After creation, he reviewed it hundreds, perhaps thousands of times in total. Everything was edited to be completely and utterly perfect, by the frame.
And then he copied it.
After creating a few dozen copies on various styles of hard drives, he had meticulously burned out most of the data from all but one.
That one he kept for himself. And the others he left.
Every time he did a job, he would leave one next to the item when he returned it.
The media had caught wind of it soon enough. And he had been right to give them a solvable puzzle. Even the mainstream broadcasters had begun to mention the alleged "Shadow Keeper" in some of their less viewed broadcasts. As more and more people around the city had been stolen from and then had the stolen goods returned, those smaller broadcasts had begun to build up views, and soon the story had begun to take over even the largest stations in the city.
In what had been called a citywide manhunt, everyone searched for the next clue, and everyone tried to piece the clues together. However, knowing the exact dates of when each had been dropped was of the utmost importance in solving the riddle, and so many of the victims had refused to share that information, believing they could gain fame and riches from it when the media became desperate later on. And although the others scoffed, that was exactly what had happened.
Once every one of the mostly dessicated files was dropped, the media had become convinced that to solve the mystery, they needed every single piece of information, which they did in this case, so the larger companies got into a bidding war over those who had kept the date silent for this long. At first there had been many of them, but as more and more of them fell and then once more became the victims of the ever-consuning capitalist economy, falling back into obscurity, only one remained.
People had tried to make copies and counterfeits, of course. That would always happen. Some of them were even believed for a while. But in the end, none of them could keep up with the rest of the narrative, and almost no one was clever enough to maintain the exact same style. Those that were had used some of the best programs to do it, but unfortunately, each program left its mark. Naturally, the creators wanted their tool to be known, so most platforms would show a specific tell, though some of them would take you looking frame-by-frame to find.
Eventually, only one had been left.
Her last name was Lansa. Though facing bids of millions of credits, as well as threats and the combined force of the entire media attempting to find her dirty secrets, she had held on.
There were too many people in the city to interview one by one. But that didn't stop some small-time broadcasters from trying, which again caused an uproar and left the large stations scrambling. Most of them eventually went back to using actual stories, with the occasional feature, as it became clear that the larger you were, the less you could do about the tiny companies taking control of that particular story.
But eventually, they had gotten to Luke.
He had only ever said one thing.
"I know the Shadow Keeper's secret."
That one line had frustrated them at the same time as it had revived the story. The larger companies had swooped in, offering him nearly countless credits to disclose it. But he had remained stoic.
"I know the Shadow Keeper's secret."
For Luke, it had actually been somewhat cathartic to say that. Because despite being the Shadow Keeper, he had never been sure that he really did know all of the Shadow Keeper's secrets.
If he could convince so much of the media with no proof, then he could certainly convince himself.
Right?
The reason that they had even believed him in the first place was because everyone else who had claimed to know the Shadow Keeper, or to know something about him, had all been so eager to share.
Naturally they had been. After all, how were you meant to get your five minutes of fame and potential cash reward if you didn't have any information to back up your claim?
Well, Luke actually did have something.
A relic.
The original drive.
To him, it had taken on a different presence. Less an item, and more an ideal.
This was the Shadow Keeper. Something that Luke wanted to be. Something that he needed to be. After all, if he wasn't, then what was he?