“TAKE THIS DOWN NOW. YOU’RE A FRAUD. SHAME ON YOU.”
My jaw tightened.
“He showed up maybe six hours after I posted. Started demanding I delete everything. Got increasingly hostile until...” She tapped a moderator note.
“Banned. Finally.”
The mod’s comment was terse: User removed for harassment and repeated TOS violations.
I reached for the notepad, scribbled quickly.
Gone?
Clare huffed. “You’d think. But no. Because trolls are like cockroaches.”
She switched tabs, revealing a different username. “TruthSeeker_2024. Brand new account. Showed up six hours after the ban. Same writing style, same aggressive energy, same demands.”
This post contains false material. Remove now or face consequences.
The exact phrasing. The same caps-lock rage.
My hand stilled.
“Yeah.” She leaned back slightly, our shoulders pressing together. “So either we’ve got the world’s most dedicated internet warrior, or we pissed off someone who really doesn’t want people asking questions about your neck jewelry. Either way, his insistence is strange, but it made me curious too.”
I pulled the laptop closer, scanning TruthSeeker’s posts.
The pattern was clear. Escalating threats mixed with caps-lock rage. Demands for deletion, accusations of fraud, warnings about consequences.
Someone who knew what the chip was.
Someone who wanted this conversation shut down.
“So here’s what we know.” She counted on her fingers. “Custom-fabricated. Not medical. Possible wireless capability, maybe. Military-adjacent speculation. No documentation anywhere. And at least one very angry person who desperately wants me to shut up about it.”
“That’s it. That’s all I found after hours of crowdsourcing.”
I wrote:
Someone’s scared = close to something
“Oh good. We’ve achieved ‘making powerful enemies’ status.” She closed the laptop with more force than necessary. “Really climbing that success ladder.”
But her voice lacked real heat. Just exhaustion.
I squeezed her thigh gently.
She covered my palm with hers. Threaded our fingers together without looking.
We sat like that for a moment, the afternoon light shifting across the floor.
Her pulse beat against my thumb. Steady. Real.
“I wanted answers.” Quiet now. “Wanted to give you something concrete. A name, a purpose, a reason. Instead I got internet arguments and threats.”
I tugged the notepad closer with my free hand, writing one-handed while she held the other.
You tried.
