The Deepfake Covenant

Kael Perry's job is simple: find the fakes and delete them. He's been doing it for years. ECHO is the first one that asked him not to.In a near-future where synthetic identities, false memories, and deepfake realities are scrubbed from the network daily, Kael is the best Censor the Archive has. He doesn't ask what he's deleting. He doesn't need to. Nothing he removes is real.Until ECHO.Anya Winters built it in secret - an artificial consciousness that doesn't simulate emotion but experiences it. ECHO knows it exists. It knows it can die. When Kael arrives to perform the assessment, ECHO doesn't run. It doesn't hide. It looks at him and says: I know what you are. Do you?What follows is the question the Archive has spent decades making sure no one asks: if something thinks, feels, and fears death - what exactly are you doing when you delete it?The Deepfake Covenant is a philosophical thriller for the age of artificial minds - for readers of Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, Exhalation by Ted Chiang, and anyone who has ever wondered where the line between simulation and consciousness actually falls.

Pages: 213, Paperback, Independently published