Post 204: Finding Forum Y

Damn this thing, it’s so slow, I lamented, cursing the computer and slapping my spindly kitchen table in frustration as the video continued loading…loading…loading. A drink of Diet Coke - blech, this tastes terrible - and I tried to relax. I had grabbed this old laptop from downstairs, the office storage room, figured it would be better than my phone to surf into this stuff. My phone had been doing some wonky things, lately, anyway. And no one would miss this computer; it was Saturday, and the only activity downstairs should be in the new wing. Construction continued, day-in and day-out, even on weekends.

The stuff to which I’d been lead was suddenly making me nervous. It had all started with another weird, anonymous email in my inbox, similar to the one earlier this week. Instead of bringing me to a bizarre virology article, this one had some arcane-looking link which wanted me to start some authentication, de-encryption process. Why would I do this? It was probably - almost certainly - garbage. Or worse, some kind of trap, like phishing or some ransomware thing. But something about it caught me, made me feel like I needed to see whatever it was trying to show me.

This is weird, I’d thought, when finally I’d made it - after suspiciously having to create an account with complex credentials I’d been sent - to some old-timey looking chat forum. This didn’t seem like the regular internet. Was this “the dark web”? Something else? Anyway, the site was pretty much all text, like something from twenty years ago. It was a bulletin-board looking thing of some obscurely clandestine fringe community, obviously masquerading as a video game group, and just the subject lines made me scoff and nearly close down the laptop: “THE NEW WORLD ORDER IS COMING”, “Gathring supplies- sources here”, “Fund the resistence ”. 

There were pages upon pages of what looked to be paranoid rants, conspiracy theories and outlandish prophecies, all spouted by anonymous, confused voices who used too many caps and couldn’t spell. I barely read anything, just skimming through titles, but it all seemed to be focused on some upcoming, disastrous event, some sea-change in society, maybe some fantasy of a war between the sexes. Disenfranchised men, it appeared, lonely losers and neurotic paranoia. Some of the more salacious subject lines almost caught my attention - “bimbo armies”, “tits=weapons”, “mommykink virus” - but the horrible spelling, childlike grammar and awkward interface kept me from wanting to waste my time. What did grab my eye, though, was a subject line of a post by someone calling themselves “ANDRSON”:

RE: EVOLUTION PHARMACEUTICALS - EXPOSING THEM!!

Yep, that gave me pause. Weird, but then what was in the message was even weirder…

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BROTHERS!!

MY SISTER CONTINUES TO CHANGE. STUDY SUBJECT FOR OTC “HEALTH SUPPLEMENT” (HA!!) AT EVOLUTION PHARMACEUTICALS WHICH IS JUST ONE ARM OF OUR BIGGER PLAYER!! IVE FOUND EVIDENCE! THEY MEAN TO SPREAD IT MORE BROADLY!! PART OF THEIR PLAN TO TAKE US OVER!! ARE THEY GOING TO KILL US - OR WORSE?!? THE TESTING IS ONGOING - THEY ARE IN THE FINAL STAGES OF APPROVAL FROM THE FDA!! - AND WE MUST EXPOSE THEM BEFORE IT IS RELEASED INTO THE PUBLIC!!

ANDERSON

<attachment: 5jjjh85mja.mov>

ATTACHED IS FROM 6 MONTHS AGO, ACQUIRED AT GREAT RISK TO MYSELF!! MORE RECENT IMAGES INCOMING!!

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Attached was a video clip. This guy’s sister??  And what is this “Aspiring to become the most female woman alive”? At the time it looked to me like just a weird selfie. She was a subject at Evolution, for real? Maybe in one of their internal studies? The same Evolution Pharmaceuticals, the company coming to set up shop, conduct their study in my practice, and at the same time helping to fund the construction of the new wings in the building? So bizarre, but nonetheless it gave me pause. This obsessive, hysterical group obviously had Evolution playing a part in some larger conspiracy. Just the rantings of some gynophobic losers, I was sure, but still it settled strangely in my gut.

Wait...what’s that noise downstairs? Is someone in the office..?

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thank you to the ever-generous Joyce Julep for letting me hijack her "Anderson" character, and to Antares for his help and advice on the Forum Y image :)