The Chip

Grain-of-rice transponders, first for pets, then pallets, then employees who volunteered. The hand, notes the lore, was always the target.

Implantable RFID is real and voluntary: FDA-approved VeriChip (2004, discontinued), Swedish commuters and biohackers chipping hands for convenience. The involuntary-mandate version has never materialized; the mark-of-commerce reading (no buying or selling without it) predates the technology by nineteen centuries, which explains its persistence. Links brain chips and CBDC as the body-payment convergence file.