I'm toying with the USB drive in my hand. Money is low, morale is lower and there's not much I can do about it. My notes are gone, in the trash. I threw those away. The idea for the software or whatever isn't getting me anywhere. I shouldn't be surprised, though. Even worse, there's this USB drive I have which is mixed up with my stuff and someone else's. They mistook it for their own at some point. Honestly my guess is that it's Moore's stuff, but I don't have the heart to make files go away. Deleting another person's stuff is something I just don't do and I won't do, ever.

If there were a way to make these things more personal and secure, I'd do it. Like a lock or something. Floppy drives used to have these locks, that way no one could get into your stuff. They weren't exactly perfect, though. If you flipped the little tab it would put it back into write mode, making the tab almost pointless. I could only imagine that today, there should be something better with the tech we have. Biometric finger prints would work well. That's about as personalized as you can be, if we're being honest.

Next to an eye scanner or something. A fingerprint reader is probably cheaper, though.

I sigh, glaring at the USB drive and its 16 gigabyte magnificence, its plastic glory.

"That's a good idea," I mutter to myself.

Wait, that's it! That's what is even better than the ideas I've come up with before! And it's simple, too! So simple it's dumb... it's stupid! I can feel the heat from imaginary light above my head, as if I've had my eureka moment. I open my laptop and go to a place to buy components like the fingerprint reader, the little biometric ones. They're not so horribly expensive I can't afford them, but they're not cheap enough to mass produce. That's okay, though. I only need one to prove my idea.

My credit card is out and I'm ordering a few of them. The page does the rest and it's on my way, shipping to me in my crappy apartment. Two day shipping is pricey but I really need this fast. It's going to pay off and well. Big time. I'm writing software to encrypt and read the fingerprint, which isn't easy. In the world of programs and code, sometimes things can be open source. I take advantage of that, finding a few open source bits of data and software code that will do the job I need it to do.

Then fingerprint readers are sitting in my mail. The next couple days are easy. I take these things up to my apartment, sort them out and start putting stuff together, the basics of them. I had some bumps in the road at first, hiccups. All hiccups go away eventually, well, unless you've got a disease where hiccups are just permanent. That would be something to worry about, if it were me with these hiccups forever. I almost thought that things would be like that. I'd be metaphorically belching my way through this whole dream of mine and things would just never smooth over. Well, in the sense that I can't get my stuff orderly.

I tend to be wrong, though, which means that my suspicion of these hiccups meant things would go right.

On the hardware level, they did. The first one I put together works as if magic, not able to mount unless I have my forefinger just pressed on the reader. My little bit of software does its part on keeping data encrypted until I unlock it. Encryption and mounting are designed to go hand in hand. I extract it and look at the messy glue and bad soldering. The next one, I spend more time on. I make it perfect and even go to a shop to machine a case for it. It is then that I come to realize I never came up with a name.

I here anyway, I should probably put something on the exterior chassis that's catchy and smart.

Fuck it, I'll go on a whim here. Cryptid sounds good, I'll stick with that.

I'm in my jeep next, on the way back home, taking a picture of my final USB Cryptid with a not-so-wonderful cellphone. I share it everywhere I can think of and write a tiny description of the thing. Discarding the phone, I think nothing of my posts.

But when I get home, I can see the likes and questions are coming nonstop.

Someone says they would buy it right now, another says they'd like five, and then someone else says they want to do a bulk order. It's getting crazy. I had to take a second to turn my phone off and just compose myself. The response is what I was not expecting. Cryptid was on the fly. The name itself is actually getting praise, too. I can't believe this. I just need to think, clearly, about what to do next.

And that, I tell myself, is to finish it.

I have what I consider likely to be the most popular product I've ever made. There's only one thing to do now: manufacture and grow. In my apartment, I send email to a couple different companies. Unexpectedly, they agree that putting Cryptid together and splitting profits is fine. I get to hold onto the rights, the data and everything as long as I just give them a cut of the return and revenue. The income as someone referred to it as. Praise pours into my inbox.

I even had to buy a server just so I can keep record of the thing.

Moore somehow finds a moment to call me, sending congratulations via an app. "This was awesome! See, I knew you could do it. The whole time, I did!"

I don't really believe him.

Speed up time, fast forward and three weeks later I have enough money to just rent my apartment for a whole year in advance. Hundreds and more of these have been shipped out. Cryptid is taking off and I'm not even in the digital press yet, really. Soon, but not yet.