Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77051 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
I pull the mug toward me like it’s a shield. “You never give me the first cup,” I say, hating how breathy it comes out.
He shrugs, slow and smug. “Don’t read into it.”
Oh, I am definitely reading into it.
And now I’m not sure if I want to slap him or kiss him—or maybe both, depending on the order.
“You’re weird today,” I say.
He smiles wider. “You’re welcome.”
I head back to my desk feeling… lighter. Which is suspicious. Any moment now the universe is going to slap me for even thinking I can breathe.
I settle into my chair, open my laptop, and scan my emails.
Ninety-three unread.
Cool. Normal. Everything is burning and no one is doing anything about it.
Then Slack pings.
#general
@everyone anyone else seeing that River Quinn interview?
My stomach drops.
I click. I shouldn’t click.
But I do.
A video loads. It’s me—or it looks like me. I’m sitting in the NovaPlay press room, wearing the same blue blouse I wore to the launch panel last quarter. Same posture. Same voice.
Except the voice isn’t mine.
“I mean… yeah, sometimes you just have to sleep with the right people to get ahead.”
Laughter from the fake audience. My face smiling. Like it’s true.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no.”
There’s a second clip, edited in like a highlight reel:
“I knew Mason would help me get the job. He owed me, after all.”
It’s not real. It’s not me. But it looks real.
Slack explodes.
@devdad86: wait wtf??
@pixeldrop: is this a joke?
@midnightmod: who posted this??
I lurch out of my chair. Gage is already standing, eyes on me. Concern etched between his eyebrows.
“River—”
I bolt.
My hands shake so hard I can’t get my badge to scan at the side door. I punch it once, then shove the bar and push out into the alley, chest heaving. I need out. I will not let them see me cry.
The air slaps my face like a punishment. I gulp it in like I can’t get enough.
How—how did they do that? That interview wasn’t even recorded. It was closed-door. No cameras. Just a few people. Legal. Comms.
My mind is racing and I can’t catch it. I never said those words.
I grab my phone and open the forum again, the one Mask brought me into. My fingers are sweating. I can barely type.
They made a deepfake of me.
I don’t know why I send it. I just do. Like my body knows who to run to now.
The reply is instant.
I know.
I pulled it already, but it spread fast.
Do you trust me?
Tears sting my eyes. I don’t let them fall.
Yes.
Then let me break them.
I grip the phone tight. Like it’s the only thing keeping me from shattering.
Okay, make them cry.
Another ping.
That’s the plan.
And for the first time since this started, I don’t feel helpless.
I feel dangerous.
SIX
GAGE
The office is too quiet.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet—this is the heavy, suffocating kind that means everyone’s pretending not to look at the same thing. The same video. The same goddamn lie.
River isn’t here yet. Her desk sits empty, a mug still half full of yesterday’s coffee. Her cardigan hangs off the back of her chair, sleeve draped across the seat like she just stepped away for a second. But she hasn’t been back since she bolted yesterday afternoon, and the whole place hums with the gossip she left behind.
I want to throw something.
I want to find whoever made that deepfake and delete them from existence, line of code by fucking line of code.
Instead, I sit still, pretending to scroll through game logs while my headset crackles with voices.
Arrow: “Trap’s live. The bait server’s mirroring the Cathedral feed. We’re just waiting for a hit.”
Knight: “He’ll bite. They always bite when they think they’ve got something to gloat about.”
Ozzy: “Still can’t believe HR’s doing nothing. If that video had my face on it, I’d torch the building.”
I clench my jaw. “Focus.”
Render: “Got it. Monitoring shadow IPs. One just pinged from NovaPlay’s subnet—internal connection.”
And there it is. The bastard can’t help himself.
The plan’s simple: we’ve built a mock dev server that looks like the company’s testing environment. I coded it myself—complete with fake error logs, user names, and a mirrored folder titled Cry.exe. Inside is a compressed “interview” file that leads straight to a dummy backdoor.
Anyone trying to download it gets tagged, traced, and silently logged before the server collapses into a lovely little cascade that wipes their hard drive instead. Digital karma.
Ozzy calls it poetic justice. I call it foreplay.
Knight: “He’s opening the file. Hook confirmed.”
Arrow: “Tracer’s clean. IP resolves to Mason’s terminal.”
My grip tightens on the mouse. “You’re sure?”
Arrow: “Positive. He’s logged in under his own credentials. That’s his mistake. Overconfidence.”
The room blurs for a second. Mason. That smirking prick. He’s been circling River for months—hovering in doorways, dropping those backhanded compliments. ‘You’re really good for a diversity hire.’ ‘Don’t stress, Quinn. The men don’t bite—hard.’
Now he’s gone and made her a punchline.