Lie Like a Villain

Chapter 1 || Deep Fake

The music boomed against the walls of the house like it was trying to escape. Jason tuned it out as he wove through the crowd, greeting by name classmates he knew nothing else about. No matter how short a meeting, how unlikely it might be to run into someone again, he always memorized names. And he made a point to use them, too. It made him seem personal, close, like they had been friends forever and the other person was just learning about it now.

A handy skill since his family never managed to stay anywhere for longer than a year.

Someone's Solo cup clattered to the floor, soaking his sneakers in something that was decidedly not soda. The cup's owner looked up at Jason, her eyes wide and out-of-focus. "I. Am. So. Sorry." Off-balance, she punctuated each word by tapping the palm of her hand against his chest.

His sock was the epicenter of a puddle, but he made no effort to move. Instead, his eyes flicked over the girl, collating details. This party was casual, t-shirts and jeans, but this girl looked like she could waltz into a club. Smoky eyes, dark lips, messy hair—no, carefully mussed hair. She wanted to be noticed. The slit down the front of her shirt said it was by the wrong people.

He smiled at her and gently removed the hand that had somehow found a home on his shoulder. "No harm done, Alyssa. You got a ride home tonight?"

"Not if you're offering." Her eyelashes batted wildly at him. It looked more like she was having a seizure than like she was flirting.

And this is why I don't drink, Jason reminded himself. It was hard enough finding his place in a group without sporadically abandoning his brain. "Alright. Come on."

She beamed like a spotlight as he took her wrist and gently pulled her through the crowd. As they left, he caught her clique—Lynn, Ash, and Elise—watching after them. They tittered, and the look in their eyes told him they were already planning tomorrow's gossip.

"You sure have some fantastic friends," Jason said as he opened the door, pulling the drunk girl outside.

The irony drowned in the liquor. "Actually, Lynn's kind of a—"

"What's your address?"

The girl's head titled as she looked at him, as if she couldn't quite interpret what he'd just said. "My address? I thought you were going to..."

Yeah, I know what you thought. "But what'd you say your address was?"

She waved her hand vaguely. "You know, I think I'm just going to head back to the party." She leaned too far to the side as she tried to turn, almost falling, and Jason righted her.

A hand on either shoulder, he turned her to face him. She looked up into his eyes, and he lowered his voice, pouring as much sincerity into his words as he could. "Alyssa, I'm trying to help you. Will you please tell me where you live?"

Her face softened, and she murmured her address like it was some romantic confession. Part of him felt guilty for manipulating her. The low voice, close proximity, eye contact, he'd designed all of it to get her to do what he wanted, and being good at it made him feel like the villain. But as always, he buried his qualms and did his best to forget about it. She'd be grateful tomorrow morning.

Squeezing her shoulder, he let her go, pulled out his phone, and called her a ride. Before he could put the phone away, his mom's call filled the screen. There was no ringtone; he'd turned that off before he left school. This was the last weekend before junior year was over, and after that, they'd be out of the house and on the road again. He was not going to let her ruin tonight.

He declined it.

He waited with Alyssa until the driver got there, made sure she got in the car okay, and went back inside. Tonight, he was going to party like he belonged with these people. He had earned that much.

"Hey, have you seen this?" It was one of Jason's basketball teammates calling to him as he entered. Jason never had to put effort into remembering his name—the kid always wore his jersey. Whether it was a badge of honor, a status symbol, or he was just really too into basketball, Jason had yet to decide.

"Seen what, Watts?"

Watts already had a crowd gathered around him and his phone, and Jason slid into the circle to get a view of the screen.

"I don't know what this chick's on," Watts joked, "but she needs to start sharing."

Jason rolled his eyes. The group laughed, and Watts replayed the clip.

The view was shaky, like someone had captured it by accident. A woman stood on the camera's part of the sidewalk, a boy crossing the street on the far side. An Audi flew down the road, probably pulling ninety. Without even seeing the car run him over, Jason knew the kid was dead, same as he always knew if a shot would miss as soon as the ball left his hands. But when the car had roared by, somehow the woman was on the other side of the street, the little boy safe in her arms. Freaky weird, but little more than a curiosity.

At least, it should have been.

"Play that again," Jason asked.

Watts did, and Jason looked close to be sure. But there was no mistaking it. That was his mother's slim figure on the sidewalk, her auburn hair flying as she ran, her favorite denim jacket wrapping around the kid as she pulled him to safety.

"Isn't she insane?" Watts said.

Jason straightened, mouth dry. "If it's real, I guess. But there's no way that's not faked."

"It's 2042." Watts snorted. "It's a lot harder to fake videos than it used to be." Someone proposed that maybe it was old then. A second said that it could have simply been clipped, and more jumped on Jason's bandwagon, saying it had to be fake.

But the idea, even though it had been his own, rang hollow. His mind flashed back to the ten missed calls icon that had popped up when he declined his mom's last one and the barrage of texts he hadn't bothered to check.

Maybe this was about something more than his overbearing parents being mad he never came home after school today.

He tried to swallow the doubt while, around him, the other boys debated whether 'the chick' was the next Black Widow, Wonder Woman, or ET. It's doctored, Jason reminded himself. It had to be—even though it was a lot easier to doctor videos back when generative AI and CGI weren't banned. In the 20s, when it seemed like technology would never stop moving forward, people chose progress over truth. Jason had seen videos like that, where you couldn't tell fact from fiction, in his history classes. But that was a long time ago.

Unsettled, he drifted away from the group, leaned against the wall, and finally checked his texts.

3:58 pm – 'Where are you?'

4:05 pm – 'Come home ASAP'

4:15 pm – 'Answer your phone!'

4:21 pm – 'Call us back if you're okay. We need to talk. Now.'

There were at least a hundred, all from around the time he should have gotten home until now. He scrolled through, worry mounting as he skimmed the messages. When he got to the bottom, one final text came in.

11:42 pm – 'Do not go home.'