Of course the woman who stole hospital supplies for her underground clinic thought a YouTube tutorial made her Edward Snowden.
“We need this.” Quiet now. “I dug through every public database already. Nothing. If this chip came from some classified contract or private developer, the only people who’llrecognize it are the ones who built it or worked near it. And where do they hang out? Places like this. Hiding in plain sight.”
My jaw tightened.
She was right. I hated that she was right.
There was no friendly neighborhood neurosurgeon we could call for a house visit. No legal path that didn’t end with handcuffs and an autopsy. This was the least bad option in a stack of terrible ones.
I put my hand on her covered leg and squeezed her thigh once in reluctant agreement.
She relaxed a fraction. “Okay. Good. Because the post has... traction.”
She scrolled down.
Lines of text filled the page under her username, which now read “CN_Benign_Anom.” Cute. Subtle.
Replies stacked below. Eight of them. A little timer in the corner ticked new seconds, the view count climbing.
“The internet never sleeps. Bless it and damn it.”
She cleared her throat and read.
Spinal chip at C7? Unusual placement. Most neuromodulation targets thoracic or lumbar dorsal columns. Baseline function?
She glanced at me.
I tracked the lines, reading faster than she spoke.
Another user.
Image quality is barely adequate. Hardware appears custom-fabricated. No standard STN markings. You sure this isn’t part of a closed trial? Where did you obtain these scans? Hardware layout suggests wireless capability, but signal handling is unclear.
Something twisted in my gut.
Someone noticed the signal potential from a grainy picture. Good. Bad.
Clare typed a reply, narrating under her breath.
Patient declined to answer questions about the original program. Records incomplete. Working in a community setting, limited access to prior documentation. Need to understand hardware risks before intervening on symptoms.
She hit send.
More responses rolled in as she refreshed.
Cervical placement that low risks autonomic headaches if parameters wrong. Patient experiencing dysautonomia? Tachycardia, orthostatic intolerance, syncope?Clare snorted. “Join the club.”
I felt that one like a delayed punch.
Another user chimed in.
Not standard Medtronic, Boston, Abbott, or Nevro. I don’t recognize the PCB footprint. Could be military-adjacent. DoD contracts sometimes produce exotic prototypes. Any history of service or classified work?
Clare’s fingers hovered.
She turned to me.
“You were special forces or some alphabet soup, weren’t you.” Not a question. “Your body screams ‘government science project.’”
