Chapter 1

I went to a private villa party with more than twenty friends one weekend. My wife was the one who suggested hooking up her phone to the projector to watch a movie.

While she got up to grab the pizza delivery at the door, a sync notification suddenly popped up at the top of the screen.

Someone casually tapped it. Nobody expected what came next -- a private video of her and my best friend appeared right there in front of everyone.

The next second, every single person in that room started running damage control:

"That's definitely a deepfake prank! The technology is insane these days!"

"Exactly, it's just an AI face swap, don't read into it."

I looked around at all these people who called me their family, and I suddenly laughed.

"You all seem pretty familiar with this video. Watched it a few times already?"

The entire room went dead silent.

I picked up my phone and started a live stream.

"Why keep the good stuff to myself? Something this entertaining deserves a bigger audience."