Chapter Six
Sara’s hotel room at the Phoenix Marriott had become a digital war room. Three laptops open on the desk, phone propped against a water glass, notebook pages scattered with timestamps and usernames. The air conditioning hummed constantly against the afternoon heat, but she barely noticed.
She’d been tracking the conspiracy ecosystem for six hours straight.
It started with the hashtags from the command center, but Sara knew the real action happened in the spaces between platforms. The places where theories incubated before exploding into mainstream awareness. She opened a private browser window and navigated to a familiar gateway—a seemingly innocent gaming forum where she’d first encountered Groyper recruitment tactics.
The Riley assassination had already consumed three entire discussion threads.
User GamerPatriot1776: Anyone else notice the “shooter” had military-grade equipment but couldn’t hit center mass? Professional job disguised as amateur.
User TruthSeeker88: Check the timestamps on the news reports. CNN had Riley’s death confirmed before Phoenix PD even secured the scene. How does that happen?
Sara screenshotted methodically, building her documentation trail. These weren’t random internet cranks—these were the same usernames she’d tracked spreading Groyper ideology months earlier. The network was intact, just retargeted.
She pulled up TikTok on her phone. Videos with identical talking points were spreading across accounts with no apparent connection. The same phrases, the same “questions,” the same supposed evidence. Sara counted fourteen different creators posting nearly word-for-word identical content about “microphone anomalies” in the shooting footage.
Coordinated. Systematic. Prepackaged.
Her laptop chimed with a Discord notification. Sara had maintained several fake identities in extremist servers for months—a dangerous but necessary part of her research. One of her alternate personas, “RebelMom45,” had been accepted into a private channel called “Truth Seekers Only.”
The conversation was already in progress.
ModeratorAlpha: The Riley operation confirms what we’ve been saying. They will eliminate anyone who threatens the narrative.
DigitalCrusader: My sources say there were three shooters. The “lone gunman” story is covering up a professional team.
GhostOfLiberty: Has anyone seen the enhanced surveillance photos? The facial recognition doesn’t match ANY known agitators. This guy doesn’t exist.
Sara’s skin prickled. She’d seen those “enhanced” photos—AI-generated improvements that added details to blurry security footage. She knew they were fabricated, but watching people build elaborate theories around fake evidence felt like observing a controlled demolition of reality.
She opened a new tab and checked Reddit. The r/RileyTruth subreddit had gained 40,000 members since yesterday. The top post featured a video analysis claiming to identify “crisis actors” in the crowd footage. Sara recognized the methodology—the same frame-by-frame paranoia that had dissected every major news event for the past decade.
But something was different this time. The responses were too polished, too sophisticated. Sara had spent months studying how genuine conspiracy theories evolved organically—stumbling, contradictory, gradually building consensus. This felt managed. Directed.
She pulled up her Groyper research files and started cross-referencing usernames. A pattern emerged. Accounts that had been dormant for months were suddenly hyperactive. Usernames that had focused on gaming and “cultural issues” had pivoted overnight to assassination analysis.
It was as if someone had activated a sleeper network.
Sara’s phone buzzed. Unknown number: Still interested in that coffee? I have information about what you’re seeing online.
She stared at the message. Whoever this was knew she was monitoring the conspiracy ecosystem. That meant they were either watching her, or they were part of it.
She typed back: Who is this?
Three dots appeared, then disappeared. Then: Someone who understands how deep this goes. The Riley theories aren’t organic. Neither were the Groyper campaigns you’ve been tracking.
Sara’s blood chilled. This person knew about her Groyper investigation. That information wasn’t public yet—her story hadn’t even been published.
Another message: Coffee shop on Central Avenue. The Local Press. One hour. Come alone.
Sara looked around her hotel room at the evidence spreading across every surface. Printouts, screenshots, network diagrams showing the connections between gaming forums and extremist ideology. Months of careful work that had somehow made her visible to people she didn’t want to meet.
But the alternative was sitting in this room watching democracy dissolve in real-time while she documented its death.
She closed her laptops and grabbed her keys.
Outside, Phoenix shimmered in the brutal afternoon heat. Sara drove through streets that felt too wide, too exposed. In her rearview mirror, every car looked suspicious. Her phone sat silent in the passenger seat, but she could feel its weight like a tracking device.
The Local Press turned out to be a small coffee shop tucked between a used bookstore and a vintage clothing boutique. Sara parked across the street and studied the windows for ten minutes, looking for anyone who might be waiting for her.
Just students with laptops and a few business people grabbing afternoon caffeine. Normal people living normal lives while the information infrastructure of their democracy collapsed around them.
Sara crossed the street and pushed open the door, stepping into air conditioning and the smell of fresh coffee. She ordered a latte and found a corner table where she could see both the entrance and the back exit.
And waited.