Reality is Negotiable

The footage was clear despite the night. A row of streetlamps down the middle of the parking lot threw the concrete plaza into daylight-bright illumination, darkening the shadows beyond it. Even with the back lighting, the figure was clearly visible. And, more importantly as far as Prince Theodosia was concerned, so was its actions.

The digital recording showed a pale form streak across the edge of the parking lot, far faster than any human could run. Its face was a horror show of running sores, mangy patches of hair, and keloid scars. At the end of the lot, it leaped over a parked panel van, clearing it with ease, before vanishing into the shadows.

Prince Theodosia watched as the woman sitting in front of the workstation’s three large monitors rocked the footage backwards and forwards, taking in all the details. She occasionally paused to tap a few keys or move her cursor from one screen to another as she worked one of the apps distributed across them.

“What can you do?” the Prince asked, her eyes not straying from the footage.

“It’s a simple fix. I can run it through so many filters and edits to make the whole thing look like ‘AI slop’ by midnight. By the time I’m done, this will look like something someone cooked up with freeware and too much time on their hands. I’ll post the doctored footage through the normal sock puppet accounts on all the usual socials, and it’ll have 2,000 comments claiming, ‘I could do better f/x on my phone!’ in an hour. It might not fool everyone, but once enough people buy my version as the real one, anyone claiming the original is real will be a laughingstock.”

The Prince nodded. “Excellent. If there’s one thing we can count on the kine for, it’s their predictable tendency to choose their own reality, no matter what the truth is.”

“Archimedes needed a lever. I can move the world with Photoshop,” the woman smiled, tapping a few more keys. “I’ll let you and Kincaid know when it’s live. He should be able to clean up the rest of this Masquerade breach with his usual heavy handed methods.”

The woman paused, still looking at the screens. “I assume the person who recorded this has been silenced?”

“Their new reality is not one they would have chosen. And, barring the Second Coming, permanent”

Prince Theodosia walked out of the room, leaving the woman—one of her more useful ghoul—to finish the job.