was leaving when he sold. The market encouraged discretion on both sides. He had the documentation he needed to function as this person, and he had built from there. Seven years was a long time. The person he was now was not the person who had bought the identity, either.
He let himself into the apartment and turned on the light and stood in the doorway for a moment before going in.