I Took a “Memory Study” on Campus, and the Next Day I Could Speak Perfect French Even Though I’d Never Learned It

She did not interrupt once, which was somehow more reassuring than sympathy.

When I finished, she was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “This could involve criminal violations well beyond research ethics.”

She explained that conducting unauthorized experiments that caused permanent neurological changes could potentially be treated as assault or battery. The texts could amount to harassment. The money and threats might even support an extortion angle.

Then she said something that nearly made me cry.

She would represent me for free.

Ana said she cared deeply about protecting people from corporate exploitation, especially students who were often targeted because they had fewer resources to fight back. For the first time since this started, I felt like someone not only believed me, but was prepared to stand next to me.

She said her first priority was stopping further contact and preventing these people from doing this to anyone else. She asked me to forward every text, email, statement, screenshot, and document I had, and she told me not to reply to any more unknown messages.

The next morning, Ana texted asking me to come to her office downtown. It was above a coffee shop, small and crowded with case files and stacks of law books. She had already printed everything I sent and organized it into folders with colored tabs.

While we were reviewing the timeline, my phone buzzed with another unknown-number text.

I showed it to her.

The message offered phase 2 again, this time with “enhanced cognitive benefits” and five thousand dollars in compensation. It said location details would follow soon.

Ana’s face hardened as she read it. She told me to forward it to her immediately and said the shift in tone was revealing. They had moved from threatening me to offering more money, which suggested either desperation or fear.

She said we needed to file a police report.

Even though campus security was already involved, Ana wanted a formal law-enforcement record documenting the threats and harassment. She took me to the police station six blocks away and coached me on what details mattered most.

The detective who met us looked younger than I expected. He listened while I went through the story again, asked specific questions about the texts, and took screenshots directly from my phone. Ana gave him copies of the consent form, the bank records, the university investigation report, everything.

He said he would start looking into Linguistic Solutions International and any connection it had to the older BL Research company. He warned us that shell corporations were designed to hide accountability and that tracing the actual people behind them could take weeks or months.

Walking out of the station, I felt both relieved and frustrated. Someone was finally treating this like a real case, but real cases were slow.

I tried to return to normal life. It didn’t go well.

A few days later in Spanish class, the professor asked me a question about verb conjugation. I knew the answer, opened my mouth, and answered in French instead. The entire class laughed, and the professor looked confused before asking me to repeat myself in Spanish.

I managed to correct it, but I could feel the heat in my face the entire rest of the class. Afterward I sat in my car for almost an hour, shaken by how out of control I felt. It wasn’t just that I knew French now. It was leaking into places it didn’t belong.

Clare found me there and suggested I talk to a student reporter she knew. She said maybe public pressure would force the university and the companies to respond faster.

That evening I met Sid Forest at a coffee shop near campus. He already had his notebook open before I sat down. Sid told me he had heard vague rumors about unauthorized studies in campus buildings before, but nothing concrete enough to publish.

I gave him the whole story, and he started asking questions about names, dates, corporate filings, and payment sources. Then he opened his laptop and showed me how to search corporate registration databases.

Together, we found Linguistic Solutions International. It had been registered only three months earlier. It had a P.O. box, no real website, no listed employees, and no visible operating history.

Sid pointed to the screen and said this was a huge red flag. Legitimate research organizations had staff, contact information, published history, some sort of institutional footprint. This company had almost none.

We kept digging and traced the registration back to a law firm that specialized in creating shell corporations for research-related organizations. Their own website advertised services designed to minimize liability exposure.

Sid explained that this was how companies insulated themselves when they thought their work might create lawsuits. They set up shells with no real assets, so even if someone won in court, collecting money would be difficult or impossible.

While we were still talking, I got an email from Simona. She had found the falsified work order used to get access to the psychology building. It claimed the researchers were there to test acoustic equipment for the university, but the signature belonged to someone who didn’t work in facilities management. It was forged.

She said she was forwarding everything to university police and recommending charges for fraud and trespassing.

I showed Sid the message, and he immediately asked if he could quote it in an article. I told him to check with Simona first, but yes, I wanted the story out. I wanted other students to know this kind of thing could happen.

Two days later, Ana told me she had drafted a formal complaint to the state attorney general’s office.

She walked me through every section on the phone. It named BL Research, Linguistic Solutions International, and the law firm behind the shell structure. It outlined the unauthorized experimentation, the fraudulent campus access, the threatening texts, and the broader pattern of illegal human experimentation.

She filed it electronically that afternoon and forwarded me the confirmation with the case number and assigned investigator.

Knowing the attorney general’s office now had a formal record of everything made me feel slightly steadier. At least the case was moving beyond campus offices and individual complaints.

That night, while I was making dinner, another unknown number texted me. This one invited me to a “consultation” about phase 2 at a downtown hotel conference room the following Friday at seven. It promised enhanced memory, faster processing speed, and another five thousand dollars.

I immediately sent it to Ana. She called within five minutes and told me not to respond at all. Then she said she was forwarding it to the detective, because at this point the invitation could arguably count as witness tampering.

I saved it as evidence and tried not to throw up.

When Clare came home and I showed her the message, I expected outrage. Instead, she sat at the kitchen table and asked quietly whether I had considered just taking the money and walking away.

I stared at her, convinced I had misheard.

She said she was scared for me. She said I was becoming consumed by the investigation and that these people clearly had money, lawyers, and the willingness to threaten me. She thought maybe the safest option was to stop pushing.

I told her I couldn’t do that, not when they were still trying to recruit students.

Then we were suddenly in a full fight.

She said I was prioritizing strangers over our relationship and over my own health. I said she had no idea what it felt like to have someone change your brain without consent. She snapped that maybe I was using the French as an excuse to avoid dealing with normal stress. By then both of us were saying things we didn’t fully mean.

She grabbed her bag and left to stay with a friend.

The silence after the door slammed was awful.

Three hours later, she texted and asked if we could talk. I called immediately. Clare apologized for suggesting I should take the money. She said she was terrified that if I kept pressing, these people might escalate. I told her I understood that, but I couldn’t live with myself if I let it go and they did this to more students.

By the end of the call, we were calmer. She said she would support me, but asked me to promise I wouldn’t take stupid risks like meeting anyone alone. She came home that night, and we ordered takeout and watched TV without talking about the case.