Chapter 2

At six in the morning, I woke to someone slamming against my door.

"Open up! Police!"

"Coming."

I opened the door to four officers standing outside.

"Skye Kiersey, I'm Detective Preston Marshall with the police department. I'm heading up this case. Desmond Ackman reported that you're suffering a mental disorder, that you grabbed the microphone onstage last night, and that you illegally accessed the finance system."

Behind him stood Desmond and Vivian. Desmond looked utterly haggard.

"Skye, how could you do something like this?"

Desmond clutched his chest, the picture of heartbroken disbelief.

"I treated you like a brother, and you went and stole ten million dollars from the company!"

I watched his performance calmly.

"Mr. Ackman, wasn't that ten million the bonus you handed me last night?

"Detective Marshall, there's footage from last night."

"Ha, the footage is right here." Vivian held out a flash drive, her voice hoarse.

Detective Marshall plugged it into a laptop. On screen, the center of the stage stood empty. There was only me, bowing and nodding at thin air, my hands outstretched, a vacant grin plastered on my face. Then I lunged at the finance terminal, my fingers flying across the keyboard.

Desmond wasn't in the footage at all. Neither was the giant check. It was AI face-swapping. Desmond really would spare no expense to frame me and cover his money laundering.

"That's impossible!"

I pulled out my phone, feigning shock.

"I have the transfer record on my phone, and photos in my feed!"

I opened my messages and froze.

Bertram Continental Bank: [Due to unusual activity on your account, your current balance is: 0.00 dollars.]

Every photo in my social feed had turned into garbled image files. Even the messages I'd sent had become nonsense text.

"Skye, wake up."

Vivian stepped toward me. I moved away from her.

"You were talking to yourself all last night, saying you were about to strike it rich. Skye, the system logs show you actually breached the internal network."

Detective Marshall held up a forensic report.

"Come with us."

Neighbors peered through cracked doors, whispering and pointing. My reputation, my innocence, were destroyed in an instant.

"I have proof!"

I called Ronney Craig.

"Ronney, you saw the video from the gala last night, right?"

On the other end, Ronney went quiet for a moment.

"Skye, man, you're under way too much stress. You didn't win anything last night. You sent me a blank image and told me you had ten million dollars."

My hands and feet went cold. Had Ronney been bought off too?

"Skye, stop fighting it."

Desmond stepped closer and, angling himself out of the officers' sightline, lowered his voice.

"That ten million is the price of your life."

Then he turned to Detective Marshall, his expression full of feigned pity.

"Detective, I don't want to see him go to prison. If he's having a mental health crisis, please send him to a psychiatric hospital. The company will cover the medical costs."

He was maneuvering to lock me inside an institution he controlled, where he could make me disappear whenever he pleased.

The officers led me downstairs and pushed me into a squad car. My reputation, my relationships, and the evidence had all been sealed off. In the eyes of the law, I was nothing more than a mentally ill criminal now.