A new image appeared, showing a conversation between me and Daniel, my former coworker. The messages had been arranged to suggest that we had been secretly meeting for months.
They were convincing enough to fool someone who didn’t know the context.
But I knew the truth.
The conversation had been assembled from real messages, altered timestamps, and sentences taken from different discussions. Whoever had created it had understood that the most effective lie was not one built entirely from fiction. It was one that borrowed enough truth to make the falsehood difficult to recognize.
“Turn it off,” Margaret ordered.
A technician hurried toward the equipment table, but the screen changed once more before he could disconnect it.
This time, a message appeared in large letters.
ASK OLIVIA WHY SHE NEVER TOLD YOU ABOUT DANIEL.
I felt two hundred pairs of eyes turn toward me.
For a moment, the old instinct returned: explain everything, apologize for the discomfort, reassure everyone that nothing was wrong.
