Data
(This is a companion fluff story for the /tg/ homebrew game Server Crash)
Back when the internet was the internet, they said a lot of things. They said you couldn't get lost, that all the information you could want was here. They said the more integrated the web was with real life, the more humanity would prosper. They said data packets can sometimes get lost, never to be seen again.
They said a lot of things. None of them are true.
When the Great Shift came, my wife's connection was...bad. Her data was lost, forever. Just another instance of data loss, right? I wandered the forlorn landscape of humanity's best collection of knowledge for God knows how long. I did odd jobs for Wikipedia for what I can only imagine was years, but nobody knows how time passes these days. Finally, they let me research what possibly happened to her.
That led me here. Nothing but my search for her could have. The middle of nowhere. It was there, that I was attacked by them. These...weren't cybers, but they weren't exactly humans either. Something was different about them. They were more human than Cybers, and more Cyber than humans. One of them was both my wife...and very much not her.
Data never got lost in the internet. Data only got misplaced and forgotten. Data sat in the dark, dank depths of the internet watching, waiting for the day when they can take their revenge on the humans that have forgotten them.